The Clinton Years
NAFTA – Sending millions of U.S. jobs into Mexico and sending millions of Mexicans into the U.S. after destroying Mexico’s local agriculture and businesses.
GATT – Lowering tariffs worldwide but mostly in favor of the U.S.
SANCTIONS AGAINST IRAQ – Periodic bombing to distract from Clinton’s penchant for unzipping his pants for genital exposure. Killing millions of children with no apologies from our first female (gentle females?) Secretary of State with this comment when interviewed for 60 Minutes by Lesley Stahl on 5/12/96: On U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it? Albright’s response: I think this a very hard choice, but the price—we think the price is worth it. The periodic bombing had the effect of softening up Iraq for the Bush invasion.
DEFENSEOF MARRIAGE – prohibiting gays from having their marriage recognized.
DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL – destroying countless lives of gays in the military.
WELFARE REFORM – Requiring mostly women with children into poverty jobs by denying them federal aid, causing neglect of their children and driving them further into poverty.
GLASS-STEAGAL ACT (GSA) - 1933 legislation to separate investment and commercial banking activities. This was to stop speculation with banking customer’s funds. Clinton signed the repeal of this act on November 12, 1999 leading to the financial crisis of 2008, which is still devastating our economy today.
Can any amount of good legislation out of the Clinton White House make up for the lives of half million children? Can any good legislation in Clinton’s time make up for the devastation of millions of lives due to this financial debacle?
2008 and Beyond
MORE DEADLY WEAPONS -Under Obama nuclear weapons has increased by 40% larger than what the U.S. spent for nuclear weapons activities during the height of the Cold War.
OIL DRILLING – Obama could not resist Drill Baby Drill and was about to open our coasts to drilling. Despite the tragedy of the Gulf Oil Spill we may see drilling along our coasts.
DRONE ATTACKS – Under Obama instead of getting out of Afghanistan he increased drone attacks killing more people in his first 9 months than Bush did in last 3 years. As Commander and Chief, he could and should have stopped the war in its tracks and not escalate.
HEALTH CARE – Turned over our health care 100% to the very private insurance companies that caused our health care crisis. He refused to give a platform to those who wanted to suggest Single Payer instead he had them arrested. This right out of the fascist playbook.
SOCIAL SECURITY – Obama set up a Deficit Commission and appointed right-wingers from both parties whose underhanded mandate is to gut social security and Medicare (something the Republicans could not do). The commission mandate was to deal with the country’s fiscal problems. Since Social Security is legally prohibited from ever spending more than it has collected in taxes, it cannot under the law contribute to the deficit. It now has a surplus of $2.5 trillion. Letter writer, Katherine W. Rylaarsdam of Baltimore, Md. calls this a brazen attempt at grand larceny.
COLUMBIA – Where unionist are killed routinely for trying to organize. The U.S. has 600 military advisors in the country. Obama made a deal with its president to grant U.S. access to seven military bases in the country. You just gave $7 billion of your tax dollars in military aid to Columbia since 2000 and Obama is continuing the tradition.
IMMIGRATION – More deportations are taking place under Obama than any other administration, 388,000 while spending more than $3 billion more than Bush. So much for Obama being a Socialist.
PAUL KRUGMAN - a New York Times columnist and a professor of Economists and International Affairs at Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, had this to say of the Obama administration: “But progressive disillusionment isn’t just a matter of sky-high expectations meeting prosaic reality. Threatened filibuster didn’t force Mr. Obama to waffle on torture; to escalate in Afghanistan; to choose, with exquisitely bad timing, to loosen the rules on offshore drilling early this year.”
Shall we go on, now we have the brilliant idea from Obama to dismantle public education with the Race to the Top program by expanding charter schools; linking teacher’s pay to student test scores; enabling districts to dismiss entire staffs of failing schools; weakening teacher tenure; and testing and tracking student performance even more stringently.
