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I consider this a Radical Gumbo, with many varied ingredients making more than the sum of its parts. We are no-holds barred, passionate and not overly PC here. Yes, Liberals can have Fangs. Jump in and be part of the cutting edge!
First, let me state up front that I was an ardent supporter of the DREAM Act from the beginning--and I still am. As a Latino student, this is an issue close to my heart.
The Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America's Security and Prosperity (CIR ASAP) Act of 2009 makes a few desperately-needed changes to US immigration policy. I won't list them since you can read the 600+ page bill for yourself (or a summary of it at Vivir Latino). However, this legislation has several problems--and one fatal flaw in particular--that cannot be ignored. Sadly, the DREAM Act became intertwined with the CIR ASAP Act and is only one of may provisions in the bill. Perhaps I am too much of a cynic, but it seems to me that the DREAM Act was attached to the CIR ASAP Act as a Trojan horse of sorts to garner the Latino/a community's support for a bill laden with draconian provisions that we'd otherwise be in the streets protesting. Please allow me to explain.
I will not discuss all of the provisions that were included in the bill to assuage the rabid nativist pendejos. They are pretty obvious (e.g., the emphasis on LEARNING ENGLISH because... dear god in heaven the earth will spin off its axis if a person can become a US citizen without having to take tests to prove they can speak English well enough so that the poor oppressed white folks across America won't have heart attacks and die whenever they are forced to hear a Spanish word--and there are many other examples).
Here is my main concern. The CIR ASAP Act increases the militarization of the US-Mexico border, even though the politicians tried to be slick and trick everyone by stating that the "military" generally will not be allowed to patrol the border. But if you read the bill carefully, it actually ratchets up "border security" to historically unprecedented levels--some of the crap they are proposing sounds like something out of Star Wars. Now, this increased border militarization will have one inevitable disastrous consequence...and a second terrifying one if you are Lou Dobbs.
Princeton professor of sociology and public policy Douglas Massey is perhaps THE authority on the intersection of US immigration law and the demography of Mexican migration to the US. For years--probably decades--he has been the principal investigator of the Mexican Migration Project. What Dr. Massey and other prominent researchers have found--consistently and unambiguously--is that throughout US history, two things happen each time a federal or state law increased the militarization of the US-Mexico border (i.e., "enhancing border patrol") and/or included increasingly punitive measures against undocumented immigrants:
(1) These laws, designed to serve as a deterrent to keep all those brown people out, resulted in a swift and dramatic increase in the number of undocumented Mexican immigrants living in the US...these xenophobic nativist laws actually caused what idiots in groups like the Minutemen fear the most: an explosion in the population of "illegal aliens" who can't speak no gosh-darned English and who apparently spread leprosy. So these fucked up laws had the opposite of the intended effect. It actually makes sense when you think about it, and I'll gladly explain if anyone wants to know why this paradox takes place, but it is a verifiable fact, not mere speculation [see Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in an Era of Economic Integration by Massey, Durand and Malone (2003); and Immigrant America: A Portrait by Alejandro Portes and Rubén Rumbaut (2006)--from Princeton and UC Irvine, respectively--if you want to fact check my statements. I can also recommend scientific journal articles to anyone who is interested in this phenomenon]. Pero this isn't what concerns me the most.
That is one of many quotes you'll hear in this Q & A session with "anarcho-primitivist" writer Derrick Jensen, author of A Language Older Than Words and Culture of Make Believe--two books that should be required reading. The topics range from religion, patriarchy, the liberal corporate media (e.g., the Nation, MSNBC, et al.), rape, power and submission, liberals, racist cops, resisting state/patriarchal/capitalist violence, teaching writing, love, depraved capitalist sociopaths, bringing down civilization, activist tactics, revolution, the cognitive dissonance that results from being an anarchist living in a capitalist dictatorship, technology, imperialism and much more. He has a touch of ADD, which I love. Enjoy!
Video moved below the fold- site is hanging up and flaking today.
R.D. Laing began his extraordinary The Politics of Experience with: "Few books today, are forgivable." He wrote this, I believe, because we have become very alienated from our own experience, from whom we are, and this alienation is so destructive to others and to ourselves, that if a book does not take this alienation as its starting point and work toward rectifying it, we'd all be better off looking at blank pieces of paper.--D.J.
DECRYING Barack Obama as "white power in black face", hundreds of African Americans marched on the White House today to protest policies of the first black US president, and demand that he bring US troops home.
Do you have to be black to say this without getting everyone's panties twisted into a Gordian knot or can we call a spade a, uh, er, or can we tell it like it is?
