Author: Maryscott OConnor

My GOD, doesn’t anyone know who Eugene V. Debs was? When listening to their “classic country” radio stations, do the George Bush-loving, Republican-voting, Limbaugh-bobbleheads ever stop to think about what the lyrics to Sixteen Tons actually MEAN?

One doubts it. If you’ve never heard of Eugene V. Debs, or have but don’t know the magnitude of the man’s contribution to YOUR OWN QUALITY OF LIFE TODAY, please read on.

Renowned for his compilations of oral interviews with famous and mostly not-so-famous Americans, Studs Terkel has talked with thousands of  people about their experiences on the job, serving their country in World War II, their perceptions of race and most recently, the challenges of growing old and facing death.

Born Louis Terkel, he grew up in the 1920s and 1930s in an environment filled with workers, union organizers and other progressives who gathered in the lobby of his parents’ Chicago rooming house. Starting his career as an actor, disc jockey and radio and television personality, Terkel ultimately turned to documenting oral interviews in a series of books. In Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do, Terkel elicited first-hand experiences of workers as varied as bus driver and strip miner, policeman and film critic. Blacklisted in the 1950s by the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Terkel went on to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1985 and a National Humanities Medal from President Bill Clinton in 1997.

Terkel, who has been called a “guerilla journalist” and a man “whose name is synonymous with Labor Day,” sprinkles his conversation with references to the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes and American revolutionary Thomas Paine–yet has the unique ability to engage people in a way that draws forth the hopes, dreams and heartfelt experiences of everyday Americans.

The following is an excerpt from an AFL-CIO interview with Terkel in July 2005:

How did the eight-hour day come into being? It began in Chicago and four guys got hanged for it–the Haymarket affair in 1886. What were they fighting for? The eight-hour day.

There’s no knowledge what the labor movement did for the lives of people. Social Security came out of the New Deal, and the minimum wage idea, and the idea of national health, these all came out of [labor]. And that’s all being dismantled by what we have now. And so part of it is not knowing the past. No past, therefore there is no present and no future.

What was the first thing Ronald Reagan did as president of the United States? In 1981, he broke the air controller’s strike. You know what they were striking about? It wasn’t about pay. It was about R and R, rest and recreation. So the issue was passenger safety, right? And Ronald Reagan said, `No,’ and four out of five Americans applauded.

You start wondering, `Wait a minute. Are we a necrophiliac people?’ And you start thinking some more. `We’re the only industrialized country that still has the death penalty, right? We’re the only industrialized country that does not have national health insurance.’ So one is death, and the other is life. And so you start thinking, `My God, have we become so perverse?

If so, then all my books are junk? Because my books depended on the sense of decency of ordinary Americans and their native intelligence and it’s under assault today as never before.

[Americans’ sense of decency and native intelligence are] there, but the information has been siphoned through–we know what it’s siphoned through: Fox News, Rupert Murdoch and Rush Limbaugh. And thus we have a certain kind of news filter to it. Right? It becomes entertainment, it becomes banality, it becomes nothing. And there’s no past. The big thing is to revivify in one way or another the past and to show how we came to be.

So that’s part of the problem facing labor, to reacquaint these people with what happened. The new members are fresh and they have grievances and we’ve got to hit that and reach as many as possible–caregivers and…maids and get all the people who never thought of organizing, organized. And that’s what the oral histories I write are all about, I hope–to recapture our history. And I think we can do it–provided we…stick together.

Whatever split there is has to be healed–immediately. Because we agree on the big thing. Basically, it has to be under one big tent. I like the phrase `under one tent.’ And so, that’s pretty much the ticket.”

History

EUGENE VICTOR DEBS 1855-1926
Born: Nov. 5,1855, at Terre Haute, Indiana.

Died: Oct. 20,1926, Lindlahr Sanitarium, Elmhurst, Illinois. Buried in Terre Haute, Ind.

Education: Attended Terre Haute Public schools, dropping out of high school at age of 14 to take job as painter in railroad yards. In 1870 became fireman on railroad. In his spare time, he went to night classes at a local business college.

September 1874 –At his mother’s insistence he gave up job as railroad fireman and went to work in wholesale grocery firm of Hulman & Cox as a billing clerk.

February 27, 1875 –Became charter member and secretary of Vigo Lodge, Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen. He continued work at Hulman & Cox and used his salary to help the fledgling local union and conducted its work at night. Later the same year he became president of Occidental Literary Club of Terre Haute. Brought famous personages to Terre Haute including Col. Robert Ingersoll, James Whitcomb Riley, Susan B. Anthony and many others.

1878 — Made assistant editor of national Brotherhood of Locomotive Fireman’s Magazine.

1879 –Elected to first of two terms as City Clerk of Terre Haute on Democrat ticket.

1880 –Named Grand Secretary of Brotherhood of Railway Firemen and editor of the Magazine.

1884 –Elected state representative to the Indiana General Assembly as a Democrat representing Terre Haute and Vigo County. Served in 1885.

June 9, 1885 –Married to Kate Metzel whom he loved and cherished until his death. They had no children.

1890 –Built and moved into his beautiful Terre Haute home at 451 North Eighth Street, which is now a National Historic Landmark of the National Parks Department of the Department of Interior of the United States; an official historic site of the State of Indiana and is now the Debs Museum.

1891 –Announced his retirement from the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen as its Grand Secretary.

1892 –Convention of Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen prevailed on him to retain editorship of Magazine.

June 1893 –Organized in Chicago first industrial union in United States, the American Railway Union.

April 1894 –The American Railway Union struck Great Northern Railway. Not a wheel moved on Great Northern and at end of 18 days, the railway granted demands of union.

May 11, 1894 –Pullman Boycott and strike at Chicago began.

July 23, 1894 –Debs and leaders of ARU jailed.

May, 1895 –Debs and leaders of ARU sent to jail for contempt of court in connection with Pullman strike. Finished sentences Nov. 22, 1895. Given triumphal welcome by thousands on his arrival in Chicago, from Woodstock, Ill. jail where sentence was served.

1900, 1904, 1908, 1912, 1920 –Ran as candidate of Socialist Party for President of the United States in some of the most dynamic campaigning ever seen in the United States. Made his greatest showing in campaign of 1908 which featured the RED SPECIAL train which went to every section of the country.

1907-1912 –Named Associate Editor of the Appeal to Reason published in Girard, Kan. He was paid the then fabulous salary of $100 per week. The weekly magazine achieved a circulation of several hundred thousand due to the powerful writing of Debs. The bound files of the Appeal to Reason for the years of 1907 to 1914 are part of the library in the Debs home.

1916 –Ran for Congress in his home district in Terre Haute on the Socialist ticket and was defeated.

June 16, 1918 –Debs made his famous anti-war speech in Canton, Ohio, protesting World War I which was raging in Europe. For this speech he was arrested and convicted in federal court in Cleveland, Ohio under the war-time espionage law. He was his own attorney and his appeal to the jury and his statement to the court before sentencing, are regarded as two of the great classic statements ever made in a court of law. He was sentenced to serve 10 years in prison and disenfranchised for life, losing his citizenship.

April 12, 1919 –Debs began serving his sentence in Moundsville, W. Va. State prison and was transferred to Atlanta, Ga. Federal prison two months later. His humility and friendliness and his assistance to all won him the respect and admiration of the most hardened convicts.

1920 –For the fifth and last time, while a prisoner at Atlanta, he was nominated to run for president on the Socialist party ticket. Conducting his campaign from inside the prison, he was given nearly a million votes but was defeated by the Republican, Warren G. Harding. On Christmas Day, 1921 President Harding released Debs from prison, commuting his sentence to time served.

Dec. 28, 1921 –Debs arrived home in Terre Haute from prison and was given a tremendous welcome by thousand of Terre Hauteans. Debs spent his remaining days trying to recover his health which was severely undermined by prison confinement. He made several speeches, wrote many articles and finally in 1926 went to Lindlahr sanitarium just outside of Chicago.

Oct. 20, 1926 –Eugene V. Debs died in Lindlahr sanitarium. His body was brought back to Terre Haute where it lay in state in the Terre Haute Central Labor Temple. Great men and women from the world over came to Terre Haute for his funeral which was conducted by Norman Thomas from the front porch of the Debs home.

Thirty-eight years later, Thomas returned to Terre Haute to dedicate the Debs home as a memorial to the great humanitarian. Debs was cremated and his ashes were interred in Highland Lawn cemetery, Terre Haute, with only a simple marker. Ten years later his beloved wife, Kate, was buried beside him.

Over the years, hundreds have journeyed to his grave to pay tribute to this great man whose many reforms have now become a part of the American way of life. There is hardly any American alive today, rich or poor, whose life has not been touched in some beneficent way by the influence of Eugene Victor Debs.

“Too long have the workers of the world waited for some Moses to lead them out of bondage. I would not lead you out if I could; for if you could be led out, you could be led back again. I would have you make up your minds there is nothing that you cannot do for yourselves.”

From an address on Industrial Unionism delivered at Grand Central Palace. New York City, Dec. 18,1905.

In 19th century America, there was widespread employment of children in the factories and mines. Boys were hired to work in the mines, as their small bodies were readily accommodated in the tight, cramped work spaces below ground. They provided cheap labor for such chores as tending the mules or ponies and serving as “gophers” for the men doing the more physically demanding work.

Debs was a strong advocate of legislative restrictions on child labor, and the Socialist Party became the mechanism for forcing this issue on the agendas of the two major parties. It was for Debs an issue of human rights, but Debs was not unaware that such restrictions would lead to more jobs and better wages for America’s working men and women.

In 1920 Eugene V. Debs ran for the office of President of the United States. For the fifth time Debs placed himself, his ideas, and his ideals before the voters of America.

This election included for the first time a whole new class of voters–women. The Nineteenth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution was adopted in August of that year. The suffrage amendment was the culmination of a long and arduous struggle begun in 1848 at the first Women’s Rights Convention. This historic meeting was held in Seneca Falls, New York, a town resembling in size and development, Terre Haute, Indiana, Debs’s 1855 birthplace. From that time and place, women and their male allies marched, agitated, and sacrificed for the cause they knew to be right and good. Is it a surprise that Debs was a life long supporter of this movement?