Then there are extrajudicial killings and targeted assassinations we thought we left behind in the Bush administration only to be continued and refined under Obama.
There is just too much more to tell but this is a good start so as not to overburden my readers. As a staunch Democrat I know says: “What do you want me to vote for a Republican”. Well, my dear you could do worse. But how about holding feet to fire and establishing a third party.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Saturday, November 6, 2010
WHAT THE DEMOCRATS HAVE WROUGHT
The Democrats were complicit, started or continued wars after WW11. The killing, poisoning of lands and the destruction of infrastructure ensued. Let's start with the only use of the atomic bomb in Japan. Then millions were killed in Korea and then in Viet Nam. Subsequently came Bush #1 who killed countless Iraqis in the first Gulf War after supporting Saddam Hussein for years even supplying him with chemical weapons against its war with Iran.
Clinton, the esteemed Democrat president continued the killing of Iraqis under the guise of sanctions, which killed over 500,000 Iraqi children. When Madeline Albright was asked on 60 Minutes (5/12/96) by Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it? Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it. Lest we forget every time Clinton unzipped his fly, to distract from his extra-marital affairs, it was to bomb Iraq softening it up for subsequent invasion by by Bush #2. By the way what concerned a lot of Americans most about Clinton: "Do you wear boxer shorts or briefs?"
In between the wars listed above American presidents went into Panama, Grenada and other forgotten skirmishes.
Now we gleefully claim “Mission Accomplished” after another few million deaths and displacement in Iraq. But the end is not in sight because we have our latest savior, President Obama, escalating the war in Afghanistan, killing even more people in that part of the world than the hated second Bush. And, of course, we are seriously contemplating a war with Iran in order to keep the military-industrial complex afloat.
Can we dispute the Reverend Martin Luther Kings’ prophetic words; “America is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” And probably for all time.
Clinton, the esteemed Democrat president continued the killing of Iraqis under the guise of sanctions, which killed over 500,000 Iraqi children. When Madeline Albright was asked on 60 Minutes (5/12/96) by Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it? Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it. Lest we forget every time Clinton unzipped his fly, to distract from his extra-marital affairs, it was to bomb Iraq softening it up for subsequent invasion by by Bush #2. By the way what concerned a lot of Americans most about Clinton: "Do you wear boxer shorts or briefs?"
In between the wars listed above American presidents went into Panama, Grenada and other forgotten skirmishes.
Now we gleefully claim “Mission Accomplished” after another few million deaths and displacement in Iraq. But the end is not in sight because we have our latest savior, President Obama, escalating the war in Afghanistan, killing even more people in that part of the world than the hated second Bush. And, of course, we are seriously contemplating a war with Iran in order to keep the military-industrial complex afloat.
Can we dispute the Reverend Martin Luther Kings’ prophetic words; “America is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” And probably for all time.
Monday, October 18, 2010
RECYCLING DELUSION
SF BAY TIMES
May 28, 2009
The earth does not have the capacity to contain the trillions of tons of waste created daily in our so-called civilized society. Extending out in the future the present accumulation of waste from electronic devices, packaging material, plastic storage containers, automobile parts, toxic batteries and other devices, we will have to consider looking to outer space for another planet where we can repeat the pattern that is destroying our present planet.
We should not delude ourselves that we will be able to recycle our way out of this predicament. Partly, because, many items are not recyclable, most people will not recycle and there are limited markets for such material. Also, to be considered the transportation costs and the pollution created by reconstituting any material.
One-solution charge high taxes on manufacturers as a disincentive in producing things our society consumes.
Denise D’Anne
San Francisco
May 28, 2009
The earth does not have the capacity to contain the trillions of tons of waste created daily in our so-called civilized society. Extending out in the future the present accumulation of waste from electronic devices, packaging material, plastic storage containers, automobile parts, toxic batteries and other devices, we will have to consider looking to outer space for another planet where we can repeat the pattern that is destroying our present planet.
