Explosive!

Well, this post is a long time coming. I've been following the news points on a daily basis, and while there's certainly been "news" none of it has really been of the kind to grab one's attention...until today.

According to the Iraq government it appears that approximately 380 tons of highly explosive military grade materials were looted from Iraq during the invasion by the grand Coalition of the Killing. Apparently, the International Atomic Energy Agency knew of this explosives cache (its location, size, etc.) and even warned the administration about it--however, nothing was done to protect this stockpile of explosives which had been monitoried by the IAEA during the sanctions regime and were allowed to be used by the Iraqi government for various building projects.

There is even evidence to suggest that Bush Administration officials have been suppressing the release of this information to the press for quite some time (the explosives have been missing for months). Finally, it is likely, although not proven, that this explosive material is what is being used for the various suicide bombing attempts by the Iraqi resistence. Just so you have a picture of what kind of quantity of explosives we're talking about here--it's the equivalent of nearly 10 tractor-trailer rigs worth of material.

Now, I don't know about you, but when an agency actually tells you where this stuff is and you do absolutely nothing to protect it from looting (and remember, it's not like they could just break a window and load this stuff in napsacks) then by most standards your lack of attention qualifies as an extreme case of incompetence and ineptitude.

Go Bush go! Treat yourself to a dose of reality.

It's something

Even though there is plenty of stuff going on to post about, nothing is strong enough to suit my fancy.

So, to the chagrin of many, i'm putting up a link here to a flash video raising questions about what really hit the Pentagon on September 11th. The photos are pretty convincing to me, but you be the judge.

Go and brush your shoulders off

I'm hoping this will be the start of a weekly post on religious issues in the nation. I have come to notice in recent years the links between charismatic leadership, religion, and politics.

Many often wonder how it is that the religious right can so easily support the republican party despite issues that might conflict with a "Christian" ethic or worldview. It has always been interesting to me that, for the Christian right, the most important issues in this election are 1)abortion and 2)gay marriage. They often claim that between the two presidential choices they're going to vote for the one with the most moral (substitute biblical(substitute Old Testament(substitute Levitical))) worldview. Apparently, waging an unjust war that kills thousands of innocent Iraqis, afghans, and Palestinians is just an unfortunate by-product of being a Christian superpower.

The real issue, for these folks, is not abortion or gay marriage (although they are important). The real issue is authority. For the past several years there has been a strong shift underway in the country from evangelical Protestantism to radical fundamentalism. Under the paradigm of fundamentalism, followers crave a leader who will maintain the boundaries of right and wrong, hold fast to his/her (mostly his) convictions even in the face of logical contradiction, and reject the findings of modern science in favor of a more ancient (although metaphorical) creation narrative.

All three of these facets of fundamentalist thinking can be found in a Bush administration view of the world. This is why it should come as no surprise that radical fundamentalist preachers like Jerry Falwell are fervently endorsing a vote for George.

Particularly disturbing is how quickly and openly these groups will support a particular political candidate. For them, it's not another normal election cycle. What is at stake is the future of the universe--the cosmic battle between good and evil. Scarier still is the fact that Bush, in this way of looking at life, is not only the president but also the priest. Bush speaks both for the country and...for God.

It's no coincidence, my friends, that both pimps and priests have a thing for robes and jewelry.

the price of being on top

This will be a short post...primarily cause you'll have to do most of the reading. So sorry for you.

For me, one of the more disturbing realities about the U.S. military presence in the Middle East is the affect that it is having upon our soldiers. While you can sell a country on a cause for war, it's usually the soldiers who fight the war that find out eventually whether or not they've been fed a load of candy or a load of crock. I'll let some of them who were there speak for themselves--you decide what they've had for dinner.

And, finally, if they haven't realized it yet, they soon will--the future of America is all about black gold.

Time to move to Beverly...Hills that is.

A place to start

an important step towards meaningful political involvemnt is to support what our third parties have been telling us all along--tout party reforms!

Who's on First?

So, the Dems want to claim that Kerry has all the right answers. The Repubs are shooting for a Bush that's on fire but not all-consuming. The pundits are all looking for THE TRUTH with every major news site claiming a fact checker or at the minimum a reference to factcheck.org. What the heck is really going on?

For the majority of this election process, if not all of American presidential elections, it feels like we're watching a ping pong match between two candidates that we don't even know--all we know is that one wears blue, one wears red, and we have a favorite between the two. When are the politicians going to put down their ball-knockers and start telling it like it is? And, more importantly, if they do decide to play honest Abe with the public how will we be able to put them to the test?

The Nation recently published an excerpt from a piece by Eric Alterman worth reading. The main gist of the story is that the political system in a democracy is predisposed to hiding information from the public, and that the only way for that to change is for either a)the politicians to start telling the real truth or b)for the public to wake up and understand that reality is often more complicated than we might like to believe. Alterman details how it is usually in the politician's best interest to fib outright and deal with the consequences in the distant political future.

People...this has got to change. My biggest fear is that despite all of the gains the public has made in recent years in bringing forth a critical voice to the current administration, once a Kerry administration takes office that voice of critique and skepticism will simply fade into the background. Will it be a relief to have Dubya out of the picture for the next four years? In my opinion, yes. But the real test will be how and to what extent the public engages the next presidency. The level of civic discourse and participation has got to go up, or else we'll always be stuck with "more of the same."

never thought i'd do this

following the yellow brick road...i'm off to see the wizard of blog.

-more (later)-