Category: Politics

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

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

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

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

Crossposted at Daily Kos and also at Truth & Progress

Lost in the hoopla and frenzy of the 2008 Presidential Campaign over the past couple of weeks was an overlooked (though important) anniversary in the Peoples Republic of China.  In February 1978 — a year or so after Chairman Mao Zedong’s death — the Chinese communist government lifted a ban on the writings of three of the greatest minds the world has ever seen.

This was a critical development for from their graves, three men long dead — Aristotle, William Shakespeare, and Charles Dickens — were finally free to peddle their ‘subversive’ ideas about the complexity of the human condition.

Aristotle, William Shakespeare, and Charles Dickens

Wars within wars, layers like an onion. My grandmother’s sayings rising to the top of my consciousness “My heart is like an onion. You may peel if you will but under every layer is another layer still”, all rush through my mind. The stew that is my being is called into action here and now. The collective knowledge or brainwashing, the personal, the so called rational, it’s all churning and in overdrive.

No relief in sight, calls for rationality offer nothing even close to rational. WTF is rational when nothing is clear, nothing is resolved everything is in flux. I hold on to what I can of my flawed and biased assessment of what’s going on. Is this wrong? Am I a bad Democrat, a hater, a lover, a cultist, a betrayer of the best outcome? Chastised by people I respect as a possible weak link in this battle over no difference other then mandated heath care vs. 15,000,000 left out. Heh? My feeble mind can not compute nor should it have to. I go screw you, political machines. My instincts are my friend, I think, I hope. Deliver me from the only answer? Then again perhaps this is the best bet. Roll those dice!

Take a stance and fear not I say. Then again trust experience. Who, in times like these, offers relief or even a reality that makes sense? “No one” I say, deep inside. My head spins, nausea ensues yet still I cannot let go of the hope. The layers within the Democratic party freak me out. Where does politics end and any answer to the madness begin? Not in the electronic vibrations shot out into my brain from my computer, not in the TV. Where is the answer? Nowhere. Still I cannot let go of hope, the antidote to cynicism, the only raft I have in this sea of inevitability.      

Just a note of encouragement for everybody.  Well, I found it encouraging: Finally checked my in-box today and there’s an email from Sen. Bob Casey–apparently a bunch of his constituents contacted him regarding FISA and telecom immunity, and our actions worked:

After careful deliberation, I voted in favor of legislation to revise and update the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance (FISA) Act of 1978 to provide our intelligence community with the tools they need to target terrorists. This bill is not perfect, but it does improve on the legislation hurried into law last summer by the White House when it comes to strengthening civil liberties protections for Americans and enhancing judicial oversight.

In updating the FISA legislation, however, we did not need to extend retroactive immunity for those telecommunications firms that may have cooperated with the administration in warrantless surveillance programs. I proudly voted for the Dodd-Feingold amendment that would strip immunity from the bill, and I am disappointed the Senate did not agree to this important change. I believe that the retroactive immunity provision is inconsistent with the protections afforded every American by our Constitution. It is my hope that, when the House and Senate conference meet to reconcile the two different bills, they will agree to narrow and limit the immunity provisions for telecommunications firms.

I have been gratified to hear from so many of my constituents on this issue. Please be assured that I kept your concerns in mind as I deliberated and casted my vote.

[emphasis added]

I have no understanding of what it is to live like this:::

The belt made a thump when Rasheed dropped it to the ground and came for her. Some jobs, that thump said, were meant to be done with bare hands.

Magnifico asked why Afghanistan as an issue has sunk away faster than an essay on the dKos diary list… he asks this, as I have been thinking about this country and its people, after reading A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini.

Hosseini is, for me, pretty straightforward in his writing. Nothing grand or blazing. Yet, it is shatteringly honest writing. It gathers as you read it. Slow. Until there is this little thing vibrating inside you.  Not anger. fear. hate. It’s that wide-awake connection with one’s own free will.

I wonder. If the fight isn’t just as elemental as safeguarding our free will and therein our innate desire for freedom.

The women of Afghanistan are all of us. The atrocities they suffer belong to all of us. They tell us, scream at us that these things have mutilated earthlings through the ages. None of us are exempt from such horrors.

I don’t know how to help Afghan women wholesale. I humbly take the lesson they give, despite the horrors they endure. Their freedom of will, of thought. The dignity of these women, as captured so well in A Thousand Splendid Suns, is loud, vibrant, inspirational.

The women of Afghanistan fight for all of us. In every act of defiance in deed or thought, they taunt brutes and bullies with dignity and will. One more sentinel is revealed… these beautiful souls, guardians of freedoms unseen.

So here you go, Magnifico. Captain America was sent to save this country, but something funny happened on the way to Kabul. These nameless victims, who are called mother, wife, sister, friend… these women … may very well show us the way to salvation…

In a Country with Strange Taboos

by dharmasyd

For rusty1776 in gratitude for his

“Writing in the Raw: Valentine Confessions”

I remember when you brought me hyacinths

We walked the path under pepper trees

Laughed our way to the beach

To play in the surf like yearling seals

And when you kissed me, your salt wet curls

Dripped ocean on my face

I was a virgin then, and you a married man

In a country with strange taboos

^{Camille Claudel}

It’s Thursday, and that means it is time to review the news from that cute little  heavily nuclear armed and aggressive country that lies on your map between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans!

Those adorable characters have certainly been busy! And speaking of Getting Busy, we simply must start off with John McCain and his lobbyist ‘friend.’ (A big wink of the all seeing eye!) As usual, those wacky Americans are in all in a tizzy and a buzz over, sex…..as if it was somehow shocking that an attractive lobbyist would seek career advancement and that a horny old goat would succumb to her charms! (was that TOO catty?) Human Nature and the birds and the bees at its best, it makes the world go round. And if the Senator who prides himself on his ethical behavior (ever since he was implicated in a billion dollar banking scandal that is!) happened to do a few favors for her…well, who can blame him! We have seen this Hollywood script before….oh wait! Our editor has just informed us that Senator McCain is the de facto Republican (an American political party….and come to think of it, weren’t they the ones who were in a uproar over “family values” just a while back? Heavens!) nominee for their presidency! We cannot help but wonder if these “shocking” developments will cause the Senator to withdraw from the race…what merry chaos would ensue!

In other news from the land of Big Macs and torture….

I swore that when I had kids, I would NEVER give as an explanation because. My mother was famous for it. Me: Why??? Mom: Because. If she really wanted to make the point (and a power play), she’d say because I said so. arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Well, I never had kids. But I did end up with a few step kids. At first, any interventions on my part were always accompanied by explanation. I was a quick study though. I realized they didn’t care WHY. They’d ask and ask and whine and complain and ask WHY again a thousand times. But they never really wanted to know why. They were only interested in what they wanted and finding a way to actualize it. They used my explanations as an opportunity to stage never-ending debates, refuting all of my very sensible and very adult-correct thinking.

Mothers. They do know what they’re doing. It just takes years to figure it out. There’s not much after the old because I say so.