We should not delude ourselves that we will be able to recycle our way out of this predicament. Partly, because, many items are not recyclable, most people will not recycle and there are limited markets for such material. Also, to be considered the transportation costs and the pollution created by reconstituting any material.
One-solution charge high taxes on manufacturers as a disincentive in producing things our society consumes.
Denise D’Anne
San Francisco
Monday, September 27, 2010
PATHETIC DESPERATION
Election after election we follow the same pattern doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Actually, this is the definition of insanity. If someone from a different party other than the two major parties enters a race and that person is superior in every respect, it is like war has been declared. All ammunition comes to the fore; one example is the mayoral challenger in San Francisco, Matt Gonzalez in the 2004 mayoral race. Now some in the local Democratic Party establishment (the Milk Club for instance) is unenthusiastic with current Mayor Newsom that it refuses to endorse him for Lt. Governor.
We switch from Democrat to Republican administrations, both locally and nationally and we now find ourselves going backward. There are some incremental victories along the way surprisingly by some Republican administrations but overall when it comes to major systemic changes, we have failed miserably.
We could not make it better even if we had the will. Our environment is rapidly deteriorating, water quality, a finite resource, is being polluted even with the manufacturing of cheese, two examples is Idaho Cheese manufacturer Sorrento Lactalis Inc. and California’s Hilmar Cheese which destroyed drinking water for thousands of residents.
Our oceans food supplies are being drastically diminished to supply our addiction to oil and exponential use of plastic packaging now chocking sea creatures. Our air quality is going downhill especially with emerging nation’s loving cars so much as to be stuck in traffic for days at a time and still inured to the inconvenience and discomfort of using automobile to get around. In fact, there are now 600 million cars on the road worldwide with an estimated doubling of car use by 2030.
If we think we can somehow escape the consequences of air pollution caused by 600 million cars all dependent on fossil fuel, well maybe we should determine the state of our cognitive abilities to absorb this information and start to dramatically change our lifestyles and thinking on what it means to have a truly happy and satisfactory life style – material comfort or comfort in our environment and others with reasonable use of the world’s resources.
O, yes, I started with our insanity of expecting the two major parties to save our butts. How about listening to reasonable voices from other than the two-party corporate duopoly. Or better still get out on streets as they do in France and other countries and say, “We Won’t Take It Anymore.”
We switch from Democrat to Republican administrations, both locally and nationally and we now find ourselves going backward. There are some incremental victories along the way surprisingly by some Republican administrations but overall when it comes to major systemic changes, we have failed miserably.
We could not make it better even if we had the will. Our environment is rapidly deteriorating, water quality, a finite resource, is being polluted even with the manufacturing of cheese, two examples is Idaho Cheese manufacturer Sorrento Lactalis Inc. and California’s Hilmar Cheese which destroyed drinking water for thousands of residents.
Our oceans food supplies are being drastically diminished to supply our addiction to oil and exponential use of plastic packaging now chocking sea creatures. Our air quality is going downhill especially with emerging nation’s loving cars so much as to be stuck in traffic for days at a time and still inured to the inconvenience and discomfort of using automobile to get around. In fact, there are now 600 million cars on the road worldwide with an estimated doubling of car use by 2030.
If we think we can somehow escape the consequences of air pollution caused by 600 million cars all dependent on fossil fuel, well maybe we should determine the state of our cognitive abilities to absorb this information and start to dramatically change our lifestyles and thinking on what it means to have a truly happy and satisfactory life style – material comfort or comfort in our environment and others with reasonable use of the world’s resources.
O, yes, I started with our insanity of expecting the two major parties to save our butts. How about listening to reasonable voices from other than the two-party corporate duopoly. Or better still get out on streets as they do in France and other countries and say, “We Won’t Take It Anymore.”
