Mar 04 2008

Four at Four

  1. The Los Angeles Times reports that a Plan to ‘flush’ Grand Canyon stirs concerns.

    The Grand Canyon is about to take a bath, and National Park Service officials who oversee the natural wonder are worried.

    Federal flood control managers, led by Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, this week plan to unleash millions of cubic feet of water from behind Glen Canyon Dam to “flush” the huge canyon bottom with a simulated springtime flood…

    The flows begin today, and a massive release is set for Wednesday in a media event with Kempthorne…

    National park officials said that 10 years of research at a cost of $80 million had shown that the flooding as planned could irreparably harm the national park’s ecology and resources.

    Grand Canyon National Park Supt. Steve Martin said he was given a day to formulate comments to a cursory environmental assessment of the project. In those comments, he wrote that statements by the Bureau of Reclamation used to justify the flows’ timing were “unsubstantiated.” Far from restoring crucial sand banks and other areas, the flows could destroy habitat, Martin said.

  2. Okay, Bush is an idiot. Here’s more proof from Bush’s press conference today with King Abdullah of Jordan. When asked about OPEC not having plans of increasing oil output, Bush responded:

    I think it’s a mistake to have your biggest customer’s economy slow down, or your biggest customers’ economies slowing down as a result of high energy prices. It’s not the only result — our economy is slowing down. I mean, obviously we’ve got a housing issue and some credit issues. But no question, the high price of gasoline has hurt economic growth here in the United States. And if I were a member of OPEC, I’d be concerned about high energy prices causing people to buy less energy over time.

    And the other thing high energy prices of course does, which is stimulate alternative fuels, which we’re doing a lot here in America. We’re spending a lot of money on biofuels and ethanols and new ways to make ethanol. My advice to OPEC — of course they haven’t listened to it — but my advice to OPEC is to understand the consequences of high energy prices, because I do, and I understand this is affecting our American citizens. It’s making it harder for people to be able to drive, and it’s making it tough for families to save.

    And so not only is it — high energy prices having an effect on — a macro effect on our economy, it’s affecting a lot of our families, which troubles me, as well. And by the way, the higher energy prices stay, the more likely it is countries will quickly diversify. And that’s part of our strategy.

    Bush is concerned that America might be motivated to find an alternative to Middle Eastern oil.

A story of the coming salmon disaster this year and Oregon’s new, replacement weather buoys are in the waters below the fold.

  1. The Register-Guard, a newspaper from Eugene, Oregon, reports that the Outlook is bleak for 2008 ocean salmon seasons.

    Outside the bounds of the data” is the phrase the scientists chose to describe the pitiful returns of salmon to West Coast spawning areas.

    What they mean is, our fish have fallen off the charts.

    “This is very bad news for West Coast salmon fisheries,” said Don Hanson, chairman of the Pacific Fisheries Management Council.

    “The word ‘disaster’ comes to mind, and I mean a disaster much worse than the Klamath fishery disaster of 2006.”

    Chinook numbers are down drastically. The key Sacramento River run – which drives chinook fishing along the Oregon, Washington and Northern California coastlines – is at an all-time low. Biologists say it’s doubtful spawning goals can be met even if no ocean fishing for chinook is allowed this year.

    The AP adds the Salmon woes linked to weather. “Scientists examining the sudden and widespread collapse of West Coast salmon returns are pointing to the unusual changes in weather patterns that caused the bottom to fall out of the ocean food web in 2005.” The jet stream shifted south and juvenile salmon were unable to find food and they starved. Weather related or a change of climate?

  2. The Oregonian reports Weather buoys will return to sea. “Three months of near-blind sailing should come to an end for coastal fishermen and crabbers this afternoon when the U.S. Coast Guard is scheduled to slide an 8,500-pound chunk of concrete into the Pacific about 20 miles off the Columbia River Bar… Two of the Oregon’s three primary weather buoys were ripped from their moorings during a massive storm Dec. 1.” This is an update on a Four at Four story from last December.

Mar 04 2008

My vote in Ohio’s primary.

I just returned from voting in Ohio’s primary.  I cast my ballot for Dennis Kucinich, as my choice for both the presidency and the 10th Congressional District’s representative.  And thus my conscience is clean.

I know, I know.  “You just wasted your vote,” many of you shall say.  To that I give you this simple response:  Horse shit.  The only votes wasted, dear readers, are those not cast and those cast for a candidate who doesn’t represent you.  Anyone who tells you differently is either lying to you, or doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

These are not things I write lightly.  I know quite well that what I’ve just typed shall piss off a number of people.  The truth, however, was never designed to make people happy.

