The "Righteous" — According to Jews. A recent news story broadcast nationally about a Polish woman honored by the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous reminded me of an insane and disgraceful assertion made by Elie Wiesel, the man who coined the term "Holocaust" as it is now used. Many years ago, in TV Guide of all places, Wiesel made the shocking assertion that in World War II the total number of "righteous" Christians was on the order of 600! How did he come to that insulting and insane conclusion? Well, you see, the only righteous people on Earth were those who put their own lives at risk to rescue the Jews in Nazi-occupied countries! If you didn't do that, you weren't "righteous".
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That lunatic is a hero to the Jews, a man whose worldview is so skewed to the Jews that nothing else anyone has ever done qualifies them as "righteous". All those millions of Americans, Canadians, Britons, Australians, Russians, etc., etc., etc., who died to destroy Nazism? Not righteous. The Congress and President who demanded unconditional surrender and the destruction of Nazism as a precondition to a cessation in fiting, no matter how much that might have delayed peace, no matter how many more dead Americans that might have produced? Not righteous. The troops that liberated the concentration camps and poured in food and medical care, and administered tender, humane comfort to the suffering and dying? Not righteous. The people who rescued Chinese, Filipinos and POWs from Japanese slaughter? Not righteous. The only righteous people on Earth were non-Jews willing to die for the Jews! What an extraordinarily evil mindset!
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Let's reverse the premise. How many righteous Jews were there in World War II, willing to die to defend non-Jews from the Nazis — say, homosexuals, Gypsies, Communists, Poles, what-have-you? How many righteous Jews are there in the world today, willing to die to defend Arabs from Zionist slaughter? One? Two? None?
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How many hunger strikes have you heard about in which Jews passionate about justice starve themselves to stop the Israeli government from killing Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, Tunisians, Egyptians, Iraqis, and to stop the threats we are now hearing against Iranians? How many riots in the streets to end the murder of Palestinian men, women, and children? I have heard of exactly none. The only anti-government action I have heard about by Jews against Israel are riots and one assassination to make the government MORE VIOLENT against Palestinians!
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So when the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous sends out press releases to draw attention to its work in assisting a piddling 1,600 "righteous" Christians from World War II, don't forget the insult and immorality behind its pretentious and offensive work.
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The Jews are constantly trying to remind Americans of the "Holocaust" — a peculiar term at best, given that a holocaust is a burnt offering to God, so should be a good thing, right? They keep using the "Holocaust" to MISrepresent Jews today as "victims" rather than victimizers. You see, for Zionists, the World War II era was "the good old days", a time they can use to lash Christians as immoral and present themselves as innocent victims of Christian monstrousness. It is manipulation of that guilt (and manipulating guilt is a Jewish speciality, a fact that many Jewish comics have used to hilarious effect) that got them Palestine — whereupon they instantly turned from victim to victimizer, from slaughtered to slaughterer! But Christians dare not say a word! — not with their own history of Nazism or failing to stop Nazism! It's as tho the Allies were in cahoots with Hitler in the extermination of the Jews!
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How could any sane person accept the preposterous notion that Allies who suffered millions of dead to destroy Nazism somehow nonetheless shared in its crimes? It's amazing what manipulation of unearned guilts can do.
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Let's be plain: The days when Jews were victims are LONG past. Now Jews and their defenders are murderers — nay, MASS murderers, slaughtering Arabs every single day, in Palestine and Iraq. And all the while, decent, progressive, American Jews are absolutely silent, turning a moral blind eye to the slaughter, pretending that Zionism is still a brite, noble dream, rather than a horrible, evil nitemare. That is not righteous behavior.
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60 years from now, will there be an Arab Foundation for the Righteous? or will there be no Jews worth honoring?
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 11:40 AM

 
Blinding Headlites. For some reason, a lot of cars and SUVs on the road now have four very brite lites, two of them headlites and two, below them, smaller but comparably brite running lites or fog lites or whatever. This is a very recent phenomenon that must be stopped.
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Many cars now are also equipped with overbrite halogen headlites. Put the two together, and you have a potent recipe for danger on the road at nite. There is even one car I have had the misfortune of facing at nite that has only two headlites, but they are side-by-side, no more than a few inches apart, which produces an intense, blinding, dual beam. All such liting should be illegal.

Traffic death rates are three times greater at night than during the day, according to the National Safety Council. Yet many of us are unaware of night driving's special hazards or don't know effective ways to deal with them.

Driving at night is more of a challenge than many people think. It's also more dangerous.

Why is night driving so dangerous? One obvious answer is darkness. Ninety percent of a driver's reaction depends on vision, and vision is severely limited at night. Depth perception, color recognition, and peripheral vision are compromised after sundown. * * *

When following another vehicle, keep your headlights on low beams so you don't blind the driver ahead of you.

If an oncoming vehicle doesn't lower beams from high to low, avoid glare by watching the right edge of the road and using it as a steering guide.

Alas, what this article from the National Safety Council does not say is that glare causes a momentary chemical change in the eye that reduces vision, and trying to avoid oncoming headlites is not always effective at preventing that chemical change.
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Why does government allow boorish, inconsiderate fools to use these horribly dangerous lites anywhere, but especially in urban settings, where hazards are closely spaced? If you are driving in wide open spaces and are momentarily blinded, or your vision is reduced for a second or two, no serious adverse consequences may issue, other than stress. But if you're driving in a congested area and at the very second you are blinded, a pedestrian steps into the road from between parked cars or a car pulls out from an intersection or parking spot, the consequences can be severe, even fatal.
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It is because a very large portion of the general public is too stupid and inconsiderate to do the right thing without being forced to, that government keeps expanding its power. We have to pass laws to stop stupidity! So let's do it.
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Car manufacturers should be FORBIDDEN to install dangerously overbrite headlites and configurations of lites, period. Cars now on the roads with dangerously overbrite headlites should be recalled by manufacturers to have those systems removed. Drivers who use four headlites against oncoming drivers should be ARRESTED and thrown into jail for reckless driving. Their cars should be impounded and the dangerous liting removed by government, at the owner's expense, before the car is returned to the guilty driver.
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Glare is an extremely dangerous problem in nite driving (especially if your windshield isn't perfectly clean, inside and out, or if it is wet from rain or partially obscured by snowflakes between wiper strokes). You have to see to drive, so blinding headlites should be banned and people who use them PUNISHED. People are DYING from glare.
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 4:16 PM

 
Changing the South. Responsive to yesterday's post, a colleague in northern England and I have been discussing how and why the South has changed and continues to change, if too slowly for my tastes. He suggested:

The only reason why the Civil Rights movement succeeded was because of decolonization and the Cold War, which forced the United States to compete with the Soviet Union for the loyalty of independent black countries. In these circumstances, the cost of Jim Crow could be the communization of the whole of sub-saharan Africa, leading ultimately to a US defeat in the Cold War.

