Peeking at the Eegians

Is everyone dressed? We’re coming to visit!

We were this close to having another petition this week, but someone got in right under the wire! We won’t say who (but we can’t resist rolling our eyes towards our honorary great grandpapá – but that could be anybody! Almost).

Ductape has updated his site! Ways to participate in tomorrow’s Big Event, something everyone can do. And scroll down a bit… and go sign the petition, this time from the ACLU!

Still, even if we didn’t get to do our petition, I think there are probably treasures on that site that were written before we even knew we had an honorary great grandpapá, so… *looks at the sky and whistles*…

Guess what!? Well, yes, it is true that I have a cat that is apparently stuck underneath my fireplace, but that wasn’t what I was going to say… deano – art crit… 3 pictures in a row that I know what they are! That has got to be a first… but I still love the comments. Even when I know what it is, it’s interesting to see how much I am not actually seeing. If you know what I mean. Go look!

In between amending the US Constitution to include health care for all, katiebird is keeping up with her commitment, and helping to provide support for others keeping up theirs.

By the way… if you are coming here from somewhere else, and you’ve not read this blog this week… scroll down and do so! Our Manny has been on fire… that fire in the belly in support of equal justice and human rights that comes through so clearly. You don’t want to miss a word! Well, maybe you can skip Bud… but only if you can resist those eyes!

[UPDATE!]So, back to Olivia… we have a poll! What do you think… “petal pr0n“? (dada), or “flowerotica” (AndiF)? Amazingly enough, I had nothing to do with these names! I wasn’t even there… really! Of course, we could just say “pretty flowers”, cuz they are! Ahem.

Speaking Truthiness to Power? catnip has something to say about Stephen Colbert’s little bombshell last night. And scroll down! She, like everyone else who pays attention, has a little trouble believing that Bush is suddenly concerned about torture.

James posts about the marches tomorrow, and then has an article whose title begs you to read it… Brownshirt Barbie Incites Local Fascism. Bet you can’t guess who it’s about!

[UPDATE AGAIN!] XicanoPwr is on a roll! This will have you ready to march on Washington!
Plus, the tragic story of that vile attack on that young boy and more. Lots of passion, lots to read!

Duke also has lots of stuff! There is Manny’s “Why May 1st Matters” (also posted right below), and theboz found something at the US State Dept that Bush might want to take a look at before brainlessly spouting again. Or, maybe not. Duke himself talks about the California lege doing something right for once. I wonder what brought that on.

Man, it’s a good thing I went to Family Man’s site towards the end, cuz this quest for slackdom is wearing me out! However, in between all the work toward slackdom, we get a visit to where Family Man never lived, and a great trip with mom, and more! It’s still a new blog, so just go read the whole thing! (whatever you didn’t read last time, 😉

Now that dove has realized that we are still peeking, she’s unearthed some amazing stuff! All new to me, and I suspect to others as well. And all thought provoking and relevant, so you know what they say… or at least I’ve been saying all day… go read the whole thing!

All done! (I think – if anyone notices any missing Eegians… or some who should be Eegians, let me know!)

 

Why Monday, May 1st Matters

The time has come for everyone to stand in solidarity and demand an end to the tyranny of the people by corporations and their billionnaire beneficiaries. We are all being squeezed by their greed and everyday more and more families are slipping into poverty. Aside from the economic issues, there is the unspoken truth that racism is fueling the backlash to an organized and empowered immigrant movement.

No, not all immigrants are latino or Mexican, but there is enough hostility being thrown in our direction that to stand in solidarity on Monday, May 1st, is to fight back against future acts of violence like this.

Prosecutors won’t immediately seek hate-crime charges against two white teens accused of brutally beating and sodomizing a 16-year-old Hispanic boy, who was clinging to life after being left for dead, authorities said.

The two attacked the boy after he tried to kiss a 12-year-old girl at an unsupervised house party Saturday night in suburban Spring, authorities said

The attackers apparently were offended at the age difference between the victim and the girl, who is also Hispanic, and shouted racial slurs at him during the 10- to 15-minute attack, investigators said.

Authorities said the two dragged the boy from the party and into the yard, where they sodomized him with a plastic pipe from a patio table umbrella and poured bleach on him.