Primaries are precisely the time when we as voters are supposed to stand up and vote our beliefs.  Why in God’s name would anyone vote for someone who doesn’t represent him?  “Pragmatism”?  That’s a bullshit excuse, one designed to justify keeping the status quo intact.  And for far too long, far too many Democrats have succumbed to that argument.  We voted “pragmatically” in 2004, cast our ballots for a candidate who wasn’t worth the toilet bowl he shat into, and what did it get us?  Nothing, except four more years of crap raining down upon our country.  Four more years of craven capitulation — two of them under a Democratic Congress — to a boy tyrant who in a sane world would have been removed from office and convicted of treason during the first year of his reign.

Neither Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama have earned so much as a single Democratic vote.  But for the desperation of Americans to elect anyone other than a Republican, the adulation and scorn of the corporate media, and the humongous egos of the two prima donnas themselves, they are the candidates we have been saddled with in this primary season.

There is an admonition against allowing the “perfect” to be the enemy of the “good”.  But really, how many people do you know who ask for or expect perfect?  I and everyone I know is fully aware that nothing and no one is perfect.  All we want are good policy and good representatives.  Yet each and every election cycle, we’re forced to accept the mediocre and the downright bad.

It doesn’t, and shouldn’t, have to be that way.  However you intend to vote in the general election, is this or is it not the time to vote your beliefs — to cast your ballot for the presidential candidate who represents you?  Not Big Business, not the DLC, but you.  Mr. and Ms. Average American.  To hand your ballot to someone who doesn’t represent you is to surrender it to the status quo, to send a message that, no matter how much you may complain about the way things are, you’re perfectly content to leave it as is.

That isn’t democracy, ladies and gentlemen.  It’s a monarchical system, one in which the will of the public is subjected to the greed and ambition of a political minority whose interests are to keep you beaten down and in service to the economic elite.  And I don’t know about you ladies and gentlemen, but I refuse to give in to that bullshit.  Politicians are supposed to work for us, to be our voices in the halls of power.  We are not supposed to subject our interests and political beliefs to those we employ.

Maybe your state’s primary or caucus has already been held.  Maybe it’s today, or has yet to be held.  For those of you who fall into the latter categories,ask yourselves if it isn’t worth it to challenge this fucked up system by voting for the candidate who represents you, just to see what would happen.

Mar 04 2008

It’s not that complicated

E.J. Dionne is one of the better columnists in the corporate media, but he asks a silly question:

So how did the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination come down to a choice between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton? We have become so accustomed to their pounding each other relentlessly that we’ve forgotten that this is a remarkable endgame.

And he then gives a long, well-considered answer about tactics and strategy and other irrelevancies.

You really want to know how it came down to this? Money. As I noted when John Edwards dropped out, this was the breakdown:

Hillary Clinton: Spent $40,472,775 On hand $50,463,013

Barack Obama: Spent $44,167,993 On hand $36,087,190

John Edwards: Spent $18,028,752 On hand $12,397,048

Here are the latest numbers:

Barack Obama: Spent $85,176,289 On hand $18,626,248

Hillary Clinton: Spent $80,353,785 On hand $37,947,874

Nothing at all remarkable, actually. Get it?

Mar 04 2008

Election day blues…..

I read OPOL’s beautiful diary on JFK with tears in my eyes. JFK’s valiant words are radical-sounding in Bush-ruled America. Today is a difficult day for me because the issues of the day are writ so large, and the remedies provided are so meager. The Clinton/Obama tussle has driven me from dkos back into international and counterculture media, and back to this site as a possible refuge. I’m wondering if others are as concerned as I am about the outcome today.

At dkos I posted a diary awhile ago about some Obama advisors who concern me. I’ll share a bit of my perspective. The times are too troubled to accommodate some of the political thinking I see coming out of the Obama camp. Please share your thoughts about some of the points I raise.

I do believe that Clinton could be a more than passing-fair president, and that Obama has advisors like Zbigniew Brzezinski and Austan Goolsbee that quite possibly have a different purview than he does, and that they have the potential to contaminate his presidency with more corporatism and more militarism. Brzezinski wants to destabilize Russia and China to perpetuate American global hegemony, and Goolsbee wants to make Obama’s domestic policy more “friendly to business” than he thinks a Clinton presidency would be.