Blue suit, black suit, brown suit - a suit is a suit, born of a white man's colonial military uniform.
Okay. Okay. Let's get this straight. Pelosi strips the House bill of a committee-passed amendment by Kucinich to allow individual States to create their own single-payer (Medicare) health care programs. Yet the House bill allows States' to op-out of the 'public option'. So local governments are prohibited from creating options to the public option and can instead opt out of the public option thereby sentencing the people of the States to the slavery of insurance companies.
Most of us are befuddled. Our minds have been confused and muddled from the truth. We are perplexed. Not all of us of course. Many humans see quite clearly, with laser intensity, the crimes against humanity perpetrated on a global scale for the benefit of a small, powerful elite.
Some of us feel like Neo at the end of the first one when the bullets are coming fast and furious and to Neo it seems so comically slow motion. But to those still in the Matrix it all seems so real.
TRIED TO EMBED MSNBC VIDEO, COULDN'T GET IT TO WORK HERE. IT IS POSTED AT QUEERS AGAINST OBAMA.
PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT:
LESTER HOLT: John what we saw in that protest today, was it simply frustration or does it represent a serious problem the President is having with an important part of his base?
JOHN HARWOOD: As a practical matter Lester I don't think it's a serious problem. we've seen and certainly Bill Clinton learned that they Democratic President can get punished by the mainstream of the electorate for being too aggressive on social issues so for now I think the administration feels that if they take care of the big issues - health care, energy, the economy - he's going to be just fine with this group.
HOLT: But in general when you look at the left as a whole, have there been conversations about some things they thought would have been done but haven't?
HARWOOD: Sure but If you look at the polling, Barack Obama is doing well with 90% or more of Democrats so the White House views this opposition as really part of the "internet left fringe" Lester. And for a sign of how seriously the White House does or doesn't take this opposition, one adviser told me today those bloggers need to take off their pajamas, get dressed and realize that governing a closely divided country is complicated and difficult.
So, what, Obama is telling us that "presidenting is hard"? I seem to remember learning that LBJ was able to walk, chew gum, step in as President after JFK was dispatched to hell, escalate the genocide in Vietnam, and sign the Civil Rights Act of 1964...and all at the same time no less!
This is just beautiful. After pandering to the members of the HRC homotocracy last night, the Dali Obama says:
Dear Faggots, Dykes, and Trannies:
Grow up and let us deal with the issues that really matter, like balancing the budget and making sure Mikie is happy. Your humanity is near the bottom of our priority list, right after um...health care "reform" (chuckle) and buying new astroturf for the White House lawn for the next Easter Egg Roll... You freaks can still come to that I guess.
There is only one reason governments' lie. Truth leads to government by the people. Government by the people is the enemy of the form of government we have now - government by corporate/militarist conspiracy.
We see how Presidents, chosen by the people, are nothing but changed light-bulbs. Out with the old and in with the new but the product they sell remains the same. The light from the new bulb may be shiny and full of hope but the electricity which runs the Company Town called America is the same as it ever was; the atomic power of the almighty buck.
Two weeks ago, on 9/15/09, a few good men, actual Marines, told chickenhawks Ex VP Daddy Cheney and his Brat Daughter, who have never served in the military, to STFU, cause your not helping.
Former Marine commandant Charles Krulak and former Marine general Joseph Hoar, who succeeded Schwarzkopf at Central Command, dress(es) down former VP Cheney on the issue of torture.
"... we never imagined that we would feel duty-bound to publicly denounce a vice president of the United States, a man who has served our country for many years. In light of the irresponsible statements recently made by former Vice President Dick Cheney, however, we feel we must repudiate his dangerous ideas -- and his scare tactics."
~snip~
"What leaders say matters. So when it comes to light, as it did recently, that U.S. interrogators staged mock executions and held a whirling electric drill close to the body of a naked, hooded detainee, and the former vice president winks and nods, it matters."
Mistakes were made when Baxter Pharmaceuticals mistakenly sent out virulent flu strains contained in a flu vaccine which, if it hadn't been caught by Czech medicos, could have resulted in a pandemic catastrophe. The laboratory protocols make this kind of mistake nearly impossible without malice of forethought. Or as it is viralized today; LIHOP.
Forget about rising toward some political rebellion, a fight for our lives for a modicum of popular power. Forget it. Forget about "fighting" for your inalienable rights to live in health, in freedom and in pursuit of your better angels. Forget it. Forget about fighting for peace to stop all the illegal, irresponsible and immoral wars of Western hegemony. Forget about fighting for truth and justice for the Banksters who Ponzi-schemed the world to bankruptcy and blackmailed the world to fork over the people's dough for a perpetual debt which can't be repaid - the people now forever enthralled to its creditors - International Bankers. Forget about demanding justice for the torturers, rapists and murderers of America's rabidly racist, religiously bigoted and downright evil mercenary armies who do the dirty work for just another in a long line of evil empires.
