November 22, 2008 archive

From Atop the Apocalyptic Horse

It is a short incomplete story of my personal Armageddon and an indictment of a sick society.  Much has changed since then and the never ending soap opera of the clash between good and evil continues.  Eurotrib loved it as did some of the people on my other Anti-New World Order lists.  I regret not posting it here but its mainly because of the overwhelming mind mushing overload I get from  the realization that my own mother is the Satanic opposite of myself.

It may sound like I harbor hatred towards my own mother.  I wouldn’t do that as she is my mother but then again I need to get back to my normal spreading of goodness and light and if that means dumping 53 years of the evil anchor in my heart then so be it.  It is after all the psychosis I hate.  It goes by the name sociopath and it does reflect the very same pathology characteristic of the most famous and well known luminaries of our current political and world situation.  

Friday Night at 8: Contraction and Expansion

I think about all those folks in power, the bankers and the media and the politicians, to name a few, and they want not just to keep their money but also are desperate to retain the one thing they believe money can buy and that is prestige.  When you’re rich, you’re treated better by the tradesmen, you have clout and can have things the way you want them … ultimately, you end up living in a bubble.  Now that bubble is breaking, not only because of the recent election and the recent wake-up call to all Americans over the hard times ahead, but because of overwhelming change, historic change, that is sweeping across our world.

I’m in a bubble, too … got a job, a roof over my head, enough to eat, clothes, all the necessities of life.  I’m white and heterosexual and still benefit from the unearned privilege that brings, I don’t get stopped by cops just because of my looks, storekeepers and landlords treat me well, all that jazz.

So, lots of bubbles.  No shortage of bubbles.

So there’s all these folks in power who want to narrow the odds so they stay on top.  It is very likely they aren’t even aware of that but instead talk themselves into believing they are acting in the best interests of rationality and intelligence and integrity.  Ha ha.

I’ve learned from the diversosphere and here at Docudharma, particularly from Winter Rabbit, Jessical and Robyn, a very different view of our present state.

The elections in Venezuela

Original article, by Alan Woods, via In Defence of Marxism:

On Sunday November 23, 2008 Venezuela faces one of the most decisive elections in its history. These elections will determine who controls the governors and the key municipal positions throughout the country. What happens on Sunday will have a profound impact on the future of the Bolivarian Revolution.

BREAKING: California Lethal Injection Protocol Invalidated

Great news.  A California Court of Appeal has invalidated California’s lethal injection protocol because the state failed to comply with the state’s Administrative Procedure Act.  The decision(pdf format) in Morales v. California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, holds that the State’ lethal injection protocol, “STATE OF CALIFORNIA SAN QUENTIN OPERATIONAL PROCEDURE NUMBER 0-770 EXECUTION BY LETHAL INJECTION, is invalid and it enjoins California “from carrying out the lethal injection of any condemned inmates under OP 770 unless and until that protocol is promulgated in compliance with the APA.”

The more than 660 prisoners on California’s death row should briefly sigh some relief.  There is little doubt that the regulation will be re-enacted, but the struggle against state killing in California goes on, and today’s ruling is a great victory.

The Mercury News reports:

A state appeals court on Friday ensured further delays in California’s already inert death penalty system, finding that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration did not follow proper procedures when it attempted to revise the state’s lethal injection method to get executions back on track.

In a 14-page ruling, the San Francisco-based 1st District Court of Appeal upheld last year’s decision by a Marin County judge, who found state officials failed to provide public scrutiny of plans to overhaul California’s execution method. The appeals court ruling, if it stands, would force the state to go back to the drawing board in its efforts to bring the execution system into compliance with a federal judge’s concerns that the current method is unconstitutional.

The appeals court ruling will have a ripple effect on California’s bogged down capital punishment system. A broader legal challenge in federal court to California’s lethal injection method cannot move forward until the state comes up with a revised procedure, and that is now tied up further as a result of the appeals court’s findings.

Senior Assistant Attorney General Ronald Matthias, who supervises the state’s death penalty cases, was still reviewing the decision and could not predict the next step. But the state can either appeal to the California Supreme Court or move forward with public review of the proposed lethal injection reforms, and either process would take months or longer.

Executions in California have been on hold for more than 3 years because of challenges to the state’s lethal injection protocols.  The 2006 Judge Fogel stopped all California executions, but provided a number of steps state officials could take to ensure that executions were carried out humanely. The governor then ordered state prison officials to come up with a new plan.  The plan called for improved training and supervision of execution team members, as well as the construction of a new, modernized execution chamber. But plan was challenged in state court under the argument it violated state procedures that require public review, and Fogel put the federal case on hold until that issue was resolved.

Is the issue resolved now?  No.  The state can either try to adopt a new protocol, following the law, or it can appeal.  Either way, state killing cannot resume until the issues are resolved.

I applaud today’s ruling, and I compliment all of the people who have worked so diligently to stop state killing in California.

Being Right on the Big Issues Means you are Left Out of the Obama Cabinet

First, let me say what this diary is not. It is not an OMG, Obama fooled us and betrayed the movement.  It is not OMG, it’s all over and we must oppose Obama.  It is not, OMG, let’s start or join a third party, because the Dems are bankrupt and Obama/Reid/Pelosi are not progressives.

What I hope it is, is a springboard for discussion about why we are left out and what it means.    

I agree with the Nation’s take on this: in Obama’s cabinet and other appointments, the Left of the Democratic Party has been left out.  We’ll see how his policy is, but people make policy, and all these appointments (or rumored appointments) have had a distinctly centrist tinge.  I’m not surprised that Obama is not leaning left, because I expected mildly left of center policy choices, and we have not seen him govern yet, so we don’t yet know all his policy choices.

More, including an excerpt from the Nation blog, after the fold.  

(Also on Dkos: http://www.dailykos.com/story/…  )

Pony Party Picnic



Fifth Dimension – Stone Soul Picnic

Friday Philosophy: real people

I started out hoping to write about scarcity.  Specifically I was hoping to write about the scarcity of fairness and equality that to many people think exists, as if we can’t be fair to everyone and that it is necessary that some people have to have inferior rights in order for others to feel superior.

I wanted to write about just why that must be so…because I don’t think it does.

But I can’t get this exchange out of my head:

I’m a transwoman.

I have a rather large adams apple.  Am I not a woman in your opinion?

nope.

That was from a woman who thinks she’s more deserving of respect than I am, simply because she was born female.

And this came from a gay guy:

I got it

Code Pink has trannie members too so it’s not all women.

And people recced that comment.  I can only assume that’s because they agreed.

So I’m stuck writing something probably only for myself and a very small audience:  those who I believe could benefit from reading it will not.  Or maybe I should put that this way:  those whose reading it would benefit transfolk are unlikely to read it.  That is pretty much the nature of intentional ignorance.

Load more