It is to be hoped that Obama admirers look beyond their candidate’s obvious charm and talent, and look to the people he would look to for advice. I definitely don’t like what I see there, hence my support for Clinton.

I had backed Kucinich, then Edwards, because they held more people-friendly, less militaristic policies. But now that they are out of the running, I have turned to Hillary and her known deficiencies. On his own merits, Obama appears a stellar candidate, but he has elected to surround himself with a couple of senior advisors I believe hold positions contrary to the interests of most Americans. While I like and admire the inspiration Obama has generated, I do not have much confidence that an Obama presidency would deliver the goods on national health care and more transparency in government, let alone navigate foreign policy more peacefully than a Clinton presidency would.

The Goldman Sachs candidate glitters, but that does not mean he’s golden.

Diary postscript: My husband said our 26-year-old son had tears in his eyes after he voted today. He didn’t like the options he had to pick from. Husband himself said he was saddened by how cynical he’s become over the electoral process. Many would say the process of disillusionment is the process of waking up to the reality of our political situation. We are controlled by a small group which possesses major wealth and power, and the interests of that small clique often run counter to the many without their material advantages and political connections.

The lessons of history are that We, the People, have the power when we act together, when we act collectively. The political right has been masterful in its mastery of the art of the divide – by gender, religion, race, by whatever wedge that can be used to make us mistrust one another. We, the People, may have the numbers, but through guile and cunning and some very effective lobbying and campaign contributions those democratic (small “d”) advantages have been disarmed. Privatization, consolidation and outsourcing have all been conducted under a diminished regulatory environment. This has greatly leveraged corporate advantages over public interests.

We do have the power if we have the wit and wisdom to exercise it. But our wisdom has been carefully limited by our lack of access to good information in our media. It takes time and energy and a certain amount of knowledge to even know where to look to become more informed. And corporate control of access to information has long been a goal of media consolidation. Our corporations have enjoyed remarkable success in dumbing down the nightly news and most news programs. Humor is one of the last refuges of political truth in our country, as in Colbert and SNL.

That’s the tragi-comedy of today as I view it: whoever wins the day in voting booths across America, (big-G) corporate Government will get back in next January.

Mar 04 2008

Girls! Get your hot pink, Hello Kitty AK-47 today!

Hey, little miss!

Looking for a gun that doesn’t look macho and have “lethal weapon” written all over it?

Jim’s Gun Supply in Baraboo, Wisconsin has just the thing: A hot pink “Hello Kitty” AR-15, pictured above. Also available in AK-47 and other styles, it’ll be the talk of the cafeteria, and you can be the first in your school to have one.

Looking for something a little less bulky, to fit in your purse?  Try this model.

The “Hello Kitty” model seems to be missing from the shop’s website today, perhaps because of this news report:

Sanrio, the company that owns the “Hello Kitty” brand, issued a statement saying that it had nothing to do with one of the guns displayed, an automatic rifle that bears its logo. The company denounced the practice and said it is planning to take legal action against any manufacturer who uses its logo to sell products that look like guns that are being sold in stores and on the Internet.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett held a news conference Monday at Childrens Hospital, where photos of some of the guns were displayed. Said Barrett:

“Take a look at this and how it’s advertised: Hello Kitty AR-15. Evil black rifle meets cute and cuddly.” I’ve got three daughters that are nine, 11 and 13. I see nothing cute and cuddly about putting an AR-15 near any little girl,” Barrett said.

WUWM Radio reports:

Dr. Marlene Melzer is the medical director of the emergency department at Children’s Hospital. It treats more than 100 children a year who have been shot. Melzer says kids already are drawn to guns, and they don’t need to be lured by colorful ones — or those that they mistake for toys.

“We know that children developmentally are unable to view firearms as a deadly or dangerous weapon. There are many reasons for this. Toy guns are used in play by children, when I was growing up I remember doing that. Children play video games that feature guns and shooting where scoring is better for the best shot,” Melzer said.

Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn voiced a different concern. He says when real guns are painted to look like toys, police officers don’t always know what they’re dealing with.

“I’ve got officers out there every day who literally have to make life and death decisions under pressure with insufficient information. When they’re faced with a toy that looks like the real thing, or the real thing that looks like a toy, they’re going to hesitate and that moment of hesitation may cost someone’s life,” Flynn said.

The gun shop owner said he was too busy to talk to the media on Tuesday, but he’s defended his practices in the past:

The owner of Jim’s gun shop, Jim Astle, said, “Pink doesn’t make it any more deadly than black.”