I replied:

As for the U.S. crackdown on anti-black violence and systematic discrimination, I lived thru it and can tell you that tho some people in the State Department may have been concerned about sub-Saharan Africa, that concern played essentially NO PART in the DOMESTIC drive to extend justice to our fellow citizens. Northerners were moved by PICTURES of blacks being attacked by police, by water hoses, by dogs. Black 'agitators' forced the issue, and the Nation reacted in disgust and indignation.
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We now have several decades of compelled integration, thousands of black officeholders across the South, integrated media with some social segregation evident, and the South is slowly improving education, under federal prodding. Southerners raised post-1964 are significantly different in racial attitudes from Southerners raised in segregation, and if liberals ever TRY to show poor and lower-middle class Southern whites that they are being USED, they may wake up to the fact that race and gay rights are just distractions to keep them from thinking of how BADLY they are being used.
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So I'm hopeful of change.

He followed up:

Good point about the role of television in destroying Jim Crow — another factor which I had missed was the invention of the mechanical cotton picker, which meant the South had much less of a need for cheap agricultural labor.

How can the Democratic party be changed to achieve this end? A glance at the county-by-county election results shows the problem immediately — the "Democrats" are currently the "Metrocrats", completely out of touch with rural people.

To which I replied:

HOW indeed do you move a major party? That's why I started a 'third party' to begin with, because the major parties are almost immovable except by the hugely rich and powerful. The role of third parties in the U.S. historically is to get ideas before the public where they have a chance of becoming grassroots issues. It does not, I admit, work very well, but nothing does. In the U.S., and most other countries, we endlessly address or "manage" the same issues decade after decade. Almost none of our problems are ever solved, in part because the people in charge don't know HOW to solve them, in part because if they WERE to solve them, the need for their services would diminish. Solve too many problems and you're out of a job. Or so they may feel.
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Technology seems to be the driving force in social change in the United States, from the automobile emptying the cities of the middle class, to television impelling changes in racial policies; to labor-saving devices and the Pill freeing women far more than any feminist rhetoric could; to the Internet creating new communities but also promoting conspiracy theories, scams, hacker-caused injury to millions, and identity theft; to cable, VCRs, DVD players and video game machines spewing forth a deadening torrent of violent, toxic media, much that changes in this country is the result of new technologies. The delay between the technological change and the social change(s) it produces can make unclear what has caused the change; and government usually doesn't know what to do about it.
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With some things, the benefits so plainly outweigh the disadvantages (e.g., the proliferation of private cars) that we try to accommodate the change. With others, we should recognize that the disadvantages so drastically outweigh any possible advantage -- e.g., toxic video games, increasing numbers of methods of abortion, nuclear proliferation -- that we should take drastic action to destroy or at least stringently control them. But for every evil there is an apologist. And any defense of an obvious evil, no matter how specious, can be used as an excuse for inaction by people who don't want to act.
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Returning to the immovability of the major parties, even when the course is crystal clear, as for instance in this past election, when I tried to alert the Democrats to the obvious fact that they were going to lose the election badly unless they landed hard on their best issue, personal debt, they wouldn't listen but, incomprehensibly, said essentially NOTHING about their strongest issue, so went down in flames.
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I started a blog entry about a report that came out, that the Kerry campaign had $15 million left unspent in its general account on election day, and another $8 million or more in a reserve account for legal challenges, had such proved necessary. But I can't find the draft. It vanished. Either my machine (at home or work; I'm not sure where I wrote it) crashed before I could store it, or I exited and mysteriously didn't save, or something else I don't understand. But it vanished. The point I wanted to make is that this is one more proof that the Democrats really didn't want to win the election. They didn't use their strongest issue and didn't use all of their campaign funds, but held back a FORTUNE even tho it might have done the trick in some closely-contested states.
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I am forced to believe that the Democratic leadership was convinced that Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea — but mostly Iraq — are so horrible and intractable a mess that WHOEVER is in office for the next four years will founder in a sea of violence and death from which the American people will recoil in disgust, tarring the ruling party for a generation. But what if, magically, the Republicans do win a military 'victory' in Iraq? meaning not that true peace and reconciliation are achieved, a successful transition is made to a multi-party democracy and mutually tolerant civil society, but that Iraq's levels of violence come down to those of Israel, low enuf to pretend that we've "succeeded"? The U.S. public seems content to have 3-10 Americans die in Iraq each week, perhaps in perpetuity: it's just "the price we have to pay" for "peace". Then the Democrats will have voluntarily given up the White House and both houses of Congress for nothing.

The question remains: How long will it take for the Democratic Party to realize that its best hope lies not in writing off the South but in waking poor Southerners to the fact that they are being sorely misused by the rich and the servant of the rich, the Republican Party? As the poorest region of the Nation, the South is natural Democrat Country. Why on Earth is it voting Richpublican?
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 1:52 PM

 
“Fuck the South” (I’m Quoting). My friend Lisa (who started as my (expert) trainer in the odious word-processing program Microsoft Word) sent me a link to a site called fuckthesouth.com. I don’t know how they got a domain name like that, inasmuch as I thought there were controls on the kinds of things domain names can contain, but they did.
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It consists of a brief polemic/diatribe with links to various informational sites that support major points. One such link, at the underlined word "revolutionaries", leads to a website about the Founding Fathers’ attitudes toward religion. The first screen there is a little off-point, but the second screen begins the discussion in earnest. It contains this most-intriguing quotation, which I offer without having checked its accuracy:

As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion — as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen [Moslems], — and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan [Mohammedan=Moslem] nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries [U.S. and Tripoli/Libya]. (Charles I. Bevans, ed. Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United States of America 1776-1949. Vol. 11: Philippines-United Arab Republic. Washington D.C.: Department of State Publications, 1974, p. 1072).

I recommend the f***thesouth site, but caution that its language is a tad intemperate and vulgar.
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I wrote Lisa and the author of the site, by email, as follows. To Lisa:

LOVE the commentary, hate the antisexual language. I once met a guy (on a Canadian morning TV show I was also on) who studied strong language in various countries. He found, for instance, that the worst insults in English-speaking countries revolve around sex and excrement, while in some other countries (e.g., Arab) they revolve around family members. Of course, we cover that too, in the "yo Mama!" genre, but not as imaginatively. Remember [Johnny] Carson's Karnak ["the Magnificent"] insults: "May [something, e.g., a camel] [do something, e.g., make love to] your [sister/mother/brother]"?
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In any case, I plan to address the whole red state/blue state thing in my blog, and will use this link as a fill-in until I get a more comprehensive analysis written. * * *

