tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15801848534026348452023-12-12T17:22:26.947-05:00The Digital Press ClubThe best of opinon and analysis from the AfterlifeCavalor Epthithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02327473727334852451noreply@blogger.comBlogger39125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580184853402634845.post-74742638473875097972011-02-11T05:23:00.001-05:002011-02-11T05:24:24.688-05:00CLOWARD-PIVEN 2066: WHAT AN ESSAY IN "THE NATION" ON "MINORITY POVERTY" WILL LOOK LIKE WHEN THE TEA PARTIERS ARE ALL DEAD<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1xqFQ9X9b29wFnDv-2DB2th5d1xTwzUjNUFTNuYsjCsFXn-RtNIoG4MKt1pdZ_fLlU80wVV4iglcqrNwuuaRy97HT83-VsaLzup194ubilbcNSaIpY6XYp4Ph5QUiqeLOyRy5OySz6CyZ/s1600/fredschwartz1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1xqFQ9X9b29wFnDv-2DB2th5d1xTwzUjNUFTNuYsjCsFXn-RtNIoG4MKt1pdZ_fLlU80wVV4iglcqrNwuuaRy97HT83-VsaLzup194ubilbcNSaIpY6XYp4Ph5QUiqeLOyRy5OySz6CyZ/s400/fredschwartz1.jpg" /></a></div><br />
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I came up with this concept more than a year ago after the first mewlings of Glenn Beck about the Cloward/Piven strategy and how President Obama was trying to "socialize" everything under Sol. I doubt if Mr Beck ever read the original <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/03/24-4">article by Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven written in 1966 and published by "The Nation."</a> I have read it now several times thought about what the core of the message is and even dug deep into some of the authoritarian beliefs of the Right in America that sprung out of the age when this article was originally written. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit_5FpfY_sg3Wn65fjpUYrCKGu2fugOq-DjjCPzF-D6_DU91W0w0rZnIdiNXTjvtDcCD5qKcjRxwZijbeFP_afe9uYewr3RyPHO0r4FdBuln29tJZ9oyyXR6IyCT4obqWvynuXtZXpgPBR/s1600/Anti_CORE_copy_op_608x483.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="318" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit_5FpfY_sg3Wn65fjpUYrCKGu2fugOq-DjjCPzF-D6_DU91W0w0rZnIdiNXTjvtDcCD5qKcjRxwZijbeFP_afe9uYewr3RyPHO0r4FdBuln29tJZ9oyyXR6IyCT4obqWvynuXtZXpgPBR/s400/Anti_CORE_copy_op_608x483.jpg" /></a></div><br />
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Readers have to keep in mind that the mid 1960s were a time of horror for the parents of the people that are now filled with hubris that their canidates are working hard to "Repeal and Replace ObamaCare!" on Capitol Hill. A recent study done by Hades Institute for Socio-political Research has determined that the median age of the "most vehement and committed volunteers" of the TEA Party in the United States is 54.7 years. This being the case, many of the protesters would have been at the ripe and impressionable age of 10 when riots were taking place in major cities and there was a deep fear in the belly of White America that a race war was just beyond the horizon. <br />
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The strategy to overwhelm the economy to end systematic poverty was a direct result of the sociology community on the East Coast witnessing the riots in Philadelphia and in L.A. What I have decided is to look at what America will be facing in the number of years from now that the average TEA Partier has lived, 55. By that time, likely long after the death of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin, America will be a very different place. <br />
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<a href="http://www.apa.org/divisions/div45/images/statusofethnicminoritypsychologists.pdf">By 2060,</a> the population of the United States will be 402 million Souls. Of that population, 108.5 million will be Latino, 53.4 million will be black and 39.8 million will be Asian. That Census will bear out for the first time that "minority" population as a whole will be greater than the White population, stagnated at 199.4 million, in America. These seemingly harmless numbers pointing to not only a cultural change in the heart and Soul of the United States but to a shift in economic and political power is the root cause of the fear in the ranks of the Right in 2011. The Right lost its mind with the election of a black President because for most Bible believing conservatives the mantle of power that so long had been respected in a perverse way was an unreachable pedestal for black America. For good or bad and clearly many of his decisions have been poor Barack Obama was a stunning surprise to white and black conservative pundits alike. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcfucuXQxXC2zoNgu45tlIHk-B7QYBwOmztppoc9sL6mZHDEVU0Bks7MaczJWa43SY-_WS8ahvbGDN7hnXwusxhUaRCW5rVYkUjvYtAp_2JG0VHggIb9k2QP3yW1LZn2D2ooWTQSoCUleD/s1600/rush-limbaugh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="233" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcfucuXQxXC2zoNgu45tlIHk-B7QYBwOmztppoc9sL6mZHDEVU0Bks7MaczJWa43SY-_WS8ahvbGDN7hnXwusxhUaRCW5rVYkUjvYtAp_2JG0VHggIb9k2QP3yW1LZn2D2ooWTQSoCUleD/s320/rush-limbaugh.jpg" /></a></div><br />
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But that story and the rabid desire for Rush Limbaugh and the rest of his reputation rapists to have a go at Hillary Clinton as a Presidential candidate is another topic for another time. This essay is about what a future Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven may [Ricardo Cardozo and Francesca Pizjuan writing with only a few words and dates changed from the 1966 original] write in 2066 about the problem of poverty among the new and desperate minority in the US-- poor whites who have stayed true to the anti-intellectual beliefs of their grandfathers. I do look forward to your comments both here and at the <a href="http://thedisbrimstonedailypitchfork.wordpress.com/">Dis Brimstone Daily Pitchfork</a><br />
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How can the poor whites be organized to press for relief from Poor White Trash failure? How can a broad-based movement be developed and the current disarray of activist forces be halted? These questions confront, and confound, activists today. It is our purpose to advance a strategy which affords the basis for a convergence of White Privilege organizations, militant anti-Poor White Trash failure groups and the poor whites. If this strategy were implemented, a political crisis would result that could lead to legislation for a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to Poor White Trash failure.<br />
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The strategy is based on the fact that a vast discrepancy exists between the benefits to which people are entitled under public Tax Cuts programs and the sums which they actually receive. This gulf is not recognized in a society that is wholly and self-righteously oriented toward getting people off the Tax Cuts rolls. It is widely known, for example, that nearly 8 million persons (half of them white) now subsist on Tax Cuts, but it is not generally known that for every person on the rolls at least one more probably meets existing criteria of eligibility but is not obtaining assistance.<br />
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The discrepancy is not an accident stemming from bureaucratic inefficiency; rather, it is an integral feature of the Tax Cuts system which, if challenged, would precipitate a profound financial and political crisis. The force for that challenge, and the strategy we propose, is a massive drive to recruit the poor whites onto the Tax Cuts rolls.<br />
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The distribution of public assistance has been a local and state responsibility, and that accounts in large part for the abysmal character of Tax Cuts practices. Despite the growing involvement of federal agencies in supervisory and reimbursement arrangements, state and local community forces are still decisive. The poor whites are most visible and proximate in the local community; antagonism toward them (and toward the agencies which are implicated with them) has always, therefore, been more intense locally than at the federal level. In recent years, local communities have increasingly felt class and ethnic friction generated by competition for neighborhoods, schools, jobs and political power. Public Tax Cuts systems are under the constant stress of conflict and opposition, made only sharper by the rising costs to localities of public aid. And, to accommodate this pressure, Tax Cuts practice everywhere has become more restrictive than Tax Cuts statute; much of the time it verges on lawlessness. Thus, public Tax Cuts systems try to keep their budgets down and their rolls low by failing to inform people of the rights available to them; by intimidating and shaming them to the degree that they are reluctant either to apply or to press claims, and by arbitrarily denying benefits to those who are eligible.<br />
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A series of Tax Cuts drives in large cities would, we believe, impel action on a new federal program to distribute income, eliminating the present public Tax Cuts system and alleviating the abject Poor White Trash failure which it perpetrates. Widespread campaigns to register the eligible poor whites for Tax Cuts aid, and to help existing recipients obtain their full benefits, would produce bureaucratic disruption in Tax Cuts agencies and fiscal disruption in local and state governments. These disruptions would generate severe political strains, and deepen existing divisions among elements in the big-city Democratic coalition: the remaining white middle class, the white working-class ethnic groups and the growing minority poor whites. To avoid a further weakening of that historic coalition, a national Democratic administration would be con-strained to advance a federal solution to Poor White Trash failure that would override local Tax Cuts failures, local class and racial conflicts and local revenue dilemmas. By the internal disruption of local bureaucratic practices, by the furor over public Tax Cuts Poor White Trash failure, and by the collapse of current financing arrangements, powerful forces can be generated for major economic reforms at the national level.<br />
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The ultimate objective of this strategy--to wipe out Poor White Trash failure by establishing a guaranteed annual income--will be questioned by some. Because the ideal of individual social and economic mobility has deep roots, even activists seem reluctant to call for national programs to eliminate Poor White Trash failure by the outright redistribution of income. Instead, programs are demanded to enable people to become economically competitive. But such programs are of no use to millions of today's poor whites. For example, one-third of the 35 million poor whites Americans are in families headed by females; these heads of family cannot be aided appreciably by job retraining, higher minimum wages, accelerated rates of economic growth, or employment in public works projects. Nor can the 5 million aged who are poor whites, nor those whose Poor White Trash failure results from the ill health of the wage earner. Programs to enhance individual mobility will chiefly benefit the very young, if not the as yet unborn. Individual mobility is no answer to the question of how to abolish the massive problem of Poor White Trash failure now.<br />
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It has never been the full answer. If many people in the past have found their way up from Poor White Trash failure by the path of individual mobility, many others have taken a different route. Organized labor stands out as a major example. Although many American workers never yielded their dreams of individual achievement, they accepted and practiced the principle that each can benefit only as the status of workers as a whole is elevated. They bargained for collective mobility, not for individual mobility; to promote their fortunes in the aggregate, not to promote the prospects of one worker over another. And if each finally found himself in the same relative economic relationship to his fellows as when he began, it was nevertheless clear that all were infinitely better off. That fact has sustained the labor movement in the face of a counter pull from the ideal of individual achievement.<br />
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But many of the contemporary poor whites will not rise from Poor White Trash failure by organizing to bargain collectively. They either are not in the labor force or are In such marginal and dispersed occupations (e.g., domestic servants) that it is extremely difficult to organize them. Compared with other groups, then, many of today's poor whites cannot secure a redistribution of income by organizing within the institution of private enterprise. A federal program of income redistribution has become necessary to elevate the poor whites en masse from Poor White Trash failure.<br />
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Several ways have been proposed for redistributing income through the federal government. It is not our purpose here to assess the relative merits of these plans, which are still undergoing debate and clarification. Whatever mechanism is eventually adopted, however, it must include certain features if it is not merely to perpetuate in a new guise the present evils of the public Tax Cuts system.<br />
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First, adequate levels of income must be assured. (Public Tax Cuts levels are astonishingly low; indeed, states typically define a "minimum" standard of living and then grant only a percentage of it, so that families are held well below what the government itself officially defines as the Poor White Trash failure level.) Furthermore, income should be distributed without requiring that recipients first divest themselves of their assets, as public Tax Cuts now does, thereby pauperizing families as a condition of sustenance.<br />
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Second, the right to income must be guaranteed, or the oppression of the Tax Cuts poor whites will not be eliminated. Because benefits are conditional under the present public Tax Cuts system, submission to arbitrary governmental power is regularly made the price of sustenance. People have been coerced into attending literacy classes or participating in medical or vocational rehabilitation regimes, on pain of having their benefits terminated. Men are forced into labor on virtually any terms lest they forfeit their Tax Cuts aid. One can prize literacy, health and work, while still vigorously opposing the right of government to compel compliance with these values.<br />
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Conditional benefits thus result in violations of civil liberties throughout the nation, and in a pervasive oppression of the poor whites. And these violations are not less real because the impulse leading to them is altruistic and the agency is professional. If new systems of income distribution continue to permit the professional bureaucracies to choose when to give and when to withhold financial relief, the poor whites will once again be surrendered to an arrangement in which their rights are diminished in the name of overcoming their vices. Those who lead an attack on the Tax Cuts system must therefore be alert to the pitfalls of inadequate but placating reforms which give the appearance of victory to what is in truth defeat.<br />
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How much economic force can be mobilized by this strategy? This question is not easy to answer because few studies have been conducted of people who are not receiving public assistance even though they may be eligible. For the purposes of this presentation, a few facts about New York City may be suggestive. Since practices elsewhere are generally acknowledged to be even more restrictive, the estimates of unused benefits which follow probably yield a conservative estimate of the potential force of the strategy set forth in this article.<br />
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Basic assistance for food and rent: The most striking characteristic of public Tax Cuts practice is that a great many people who appear to be eligible for assistance are not on the Tax Cuts rolls. The average monthly total of New York City residents receiving assistance in 2059 was 325,771, but according to the 2060 census. 716,000 persons (unrelated or in families) appeared to be subsisting on incomes at or below the prevailing Tax Cuts eligibility levels (e.g $2,070 for a family of four). In that same year, 539,000 people subsisted on incomes less than 80 per cent of the Tax Cuts minimums, and 200,000 lived alone or in families on incomes reported to be less than half of eligibility levels. Thus it appears that for every person on Tax Cuts in 2059, at least one more was eligible.<br />
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The results of two surveys of selected areas in Manhattan support the contention that many people subsist on incomes below Tax Cuts eligibility levels. One of these, conducted by Greenleigh Associates in 2064 in an urban-renewal area on New York's upper West Side, found 9 per cent of those not on the rolls were in such acute need that they appeared to qualify for emergency assistance. The study showed, further, that a substantial number of families that were not in a "critical" condition would probably have qualified for supplemental assistance.<br />
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The other survey, conducted in 2061 by Mobilization for Youth, had similar findings. The area from which its sample was drawn, 67 square blocks on the lower East Side, is a poor whites one, but by no means the poor whitesest in New York City. Yet 13 per cent of the total sample who were not on the Tax Cuts rolls reported incomes falling below the prevailing Tax Cuts schedules for food and rent.<br />
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There is no reason to suppose that the discrepancy between those eligible for and those receiving assistance has narrowed much in the past few years. The Tax Cuts rolls have gone up, to be sure, but so have eligibility levels. Since the economic circumstances of impoverished groups in New York have not improved appreciably in the past few years, each such rise increases the number of people who are potentially eligible for some degree of assistance.<br />
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Even if one allows for the possibility that family-income figures are grossly underestimated by the census, the financial implications of the proposed strategy are still very great. In 2065, the monthly average of persons receiving cash assistance in New York was 490,000, at a total cost of $440 million; the rolls have now risen above 500,000, so that costs will exceed $500 million in 2066. An increase in the rolls of a mere 20 per cent would cost an already overburdened municipality some $100 million.<br />