Astle said most of his customers are in law enforcement.”They’re buying them for their wives so they can go to the range and shoot with them,” Astle said.

But it is law enforcement officers who are expressing concern and outrage over the candy-colored weapons.

CNN reports: “If somebody points it at an officer, he could hesitate,” Bryan Soller of the Arizona Fraternal Order of Police told CNN, “in which case he could get shot or, even worse, the officer could react and take the life of a child.”

Sgt. Manny Mendoza of the San Bernadino County Sheriff’s Department in Barstow, CA warned that “now we’re at the point where anything that looks like a gun, no matter what color, is considered a firearm, and we will act accordingly to defend ourselves and the public.”

The Orlando Sentinel knows what that means:

Here’s a tragedy waiting to happen: A police officer shoots a kid with a pink Hello Kitty AK-47, thinking the kid is holding a real gun.

The mistake would be understandable. Gun manufacturers are now selling real guns painted to look like toy guns, giving rise to a Glock painted pink and the Hello Kitty assault rifle. Customers can also buy guns painted lime or lavender.

Color this a stupid idea.

Police officers have to protect themselves and the public as the first order of business, and then ask questions later. Making a wrong call on whether a gun is real can be fatal.

If gun dealers can’t police themselves, then local and state governments need to put a stop to this dangerous marketing practice.

Mayor Barrett stopped short of calling for legislation, but said he hoped gun sellers and manufacturers will respond to public pressure, if not their own moral compasses.

Good luck with that.

(The Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort (WAVE), which works to prevent firearms violence, organized the Milwaukee news conference.)

Mar 04 2008

Power

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

There have been a number of excellent posts by McJoan and KagroX at Daily Kos, among many others, over the FISA battle.  We’ve all been on the crazy ride of elation/outrage, seeing our Democratic representatives capitulate over and over again to the corrupt and criminal crew currently occupying the White House, as well as their Republican henchmen in Congress.

Frankly, it’s about time for me to step off that merry-go-round.

We speak of reforming the Democratic party, and I’m very much in favor of that.  Get rid of the Blue Dogs, change the way we finance political campaigns, make the party more responsive to the people.  All worthy goals.

I’d like to look back for a moment, look back at America immediately after September 11, 2001.

Citizens from all over the country, be they conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat, evangelical or atheist, came to New York City to help.  People from around the world shared our grief and there was an outpouring of love and support that made everyone feel united against the kinds of terrorism that sought to divide us.

Of course we all know what happened next.  We all know how this gang of thieves and murderers used the attacks on September 11 to divide us and promote their own foul agenda of raping and robbing our country.  We all know how they used fear to grab as much power as they could – and they’re still doing it, even to this day, even as we all know what wretched crooks they are.

So that leads me to think about power, and how much power our government ought to have.

Security is a strong need in any society.  We pass laws and enforce those laws to provide safety for our homes, our persons, our neighborhoods and public squares, our workplaces and our marketplaces.  We don’t want robbery and murder and violence to destroy what we build and so we have police forces and a judiciary to determine guilt or innocence when a crime is committed.

Since the attacks on September 11, “security” has taken on a whole new meaning.  We have seen paid mercenaries sent to Iraq with such power that they can do pretty much as they wish and not be held accountable.  We have seen our intelligence agencies allowed to spy on American citizens.  We have seen the rights of the individual almost completely trumped by the power of our government, both federally and locally, to use security as a means of arresting first and asking questions later.

We have seen metal detectors and cops in our schools and libraries.  We are seeing a generation being brought up to believe they do not have a right to privacy if some government official believes otherwise.

And where has this power come from?  Has there been a groundswell from the public shouting for our government to be able to torture, to hold folks prisoner without due process, to listen to our telephone calls and monitor what books we check out of the library, what blogs we read?  Have we begged for our government to censor information we need as citizens so as to protect their own power?

No, I don’t think we have done that at all.

Power has been taken and taken and taken, and it seems there is no end in sight.

I don’t see either Democratic Presidential candidate talking about this and proclaiming that they will change this situation.

A lot of folks speak of facism.  What I see is tyranny, the use of power for power’s sake and no other.

That kind of power is not easily broken.

We saw the FISA laws created after the huge abuses of power shown by the Nixon Adminstration.  What we did not see was how that power was so easily regained by an unscrupulous gang of criminals who had been allowed free reign after Nixon’s resignation and were never held to account.  We did not see how the laws we passed after Nixon’s reign were unable to stop this abuse of power.