The “red state/blue state thing” refers to a piece I have in mind, tentatively titled, “Red States/Blue States: Civil War  IV". The premise is that we are presently in our fourth civil war between North and South. The first is the original (and still the worst), THE “Civil War” — wrongly and willfully falsely called “The War Between the States” by some Southerners. That war was NEVER between states but between two confederations, the Union (the authentic United States) and the Confederacy (the “Confederate States of America”, a sin-based, slavery-defending alliance of traitors). No Southern state acted on its own, but only in conjunction with other members of the treasonous Confederacy. No Northern state acted on its own, either, but only as an integral part of the Union. So much for the stupid lie, “The War Between the States”. In any case, we (the United States) won the first Civil War.
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The second Civil War was Reconstruction, an attempt by the Union to alter the mindset of Johnny Reb and make him into a genuine American, devoted to “liberty and justice for all”, as the (later) Pledge of Allegiance would devote us. The South won that one.
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BECAUSE the South won Reconstruction, we had the third Civil War, the civil-rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, in which Northerners on Freedom Rides and summer vacations working to register black voters played a major part, tho most of the work was done by Southern (true) Americans (and especially black Americans) themselves. (I originally intended to use 'Arabic' numerals for "Civil War  4" and "3", but somehow Roman numerals — capitalized, of course — seemed more appropriate. Isn’t it great that we have that option? Roman numerals have more "gravitas", an appropriately Latin term.) The North sort of won that one, tho we’re not really quite thru with it, there still being barriers to black voting. Today’s barriers are not flagrant and forthright, such as an outrite ban or poll tax. But they are still too effective, as in discarding black applications to register or black ballots for trivial cause.
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To borrow from the first Republican President — and it’s hard, sometimes, to believe that there once were honorable Republican Presidents —, Abraham Lincoln,

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.

The South has NEVER signed on to that most basic premise of American civilization: that all men are created equal, rich and poor, white and black, straight and gay. The South is, in fact, still fiting tooth and nail against acceptance of that basic premise. It is, for the moment, ahead, having won a huge battle November 2nd. But surveys show that many Americans, including many who voted for Bush, have grave reservations about the Radical Right/anti-American agenda the neo-cons are pursuing. Genuine conservatives, AMERICANS devoted to American values, are almost at war with the neo-cons, spiritual aliens devoted to alien values, most pervasively Zionist values, in which Jews are the most important people in the universe and all others, Christians as much as Arabs, are NOTHING. To neo-cons, the Christian ethos of fairness ("equal treatment under law" in our Constitution) is not remotely paramount, but what the Jews want in Palestine is more important than equality or fairness or anything else in the universe. Once you make a fundamental break from the principle of universal fairness, it is as impossible to reconstitute devotion to equality under law as it is to restore virginity.
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Of course, the neo-cons DO NOT TELL Christians that they are Jews devoted solely to Zionism. They pose as Americans, as Christians, and twist Christianity to their purpose. Southerners, being much less educated and thus more credulous than most Americans, don't know to ask hard questions, so find themselves taking anti-Christian stances all the time, without even knowing it. They are told to obey the Jewish Ten Commandments, even as they ignore Jesus's Three Commandments. Indeed, if asked what Jesus's Three Commandments are, they would have no answer. These are the Three Commandments. 1: Love the Lord thy god with all thy heart and soul. 2: Love thy neighbor as thyself. 3: As you would have others do unto you, so too do unto them. (The "Golden Rule"))
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Neo-cons in "fundamentalist" — neo-Jewish — sects have told Christians that they must heed the prohibitions on homosexuality in Leviticus. Never mind that Leviticus is a DEAD LETTER EVEN AMONG JEWS, in that much of it is devoted to ANIMAL SACRIFICE. Don't take my word for it. Read it. Paragraph after paragraph tells Jews which animals to slaughter for which purpose, and how the sacrifice should be done: sprinkle the blood over the altar, burn the body, etc.! THIS compilation of vicious, idiotic, ancient crap is supposed to be a moral guide? for ANYONE? in this day and age?
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Not even Jews today practice animal sacrifice. But they don't forswear it as ugly, antique, and insane. Rather, they say only that until the Temple in Jerusalem is restored by the Messiah, they cannot perform the sacrifices only the Messiah can restore! What nonsense! They control Jerusalem now. If they wanted to rebuild The Temple, who's to stop them? If they wanted to reinstitute animal sacrifice at a new Temple, they have the power. So the fact that they have neither rebuilt the Temple nor restored animal sacrifice PROVES that not even the Jews believe in Leviticus. YET they want Christians to heed its prohibitions on homosexuality! I think, not.
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Leviticus also sets out Jewish dietary laws. Do Christians adhere to THAT part of Leviticus? No, they do not. They do not believe that eating pork consigns you to hell, nor that eating beef with a glass of milk will send you directly to hell, nor, especially, that eating a bacon cheeseburger and washing it down with a glass of milk will consign the unholy offender to eternal damnation. So why on EARTH would any Christian who IGNORES Leviticus on diet HEED Leviticus on sexuality? It's all bull. (Just make sure you don't eat bull with dairy!)
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If the neo-cons (new to conservatism, often coming from radical-left backgrounds, embracing government coercion to achieve their ends) become too powerful, a new alliance of (genuine) conservatives and liberals (or "progressives", as ever you prefer) may, startlingly, emerge to stop them.
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Civil War I lasted 4 years. Civil War IV is in at least its fifth year, and counting. The South cannot prevail, in the longest term, because it is on the wrong side of history, and more and more Northerners are moving south to get away from the cold of winter. Without more, even these older and thus more conservative Northerners will in time change the South for the better, especially in that many Northern blacks are returning to the South, and not just for the weather. Still, we may have unnecessary unpleasantness for a decade or more unless we can short-circuit the process and rush the Nation into a real, mind-altering 21st Century.
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It is in this context that I wrote to the author of the f***thesouth site:

THANKS for the info, especially for the observation that 9 of the 13 stripes in the U.S. flag are for Blue States, a point I hadn't adequately appreciated.
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Tho I agree with the anger, I disagree (a) with the antisexual language, which just feeds into the South's whole antisexual and especially antihomosexual bigotry — and hypocrisy, since we all know how sexual Southerners are, even with close relatives; and (b) with the idea of expelling the South to restore the Union to its original goals.
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The solution to our current national dilemma is the exact opposite: bring more areas into the Union, as for instance Canada, which the Founding Fathers wanted in from the start. They even wrote a proviso into the Articles of Confederation (and Perpetual Union — never forget that part) to allow Canada into the Union automatically. But it wouldn't have to be Canada. It would be hard to find anyplace in the Western world more conservative/imitation-conservative than the South, so bringing in Puerto Rico, Mexico, the Philippines, Britain, Ireland, Australia — almost anywhere — would permanently destroy the South's stranglehold on national politics. With such new states' admission, the introductory language of the Second Amendment would be given its full force and effect, we would get universal health coverage, etc., etc., and progressives, now just barely a minority, would become a huge majority, permanently in charge of the Nation's direction. As you point out, that would NOT mean the destruction of marriage or a national descent into hell, especially given that admission of Mexico or other Catholic areas (Canada is half Catholic) would reinforce the sane parts of traditional morality.
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In any case, I am placing a link to your site, with a warning as to language, on my blog today. Thanks for your work.