The other unusual thing about the election of 1920 is that Debs conducted his campaign from the Atlanta Federal Prison. He was famously, “federal prisoner 9653,” incarcerated for violating the Espionage Act of 1917. He had chosen to speak out against war at a time when the U. S. government was pursuing a “total war” policy. The Espionage Act along with a relentless pro-war propaganda effort by the government succeeded in creating a climate in the country one historian has characterized as “mad, patriotic conformity.”

I am a far-left, anti-war Democrat with a pragmatic streak the size of a continent. If you don’t quite see how someone like me can classify herself as a political pragmatist, ask an oldtimer about my days as a Kerry Cheerleader Extraordinaire…

But even pragmatism has its varieties.

I hereby reiterate the conclusion to which I came some time after the election: The kind of “pragmatism” employed and endorsed in the words, “We must stay the course,” has ceased to be an option.

(Which is not to say that before the election I subscribed to that particular line of reasoning. I have been against this war from the beginning, and advocating for our withdrawal from Day Two.)

We, the Democrats and progressives and leftists and liberals who believe this war to be wrong, must appeal to our representatives in Congress. We must hammer them with insistent demands.

People are dying and suffering for nothing. This is no fucking chess game; this is a rock bottom issue of morality. Anyone who supported or supports this war supports murder and mayhem. And anyone who stands by and does nothing, says nothing — is also supporting death and destruction.

It is INDEFENSIBLE. No good can come of our presence in Iraq; it will simply continue as it has and eventually get worse. More people will die and suffer maiming, more children will lose their parents… and another generation in the Middle East will grow up despising the United States as a mortal enemy. And, frankly, I can’t blame them.

I, of course, have the luxury of wearing my broken heart on my sleeve, of speaking out vociferously against the war and agitating for immediate withdrawal of all coalition forces — because I am not a politician, much less up for re-election in 18 months.

Likewise, the Democrats have the dubious luxury of not having make the decision — because they do not yet, unfortunately, have the numbers to force Bush to pull us out of Iraq, let alone impeach the motherfucker, which any RATIONAL legislature would already have DONE by now.

The sensible and prudent Democrats almost all advocate, among other things, international support achieved through making the UN a full partner in “help(ing) the Iraqis build a stable, peaceful and pluralistic society.” (from John F. Kerry’s Op-Ed Piece in the Washington Post, Tuesday, April 13, 2004.) Certainly it has become the only “safe” position to take in the face of our woeful lack of influence or power in Congress.

I am thoroughly acquainted with the perilous vicissitudes of retaining what little hope for making up lost ground in 2006 we may have, of how imperiled so many Democrats already are in their re-election bids.

Some, whom I have had the displeasure to witness on various blogs, are taking every opportunity to employ the kind of vicious, counterproductive rhetoric against the deluded pragmatism displayed by these Democrats, which Ralph Nader used to such great and terrible effect against Al Gore in 2000.

Such behaviour, should it affect the mid-term races the way it affected Mr. Gore and put the election within Mr. Bush’s reach, will do nothing to further the goals of these so-called “progressives.”  If the previous term is any indication of the cutthroat hubris with which this Administration will use its power to complete its goals (by now transparent to everyone at a third grade reading level)… the next four years under Bush and a Republican dominated legislature may result in a disfiguration of the world as envisioned by the likes of George Orwell and company.

But there comes a time when pragmatic caution is not only regrettable but damned immoral. This is one of those times. Every Democrat in Congress should band together and in one voice, declare the war in Iraq to have been a dreadful mistake on their part — and deliberate deception on the part of the Administration.

The onus is on these Democrats and everyone who feels in his heart as I do — that this war is folly on a tragic scale — to speak the truth as loudly and as often as possible. And since they show absolutely no signs of neither being willing to do so nor even believing that pulling out is the only possible solution —  it is no longer enough on our part to merely work to ensure a net gain in 2006. It is incumbent upon every man and woman of conscience to persist in demanding of our leaders that they unravel the Gordian knot tied so tightly and recklessly by George W. Bush.

I am not delusional. The Byzantine ways of war, while utterly unfamiliar to me as a civilian, are obviously complex, and unimaginable to me.

Which is why the raising of voices, the carrying of signs, the marching en masse to declare to the leaders of the world and the peoples of the world that we must end this conflagration NOW is so vital to a (relatively) positive outcome. Delay in our support for withdrawal further delays the decision-makers’ beginning the process of withdrawal.

How much sooner would the lamentable and catastrophic Vietnam war have ended had the protests begun years earlier? We are no longer the naive population we once were, blindly and trustingly acquiescing to the patriarchal edicts of our leaders. Ill-informed as we may be collectively, we have FAR more access to the truth now than we did then. We know enough, now, to speak up when we notice a naked emperor strutting down our streets. We MUST.

How much longer, how many more people must die in service of George W. Bush’s insane folly? Must we surpass the official death toll of Vietnam before we collectively run out of snooze alarms? What will it fucking TAKE to stop this madness? It is tragic and outrageous that these words must be spoken once again:  How can you ask someone to… die for a mistake?

The following excerpts and photographs in the extended text are horrible. Just fucking horrible. For all we’ve seen and heard in the media, this might as well be that episode of Star Trek where the people have concoted a CLEAN war, where people step into a machine and are evaporated and added to the list of War Casualties.

War is not clean. War is not pretty. All that fucking technology, that state of the art SHIT they’re peddling in those fucking recruitment ads? It’s used to kill and maim human beings. Just… at a further distance than the days when you had to kill a man face to face. Or chop off his arm. Or blind him.

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori  my ASS.

Memory Hole Tales of the Wounded

Photo Gallery of the Wounded

I have posted some pictures from the sites. (There have been NO updates at either site since 2004. I don’t know why.)

WARNING: Not Suitable for Children

         “They come here 19, 20 years old and when I see them leaving, missing limbs — I’ve seen up to three limbs gone off people, and I don’t think in our generation we’ve seen this amount of harm done to young people,” [Maj. Gene] Delaune says.

Gary Boggs

A couple miles south of the Tikrit base camp, the Humvee Boggs was riding in was badly damaged by an improvised explosive device. Shrapnel pelted the left side of his body.

         “I took some nice pieces in my arm,” Boggs said. “Luckily I didn’t lose it.” But he ended up losing his left eye.

Boggs is among more than a dozen Soldiers who have lost an eye in Operation Iraqi Freedom and have been helped by Walter Reed’s ocularist, Vince Przybyla.

Staff Sgt. Maurice Craft, an Avenger crew member with B Battery, 3/4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, was riding on Highway 5 in Baghdad Nov. 24 when an improvised explosive device hit the vehicle he was riding in. He remembers telling the driver to pull him out, and the searing pain cursing through his legs. Closing his eyes seemed to make the pain go away, but he worried that he wouldn’t wake up again.

         “I forced myself to keep my eyes open,” recalled Craft. “I knew I had to if I wanted to make it home to my kids and family.”

Craft’s left leg was amputated at the knee and a titanium rod is keeping his right leg connected to his hip, which was shattered in the attack.

Landstrum was on a nightly presence patrol in Iraq in early October when a rocket-propelled grenade, IED and machine gun fire ambush claimed his left eye.

         “I lost my eye; shrapnel wounds throughout my body, lost a piece of my skull and got messed up pretty good,” Lanstrum recalled. “At first, I was so messed up I didn’t think about my eye, I was happy to be alive, and, even to this day, it doesn’t bother me that I lost my eye.” Lanstrum said.

         “I see guys around here missing a lot more than an eye. I’m going to take care of the one eye I have left and just carry on.”

Lanstrum said he couldn’t feel sorry for himself when three of the five guys in his vehicle died.

         “Me and another guy, who lost his eye also, were the only ones to walk out of my truck so I feel pretty fortunate.”

Koch, a member of a military police company mobilized out of Fort Leonard Wood near Rolla, Mo., was driving a truck along a stretch of Baghdad highway nicknamed Ambush Alley in July when an unexploded rocket-propelled grenade hit the truck’s side mirror and bent it toward the cab.

Moments later, a bullet hit the mirror, showering Koch’s face with glass; one piece lodged in his left cheekbone. A second bullet struck the left corner of his mouth, ripped open his cheek and shattered teeth.

Koch’s assistant driver grabbed the wheel until Koch came to a few seconds later.

         “I spit out the bullet and pulled the glass out of my cheek,” said Koch, 33. “He stared at me for a second or two like I had come back from the dead. I don’t imagine I looked too good.”

As a combat lifesaver, the other driver was equipped with a bag of medical supplies including field dressings – large gauze bandages Koch used to stanch his bleeding.

         “Even though it was chaos, it was very efficient,” Koch said. “He was on the radio with one hand and handing me bandages with the other. And I was driving with one hand and stuffing bandages in my mouth with the other.”

Koch is back at Fort Leonard Wood for plastic surgery, root canals on damaged teeth and bone grafts for his jaw. He wants to return to Iraq.

Sgt. Derick Hurt returned Friday to a small town in Missouri, a place he wasn’t sure he’d ever see again.

Lying face down in an Iraqi street three months ago, the 26-year-old infantryman almost bled to death after grenades tossed from a rooftop exploded into his Humvee and blew his right leg apart.

At times, his pain and depression have been so intense that his family and girlfriend found him barely recognizable on visits to Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

For now, things are looking up. Hurt’s prosthetic leg fits well, and he’s learned to walk smoothly…

It was an ordinary Saturday in Mosul, where his unit in the 101st Airborne Division had been assigned to military police duties since May, helping to maintain public order, Hurt said in an interview last week at Walter Reed.

         “We were heading down the street, one we went down a million times,” he said.  ”There was nothing in the street. The next thing I knew, I saw a big orange flash right in front of me. A couple of seconds later, another one. My ears were ringing. I knew I’d been hit.”

Only later did Hurt learn that two grenades thrown from a roof had landed in front of his unarmored Humvee and bounced against its underside. He’d placed sandbags all over the floorboard to protect it, except for the section where the gas pedal and brake were.

         “The force of the grenades came right through that area, the thin piece of metal – tore it right off,” he said. “I was holding the steering wheel. I was numb. I couldn’t move my arms. I noticed the truck had died, was veering off the side of the road toward a semi. I thought I was going to get a head injury. I couldn’t move my legs, so I used my torso to bail out. I think that’s when I broke my wrist and messed up my hand.”