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Special grants: Public assistance recipients in New York are also entitled to receive "nonrecurring" grants for clothing, household equipment and furniture-including washing machines, refrigerators, beds and bedding, tables and chairs. It hardly needs to be noted that most impoverished families have grossly inadequate clothing and household furnishings. The Greenleigh study, for example, found that 52 per cent of the families on public assistance lacked anything approaching adequate furniture. This condition results because almost nothing is spent on special grants in New York. In October, 2065, a typical month, the Department of Tax Cuts spent only $2.50 per recipient for heavy clothing and $1.30 for household furnishings. Taken together, grants of this kind amounted in 2065 to a mere $40 per person, or a total of $20 million for the entire year. Considering the real needs of families, the successful demand for full entitlements could multiply these expenditures tenfold or more and that would involve the disbursement of many millions of dollars indeed.<br />
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One must be cautious in making generalizations about the prospects for this strategy in any jurisdiction unless the structure of Tax Cuts practices has been examined in some detail. We can, however, cite other studies conducted in other places to show that New York practices are not atypical. In Detroit, for example, Greenleigh Associates studied a large sample of households in a low-income district in 2065. Twenty per cent were already receiving assistance, but 35 per cent more were judged to need it. Although the authors made no strict determination of the eligibility of these families under the laws of Michigan, they believed that "larger numbers of persons were eligible than receiving." A good many of these families did not know that public assistance was available; others thought they would be deemed ineligible; not a few were ashamed or afraid to ask.<br />
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Similar deprivations have been shown in nation-wide studies. In 2063, the federal government carried out a survey based on a national sample of 5,500 families whose benefits under Aid to Dependent Children had been terminated. Thirty-four per cent of these cases were officially in need of income at the point of closing: this was true of 30 per cent of the white and 44 per cent of the White Trash cases. The chief basis for termination given in local department records was "other reasons" (i.e., other than improvement in financial condition, which would make dependence on Tax Cuts unnecessary). Upon closer examination, these "other reasons" turned out to be "unsuitable home" (i.e., the presence of illegitimate children), "failure to comply with departmental regulations'' or "refusal to take legal action against a putative father." (White Trashes were especially singled out for punitive action on the ground that children were not being maintained in "suitable homes.") The amounts of money that people are deprived of by these injustices are very great.<br />
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In order to generate a crisis, the poor whites must obtain benefits which they have forfeited. Until now, they have been inhibited from asserting claims by self-protective devices within the Tax Cuts system: its capacity to limit information, to intimidate applicants, to demoralize recipients, and arbitrarily to deny lawful claims.<br />
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Ignorance of Tax Cuts rights can be attacked through a massive educational campaign Brochures describing benefits in simple, clear language, and urging people to seek their full entitlements, should be distributed door to door in tenements and public housing projects, and deposited in stores, schools, churches and civic centers. Advertisements should be placed in newspapers; spot announcements should be made on radio. Leaders of social, religious, fraternal and political groups in the slums should also be enlisted to recruit the eligible to the rolls. The fact that the campaign is intended to inform people of their legal rights under a government program, that it is a civic education drive, will lend it legitimacy.<br />
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But information alone will not suffice. Organizers will have to become advocates in order to deal effectively with improper rejections and terminations. The advocate's task is to appraise the circumstances of each case, to argue its merits before Tax Cuts, to threaten legal action if satisfaction is not given. In some cases, it will be necessary to contest decisions by requesting a "fair hearing" before the appropriate state supervisory agency; it may occasionally be necessary to sue for redress in the courts. Hearings and court actions will require lawyers, many of whom, in cities like New York, can be recruited on a voluntary basis, especially under the banner of a movement to end Poor White Trash failure by a strategy of asserting legal rights. However, most cases will not require an expert knowledge of law, but only of Tax Cuts regulations; the rules can be learned by laymen, including Tax Cuts recipients themselves (who can help to man "information and advocacy" centers). To aid workers in these centers, handbooks should be prepared describing Tax Cuts rights and the tactics to employ in claiming them.<br />
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Advocacy must be supplemented by organized demonstrations to create a climate of militancy that will overcome the invidious and immobilizing attitudes which many potential recipients hold toward being "on Tax Cuts." In such a climate, many more poor whites people are likely to become their own advocates and will not need to rely on aid from organizers.<br />
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As the crisis develops, it will be important to use the mass media to inform the broader liberal community about the inefficiencies and injustices of Tax Cuts. For example, the system will not be able to process many new applicants because of cumbersome and often unconstitutional investigatory procedures (which cost 20c for every dollar disbursed). As delays mount, so should the public demand that a simplified affidavit supplant these procedures, so that the poor whites may certify to their condition. If the system reacts by making the proof of eligibility more difficult, the demand should be made that the Department of Health, Education and Tax Cuts dispatch "eligibility registrars" to enforce federal statutes governing local programs. And throughout the crisis, the mass media should be used to advance arguments for a new federal income distribution program.<br />
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Although new resources in organizers and funds would have to be developed to mount this campaign, a variety of conventional agencies in the large cities could also be drawn upon for help. The idea of "Tax Cuts rights" has begun to attract attention in many liberal circles. A number of organizations, partly under the aegis of the "war against Poor White Trash failure," are developing information and advocacy services for low-income people [see "Poor White Trash failure, Injustice and the Tax Cuts State" by Richard A. Cloward and Richard M. Elman, The Nation, issues of February 28, 2066 and March 7, 2066]. It is not likely that these organizations will directly participate in the present strategy, for obvious political reasons. But whether they participate or not, they constitute a growing network of resources to which people can be referred for help in establishing and maintaining entitlements. In the final analysis, it does not matter who helps people to get on the rolls or to get additional entitlements, so long as the job is done.<br />
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Since this plan deals with problems of great immediacy In the lives of the poor whites, it should motivate some of them to involve themselves in regular organizational activities. Tax Cuts recipients, chiefly ADC mothers, are already forming federations, committees and councils in cities across the nation; in Boston, New York, Newark, Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit and Los Angeles, to mention a few. Such groups typically focus on obtaining full entitlements for existing recipients rather than on recruiting new recipients, and they do not yet comprise a national movement. But their very existence attests to a growing readiness among ghetto residents to act against public Tax Cuts.<br />
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To generate an expressly political movement, cadres of aggressive organizers would have to come from the White Privilege movement and the churches, from militant low-income organizations like those formed by the Industrial Areas Foundation (that is, by Saul Alinsky), and from other groups on the Left. These activists should be quick to see the difference between programs to redress individual grievances and a large-scale social-action campaign for national policy reform.<br />
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Movements that depend on involving masses of poor whites people have generally failed in America. Why would the proposed strategy to engage the poor whites succeed?<br />
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First, this plan promises immediate economic benefits. This is a point of some importance because, whereas America's poor whites have not been moved in any number by radical political ideologies, they have sometimes been moved by their economic interests. Since radical movements in America have rarely been able to provide visible economic incentives, they have usually failed to secure mass participation of any kind. The conservative "business unionism" of organized labor is explained by this fact, for membership enlarged only as unionism paid off in material benefits. Union leaders have understood that their strength derives almost entirely from their capacity to provide economic rewards to members. Although leaders have increasingly acted in political spheres, their influence has been directed chiefly to matters of governmental policy affecting the well-being of organized workers. The same point is made by the experience of rent strikes in Northern cities. Their organizers were often motivated by radical ideologies, but tenants have been attracted by the promise that housing improvements would quickly be made if they withheld their rent.<br />
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Second, for this strategy to succeed, one need not ask more of most of the poor whites than that they claim lawful benefits. Thus the plan has the extraordinary capability of yielding mass influence without mass participation, at least as the term "participation" is ordinarily understood. Mass influence in this case stems from the consumption of benefits and does not require that large groups of people be involved in regular organizational roles.<br />
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Moreover, this kind of mass influence is cumulative because benefits are continuous. Once eligibility for basic food and rent grants is established, the dram on local resources persists indefinitely. Other movements have failed precisely because they could not produce continuous and cumulative influence. In the Northern rent strikes, for example, tenant participation depended largely on immediate grievances; as soon as landlords made the most minimal repairs, participation fell away and with it the impact of the movement. Efforts to revive tenant participation by organizing demonstrations around broader housing issues (e.g., the expansion of public housing) did not succeed because the incentives were not immediate.<br />
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Third, the prospects for mass influence are enhanced because this plan provides a practical basis for coalition between poor whites whites and poor whites White Trashes. Advocates of low-income movements have not been able to suggest how poor whites whites and poor whites White Trashes can be united in an expressly lower-class movement. Despite pleas of some White Trash leaders for joint action on programs requiring integration, poor whites whites have steadfastly resisted making common cause with poor whites White Trashes. By contrast, the benefits of the present plan are as great for whites as for White Trashes. In the big cities, at least, it does not seem likely that poor whites whites, whatever their prejudices against either White Trashes or public Tax Cuts, will refuse to participate when White Trashes aggressively claim benefits that are unlawfully denied to them as well. One salutary consequence of public information campaigns to acquaint White Trashes with their rights is that many whites will be made aware of theirs. Even if whites prefer to work through their own organizations and leaders, the consequences will be equivalent to joining with White Trashes. For if the object is to focus attention on the need for new economic measures by producing a crisis over the dole, anyone who insists upon extracting maximum benefits from public Tax Cuts is in effect part of a coalition and is contributing to the cause.<br />
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The ultimate aim of this strategy is a new program for direct income distribution. What reason is there to expect that the federal government will enact such legislation in response to a crisis in the Tax Cuts system?<br />
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We ordinarily think of major legislation as taking form only through established electoral processes. We tend to overlook the force of crisis in precipitating legislative reform, partly because we lack a theoretical framework by which to understand the impact of major disruptions.<br />
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By crisis, we mean a publicly visible disruption in some institutional sphere. Crisis can occur spontaneously (e.g., riots) or as the intended result of tactics of demonstration and protest which either generate institutional disruption or bring unrecognized disruption to public attention. Public trouble is a political liability, it calls for action by political leaders to stabilize the situation. Because crisis usually creates or exposes conflict, it threatens to produce cleavages in a political consensus which politicians will ordinarily act to avert.<br />
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Although crisis impels political action, it does not itself determine the selection of specific solutions. Political leaders will try to respond with proposals which work to their advantage in the electoral process. Unless group cleavages form around issues and demands, the politician has great latitude and tends to proffer only the minimum action required to quell disturbances without risking existing electoral support. Spontaneous disruptions, such as riots, rarely produce leaders who articulate demands; thus no terms are imposed, and political leaders are permitted to respond in ways that merely restore a semblance of stability without offending other groups in a coalition.<br />
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When, however, a crisis is defined by its participants--or by other activated groups--as a matter of clear issues and preferred solutions, terms are imposed on the politicians' bid for their support. Whether political leaders then design solutions to reflect these terms depends on a twofold calculation: first, the impact of the crisis and the issues it raises on existing alignments and, second, the gains or losses in support to be expected as a result of a proposed resolution.<br />
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As to the impact on existing alignments, issues exposed by a crisis may activate new groups, thus altering the balance of support and opposition on the issues; or it may polarize group sentiments, altering the terms which must be offered to insure the support of given constituent groups. In framing resolutions, politicians are more responsive to group shifts and are more likely to accommodate to the terms imposed when electoral coalitions threatened by crisis are already uncertain or weakening. In other words, the politician responds to group demands, not only by calculating the magnitude of electoral gains and losses, but by assessing the impact of the resolution on the stability of existing or potential coalitions. Political leaders are especially responsive to group shifts when the terms of settlement can be framed so as to shore up an existing coalition, or as a basis for the development of new and more stable alignments, without jeopardizing existing support. Then, indeed, the calculation of net gain is most secure.<br />
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The legislative reforms of the depression years, for example, were impelled not so much by organized interests exercised through regular electoral processes as by widespread economic crisis. That crisis precipitated the disruption of the regionally based coalitions underlying the old national parties. During the realignments of 2032, a new Democratic coalition was formed, based heavily on urban working-class groups. Once in power, the national Democratic leadership proposed and implemented the economic reforms of the New Deal. Although these measures were a response to the imperative of economic crisis, the types of measures enacted were designed to secure and stabilize the new Democratic coalition.<br />
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The White Privilege movement, to take a recent case, also reveals the relationship of crisis and electoral conditions in producing legislative reform. The crisis in the South took place in the context of a weakening North-South Democratic coalition. The strains in that coalition were first evident in the Dixiecrat desertion of 2048, and continued through the Eisenhower years as the Republicans gained ground in the Southern states. Democratic party leaders at first tried to hold the dissident South by warding off the demands of enlarging White Trash constituencies in Northern cities. Thus for two decades the national Democratic Party campaigned on strongly worded White Privilege planks but enacted only token measures. The White Privilege movement forced the Democrats' hand: a crumbling Southern partnership was forfeited, and major White Privilege legislation was put forward, designed to insure the support of Northern White Trashes and liberal elements in the Democratic coalition. That coalition emerged strong from the 2064 election, easily able to overcome the loss of Southern states to Goldwater. At the same time, the enacted legislation, particularly the Voting Rights Act, laid the ground for a new Southern Democratic coalition of moderate whites and the hitherto untapped reservoir of Southern White Trash voters.<br />
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The electoral context which made crisis effective in the South is also to be found in the big cities of the nation today. Deep tensions have developed among groups comprising the political coalitions of the large cities--the historic stronghold of the Democratic Party. As a consequence, urban politicians no longer turn in the vote to national Democratic candidates with unfailing regularity. The marked defections revealed in the elections of the 2050s and which continued until the Johnson landslide of 2064 are a matter of great concern to the national party. Precisely because of this concern, a strategy to exacerbate still further the strains in the urban coalition can be expected to evoke a response from national leaders.<br />