And so I am: http://www.fuckthesouth.com. Enjoy.
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 10:39 AM

 
Hunting Hunters. A grotesque but funny story (in a Black Humor sort of way) came out in the news over the weekend: a dispute over a deer-hunting tree stand led to the death of five hunters and wounding of three more by gunfire from an "SKS 7.62 mm semiautomatic rifle, a common hunting weapon". I'm delited. The NRA should be so proud! Hunters killed hunters instead of deer, and the lie was put to the preposterous notion that semiautomatic weapons in the hands of hunters aren't dangerous to people.
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I despise hunters and would be glad to see us forbid hunting as recreation entirely. Let hunters hunt only each other. That would be a challenge. Hiding in a platform up a tree to kill unsuspecting, harmless, sweet, grass-eating, doe-eyed deer with semiautomatic weapons is detestable cowardice and savagery. Let hunters use their 'cunning' with truly exciting and challenging prey. Let them put their lives on the line and stop slaughtering defenseless animals. The more dead hunters, the happier I am. Five dead and three wounded is a good start. But there are lots more savages wandering loose in the woods. I'd like them all to be killed. Then innocent animals and the occasional innocent person shot by hunters might live out their normal lifespan.
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There was a notorious incident in Maine some years ago in which a woman who had recently moved to Maine from some urban area (New York City?) was shot dead within 200 feet of her house by hunters, and a jury of hunter-defending savages found the killer not guilty. She shouldn't have been 200 feet from her house in hunting season, you see! I resolved then never again set foot in Maine, a state that, before then, I had found very appealing. (Even if I run for President, I won't set foot in Maine. Its few electoral votes don't amount to a hill of beans, and decent Mainers don't need a candidate to come to their area to vote for him.)
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There is neither economic need nor environmental nor social wisdom in allowing individual nonprofessional hunters to slaughter deer or bears (here in New Jersey there is actually a legal bear hunt!) or anything else. I'm not convinced we can't keep numbers of such animals in check thru sterilization programs, and to the extent we do need "culling", it should be done by professionals using humane methods, with the meat being distributed fairly to the poor and any economically valuable byproducts being sold to benefit the poor. Having violent lunatics wandering loose, sometimes drunk, with semiautomatic rifles in hand is madness and must be stopped.
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 1:08 PM

 
Two Letters. I emailed the following short Letters to the Editor of the New York Post on successive days this week.
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Item No. 1: Willful Blindness. If the Boy Scouts had as an integral part of their oath, "There is no God, and a true Scout works to persuade superstitious people to accept that morality does not depend on belief in the supernatural", would Collin Levey be blasé about public moneys going to their support and public schools being used as meeting places? Not likely.
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Compelled atheism is the flip side of compelled religiosity. Russia went from established religion to established atheism overnite.
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The reason it is important to stop religious bigotry early is the universal understanding that "As the twig is bent, so grows the tree." The individual religious — or irreligious — conscience of a boy must not be cowed, lest he become intolerant as an adult. Some religious people don't see that, as long as it is religion being imposed. But if irreligion were imposed, they'd see in a hurry.
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(Responsive to "Damning the Scouts", New York Post, November 18, 2004)
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Item 2: Sauce Anglaise. George F. Will asks, as to the permanent members of the Security Council, "Why not replace France with a single EU representative?" You can't very well take France's seat away without also taking Britain's, since Britain is part of the EU too.
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(Responsive to "Qs for Condi", New York Post, November 17, 2004)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 5:04 AM

 
Boycotting Nevada. My sisters and brothers are getting together in Las Vegas for Christmas but I advised that I am boycotting Nevada because it has outlawed same-sex marriage. Imagine that: Nevada, with its quickie weddings and quickie divorces, legalized gambling and legalized prostitution, actually passed legislation in "defense of marriage"!
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My sister Trina responded:

I agree with you.

That Nevada of all places should take this stance is incomprehensible. On the same note, I am befuddled by the lack of reaction — plus the lack of media coverage of the assault on gay rights in the last election. Though I understand some people's fears and their "defense of marriage", there has been little coverage of the other parts of the laws against gay marriage just passed in 11 states. I read that in 8 of those states, they've also outlawed civil unions and removed virtually all protections to gay partnerships — even things like being able to visit an ill partner in the hospital. One senator from North Carolina is trying to prohibit gays from teaching in schools. What the hell is going on and what do we do about it?

My two brothers had divergent reactions. My brother Brian, in Texas, said:

what's going on is that the right wing is taking over the country. what we do about it is essentially nothing — we hunker down and wait for this to fade back to a reasonable level [which, given that W w/b able to nominate a gazillion judges, c/b a lllloooooonnnng time].

My still-older brother, Alan, who lives in Las Vegas, pooh-poohed a boycott:

All governments in all of human history have been hypocritical.

Why?

Because all people, including you and me, are hypocrites.

We [Nevadans? everyone?] are just more aware of other people's hypocrisy than our own.

Nevada is just continuing that "glorious" tradition.

If you wish to boycott us, so what? Millions of people come here every month.

My sister Trina, who has worked in the travel industry, responded:

Never underestimate the power of a tourist boycott. Years ago Arizona, a tourism powerhouse at the time, ruled against making Martin Luther King's birthday a holiday. Meeting and convention planners — black and white but heavily influenced by their memberships — boycotted Arizona as did tourists. People sympathetic/empathetic to black rights boycotted as well. Arizona suffered cancellations of already booked conventions as well as lost business from new groups, costing them over a billion dollars in lost revenue. Even a SUPERBOWL was cancelled, with an estimated $500 million in losses to the state.

Governor Mecham became horribly unpopular resulting in his IMPEACHMENT after only one year in office, after which Martin Luther King Day was approved as a holiday, and the boycott was ended.

Boycotts in tourism/meetings and conventions have rarely been done, which made the Arizona boycott especially effective. It made national and international news at the time — and scared the living shit out of the hotel and tourism community. If the gay community comes together, organizes a boycott, and gets the mainstream meeting, convention and tourism markets to boycott Nevada, there could be enormous pressure from hotels and attractions to change policy. The hard part is that Nevada is only one of 11 states to vote for discriminatory policies against gays. A boycott against multiple entities would be less effective. If they narrow their focus on Nevada, an alliance with other gaming entities, esp Indian owned casinos outside Nevada could have a major impact on Nevada and send a message to other states considering enacting discriminatory policies. I personally believe it should be done.

To that, I replied,

Neato keen. I'll start the ball rolling. First I will find out exactly what the Nevada law says and who passed it — legislature or referendum — then start promoting the idea in the gay media.