Prone on the curb on his stomach, he tried to see what was wrong with his legs, but couldn’t turn to look at them.

         “There were more bombs going off and so much smoke I could barely see. I thought, ‘This is it. I’m going to die here, just like a vegetable on the ground.’

         “Then I heard one of my guys yelling my name. I thought, ‘They’re here! They didn’t just run off and leave me!’ I tried to yell, ‘I’m here,’ but I couldn’t; I’d lost so much blood that nothing came out. Thirty seconds later he found me. The first thing he said was, ‘Holy (expletive).’ I said, ‘Don’t say that.’ That’s when I knew something was very badly wrong.”

Soon a handful of soldiers surrounded him. One used wire as a tourniquet, causing Hurt to yell in pain, but the soldier said that if he didn’t cut off the circulation, Hurt would bleed to death right there.

         “One thing I remember is asking everyone for water. They said I couldn’t, it would make me bleed more. I was never so thirsty in my life. I tried to reach for their canteens. I was thinking if I don’t get water, I’m going to die.”

They carried Hurt to a Humvee.

         “That’s when I saw my legs. One of them was half gone, the other was all battered up. My foot was still there, hanging on by something as big around as my finger. One of the guys lost his balance and stepped on my foot. I felt pain, so I assumed it was a nerve attaching it.”

They drove Hurt to an intersection, where a helicopter landed and took him to a local hospital. He was given drugs that knocked him out, and the next thing he remembers is waking up in Germany. He arrived at Walter Reed on Sept. 21.

As Julia Harvey stood alone in her kitchen, unable to calm her wailing 3-week-old daughter, she peered at the ceiling and told God,

         “I need him home! And I need him home right now!”

Within a week, her husband, Florida National Guard Spc. Travis Harvey, was back in the States. But the homecoming hasn’t turned out how Julia or Travis Harvey had hoped.

Harvey, like thousands of soldiers wounded in Iraq, returned home to his own private war. He’s still in agonizing pain. He can’t work. And his marriage is suffering.

         “I couldn’t do it by myself anymore,” said Julia Harvey, 27. “But this is not what I had in mind.”

Travis Harvey nearly bled to death in a July 15 mortar attack, in which a piece of the softball-sized mortar pierced his right leg, splitting it open. The shrapnel then lodged in his left leg, shattering the bones. Another piece of shrapnel hit his left arm.

Lying alone on the concrete, Harvey, a former medic, shoved his fist into the open wound of his right leg to slow the spurting blood.

         “Oh, my God; why me?” he thought. “I’m dead.”

Then he thought about Julia and Alexa, the newborn daughter he had never seen, waiting for him at their Ocala, Fla., home.

         “I made a decision in my mind to go home,” he recalled. “I thought, `OK, you’re awake, you’re conscious.’ I pushed all the negative thoughts away. Then I knew I was going to make it.”

Harvey, 27, returned to a wife he had wed only days before his January 2003 deployment and to a baby born while he was about 6,900 miles away in Iraq.

Previously extremely active, holding three jobs at a time, he yearns to provide for his new family and help around the house. But his injuries make that impossible.

His wife was forced to return to work while he stayed home nursing his injuries and taking care of their baby. The stresses of the new roles for both partners created major friction in the marriage. Travis began taking antidepressants in addition to painkillers. The couple fought constantly.

         “While he was gone, I had to take the reins,” Julia Harvey said. “He had his own big horse to deal with in Iraq. When he got back, we had to hand each other one of the reins. It was a huge adjustment.”

Travis Harvey said he has difficulty articulating when he is in emotional pain. He tried to tough it out, but it manifested as anger.

         “We argued about everything,” Travis Harvey said. “There were yelling matches. After two weeks, we couldn’t live together.”

         “We needed a break – a serious break,” Julia Harvey said.

Within three weeks, the newlyweds split. Travis moved in with his grandmother in Lake Panasoffkee, Fla. Travis and Julia began marriage counseling….

Now, Travis spends his days taking care of 5-month-old Alexa while Julia works as a receptionist. The couple is back together and trying to make their marriage work.

Travis will begin physical therapy after his wounds heal. While on medical leave, he is being paid as if on active duty, about $2,600 a month. Eventually, the military will place him on disability.

He had planned to serve 20 years and retire. Now he’s glad to see his military days behind him.

         “Iraq sucked,” he said. “Twelve-hour shifts, living in hot concrete hangars, no toilet. (Ready-to-eat) meals most days. Then I almost died.”

Here are the pictures. The 2 most graphic are at the bottom, in case you wish to skip them.

Justin Burgess (with Denzel Washington)

James Wright

Albert Ross

Robert Jackson

Jose Martinez

Unidentified American Soldier

Unidentified American Soldier

I weep for humanity.

The cable news networks set upon the various “news stories” of missing white girls, celebrity trials, hurricanes and fluff pieces on George Bush’s uniformly hideous nominees like ravenous gourmands at a card table with one tray of snacks remaining, and the print news, reduced to janitorial status, follow the fat boys around, sweeping away the detritus and occasionally remembering to point out that what the gluttons think is a full meal is, after all, nothing more than stale cheese puffs.

Meanwhile, at the lonely buffet, the red meat lies rotting, virtually ignored:

Despite the claims of the Bush Administration that the so-called “handover of sovereignty” to their newly installed puppet government would turn the tide in Iraq, despite the absurd claim of Vice-President Dick “Dick” Cheney that the “insurgency” is in its “last throes…”

Americans continue to die.To say nothing — almost literally — of the Iraqi dead.

From Casualties.org:

•    Latest Military Fatality Date: Jul 21, 2005
•    Total Fatalities since May 1, 2003: 1718
•    Hostile US Fatalities Since May 1, 2003: 1265
•    US deaths since July 22, 2003: 1537
•    (the deaths of Odai & Qusai Hussein)
•    US deaths since July 2, 2003: 1567
•    (Pres. Bush announces, “Bring Them On”)
•    Total Fatalities since December 13, 2003: 1420
•    (Saddam Hussein is captured)

That brings the total of Americans killed in Iraq to One Thousand, Seven Hundred and Eighteen — though the number is difficult to pin down, since almost not a single day goes by without at least one and usually several more deaths to add to the tally. These numbers, of course, do not include the 194 “coalition” deaths, nor the 2763 Iraqi Police and Guardsmen killed.

And again, we hear virtually nothing of the tens of thousands of “injured.” What a poor word it is, when it cannot conjure in the minds of a listener the reality of those injuries – severed limbs, lost eyesight, permanent nerve damage, brain damage, pieces of metal lodged forever in the flesh of the survivor – and the attendant physical, emotional and spiritual suffering of the injured.

Yet another generation of U.S. soldiers will return to their country hopelessly dependent on morphine and other painkillers, only to have the pain of their injuries compounded by the agony of withdrawal from the drugs – or the horror of an addiction to those drugs that cannot but be exacerbated when they discover that heroin will do the trick once the docs stop giving them their prescriptions.

Don’t kid yourself that this time it will be different; the Bush Administration’s cuts to the Veterans Administration and callous refusal of full health benefits to reservists guarantees a whole new batch of drug addicts and homeless souls who used to wear a United States uniform.

So the media drools in deluded ecstasy over celebrities and missing white girls; not for the Right Wing Corporate Media Whores the gory sight of the flag-covered coffins returning in the dead of night, under shameful cover of darkness, bearing the corpses of Americans killed in an unnecessary war. They have their marching orders, after all — that absurd belief that the U.S. might have won the Vietnam War if not for the fact of it being televised….

The fact that American television refuses to air the images because they’re “too graphic, too disturbing” — this is what I find disturbing. Because that’s so OBVIOUSLY NOT why they’re not being televised. First, there’s that ban on images of the dead with which to contend. But if the media were REALLY interested in, say, doing their jobs, does anyone doubt they could find a way?

It’s NEWS. It HAPPENED. The 1718 dead Americans REALLY DIED. Have we seen their caskets come home? No. The American public is shielded from the reality of this catastrophe, like children who must be protected from R rated movies.

This is colossal irresponsibility — no, worse, it is DERELICTION OF DUTY — on the part of those whom we are supposed to trust to show us what is happening in the world. We see dead Iraqi bodies, blown apart, blood everywhere — somehow this is suitable for airing. But they won’t show us the devastating reality of what has happened to Americans, they won’t show us our own people’s corpses. I’m sorry — this is not about prurience, this is not about protecting our sensitivities — this is about protecting the interests of the Bush Administration.

This is APPALLING policy.

Now the public, knowing only what they see and hear on television and, to a much lesser extent, what they read in the newspapers, is only vaguely aware that things aren’t going so well in Iraq. But they hear “Najaf” and “Imam Ali shrine” and “al Sadr” and “Iraqis killed.” They don’t hear, “Americans are dying and it doesn’t look like it will stop anytime soon.”

We are not reminded – so we are not aware, for our attention spans are short and our memories shorter – that every day their fellow Americans are dying at a steady pace. The numbers are not put up on the screen. Certainly, each day’s two or three or five dead Marines or soldiers is dutifully reported, thrown in with a “Meanwhile, in Iraq, four Marines died in heavy fighting blah blah blah – but now back to this group of trained monkeys and their organ grinder, and how is their rabies-infected siege on our collective consciousness going?”

1718 Americans have died in Iraq. Many more have died in Afghanistan. Oh, and that number? It doesn’t include the Americans who commit suicide on returning stateside, which is happening at an impressive clip. No reports in the media on that, either.

So, media, you feast on the junk food you prefer to distract from the meal your masters have told you is off limits, bad for you and bad for America… and the maggots come in droves, quietly eating the evidence. Eventually you’ll turn in desperation to the last vestiges of rotting meat and wonder why you didn’t see it before.

In case you’ve missed it, my new Community Blog, My Left Wing, opened to the public this past Friday. Including the 3 days of beta testing, the site has attracted 1040 Unique Registered Members in a week. Granted, I had one helluva springboard here at DKos, but I’m still fucking impressed by those numbers, man.

Forthwith, I offer a brief list of topics, issues, subjects and various philosophical views; and my positions on each, with explanations where necessary. (Whom are we kidding? There’s no such thing as a “no brainer” anymore, given the pitifully massive number of people out there who seem to be “no brainers.”)

