What Is Wrong With This Country?
A collection of old RANTS from the old WTN Team – ENJOY!! 
First Indictments…Then Impeachment?
It is now clear that the criminal behavior of the Bush Administration and its Congressional cronies knows no bounds.
Everything is for sale from padded contracts for Iraq and Katrina reconstruction, to gutting environmental and safety regulations, to having the moralistic Christian right come out to help block one Indian tribe’s casino to the gain of another. Indictments are starting to roll in and Republican congressmen are starting to plead guilty. We suspect that K Street lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s guilty plea for fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials and Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham’s (R- Rancho Sante Fe, CA) admission of taking $2.4 million dollars in bribes in return for lucrative defense contracts to private corporations is only the tip the iceberg with respect to Republican greed at the public’s expense. Along the same lines, the recent detailing of the lavish, PAC-filled expense account lifestyle enjoyed by former House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-TX) makes one wonder how any party could idolize a leader like this.
Now it appears that torture, an illegal but favorite practice of Cheney and Rumsfeld, was used to extract the information involving both links between Saddam and Al Qaeda and Saddam’s possession of WMDs behind the Bush Administration’s justifications for going to war with Iraq. The tortured informants have both recanted the torture derived information while suiting the Neocon’s long standing desire to take over Iraq has been shown to be completely wrong. There is a real cost to this sort of criminal behavior: over 2000 American soldiers dead in Iraq, over 15,000 wounded, and over 30,000 Iraqis killed.
Now it turns out that Bush has admitted having the National Security Agency (NSA) engaged in large scale illegal wiretapping of conversations with Americans and having the Pentagon spy on Greenpeace protestors. It is hard to see how much easier it could be for Bush to get wiretaps than the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act which directs requests to a secret court. That court has rejected virtually no requests and the Attorney General can ask it for “after the fact” permission up to 72 hours after the wiretapping occurred if time is really critical, as Bush insists it is. The Attorney General has the gall to argue that Bush had the authority as President to wiretap whomever he wants. If that isn’t enough, the Attorney General says the Congressional resolution authorizing force in Afghanistan against Ben Laden also gave Bush all the authority he needed. Strangely, no one in Congress thinks that they voted the Administration this power when they voted for the resolution.
All of the actions of Bush and his high living Republican cronies require real people to help them succeed in their crimes. Some Americans on the government’s payroll have tortured people or received the information from those who did. Do you really think that Cheney is out hobnobbing it up in Egyptian prisons and in out of the way abandoned Soviet era Gulag camps where the U.S. is having people tortured? Someone actually has to implement the NSA wiretaps. Someone has got to do the leg work to implement contracts and policies that defraud the public by providing the quid pro quo for the insidious campaign donations and outright bribes the Republicans now seem so addicted to.
Here is a way to start the process of putting the country back on track and putting the public’s interest first. It is slow but it will succeed. To make it work we need courageous prosecutors at the federal, state, and local levels to step up and start investigating and indicting the little guy, the middle level bureaucrat, the CIA operative, the NSA programmer, and Congressional staffer who actually broke the law. This will send a message that will stop some of the most egregious Republican behavior dead in its tracts. Let those lower downs plead guilty and get a lighter sentence if they cooperate and turn in the higher ups who asked them to undertake these illegal activities. Let the process go up the food chain untill it reaches those who actually planned and encouraged these illegal activities. Let the deputy assistant secretaries sell out the assistant secretaries and so on and eventually the criminal sources at the top will be implicated.
Bush may well pardon those involved at the top but Congress should view that as an impeachable action. The best defense of a bubble headed President locked in a bubble though may well be that he did not know or “they” told him it was legal because the President can do anything he damn well pleases. Perhaps this naivety should be grounds for impeachment too.
An Average Citizen on the 2005 California Special Statewide Election
I am an average citizen of California. I am overwhelmed by the 2005 California Special Statewide Election.
Allow me to clearly restate myself… in case you’ve misunderstood me in some way…I HAVE NO IDEA WHATSOEVER WHAT TOMORROW’S ELECTION IN MY RESIDENT STATE IS ALL ABOUT.
So far, I’ve voted in 3 elections here in California. And OK, I’m not always the perfect citizen. I admit I skipped voting in the Gray Davis Recall. Back then, I was still thinking my governor was George Pataki, and I really wasn’t sure what Arnold had to do with that.
Even without the random recall weirdness, I’ve found voting in California statewide elections to be a source of perpetual confusion. In each statewide election, I am confronted by a slew of disingenuously worded ballot initiatives, the likes of which might cause a lesser citizen to give up voting in California altogether. But not me. Sure it’s sunny here, but not so sunny that my brain turns to mush each November and I forget to embrace my cherished right to cast my ballot.
To counter the confusion the confounding California ballot causes me, I learned to approach the riddle of each numbered proposition like a master citizen sleuth and do my best to vote my conscience. Last year, I even attended a non-partisan event explaining the various ballot initiatives/propositions hosted by the League of Woman Voters. Despite my best effort, I still couldn’t figure out the difference between a ballot proposition and a ballot initiative. To top off my 2004 California voting experience, the new electronic voting machine chuckled at me after I cast my ballot.
This year I am faced with another “special” statewide election featuring 8 initiatives.
(Author takes break to accomplish much needed research on the history of this special election and the importance of the 8 ballot initiatives.)