And so I shall.
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 4:02 PM

 
New Click-to-Donate ("CTD") Site. I noticed just today that The Literacy Site has joined the CTD family begun by TheHungerSite.com.
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The CTD phenomenon began in June 1999, when an individual man in the state of Indiana, United States, came up with an ingenious way to promote charitable giving to alleviate world hunger / starvation / malnutrition — whatever you want to call it — and the consequences of chronic undernourishment. He created a website at which interested people can click on a button to donate a small amount of staple food (then from the United Nations Food Program, now from Mercy Corps and America's Second Harvest). That click takes them to a screen on which appear small banner ads paid for by various enterprises to get their name before the public, establish their reputation as caring corporations, and bring some business their way if visitors to The Hunger Site who are interested in their work or products simply click their own banner.
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The Internet visitor does not him/herself need to give any money. The site advertisers make the actual contribution, one donation of a fixed size per click. Each visitor can give only once a day, because a cookie is set to prevent a given IP address from clicking more than once in 24 hours. So an advertiser knows that each click represents a unique visitor that day.
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The Hunger Site proved an immediate success. Its history section says: "To date more that 200 million visitors have given more than 300 million cups of staple food." In August 2001, the originator of the site (who is, curiously, not now named in the site's history; perhaps he modestly wants his work, not his name, to be known) sold The Hunger Site to two other individual American activists. Over time they have added other CTD sites to The Hunger Site: The Rainforest Site (preserves rainforest), The Breast Cancer Site (funds mammograms for poor women), The Child Health Site (provides rehydration fluids, prosthetics, and other medical care to children), The Animal Rescue Site (provides food for animals in American shelters), and, new, The Literacy Site (buys books for poor kids).
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I have made TheHungerSite.com one of the Favorites / Bookmarks on my browser, and try to click every day. All of the related CTD sites are accessible as tabs across the top of the screen at The Hunger Site (and each related site), so if you visit one, you can quickly visit as many of the others as you might like to support. It's a small thing, but a nice way to start your day: TheHungerSite.com.
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 3:31 PM

 
McGreevey's Last Act. I sent the following message to James McGreevey, outgoing Governor of my state (New Jersey), under the heading "Your Legacy". (McGreevey shocked the state with his announcement a couple of months ago that he is gay, had an affair with a man while married to a woman, and felt his effectiveness as Governor would be too adversely affected by the scandal to stay in office, so resigned, effective this coming Monday, November 15th.) I wrote to him, at the time, to say that he should not resign for that, but he seems intent on leaving anyway. Before he goes, I want him to do one last thing.

You have scant "legacy" to leave from your short years as Governor. The magic you worked with the budget is a temporary fix that your successors may not match. Improvements to the DMV may or may not last, but don't amount to much as a legacy in any case. You need to leave this state with a clear mark of distinction that tells everyone, "I was here. I made a difference."
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You are uniquely well qualified to make that mark by introducing legislation to change the definition of marriage to permit gay or lesbian couples to marry legally in New Jersey. I know there is very little time to draft such legislation, and you won't be able to see it thru to passage. But the final wording of the law is something the Legislature will decide anyway. What you, uniquely, can do is get the ball rolling.
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We have just passed thru a bitterly divisive national election, in which the blue states, New Jersey among them, were outnumbered and pretty much vilified by the most regressive parts of the Nation. Let's "stick it to them" by saying,

"Yes, we're liberal. Yes, we're educated and progressive and modern. And we are going to do something you have to recognize as valid because of the 'full faith and credit' clause of the national Constitution. You don't control this country. Progressive forces may have suffered a setback, but we can change this country whether you like it or not. And we're sure that once you follow our lead, you will indeed like the decent and peaceful society that results."

Permit me to suggest the kind of thing you should say in a message transmitting your draft legislation to the Legislature. It doesn't have to be gold. It does have to be said. So get your legislative aides and speechwriters (if any) together IMMEDIATELY to draft same-sex marriage legislation and finalize a transmittal message. Here's the kind of thing I would like to hear you say.

"Marriage" is the name society gives to the legal recognition of a special relationship between two people. It encompasses both rights and responsibilities. It is premised on the understanding that stable, loving relationships are essential to the smooth functioning of society and of the individuals in it. Marriage provides mechanisms for decisions to be made by private persons that, absent marriage, would have to be made by the state. We would rather such decisions, such as those on extraordinary medical measures at the end of life, be made by a life partner who understands the values of his or her partner with certitude and will do what s/he knows to be the wishes of the person at issue. Government should step away from such matters. Marriage permits government to do so.
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Marriage also provides stability in the ownership of property and provides for consistent rules for the disposition of assets in the event of a disrupted relationship. It provides economic security without a "nanny state" butting into everything. Marriage bolsters family businesses and provides for their continuity by giving both partners security in their ownership position, guaranteed by the power of the state. Marriage is meant to be difficult to escape, as to induce people who are going thru rough times to stay together and work things out, because wise people recognized thousands of years ago that emotional relationships go thru ups and downs, and if you split up over some trivial matter now, you won't experience the joys and satisfactions of having persevered thru the hard times to find that there are good times again, on the other side. Government cannot make people stay together when love ends, but it can make people hold on to see if the relationship is truly over or is only going thru a bad time.
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There are those who say that marriage is for children. Not so. There are many married people who never have children. They are still fully and legitimately married. And marriage does not ensure that children will have a stable two-parent relationship to rely upon in growing up. Divorce happens -- entirely too often.
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Moreover, having one's own biological children is not the only way families form. A two-person marital household is itself a family, without more. But that does not mean that people who can't have their own children biologically can't have children. Society has created the institution of adoption, not just for the sake of children but also for the sake of adults who want to experience the rewards of raising a child. This state, like other states, has many more children waiting for adoptive parents than parents willing and able to adopt. Expanding marriage will expand the base of potential adoptive parents, and thus virtually guarantee that more of the children waiting to be adopted do in fact get adopted. That's important.
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Opponents of same-sex marriage sometimes assert that homosexuality or lesbianism is a mental disorder, and society should neither recognize nor encourage mental disorders. There are at least two answers to that. First, it is not for government to cast aspersions on the quality of relationships. Are all heterosexual relationships healthy? Surely not. That does not mean that government should inquire into why heterosexuals wish to be married and not permit some people to marry because government disapproves of the reasons they want to be married. That's not government's business.
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The better answer, of course, is that science in recent years has shown that sexual orientation is NOT a disease nor even a choice but is a part of normal, natural variation among individuals, and may well be hard-wired in our brains from a very early age, the result of heredity.
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For a long time, society tried to deny "deviations" from the norm in a great many matters. Not so long ago, the schools of this state tried to change lefthanded kids to righthanded, on the mistaken notion that lefthanded was somehow wrong, and would make living in a righthanded world difficult. The word "sinister" is Latin for "left" (handed), and lefthandedness was for centuries seen as suspect, somehow not quite right. Today, however, there are lefthanded can openers and other devices to make lefthandedness easier, and we have stopped thinking of lefthandedness as a choice that society can change by force.
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When government tries to impose heterosexuality, it fails. All it succeeds in doing is making nonheterosexuals unhappy, miserable, devious, and dishonest. It induces people to try to be what they are not, and causes them to drag others into their unhappiness. I know. We try to live up to what we are told to be, but can't. We marry people we cannot fully love, and cheat them of the complete and unconditional love they so richly deserve. We cheat ourselves too, of the love we richly deserve as well. Society does not profit by making its citizens miserable.
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This Nation was founded on a set of principles brilliantly and powerfully set forth in the Declaration of Independence. The most unusual premise of that document may be that "the pursuit of happiness" is a natural right, which government must not interfere with. I believe that, and hope you do too.
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And so I ask the State of New Jersey to say to all the world that we recognize the right of gay and lesbian citizens to pursue happiness the best way they can, by seeking permanent loving relationships with someone they can really love, and the State of New Jersey will recognize those relationships and accord them the same dignity and respect as it does to heterosexual relationships: by solemnifying them in marriage.
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Legal marriage is more than a word, but the word "marriage" is important. Some people feel that only God, thru the church or other organized body of worship, can "marry" two people. Government can merely put its stamp of approval upon a civil contract conferring certain legal rights of one partner vis-a-vis another. Therefore all nonreligious legal marriages are only "civil unions", and it is enough to grant "civil unions" to gay or lesbian partners.
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Not so. Words have power, and equality before the law is a fundamental principle indispensable to our civilization. Everyone must be treated equally. So either a heterosexual "marriage" not blessed by a religious body must not be called "marriage" but only "civil union", or any "civil union" recognized by the state is properly to be called "marriage". "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck." Let's play no silly games with words. Legal marriage is civil union is "marriage". Let New Jersey have the integrity and, yes, guts, to call marriage "marriage", be it for heterosexual couples, gay couples, or lesbian couples.
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The legislation I offer today does not attempt in any way to influence or coerce any religious group to recognize as "married" people they do not wish to recognize as married. Religious marriage is assuredly not the business of the state. Legal marriage, however, assuredly IS the business of the state.
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And so I submit to you today legislation to eliminate the discriminatory provisions in our marriage laws that restrict marriage to a man and a woman, to permit two men or two women to marry equally with a mixed-gender couple. I ask that New Jersey join Massachusetts, another of the original Thirteen States that signed the Declaration of Independence, in extending, at long last, equal treatment to gay men and lesbian women -- but more: I ask that there be no residency restrictions on whom New Jersey will permit to be married in this great state. Let gay couples and lesbian couples from around the world come to New Jersey to be married. While they're here, they will see why we are proud to be New Jerseyans, and tell their friends that New Jersey is a place everyone should see. Tourism is a major industry in this state. Gay money and lesbian money is as green as anybody else's, and if New Jersey can make a tidy profit from doing justice, so much the better.

- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 2:53 PM

 
Yasser, That's My Baby! I was profoundly saddened to read, on the opening screen of AOL when I checked my email after work Wednesday nite, that Yasser Arafat has died — in France, not even in Palestine, nor in the veritable 'homeland' of freedom, the United States, which should always have been on his side but has yet to wake to that fact.
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I had, of course, heard that he seemed to be dying, but I didn't want to believe it. I was afraid that with his death, the Palestinian leadership would lose its guts and give in to Israeli terms — that is, accept slavery with a gentle face. Arafat didn't care what face slavery wore: he wanted freedom for his people, and justice for all people.
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The Israelis managed to present their attitude as reasonable, and that of Arafat as insane. But what if we were talking literal slavery here, and the South, as a condition to voluntarily abstaining from the Great Rebellion of 1861-65, had offered a "compromise" on slavery:

"We will remain in the Union voluntarily, without warfare for independence, if the Union will accept our right to own slaves, as long as we treat them well." And then they turn to blacks and say, "We pledge that we will no longer flog you if you refuse to work. No longer hunt you down and chop off a foot if you flee. No longer lynch you if you get uppity. OK? You won't be free, because you're not meant to be free. God in his infinite wisdom made the black man inferior to the white man and put the black man in chains so he might do the white man's bidding. But we will be NICE to you."

Would we accept that? Some white people in the North surely would have, as most Christian Americans seem to accept Israel's modern-day version of the same offer.
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As it happens, the South DID arise in rebellion, and we did have to fite a terrible war, which, thank goodness, we won. So blacks are NOT slaves today, and don't have to periodically bargain for better treatment AS slaves. Palestinians aren't so lucky. They are to this day slaves of Zionism, and Israelis offer them not freedom but less-onerous slavery.
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Oppression Oppresses the Oppressor Too. The people who do injustice are almost as much victim of their folly as are the people to whom they do injustice. It just doesn't hurt as much.
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I don't mean that "In the grand scheme of things, God will punish." Because I don't believe in God. I'd like to, but can't. I especially can't believe in a benign God on a planet where most creatures must kill to live. And I assuredly don't accept any theological excuse for why bad things happen to good people.
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What I do mean is that in order to keep a man down, you have to stay down with him. Even if you are standing, with your foot on his throat, you can't move your foot away from his throat, so are stuck wherever he happens to have fallen that you managed to stomp your foot. The world moves on, but you're stuck with your foot on a man's throat in the same place you stepped on him 20, 30, 40 years ago.
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You know you're in the wrong. You know you shouldn't be doing anything even remotely like what you're doing. Judaism forbids it. Christianity forbids it. The Golden Rule, in its Buddhist, Hindu and multitudinous other versions, forbids it. So you know you're wrong, you feel you're wrong, but you feel trapped. If there is a God, and you go to meet your maker, what will you answer when he asks why you continued in error for so long, even after He gave you the wisdom to see the error of your ways?
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Even if there is no God, no Last Judgment, no Divine Retribution, what toll will your conscience inflict on you for being an inhuman monster? Israelis apparently never ask such questions. Everyone else in the world does. Israelis can't afford to.
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Israelis keep talking about "survival", as tho (a) the Arabs will slit their throats if they do justice and (b) the God who so loves them that he made them his "Chosen People" will somehow abandon them and not even let them into Heaven! Islamist "terrorists" are certain that God will reward them after this life if they act heroically. Supposedly pious Jews have no such certitude.
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Since when do people kill those who do them justice? Or do Israelis feel that true justice requires them to die for their crimes?
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Jesus said, in Palestine: "As you would have others do to you, so too do to them." Simple. Elegant. Wise. Do Israelis heed Jesus's infinitely good — and practical — advice?
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Zionists are very quick to suggest to Christian Americans that "Jesus was a Jew". Do they heed the advice of that Jew? (We will, for the moment, pass over the fallacy of calling Jesus a Jew.)
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Jesus understood what all intelligent people understand. There is, indeed, a popular group chant among racial-justice and other activists in the United States: "No justice. No peace." The converse of that is plain: if justice, then peace. And only thru justice can we achieve peace.
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Do Israelis offer JUSTICE for peace? No. They offer LAND for peace — land they STOLE to begin with! They say,

"If you let us keep SOME of the land we stole, we'll give some of it BACK to you."

Yasser Arafat said, as all decent and just people say,

"No way! You have STOLEN from us. Give us back EVERYTHING you stole, and THEN we'll forgive you. ONLY then can there be peace between us. And you know, you'll feel better for having given back what you stole!"