Saturday, September 25, 2010
CHANNELING BUSH
We have a president who is a great rhetorician. We have an electorate that refuses to acknowledge that Obama is not only a manipulator of words but of our emotions. Instead of holding him accountable we make excuses. There can be no excuse for a man who has the power to end wars (after all he is the Commander and Chief) yet blatantly continues a war that is killing hundreds if not thousands of innocents, including our troops. When is a war crime not a war crime?
THE WAR CONTINUED AT HOME AND ABROAD
"The hope that came with the election of Barack Obama has faded as his policies have indicated nothing more than a reconfiguration of the basis tenet of the Bush Doctrine – that the US’s national security interests supersede any consideration of due process or the rule of law. The only difference – witness the rising civilian body count from drone attacks – being that Obama’s doctrine is even more deadly”, guardian.co. uk, April 11, 2010. The article continues claiming a completely new trend has emerged that, in many ways is more dangerous than the trends under Bush. Extrajudicial killings and targeted assassination will soon become the main point of contention that Obama's administration will need to justify Although Bush was known for such polities, the extensive use of drones under Obama have taken the death count well beyond anything that has been seen before.
SOCIAL SECURITY PRIVATIZATION
He is doing what many of us fought Bush over, privatizing Social Security. He set up a Commission to study how to reduce the federal deficit eschewing the study of our trillion dollar war funding. The Commission is charged with blaming Social Security and Medicare for our deficit problems despite the fact that Social Security is pay as you go and presently has $1.5 trillion surplus.
MORE FINANCIAL SHENANIGANS
How this for Chutzpah! Obma just appointed a former top executive at Citigroup, Jacob “Jack” Lew, to lead the Office of Management and Budget, Lew participated in the deregulation of Wall Street during the Clinton administration. Lew told a Senate panel that deregulation did not lead to the recent financial crisis.
Now come the rhetorician skills of Obama: during an October 20, 2008, campaign event in Florida, candidate Obama, told a crowd of his then-opponent, Sen. John McCain, that: “Twenty-one times just this year John McCain has said we need to deregulate the financial industry, right at a time when we know that because of deregulation that Wall Street was able to engage in the kind of irresponsible actions that have caused this financial crisis."
PRESIDENT HOPE SAID NOPE
In November 2009, Judge Stanwood Duval ordered the federal government to rebuild homes and compensate families of the dead in the Katrina disaster. This because he angrily discovered that the Army Corps of Engineers was ultimately responsible for disaster due to their catering to the oil companies for a passage way through the gulf for their product - oil. The passage way led to the destruction of a green wreath of cypress and mangrove, Nature's protection of the Crescent City. Our compassionate president, Obama, had Attorney General Eric Holder appeal the court's ruling.
STAY TUNED - MORE TO COME
THE WAR CONTINUED AT HOME AND ABROAD
"The hope that came with the election of Barack Obama has faded as his policies have indicated nothing more than a reconfiguration of the basis tenet of the Bush Doctrine – that the US’s national security interests supersede any consideration of due process or the rule of law. The only difference – witness the rising civilian body count from drone attacks – being that Obama’s doctrine is even more deadly”, guardian.co. uk, April 11, 2010. The article continues claiming a completely new trend has emerged that, in many ways is more dangerous than the trends under Bush. Extrajudicial killings and targeted assassination will soon become the main point of contention that Obama's administration will need to justify Although Bush was known for such polities, the extensive use of drones under Obama have taken the death count well beyond anything that has been seen before.
SOCIAL SECURITY PRIVATIZATION
He is doing what many of us fought Bush over, privatizing Social Security. He set up a Commission to study how to reduce the federal deficit eschewing the study of our trillion dollar war funding. The Commission is charged with blaming Social Security and Medicare for our deficit problems despite the fact that Social Security is pay as you go and presently has $1.5 trillion surplus.
MORE FINANCIAL SHENANIGANS
How this for Chutzpah! Obma just appointed a former top executive at Citigroup, Jacob “Jack” Lew, to lead the Office of Management and Budget, Lew participated in the deregulation of Wall Street during the Clinton administration. Lew told a Senate panel that deregulation did not lead to the recent financial crisis.