The United States is a culturally diverse land, there is not one monolithic norm for Americans, no litmus test that says, “You act like an American.” Not even the English language can be used, because there are countless U.S.-born citizens who don’t speak a word of it. It’s not like that tongue was native to these shores.

I’m utterly disgusted by what happened to that young boy in Texas. It is a symptom of the larger problem of demonization and xenophobia being preached by groups like the Minutemen, National Alliance, and some of the Republican lawmakers in Washington, D.C. I’m aware of the rising tension because it is starting to affect me personally when I’m out in public. There are more sideways looks and clutchings of the purse as I walk by. I wish I was joking… If leadership is not shown at a national level against this form of hatred and violence, then I fear a large and wide-spread problem in the future.

To participate on May 1st is to show solidarity for human rights and human dignity. It can be done in many forms, whether you participate in a full-scale boycott as is being called for by groups nationwide; or it can be done symbolically by wearing a white shirt on Monday with some type of ribbon that will draw the curiosity of your co-workers and family.

The Green Party of the United States gives a great example of what it will mean to stand with the immigrant population in the United States. Take it to heart as you decide on your form of protest.

RESOLUTION

Whereas, representatives in both the U.S. House and Senate are promoting resolutions criminalizing the status of immigrant workers;

Whereas, such actions would violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which recognizes “the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family;”

Whereas, both the House and Senate reflect an overwhelming majority of representation of citizens of immigrant ancestry;

Whereas, a great portion of people adversely affected by such resolutions are of heritage indigenous to the American continents;

Whereas, immigrants contribute to the U.S. economy, including 7 billion dollars paid into the U.S. Social Security System per year;

Whereas, the illusion of gained employment for U.S. citizens is nullified by the presence of “outsourcing” of jobs to citizens in other countries void of wage, health and safety protections, this without objection by representatives in the House and Senate;

“Whereas, our ten key values direct us to stand in Dr. Martin Luther King’s legacy of solidarity with the oppressed and supporting the age-old American Labor movement principle, “An injury to one is an injury to all;”

Whereas, we honor the second Key Value of the Green Party of the United States: “All persons should have the rights and opportunity to benefit equally from the resources afforded us by society and the environment. We must consciously confront in ourselves, our organizations, and society at large, barriers such as racism and class oppression, sexism and homophobia, ageism and disability, which act to deny fair treatment and equal justice under the law;”

Be it resolved by the Green Party of the United States Steering Committee, the Green Party of the United States National Committee, and the Green Party of the United States Peace Action Committee, that we join in solidarity with the “El Gran Paro Americano 2006, the May 1 Great American Boycott, honoring ‘Un dia sin immigrante’ ‘A day without an immigrant’ with the pledge for No Work, No School, No Sales, and No Buying.”

El pueblo unido jamás será vencido! – The people united will never be defeated

Crossposted at Migra Matters

Tags: boycott, immigration, hate crimes, el gran paro

 

Universal Health Care: A proposal for an Amendment to the United States Constitution

I’ve seen so many proposals for Health Care plans, so many good ideas and horrible ideas. And passionate discussions of the nitty-gritty details of what should be covered and how often and when we should stop covering certain things for some people. But I think we are jumping way ahead of ourselves when we talk about these details. There is one very simple question that we should be asking before we get into those issues:

Does everyone have a right to Affordable Health Care?

Since over 40 million of us don’t have access to Affordable Health Care, it seems obvious that they don’t have that right.

So I’m proposing that we draft an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States granting the right to affordable health care to everyone.

With this call to action, I’m asking for help drafting the amendment, naming it and finding sponsors to introduce it.

Cross-posted to Man Eegee, The Daily Kos and The Booman Tribune.

 

Friday Bud Blogging

De colores, de colores se visten los campos en la primavera
De colores, de colores son los pajaritos que vienen de afuera
De colores, de colores es el arco iris que vemos lucir

Y por eso los grandes amores de muchos colores me gustan a mi
Y por eso los grandes amores de muchos colores me gustan a mi

 

Mariachi Open Thread

This is one of my favorite times of the year:
The Tucson International Mariachi Festival

 

Mushroom Clouds for Peace

This has been blogged extensively at the community sites in Lefty Blogistan, but I wanted to compile some information and posts regarding the upcoming detonation of a 700-lb. bunker-busting bomb in Nevada.

Taking another cue from Orwell, the blast test has been named Divine Strake.