Questions Beyond the Grave. Did Arafat die a natural death? Or did the Israelis find a way to kill him even as he stayed within his compound? We will probably never know, and conspiracy theories will likely abound for decades.
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Yasser Arafat was, to be sure, no "spring chicken", but a 75-year-old man who had lived an extremely stressful life. I'd like to think he died a natural death, having been spared by Fate from murder by the enemies of Earth, the Israelis. But it might well be that the Israelis found a way to poison his food, or air, or to bombard him with microwaves, as the Soviets were reputed to have done to Americans in our embassy in Moscow.
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The uncritically Zionist Government and media of the United States have tried to portray Arafat as a "terrorist" victimizing innocent Israelis — never mind that Menachem Begin was without doubt a member of the terrorist organization Irgun, which in 1946 bombed the King David Hotel, killing over 100 people: British soldiers, civilians, and even Jews in the crowd without distinction.
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After a decade or two of such unending, uncritical, and unwavering Zionist propaganda, coupled with unending murder of Palestinians by Israel, all but the most credulous and uncritical people on this planet had realized that Arafat was never the bad guy attacking innocents for no reason, but only a man fighting back, against insuperable odds, to stop the crimes constantly being committed against his people by the Israelis and their colonial underling, the Government of the United States.
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Americans have been taxed to the tune of over $91 BILLION — and growing — to empower Israelis to kill without mercy and steal another people's country right out from under them, all the while posing as "victims" of "anti-Semitism". Never mind that "Semite" means a speaker of a Semitic language, and the overwhelming preponderance of all true "Semites" are Arabs. Never mind that Yasser Arafat attended midnite mass in Bethlehem on Christmas and Easter services with Christian Palestinians until the Israelis forbade him to do so! No, we are supposed to think of Yasser Arafat as a simple-minded, crude, violent, "anti-Semitic" bigot (which would have to mean anti-self) who killed people for no reason. What a load of crap!
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I honor Yasser Arafat, as almost the entire world outside the United States has long honored Yasser Arafat, as a HERO who stood against infinite odds to TRY to win justice for his people and who managed somehow to evade death at the hands of the Israeli military, despite their best efforts — and remember that the Israelis have always represented themselves as the world's supreme military, head and shoulders above the American military and every other fighting force on Earth.
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Arafat died not on the battlefield but in a hospital, from organ failure. Whether the Israelis induced that organ failure we may never know. Let us, for this purpose, assume it was just his time to go.
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Yasser Arafat was, for most of the world, beyond contention a great man. He was courageous when almost everyone around him was scared sh*tless. He stood by his principles when unprincipled scumbags like Bill Clinton tried to get him to renounce them. He never gave in, never gave up, but was a permanent, resolute inspiration to his people, and to all Arabs everywhere, in never accepting the "inevitability" or "permanence" of Zionism.
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Like the Latvians, Lithuanians, and Estonians who never gave up on independence from Soviet Communism, Yasser Arafat stood fast in believing that Palestine could someday be free. When all the rest of the world said, "Give up!" — in the case of the Baltic States, "accept the facts: you are part of the Soviet Union and always will be" or, in the case of Palestine, "Israel has won. It's all over. Give up." — he said 'Go F*CK yourself! It's NOT over. We will NEVER give up.'
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That's something for Democrats suffering post-election melancholia to remember.
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Bruce Springsteen sang of "No Surrender". Yasser Arafat lived it.
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I see a lot of surrender around me. Yasser Arafat saw a lot of surrender around him, but refused, himself, to surrender. In doing so he gave millions the courage to stand against defeat, insist on justice, and believe that eventually even the stupidest redneck could be made to understand that Christians have NO STAKE in doing injustice to Arabs for the sake of Jews.
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Once the United States turns its back on Zionism — and that will in part be because decent, progressive, American JEWS turn their back on Zionism as a dream become NIGHTMARE — the evil lunacy of Zionism will end, Palestine will be reunited peacefully, and the endless war the neo-cons have embroiled us in will equally end.
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When will that be? How long will we have to wait? Yasser Arafat is done waiting. We are not.
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I am so terribly, terribly sad that Yasser Arafat never got the chance to preside over a unified and secular Palestine: Moslem, Christian, and Jewish without distinction. He would gladly and proudly have attended Rosh Hashana services with Jewish Palestinians as openly, honestly, and lovingly as he attended Easter and Christmas services with Christian Palestinians. And everyone in attendance would have been thrilled to see him.
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It hurts so BAD to think of a man who worked his entire adult life to win freedom and justice for his people to die before those ends were achieved. It hurts so bad. I feel so sad for Arafat and for Palestine. Arafat is dead. Palestine is not. Dare I transfer my hopes from Arafat, the hero of Palestinian struggle, to the Palestinian people? Or are Palestinians, absent Arafat, as gutless and useless as Americans without John F. Kennedy?
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Yasser Arafat was a decent and astoundingly courageous man — which may be why he was so despised by the envious, and disgraced, gutless wonders who run this country. He cared deeply about his people and about justice: simple human fairness. He wanted to welcome — no, craved — the contribution of all Palestinians, of whatever religion, to the progress and pride of his nation, and knew that a reunified Palestine would NEED the inputs and aspirations of all Palestinians, Moslem, Christian, and Jewish without distinction. But he didn't live long enuf to see all the peoples of Palestine join as fellow countrymen in a loving and joyful project of national reconstruction, building a society fit to call itself "The Holy Land". Will anyone?
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 4:54 AM

 
Gay Rights. A young woman I used to work with in New York (before I had to leave that part-time job to get health insurance so I could have surgery to repair a serious injury I suffered in falling off a ladder) sent me this intriguing inquiry today:

How can people be better informed with what this next [Bush] term will bring with regard to Gay Rights? Even though we are a blue state and a blue city, how can New Yorkers get involved?

I replied:

We in the blue states (New Jersey's one too) can tell our legislatures that we want to distinguish our states from the red(neck) states by legislatively extending legal marriage to same-sex couples under the name "marriage" rather than the euphemism "civil union". "If it walks like a duck..." Legal "marriage" IS "civil union". The only thing government can do is sanction civil unions. It has no power to define marriage for any church, and if the Catholic Church recognizes as married only people it marries, that's the Catholic Church's business. What is the State's business is the LEGAL rights of married people (about 1,000; somebody counted), and we should make plain that either everybody should have the right to marry and use the word "marriage", or NOBODY should be allowed to "marry" legally, so ALL nonreligious unions are merely "civil unions", and only churches are entitled to "marry" people. Since straight people who tie the knot before a judge or justice of the peace aren't going to want to be unable to say they're "married", present-day civil unions are in fact called "marriages"; and since some churches are perfectly happy to "marry" same-sex couples, we can easily make the case that using two terms for one phenomenon is just plain silly.
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Moreover, since the Constitution requires "full faith and credit" be given by other states to any marriage performed under the laws of any state, even the red states will have to accept that a couple married legally in Massachusetts, New York, or New Jersey is entitled to recognition as married by every other state and by the IRS and other Federal entities. If that irritates the hell out of them, SO MUCH THE BETTER!
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I'd like to see my city, Newark, become the gay-marriage capital of the world, vying with NYC as to who can get more gay tourism by offering the best wedding packages. The South would go NUTS! Oh, I'm sorry. They're already nuts. They would go BALLISTIC! Cheers.

- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 1:49 PM

 
World Vote. My sister Trina sent out this map she found on the Internet, of how the world might have voted had everyone been entitled to elect the President of the United States.