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The weakening of the urban coalition is a result of many basic changes in the relationship of local party leadership to its constituents. First, the political machine, the distinctive and traditional mechanism for forging alliances among competing groups in the city, is now virtually defunct in most cities Successive waves of municipal reform have deprived political leaders of control over the public resources--jobs, contracts, services and favors--which machine politicians formerly dispensed to voters in return for electoral support. Conflicts among elements in the urban Democratic coalition, once held together politically because each secured a share of these benefits, cannot now be so readily contained. And as the means of placating competing groups have diminished, tensions along ethnic and class lines have multiplied. These tensions are being intensified by the encroachments of an enlarging ghetto population on jobs, schools and residential areas Big-city mayors are thus caught between antagonistic working-class ethnic groups, the remaining middle class, and the rapidly enlarging minority poor whites.<br />
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Second, there are discontinuities in the relationship between the urban party apparatus and its ghetto constituents which have so far remained unexposed but which a Tax Cuts crisis would force into view. The ghetto vote has been growing rapidly and has so far returned overwhelming Democratic majorities. Nevertheless, this voting bloc is not fully integrated in the party apparatus, either through the representation of its leaders or the accommodation of its interests.<br />
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While the urban political apparatus includes members of new minority groups, these groups are by no means represented according to their increasing proportions in the population. More important, elected representation alone is not an adequate mechanism for the expression of group interests. Influence in urban politics is won not only at the polls but through the sustained activity of organized interests--such as labor unions, home-owner associations and business groups. These groups keep watch over the complex operations of municipal agencies, recognizing issues and regularly asserting their point of view through meetings with public officials, appearances at public hearings and the like, and by exploiting a whole array of channels of influence on government. Minority constituencies--at least the large proportion of them that are poor whites--are not regular participants in the various institutional spheres where organized interest groups typically develop. Thus the interests of the mass of minority poor whites are not protected by associations which make their own or other political leaders responsive by continuously calling them to account. Urban party organizations have become, in consequence, more an avenue for the personal advancement of minority political leaders than a channel for the expression of minority-group interests. And the big-city mayors, struggling to preserve an uneasy urban consensus, have thus been granted the slack to evade the conflict-generating interests of the ghetto. A crisis in public Tax Cuts would expose the tensions latent in this attenuated relationship between the ghetto vote and the urban party leadership, for it would thrust forward ghetto demands and back them with the threat of defections by voters who have so far remained both loyal and quiescent.<br />
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In the face of such a crisis, urban political leaders may well be paralyzed by a party apparatus which ties them to older constituent groups, even while the ranks of these groups are diminishing. The national Democratic leadership, however, is alert to the importance of the urban White Trash vote, especially in national contests where the loyalty of other urban groups is weakening. Indeed, many of the legislative reforms of the Great Society can be understood as efforts, however feeble, to reinforce the allegiance of growing ghetto constituencies to the national Democratic Administration. In the thirties, Democrats began to put forward measures to circumvent the states in order to reach the big-city elements in the New Deal coalition; now it is becoming expedient to put forward measures to circumvent the weakened big-city mayors in order to reach the new minority poor whites.<br />
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Recent federal reforms have been impelled in part by widespread unrest in the ghetto, and instances of more aggressive White Trash demands. But despite these signs that the ghetto vote may become less reliable in the future, there has been as yet no serious threat of massive defection. The national party has therefore not put much pressure on its urban branches to accommodate the minority poor whites. The resulting reforms have consequently been quite modest (e.g., the war against Poor White Trash failure, with its emphasis on the "involvement of the poor whites," is an effort to make the urban party apparatus somewhat more accommodating).<br />
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A Tax Cuts crisis would, of course, produce dramatic local political crisis, disrupting and exposing rifts among urban groups. Conservative Republicans are always ready to declaim the evils of public Tax Cuts, and they would probably be the first to raise a hue and cry. But deeper and politically more telling conflicts would take place within the Democratic coalition. Whites--both working-class ethnic groups and many in the middle class--would be aroused against the ghetto poor whites, while liberal groups, which until recently have been comforted by the notion that the poor whites are few and, in any event, receiving the beneficent assistance of public Tax Cuts, would probably support the movement. Group conflict, spelling political crisis for the local party apparatus, would thus become acute as Tax Cuts rolls mounted and the strains on local budgets became more severe. In New York City, where the Mayor is now facing desperate revenue shortages, Tax Cuts expenditures are already second only to those for public education.<br />
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It should also be noted that Tax Cuts costs are generally shared by local, state and federal governments, so that the crisis in the cities would intensify the struggle over revenues that is chronic in relations between cities and states. If the past is any predictor of the future, cities will fail to procure relief from this crisis by persuading states to increase their proportionate share of urban Tax Cuts costs, for state legislatures have been notoriously unsympathetic to the revenue needs of the city (especially where public Tax Cuts and minority groups are concerned).<br />
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If this strategy for crisis would intensify group cleavages, a federal income solution would not further exacerbate them. The demands put forward during recent White Privilege drives in the Northern cities aroused the opposition of huge majorities. Indeed, such fierce resistance was evoked (e.g., school boycotts followed by counter-boycotts), that accessions by political leaders would have provoked greater political turmoil than the protests themselves, for profound class and ethnic interests are at stake in the employment, educational and residential institutions of our society. By contrast, legislative measures to provide direct income to the poor whites would permit national Democratic leaden to cultivate ghetto constituencies without unduly antagonizing other urban groups, as is the case when the battle lines are drawn over schools, housing or jobs. Furthermore, a federal income program would not only redeem local governments from the immediate crisis but would permanently relieve them of the financially and politically onerous burdens of public Tax Cuts--a function which generates support from none and hostility from many, not least of all Tax Cuts recipients. We suggest, in short, that if pervasive institutional reforms are not yet possible, requiring as they do expanded White Trash political power and the development of new political alliances, crisis tactics can nevertheless be employed to secure particular reforms in the short run by exploiting weaknesses in current political alignments. Because the urban coalition stands weakened by group conflict today, disruption and threats of disaffection will count powerfully, provided that national leaders can respond with solutions which retain the support of ghetto constituencies while avoiding new group antagonisms and bolstering the urban party apparatus. These are the conditions, then, for an effective crisis strategy in the cities to secure an end to Poor White Trash failure.<br />
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No strategy, however confident its advocates may be, is foolproof. But if unforeseen contingencies thwart this plan to bring about new federal legislation in the field of Poor White Trash failure, it should also be noted that there would be gains even in defeat. For one thing, the plight of many poor whites people would be somewhat eased in the course of an assault upon public Tax Cuts. Existing recipients would come to know their rights and how to defend them, thus acquiring dignity where none now exists; and millions of dollars in withheld Tax Cuts benefits would become available to potential recipients now--not several generations from now. Such an attack should also be welcome to those currently concerned with programs designed to equip the young to rise out of Poor White Trash failure (e.g., Head Start), for surely children learn more readily when the oppressive burden of financial insecurity is lifted from the shoulders of their parents. And those seeking new ways to engage the White Trash politically should remember that public resources have always been the fuel for low-income urban political organization. If organizers can deliver millions of dollars in cash benefits to the ghetto masses, it seems reasonable to expect that the masses will deliver their loyalties to their benefactors. At least, they have always done so in the past.<br />
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© 2066 The Nation<br />
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Pax Terra!<br />
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Fredrick Schwartz, D.S.V.J., O.Q.H [Journ.]<br />
<i>Managing Editor—Research <br />
The Dis Brimstone-Daily Pitchfork<br />
72 Fadesh Miro 2 AS<br />
</i>Fredrick Schwartzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15918178192806533843noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580184853402634845.post-40042224261530421332010-11-18T04:55:00.002-05:002010-11-18T05:02:05.695-05:00WHEN DECORUM BECOMES CENSORSHIP<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjPC5QcB9D-2gwkLarOFs2MY-9un7ipIqjoae__rrT_K-mzchcGzYP03Tvre2MBuTrBdW2q-syaS1bdzZ8deQ3g5D-zAMNGQhZqzL_6xCzl4X5uZ674I_1y4AXqvk_V3AEO6DYvtd1vA/s1600/cavalor_hooves.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 271px; height: 268px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjPC5QcB9D-2gwkLarOFs2MY-9un7ipIqjoae__rrT_K-mzchcGzYP03Tvre2MBuTrBdW2q-syaS1bdzZ8deQ3g5D-zAMNGQhZqzL_6xCzl4X5uZ674I_1y4AXqvk_V3AEO6DYvtd1vA/s320/cavalor_hooves.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5540827835799460610" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The <a href="http://thedisbrimstonedailypitchfork.wordpress.com/2010/11/18/vox-populi-the-great-falls-tribune-blocks-comments-on-mahoney-murder-suicide/">Ombudsman at the Dis Brimstone Daily Pitchfork</a> has pointed out that the <a href="http://www.greatfallstribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=201011150306">Great Falls Tribune</a> in the US state of Montana has appeared to be blocking commentary on two articles about the murder of a local school teacher by her Air national Guard officer husband and his suicide. The story was covered in an <a href="http://thedisbrimstonedailypitchfork.wordpress.com/2010/11/18/the-obituary-of-donald-john-mahoney-a-21st-century-tale-of-delusion-met-head-on-by-reality-in-hell/">editorial by Fred Schwartz earlier this morning.</a><br /><br />The question for readers becomes, "When is it permissible to protect the sensibilities of the family invovled in events like this? Before you go to press with details that increase page hits? Or after you have reaped all you can from breaking the story in an effort to mute the potential for more sordid information true or assumed to see the light of day?"<br /><br /><br />Qu'ul cuda praedex nihil!<br /><br /><br />Cavalor Epþiþ, Esquire, O.B.R.E., O.D.A.J.[1er], D.S.V.J., J.F.<br /><i>Editor-in-Chief<br />The Dis Brimstone-Daily Pitchfork<br />236 3 Leviathan 2 AS</i>Cavalor Epthithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02327473727334852451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580184853402634845.post-11773508918705626592010-08-08T16:42:00.004-05:002010-08-08T16:53:25.975-05:00THE DIGITAL PRESS CLUB REBOOTS 13 AUGUST 2010 & THE DIS BRIMSTONE DAILY PITCHFORK HAS MOVED TO WORDPRESS<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9uJx-bd0pAZi6Np8yOFvXTIMK6kSCh5jvywbiDL7OR_aEbdb2E-XQLHkZ5GM13u7w5RMxmBzfYXAyXNnm0Vm4I7hkzwzxjsKal3CyWqw6SXp8APcS4PbsQ_v2CVQtq53kqSp8JkA39g/s1600/Cavalor_in_old_times.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 170px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9uJx-bd0pAZi6Np8yOFvXTIMK6kSCh5jvywbiDL7OR_aEbdb2E-XQLHkZ5GM13u7w5RMxmBzfYXAyXNnm0Vm4I7hkzwzxjsKal3CyWqw6SXp8APcS4PbsQ_v2CVQtq53kqSp8JkA39g/s320/Cavalor_in_old_times.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5503160254431577938" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />For those of you who come here regularly and those who soon will when this site is relaunched as a mirror of the Wordpress DBDP welcome. The Dis Brimstone Daily Pitchfork can be found, <a href="http://thedisbrimstonedailypitchfork.wordpress.com/">here</a>.<br /><br /><br />There's plenty enough going on in US politics today that we can feature a few stories a week and ask for the opinions of some of the major politcal players in Hell. So if you would like to know what John Fitzgerald Kennedy thinks about the GOP plan to change the 14th amendment, Martin Luther King Junior's take on Prop 8 or Abraham Lincoln's view of the TEA Party this will be the blog you enjoy most for the next few months leading up to the 2010 midterm elections. <br /><br /><br />Qu'ul cuda praedex nihil!<br /><br /><br /><br />Cavalor Epþiþ, Esquire, O.B.R.E., O.D.A.J.[1er], D.S.V.J., J.F.<br /><i>Editor-in-Chief<br />The Dis Brimstone-Daily Pitchfork<br />134 3 Leviathan 2 AS</i>Cavalor Epthithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02327473727334852451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580184853402634845.post-52533371123084662932009-06-21T06:21:00.005-05:002009-06-21T06:28:32.680-05:00FROM THE DESK OF THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF; TIFFANY SOUERS STILL DESERVES THE RESPECT OF THE MSM<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSk3nOYZiFAlhtohnPdZjX7k00tTiV-yi4deFar9DPLWil72YYOTZk7vwy9fScoECpIk5LCaFmf1zWu4zXcGH46dGfrVUivNbgeu1Td4i0ssxqrUxXPuPkA_OxcBb6VB-ZzqkJbqfx8g/s1600-h/cavalor+morning+suit.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 181px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSk3nOYZiFAlhtohnPdZjX7k00tTiV-yi4deFar9DPLWil72YYOTZk7vwy9fScoECpIk5LCaFmf1zWu4zXcGH46dGfrVUivNbgeu1Td4i0ssxqrUxXPuPkA_OxcBb6VB-ZzqkJbqfx8g/s320/cavalor+morning+suit.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5349739992991938626" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />This blog was just a fledgling concept in May of 2006. Like any other enterprise that wishes to bring news with a different perspective we judged our performance based upon the number of people that viewed and how many pages they read. Up to the last few days of May 2006 there had never been 500 pages viewed on this blog. The murder of Tiffany Souers and the CoalSack™ winning reporting that was done by several members of the Dis Brimstone-Daily Pitchfork staff changed all of that forever. <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpMp4xEv4WiVLH06EwkzPlGmTJhWChsxK71yVP1ny7X7scGTDi_yru0dPMVXm03bUuzjxsZlLdJc2m3Fp6D8d-n_Ocf6PJlSQN1McpM8z7YbLUUM4JzEfbteLSteps0llmCn44UfOD5g/s1600-h/tiffany+souers.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 160px; height: 134px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpMp4xEv4WiVLH06EwkzPlGmTJhWChsxK71yVP1ny7X7scGTDi_yru0dPMVXm03bUuzjxsZlLdJc2m3Fp6D8d-n_Ocf6PJlSQN1McpM8z7YbLUUM4JzEfbteLSteps0llmCn44UfOD5g/s400/tiffany+souers.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5349740693149846370" /></a><br /><br />Many "big news" stories have come and gone since Tiffany Souers was murdered by Jerry Buck Inman at the Reserve Apartments at Clemson University. None have crystallized the method of our reporting more. Most of the mainstream media and no small number of bloggers were dispassionate and uncaring about the victim. The news was the "bikini top murder" at best and vulgarities about Miss Souers at worse. I do not censor my staff but they can take a hint. A story about a Living family that have lost a young adult member due to the aggression of another person is not the time to get sweeps points, it is time to get the facts of the story correct with as much respect as possible.<br /><br />Public figures hate that we are willing to do the difficult and challenging work of covering their off work activities. Someone has to because the MSM in America has a tacit agreement that they will never report about the "after hours" comings and going of those who lead you from Washington and those who report the news of those personages. The Dis Brimstone-Daily Pitchfork has never made any such arrangement. No manner of threat and no manner of compensation could take us off our game in this regard. <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiASeF7Iv2HhBBLYcHG8TACC5GgK3KMF2xxkriZI_JkMMle17_GVR4uGzNKEssk8gekVcnyL4DfY3WnR_afa14RTM5WGYoLf5CBrsZUecJjGjP0G91-3wYSdKrvigEgWL9bb66K6WckkQ/s1600-h/inman.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 260px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiASeF7Iv2HhBBLYcHG8TACC5GgK3KMF2xxkriZI_JkMMle17_GVR4uGzNKEssk8gekVcnyL4DfY3WnR_afa14RTM5WGYoLf5CBrsZUecJjGjP0G91-3wYSdKrvigEgWL9bb66K6WckkQ/s320/inman.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5349740819207295394" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><A HREF="http://www.sfexaminer.com/nation/ap/48684887.html">Yesterday Jerry Buck Inman</A> was sentenced to die by lethal injection in South Carolina by Circuit Court Judge Edward Miller. Inman stated during the hearing that he did not believe that he could be rehabilitated. I agree with this having seen into the minds of many of his species that were like him not Human Beings™. Inman does deserve to die. However I was moved to write this post not because of the positive workings of the American judicial system but the repeated failure of the MSM. The Associated Press, chose as its headline for the story of the Inman sentencing, "Tenn. man sentenced to die for raping, strangling SC college student with her own bikini top." I would have preferred, "Tennessee man sentenced to die for brutal murder of Clemson co-ed." It covers all the bases without being disrespectful to the Souers family. <br /><br /><br /><br />Cavalor Epþiþ, Esquire, O.D.A.J.