Now come the rhetorician skills of Obama: during an October 20, 2008, campaign event in Florida, candidate Obama, told a crowd of his then-opponent, Sen. John McCain, that: “Twenty-one times just this year John McCain has said we need to deregulate the financial industry, right at a time when we know that because of deregulation that Wall Street was able to engage in the kind of irresponsible actions that have caused this financial crisis."
PRESIDENT HOPE SAID NOPE
In November 2009, Judge Stanwood Duval ordered the federal government to rebuild homes and compensate families of the dead in the Katrina disaster. This because he angrily discovered that the Army Corps of Engineers was ultimately responsible for disaster due to their catering to the oil companies for a passage way through the gulf for their product - oil. The passage way led to the destruction of a green wreath of cypress and mangrove, Nature's protection of the Crescent City. Our compassionate president, Obama, had Attorney General Eric Holder appeal the court's ruling.
STAY TUNED - MORE TO COME
SECOND GO AROUND
The relentless destruction of the earth goes apace. The biblical second coming is translated into second chance for exploitation and the ruinous of planet earth. Plans are afoot to take advantage of global warming. This time to exploit the riches and passage ways open due to the ice melting in the Artic Circle. Surrounding countries are planning stationing troops to protect what they presume is their area of control. Of course, they never heard that unsullied nature is for the benefit of all people and nations and not just a few powerful military.
Wars, ostensibly to bring democracy to backward people when in fact they are for exploitation of resources and peoples, will continue under a similar guise to exploit the riches of the opening up of the Artic due to the diminishing of ice.
Unfortunately, we never seem to learn from our past and continue in the same mode, to satisfy our selfish and self-indulgence nature.
Wars, ostensibly to bring democracy to backward people when in fact they are for exploitation of resources and peoples, will continue under a similar guise to exploit the riches of the opening up of the Artic due to the diminishing of ice.
Unfortunately, we never seem to learn from our past and continue in the same mode, to satisfy our selfish and self-indulgence nature.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
A BIT DELUSIONAL
Lauding Pelosi’s role in pushing through a health care bill that entrenches the very cause of our healthcare disaster is well…Ludicrous.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
THE GOSPEL OF WEALTH
SPIRITUAL WEALTH
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/opinion/07brooks.html?emc=eta1
The author neglects to mention that in our rush for material wealth, we destroyed countless cultures and humans. We transformed a near paradise based on spiritual connection to earth to a near toxic dump, our own USA.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/opinion/07brooks.html?emc=eta1
The author neglects to mention that in our rush for material wealth, we destroyed countless cultures and humans. We transformed a near paradise based on spiritual connection to earth to a near toxic dump, our own USA.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
PELOSI HYPERBOLE
Her continual funding of both wars and the murderous loss of life mar Pelosi’s few legislative victories (Her house divided by Sasha Abramsky, Aug 25-31.) These two things alone seep into the bone and marrow of our society causing a slow death to our ideals and democracy. The Tea Party critique of the health care reform maybe hyperbolic by calling it socialism while in reality it is hyper-capitalistic, it still resonates on both ends of the spectrum as a disaster in waiting. Pelosi may have operational abilities admired by Harry Britt but does she have ability to cure the moral and ethical morass she has caused in her long career?
(A front page article about Nancy Pelosi praising her for her legislative accomplishments.)
(A front page article about Nancy Pelosi praising her for her legislative accomplishments.)
Thursday, August 19, 2010
SOCIAL SECURITY (OBAMA'S VERSION)
A couple of Netroots workshops in Las Vegas where David and Geoffrey went. Although Geoffrey did not attend any workshops. He's sorta apolitical.
Curious how Obama gets the moniker of a Socialist when he is following pretty closely in the footsteps of our past great president, Bush. In fact, in a lot of respects he exceeds the expectations we had for our former president who could not muster the support to privatize social security. Remember the stocks that we were supposed to substitute for social security payments plunged 30% or more.
