This Should Scare Us - School Textbook Edition

It's interesting (and very scary) how the culture war continues in this country. I was taking a break from looking for work today and came across something that should scare everyone. Apparently, the Texas State Board of Education is planning for new history text books that have a definite right wing bias but remove any mentions of those deemed liberal.

Under their plans, the text books would include mentions of Newt Gingrich (former Speaker of the House leader of the so-called "republican revolution" of the mid 1990s), and Phyllis Schlafly (Eagle Forum founder) among others. Who do they want to remove from the textbooks? Several reviewers have mentioned removing United Farm Workers organizer Cesar Chavez.

The question is who else will be swept from history books?

At first glance, one would assume this is a localized example and that those of us who don't live in Texas shouldn't be concerned with it. However, one thing I didn't know until today is guess which state plays a large role in setting national standards for school textbooks?

Now I have a bit of disillusionment towards how things are taught in America's prison, I mean school, system. I do believe the late Frank Zappa's view on schools having a search and destroy program aimed at wiping out any hint o creative thinking amongst kids. However, this takes things to a level even my skepticism couldn't imagine.

Does this need to be fought? Hell yes. Hopefully this won't make it out of the Texas legislature and the rest of us won't have to worry about it. However, it does remain one more instance of how regardless of Obama and his allies' push for bipartisanship and moving forward, the conservatives still have every intention of making sure the "culture war" continues.

Oustsourcing for Assassinations? WTGDMF?

It's amazing how the further we get settled into the Obama age that more of how his predecessor (and dictator wannabe) got us further into a damn quagmire comes out.

A short while ago, we learned that Dick Cheney had organized CIA assassination squads to kill people in the name of our supposed "national interests" in the months after 9/11. Scary enough if you know history (Chile in 73 anyone?), but just when you think it couldn't get worse - it does. Turns out they outsourced some of this job to guess who?



WHile it should surprise no one with a knowledge of history that Blackwater (or Xe or whatever they're calling themselves this week) is involved in this. It's still scary just how willing to emulate a dictatorship this country was willing to become.

Now the new question should be why does Obama continue to give them money and pay them to work in the middle East.

For a transcript of the video in this post, go here.

Food For Thought

Like a lot of people, I've found myself worried about the path our country's going to. I realize Obama has the unenviable task of trying to clean up the clusterfuck of the past administration (it will take about three different administrations to really deal with that), but he seems to be more concerned with making deals rather than actually creating the change we were promised (right now he's not on Bill Clinton level yet but who knows).

I was fooling around online when I came across this article which state the case far better than I could.

You might think this is right on. You might think it misses the mark. I do encourage you to check the article out and make up your own minds.

And The Fear Just Keeps On Coming.....

As we move further into the Obama era, we find ourselves as a culture facing both the possible chasm between promises and reality as well as the fallout from the Dubya years that we thought wouldn't surprise us. It turns out the betrayal of trust from Shrub, Dick the Dick and company flirted even further with dictatorship than we thought.

First up is Dick Cheney wanting to use U.S. troops to arrest terror suspects on U.S. soil. Cheney claimed the President had the power to use troops to arrest people in the U.S. (a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act). Ironically Bush decided to use the FBI to arrest the Lockawanna Six, but this is yet another reminder of how reckless the previous administration wanted to trash the Constitution and create a possible police state.

However, it may appear that the military has already violated Posse Comitatus Act when activists in Olympia, WA filed a Freedom of Information Act request and discovered a military operative was spying on them. The guy claimed to be a civilian employee at Ft Lewis but was actually a member of Ft. Lewis' Force Protection Service. While activists try to figure out what happened, the damage is done.

Some in Congress want hearings into U.S. intelligence activities and their possible abuses. If they happen, we should also ask how much of this occured under Obama's watch as much as from the known war criminals of the previous administration.

What happens next is too early to tell. However, as the title of this post suggests, teh fear just keeps on coming. So much for transparency.

R.I.P. - Walter Chronkite

When I got to where I was crashing Friday night I was coming back from the Sonic Youth concert in St. Louis and wanted to see what was up. It was then that I learned that TV news legend Walter Chronkite had died at 92.

While we've all heard or read the memorial pieces about him, this piece from Glenn Greenwald was the best piece on Chronkite I'd come across. It mentions the apparent difference between what Chronkite did and what journalism (especially on the telly) has become today.

I hope you find it as interesting as I did.

Catching Up - The Topics Edition (Part One)

Hey, I know it's been a while. Sorry for not posting in a while but I got distracted between all the things going on as well as trying to get some personal things dealt with (trust me - you don't want to know). With that in mind, I'm going to try my return here with a multi topic post that I hope doesn't fall flat.

First up is the murder of Dr. George Tiller a month and a half ago. While I think anyone regardless of their views on abortion find the way he died repulsive, I'm especially sickened by the way some in the anti choice/pro forced pregnancy movement have made his killer Scott Roeder into some potential martyr, with some assholes even claiming that he's a hero sent by god. What the fuck are these people up to?

It's obvious that Roeder ain't no damn hero. It can also be said that, since Roeder was caught vandalizing a clinic the day before that it's possible this could have been avoided.

However, we can't change the past. I do wonder though why the system gives more leeway to an asshole like Roeder, who claims his jail conditions are "barbaric" than it does to some animal rights activists and environmentalists sentenced to CMU units inside U.S. Prisons. This is still a story in progress so I have a feeling I'll be going back to this topic now and then for a while.