The DIVINE STRAKE full scale test is planned to be a large-yield, buried burst detonated at the Nevada Test Site. Divine Strake would appear to be associated with the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator RNEP, or possibly the B61-11 Earth-Penetrating Weapon, a fact that is obscured in most press coverage. Divine Strake is a high-explosive (HE) test sponsored by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) at the Nevada Test Site (NTS). The test is a detonation of a 700 ton buried heavy AN/FO charge above a tunnel structure. The main purpose of the test is to study ground shock effects on deeply buried tunnel structures. Of secondary interest is the airblast produced by a buried charge and its modification as it propagates over the local terrain. Scheduled for the summer of 2006, as of 01 April 2006 the test was planned for 02 June 2006.

linkage to GlobalSecurity.org

All signs point to this blast being a clear message to the Iranian government that the United States will not hesitate to use the full horror of our military arsenal against them, specifically nuclear weaponry. I would like to echo Real History Lisa’s commentary on this terrible possibility.

The entire world outside the Bush administration and a few defense contractors opposes the use of any and every kind of nuclear weapon. But Bush and his cronies are determined to try out their new toys, even if they have to destroy the last shred of America’s credibility as a compassionate nation to do so.

Could they really be that insane? Iran does not have nuclear weapons. It will not have them for many more years even if we did nothing at all in the immediate future. There is plenty of time to seek diplomatic solutions.

[snip]

Translation: They really are that insane. They are hellbent on using their nuclear weapons. They think if they make them smaller they will be okay.

And why should that be a surprise? This is the team that doesn’t believe in science, that believes that reality is whatever they want it to be.

And if they lived in a padded cell, that would be perfectly fine.

But their belief now imperils hundreds of thousands if not several million, because make no mistake – if we use nuclear weapons offensively for any reason, they will be used on us. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of our lives, because radiation is forever, nearly. Just ask the people from Chernobyl.

Aside from the fact that this impending mushroom cloud is being staged on stolen land from the Winnemucca Indian Colony, it should be obvious to any sane person that this is the worst possible type of weapon to be in the queue under Rummy and George’s leadership incompetence.

I will bet that the majority of Americans have no clue that this test is occurring. RenaRF alerts us to the plees being made by Air America’s Randi Rhodes to draw attention to this blatant form of warmongering. (from a recent appearance on Lou Dobbs’ CNN show)

RHODES: … I did not come here to be partisan. I came here today, Lou — I swear to you — I came here today to ask you to do something. Seriously! My callers — my listeners — yours, too, I’m sure — always get to this point and they go, well, then, James, what do you want us to do? What do we do? What do we do?

If every single camera that’s available in the media — cable- wide, network-wide — is not in Nevada at the nuclear test site on June 2nd to watch 1.4 millions pounds of explosives be blown up so they can do the math and figure out how to make a tactical nuke, a smaller nuclear weapon that will represent that much firepower for Iran — if we don’t show America this mushroom cloud that will explode in Nevada on the 2nd of June, there is no hope for the American people, there is no hope for the media.

Crooks and Liars has the video clip. RenaRF continues with a request from Kossacks who will be attending YearlyKos in Las Vegas, scheduled for a couple of days past the blast date, to make sure they have cameras and videos rolling so the mushroom cloud is certain to make its way into the public consciousness; hopefully scaring them into the reality that such great and terrible power will be in the hands of a madman and his band of goons. She also offers this practical advice for those who can’t be physically present for the bombing.

I also would urge a letter to the President, to Don Rumsfeld (as suggested with contact information via links found below) [here], and your Senators as a good starting point to vehemently oppose this blatant move in the direction of nuclear proliferation.

As I said yesterday with the posting on torture and rendition flights, “we have to start somewhere”. The alternative is too horrifying to contemplate.

Tags: divine strake, nuclear weapons, nevada, Iran, mushroom cloud

 

Old Pueblo Oddities

Earlier this week, the city experienced an extra dose of the weird. It all started midday on Tuesday when one of my coworkers came into the office and announced that a tanker truck had blown up somewhere near Congressman Grijalva’s office. Of course, that freaked me out given the heightened sense of alert we’re commonly fed.

Turns out, it wasn’t a tanker truck at all, but rather a large fire at a roofing company in the area of the Conressman’s office. Here’s the kicker: it was started by a dust devil. Apparently the force of the wind blew some of the roofing materials into power lines and ignited a spark.