Obama’s Social Security "Death Panel": Engaging Activists to Defeat the Drive to Cut Critical Social ProgramsThursday, July 22nd 3:00 PM - 4:15 PM
Panel, Brasilia 1
Time: Thursday, July 22nd, 3:00pm - 4:15pm
Room: Brasilia 1
This panel will detail the push by anti-government organizations and the president’s debt commission to solve the “deficit problem” by slashing Social Security and other critical federal programs. It will describe the real factors driving the federal deficit, including tax cuts for the rich, two wars, rising health care expenditures and the Great Recession. The panel will debunk the most basic falsehood of the debt commission: that Social Security contributes to the deficit. Panelists will expose the hypocrisy of addressing the deficit without considering deep cuts to the bloated military budget or increased taxes on corporations and the wealthiest Americans. Panelists also will describe a newly formed coalition working to blunt attacks on Social Security and other domestic programs and how activists can get involved online and offline.
Immigration Reform's Strange Bedfellows: The Surprising Consensus that Reform will Improve American Jobs and Bolster Our Economy
Thu, 07/22/2010 - 3:00pm, Brasilia 6
Panelists will discuss how meaningful immigration reform will be beneficial to our economy and society, due to overwhelming evidence that the current policy of enforcement-only action does not work and costs our country billions of dollars. This cycle creates a system of virtual slavery for many undocumented workers in the U.S. and drives down wages and benefits for all workers, immigrant and native-born, in many industries. Panelists will discuss various aspects of reform and how enforcement-only tactics are ineffective and hurt our economy, as well as ways in which the netroots can build coalitions around the issue.
President Johnson on Social Security
http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010073030/lbj-medicare-because-we-owe-it-them
Curious how Obama gets the moniker of a Socialist when he is following pretty closely in the footsteps of our past great president, Bush. In fact, in a lot of respects he exceeds the expectations we had for our former president who could not muster the support to privatize social security. Remember the stocks that we were supposed to substitute for social security payments plunged 30% or more.
Obama’s Social Security "Death Panel": Engaging Activists to Defeat the Drive to Cut Critical Social ProgramsThursday, July 22nd 3:00 PM - 4:15 PM
Panel, Brasilia 1
Time: Thursday, July 22nd, 3:00pm - 4:15pm
Room: Brasilia 1
This panel will detail the push by anti-government organizations and the president’s debt commission to solve the “deficit problem” by slashing Social Security and other critical federal programs. It will describe the real factors driving the federal deficit, including tax cuts for the rich, two wars, rising health care expenditures and the Great Recession. The panel will debunk the most basic falsehood of the debt commission: that Social Security contributes to the deficit. Panelists will expose the hypocrisy of addressing the deficit without considering deep cuts to the bloated military budget or increased taxes on corporations and the wealthiest Americans. Panelists also will describe a newly formed coalition working to blunt attacks on Social Security and other domestic programs and how activists can get involved online and offline.
Immigration Reform's Strange Bedfellows: The Surprising Consensus that Reform will Improve American Jobs and Bolster Our Economy
Thu, 07/22/2010 - 3:00pm, Brasilia 6
Panelists will discuss how meaningful immigration reform will be beneficial to our economy and society, due to overwhelming evidence that the current policy of enforcement-only action does not work and costs our country billions of dollars. This cycle creates a system of virtual slavery for many undocumented workers in the U.S. and drives down wages and benefits for all workers, immigrant and native-born, in many industries. Panelists will discuss various aspects of reform and how enforcement-only tactics are ineffective and hurt our economy, as well as ways in which the netroots can build coalitions around the issue.
President Johnson on Social Security
http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010073030/lbj-medicare-because-we-owe-it-them
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
PROP G ORIGINAL VERSION
More on DCCC Endorsements; SEIU Protests Prop B Millionaires ...