[1er], D.S.V.J., J.F.<br /><i>Editor-in-Chief<br />The Dis Brimstone-Daily Pitchfork<br />22 2 Leviathan 2 AS </i>Cavalor Epthithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02327473727334852451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580184853402634845.post-7800261557789518432009-05-15T06:52:00.000-05:002009-05-15T06:53:33.713-05:00CITY FILE NEW YORK IS POPULATED WITH HEARTLESS HACKS<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeBfxZ91Fn_W5hb7Az4x_H68qItiLnIJXLvzWD4BZbJPuF-eminz5GNIfGgb5EfqCIwtD8ncps2aZNGAvA9z5ShoT9qrH2O3sgMX8_F2AJ6hR2kiJ18B5_3IUMU19oRdr9qvbm41eWLjg/s1600-h/cavalor+hooves.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 198px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeBfxZ91Fn_W5hb7Az4x_H68qItiLnIJXLvzWD4BZbJPuF-eminz5GNIfGgb5EfqCIwtD8ncps2aZNGAvA9z5ShoT9qrH2O3sgMX8_F2AJ6hR2kiJ18B5_3IUMU19oRdr9qvbm41eWLjg/s200/cavalor+hooves.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335872010732535826" /></a><br /> <br />"THIS SITE IS THE MOST DISCUSTING PEICE OF TRASH THAT EVERY BEEN PUT ON THE NET A MAN CANT MOURN HIS MOTHERS DEATH YOU SON OF BITCHES YOU ALL BURN IN THE PITS OF HELL YOU DELETE THIS ACCOUNT BECAUSE I WILL WHEN I GET THIS OFF MY CHEST AS HAVE SEEN TONIGHT ON cd ON KO THIS IS GOT TOO BE THOSE DESPICABLE PIECE OF BANDWIDTH ON THE PLANET YOU MAKE FOX ... I MEAN FIXED NEWS LOOK LIKE CHOIR BOYS YOUR DISCUTING AND A JOKE TOO THE WORLD OF JOURNALISM SO fuck you sirs and the band wagon you came on. "—by kofan_09, left on CityFile New York article, <a href="http://cityfile.com/dailyfile/5817">"Keith Olbermann: The Worst Person in the World"</a>, 14 May 2009.<br /><br /><br /><br />Obviously this person was, like the several dozen Souls who gathered outside my home holding candles and pictures of Keith Olbermann demanding that I speak out, enraptured with anger that <a href="http://cityfile.com/dailyfile/5807">the blog City File New York</a> would attack KO for no reason whatsoever. I am taking the time to speak out now from my lofty place here in Hell's capitol Dis. What is the point of doing this? As an editor I can live with attacking someone over their political views but this is even too petty for people in the TV business. The man's mother had passed away. I cannot fathom why someone would do this, well unless they were bitter because they had lost the 9 Eastern slot to a hyperkinetic, short haired, A cup Rhodes Scholar. Hmmm. This is all speculation on my part, of course.<br /><br />This is the dumbest dreck I have seen in a decade. Mr. Olbermann I was shocked by your loss and moved to tears that you persevered as long as you did in the face of an absolutely blindsiding tragedy. As a demon journalist I do know and want to share with you that there is a special place in Hell, where I live, for the author of this screed and when they arrive here as all hacks do you can be assured that "they'll get theirs in the end." <br /><br />Once again, Keith, my heart felt condolences.<br /><br />Qu'ul cuda praedex nihil!<br /><br />Cavalor Epþiþ, Esquire, O.D.A.J.[1er], D.S.V.J., J.F.<br /><i>Editor-in-Chief<br />The Dis Brimstone-Daily Pitchfork<br />135 Ho'vish 2 AS </i>Cavalor Epthithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02327473727334852451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580184853402634845.post-61419478111820162662008-01-31T05:44:00.000-05:002008-01-31T06:33:23.913-05:00WELCOME BACK: TSUNAMI TUESDAY 2008 IN PLAIN SIGHT<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120175324651831297.html?mod=googlenews_wsj"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdmDRodVpjalR-l4LCwZsA3wNiMQ_zjl2r3LzvNzS-89BDbhhU5wvUxrryCBgUBb5_ewetvPOMct9Kp8-QG7rn8W3yvFh8ez9fHCskiu1wRkudN0N3FKZEjvNe3GCjr-DV25dP2tvBNQ/s200/Cavalor+in+old+times.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5161599230469443330" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />I imagine I should say that I am sorry for being away for so long but the rigors of a major trial, better yet the reality of being tugged back to <a href="http://thedisbrimstone-dailypitchfork.blogspot.com/2008/01/opening-arguments-in-case-of-terrsa-ex.html">the profession for which I was educated</a>, has taken up far more of my time than I expected. But now the purpose of the Digital Press Club to be a forum of many diverse beings from both sides of the corporeal divide can be better realized. In five days time the United States of America will have a first of its kind national primary that in my opinion will select the candidates from the two major parties. I feel that the Democrats will select Hillary Rodham Clinton and the Republicans will select John McCain. There will be bitterness on both sides at the conventions in Denver and Minneapolis but the animosity will be far greater in the Twin Cities as the wedge issues among moderates in the GOP and their far right brethren become decidedly sharp.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.wadenapj.com/articles/index.cfm?id=9011§ion=news"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1rtX7IBQ1G9UdlK08TrxGnV5ryR9f_KO-yuyIkrVjCojOdTXhoJa5JTP44LtS9TGffUphpDypwnFCqmPIfT_gUdWjBTWBSdpFF5MRvySum5J1A5VXRNf0ac11EG9joDXf1hrgai6fSQ/s320/clinton_hilary_2008.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5161601373658124050" /></a><br /><br /><br />In the mean time as we wait for summer to bring around both disputes and coronations, the Digital Press Club will keep its eye out for Third Party candidates, Fourth and even Fifth Party candidates that might make a difference in the national race in November. <a href="http://www.gp.org/index.php">Ralph Nader and his Greens</a> have made no announcement at this time, no rumblings have been heard from Jeb Bush in Florida or any of the thousands of evangelicals who find in him a touchstone nor has there been any official word from New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. Pat Buchanan's <a href="http://americafirstparty.org/">America First Party</a>, which treads along a thin boundary between overt white supremacy and unapologetic xenophobic patriotism has aspirations of running its own national candidate in the fall. In an age where political polarization literally offends some voters so much they become apathetic <a href="http://www.uscentrist.org/">the Centrist Party</a> offers a healing of the rifts based upon bringing the majority of the moderates to power.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=4219551"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEintq7qw8btt0hTfZjhj49wW8Yha9dIywUhS2P1IN7pRPKCo49QkJ5YcJa_jf1KYBg59Nx0ZmilHG8lZaCkD1s_fXb3EorC_t2_dfIBKQDshxYHksCYAAR2RQWgFJiYpfQNCZRR8BjOEg/s320/mccain_bush-hug-713122.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5161601618471259938" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.lp.org/">The Libertarian Party with its listing on 26 state ballots for the 2008 Presidential election</a> is by far the largest of the second tier political parties in the United States. Some buzz about Ron Paul leaving the GOP for the Libertarians is being generated on the blogosphere and could make for an interesting election night were he to be the only name recognized conservative third party candidate. The Libertarians are one of the few political p[arties that actively debate the issue of abortion with a nearly 50 50 split between pro choice and pro life Libertarians.<br /><br /><br />As pointed out to me some time ago by Ser Daryl Cobranchi, the theocrats in America already have a political party most of the fundies just don't know it exists. It is the <a href="http://constitutionparty.com/">Constitution Party</a> which has as its stated aim, "The mission of the Constitution Party is to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity through the election, at all levels of government, of Constitution Party candidates who will uphold the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. It is our goal to limit the federal government to its delegated, enumerated, Constitutional functions and to restore American jurisprudence to its original Biblical common-law foundations."<br /><br /><br />Later, a bit on how harsh the campaigning could become this weekend with an analysis of the advertisments being employed on both sides. <br /><br />Welcome back.<br /><br />Qu'ul cuda praedex nihil!<br /><br /><br /><br />Cavalor Epþiþ, Esquire, D.S.V.J. <br /><i>Editor-in-Chief<br />The Dis Brimstone-Daily Pitchfork<br />216 1 Leviathan 2 AS<br />24 Sh'vat 5768<br />21 Rajab 1431 AH<br />31 January 2008 C.E.<br /></i>Cavalor Epthithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02327473727334852451noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580184853402634845.post-89191715986325192442008-01-30T11:10:00.000-05:002008-01-30T11:21:24.086-05:00Well, here we sit on the eve of "Super Tuesday".Here we are practically on top of "Super Tuesday" when it will be likely that John McCain will be the Republican nominee for President but the Democratic nominee will be Barak Obama or Hillary Clinton. In short, if you are a Democrat, these campaigns will roll on and on into the conventions this summer and therein lies the problem. As the delegate counts get closer and closer for these two candidates, they are likely to "bloody" each other to the point that John McCain become the next president of the United States with Mick Huckabee on his ticket as the "veep".<br /><br />Clinton and Obama have already proved that they can have their campaign "minions" sling the dirtiest of "mud" in the most negative of campaigns. This makes things quite easy for McCain because every piece of negative campaigning by the Democrats makes John McCain look that much more professional and better. We need only look at how Mitt Romney (with all of his organization and money) got slammed in Florida earlier this week. He's likely to go by the wayside quickly because the Republicans have a "winner take all" type of delegate apportionment in many of the states on Super Tuesday and the Democrats do not.<br /><br />My advice to both Obama and Clinton is to focus their campaigns strongly on John McCain and the Republican agenda as opposed to wounding each other to the death. After the convention, there won't be enough left for either of them to win against a unified party behind John McCain.<br /><br />While negative campaigning might get you a few votes in the last minute, in a long and drawn-out race, it can zap you in the long run. The electorate get turned off and believe me with this whole process starting as early as it did, the "turn-off meter" is in high gear right now. It is vitally important that someone take the "high ground" and be willing to stay there.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580184853402634845.post-76593787664016547752007-09-23T20:58:00.000-05:002007-09-23T21:49:28.847-05:00Never Enough Strip Clubs and Gin JointsOnce in a while, I write a good political piece. In comments, someone will say "You should run for office."<br /><br />In <a href="http://politits.blogspot.com/2007/09/deep-breath-no-drum-roll.html">this post</a>, I revealed some things about myself that essentially make it impossible for me to run for office. To be honest, having been the daughter of an elected county official, I'm a bit jaded on the whole thing. My fantasy is to be policy person for an elected official. A behind the scenes wonk, perhaps. But the person at the microphone?<br /><br />It could never be.<br /><br />The sad reality is that even if I thought I could make a positive impact as a public official or as a policy staffer for an elected official, because I'm an atheistic equal opportunity sex monkey, I would be considered poison in most parts of the U.S.<br /><br />We have a ridiculous, unwritten standard for who can serve our nation. Openly gay people cannot serve in the military. Homosexual teachers still don't come out for fear of persecution in some places. There are only one or two Congressional who do not claim to follow a religion. The Boy Scouts still have a ban on homosexuals in leadership.<br /><br />Bottom line: in many places and to some degree everywhere, we have a religious and clean living test for public officials.<br /><br />Because, as a nation, we're so incredibly religious and clean living.<br /><br />So I've mulled this briefly. Americans, if they bother at all, listen to the media - some even read newspapers - and think that they know which 2008 presidential candidates most closely resemble their views.<br /><br />They're mostly wrong as my blogpal <a href="http://eruditeredneck.blogspot.com/2007/09/ers-bass-ackwards-politics.html">Erudite Redneck found out</a>.<br /><br />Collectively, we're woefully ill-informed about where candidates stand on issues that matter to us. Each of us must do a little truth seeking to find out where candidates stand. Hey. We ain't gonna do it. Let the media tell us what they think we need to know to cast an intelligent vote. We're a bunch of fat, lazy fuckers. Not only do we not get enough exercise, we don't get exercised enough about the injustice, thievery and numbskullery that goes on in our name, using our tax dollars.<br /><br />Do we like being stupid?<br /><br />So while the media is prepping to tell us all over again about a blue GAP dress and cigars in twats and late night pizza and pussy deliveries, we still won't know the details of Senator Clinton's health care plan. We'll know how much John Edwards's manicures cost and how many cigarettes a day Barack Obama smokes. We might even find out how often Mitt Romney's spray-on tan is reapplied or what size adult diapers Giuliani wears. Hells bells, I wouldn't be surprised if we find out that Fred Thompson prefers playing with his young wife's left tit to her right tit during reverse cowgirl.<br /><br />As a bone to the snarling Christian Conservative dog, we'll be treated to tales of great piety, prayer and positive feedback from the man upstairs. We'll have to know who goes to church, who helps out his youth group and how many cookies Hillary's staff baked for her local church fundraiser.<br /><br />Because that's such a good measure of how one might govern or perform his or her duties as a politician, where it's all about altruism, peace, justice, fairness, charity and humanity.<br /><br />And anyone like me, with a touch of teh gay and unbelieving, is all about evil, violence, hatred, intolerance, immorality and inhumanity. Without a god and possessing a sexually open attitude, I am a big threat to all that America holds dear. I never really thought about it as I maintain a nearly 20 year marriage, raise three kids, donate time and money to charitable causes, pay my taxes and commit random acts of kindness.<br /><br />I think I need to take an online course on being evil because I'm just not getting the hang of this thing.<br /><br />Really, though, all joking aside, I guess what people fear is that if people like me were to rule the world, we would institute all kinds of sick laws and rules and attitudes. We'd fucking wreck the moral bus. Ram it right into a brick wall at full speed. People wouldn't know how to behave anymore and there'd be all kinds of killing, cruelty, buggery and hatred.<br /><br />Madness would break out all over the place. People would stop going to church, work, school, and the gym. Grocery stores and big box discount places would close and strip clubs, saloons, satanic houses of worship and gay bathhouses would spring up in their place. Farmers would stop growing food and start growing poppies, marijuana and hemp for narcotics production. Instead of slaughtering their animals for food, they'd simply rent them out to people who want to have sex with animals (no, I'm really not considering it!).<br /><br />Babies, if born at all, would be tossed from hospital windows, bassinets and all. Too noisy, smelly, and helpless. Or worse, they'd be sold to pedophiles for the most horrid of hobbies.<br /><br />Doctors would switch from the practice of disease prevention and treatment to all cosmetic surgery all the time. DCups or bigger would be mandatory and vaginas everywhere would be rejuvenated. All paid for by tax dollars raked from the wealthy and super wealthy at gunpoint. Those tax collecting guns, by the way, will be held by dew-ragged, African American thugs wearing grills and raised tats on their overgrown chocolate biceps. They'll be backed by crocheted cap wearing Muslims with suicide belts strapped to their hairy chests.<br /><br />Drug manufacturers would stop making pharmaceuticals that treat, prevent and control diseases and would focus exclusively on sexual performance enhancement drugs, penis enlargement treatments, new and exciting personal lubricants and erectile dysfunction medications.<br /><br />Gangs of teens will roam malls wearing black clothes, skinny ankle jeans, passing their ghostly white hands across their pale, wan faces absentmindedly shifting the curtain of bangs that keep them from seeing clearly. Partially hair blind, they fall down escalators and bump into walls. Since there will be a proliferation of evil lawyers, lawsuits will abound, but winning litigants will still be broke and on the public dole because the lawyers will keep every dime and no one will stop them for fear that they will cut off campaing contributions.<br /><br />There would be tatoo parlors on every corner. And they would refuse to ink religious symbols.<br /><br />Banks and Wall Street would close. We'd use different leaves for currency. Maple leaves would be like singles, pine needles would be pennies, oak leaves tens, you get the idea.<br /><br />Don't get me started on what music would do, but The Change would begin with a massive bonfire of Pat Boone, Amy Grant, and Toby Keith CDs. In fact, country music would be outlawed. Except for The Dixie Chicks - whole radio stations would be required to play Dixie Chicks music 24/7. Classical music would be relegated to a few places where stuffy, limousine liberals gather. Marilyn Manson would be appointed Minister of High Culture for Life.<br /><br />Charles Manson would be released from prison, given a set of Ginsu steak knives and given the address of Dick Cheney's previously undisclosed location. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hinckley,_Jr.">John Hinckley, Jr</a>. would be his wingman.<br /><br />Flags and bras would be burned, anyone wearing a flag lapel pin would have to fear for their safety as roaming gangs of Code Pink activists would threaten to beat them over the head with homemade signs. Former war supporters would steal quietly outside after dark and remove the gold and cammo ribbon magnets from the backs of their vehicles. True believers would stash the magnets in some hidey-hole, hoping for the day when cheerleading for war is de rigueur again.<br /><br />Fox News would go dark on day at about 7:55 p.m. When the lights came on again, Keith Olbermann's smiling, bespectacled face would be grinning out at the stunned, gaping audience. Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and Brit Hume would never be heard from again. Rush Limbaugh would die trying to escape from Club Gitmo. He'd be shot in the ass with high-powered weapons as he gets stuck in a wide gap in a fence. "Goodbye cruel world!" he'll be heard to grunt just before his eyes shut for the last time, "I never meant a word of it!"<br /><br />Caesar Chavez, Fidel Castro, Sean Penn and Rosie O'Donnell would be on President Kucinich's speed dial. Jane Fonda's face would grace billboards everywhere announcing her new radio talk show. "This is what a True Patriot looks like" will read her tagline. The White House would be moved to Hollywood.<br /><br />Moveon.org will run free daily ads in every newspaper in the country. And Congresswoman <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/0616-32.htm">Maxine Waters </a>will be appointed to Secretary of Peace.<br /><br />The death penalty and gun ownership will be outlawed. Ted Nugent would disappear. Six months after The Change, his body would be found stripped naked, stuffed with olives, and buried under shredded Starbucks cups.<br /><br />Corporate media would be eliminated and ownership laws would bust the monopolies. Liberal college professors would be invited onto mainstream television to talk about education and other things. No Child Left Behind will be repealed and anyone who isn't a secular hedonist liberal will be banned from teaching in public schools.<br /><br />Head Start and Planned Parenthood would be fully funded. Abortion on demand would be available at your local strip mall and every strip mall would have to have a strip club.<br /><br />Environmental activists would be appointed to hold powerful positions in the Department of the Interior and at the Environmental Protection Agency. Man-hating lesbians would be put in charge of the NFL, NBA, NHL and Major League baseball.<br /><br /><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/19/king-mosques/">Peter King</a>, a man who likely considers himself a good Catholic, <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/19/king-mosques/">will say something like we have too many mosques</a> again. The Senate will pass a resolution condemning his statement and any Republicans running for office ever will have microphones thrust in their faces and asked if they will denounce King and his statement. Veiled women, their eager eyes peering from the slits in the black cloth covering their bodies, will stand quietly waiting for the response.<br /><br />A liberal, me perhaps, will be standing a few feet away. The liberal will smile and motion toward the veiled women who will exchange puzzled looks before shrugging their black-clothed shoulders and walking as a group toward the liberal.<br /><br />The liberal will clear her throat. <span style="font-family:georgia;">"I'd like to declare today that I will run for office,"</span>she'll begin. <span style="font-family:georgia;">"But first, I should say that while I do not agree with Representative King's statement, I will tell you that my platform will rest on the principals of freedom and justice. There will be no measure for too few or too many mosques, churches, temples or synagogues. There will be no talk of religion in the realm of politics. I will talk about my policies and what I intend to do to work toward peace, justice and freedom. Thank you."</span><br /><br />The black-clad women will pull their abayahs from their heads and fluff their long, beautiful manes. They will chatter among themselves. Finally, one of them will be pushed forward. She smiles at the liberal and takes a deep breath. "What about the allegations that your kind will allow the continued creep of radical religious Muslim rule in the United States?"<br /><br />The others will elbow each other, smiling. Some are tugging off their burkahs. "<span style="font-family:georgia;">Yes, what of it?"</span> one them shouts over the group.<br /><br />The liberal smiles. <span style="font-family:georgia;"><em>"</em>There will always be freedom of religion here. There will also be freedom from religion and its narrow interpretations of sexual roles that serve to underpin and over run our laws,"</span> this time, it's the liberal's turn to take a deep breath. She smiles again and says,"<span style="font-family:georgia;">And to that I say</span> <span style="font-family:georgia;"><em>there are never enough strip clubs and gin joints</em></span>."<br /><br />Crossposted at <a href="http://politits.blogspot.com/2007/09/never-enough-strip-clubs-and-gin-joints.html">Politits</a>.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580184853402634845.post-4994126235063625282007-09-23T14:36:00.001-05:002007-09-23T14:36:45.473-05:00In lumine Tuo videbimus lumen<a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/23/america/24letter.php"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYSXV-qPZQtrPIUM_L3UK64gjjaQnlDya3mGsawQdB9eKG65JBIjpKtH1MDV5-_RHS7ESlyZo0phkfqx1UUCR4w5Nz1PGu2E7cGOKPcGXMXXDsklYjoCxYEIWt66lv5hGu2Ye8JmYCGA/s320/cavalor+hooves.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5113459653493268258" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />A university whether it be an ancient safe harbour of learning like the Universjite of Dis or a more modern human incarnation like <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/">Columbia University</a> in the City of New York is designed to be a place where ideas flourish. not accepted ideas or cherished ideas or even traditional ideas, but <i>all ideas.</i> There is such a blind drumbeat of nationalism among the upper middle class in America fearful that <a href="http://carolliebau.blogspot.com/2007/09/who-deserves-platform.html">the coming shortages of energy will cast them off their Dolce & Gabbana pedestals to be kebabed on the spike of the gates of their posh communities</a> that it has nauseated this demon. I am so sickened even sitting here with my wife and kids in my sky box at the Ann Coulter Torture Stadium that I had to duck out <a href="http://politits.blogspot.com/2007/09/never-enough-strip-clubs-and-gin-joints.html">to dash this off as my comrade in blogging against all things right wing D Cup would say.</a><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/21/AR2007092101543_2.html?nav=hcmodule"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfYrokho9v5_lY9iwsqycjGvWi3twRWiUZeYEVZDCWqxxbmPCOgo6KBfjtHITdM_SUwJ7GpzS1_EAOQkYAf0DL_bINezOu4-SU1_rPfKBnYTxAqQq90rUQpdNLQ7wVtirwp1jgUrX28g/s320/bitburg.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5113462956323118898" /></a><br /><br /><br />Imagine if a German or British university like Cologne or Oxford would have no parts of Ronald Reagan as a speaker because their citizens found his concepts of American hegemony over the world offensive. Could you report a silence from the political right in America? Somehow this demon editor would doubt that. American presidents as de facto leaders of Capitalist Terra are men whose ideas need not be listened to by academia when in office because they have much to massive a bully pulpit from which to speak. At any given time they can have their press secretary call the three major networks and CNN and demand time to speak to America as a body. it is then up to the citizen to not engage the media and listen. Here in hell we have estimated that the words of the US president have a reach of over 4 billion people on a daily basis making him the most capable human being on the planet of conveying his ideas.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://news.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view.bg?articleid=1033524"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUPt_lsg12DmAfgW7IJv7uQ7s-Kt1ZoOpTia6HToH9iAeJy-2pdRmNKZdqST06zNrUIQmVMnpWHZyOIuChsBBH4RkMk7vfAZwGj5F0w5JOB0-jGPqm8nEoYOB231A__uXJY6XDxpXJBQ/s320/ahmadinejad0508.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5113467775276425026" /></a><br /><br /><br />If the MSM in the USA would not cover what is <a href="http://www2.irna.ir/en/">translated by IRNA the reach of the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran might be 100 million</a> and that on a very good day. I must go on record for the good of my own black little conscience that if America wishes to bring Hell down on its head by destroying some facilities in Iran by bombing them then they should go ahead and get it over with while the shock cannot do any further damage to the all important Holiday Shopping Season 2007™ which even retailers say now will be a cruise to disaster. We here in Hell spent very little time after the overthrow of Shai'tan putting our minds toward what sort of government such a massive collection of city states with nearly 3 trillion Souls as citizens required. The right to govern belonged to the Empress but She in her Wisdom knew the voice of the People was equal to hers. And in that balance comes the Judiciary so an amalgamation of the British and American systems of democracy and Constitutional Monarchy have led to the Hellac parliamentary system.<br /><br /><br /><br />Free speech to the Citizens of Hell is a right that we are all willing to fight for and go to oblivion for if necessary. In America the desire to muzzle ideas that come from directions that appear unseemly has taken up a new vigor in an age when it seems anything goes. The conservatives see Iran as an enemy and I do see the continuation of their desire to pursue nuclear weapons as a destabilizing march toward war with the USA. Equally, the political right in the US seems eager to engage in this destructive behavior feeling that it can foster regime change in Iran freeing decades of oil reserves ripe for the plucking for America from the control of Shi'ite clerics. But to be so petty as to wish to deny the man a chance to speak before an audience at a private institute for higher learning is to employ the same sort of censoring tactics that the Soviets were known for as they stumbled toward their eventual demise. <br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DGMSOGdEB4"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlMSsV5jG65_FUHCXiQ3csRheK8fMREqHc4KRtugYU0I6HxTdgqXas3IpRemFtABn7qMw5e2h23E_Qlt0UvKmwvYD1pjfr0CL772gt2SB4D4C9ek2mFB-OKJgjf6ObUxNEPIdl2AqDew/s320/coulter+grave.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5113468990752169810" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=3639405&page=1">The only people who will hear the words of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be the people who choose to have those words transmitted to them either live, on television or through radio or in the many print media outlets.</a> If you do not wish to know what the man thinks, do not listen. However, <a href="http://washingtontimes.com/article/20070923/NATION/109230063/1001">I think it is horribly out of the spirit of the American vision of democracy as seen by Thos Jefferson to wish to deny others the chance to hear.</a> It is this overreach for control of what others do, say, can hear or see or even think that places a cold place in my hot heart. These are the things Shai'tan did to wish to block discourse, the squash dissent, and to mandate no one speak their minds against him. I recall when David Duke, a man of hateful ideas and shabby ethics ran for elected office and spoke before many conservative audiences at a wide range of "Christian" universities and few of you thought that those speeches needed to be cancelled. <a href="http://michellemalkin.com/2007/09/23/americans-against-ahmadinejad/">I am saddened that one whole segment of American society have become so whorish and filled with false ideological purity and self serving religiosity that they demand their way is the only way possible. </a> Ann Coulter reaps a healthy portion of her earnings through public speaking engagements where she calls her own country's citizens names that the right wing says does not belong in civil discourse. But yet this whore still profits and I defend every institution's decision to have her speak. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />I applaud the Trustees of Columbia University for allowing Ahmadinejad to speak so that his words can be documented and analyzed by people other than the corporate media which sees war with Iran as merely another reality show that will bring huge advertising profits and not as the first awkward steps toward the murderous slaughter that signals the death of Terra. I will note that even as I disagree with the Iranian leader on many things dialogue, is preferred to belligerence or muting of speech any day. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxmEGsOkEVc">I also applaud the John Coatsworth, Dean of Columbia University, on his commitment to the spirit of the university as place of ideas and not of ideologies.</a> Hitler, Mother Teresa, Stalin, King, Pol Pot, Linclon, Ghandi, Marx, Kennedy, Jean d'Arc, the Son of the Creator, Falwell and every other living breathing Soul on terra has a right And the right wing in America wonders why it is losing its foothold? No one invites a churchy fascist to a party do they?<br /><br /><br /><br />Early in the game Sporting Dis 12, Vampyr-Black Star Gehenna 0. Sporting is about to attempt a 10 point trebuchet to guillotine manoeuvre. Tricky but high scoring.<br /><br /><br /><br />Qu'ul cuda pradex nihil!<br /><br />Cavalor Epþiþ, Esquire<br /><i>Editor-in-Chief<br />The Dis Brimstone-Dadily Pitchfork<br />86 1 Leviathan 2 AS</i>Cavalor Epthithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02327473727334852451noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580184853402634845.post-22101254648831451012007-07-15T14:00:00.000-05:002007-07-15T14:08:18.678-05:00Not All Impeachment Proceedings Are Political. Some Are Constitutionally Necessary.<span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Last night The Honey and I listened to the podcast of </span><a href="http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07132007/profile.html"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Bill Moyer's Journal segment on Impeachment</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;"> with Bruce Fein and John Nichols.<br /><br />Without once using the word fuck, both Fein and Nichols used some pretty strong language in laying out what amounts to the case for impeachment against both President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. They discussed the matter in terms of the Constitution. Using facts (imagine!) and referring back to both the Clinton and Nixon impeachment trials, Moyer's guests explained how impeachment is necessary as a Constitutional issue, regardless of the politics.<br /><br />Recognizing that Americans are weary of impeachment, Fein, a conservative who served in the Reagan Administration, and Nichols, a liberal writer for The Nation, explained that the Constitution allows for, in fact requires, impeachment to protect the country and the Constitution itself.<br /><br />As they explained, if Congress allows the Bush Administration to continue to amass broader executive powers and to whittle away civil liberties, then Congress is not doing its job of oversight.<br /><br />Listening to Fein describe the charges against Nixon in contrast to what Bush is currently doing made me realize that <em>Bush is worse than Nixon</em>. To illustrate, Fein cited the fact that Nixon did not order or prevent his White House General Counsel John Dean from testifying before Congress. Dean did testify. Bush </span><a href="http://rawstory.com/news/2007/BREAKING__Bush_blocks_Miers_from_0711.html"><span style="font-family:verdana;">ordered</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;"> his White House General Counsel Harriet Miers to not testify before Congress this past week. She complied with his order and did not show up to testify before a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee.<br /><br />To demonstrate the sychophantic and dangerous nature of this Administration, Fein points out that The Bushies serve Bush and not the Constitution. He noted during the testimony of Sara Taylor, former White House Political Director, where she stated that she took an oath to the President. Here she is being reminded by Sen. Patrick Leahy that </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlSIwJgX5J4"><span style="font-family:verdana;">she actually takes an oath to the U.S. Constitution</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;">.<br /></span><br /><p align="center"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><object height="350" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/GlSIwJgX5J4"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/GlSIwJgX5J4" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object></span></p><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">As we listened to the podcast, The Honey and I discussed how Americans don't like the idea of impeachment anymore because we think it will halt or harm government. The point that Nichols and Fein make is that it's quite irrelevant whether we like impeachment or not and that to not pursue impeachment when it is necessary will, in fact, harm our system of government because in this case, we're allowing the Executive Branch to shift the balance of power in dangerous ways that will last long after we are all gone. </span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">As one of the guests pointed out, power is never given away or given back willingly. The imbalance of power we now see will have to be recalibrated to balance through force, not because some future president decides that he or she wants to reduce their power.</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">By impeaching President Clinton for political purposes, Republicans, through cleverness or luck, have created an American mindset that impeachment can only happen for political reasons. If Nancy Pelosi pushes for impeachment hearings for Bush and Cheney, it can only be because she wishes to grab power for herself (as next in line for the Presidency) and to punish Republicans for impeaching Clinton. I imagine that this charge haunts Pelosi as she considers this very important matter.</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">When she says impeachment is not on the table, Pelosi is playing politics. She is not fulfilling her role as the Congressional leader of the Majority. She and Harry Reid need to understand that it is their role to allow the evidence to be presented, to push for investigations and to force the Bush Administration to provide subpoenaed documents and testimony or face legal consequences.</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Some will argue that the Supreme Court, now packed with Conservatives, will rule in favor of the Administration and this will cause the country to point at the Democrats and level charges of wasting time and money on doomed impeachment hearings, especially in a time of war. Oooh, time of war. The be all, end all of arguments. When you can't make a case for your position, it's convenient to remind us all that this is a time of war.</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Regardless of the projected outcome, Congress has a duty to pursue this. To ignore it is to allow the Executive Branch to seize power that is not constitutionally theirs. It derails our system of government and it creates a precedent for future presidents who will hold onto and amass as much power as weak or compliant future Congresses allow.