That’s weird enough on it’s own, but within minutes of the fire, two water mains busted clear across town in a busy intersection and caused a 50 foot sinkhole. It has now been discovered that the two events were directly related. How? The water company increased the pressure in the water lines to help fight the fire which caused the break in the lines and water to bubble up in the middle of the street.

At first they told us that it would take weeks to fix (I have to drive through the intersection to get to work everyday), but now they are saying it should only be a few days.

Why am I telling you all this? It’s simple. I haven’t had my coffee yet 🙂

 

International Pressure Building Against Torture Policies

Despite the claims by George Bush last November in Panama that “we do not torture”, ample amounts of evidence exist that the United States is systematically utilizing inhumane techniques of interrogation in the neocon cabal’s War on Terror™. It is clear that political pressure within the country will not be enough to stop these abhorrent practices, or else they would never have been tolerated to begin with, but I am hanging my sombrero on a hope that the international community will finally exert enough force to rebuke the torture apologists.

As is usually the case with this subject, we have to look to the media outside of our borders to get the lowdown. From the International Herald Tribune.

Investigators for the European Parliament said Wednesday that data gathered from air safety regulators showed that the CIA had flown 1,000 undeclared flights over Europe since 2001, sometimes stopping on the Continent to transport terrorism suspects kidnapped inside the European Union to countries using torture.

The operation used the same group of U.S. agents and the same fleet of secret planes over and over, the investigators said. It also concluded that European countries, including Italy, Sweden, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, had been aware of CIA abductions or handovers in their territory and therefore may have been complicit in allowing human rights to be breached.

[snip]

The report released Wednesday – the first of several planned by the Parliament – grew out of three months of hearings and more than 50 hours of testimony by human rights advocates and individuals who said they had been kidnapped by U.S. agents and flown to other countries, including Egypt and Afghanistan, where they were tortured.

The end of the IHT article mentions Khaled al-Masri, who was kidnapped wrongfully by U.S. agents and tortured in a prison for several months in Afghanistan. I profiled him back in February here if you need a memory refresh.

I bring him up, because according to the BBC, tomorrow a full investigation is being launched in Germany regarding the German government’s involvement in spying for the U.S. in Iraq prior to the invasion as well as the details of the nightmare endured by Mr. al-Masri.

The government has tried to avoid the inquiry, arguing that it could compromise the intelligence service.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has dismissed claims that agents of the German intelligence service, the BND, had helped the US military to select bombing targets.

He said they had remained in Baghdad during the hostilities merely to keep the government in Berlin informed.

[snip]

Former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and former Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer will be among the witnesses.

Mr Steinmeier – who was Mr Schroeder’s chief of staff at the time – will also face questions.

linkage

The wheels of justice are finally starting to turn in countries who have conspired with the United States to denigrate and violate the human dignity of people like Maher Arar and Khaled al-Masri. The peace and justice movements within the U.S. are slowly building, but it will take a lot more public outrage and political activism to stop the screams in secret prisons all across the globe.

If you feel helpless against this ongoing stream of horrific news, you can start being more active by signing the ACLU petition entitled Torture is UnAmerican, which will be delivered to Condoleeza Rice. They are shooting for 100,000 signatures by May 5th. The numbers should be exponentially larger than that, but we have to start somewhere.

Tags: khaled al-masri, maher arar, torture policies, rendition flights.

 

Creating a War Zone at the Borders

At least they’re willing to symbolically admit it.

The Senate voted Wednesday to divert some of the money President Bush requested for the war in Iraq to instead increase patrols against illegal immigrants on the nation’s borders and provide the Coast Guard with new boats and helicopters.
An amendment cutting Bush’s Iraq request by $1.9 billion to pay for new Border Patrol agents, aircraft and some fencing at border crossings widely used by illegal immigrants was adopted on 59-39 vote.

While the border security funds had sweeping support, Democrats and Republicans argued over whether the cuts to Pentagon war funds would harm troops on the ground in Iraq. The cuts, offered by Judd Gregg, R-N.H., trim Bush’s request for the war by almost 3 percent but don’t specify how.