(This diary is a synthesis of the My Left Wing MANIFESTO and About Maryscott O’Connor at My Left Wing. my deep apologies to anyone who finds it redundant, self-aggrandizing or proselytising. Fair warning: It is all three.)

I am an orphan of Vietnam.

My father, Lieutenant Terence Raymond Roach, Jr. of the Third Marine Division, was killed on February 8, 1968 at Khe Sanh, during the Tet Offensive. I was born 3 months later, on April 29, 1968.

I consider Vietnam to be the defining feature of my life. Had it not been for that unjust war, I would have grown up with a father and a happy mother. Had she not been widowed, my childhood would have been very different; I cannot imagine it would have been worse (that’s a lie: I can imagine Terry Roach coming home with PTSD and providing me an even MORE fucked up childhood than the one I had — but I choose NOT to imagine it that way). It ought not surprise anyone that I have an extreme sensitivity to needless war.

I have always been politically aware, a Democrat and a liberal. In 2000 I became a political activist. The national shame of that sham election spurred me to contribute to John Kerry, to volunteer for the Kerry campaign and to become involved to a degree I never imagined possible for me, by joining a liberal blog (Daily Kos) and interacting with thousands of people who felt as I did – that George W. Bush is the worst thing that has ever happened to the United States and that we must do everything in our power to elect John Kerry and John Edwards.

Well, regardless of the reasons why, we failed in our collective endeavour. After shaking off the disappointment, rage and despair, many people chose to turn their ire on their fellow Democrats, liberals and people of conscience. They call this the “circular firing squad,” an infuriating tendency of Democrats and liberals to tear apart whatever organization and cohesion they might share with ludicrous internecine battles over everything from policy to campaign strategy to defining Democratic (or liberal) “values.”

I’m no policy wonk, nor an analyst, nor a strategist. I do know that the Democratic Party is badly in need of reform. Howard Dean has my utmost support; he stands with a very few others in my esteem as an example of true integrity and passion for democracy and freedom.

What I do not support or condone: The execrable inclination of most entrenched elected Democrats toward capitulation, pathetic compromise, vacillation and outright spinelessness in the face of the most dishonest, manipulative and outright virulently criminal Administration in the history of the United States of America.

When a Party is in the minority at the Federal level, it is supposed to be an “Opposition Party.” One must suppose, logically, that the term prescribes actual OPPOSITION to the ruling Party. At this writing, 7/19/05, we have begun to see signs of life from our Democratic Representatives in Congress. FINALLY. But there remain far too many of the so-called “Vichy Democrats” (a term which actually appeals to me, but in my opinion ought be applied sparingly and judiciously).

Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, the Senate and House Minority leaders, respectively, have made a good beginning. Far, far too late, in my estimation — but as the saying goes, better late than never.

Markos adopted the term, “Reform Democrats.” I believe he got it from Howard Dean, but don’t hold me to that. Well, I am A Reform Democrat. I do not believe in blind fealty to any political Party, but I don’t think I’ve ever voted for a Republican in my life.

I want to REFORM the Democratic Party. I believe, PASSIONATELY, that the party needs to move further LEFT, not further to the centre. That might have been laudable, once upon a time; but once the Radical Right Wing of the Republican Party began inexorably shifting the political spectrum further and further to the Right, the centre began looking and feeling exactly how the old Right looked and felt.

Sorry, boys – I have no wish to be in the centre of what now appears to be half a fucking spectrum. If I have my way, the Democratic Party will once again be the party of the Left, the party of True Liberalism – and our Democratic Representatives will proudly wear that badge of honour. I have no use for Democrats who, fearing reprisal or defeat in elections, indulge in craven appeasement and capitulation to their opponents’ framing of the issues.

ENOUGH of that shit, man. I want a Democratic Party with a conscience, with courage of conviction, with commitment to Liberal Values, goddamnit.

A good place to start? How about we defend the motherfucking CONSTITUTION? Patriot Act, Homeland Security, “activist judges” – don’t tell ME we’re not on the road to Fascism, man. We passed a rest stop in November and we could have turned around, but NOOOO, half the fucking country preferred to “stay the course.” Well, almost half — say, that reminds me, Democratic politicians: FIX THE ELECTION SYSTEM, you assholes.

Not only am I FOR it, I hereby declare that if you’re a Democrat, Independent, Green, Libertarian, progressive, liberal or just an honest Republican and you don’t consider mandating transparency and consistency in all voting procedures nationwide to be the Number One Item on the agenda of the Democratic Party, to say nothing of Democracy itself, then you are either ignorant, deluded or an asshole.

Of course, if you’re a Republican or a member of any of the myriad varieties of Radical Right Wing Neocon Christofascist Zombie Brigades who only care about winning, it’s pretty clear that reform of a voting system that includes companies like Diebold, whose source code in their voting and counting machines is classified and available only to their associates (no accountability to outsiders like, say, voting monitors)… well, reform doesn’t really seem like it would do YOU much good, does it?

‘course not.

I honestly believe the 2004 election was manipulated and stolen through the employment of computer fraud, voter intimidation and illegal disqualification of voters. Call me a conspiracy theorist if you like (though I don’t happen to believe that’s necessarily an epithet): But please, PROVE to me the election wasn’t stolen and that we as a nation did not experience a coup d’etat. I dare you. When the source code in the computers that register and count votes is not available for inspection and verification, there is simply NO WAY to ensure that fraud is not being perpetrated.

So even if there WAS no fraud, there will always be doubt and mistrust. It is IMPERATIVE that all voting systems throughout the nation be consistent and verifiable by disinterested parties or individuals.

So, to repeat: ELECTION REFORM: Number One Issue. Period.

Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Maryscott O’Connor. I am a 37 year old woman, married (to Adam Crocker), a sometime professional actress, writer and now “stay at home”  mother with a 5  and 1/2 year old son (Terry O’Connor)… and possessor of 2 ovaries and 1 viable uterus.

My Curriculum Vitae: 3 pregnancies: 1 abortion, 1 miscarriage/D&C and 1 live birth (and, oh, what a fun time was had by all).

This here legal and safe availability of abortion, me boyos, see, it’s what people call a “DEAL BREAKER.” We women, being possessed as we are of the vessel of human reproduction and all its attendant joys and woes, tend to feel a bit proprietary about it. We like to think we ought to be let alone with our doctors when making decisions about it (seeing as it’s part of our anatomy and all – and being as it’s customary in a civilized society to acknowledge and support an individual’s right to a pelvic exam in private, barring the prying eyes of our national legislature and even our neighbours or… sometimes… whatever man happened to plant his part of the reproductive process in said vessel).

Am I getting through?

ABORTION IS A MEDICAL PROCEDURE. The decision to have one or not is a MEDICAL DECISION. Which means no fucking government interference with abortion.

If I have to fucking spell out why the right to make one’s own medical decisions (as in the case of abortion, but certainly not limited to that procedure) is FUNDAMENTAL to human beings –well, hell, we got nothin’ to talk about.

But don’t lets let THAT stop us.

I consider George W. Bush’s virtually unilateral decision to send young American men and women to die in Iraq a crime against humanity. I believe he used obfuscation and the certainty that he would be able to blame others for his faulty decision making to engage us in an unnecessary and immoral war; to that degree do I believe he has embroiled us in another Vietnam. I realize that Mssrs. Kerry and Edwards faced a mine-filled territory when it came to Iraq (pardon that metaphor, it’s inappropriate), and I did not expect them to reverse the current course of events. I only prayed that once they took office, the United States would begin making its way out of Iraq on the fast track.

Obviously, that did not come to pass, and loquacious as I am, I simply cannot find the words to describe my bitter disappointment and despair on November 3rd, 2004.

I cannot fully explain why this war has affected me as deeply and painfully as it has. I don’t know anyone over there, my son is not of age for a draft and my husband and I are too old for a draft, should it come to that. (I do fear that, given how badly the Bush Administration has mangled this entire situation, we will be forced to implement the draft.)

It comes to this: I have a deeply ingrained sense of justice, and it has been terribly offended by this unnecessary war. I weep for the people of Iraq, I weep for the American men and women in Iraq, I weep for the families of the dead and the maimed. I weep most especially for each and every orphan created through George W. Bush’s hubris and folly. The recent revelations of the torture in Abu Ghraib (the violent rapes of CHILDREN, for God’s sake!) only adds to my despair and shame. To say nothing of my RAGE.

Federally funded healthcare for all U.S. citizens should be a goddamned RIGHT.

Get it the fuck DONE, I don’t want any fucking excuses. Richest fucking country in the world and we’ve got people dying of shit like infections that could have been cured instantly with a goddamned prescription; babies born to teenagers who never made it to pregnancy check-ups; the elderly and infirm who have to choose between paying the light bill (or the frigging grocery bill) and getting the medications they need for the week…

This shit has GOT TO STOP.

National Healthcare: Get it the fuck DONE, already. You people in Congress are supposed to be the best and the brightest, for chrissakes.

(Oh, and if you see “socialism” where I write “federally funded healthcare for all” and you recoil as if from a hot flame… Get the fuck over it; the world has no room for reactionary ignorance like yours anymore – go sell it on Mars, bitches.)

Every time I hear some sanctimonious fuck spit out, “Marriage is between a man and a woman, in God’s eyes,” I think of the Max von Sydow line in “Hannah and Her Sisters:”

“If Jesus Christ came back and saw what people have been doing in his name, he would never stop throwing up.”

This is one of many  issues that make me weep for humanity. When an entire minority is still disenfranchised in terms of civil rights and adequate political representation, I weep. The fact that so many otherwise intelligent, educated people still believe who someone sleeps with should determine his human rights, still believe that their God considers homosexuality an aberration worthy of eternal damnation to that imaginary construct they call “Hell,” I weep. I rage, too.

As the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts recently pointed out, “The history of our nation has demonstrated that separate is seldom, if ever, equal.”

Contrary to popular myth, “marriage” and “civil unions” are not the same; changing the term drastically changes the meaning as well. As mentioned above, marriage is approximately 1,500 reciprocal rights, privileges and obligations, 1,000 from the feds and about 500 from the state. A civil union, on the other hand, is a term coined by the Vermont legislature to avoid granting the “m” word to gay and lesbian couples. Because federal law does not recognize civil unions, a civil union provides only the 500 state conferred rights, privileges and obligations associated with marriage with none of the 1,000+ federal benefits.