(Welcome Caisa, and thanks for the post. Hope you join us regularly! - promoted by Diane G)
This is a text I wrote earlier in my blog at http://www.genderswitch.net/ I've been asked to cross post it here and thus reach a wider audience Thanks Diane!
There seems to be an incredibly hot discussion going on across the pond re Obamas healthcare plan. I don't claim to have any real knowledge about it or the current situation. Suffice to say that I'm frequently amazed of how much is dependent on you having the funds to pay for treatments and medicine. So let me give you a brief explanation of how it works here in Sweden. If you want more info than I'll give you in my ramblings you can point your browser to: http://www.forsakringskassan.s... .
So this is how it works:
If you are unable to work you get about 80% of your income, the first week is paid by your employer, after that the social security kicks in. Many employers have additional insurance to cover loss of income.
An example: a few years back I worked at a café and one day as I was standing behind the bar I made a clumsy turn and stumbled on my own foot. Later that evening I felt that the pain were more than could reasonably be expected. So off I went to the ER. (Unfortunately not looking like the crew of the TV-series.) They established that I had a broken bone in my right arm. I couldn't work for 4 weeks and needed painkillers. So how much did it cost me in fees, medicine and loss of wages? Not a dime. "Högkostnadsskyddet" (patient's cost ceiling within a one-year limit for medical care and medicine under the health service) covered it all since I had reached the ceiling for both medical care and medicine. And my employers insurance, which is mandatory, covered the wage loss.
The ceiling for medical care is 900 SEK a year,for medicine it is 1800. If you need technical stuff like a wheel chair, crutches or the like the ceiling is 2000, and for cabs and other transportation needed it's 1400. So no Swedish citizen pays more than 6100 during a year and most of us don't need all the benefits.
I'll take my current situation as an example. I suffer from frequent migraines and a bad back due to a slipped disk. This in itself would qualify me for the medicine ceiling, But as I'm also diagnosed as a transsexual, M2F, the added costs are staggering. I need the hormones for the rest of my life, hopefully a long one, and add to this the cost for several operations, srs and possibly breast implants, electro zapping of beard and sundry bodily hair, several wigs every year to cover my balding testosterone poisoned scalp and I could never afford the transition in this life time without our healthcare. And for this I pay tops 2700 SEK spread over a year and also get to pick wigs for 2500 a year.
So who is covered by our healthcare? Every Swedish citizen and everyone who is not a citizen but who pay taxes here. All children are covered, regardless of citizenship. It is something we take for granted. So when I read about, for example, a child dying of an infected tooth because the mother couldn't afford to pay for the necessary care I can't help but wonder how civilized you really are over there.
It's all financed by taxes and nobody objects. Sure there is debate over how high the ceiling should be and if high income households should have a higher one. But no one, from the far right to the far left questions the validity of a universal healthcare plan.
So, you sisters and brothers in the US, get a grip and join the rest of the civilized world and adopt Obamas plan.
The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few, booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately by the grace of God.
Thomas Jefferson
America is a failed state. We mean by that, the Republican form of government has failed. Representative Democracy has failed. The People do not have the power of self-governance, by proxy, over their own affairs. People vote for representatives, but the representative represents the money power; the corporate monolith and aristocratic entrenchment. Politicians show how the system works, that they do represent their constituents, by bringing home some pork from the bacon trough, but nothing more.
(Excellent essay that needs more eyes, kinda got overshadowed by WWL Radio tonight.. but racism, gender or orientation hate, it all HAS to become unacceptable. Well done, MoT! - promoted by Diane G)
Last night on Countdown, Keith Olbermann and Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA35) discussed overt Republican racism {specifically her colleauge Rep Lynn Jenkins (Racist-KS2) call for a Republican Great White Hope to thwart the obviosly not white President Obama.}
As Keith Olbermann so eloquently put it regarding Rep. Jenkins half assed, half apology.
KO: "The old conditional apology. It's your fault if you're offended that an active politician in 2009 should use the most demeaning of racist phrases, vintage 1909."
Following that nail on the head statement, Keith defers to Congresswoman Maxine Waters, whom I deeply respect, and can only imagine what it must feel like to be in her shoes, or any other member of the African American caucus in the Democratic party. I would say the same of African American republicans in congress if there actually were any African American republicans in congress, but I digress.
More, plus video and a transcript of Representative Waters's response below the fold.