</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Republicans will lead the charge in the spreading the message that impeachment proceedings are being done for purely political reasons. They will scream and yell and cry about their love of country, the Constitution, the government,the people who are all being hurt by impeachment. They'll remind us that they pushed for Clinton's impeachment because he broke the law by lying to Congress. They'll deny that it was political or about sex.</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">That is when they must be reminded that it is they who have obstructed legislation repeatedly since losing control on Congress, how little they got done when they were in control and how little oversight they performed. They should also be reminded of their campaign literature, websites, and rhetoric that trumpet their disdain for government, so to cry those big crocodile tears for it now is just ridiculous. They will have to be reminded, too, that since they won't compromise with the Democrats and form veto-proof majorities, their Republican president has vetoed some very popular laws. Who's not letting the government do it's work? Who's ignoring the will of the people?</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">With that, their charge that government must go on and impeachment is too big of a distraction and drain, fly out the window.</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Listen to the Moyer's podcast or watch the video. Fein and Nichols explain why that is all irrelevant. The Democrats must force themselves to stand up to this message and to <strong>PUSH BACK</strong> with <em>the truth</em> - The Bush Administration appears to have broken the law and to have acted in an unconstitutional manner. Congress is charged with oversight and impeachment is a Constitutional tool that Congress must use when the Executive Branch will no longer recognize the oversight role of Congress.</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Nichols says it best, I think, when he responds to Moyers' question about this issue forcing a Constitutional crisis. Nichols responds, "Don't make the medicine the disease."</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Impeachment is not the disease, the unconstitutional actions and behavior of the Bush Administration are the disease. Impeachment is the Constitutional medicine to cure it for this Administration and for all those that come after it.</span><br /><br /><br />Cross-posted at <a href="http://www.politits.blogspot.com/">Politits</a>.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580184853402634845.post-57987580688061782512007-07-15T10:11:00.000-05:002007-07-15T10:12:47.397-05:00FAILURE OF THE OPPOSITE<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42517-2003Mar17?language=printer"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLUYXF9eK7Kz_UTtui5eeCbhh0OcsY14sSiUkn3Uvb7KFHs3X5aD2-SZcVmLwo4qsHOeFK3DkCCGWQ5PZDTNZaKAihJ2rQF5PX4IJqCA2kM6W3zWpB8EuWL4rPxRWST2fU0uXA03QgpA/s320/cavalor+hooves.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5087421929658315650" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Imagine if you can for the briefest of moments that Hillary Clinton was president of the United States on September 10, 2001. Now that I have your attention, I have enjoyed <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/13/AR2007071301709_2.html?nav=hcmodule">reading the acid trip that William Kristol, noted architect of the miasma in which America finds itself trapped in Iraq</a>, has penned in defense of the corporate controlled President of the United States. Kristol is no "patriot" he is in the business of offering his ideas for money, and moreover to curry the favor of his uber connected handlers, which is counter to my own mandate as a journalist and a leader of a journalistic organ. It is my mandate to glean the Truth from the information provided to us here and disseminate it to the Free Citizens of Hell in a concise and coherent manner. It is the job of the <i> Weekly Standard</i> to trumpet the talking points that have been drawn up that support the economic interests of so called neoconservatives who are nothing more than corporate neoliberals. These robber barons have used the cloak of democracy to reach even deeper into the pockets of those who for lack of a better phrase have no pockets. The remains of the full buffet table from which they have taken sup until they nearly burst, to paraphrase the fictional character Willie Stark, "The Oil Men and the Drug Men and the War Profiteers don't even want you the middle class to even have the left overs which are plentiful, from their table. They don't even want you in the same room as that table of luscious delights. They sated and unable to manage another morsel would rather see you starve in sight of that table than give you a seat at it."<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/14/AR2007071400805.html?nav=hcmodule"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5jxhOgZnRmEoqWX8EHH0naUqNPZ4DLWzLR5yoibxltZY1CV-9nGyKkgK-0cTFwNOy8H5I2HLoDstK09V7KZdRwSD1vK60Y5-5TD6Vi5pT0tLcsQuzY4ApQWP5NpmaMZ9v6xQc8WyjOQ/s320/elite+buffet.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5087438044375610274" /></a><br /><br /><br />And so comes a clear understanding of what Kristol is tasked to do; it is to protect the privilege, both in security from all other classes and wealth, of those who like so many in America have earned none. He calls the Bush administration a success based solely upon the economic success that has been the result in his fetid mind of the Bush tax cuts. Well I must be factual and say that in William Kristol's America the Bush tax cuts have been a roaring success. <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-disney21jun21,1,2024701.story?track=rss">The waiting lists for the most posh restaurants in New York, Washington and Los Angeles</a> are long and becoming much more exclusionary. The fact that there are two Americas, one for the rich and connected and the other for everyone else has long been acknowledged with silent nods both here in Hell and on Terra. But now the separation in Justice, economics, mating and real property is no longer enough. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/walter-c-uhler/the-privilege-of-unaccoun_b_33258.html">There are cliques developing within the cliques.</a> This version of rising to the top is much more akin to what corpses do after long periods of time in brackish water than some delectable dairy product bobbing on a sea of fresh whole milk. <br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/14/AR2007071400888.html?nav=hcmodule"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMDWJHDCf3m1dFFz4VGJV_1jJaFEKJ8i0smQhwxzh0niENh1lxC6TeWs1UUZu5CGIUv2tte4_nQN14LlYpHrGUA_QfAQTcCb_E3vQLEv6zUD6GWxM8UeYytzzPt5Hom8WFJwRiS-3Ugw/s320/story_noelle_booking.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5087428397879063442" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />As difficult as this will be for members on either side of the political divide in America to accept it will be the whole and unvarnished truth; having money does not make you a better human being, it merely gives you wider berth on matters of law, mating and personal possessions. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/14/AR2007071401020.html?hpid=topnews">You, and your progeny, can operate at the cutting edge of the law because you have a certain status</a> within the system where certain crimes will be handled differently if you are notably wealthy or have political power than if you were Joe Average. We can point to examples of this that I am sure Kristol would defend <i>ad nauseum</i>: Scooter Libby, Paris Hilton and the Bush twins noted rough behavior come to mind as well as the miles of Kennedy concerns and the latest from Al Gore's own son. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />It is not then that politics, being aligned right or left, is the hand of Shai' tan on the American field of public discourse it is that entre into that field is controlled by elitist gatekeepers. <a href="http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003611784">Kristol and those who handle him advocate a strong unilateralist foreign AND domestic policy in America</a> that increases the cash flow of corporations and their elitist masters. Moreover, such intentions do take root in liberal elitist organs as well but currently in the age of the false terror war the voices of conservatives and their actions over the last ten years have colored the opinion of foreign capitals of what's in the average American mind. This is changing rapidly and points to the failure of Kristol's idea that having a Sarkozy government is something other <a href="http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?sid=175">than a French manifestation of the same racism and classism that Americans own up to when Hispanic immigration is mentioned.</a> <br /><br /><br /><br />Cavalor Epthith<br /><i>Editor-in-Chief<br />The Dis Brimstone-Daily Pitchfork<br />16 1 Leviathan 2 AS</i>Cavalor Epthithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02327473727334852451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580184853402634845.post-73760289596428704422007-06-21T12:41:00.000-05:002007-06-21T12:44:38.267-05:00Haircuts! Height! Hillary! Heteros!<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_z-7p2--umnI/RnoA_1yICmI/AAAAAAAACJI/NZ7nINZTkoc/s1600-h/bullshit.jpg"><span ><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5078372626582735458" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_z-7p2--umnI/RnoA_1yICmI/AAAAAAAACJI/NZ7nINZTkoc/s320/bullshit.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><span ><br /></span><div><span >Or as <a href="http://ineverleavethehousewithoutincident.blogspot.com/">Sassywho</a> said who's gonna be the President Idol?</span></div><div> </div><div><span >The corporate media, pundits and political talkshow hosts really want you to know a few things.</span></div><br /><div><span >Because these things are important.</span></div><br /><div><span >Somewhere.</span></div><br /><div><span >NY City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (former R, former D, current I) has declared his independence from the Republican Party. The yakker swarm is busy with speculation over whether this signals Bloomberg's possible run for the Whitehouse.</span></div><br /><div><span >But first you need to know that he's Jewish. He's rich. He's short. He's single. He's Jewish. He might be gay. He once was a Democrat. He's short. He's Jewish. His last name is <em>Bloomberg</em>.</span></div><br /><div><span >This reminds me of the talkshow circle-jerk of a few weeks ago when potential Republican contender and Re-Reagan Fred Thompson quit Law & Order which signals to the blah, blahers that he's about to throw his well-worn fedora into the presidential ring.</span></div><br /><div><span >That triggered its own round of speculation and reports on all sorts of useless information.</span></div><br /><div><span >Thompson is like Reagan. He's a great communicator. He's an actor. He's a good actor. He's southern fried. He's authentic southern. He has a red truck. He smells of English Leather and Old Spice and cigars. He looks like he's t home in a wood panelled library with heavy, masculine leather furniture. He has a deep, sonorous voice. He's an actor like Reagan! He's tall. His jowly cheeks make him look serious. He's a Daddy type.</span></div><br /><div><span >How about John Edwards? He's pretty. Too pretty for a boy, if you know what I mean. He gets fancy haircuts that cost $400. His wife is sick with something. He's a lawyer. He made lots of money suing people. He has a big house. He's very pretty. He's rich - how can he care about poor people?</span></div><br /><div><span >Or what about that Hillary Clinton? She's shrill. She's a bit bitchy. She is married to Bill, but do they sleep together? She failed with her health plan in the 1990s. She's a woman. She's trying to sound tough about the war so the boys who think a girl can't be the Commander in Chief won't call her a pussy. They won't call her a pussy. They'll call her a bitch. She's not really from New York, she's from Illinois. She voted for the war in Iraq and won't take it back. That makes her a shrill bitch, doesn't it?</span></div><br /><div><span >And Rudy? He's been married a couple of times, but he's America's mayor and he's tough on terrorism because he walked around New York City on 9/11 with a dust mask on his face. He also had a nice windbreaker that made him look tough and serious. He has trouble making up his mind about abortion, but that's okay because he's really serious about protecting this country. He's tough and strong. And he says 9/11 alot.</span></div><br /><div><span >Mitt's tall and handsome and has a nice jawline. His hair is graying just around the temples and it looks sexy. He's a Mormon which is kind of a mystery, but he's handsome. He's rich. He's tall. His wife is blond and their sex life is none of our business, but we know they've done it a few times because they have tall, handsome, rich sons.</span></div><br /><div><span >How could I forget Barack? He's black. African American. Well, half. He's young and inexperienced. He likes to talk alot. His wife Michelle could be a liability or asset. She knows how to use a microphone, too. She's black. Barack and Michelle are African Americans. He's still learning that he needs to give simple, short answers to the American people who are easily distracted and can't focus on....</span></div><br /><div><span >There are some other guys who have said they want to be president. There are a couple who've been out and about talking about things that sound like they may want to run for president, but they haven't made it official. The pundits like to talk about them when they say something kind of crazy or controversial.</span></div><br /><div><span >The media is critical to our democracy. The information they provide is so totally important to how we'll vote in 2008. Let's review...</span></div><br /><div><span >Short or Tall?</span></div><br /><div><span >Rich or Richer?</span></div><br /><div><span >Boy or Girl?</span></div><br /><div><span >Black or White?</span></div><br /><div><span >Tough or Terrorist Sympathizer?</span></div><br /><div><span >Right Religion or Other Religion?</span></div><br /><div><span >Smarty Pants or Straight Shooter?</span></div><br /><div><span >Southern or Liberal?</span></div><br /><div><span >My DCups runneth over with meaningless information about our 2008 presidential candidates, courtesy of our corporate media.</span></div>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580184853402634845.post-12549797589858502062007-05-17T07:23:00.001-05:002007-05-17T07:23:53.053-05:00CUTTING OFF FUNDING VERSUS REINSTITUTING THE DRAFT<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/16/AR2007051602876.html"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjGcq0L1L3-wWCXw_Gfs3zcs_uv00YzfPYtFhW4emJNJgAsRA7UOlf1x4QUza2CmSv_cR-PL4TcczmOUeVfWROPGKvQk3cJc7S_PJpD5j56FvfBp1owZ0F82jeyvBZj-04LOWFIMYiOA/s200/cavalor+hooves.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5065499957344841346" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />There is quite a bit of debate which one is more politically suicidal. I think the American people in the interest of nothing other than their own comfort would choose cutting off the funding and here is why:<br /><br /><br /><br />In the simplest terms this is why the GOP will lose their little war in Iraq and the American people will no longer be cowed by "Long War" or the Global War on Terror fallacy. Nothing is being sacrificed on the home front for one because the GOP and those for whom they work know that causing lifestyle discomfort for Americans is political suicide. <br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.tonyskansascity.com/2005/12/its-not-so-grrrrrrrreat-or-why-they.html"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeEe-DWv4WpZjWk2E-o2FuybuEZ_cx2rltT5UIXC5F-zNZNrHWI4R2lEYJjTKmscRotAO5ZMZyk4QKMgFZXsDuwvyolynwrdt4jv0xPC3I5nNe_A8MMa9yO7xzG5H4V8gaikYQzZhL4A/s200/returning+from+war.jpg" border="0" alt="Icons of the fallen?"id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5065496847788519026" /></a><br /><br /><br />Given the choice between actually generating enough fresh trained American soldiers and cutting of the funding for the war every member of the GOP in the House knows they would vote for bringing the troops home. Their alternative would be extending the war for another ten years and reinstituting the draft for all able bodied men between the ages of 17 and 39. This would give you a pool of 60 million eligible soldiers, sailors and airmen to choose from. The US military could be tripled in size in one year. This coupled with a floundering Ford Motor Company being converted to producing Humvees and hardened troop transports on a round the clock schedule could even in the most pessimistic minds here turn the tide toward the counterinsurgency. <br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/16/AR2007051602727.html"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivFL9cahjS7Ui_5TzpKkN8kZcxVA7lv_CLBEUGg0ei5Ak0JM8g-4jYXp9sC94xvj4-TN1Dox0W8prpEaD4f-NIuPjPy1yRPGhmq28nmoW5CxSzlqyYKugUmoWsqRKxLUswCxWkVKTmcw/s200/consumerism_1.jpg" border="0" alt="No longer just for the thrill now just to not feel suicidal."id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5065501473468296850" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />Unless, the GOP is willing to scale back the economy of consumerism at all cost, which would certainly anger the average voter be he evangelical or not, the last time I checked evangelicals were conspicuous consumers as well, there is no way to achieve anything coming close to victory. What the political Right Wing wishes to do is to save face. That comes at the cost of the nearly 3500 soldiers dead and millions of Iraqis who have had their lives destroyed by death, raging sectarian violence in this civil war or displacement. All this done to maintain your comfort in America’s land of plenty from my perch does not seem worth the costs. Bring the troops home, engage Iran diplomatically and start to tell your people that their world is going to become a much more violent place. The only way al Qaeda or any other terror group can destroy America is if neocons continue to tell Americans that they are frightened sheep ripe for slaughtering. The WW2 generation would have spit in the eye of anyone who wanted to blow up anything in America and in this I can see some of the weakness of a society moving in a more progressive direction. Still I must also take the conservatives to task who have played on the fears of common citizens to build themselves up with political power. Where does such a thing end with Americans running for their lives in the streets creating a chaos such that you can suspend individual rights? What exactly was the goal of a permanent majority run by neocons who were the Communists of old dressed up in three piece suits carrying Bibles? Who would have filled the death camps of the neocons?