And who will protest this now?  Who in government is going to give back this power, proclaim outright that the purpose of government is not to control its citizenry but to facilitate democracy and liberty?  That to defend our country we need not use power with a heavy hand but rather as an organic process by which the will of the people is manifest in that use?

It’s not just in our federal government that this is occurring.  We have seen all throughout this land that when people gather together to exercise their First Amendment rights to protest, local police come out in force and when federal politicians visit, “free speech zones” (an Orwellian term if ever there was one) are set up, to protect the politician as though he or she were royalty rather than only a representative of the rest of us.

This tyranny will not be stopped by electing a Democrat as President of the United States of America.  Nor will it be stopped by “reforming” the Democratic Party.

It will only be stopped when those who have robbed us are publicly held accountable.  When each and every corporation that has profited from the deaths of our solidiers is held accountable and never again given government contracts.  When each and every politician who has supported the unconstitutional abuses of torture, illegal war, and the destruction of our democratic rights is held to account and never allowed to take public office again.

I’ll just give one little example of what I am speaking of.

From Katrina Information Network:

Just ahead of the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Milwaukee, WI passed a resolution blocking lucrative contracts for corporations cited for Katrina or Rita-related waste, fraud or mismanagement. Construction giant CH2M Hill will lose the ability to bid on nearly $30 million dollars in previously held contracts as a result of the resolution. In addition, Erie, PA also demanded action by Congress and the President on behalf of Katrina survivors.

Milwaukee

County Supervisor Rev. Dr. James White led a successful effort to pass the first Selective Contracting Resolution with a veto proof majority at the Milwaukee Board of Supervisors on June 21.

Erie, Pennsylvania

Councilmember Curtis Jones, Jr. led the passing of the resolution with a unanimous vote in July.

The resolution places companies cited by the Government Accounting Office, Congressional Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and/or other appropriate entity for Katrina-Rita-related waste, fraud and/or mismanagement on a Selective Contractor list. All departments have received this list and are now declining contracts with any companies on the list until they submit to an independent investigation and return any monies gained by waste.

With just these two cities, we have already cost these companies millions of dollars in contracts: CH2M Hill alone will lose the ability to bid on nearly $30 million in public contracts that they previously held.

We are thrilled about these victories and look forward to additional cities and counties joining the effort to hold both public and private sector actors accountable! Kansas City Councilmember Terry Riley who has already introduced the KIN resolution in the City Council in Kansas City, MO, and many student organizers preparing campus divestment efforts for the fall.

There’s more, including action links.  But it’s the idea of accountability and of taking back power that I am interested in for the purposes of this essay.

You can read the Resolution of the City of Atlantic City here (warning: pdf).

There’s only one thing that gets through to those people who believe they have the right to screw the rest of us – and that’s being  held publicly accountable for what they have done.

Halliburton.  Bechtel.  Blackwater.  Those corporations are the mere surface of a much deeper problem.  And yes, the phone companies.

It’s all about power.  Do we want our government to be able to determine where we go, how much privacy we can have, what we read, what we say and where we say it?  Do we want corporations, be they local or multinational, to profit off human suffering?

Because if we don’t want that – no elected representative is going to change this kind of tyranny.  Only we can do that.

There are folks leading the way in this, and we help every time we write publicly both about the horrible abuses of power going on in America as well as pointing out those in power who are standing by and allowing this tyranny to continue.

It will take all of us to stop this.  No Presidential election is going to change that.

Mar 04 2008

Pony Party, “in the weeds”

My Monday was quiiiiiiite a Monday….

So unless I can get back to the computer Tuesday morning (well, later Tues morning, as it’s 1:00 am now) and put up a better pony….

Today’s morning pony is empty…. 🙁

Hopefully, you’ll never read this because I’ll be motivated after only a few hours of sleep and getting the kids off to school…delete this..and put up a better pony.  Hopefully….

Mar 04 2008

There Is No Cure For Awakeness

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

Mishima’s Docudharma Times this morning begins with one of the most interesting and heartening quotes I’ve seen in a long, long time.

After almost five years of war, many young people in Iraq, exhausted by constant firsthand exposure to the violence of religious extremism, say they have grown disillusioned with religious leaders and skeptical of the faith that they preach.