But that is not the only difference. In addition to being denied federal benefits, rights and responsibilities, civil unions lack portability – so couples do not have the security of relationship recognition when traveling to other states. So although civil unions may provide a couple some protections at home, when they go on vacation, travel on business or otherwise leave the state, the couple will likely once again be relegated to the status of legal strangers.

Domestic partnership laws provide even fewer protections than civil unions and can vary dramatically depending on the jurisdiction that enacts the law. In some jurisdictions, domestic partner registries do not confer any rights or responsibilities at all and are simply a registration. In other jurisdictions, domestic partners are given a few protections, such as the right to hospital visitation. (The most generous local domestic partnership laws only provide about 10-15 rights). Currently, only three states, Hawaii, New Jersey and California, provide more comprehensive rights and responsibilities under their domestic partnership registration systems. At the local level, most domestic partnership laws provide benefits for public employees and little or nothing else.

… Now tell me again how there’s no fucking difference.

The Radical Right’s passionate advocacy for school vouchers, combined with empirical data, have convinced me that vouchers are yet another indication of the Radical Right’s agenda: the  erosion and eventual dismantling of public education.

Public education should be funded on a per-student basis equally throughout the nation. Forget that school district crap: I don’t care what has to be done to get us there, but all in the public school system of the United States should receive at least a level playing field in terms of how much funding  their schools receive. The system as it now stands is ludicrous.

Raise the cap. Allow people the option to refuse their benefits, for god’s sake. Take that “charity” argument and shove it in a deep dark hole. I’m not saying DENY benefits to billionaires; I’m saying at least give them the OPTION of refusing what to them is a PITTANCE of a monthly benefit… and use it to help replenish the coffers of the Social Security Trust Fund.

SOCIAL SECURITY: Don’t Fuck It Up, FIX IT.

Oh, for the love of Mike… Is there anyone here who doesn’t think we ought to be pouring our financial and scientific resources into finding a viable alternative to oil? How about coal? Natural gas?

Okay. Then let’s move on.

Here’s an idea: What say we listen to the experts on this wide-ranging topic?

Every reputable scientist on the planet seems to agree that not only is global warning real, it is dangerous, imminent – and caused by human behaviour. Unless the government starts implementing some serious motherfucking regulations to counter-act the effects of our behaviour in this country (because we ARE the prime culprits), nothing will change. Expecting corporations and even vast swaths of the population at large to regulate themselves is like setting a toddler loose in a muddy field and expecting her to come back to your arms as sparklingly pristine as she was when you got there.

Air and water standards? Conservation? Recycling? Please see above.

Against it, categorically. I happen to believe that the alcohol, tobacco and pharmaceutical industries have a huge interest in keeping marijuana illegal. And the DEA, well, where on earth would they be if all narcotics traffic were suddenly decriminalized? For that matter, it might just screw up several cartels and their covert partners here in the United States of America, eh?

Imagine the steep drop in arrests, convictions, prison terms and prison inmates, were all drug laws to be suspended immediately. Imagine the number of prisoners currently rotting in jail for possession of a fucking ounce of marijuana who would be let loose on our pristine streets.

Can’t have that, now, can we?

Prison is a huge motherfucking industry in this country. Drug offenses keep them nice and packed to the gills with fresh tax dollars, y’see. Oh, and did I mention – every single federal and state prisoner gets counted in each state’s census, and is therefore part of what decides how many electoral votes and representatives in the House each state gets? Hmmm. They don’t get to vote – but just look at all those so-called “Red States” building more and more prisons.

Food for thought.

(Bill Hicks piece on marijuana edited for length. See complete text of the My Left Wing MANIFESTO.)

*    I am pro-choice: I cannot countenance a government being given proprietary rights over the medical decisions of any human being. I am also in favour of the legalisation of Assisted Suicide, for the same reason.

*    I oppose the death penalty: I do not believe that a state sanctioned killing is any less of a murder than the one committed by the man or woman sentenced to death.

*    I support gay marriage: I would like to see all state-sanctioned marriages become “civil unions” in word and deed. Leave the word “marriage” to the religious and give the gay community the dignity of equal civil rights under the law. I am horrified by the Bush Administration’s encroachment of the necessary divide between state and church.

*    I oppose school vouchers: The Radical Right’s passionate advocacy for school vouchers, combined with empirical data, have convinced me that vouchers are yet another indication of the Radical Right’s agenda: the erosion and eventual dismantling of public education.

*    I believe public education should be funded on a per-student basis equally throughout the nation. Forget that school district crap: I don’t care what has to be done to get us there, but all children in the public school system of the United States should receive at least a level playing field in terms of how much funding their schools receive. The system as it now stands is ludicrous.

*    I support the legalization of marijuana (and, frankly, all narcotics — see the My Left Wing Manifesto for more): it is no more harmful than alcohol, a legal drug – and I believe its illegality to be based in the stranglehold of the pharmaceutical industry on our lawmakers and government agencies.

*    However, for as long as drugs are illegal (and I realize my views on decriminalizing drugs are not shared by most people), I believe that non-violent drug offenders ought to be put in treatment – not prison. At the very least, I believe that medical marijuana should be available to everyone. John Ashcroft’s abuse of federal statues with regard to medical marijuana was a vile and immoral abomination and I was elated to see the back of him.

(Speaking of Mr. Ashcroft: he was the very embodiment of abuse of power, but only one of many examples in the Bush Administration. The cronyism, the disenfranchisement of the free press, the vindictive punishment of dissent, the pathological secrecy – all these represent to me just a few of the reasons that George W. Bush’s tenure will one day (and soon) be regarded with horror as the worst Presidency in the history of the United States.)

*    I believe that “three strikes” laws and mandatory minimums must be eradicated. They are unfair and disproportionately target minorities and people in lower income brackets. The differences in sentencing for crack cocaine versus powder cocaine are so obviously biased against minorities as to be risible.

*    In addition to sentencing reform, I believe in the necessity of massive prison reform in this country. It’s a multi-billion dollar business in this country; By mid-2002, 1 in every 142 Americans was in prison. That’s fucking outrageous. SO are the statistics on race and imprisonment. Every single federal and state prisoner gets counted in each state’s census, and is therefore part of what decides how many electoral votes and representatives in the House each state gets. Hmmm. They don’t get to vote – but just look at all those so-called “Red States” building more and more prisons. There is something really fucking rotten in the U.S.A., folks — and part of the stench is coming from our legal system.

*    I believe in strong government regulation of corporations: the idea that companies, whose sole raison d’etre is profit, would voluntarily regulate themselves at the risk of that very profit – is laughable. I also believe that so-called “white collar crime” should be just as harshly punished as non-violent crimes of other natures. Why a man who rips off his company and its shareholders for millions gets a tenth of the prison sentence of that of a man who breaks into an empty house and rips off the inhabitants is simply beyond me.

*    I support the concept of Fair Trade, as opposed to “Free Trade.” As long as the more powerful nations can freely exploit those with less power and influence, as long as American companies can “outsource” to labour making pennies on their American counterparts’ dollar, there can be no such thing as “free trade.” It is merely unfettered colonialism and exploitation writ large; and it damages not only the vulnerable nations and their citizens, but all Americans and their national economy, as well.

*    I believe in universal health care. I believe that if politicians were not so in thrall to the lobbies of the medical and pharmaceutical industries, it could be made a reality virtually overnight. I don’t hold out much hope for this, but I can dream.

*    I believe in that most basic tenet of every reputable religion and philosophy that ever existed: Love thy neighbour. To wit: it is incumbent on each person to make the health, safety and happiness of his fellow human beings his primary purpose in life. By extension, this applies to every institution and every nation.

*    To that end, I do believe in humanitarian and sometimes military intervention by the United States and every civilized nation when it comes to genocide (see: Sudan), brutal dictatorships and the systematic abuse of human rights. I have long struggled with this idea (America as the world’s policeman) and have not yet reconciled my revulsion for war with my visceral desire to end injustice and suffering throughout the world. If my reading of history is correct, military action is sometimes the only recourse a good nation has if it is to fulfill the requirements of being decent human beings.

Inspired by my Blogfather, Markos, and his stunningly successful and fabulous political blog, Daily Kos, My Left Wing is both a spin-off and homage to Daily Kos.

Now, Daily Kos is a Democratic blog, its focus primarily on Democrats and rebuilding the Democratic Party – Reform Democrats has been the recent terminology, and an excellent term it is, too.

My Left Wing is a Liberal blog. While its founder (me, that is) remains absolutely a Democrat, My Left Wing is intended as a watering hole for all walks of liberal life. Democrats, Greens, Independents, Socialists, Libertarians – anyone who shares even a few of the attributes we have come to call “Liberal Values” – will likely find their niche (or at least a fresh new playground) at My Left Wing.

I believe there is room in this world for many more of these left-focused sites. Markos has proved that beyond a doubt. With his 50K+ registered users, it’s patently obvious to even the casual observer that there are liberals all over the world simply aching for forums like DKos and My Left Wing and Booman Tribune and MyDD, for contact with kindred spirits – and for even the most loosely based of communities.

I consider the blogosphere’s capacity for liberal communities virtually infinite (no pun intended). There are millions of us out there in the world, and, like me (as I have discovered to be true), many American liberals have spent the past 5 years feeling as if they wandered in a wilderness, bereft of companionship, solace or sustenance. One having found communities like Daily Kos, we also found our voices again. We discovered that, contrary to the claims of the Vast Right Wing Corporate Propaganda Machine, we liberals are legion.

What if all our voices, cacophonous as they might sound to the uninitiated, are actually the harmonic, symphonic key to saving democracy, saving the Democratic Party – and by extension, saving our beloved nation and the world from the heretofore deafening and meretricious roar of the Radical Right Wing?

WE are the messengers of truth. WE hold in our hands the power to change the world. WE hold the high ground, my friends. So we must join together, with all our flaws and foibles, our self-searching and self-doubt, our myriad perspectives – what was once referred to as the “circular firing squad” of the Democratic Party has the potential to become not a Tower of Babel, but a resonant, harmonic chorus of a Liberal Symphony.

(Oh — and that link in my first comment, the one to the Pictures Page? Just know — it is HUGE. If your computer is slow with images, DON’T OPEN IT.)