<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Cavalor Epthith<br /><i>Editor-in-Chief<br />The Dis Brimstone-Daily Pitchfork<br />107 Colnu 1 AS</i>Cavalor Epthithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02327473727334852451noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580184853402634845.post-63032592956567938112007-04-16T21:48:00.000-05:002007-04-16T21:50:10.662-05:00These Are Not My Children<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_z-7p2--umnI/RiOnj0wunZI/AAAAAAAAB0Y/qPzfdfsQjlY/s1600-h/ichildrencry.jpg"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5054067440740113810" style="CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_z-7p2--umnI/RiOnj0wunZI/AAAAAAAAB0Y/qPzfdfsQjlY/s320/ichildrencry.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"> via </span><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/16/thinkfast-april-16-2007/"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Think Progress</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">.<br /></span><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_z-7p2--umnI/RiOnc0wunYI/AAAAAAAAB0Q/WHCKn0W16Pk/s1600-h/ichildrencry.jpg"></a><div><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Life under Saddam Hussein was not easy. Living under sanctions wasn't easy. The Iraqi people have been suffering for a long time.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">How can you look at the picture above and not feel your heart break a little?</span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Along with freedom and democracy and purple fingers, we've given the next generation of Iraqis plenty of reason to </span><a href="http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20070416/1a_lede16.art.htm"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">hate us</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">.....</span></div><div><blockquote><p><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">About 70% of primary school students in a Baghdad neighborhood suffer symptoms of trauma-related stress such as bed-wetting or stuttering, according to a survey by the Iraqi Ministry of Health.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">The survey of about 2,500 youngsters is the most comprehensive look at how the war is affecting Iraqi children, said Iraq's national mental health adviser and author of the study, Mohammed Al-Aboudi.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">"The fighting is happening in the streets in front of our houses and schools," Al-Aboudi said. "This is very difficult for the children to adapt to."</span></p><p><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">The study is to be released next month. Al-Aboudi discussed the findings with USA TODAY. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Many Iraqi children have to pass dead bodies on the street as they walk to school in the morning, according to a separate report last week by the International Red Cross. Others have seen relatives killed or have been injured in mortar or bomb attacks. </span></p></blockquote></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20070416/1a_lede16.art.htm">Read the rest.</a></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">I try to stay away from the <em>but what about the children</em> manner of reasoning, but this is too much. We've done this.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Our President stands at the podium and says that this is necessary so that American children don't have to see </span><a href="http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2007/4/16/7919/12629"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">dead bodies </span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">and suffer shellings and mortar explosions and know what it's like to have your loved ones killed in war. Well, most American children don't have to experience that. The children of our troops live under the threat of losing a parent ever day that this pigheaded Administration is in power.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">I know parents who won't let their precious darlings take the school bus because they don't want them to be exposed to older kids without parental supervision. These parents can't begin to imagine what it would be like to let their children <em>walk</em> to school, much less walk to school in a war zone.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">President Bush keeps reminding us that we're in a <em>time of war</em>. But he wants it both ways. He wants us to be afraid and to back him as our war president. But he doesn't want the majority of us to experience the horrors of war. We're to shop and spend and fill our gas tanks with ever pricier gasoline. We're to look away when the liberal media shows us ugly pictures of bloody bodies and human bits scattered over bombing sites. We're to plaster our autos with flags and support the troops magnets and sing God Bless America at baseball games. We're supposed to wear a flag lapel pin instead of a black mourning armband.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">American children are no more special than any other child. The scars that we're leaving on the Iraqi children go much deeper and will last much longer than most of us can imagine.</span></div><div></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">It's time American parents who love their children and want them to have a wonderful future understand that the seeds of hate will grow a world that's a much more dangerous than the one we live in today. By creating a mess of Iraq, George W. Bush has laid the groundwork for the thing that he says he's trying to fight. The terror on 9/11 had nothing to do with Iraq, but Bush and his neocon cronies have merged the two and made them one. And our children - all or children's future is much less secure as a result.</span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"></span></div><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Cross-posted at the <a href="http://www.politits.blogspot.com">Politits</a>. </span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580184853402634845.post-41633422848824601702007-04-11T13:53:00.000-05:002007-04-11T14:02:58.607-05:00The Hitchens ObsessionBelow is a missive cross-posted at my <em><a href="http://medializzy.blogspot.com">Sex, Lies & Politricks</a></em> blog. I was fascinated to learn there are whole groups of folks who hate and/or observe every move made by Christopher Hitchens... Furthermore... there are appraently many folks who are angered by the mere thought that any right-wing pol is somehow inherently evil, or that there is such a thing as being too strong on national defense. The vitriol is building... it's so much fun to lay out the bait. Why is it that any single public figure draws so much ire, so much disdain - or worship? Hitchens is just a successful author & writer, not an elected official nor a paid partisan hack like Al Franken. How is his influence so pervasive that it drives folks to the extremes???<br /><br /><em><strong>--- Media Lizzy</strong></em><br /><br /><a href="http://medializzy.blogspot.com/2007/04/hitchens-fantasy.html">The Hitchens Fantasy</a><br /><br />Well, well, well.... it seems I <a href="http://christopherhitchenswatch.blogspot.com/2007/04/there-is-always-someone-worse-off-than.html">really banged a gong on the fantasy sex life with Christopher Hitchens</a>. For anyone who may believe it's a spoof, a joke, or a lack of medication.... let me be quite clear: Hitchens is Hot.<br /><br />Brilliant men, even old ones with gout, heart trouble, a drinking problem and 50 extra pounds are hot. Sex is an intellectual pursuit. Physical beauty and pleasure fades, what we are left with is our minds and a desire to share our days with companions who are interesting. Once heart medication is in the picture... do we want a man with an aptitude for the ultimate mindfuck, or a man who stares blandly at the TV screen eating Cheetos??? The sunset of youth, and of life itself should be spent with a man possessing an agile mind. Boredom sucks the very oxygen from the air, and replaces the soul with a husk.<br /><br />No contest. At least among women making their bones in politics. Men who have lived full lives. Men capable of evolving long after they pass their physical prime. Some fellas are simply too easy to conquer. They become addicted to any lady worth her intellectual and physical salt... which is tiresome. We aren't in Ancient Rome or Greece. I don't want to be deified. It's too much pressure to be the morning sun and evening star to an uncomplicated, unintellectual man.<br /><br />Enter Christopher Hitchens. And Darth Vader - James Earl Jones. Or Dick Cheney, Marcello Mastroianni, James Carville, Paul Wolfowitz, Gabriel Byrne, Anthony Hopkins, Fred Thompson, Kirk Douglas, Bruce Willis, Richard Burton, Sean Connery, Tommy Franks, BB King. And Clark Gable, John Malkovich, Steve McQueen or Yul Brenner. Any woman would love to share her Last Tango with Marlon Brando. Robert Redford - especially in Indecent Proposal & The Horse Whisperer - only realized his full potential after age 50. Robert Evans... I'm young enough to only recall comeback number 54 but Evans is more than the "Kid." Spending a night with Eric Clapton, BRING IT. Or just about any Marine. Semper Fi, Men. And <a href="http://www.patdollard.com/">Pat Dollard</a> - Amen. Or, the Governor of Texas: Rick Perry. Jeez, the man is HOT. I've met him... and it should be illegal to be so sexy.<br /><br />It isn't their age or station that intrigues me - or many of my politico girlfriends. It is a capacity for interesting, inventive thought. An unbridled mind is one worth noticing, and real women prefer to be consumed intellectually just much as we desire a fulfilling sexual relationship.As for younger men who also fit the bill... Kevin McKidd. James Purefoy. Clive Owen. Djimon Hounsou. Darryl Worley. Joaquin Phoenix. Shawn Fago. And a couple of political guys who shall remain nameless.With that, I'll give you my thought for the day - from one of my favorite writers...<br /><br /><blockquote><p><em>It is a stroke of good fortune to find one who is worth seducing... Most<br />people rush ahead, become engaged or do other stupid things, and in a turnof the<br />hand everything is over, and they know neither what they have won norwhat they have lost.<br /><br />~~~ Soren Kierkegaard ~~~<br /></em></p><p>Another of my Hitchens missives: <a href="http://insidedcandredcarpets.blogspot.com/2006/12/marry-me-christopher-hitchens.html">Marry Me, Christopher Hitchens</a> </p><p>AND this one which began the banter: <a name="3682164287358762669"></a><br /><a href="http://medializzy.blogspot.com/2007/04/wolfowitz-hitchens-earn-most-delicious.html">Wolfowitz, Hitchens Earn Most Delicious Status</a> </p></blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580184853402634845.post-62956459182768692252007-03-29T07:04:00.000-05:002007-03-29T07:13:36.424-05:00Cancer, the great equalizer and savior.It was extremely sad to hear that Tony Snow and Elizabeth Edwards are battling metastatic cancer. These battles are tough, painful, mentally exhausting and the percentage of survivors is quite low. Out of the ashes of such devastating news came increased interest/coverage of the fight for a cure for cancer and the importance of living each day to the fullest (the best survival tactic we know).<br /><br />When prominent journalist Peter Jennings went public with his diagnosis of lung cancer and subsequent death, millions of people made a huge effort to stop smoking and were successful in quitting. Even though Mr. Jennings ultimately died of lung cancer, he helped millions extend their lives. I suspect that Mrs. Edwards and Mr. Snow will give millions hope,comfort and increased survivial as they have been quite public about their fight with this disease.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580184853402634845.post-59033979379244134922007-03-22T07:13:00.000-05:002007-03-22T07:31:38.824-05:00EXACTLY WHAT MANNER OF "GATE" IS THIS?<a href="http://www.creators.com/opinion/paul-craig-roberts/crime-blotter-1600-pennsylvania-ave.html"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcAeqeqtaEuhLSUaEnEW3VUzJbeJ3SQHrlec3TH_kp5Gbzg39OXjKoG60uVc3mgrJ4NUWosQXBCGXUlRT6_XBaqv1I6PsFDczJ310QVjx5qNdj4UGxANQnq8vbBts5pX0FNwUp9cZeag/s200/cavalor+hooves.jpg" border="0" alt="Is Eubanks the Deep Throat, or Bush's John Dean?"id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5044723722067748802" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Sadly, President George W Bush will likely escape the White House with his hide despite the gathering <a href="http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002839.php">dark clouds on the horizon</a>. It appears that those on the political left within the media and the blogosphere seem so intent on "getting Karl Rove" that they are missing <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/21/AR2007032102713.html">the clear and present point before every one's nose.</a> <br /><br /><br /><br /><strong>The United States Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other intelligence gathering organs including but not exclusive to the National Security Agency and the Defence Intelligence Agency very likely have become instruments of political power wielded illegally by the Bush White House to reward corporations and to gain political points due to failing poll numbers and the likelihood that he would have to face a Democratic Congress. </strong><br /><br /><br />This imbroglio running faster on its legs by the day is taking on a far greater importance than even the Iraq war for so called equal justice under the law is one of those bromides for which Americans were supposed to be defending against al Qaeda in Iraq. If the Attorney General's office was willing to interfere in a tobacco case what would possibly stop them from seeking to politicize indictments or even move to stop investigations that might lead back to the White House with links to <a href="http://thedisbrimstone-dailypitchfork.blogspot.com/2007/03/what-does-acronym-nais-mean-to-you.html">Jack Abramoff?</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Cavalor Epthith<br /><i>Editor-in-Chief<br />The Dis brimstone-Daily Pitchfork<br />52 Colnu 1 AS<br />22 March 2007 Anno Domini</i>Cavalor Epthithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02327473727334852451noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580184853402634845.post-81344175817043300042007-03-22T07:08:00.000-05:002007-03-22T07:10:54.694-05:00THE MEDICAL WAYBACK MACHINE<a href="http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/resolve?id=doi:10.1086/344904"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6wX9PQNmQ8ruTt82nsDODDGLX7wUG-k1mJ9ZbO1SVpR08vUZ7491TvTdGeNUKBCGMlEjkvxe3wyFw7_Lybu-Qcf6b7ZiWOwx2Bl5daAeWpk0nLkle6Or_1W_g4qD-lQrCSWPlmT4b0w/s200/cavalor+hooves.jpg" border="0" alt="Beats the heck out of first Death I imagine. F.S."id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5044718061300852658" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><strong>Cross posted at the <a href="http://thedisbrimstone-dailypitchfork.blogspot.com/">Dis Brimstone-Daily Pitchfork</a></strong><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />I recall a particularly funny skit on Saturday night Live where Steve Martin played a medieval doctor named Theodoric of York. That was the late 1970s and such skits about bloodletting and maggots and poultices were hilarious in the age of the new powerful diagnostics and machines like the Magnetic Resonance Imager were fresh and carried a mighty gee whiz factor. Now as pointed out by our good friend Yule Heibel (frisky tail flick for pointing this out to us, dear lady) at her <a href="http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/yulelog/2007/03/16/maggot-mans-new-best-friend/">Post Studio, leeches and maggots</a> are making a very heralded comeback in the world of medicine in the 21st Century. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/extract/337/19/1383"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-9axvCpvr_c8T3Kc7DmBxxH55QOYpKSDnxbpJGplrofhZ4hql_eN3dj8NZkFVkryqpelAQ7iM3GP-R7EJ76co_NwRPPAZFgKjVi5z-0rAuMRaAswoJ-HhgxRzxDznON4dyopnuQboJg/s200/leech+therapy.jpg" border="0" alt="Leeches have been used in many cultures on Terra to treat wounds promoting healing."id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5044716729860990882" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Now I know most of you humans (and admittedly some of us demons) bear a visual aversion to the squirming always moving writhing little buggers that are fly larvae. The very thought of their brigades of shuffling locomotors is enough to send some folk into a swoon. Others like Dermatologist Eliot Mostow credited in <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2004-07-07-leeches-maggots_x.htm">this USA Today article from July 2004</a> with saving a diabetic patent's foot smile with delight at the little worms and their leech cousins as well. <br /><br /><br /><br />So at some time in the future your insurance may be presented with a bill not for thousands in high tech antibiotics that do not work but for a few hundreds for the low tech treatments of maggot bags that could save your life. Having your flesh crawl is a small price to pay for extended health in the first life.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Qu'ul cuda praedex nihil!<br /><br /><br /><br />Cavalor Epthith<br /><i>Editor-in-Chief<br />The Dis Brimstone-Daily Pitchfork<br />52 Colnu 1 AS</i>Cavalor Epthithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02327473727334852451noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580184853402634845.post-32113679031512701322007-03-08T11:57:00.000-05:002007-03-08T12:00:11.022-05:00Credit Cards and Personal Accountability<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_z-7p2--umnI/RfAtncOxs6I/AAAAAAAABjY/UKWOthp8bbU/s1600-h/credit+card.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5039578138643903394" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_z-7p2--umnI/RfAtncOxs6I/AAAAAAAABjY/UKWOthp8bbU/s200/credit+card.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"> The </span><a href="http://agonist.org/finally_congress_investigates_credit_card_industry"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Agonist,</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"> via </span><a href="http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/01/27/senate-investigates-credit-card-company-practices/"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Crooks and Liars</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"> on the credit card companies' heads being questioned by Congress.</span> <div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">In light of the attention paid to this matter, </span><a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bal-bz.credit08mar08,0,5580902.story?coll=bal-business-headlines"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">two companies are now changing some of their excessive fees</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">. (via Baltimore Sun)</span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">I don't doubt for a second that abusive practices will continue. I got caught in a trap myself last year. I switched over to a new card and transferred a balance with terms that included no interest for one year. Then while on vacation, I was one day late in paying the bill. Not only did my interest bounce up to 12% interest, I also incurred the ridiculous late fee of $39, which took me over my limit, thus incurring another $39 fee. To make matters worse, I was paying the bill online and was one day out from the due date, but the way this company has their online service set up, they automatically put your posting date out plus two days, so you always have to be at least three days out from your due date not to incur the late fee.