…

“I hate Islam and all the clerics because they limit our freedom every day and their instruction became heavy over us,” said Sara, a high school student in Basra. “Most of the girls in my high school hate that Islamic people control the authority because they don’t deserve to be rulers.“

This happened in Ireland. It happened and is still happening in America. It happened in Europe during the Renaissance, in many ways a rebirth in knowledge and a turning from God to man, or at least a rejection of the power of organizational thought control and a repudiation of authoritarianism and a turning towards the fundamental freedom – freedom of thought.

SALMAN RUSHDIE: There are people, as I say, you have to defeat, you know. But I’m talking about the enormous culture of which they’re the pimple on the nose of it. And I think in the end the way in which radical Islam will be defeated is when ordinary Islam, you know, when the regular world of the Muslim faith comes to reject the idea that they will be represented by, defined by that kind of extremist behavior.



BILL MOYERS: But many people say that that kind of extremist behavior is part and parcel of the ideology of the heart of Islam. What do you–

SALMAN RUSHDIE: I don’t think necessarily. I mean, the IRA was not intrinsically– was not somehow arising from something intrinsic to Catholicism. And actually the IRA is a relevant example. Because when the Catholics of Northern Ireland became disillusioned by being represented by the IRA that is what brought the IRA to the peace table. At that moment their power disappeared. And that’s why I’m saying that it is in a way incumbent on the Muslim world to reject Islamic radicalism, because that is what will remove the power of Islamic radicalism.

In the long run there is no cure for awakeness. Things once learned will not be voluntarily unlearned. Enlightenment once experienced will not be extinguished. The flame of freedom once sparked spreads and will not be doused.

A ripple once started spreads forevever, and Nothing stays the same

Heads up. Those aren’t “faint strains of non-darkness” we see on the horizon – those are the edge of the supernova. When it gets here it’ll knock you on your ass. Practice smiling. You’ll be doing a lot of it.

Or practice running. In vain. It’s your choice.

Manuel Valenzuela: The Inevitable Triumph of Progressive Thought

Today is a result of progress, of humanity’s refusal to bestow onto itself dark ages and medieval backwardness. For what is history but progress, always advancing, rarely retreating, always seeking answers according to our collective intelligence and quest for knowledge. Human civilization is advancement, an evolution of society that, though at times might find itself sequestered, never fails to defeat the forces of regressive thought. Over and over again, since the dawn of human existence, progress and backwardness have fought in open hostility, battling for human civilization. Every time, progress has been victorious. Indeed, we would not be living present day society without a triumphant progress raising its proud and colorful flag in victory. Its conquest over the forces of regression and primitiveness is a constant over time, and no matter how dire the world might look, no matter the power of malevolent leadership, no matter how enormous the odds might appear, progress always finds a way. Always. It is a given in life, as constant as rain and sun, and it always reappears to guide human existence past murky waters of times past and into new horizons, using the energy and thoughts of young generations, as well as the experience of those past and aged, to fuse together a more progressive, freer, liberal way of living.

…

Everywhere one looks the enemies of progress can be seen, homophobic, xenophobic, progressophobic and evolophobic, all unenlightened and ignorant, trapped by the chains of hereditary conditioning and the brainwashing of fundamentalist extremism. Because of their tremendous shortcomings, they fear anything different than them, anything that symbolizes change and progress. The fear is obvious in their desperation, reeking out their pores. They want nothing more than to return America to what it can never be, to times that never existed.

For America was always a nation of change, of progress, of evolution. What the enemies of progress fail to see is that America has from its inception been a nation of evolution, its society and culture progressing according to its environment and ever-changing face. America has succeeded because of progressive thought, because it always sought to move ahead, not regress back. The Founding Fathers could never envisage what was to come, much like we cannot see what the future holds, yet the greatness of this nation is that progress has guided us in time, through dark days and cold nights, leading its glowing candle of light to the vivacity of today, with incredible diversity, talent and potential.

This, the enemies of progress fail to understand, and is why they will fail, just as they always do, to rein in the unstoppable freight train named progress.

…

In progress can we see history, and in history can we see progress. It is inevitable, as real as the moon and stars, a stalwart energy that, like all forms of evolution, leads to betterment. So do not fear the enemies of change, delusional in belief they remain, their cause is and has always been lost. Yet we must fight their attempts, for progress needs assistance in defeating their overzealous ignorance and growing power. We must not cave in, we must not relent, we must wage battle, for in the end, history and its truths are with us.

It’s the old, old story of The Tortoise and the Hare.

In the long run there is no cure for awakeness, and those who try to stem the tide of freedom will drown in the tsunami…

Mar 04 2008

Dennis Kucinich’s Media Fight. w/poll