Every time I hear some sanctimonious fuck spit out, “Marriage is between a man and a woman, in God’s eyes,” I think of the Max von Sydow line in “Hannah and Her Sisters:”

“If Jesus Christ came back and saw what people have been doing in his name, he would never stop throwing up.”

This is one of many  issues that make me weep for humanity. When an entire minority is still disenfranchised in terms of civil rights and adequate political representation, I weep. The fact that so many otherwise intelligent, educated people still believe who someone sleeps with should determine his human rights, still believe that their God considers homosexuality an aberration worthy of eternal damnation to that imaginary construct they call “Hell,” I weep. I rage, too.

But…

…oh, how I long for the day when a powerful man or woman of conscience stands before the world and tells the truth: that homosexuality, regardless of it being a biological imperative or a “lifestyle choice,” is not a crime against man or god. That all men and women, irrespective of their sexual partners, are created equal and have equal rights under every law. That the dark ages are long gone and so should be every vestige of the fear, hatred and judgment of “different.” I long for the day when the collective  liberal leadership of the world tells the rest of the world to GROW UP.

Perhaps then we might discover that the vast majority of people, when introduced to The Truth by articulate, passionate leaders of conscience and courage, will open up their eyes, ears, minds and hearts to that Truth. Just perhaps, mind you.

I am not a Christian or Jew or Muslim. While I do have a conception of a Higher Power that I choose to call god, I practice no religion. Further, I do not hold any part of the Bible or the Koran to be the word of god.

One of the basic tenets of the separation of Church and State is that at no time should the government of the United States of America be countenanced as a theocracy. Our laws, while oftentimes influenced by religious beliefs, are not dictated by the Bible (Old or New testament) or any religious text.

The definition of marriage in a religious context is not the definition of marriage in a legal context — period. I cite the words of the civil marriage ceremony: “By the power vested in me by the (Commonwealth of Massachusetts)…” NOT: “By the power vested in me by God…”

Separation of Church and State, while difficult to maintain at times, is crucial to the continuing evolution of a nation. As a person who does not recognize the validity of the Bible or any other religious text as being the word of god, I DEMAND that the government I support with my taxes and by whose laws I abide leave the religious beliefs of its members out of the equation when making those laws. I do not demand equality or even consideration from any religion; I consider myself and every other person not affiliated with a religion to be outside the sphere of those religions.

When the laws by which I am supposed to abide are dictated by those who would encroach upon my rights as a human being through their own religious beliefs, I must and will protest. I will fight. I am not a Christian, I am not a Jew, I am not a Muslim. I am a human being, and I WILL fight for my fellow human beings.

To Marilyn Musgrave and the frighteningly large number of politicians and religious leaders who would dictate to the rest of the world that their religious beliefs be enshrined in the Constitution and supported by draconian laws of exclusion and persecution of those who do not share their religious beliefs:   You are engaged in malfeasance according to the very same God in whom you profess to believe.

And to every politician of conscience, regardless of religion:  Stick to the Constitution.

Blacks, Gays, Jews, Native Americans, Christians, Muslims, Japanese-Americans, Hispanics, Irish, Italians… oh, and Women

Have I left anyone out?

Because I know the aforementioned groups have all been, at one time or another (or all times) left out. Disenfranchised. Dismissed. Oppressed. Repressed. Persecuted. Enslaved. Brutalized.

 Of course, one needn’t summon empathy for (let alone, come to the aid of) another segment of the world’s population that has suffered or is suffering what one’s own segment has suffered. No, no — This is different, after all. This group is completely different. These circumstances musn’t be compared to ours.

 Such was the message transmitted by the 50 odd African-American religious leaders gathered in Washington, D.C. last year, on the anniversary of the Brown Versus the Board of Education decision that began in earnest the battle for the civil rights of African-Americans.

 Denouncing the comparison between the struggle for African-American rights and gay rights, the most prominent rationale proposed by these so-called “men of god?” “Homosexuality is an abomination.”

  Correct me if I am wrong, but at one time in this country, “miscegenation” was also considered (by a majority of the public, no less) to be “an abomination.”

 Reverend Joseph Fuiten:  “All of Western civilization has been a part of this idea going back to Plato and the Greeks and the Romans. Now, we have activist judges and renegade politicians who want to overthrow Western civilization, federal and state laws, and change the definition of marriage.”

 Pardon me? Okay, let’s just bypass the obvious argument about Plato and the Greeks and all those little boys. Too, let us bypass the argument against Western “civilization” and the Catholic Church and all those little boys. I’ll even let slide the fact that most of the positive changes in Western Civilization and in federal and state laws were made by “activist judges and renegade politicians.”

 Let’s concentrate on the fact that The Reverend and his peers in the African American religious community are using the same damned arguments against gay marriage that were used against civil rights. I don’t know how anyone can argue that this isn’t comparable. Gay people want equal protection and rights as promised them under the law. Blacks wanted equal rights and protections as promised them under the law. Gay rights opponents claim that the law is being warped to give special rights to gays. Civil rights opponents… well, you get the picture. Even the religious arguments are the same.

 Oh, toss it — I’ll leave the rational arguments to those better qualified. This is a rant, goddamnit.

 If anything makes me crazier than ignorance driven persecution, it is ignorance driven persecution perpetrated by a group of people who ought to know better.

 Humans are one messed up species. We use our religions, our pocketbooks and our vicious rhetoric to attack anything we perceive as a threat to our status quo, irrespective of logic — let alone compassion. Change is a scary, scary thing. We just hate it when we’re asked to change our views, let alone our lives. And it appears we are willing to do just about anything to avoid dealing with it.

 That includes engaging in behaviours that put our very own lives in misery when they were practiced against us. Hatred born of fear rules the day; deliberate blindness to our own fear based hatred enables it to go unchecked — by us, at least. We are dragged, kicking and screaming, into change that in retrospect was long overdue. Fifty years later, high school children have absolutely no concept of how revolutionary Brown v. Board of Education was; they look upon the facts of life fifty years ago with the same sort of bemused astonishment that we feel when we watch a period film and realize that birthmarks were for centuries considered to be a sign of demonic possession.

 In fifty years, the only people against gay marriage will be those relegated to the marginalized closets of homophobia where they belong; I’m sure they will have some racist company in there. Hatred never dies completely — it goes on life support underground, awaiting its chance to emerge and be fed.

 For what is their actual argument, after all? If they would make legal unions between gay people illegal, and deny those gay people equal protection under the law, would they not, by extension, make homosexuality itself illegal? If it is, as they claim, “an abomination,” then they must, ipso facto, demand the illegality of homosexuality. You cannot call something an abomination in one breath and in the next admit you are willing to overlook it if the state refuses to sanction its legitimacy. You must demand a return to sodomy laws.

 Which makes you no better than those who would have liked to return to the days of slavery. No better, I say. Possibly worse — at least they had ignorance on their side, the easier to forgive  when they saw the light, if they ever did. You who would hide your hatred in the pages of your religious texts, knowing full well the volumes of data that prove a homosexual can no more change his sexuality than you can the colour of your skin — you are in the wrong.

 And I would submit that the God you profess to worship would tell you the same.  (These texts you laud as the word of god are, to many others, merely your interpretation of the word of your god, in whom may of us believe not a whit. But leave that aside for the moment.)

If you insist upon using those texts to rationalize your arguments of hatred, I will happily take up that challenge. Nowhere in the New Testament of the Bible does your purported saviour, Jesus Christ, denounce homosexuality. He makes a good argument for homosexual marriage, in fact, in denouncing extra-marital sex.  

 He also says a few things about judging your neighbour and loving your neighbour. “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

 He makes a pretty good argument for separating church and state, too — “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s.”

 But most important: “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thy say to thy brother, “Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?” Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.”

 If your brother does, indeed, have a mote in his eye, I submit that you are too blind to judge it accurately, since the beam in your own spans continents and centuries.

Contrary to popular myth, “marriage” and “civil unions” are not the same; changing the term drastically changes the meaning as well. As mentioned above, marriage is approximately 1,500 reciprocal rights, privileges and obligations, 1,000 from the feds and about 500 from the state. A civil union, on the other hand, is a term coined by the Vermont legislature to avoid granting the “m” word to gay and lesbian couples. Because federal law does not recognize civil unions, a civil union provides only the 500 state conferred rights, privileges and obligations associated with marriage with none of the 1,000+ federal benefits.

But that is not the only difference. In addition to being denied federal benefits, rights and responsibilities, civil unions lack portability – so couples do not have the security of relationship recognition when traveling to other states. So although civil unions may provide a couple some protections at home, when they go on vacation, travel on business or otherwise leave the state, the couple will likely once again be relegated to the status of legal strangers.

Domestic partnership laws provide even fewer protections than civil unions and can vary dramatically depending on the jurisdiction that enacts the law. In some jurisdictions, domestic partner registries do not confer any rights or responsibilities at all and are simply a registration. In other jurisdictions, domestic partners are given a few protections, such as the right to hospital visitation. (The most generous local domestic partnership laws only provide about 10-15 rights). Currently, only three states, Hawaii, New Jersey and California, provide more comprehensive rights and responsibilities under their domestic partnership registration systems. At the local level, most domestic partnership laws provide benefits for public employees and little or nothing else.

So, to return to the initial question, why not just settle for civil unions or domestic partnerships? 1,500 (M) vs. 500 (CU) vs. 10-15 (DP). But what’s in a name, right? As the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts recently pointed out, “The history of our nation has demonstrated that separate is seldom, if ever, equal.”

Now, then. Leaving aside the fact that the federal government does not explicitly recognize civil unions and therefore none of the 1000 or so federal rights accorded married persons  will ever be accorded to “civilly united” persons…

 This proposed amendment would do far more than simply deny same-sex couples marriage equality. According to Evan Wolfson, a leading legal expert on marriage and executive director of Freedom to Marry, an organization which supports marriage rights for same sex couples, the White House and “the Christian right” are “being deliberately deceptive.” According to Wolfson, the “vague and sweeping language” of the proposed amendment’s second sentence “is intended to deny any other measure of protection, including civil unions and domestic partnerships.”

 If the Musgrave amendment is passed, the issue before us will no longer be whether same-sex couples should receive 1,500 or 500 or 10-15 rights. If passed, the amendment could mean that same sex couples would be denied ALL of the federal AND state rights, privileges and obligations of marriage. Families headed by same-sex couples would be officially denied equal treatment and constitutionally branded as second class citizens.