The vote came in the wake of a toughly worded promise by the White House to veto the $106.5 billion measure unless it is cut back to below $95 billion.

linkage

Maybe I’ve become fatigued with outrage over the past several years and can’t think clearly anymore when exposed to such radioactive stupidity, but does anyone really think George would use his first veto power to strike out funding for his Great Adventure? He’s so focused on his legacy that I doubt his Texas-sized ego would allow it.

In the meantime, the Rubber Stamp Congress is conforming to their Master’s commands and paring down the International Warmonger Fund to shift it to the Domestic Warmonger Fund. I have to wonder: how many Senators and House Members have actually been down to this area? Do they even know what the geography is like?

Probably not. Instead they would rather fix the problem from a distance by pontificating on the best way to “protect the homeland”. Here’s an idea, stop building a warzone and write policies that work to restore some balance between the two economies separated by la frontera.

The Congress’ ineptitude is on full-display, it’s as if they are modeling the behavior of one of the border patrol’s unmanned spy drones.

 

Racism and Hatred in American Culture

The Arizona Daily Star did a profile earlier this week of Tucson resident Jim Zwerg who joined civil rights activists in the 1960’s for the Freedom Riders Movement.

On May 20, 1961, Jim Zwerg and 21 others boarded a Greyhound bus in Birmingham, Ala., bound for Montgomery, and ultimately, New Orleans.

Some on the bus were white, like Zwerg. Most were black. All were Freedom Riders, testing interstate bus segregation in the Deep South, which had long ignored a 1946 Supreme Court decision outlawing the practice.

Arriving from Nashville, then arrested and let go in Birmingham without incident, they were now about to feel the full fury of hate bearing down on them in Montgomery.

Out of nowhere, the howling mob descended — men, women, children — carrying bricks, hammers, baseball bats.

linkage

There’s an image of Mr. Zwerg at the link, showing his face severely beaten. The consequences for speaking out for equality and justice were nearly fatal for that young activist. I wish I could possess even just a drop of that type of courage in a similar situation, because unfortunately the same disparities exist in today’s society.

Many Americans pretend that the days of lynch mobs are over, but I beg to differ. They are alive and well, but have taken a more subtle and sinister form. Since September 11th, 2001, the populace of the U.S. has been radicalized in such a way that the hatred and racism needed to commit such horrific violence is always boiling below the surface, waiting for a perfect moment to lash out. Here’s an example from today’s Star.

The office building of a black Tucson attorney was vandalized, including having swastikas and a racial slur spray-painted on an outside wall, police said.

The vandals also broke a window and started a fire on a window sill, causing further damage, police said.

Doris M. Reed, a contract lawyer for the Juvenile Court, who also privately handles family law cases, arrived at her office on Speedway near North Stone Avenue about 7:30 a.m. Monday and found three swastikas and a racial slur painted on her building, said Joann Thompson, Reed’s assistant office manager.

According to the article, this is the third time in three years that this particular office building has been defaced. I first learned about the incident via the 10 o’clock news last night and it got me thinking (scary, I know).

The political establishment in Washington, D.C., specifically the Rovian GOP and White House, has spent so much time pitting everyone against each other that the days of bipartisanship and reconciliation are a long shot away. They have bred so much distrust and disgust at anyone who holds a different viewpoint than them (“Other-ness” in the Eegian vernacular) and been so successful at it that we all model their behavior in some form.

I can see it everwhere. Even within the liberal blogosphere. It’s nearly impossible to disagree with someone on an issue without feeling like a line has been drawn in the sand. The Flying Spaghetti Monster knows that I’ve been guilty of harsh words plenty of times, but there are moments when I’m left speechless by the lack of compassion and willingness to listen from the other direction.

All emotions exist in varying degrees. I have found that the key to a healthy lifestyle is striking a balance that feeds the good ones such as compassion, love and humility while not completely ignoring the latent shadows of hate, xenophobia and racism that exist inside of me. To deny that they are there in some form allows them to grow and fester without my knowledge. While I may never spray paint hate messages on the building of a perceived enemy, or beat up another human being until they were unrecognizable, I could make statements or observations that are damaging towards the dignity and respect entitled to all human beings; even those, and perhaps especially those who refuse to show me the same courtesy.

Personal responsibility is one of those things that is bipartisan and universal. There will always be others who have no concept of that type of individual accountability, or outright reject it, but I have to be willing to hold myself to the highest standard if the tide is ever going to rise again in this country and flood out the toxins.