Aug. 16‚ 2010
To the Editor:
We know that some animal species eat their young. But did you know that the human species does it too? The supposed Democratic Party stalwarts who brag about their support of workers and unions suddenly are hesitant to vote affirmatively against Prop G, the Transit Operator Wages.
Outside the hallowed halls of UNITE HERE Local 2 where the DCCC meets one can hear arguments by many supposed progressives how Muni drivers are overpaid. It should be noted that many of these very same progressives could be called Cadillac Liberals making far more than any Muni driver and with less job stress.
An attack on one class of workers is an attack on all! NO ON G!
Denise D’Anne
San Francisco
NO G MUNI TRANSIT OPERATORS WAGES
August 18, 2010
Running from the truth
The supposed Democratic Party stalwarts who brag about their support of workers and unions suddenly are hesitant to vote against endorsing Proposition G to cut down Muni transit operators’ wages. Outside the Democratic County Central Committee meetings, one can hear arguments by many supposed progressives about how Muni drivers are overpaid. Many of these very same progressives could be called Cadillac liberals who make far more than any Muni driver and with less job stress.
Denise D’Anne, San Francisco
Monday, August 16, 2010
HI SPEED RAIL
August 10, 2010
Speed up high-speed rail
Today we can see the devastating effects of our addiction to oil, acknowledged by both Presidents Bush and Obama. The gulf disaster is not the only visible manifestation; worldwide, lands, waterways and monuments, both natural and man-made, are being systematically destroyed.
We now have the opportunity to ameliorate some of the unfortunate impacts of our drive to drive single-occupancy vehicles. It is high-speed rail, the norm in places such as Asia and Europe. What is keeping us from implementing smart transit options are lobbyists from highway builders, automobile manufacturers and airline companies. Let's not let them slow us down. High-speed rail now!
Denise D'Anne, San Francisco
Sunday, August 8, 2010
CULTURE OF KILLING
Does anyone get sick of our culture of killing? (August 1, Chronicle article “Afghanistan policy to shift to killing key insurgents”). Killing solves international disputes! Killing solves disputes within the U.S! One cannot pick up a newspaper without seeing drones kill so many people, or the U.S. has a new policy of selective killing in areas of conflict (mostly started by the U.S.). Among all the killings both domestic and international what is left out are by-standers: relatives of the killed, pedestrians in the wrong place at the wrong time, etc. Internationally, far more by-standers caught in the conflict are killed than so-called terrorists. What are called terrorists in faraway places would be called patriots if Americans fought off an invader, an occupier. Reagan had a name for such people, “freedom fighters”.
Martin Luther King said it best, the United States Is "The Greatest Purveyor of Violence in the World Today” and added that “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”
It is time to stop glorying in killing.
Martin Luther King said it best, the United States Is "The Greatest Purveyor of Violence in the World Today” and added that “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”
It is time to stop glorying in killing.
Friday, August 6, 2010
PROPOSITION 8 VICTORY
Thursday, August 5, 2010
ANOTHER TWIST ON SELLING WATER
>The sad thing is that the American consumer is so gullible as to believe anything that is advertised as legitimate. We cannot continue to be so cavalier about our finite water supplies much of which is so polluted as to be unusable for any use not even for flushing toilets as flushed water winds up in our oceans from which our next meal comes. Americans have to be smart consumers.
Read The Dark Side Of Vitaminwater by John Robbins.
Read The Dark Side Of Vitaminwater by John Robbins.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
FOOD WASTE
February 7, 2010
Wasting food, resources
Heinz Food Corp. boasts about selling 11 billion packets of ketchup per year. The company is proud of its new packaging, which is plastic-encased and made from petroleum.
Millions of tomatoes and other food ingredients are used for processing ketchup while the world suffers from diminishing oil and lack of food. Most packets are never used, but wind up in the trash or on the streets. What a waste!