And… voila. Now not only does the federal government not RECOGNIZE civil unions, but the MUSGRAVE Amendment has just invalidated all the rights accorded the “civilly united.”

Now tell me again how there’s no fucking difference.

After three days of very helpful beta testing, it seems that My Left Wing is ready for its Launch.

So here we go, folks. Inspired by my Blogfather, Markos, and his stunningly succesful and fabulous political blog, Daily Kos, My Left Wing is both a spin-off and homage to Daily Kos.

Now, Daily Kos is a Democratic blog, its focus primarily on Democrats and rebuilding the Democratic Party – Reform Democrats has been the recent terminology, and an excellent term it is, too.

My Left Wing is a Liberal blog. While its founder (me, that is – Maryscott O’Connor) is absolutely a Democrat, My Left Wing is intended as a watering hole for all walks of liberal life. Democrats, Greens, Independents, Socialists, Libertarians – anyone who shares even a few of the attributes we have come to call “Liberal Values” – will likely find their niche at My Left Wing.

So… Why another blog? I’ve spent the past 18 months as a contented and fufilled denizen of the Daily Kos community – why the big move?

If I have my history correct, this explosion of the liberal, Democratic, Internet-based call to action began with Jerome Armstrong’s MyDD, which in turn inspired Atrios’s Eschaton and spurred Markos to create Daily Kos. From Daily Kos arose such venerable and excellent blogs as Steve Gilliard’s eponymous blog and Steve Soto’s the left coaster.

And then came others: Rude Pundit, Baghdad Burning, Liberal Street Fighter, The Next Hurrah, Margaret Cho, Juan Cole, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, Booman Tribune, European Tribune. And now… My Left Wing.

Nowadays, it seems there is a blog to correspond with every imaginable topic. Heck, the right wingers created their own blog-like forums — albeit pitiful, pallid versions; until the emergence of Red State, a virtual clone of Daily Kos – no criticism of that move, mind you, as My Left Wing is also such a clone. Hey – hats off to Markos. He created what I believe to be the definitive and perfect blog atmosphere and layout. (Of course, Markos did it with Scoop, while I have had the good fortune to create My Left Wing with the cutting edge technology of SoapBlox, created by Daily Kos alumnus pacified.

Parenthetically, Pacified merits a huge round of applause from the blogosphere and all aspiring Blogmasters for creating this devilishly simple blog format — practically all the benefits of Scoop… but no need to hire a designer at $$$ per hour to put it together for you. I cannot recommend this highly enough to anyone wishing to venture into Scoopish bloggage.

…but I digress (as is my wont). Back to why I felt the need, the desire and eventually the inexorable drive to strike out on my own and create My Left Wing.

As noted above, I consider the blogosphere’s capacity for liberal communities virtually infinite (no pun intended). There are millions of us out there in the world, and, like me (as I have discovered to be true), many American liberals have spent the past 5 years feeling as if they wandered in a wilderness, bereft of companionship, solace or sustenance. One having found communities like Daily Kos, we also found our voices again. We discovered that, contrary to the claims of the Vast Right Wing Corporate Propaganda Machine, we liberals are legion.

As I have noted before:

“There must be a good twin out there somewhere.” Yes – but what if my theory were just slightly askew? What if our diversity and individuality and refusal to toe a Party line at any cost turned out to be the very embodiment of The Good Twin? What if all our voices, cacophonous as they might sound to the uninitiated, are actually the harmonic, symphonic key to saving democracy, saving the Democratic Party – and by extension, saving our beloved nation and the world from the heretofore deafening and meretricious roar of the Radical Right Wing?

So I say to you now: WE are the messengers of truth. WE hold in our hands the power to change the world. WE hold the high ground, my friends. So we must join together, with all our flaws and foibles, our self-searching and self-doubt, our myriad perspectives – what was once referred to as the “circular firing squad” of the Democratic Party has the potential to become not a Tower of Babel, but a resonant, harmonic chorus of a Liberal Symphony.

With every fiber of my being, with all the enthusiasm and life force within me, I urge you to add your voices to this concert. Raise them, fill the air with your liberal song. Visit My Left Wing and Daily Kos and My DD and Booman Tribune… and, once having found safe haven and inspiration, start your own blog – write another verse.

Thus begins another day in the blogosphere, with the emergence of what will, I hope, become one more diverse and inspiring and brilliant community of liberals gathering to encourage one another.