But seriously, folks, a survey of ten nations a week before the election showed an additional country for Bush. Russians preferred Bush by a slight margin. Israel, shown correctly on the map, tho you might have to magnify the image to see, favored Bush by a huge margin, 75% to 25% for Kerry! Small wonder. Bush did, after all, attack Iraq for Israel.
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One hears, from time to time, assertions that foreigners should have some input into the election of President, because he is the most powerful man on Earth and his behavior will affect the entire planet for four years. Fine. Join the Union. We'll let you vote. Just yield your separate sovereignty to joint sovereignty with the rest of us, take your place within our market, conform your laws to our Constitution, and you can send Senators and Congressmen to the Capitol and vote for President and Vice President. What could be fairer?

- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 4:32 PM

 
Off to Vote. I have decided to vote after all. New Jersey is too close to call, and is a big state, electorally speaking, despite its small physical size. We are 10th in population, 46th in area of the 50 states. So, tho I am very angry that the Democrats have not addressed the most important issue in this election, in which the differences between Democrats and Republicans are starkest — debt and bankruptcy "reform" — I have to vote for Kerry/Edwards anyway.
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I have now received 5 tape-recorded phone calls urging me to vote Democratic. The one today was from black actress Alfre Woodard, urging a high turnout from "our community". You see, I live in a predominantly black (but middle-class) area of Newark, so I often get mailings and such intended for blacks. Not even her message mentioned debt!
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In actuality, the mid-portion of my block is perfectly integrated. The alternation from my house outward is white, black, white, black, black, white, black, Puerto Rican, black, white! Perfect. Another oddity about my block is there are no Halloween festivities. I've now been here four Halloweens and have never seen so much as one kid in a costume on my block. Isn't that weird?
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In any case, I hope my neighbors make me wait at the polling place, Sacred Heart School. On prior elections, it's been in-and-out in a hurry. I'm hoping for a line this time. So I'd better get myself out of here or I'll be late for work!
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 1:05 PM

 
Ousting Republicans. The Democrats have waged an astonishingly incompetent campaign this year, so feeble and inept that one really must wonder if they want to lose because they have no exit strategy for Iraq and want the Republicans to be destroyed by growing antiwar disgust. Still, it's possible they will win the White House and even one or both houses of Congress. Certainly we need the kinds of change they would bring in many areas, and must stave off the "reform" of the bankruptcy code the Republicans want to enact, which would make bankruptcy unavailable to ordinary people while preserving it for corporations. The Republicans want to trap people in debt, and that idea, if brought home to the electorate, would so terrify voters that they would vote Democratic in landslide numbers.
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But the Democrats won't say one word about debt or bankruptcy, so may go down to disastrous defeat. I searched the welcome screen of the www.johnkerry.com website and the opening screen in the jobs and economy area of that website for "debt", "usury", "bankruptcy", and "interest" (as in interest rates). None of the words "debt", "usury", or "bankruptcy" occurs in either page. The word "interest" appears only on the site's opening screen in the phrase "special interests". Amazing. Is it possible they don't realize how oppressive debt has become for over a hundred million Americans? Is it possible they don't care? I am very concerned that the Democrats will lose this election badly, leaving the White House and both houses of Congress controlled by plutocratic Republicans who will indeed trap Americans in debt.
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Letting Bush Get Away with Everything. Why is George Bush allowed to use government airplanes in campaign travel? He is regularly seen emerging from Air Force One or the helicopter "Marine One", arriving with all the majesty of the Office of President of the United States, which has to make an impression upon people. That is inexcusably improper, but the Democrats, in their astoundingly incompetent campaigning, have made no objection. Why not?
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Why have they not hit him hard on debt, oil prices, the catastrophic war in Iraq, the endless lies that Bush and Cheney keep telling about Saddam and 9/11? Why is Bush getting a free ride on hatemongering and scapegoating gay men and lesbians to distract people from the real issues? I have never seen such an incompetent campaign. We are entering the heating season, and costs for heating not just by oil but also by gas and electricity are expected to be very high this year, but the Democrats haven't landed on this issue hard either. Many people thought the attack on Iraq was a "war for oil" (it wasn't, but that was a widespread perception), yet we have the highest oil prices on record, and that is reflected in prices at the pump and prices of heating oil and competing energy sources. Yet the Democrats haven't said ANYTHING about any of that. They keep talking about "our soldiers" in Iraq, an issue they can't win on, while ignoring all the hard economic worries people have. Appalling.
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Business Week online has a story from last week that is hilited today on AOL, about which candidate would be better on which economic ("wallet" or "pocketbook") issues. It's worth checking out if you haven't already read it.
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Bush has enlarged government by intruding into the area of education, in which the Federal Government is NOT AUTHORIZED TO ACT, all the while pretending to be opposed to Big Government! Rather than call him on it, the Democrats are co-conspiring in his assault upon federalism, promoting centralization of power, which is DANGEROUS to this Republic, which depends upon federalism. We need strong states in a strong union, not an all-powerful central government dictating to the people with no state intermediary able to protect us from tyranny.
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George Bush CUT the Federal program to hire more police at the local and state level, but poses as a champion of law and order, all the while states and localities will have to find their own sources of funding or CUT POLICE FORCES. His mishandling of the economy and cuts in aid to local governments have caused fire houses to close, police departments to cut hiring, libraries to cut hours or shut their doors, and on, and on, but the Democrats haven't called him on it. Why not?
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On the No. 1 issue that the Democrats have let Bush set, "national security", the Democrats should be able to blast him and his party out of power with the simple, obvious fact that THEY DIDN'T PROTECT US from the 9/11 attacks. They were WARNED (a) that al-Qaeda was actively considering hijacking planes and using them as missiles and (b) that Middle Eastern men were taking flying lessons in this country but DIDN'T WANT TO LEARN HOW TO LAND! It wasn't as tho these men were learning to fly in Afghanistan, sub-Saharan Africa or some other remote locale, out of sight. They were taking flying lessons IN FLORIDA, a key "battleground" state, and the Bush Administration IGNORED warnings that their behavior was extremely suspicious.
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Bush didn't put air marshals on flights; didn't strengthen cockpit doors; DIDN'T WARN THE PUBLIC that if they were hijacked they weren't going to be flown to Cuba but rammed into buildings and all be killed! Had he done only that, the passengers would have PREVENTED the WTC attacks by fighting back against hijackers, as the hero passengers over Pennsylvania did. The worst that would have happened is that individual planes might have crashed, killing their passengers, but the WTC would not have been destroyed. Why haven't the Democrats said plainly that 9/11 was GEORGE BUSH'S FAULT!?
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The man who failed to protect us is posing as our great defender! He who CAUSED the disaster has become a HERO from it! Amazing.
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There are so many reasons the Bush Administration should be whacked by the voters tomorrow. I gave ten of the top reasons in this space October 22nd (which see), and have discussed the No. 1 reason, debt, a couple of times at length. But the Democrats have not pursued any of these with any vigor, so they are likely to go down to ignominious defeat. And the people will continue to be abused by the rich. Bankruptcy "reform" may well be enacted in the next Congress and signed by Bush, and trap over a hundred million Americans in thousands and thousands of dollars of debt per household.
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The only hope is that the people will be their own salvation and somehow, despite Democratic incompetence, oust Bush and his party at the polls. Good luck to us. But we will have to make our own luck.
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 1:04 PM