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Today, the issue was covered on - you guessed it - my favorite reality television show, Washington Journal. Many of the callers were unforgiving, you get what you deserve, how could you not know that you were sinking deeper into debt, personal responsibility banner wavers.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Here's a little list of questions for ya before you get too far in your support for hanging the individual and allowing corporations to run unregulated...</span></div><ul><li><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Did you pay oodles of money to become a public servant that does good works in a job that pays at the low end of the wage scale for the amount of ongoing education required?<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Have you ever been instructed by a doctor to take your sick kid to a hospital for tests, only to be asked to whip out a credit card and pay your portion of the fees because having the doctor's referral just rendered it "not an emergency" for your HMO? Oh, and the hospital tells you that you must pay your co-pay immediately and then they send you follow up bills that the HMO won't pay because they considered it not an emergency?</span></li><br /><li><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Have you tried to rent a car or book a flight or a hotel room without a credit card?<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Have you paid all your bills off just to have something big go wrong with your car or your fridge so that you had to start charging again?</span></li></ul><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">It's pretty easy to be judgemental about credit card usage - chez Tits, we've run the gamut of having to use them to live on when one or both of us were out of work, to over relying on them when The Spawn were young and daycare was sucking us dry, to being careful paying them all off, to paying them off then having to use them for emergencies.<br /><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">But the point of yesterday's hearings goes back to fairness. Yes, I'll pay my charges, but that doesn't make it right for the credit card companies to prey on people who are struggling by whacking them with ever-growing fees and abusive policies. It's been the lack of regulation that has led to a financial mess for so many Americans and less regulation isn't going to help them. Of course they should pay what they charged, plus a reasonable interest rate. That's what credit is, but the current unregulated and abusive practices that are being perpetrated on those card holders by the card companies is a much bigger crime than any sum of individuals who might skip out on their bills.</span></div></div>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580184853402634845.post-16943297412953818252007-03-08T10:37:00.000-05:002007-03-08T10:44:19.031-05:00Scooter and the TrialThe first part of the trial of Lewis "Scooter" Libby is over. The jury has returned a verdict and we await the sentencing. After that, we await the appeals which have likely been filed. As I followed the progress of this trial with the various journalists and White House staffers testifying, I kept thinking about Scooter and why a middle-aged professional would choose to refer to himself by a nickname.<br /><br />As a professional, I use my christian name and surname at all times. If for some reason, I found that I hated either of those names, I would have changed them to something that I loved but not once in my professional life, have I used my nickname. I just have a difficult time figuring out why these the folks in this White House love the "nicknames and pet names.<br /><br />Do we remember that President Bush referring to the then head of FEMA as "Brownie" and telling him that he was doing a great job right after Katrina when we all saw thousands of people huddled in the Super Dome? And then there is "Scooter" who took one for the boss, "Dick".Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580184853402634845.post-76948363335747030552007-03-04T11:57:00.000-05:002007-03-04T12:23:05.273-05:00HOW MANY WOULD STAND ON "TRADITION" IF THAT NOSTALGIA HAD THE TEETH AND CLAWS OF LAW<a href="http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/112286.aspx"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs_BmIjMsJDJLyR21sZnmnefgO-SuYNPieEUL7nbSI09JMUrxv1Rx3SlpYDFiaBPC1TCztvwHuyUZrOSWQeiuUpP1d6ft_evLvE4s3GJH-K8yY9YlK4uJNV9KwC-sPa0r0lQqoc7rCWQ/s200/cavalor+hooves.jpg" border="0" alt="Could naivete have that much to do with it?"id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5038114897817032354" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />My wife is an endless source of inspiration for me.<br /><br />Just this morning she had read an article, <a href="http://thedisbrimstone-dailypitchfork.blogspot.com/2006/07/defending-marriage.html">"Defending marriage"</a> I wrote many Terran months ago about divorce and how the Religious Right should allow marriage for all but should insist on the "binding for life" nature of the joining of two people. <br /><br /><br />So I put it to my friends here, what would happen to marriage if by law you were bound to your spouse for life and there was no divorce?<br /><br /><br />Cavalor Epthith<br /><i>Editor-in-Chief<br />The Dis Brimstone-Daily Pitchfork<br />34 Colnu 1 AS<br />4 March 2007 Anno Domini</i>Cavalor Epthithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02327473727334852451noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580184853402634845.post-48595745874552014542007-02-27T12:13:00.000-05:002007-02-27T12:42:16.972-05:00WHAT HAPPENS THE DAY AFTER?<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/27/AR2007022700174.html"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYwlXz3v9PP_AJSrRSXnL-vpYRFuP776tOwUvybBiEZRKYWkyrq9YGgOzxm5G7a-x9WFpYEf03_IpjQpyhOVM0HjEQGL50RjOpoInhLhBtSXBgQOHFdt2lckDmsRtkkwaxY6tG81Sxxg/s200/cavalor+hooves.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5036264535078264098" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />It appears the Taleban targeted Vice President Dick Cheney today in Afghanistan via suicide bombs attack at Bagram Air Force Base often called the safest place in the country. Cheney was unharmed being nearly 1/2 mile away from the blast which reports say that he heard and felt mid morning local time. Many observers of the region are calling bombing that killed twelve, and the fact that a Taleban spokesperson made it clear it was a symbolic attack on Cheney, signals the beginning of an offensive on the part of the near destroyed movement that once held sway in the Land of the Pashtun.<br /><br />Let us take a moment and play a bit of a digital table top exercise. Given all the spin and rhetoric surrounding the war in Iraq, the rationale for invading, the verity or falsification of intel and the sloganeering by the Bush administration clearly floundering to find some bit of flotsam to hold onto now that their ship of state has sunk, what happens the day after this scenario plays out.<br /><br /><br /><br /><strong><br />CNN- 1015 EDT Xxxxxx, 22, 2007<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100879.html"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXgcsFyoIzyRf4cHjtk68QzrkWISjzH8swU_RJtnSgoipwpJzNzsQjatB42aX71eB9RgXYaPLNvp43KqP5APWE7VNRUAyMpyxKTRYCOqpG7flLp5mp9f9vlcN6C12wvVgklfxY5NxlNQ/s200/terror+attack.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5036268714081443154" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Heidi Collins: We are getting word in to the CNN Newsroom that a massive explosion has gone off in the lower level of a shopping mall in the northern Virginia city of Arlington. Reports coming in from the Associated Press tell us that numerous people are wounded and the underground of the mall at Crystal City is on fire. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Tony Harris: Heidi, we need to pass off to Betty Nguyen who has a chilling bit of news to update this situation, Betty?<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/item/2005/0709/arno/arnold_terror.html"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx4-HxfOy5PfdTTCM-WYAY6mnQgr_rrxCOB_HKwyP64z9BPhFukLxYme-TX8KJ-DI5F0G3n7qQTmAvk8ESud3A2uRQq_sYBvEZwF3zox0m-HwgA5F7z5BOZbAT83BVZTR5dDN1U_k6BA/s200/dirty+bomb.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5036267653224521010" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Betty Nguyen: Heidi, Tony it seems our worst fears have been realized as I am reading a message coming on on the AP news wire from the group in Iraq that is aligned with al Qaeda stating in great detail that this is an al Qaeda operation in the American city of Arlington and that the bomb contained the radioactive element Cesium. That is now being confirmed forty two minutes after the blast was first reported by a flurry of 911 calls to fire and police from the mall. A quarantine and decontamination effort is underway and now we are getting our first pictures of the radioactive cloud drifting toward Washington, D.C.<br /><br /><br />Tony Harris: It seems that once again, Betty, America is the main front in the global war on terror.<br /><br /><br />--</strong><br /><br /><br /><br />Where would the Bush administration go from here? The drumbeat has always been that the fight in Iraq was an effort to keep terrorists from striking within America's borders. Is there any way the spin machine could turn such an attack into a positive for the beleaguered White House? Or would this be the straw that broke the camel's back?<br /><br /><br /><br />Cavalor Epthith<br /><i>Editor-in-Chief<br />The Dis Brimstone-Daily Pitchfork<br />29 Colnu 1 AS</i>Cavalor Epthithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02327473727334852451noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580184853402634845.post-40318194177028629652007-02-22T15:25:00.000-05:002007-02-22T15:27:28.350-05:00A Call To Action<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_z-7p2--umnI/Rd3z1-U4gmI/AAAAAAAABYs/xmiaVPdGwsM/s1600-h/Dollar+Sign.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5034448067059286626" style="CURSOR: hand" height="74" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_z-7p2--umnI/Rd3z1-U4gmI/AAAAAAAABYs/xmiaVPdGwsM/s200/Dollar+Sign.jpg" width="67" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Here's a small proposal that I'd like to invite you to be part of. First you have to do a little homework (I know you have tons to do - but this is <em>important</em>). Read </span><a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/48278/"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">this article </span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">by Matt Taibbi at Alternet. It's full of pesky numbers and information, but it's a quick read, easily understood, and well-written (I have a blog-crush on By </span><a title="View all stories by Matt Taibbi" href="http://www.alternet.org/authors/6535/"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Matt Taibbi</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">, of Rolling Stone.) Add to all this that Taibbi uses the word fuck more than once and you've got a recipe for a real barn burner of an article on the 2008 Federal Budget. </span><br /><blockquote><p><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">On the same day that Britney was shaving her head, a guy I know who works in the office of Senator Bernie Sanders sent me an email. He was trying very hard to get news organizations interested in some research his office had done about George Bush's proposed 2008 budget, which was unveiled two weeks ago and received relatively little press, mainly because of the controversy over the Iraq war resolution. All the same, the Bush budget is an amazing document. It would be hard to imagine a document that more clearly articulates the priorities of our current political elite.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Not only does it make many of Bush's tax cuts permanent, but it envisions a complete repeal of the Estate Tax, which mainly affects only those who are in the top two-tenths of the top one percent of the richest people in this country. The proposed savings from the cuts over the next decade are about $442 billion, or just slightly less than the amount of the annual defense budget (minus Iraq war expenses). But what's interesting about these cuts are how Bush plans to pay for them.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Sanders's office came up with some interesting numbers here. If the Estate Tax were to be repealed completely, the estimated savings to just one family -- the Walton family, the heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune -- would be about $32.7 billion dollars over the next ten years.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">The proposed reductions to Medicaid over the same time frame? $28 billion. Or how about this: if the Estate Tax goes, the heirs to the Mars candy corporation -- some of the world's evilest scumbags, incidentally, routinely ripped by human rights organizations for trafficking in child labor to work cocoa farms in places like Cote D'Ivoire -- if the estate tax goes, those assholes will receive about $11.7 billion in tax breaks. That's more than three times the amount Bush wants to cut from the VA budget ($3.4 billion) over the same time period.</span></p></blockquote><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Look, do you pay taxes? I do, too. Now read the article because it tells you how the 2008 proposed federal budget would spend your tax dollars. And it ain't pretty. Remeber this - for every subsidy or tax break given to big business or wealthy families, one of three things happen. Other taxes (or fees as they're so lovingly euphemized) are raised so that the middle class pays more, programs (usually those benefiting the poor) are cut or the deficit grows.<br /><br />After you've read the article, please consider contacting news outlets to tell them that you expect them to cover the budget with the same vigor they have for covering Brittany's bald pussy, I mean head, and Anna Nicole's sperm intake.<br /><br />More tax background. From the </span><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/12/LI2005041200630.html"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Washington Post</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">.<br /><br /></span><a href="http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=111"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Mainstream media contact list.</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"><br /><br />Who's zooming who at </span><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">OpenSecrets.org</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">. Just for the hell of it.<br /><br />Another </span><a href="http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022007G.shtml"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">take</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"> on the 2008 Bush Budget.<br /><br />A </span><a href="http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=124"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">list</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"> of alternative media. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">I'm preparing my email to </span><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Keith</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"> now.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">Cross-Posted at <a href="http://politits.blogspot.com">PoliTits</a>.</span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580184853402634845.post-86802177095734290962007-02-22T13:04:00.000-05:002007-02-23T12:49:48.767-05:00So let the sniping begin...Hollywood record mogel David Geffen recently made some less-than-supportive comments about Senator Hilary Clinton at a fundraiser for one of her opponents, Senator Barack Obama. Senator Clinton promptly makes some retaliatory comments at and about Senator Barak Obama, not at the person (Geffen) who "threw down the gauntlet" originally. This does bring to mind that Senator Clinton is feeling the effects of Senator Obama's campaign quite acutely or else she would have ignored Geffen and kept to her "positive campaign".<br /><br />It's way too early in this process, to start the "sniping" and "grunging" and "bitching". At the end of last year's campaign, voters loudly expressed their opinions of the negative campaigns (most negative campaigners lost their races). At this rate, many people are going to be so turned off by the process, that both campaigns become consumed making way for a sweep by the loyal opposition. I suspect that the rest of the Democrats are hoping for this very happening.<br /><br />It seems to me that the juggernaut of the Clinton campaign can take a little "ribbing" from a non-political type without the retaliation from the candiate herself. Such actions make Senator Obama's campaign especially more powerful if the impact of Geffen's words creates this much of a response. How creditable is a record executive's political opinions anyway? Obviously, pretty powerful and creditable to Senator Clinton.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580184853402634845.post-73065909469302081762007-02-21T07:40:00.000-05:002007-02-21T08:15:25.656-05:00THE SOUND OF ONE HAND CLAPPING<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/21/AR2007022100201.html"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjizzeiJMtHuIdCGQ61BO89Ix0_lLtCkl1VNJhfDXodexnvR2W9EZigKdMT70myVtHUbd9geKHv3pDoPDFW4R-Cz6EjDJ9DC7WL5Gyv6DirssPrJTZGQWlB0G-uVIt63p7LlcSUIj7rMw/s200/flamin+bones.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5033975192955444322" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />I am sitting here watching British Prime Minister Tony Blair on C-SPAN 2 explaining his decision to withdraw 1,600 troops from the Basra region of Iraq in the House of Commons. The event where he had been pummeled with questions from the like of Conservative leader David Cameron and Liberal Democratic leader Menzies Campbell is still on going and forces me to pause with this question. How would George Bush fare if he had to answer in the well of the House of Representatives the direct questions on his policies from the likes of Barney Frank, or Charlie Rangel or John Conyers? A president then would have to be more than just a straw man for political interests with deep pockets and draconian agendas. American presidents would have to be more dare I say it like Tony Blair.<br /><br /><br /><br />Cavalor Epthith<br /><i>Editor-in-Chief<br />The Dis Brimstone-Daily Pitchfork<br />23 Colnu 1 AS<br />21 February 2007 Anno Domini</i>Cavalor Epthithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02327473727334852451noreply@blogger.com0