This is what I consider to be one of the finest statements ever made about what it means to be a Liberal:

~~~Rage, rage against the Lying of the Right~~~

I’m not trying to steal BiPM’s gig here or anything. But as I crafted my entry for today’s C&J over yonder at DailyKos, it began to seem a shame to bury it in a giant discussion full of C&Js.

This particular C&J was born of sadness, lack of sleep and having just watched Being Julia, with the splendid Annette Bening.

Why the latter, you ask? Well… Lemme see, how do I ‘splain this? You ever watch a fine performance in, say, a period piece — and for a while thereafter find yourself speaking in the manner of the film’s dialogue? Affecting, say, an accent, or a particularly formal prose for a few hours?

I’m always amused by this phenomenon in me. Sometimes it’s as subtle an affectation as walking like a character in the film.

Anyway, I didn’t bury my own voice completely in this little foray, but the film, and Bening’s performance in particular, did colour my turns of phrase. I found it quite diverting.

There’s virtually nothing political about this piece, so pass it by if that’s what you’re looking for. Nor is it a rant. I may be chided by the Boo Dude for abusing my front page privileges on this jaunt, and perhaps rightly so. I am a very irresponsible “Front Pager” here at the Trib; haven’t contributed nearly anything like regular posts.

In my defense, I did warn our fair host of my irregularity and aversion to anything resembling quotas, deadlines or standards…

Someone once told me that if I reached the end of my life and could count my True Friends on one hand, I’d be very, very lucky. Well, here I am in what is, ostensibly, the middle of my life (unless I am missing some vital piece of information), and I can, indeed, count my True Friends (my Kindred Spirits, as Anne of Green Gables would say) on one hand – just. Jonna is in Traverse City, Anne-Marie in Grand Rapids, Christopher lives in Manhattan, Mary makes her home in Chicago, and now there’s Jessica in Austin. Which brings me to…

JEERS

Jessica moved back to Austin yesterday and I sobbed and sobbed from the moment we parted. I do count myself lucky to have such a beautiful coterie of friends, I do. But I have to admit to feeling just the teensiest bit unlucky, as well. They’re all so far away, you see. And here I am in California, in what may officially be termed my late thirties… alone again. Naturally. And I really don’t know if I’ll be able to find another Kindred Spirit here. I’m simply too worn out and too impatient to go through that “get to know each other and if the stars are properly aligned discover a friend for life” routine. It’s exhausting, and too often disappointing.

Oh, I have “lunch” friends. But no one here to really talk to, no one who knows me inside and out and still loves me, loves me in spite of it all and because of it all. Worse… no one I love like that. Email, telephones – we say we’ll keep in touch, but we won’t, not really. Every few months we’ll have a good talk, but the times between them will grow longer. Of course, whenever I see one of these dearest, beloved friends, it’s as if no time has passed at all. But it doesn’t do a bit of good on a day-to-day basis. It’s simply not the same as being in the same town; no one to meet at Wednesday matinees and gossip with about the stars – or, if the movie’s really good, fall into deep discussion with about the meaning of it all. Ah, me. Lucky and unlucky, all at once. Ain’t that just the way?

CHEERS

There’s no earthly reason it should taste better than any other kind of iced tea… but there it is.

JEERS

DO most people really prefer SWEETENED iced tea? How ghastly. Whenever I find it unsweetened, I buy up all the bottles in the store. Most times, however, I stalk up to the coolers and search in vain. Oh, Snapple makes every possible variety of iced tea, god knows; who could have imagined how many goddamned flavours of sweetened fucking tea there would be? And no room left to spare for the simple, elegant, refreshing and UNSWEETENED iced tea? Apparently not. Lipton makes the best bottled iced tea, unsweetened; but all too often the stores stock their lemon-flavoured, sweetened tea… and neglects those of us who prefer it sans sugar – or, god forbid, artificial sweetener. Heathens. Pagans. Savages.

CHEERS

That’s what they call it in AA: when the bitterest complaint you can utter in the course of a day is that you simply cannot find bottled, unsweetened iced tea… your life, my darling, does not suck.

JEERS

But of course, the bitterest complaints go unremarked, don’t they? Alone in the deep, dark, desperate hours of the night, oh, my dear, the anguished tears you swallow, lest you wake the child you love and the man you adore. I suppose it’s a natural part of life, to reach the end of the middle and realise how many chances one has missed; how life simply went in one direction and you with it, while your dreams and plans and hopes faded into the distance, back at that fateful fork in the goddamned road. And it seems so ungrateful to bemoan the loss, when what you have is so lovely, so worthwhile, so enviable by so many who would leap at the chance to live your life.

So you keep it to yourself; you don’t even write it in your journals, for fear they be read upon your death and misinterpreted as a repudiation of the life you’ve led. And it doesn’t really matter all that much, as the days bleed into one another and pass into years, decades. It’s only when a certain piece of piano music happens to play when you’ve had too little too eat and missed a nap and run yourself ragged all day that it catches you unawares… and you slip into the delicious melancholy of nostalgia and regret.

It passes. It always does.

And finally…

CHEERS

But while I have you here, I want to make something very, very, VERY fucking clear:

If voting reform is not the TOP priority in the Democratic agenda, everything else we’ve all been wailing and pondering and screaming and talking calmly about (Social Security, Roe v. Wade, the RWCM, the MYRIAD Republican scandals being uncovered HOURLY)…

All of it means dick. I’m serious. The absurdity of refusing to assert, loudly and repeatedly, that what we want is a way to be ASSURED all votes are counted properly… well, it astounds and infuriates me. Dean mentions it in every speech, it seems — anybody know why???

Because, goddamnit, unless we fix this fucked up, Diebold-Republican stranglehold on the VOTING SYSTEM in this godforsaken fucking country, NOTHING ELSE MEANS DICK.

RESURRECTION

By David Podvin

Most highly placed Democratic officeholders are willing to appear in public with the execrable George W. Bush but not with the honorable Howard Dean. Party regulars are appalled that Chairman Dean has begun redefining American politics in stark terms that the Homer Simpsons of this nation can easily understand. From Dean’s perspective, the conservatives who subvert democracy are “bad guys” guilty of perpetrating “evil” and therefore must be “defeated”. The concept of confronting Republicans has long been anathema to corporatist Democrats, so the chairman is under siege by the morally compromised Democratic establishment that would rather have the party abandon principle and lose than behave ethically and win.

The internal opposition to Dean is being led by corporate strumpet Joseph Biden, who has publicly declared that the chairman does not speak for him. Tellingly, in the wake of 9/11 Biden announced, “President Bush now speaks for us all.” The senator represents business interests who resent that Dean is reorganizing the party to provide the rank and file with greater influence. Biden has long been a foil for the right wing, a man so unprincipled that as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee he allowed Republicans to ram through the Supreme Court nomination of the perjurious Clarence Thomas. Smiling Joe is extremely comfortable with the Democrats being a perpetual minority party because capitulation to conservatives is his preferred method of operation, and he vilifies any Democrat who plays to win.

Dean plays to win. The chairman is seeking to provide voters with a clearer contrast between Democrats and Republicans, advocating a populist approach that marginalizes conservatives as economic adversaries of the common citizen. He demands that the Democrats become more aggressive in challenging right wing demagoguery on social issues while refusing to concede the high ground on patriotism and religious faith. Dean is seeking to morph the Democratic team from passive victim into dominant aggressor, and the establishments of both parties hate him for it.

Inevitably, there will be a showdown between Democrats who want their party to serve the working class and those who insist that it serve the upper class. The difference between the populists and the elitists was highlighted by their respective positions on Corporate America’s cherished Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005. Dean derided the legislation as an assault on consumers by the rapacious financial industry. Biden and other mercantile Democrats embraced the bill as a way to prevent consumers from persecuting multinational conglomerates.

The Democratic congressional contingent is infested with Joe Bidens, amoral careerists who pose as liberals while doing the bidding of robber barons. It is a tragedy for which Democratic primary voters are responsible. Prior to defeating the Republicans, Democrats must first wrest control of our party from the Quislings whom we have elected.

For years, that seemed like a hopeless task, but when the grass roots made Dean chairman over the anguished protests of the Democratic hierarchy it signified things just might be changing. In order to win control of the party, Dean must somehow survive until the next presidential election and then gain an ally in the White House. Survival will not be easy because the Congressional Democrats have chosen the path of accommodation, which historically produces disastrous off-year election results.

If Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi guide their troops to an electoral drubbing in 2006, Dean will be the fall guy because the entire governing class is determined to see him go. Right wing spokesmen constantly say the Dean approach will destroy the Democratic Party, something that would never be said in public if they believed it were true. The last thing that conservatives want to face is actual opposition, so for many decades the mantra of Republicans and the corporate media has been that Democrats must be centrist or perish. Should the Democrats lose the 2006 elections, Dean will be scapegoated by the corrupt political/journalistic complex that seeks to perpetuate America’s de facto one party system.

It is therefore crucial for liberals to support the chairman aggressively. All contributions to Democratic candidates should include a note that future donations will be contingent on the recipient’s unyielding support for Dean. Progressive commentators should emphasize that the off-year elections are a Reid/Pelosi production. If things go well, the congressional leaders can claim the credit. But if next year their strategy of capitulation does not produce satisfactory electoral results, it is imperative that Howard Dean be inoculated from the blame so he can survive through the pivotal 2008 presidential campaign.

Dean cannot resurrect the party without the help of a president who shares his determination to transform the Washington Democrats into advocates for the average citizen. With Dean heading the DNC and a liberal reformer in the Oval Office, the Democratic Party would reassume its traditional role as champion of the underdog. Dean’s presence as chairman makes the next presidential nomination especially relevant for people who are disgusted with seeing Democrats defer to Republicans.

Hillary Clinton is the frontrunner for the 2008 nomination because of a concerted push on her behalf by the corporate media, a fact that should set off alarm bells for liberal primary voters who were conned into supporting John Kerry after mainstream journalists declared Dean “unelectable”. Nominating Kerry was a fateful mistake. The only way to have beaten Bush by a cheat-proof margin was to challenge the moral legitimacy of his regime and its benefactors. Dean was the one prominent candidate willing to make that challenge, so Bush’s corporate media allies contrived an absurd scandal involving the doctor being too peppy at a pep rally. Unfortunately, Democratic voters took the bait.

To gain the presidency in 2008, the Democratic nominee must be willing to challenge the moral legitimacy of the conservative movement itself, and that is something Hillary will never do. She is taking exactly the opposite approach, consorting with Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay to establish her credentials as a bipartisan centrist. While Dean was enduring the slings and arrows that accompanied opposing the indefensible conquest of Iraq, Hillary was eagerly capitulating to Bush. It cannot be seriously argued that such a bright woman actually believed Bush’s transparently deceitful rationale for the war. Clinton knew what was happening, and she knew it was evil, and for reasons of ambition she was willing to be complicit.

That ethical failure was no aberration. For all the palaver spouted by Republicans that she is a dangerous ideologue, Clinton is just another political climber as she has proven by advocating Democrats establish a dialogue with people who feel religiously compelled to murder doctors. Hillary’s career in public service has been characterized by relentless expediency.

It is insufficient for the Democrats to regain power. That power must be used for collective rather than personal benefit. In the unlikely event that Clinton were to win, a Hillary presidency would be about Hillary first, last, and only, leaving the atrophying Democratic Party to atrophy further still.

Most of the other potential Democratic presidential nominees are also woefully inadequate. John Kerry could not successfully make the case against an incumbent who was an abject failure. John Edwards could not successfully make the case against the most corrupt vice president in American history. Russ Feingold and Barack Obama have about as much chance of being elected president as they have of becoming Imperial Klan Wizard. Evan Bayh is a Democrat only because the Republicans consider him too conservative. And then there is Joe Biden, who is the choice of those nostalgic liberals yearning to relive the 1984 Mondale campaign.

That leaves Al Gore. As a child of the establishment, Gore spent most of his life placing excessive importance on the opinions of the Washington elite, but he has changed. Following the theft of his presidency, Gore has become a born again insurgent whose wisdom and candor make him America’s greatest statesman. The former vice president has repudiated his past unsavory links to the netherworld of the party. Gone is the Democratic Leadership Council Al Gore. In his place is Populist Gore, a fire-breathing champion of the masses who has boldly confronted the conservative menace while other Democrats have cowered.

No one in public life has spoken more forcefully against the reactionaries who are destroying the United States. Gore accused George W. Bush of “lying” about the Hussein-al Qaeda link that was used as a pretext for invading Iraq. Not “receiving faulty intelligence”, as Hillary contends. Not “making an honest mistake”, as Biden claims. Gore said Bush “lied”, and when the corporate media excoriated him for saying it, he unflinchingly said it again.

Gore has labeled as an “American heresy” the effort by theocrats to eliminate the separation of church and state. He has blasted the GOP for “poisoning democracy” with its recurring campaigns of character assassination. He has called the Bush Social Security plan “an immoral scheme designed to defraud taxpayers”.  Most subversively, he has agreed with Dean that “corporations have too much power and people have too little”.

A subversive can realistically hope to gain the White House only if he has previously been deemed plausible by the electorate. As an erstwhile presidential nominee, Gore has passed the plausibility test, and his subsequent radicalization does nothing to alter that. He is the one person in America who wants to reform the political system and can convince the public that it must be done.

Gore is reportedly undecided about whether to run in 2008. He should be encouraged to run. Led by honorable people, the Democratic Party could become an instrument of change. The Democrats would still have to operate within the parameters of a society dominated by multinational conglomerates, but even an incremental shift in power back towards individual citizens would be a significant reversal of the prevailing trend.

There have been agonizingly long stretches of time when the Democratic Party has not had a single courageous leader. Now it has two, and that provides a precious opportunity. Given the chance, Howard Dean and Al Gore can reclaim the integrity of a once proud political movement gone astray. These fine men will provide winning leadership, but that is insufficient in the absence of winning followership. Democratic voters must reject the warnings of corporate acolytes and rally behind the agents of change. By supporting Dean now and Gore in 2008, liberals can first take back our party and then take back our country.

Hey, George, Dick, Don… You got enough stuff yet? Think a few more bombs and a few more thousand dead children and a stranglehold on a desert full of oil is gonna keep you from dying? Not going to happen, pal. I can’t believe you all managed to get so old and never learned a goddamned thing about what life is really all about…

I’ve spent enough time in AA meetings in Hollywood, watching the richest of the rich and the most famous of the famous crawl in on their hands and knees in agony and emptiness and terror… to know that NONE of that shit means a DAMN if you don’t have self-respect and love in your life.

Having finally found self-respect and love in my life, it occurred to me yesterday, just what is it about the people on the VH1 “Envy Us” showcases that I envy? Okay — I didn’t get the rich and I didn’t get the famous — but I have everything that anyone truly wants, if they sit down and think about it long enough.

See that rich guy at the bar, scoping out chicks? He’s got all the stuff, man. He might even be a big movie star or a hot shot broker or a tycoon. And maybe he hasn’t figured it out yet, but after he’s fucked as many women as it takes to realize he’s missing the love and the self-respect, he’s going to drive home in his fabulous car (or in the back of his own limousine), look around his fabulous home, paid for with his fabulous bank account, the account made fat with his earnings from his fabulous, glamourous career — and he’s going to wonder why the fuck he isn’t happy.

Sure, you could interpret this as my brilliant rationalization for choosing to be content with what I have, or for lacking the “ambition” to “achieve” and to “acquire.” But it doesn’t feel that way to me. I had lots of chances to marry wealth, even if I didn’t have what it took to get it on my own. I passed. Sometimes, when the bills got behind and the car broke down and I, like a moron, turned on “E” and watched the beautiful people, I felt like an asshole for waiting for love. Maybe I should have married Whatsisface, even though I didn’t love him and I always got the feeling he liked the IDEA of being with me more than he actually liked ME.

Well, while it may have taken me a while to realize it, I have everything a human being could possibly need. It’d be nice to have more stuff, I guess. I could dig driving a Bentley up the driveway to my Malibu mansion, I guess. But not if it meant giving up what I have now. I have love. I have a spouse who loves me and a child we both adore who thinks we hung the moon.

Wouldn’t trade it for anything.