After an hour’s worth of research, here is my best take on tomorrow’s election:
Announced by Governor Schwarzenegger on June 13th 2005, the fun of the 2005 California Special Statewide Election lies in the reality that (a) most of the initiatives, if passed, will further consolidate the power of the governor (b) poor voter turn-out is expected, and (3) this is costing California taxpayers about $45 million dollars, an amount the already deficit strapped state can not afford to spend, to vote on 8 issues that could easily instead be added to the 2006 General Election Ballot at little additional cost.
Oh, yeah. I recommend (although can not guarantee) that voting “No” on Prop 73 thru Prop 78, and voting “Yes” on Prop 79 & Prop 80 is the “progressive” thing to do.
Good luck, and good night.
Crooks, Cronies and Traitors
Wreck The Nation is a game about the systematic looting of our great country for private gain at the public’s expense. The last couple of months should have made it obvious (even to many previously unthinking Bush supporters) that as far as this administration is concerned, everything is for sale to the highest bidder and there is no misdeed they won’t consider.
Just the crooked highlights! Republican House leader Tom Delay “the Hammer” indicted for felony use of corporate money to buy elections in Texas. Bill Frist, the Senate Majority leader, is being investigated for selling stock in his family’s massive health care operation just two weeks before the company announced that earnings would not meet expectations and the stock value dropped. Frist’s stock in his familiy’s company was being held in a supposedly “blind trust” to prevent the appearance of a conflict of interest, even though it is now clear Frist received monthly statements from the trust regarding his holdings. Bush’s top procurement official David Safavian was indicted for taking unreported corporate contributions from now indicted Republican super-lobbyist, Jack Abramoff. Abramoff seems to have his tentacles into everything the Republicans were up to. He even had the leading Christian right wing nut jobs on his payroll and unleashed them to help scuttle their own anti-internet gambling legislation. Talk about moral scruples!
But enough about crooks. How can you top Michael Brown, the former head of FEMA as the poster child for the incompetent crony of the year award?! His prior professional experience seems to have consisted of being an intern in a tiny town’s local government, organizing Arabian horse show judges, and graduating from an unaccredited law school. Oh, lest we forget his main qualification – being a close friend of one of Bush’s close friends! We all saw how this cronyism played out during Hurricane Katrina. Suddenly, it is hard to say whether this administration’s “run of the mill” cronyism, costing us hundreds of lives and billions of dollars at home, is now worse than the “neo-con ideologue breed” of cronyism that led us into the ongoing mess in Iraq.
And how about those Bushie traitors? With the indictment of Scooter Libby last week, it now seems clear that Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, leaked CIA undercover operative Valerie Plame’s name to the press in an effort (and possible conspiracy) to squash information that Saddam did not have a nuclear weapons development program underway. The identity of “Official A,” whose involvement in Plame’s outing is cited in Libby’s indictment, may yet turn out to be none other than Karl Rove, Bush’s own chief strategist. As the evidence mounts, it becomes more and more apparent that this administration seemed determined to get the U.S. into war with Iraq, even though Iraq posed no direct threat to U.S. security and played no role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The question under these circumstances is – why the rush to war with Iraq? As the indictments from the Plame Investigation continue to unfold, the answer to this question will bring us back full circle to the crooks in our current government and the systematic looting of our public treasury for private gain.
The Declaration of Independence!
The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies?In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
The Nomi Song
Tonight I had the honor of seeing the documentary – The Nomi Song, A Film by Andrew Horn – at Village Cinema on E 12th Street.
I will be editing this blog and addding links tomorrow (please google Nomi in the meantime) But WOW Gina, this film was HOT. It was everything I think the new political Progressive Movement in this country is about.
The true Downtown/Punk/New Wave – Thing that happened in New York City from the late 70’s to the mid 80’s was an extraodinary moment in time. It was fertile and creative – and it was absolutely about community. I was a wee one when it was really going off here in Downtown NYC, but it captivated me to the point that I was chucking school and sneaking into the City from the age of 13.
Years later, when I’d spent my time in the club scene, worked on the steering committee of my neighborhood association, and eventually served on my local Community Board – I still felt continually influenced by the values these Pioneers of Lower Manhattan lived by. Even though some of them, like Klaus Nomi, were from overseas…they were ultimately American.
Last night I watched a re-run of the Scorsese film, After Hours. It presents as close a depiction as I can think of to what it was like in Lower Manhattan (mainly Soho) in the mid 80’s . Unless, of course, you forget about all of the other neighborhoods – like the West Village & the East Village – which After Hours leaves out. But no matter, if you’ve ever wondered how the “loft craze” could have possibly swept America – see After Hours. It has a completely irreverant, yet totally relevant vibe – much like the game Wreck The Nation. In the film, Scorsese takes this totally mainstream character (played by Griffith Dunne) and throws him into a world for one single challenging evening that is a lot more varied (and way more interesting) than the office world he inhabits in his “normal” life only 25 block Uptown.
In short, I’d like to tell everyone in WTN Land that coming home to NYC after 3 years has been completely refreshing, not to mention culturally stimulating. While I am looking forward to seeing The Gates art installation in Central Park, and visiting my old haunt The temple of Dendur @ The Met, seeing The Nomi Song was exceptionally inspiring and everything I rely on from NYC.
Without Culture & Society there can be no Community. It is difficult to propose effective and relevant solutions without getting in touch with your roots…and then experiencing what is NEW. What’s new is that as American Citizens, we need new solutions to cope in a successful manner with the changes that Globalization and Technology bring about. What is relevant to these solutions are the experiences and influences of those who came before us.
Peace.