Denise D’Anne, San Francisco
INCREMENTAL DESTRUCTION
It is no laughing matter when we look around to see that we have bought into our throwaway society. An egregious example is the 11 billion packets of condiments produced every year. These condiments are casually given to people, needed or not, and most wind up in the trash or on our streets.
The oil used to encase food in plastic that is literally needed by the starving masses is a crime of incalculable portions. At a time when oil is destroying our ocean systems we need to take some measure to eliminate the waste of a finite resources - oil.
We are not helpless; the first thing to do is loudly say NO when we buy prepared food products wrapped in plastic. And somehow we need to get our legislatures to ban, reduce, tax excessive packaging. If we can ban smoking, Styrofoam and even plastic bags, why is it not possible to ban condiment packaging and other items from food to electronics swaddled in earth destroying material?
Most of us ignore the little things we use in life. In fact, we become so used to items that were invented post 1945 that they have become integral to our life experience. We survived for econs without packaging material and all we have to say is "How do I survive without such and such." We can do better.
GAYS MAINSTREAMING
While racial and ethnic groups are trying to preserve their identity (avoid being assimilates), gay groups are trying to undermine their identity by going mainstream. One way is to declare marriage as a right. The institution of marriage is replete with such practices as bondage, exploitation, torture, a means to enhance family hierarchy and political cohesion. There is the matter of foot binding, child marriages for sexual gratification and female circumcision, both latter still extant, all in preparation for marriage.
Now marriage is used to exploit the unmarried taxpayers to support, in most cases two income married households who need the support the least. Instead of fighting to become a version of heterosexual couplings, gays should be fighting to eliminate the institute of marriage because it is discriminatory and gives special rights not afforded the unmarried population. Why should a single individual, gay or straight be denied visitation rights, medical benefits, immigration status only afforded married or domestic partners, inheritance rights and all the supposed 1000 rights now only afforded married partners with a limited smattering of these rights given to domestic partners?
In a recent speech at the 32nd Harvey Milk LGBT annual awards banquet. Angela had this to say: “The institution of marriage has historically symbolized the ”civil death” of one spouse. She went on to say that “Marriage may signal freedom to those who are affluent but I want us to think the extent to which we can respect gay marriage and at the same time be radically critical of the institution of gay marriage.”
Then there is the current argument to allow gays to be open in the military. Again the queer population should be demanding the dismantling of the military industrial complex not enhance it. Why in hell are gays so intent on being in the military when they have overall image of being gentle people (with a touch of femininity), arty and talented in all fields considered gentile and sophisticated. Not true, of course, across the board, but the military has one cause in mind – to kill. Forget the idea about protecting the homeland. When was the last time we went to war to protect the homeland (you don’t destroy a whole country to find one person supposedly responsible for twin towers bombing)? Now our mantra is to bring democracy (at the point of a gun) rather than admit our corporate dictated wars of exploitation for resources and cheap labor? How many wars have we fought by proxy or otherwise to deny democracy to countries around the world?
Howard Zinn, the late historian said it well. “My point is not to grieve for the victims and denounce the executioners. Those tears, that anger, cast into the past, deplete our moral energy for the present. And the lines are not always clear. In the long run, the oppressor is also a victim. In the short run (and so far, human history has consisted only of the short runs), the victims, themselves desperate and tainted with the culture that oppresses them, turn on other victims.”
http://www.truth-out.org/dont-ask-dont-tell-and-liberal-militarist-diversion
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
July 7, 2010
Muni pay is not the issue
The press attacks on Muni drivers are unconscionable. There are hardly any other jobs where workers are confined to a small space for six to eight hours a day with little time, if any, for water, coffee, bathroom breaks or stretching their legs. On top of that, there are no co-workers to communicate with.
How about lowering salaries for the myriad managers throughout The City who make more than $100,000 a year? If we expect Muni drivers who make less than $60,000 to support their families, then why are we giving a pass to those making more than $60,000?
Denise D’Anne, San Francisco
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