Now let's move on to the Sonia Sotomayor Supreme Court hearings in Congress. Like many people I saw a bit of news footage but hadn't seen the whole thing because I have things to do. However, am I the only one that thinks the Republicans bringing up the "Wise Latina" comment is beyond tired? Yes I know the neocons (which the GOP has been pretty much reduced to after eight years of these people gone wild over the Constitution) are playing race issues as often as possible, but this is ridiculous. Between this and the usual playing politics, the news clips would be entertaining if these people weren't serious. Hell Pat Buchanan wants race brought up more as a wedge issue.

So why do the Republicans keep bringing up race and the "wise Latina" comment? Mainly 'cause they know if they repeat something out of context enough times they can get people to believe it. Add to this Sen. Tom Coburn (R, OK) and his imitation of Ricky Ricardo and I'm amazed that Sotomayor has stayed calm. Most likely she'll get confirmed to the Court, but nothing surprises me with the neocons.

There is one thing that should be brought up in the Sotomayor case: the fact that a wrongfully convicted inmate (later cleared by DNA evidence) had his appeal denied by Sotomayor. This should be brought up and discussed, if for no other reason than transparency.

While I do worry that Sotomayor might move the Supreme Court further to the right,it's obvious she's more qualified than some of the people Dubya appointed.

So what next? I don't know. But this should be a start for now.

Far RIght Polarization, Recent Shootings, and What Now?

The last couple of weeks have taken some surprisingly unsuspected turns for the worse in our society. Between the May 31st shooting of Dr. George Tiller in Wichita, KS while he was at church and last Wednesday's Holocaust Museum shooting, which killed security guard Stephen T. Johns, it appears that lone gunman are committing horrific acts seemingly out of nowhere. In both cases, the tragedies were shocking and reported as if they came out of nowhere. But were they?

Back in April a Dept of Homeland Security report was leaked that sought to warn law enforcement agencies about the possibility of violence from far right wing organizations. Especially noted was anti abortion extremism and a possible rise in anti Semitism as well as using these organization potentially using the economy to try and get recruits.

It's definitely a bit ominous - even scary. However, Obama's Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano had to apologize for the report after it was attacked by neocon pundits and bloggers ranging from Sean Hannity to Focus on the Family's James Dobson (who claimed "there were no Timothy McVeighs out there" and that they were "making a big deal out of something that hasn't happened and may not happen". Michelle Malkin even claimed the report was proof that the Obama administration was doing a hit job. Thus while the report was worried about neo-Nazis, white supremacists and the like, these people automatically claimed they were being persecuted and blamed Obama.

The funny thing about the controversy regarding aid report was this - the report was requested by the Bush administration.

Yes, another instance for the right wing in this country to attack the current administration on something the President they supported all these years actually requested. You;d think most of these people would see it was about neo Nazi types and distance themselves, but instead they cried victim (funny how the right seems to do that a lot these days).

Soon it was pushed into the media version of the rabbit hole until the murder of Dr. Tiller. While pro forced pregnancy groups condemned the act they also in the same breath attacked Dr. Tiller and what he did. While it did temporarily bring the previous memo to light, it appeared to be a one time thing. Then suspect Scott Roeder called the AP from his jail cell claiming that more anti abortion violence is planned nationwide. While the topic continued to make its way in the news, it would soon be eclipsed by Von Brunn's shooting at the Holocaust Museum.

At first glance it appears that both Roeder and Von Brunn were lone wolves, people who committed acts of terror that weren't members of specific extremist organizations. However, both suspects had ties to organizations even if they weren't hardcore members. Roeder for example had the phone number for Cheryl Sullenger, Operation Rescue's senioer policy advisor, on the dash of his car when he was arrested. Von Brunn had over the years had connections with Willis Carto of the white supremacist Liberty Lobby and had received praise from the White Supremacist web site Storm Front.

So how are the neocons reacting to Von Brunn. Well, they're claiming he was a leftist. Yes, I shit you not. They're actually claiming that this neo Nazi piece of fucking shit is part of the left wing movement. ONe of the more ridiculous ones include right wing blogger Andrew Breitbart's voicemail to gawker claiming Von Brunn wasn't a conservative and was actually a multiculturalist. Claims like these would be funny if they weren't scary and devoid of reality.

The truth of the matter is that assholes like Roeder and Von Brunn are the most obvious examples of the polarization this country has undergone over the past 25 or so years. Pushed to the breaking point by right wing radio hosts and Fox News, this movement has played a large role in creating a climate where people of opposing views cant communicate. While the right wing claims the left and their "PC culture" is to blame, the fact that they pushed their purge like attitudes even further during the Dubya era tends to show otherwise. It seems that many gravitate to this strain of conservatism when life doesn't turn out exactly as planned and they'd rather blame others than look inward and make changes. At this point, most of these people don't go to bombing places or shooting people (it's easier to cyberbully and troll websites on the other side using the Internet's anonymity to state things in a manner they might otherwise not say to a person's face). However just because most of these people don't reach that point doesn't mean the neocons had nothing to do with being a factor in Roeder and Von Brunn going batshit crazy and committing these inexcusable acts.

So what now? This question is way easier to ask than answer. Nothing is solved by censoring other opinions (and with the Internet the way it is that may be very impossible to do). While we shold allow free speech (if for no other reason than that knowing one's enemy is easier when one states their views out in the open) there are already laws that cover assault, vandalism and the like. When the line is crossed (and if we're going to have laws and government in the first place) those should be the go to when shit falls apart. However, in Roeder's case he was caught gluing the locks of an abortion clinic in Kansas City the day before he murdered Dr. Tiller (a clear violation of the FACE act) and was not arrested proving that if an existing law isn't enforced than new laws probably won't help things.

I know this has been a long, winding read. Sadly, this is the tip of the iceberg as things stand now. Currently this story is being written as it unfolds. What happens from here on out is up to us.