Author: mythmother

I guess I hate Hillary Clinton for all the obvious reasons, including which, she’s a woman.  And — as if that’s not bad enough — she’s a woman who’s committing the unforgivable sin of showing her age.  Now, if you don’t believe me that aging women are monsters, look at what happens to even the most beautiful and successful actresses as they grow older.  Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Jessica Lange, Glenn Close… even Meryl Streep, when they get older they all play monsters.  Why?  Because old women are monsters, duh!  They are dried up bitter old sticks, and just looking at them reminds us that we will all get old and useless and ugly and die someday, thanks a lot, you bitches!  Old men aren’t so bad, since for some reason men don’t lose their humanity as fast as women… probably because they have so much more to begin with. Besides, look at every term that’s used to describe older women: hags, crones, witches, etc.  So this is just one reason why I hate Hillary Clinton.

Another reason I hate Hillary Clinton is because it finally gives me something in common with my mother.  Mom and I have always been on opposite sides of the political spectrum.  She has hated Hillary Clinton since Day One that Hillary waltzed into the White House on the arm of her president husband.  Mom has Hillary’s picture up on her dart board right next to Rosie O’Donnell. Mom can hardly put one sentence together about Hillary Clinton without using the c-word.  To Mom, Hillary represents every thing that’s wrong with the feminist movement.  Even with such a successful husband, Hillary still has the audacity to speak for herself, live her own life, and have her own career.  As far as Mom is concerned, there’s just no excuse for it.  Who does Hillary Clinton think she is, anyway?  She’s a ballbuster and it’s no wonder her husband had to go find his fun elsewhere.  What is sexy about a woman who wears the pants in the family?  Years have gone by since Mom and I have shared one single political opinion.  She loves George Bush and loves rubbing my nose in it.  She never fails to mention her membership with the NRA and all the contributions she has made to the Republican party, whenever I see her.  But now we finally have something in common, since we can hate Hillary Clinton together.

Another reason I hate Hillary Clinton is because she’s destroying the Democratic Party.  She’s totally selfish and amoral and a power monger who’s totally out for herself and only cares about winning.  Clearly, she can’t win, but she doesn’t care if she takes the whole country down with her.  Despite the fact that Barack Obama is obviously a saint who has the powerful dynamic presence and unique persuasive eloquence to save this country from disappearing forever into the swirling abyss of corporate greed and corruption that is the legacy of the Bush Administration, Hillary Clinton can’t help herself from pushing her own egomaniacal agenda.  To persist in the face of so many setbacks, to get up out of bed every morning and come out smiling for another long punishing day of political campaigning, she must be the most stubborn and short-sighted woman who ever walked the planet.  Imagine having someone like that as president.  Thanks, but no thanks.

And I hate Hillary Clinton because she has the consummate gall to run against my favorite candidate.  In the process of doing that, she points out what she sees as deficiencies in his background and qualifications, and/or flaws in his record… unforgivable.  What’s worse, it makes her a racist, because anyone who dares to criticize or oppose Barack Obama is clearly a racist, no bones about it.  There are times when the democratic process should be stopped in its tracks while people get a clue, and this is one of them.  I hate Hillary Clinton because she can’t see that.  I hate her because, by running against Barack Obama, she’s just giving the Republican party ammunition, free of charge, to throw back at Barack Obama after he wins the nomination.  And we all know that the Republican Party needs a lot of help with their shit-slinging, since they don’t have a clue how to go about it.  Now they finally have Hillary Clinton to help them out, so we will know who to blame when John McCain becomes our next president.

Most of all I hate Hillary Clinton for giving George W. Bush a free pass, thanks to her pathetic self-aggrandizement and megalomania.  Anyone with half a conscience, who obviously can never win, should gracefully step out of the media feeding frenzy so we can start paying attention to the criminal who still inhabits the White House.  If not for her, we might still be thinking about impeachment. If not for her, we might still be working towards the day when George W. Bush and his fellow criminals will be hauled up in front of an international tribunal for war crimes and crimes against humanity.  

If not for Hillary Clinton, there might be some hope that, in these last days of the Bush administration, the people of this country could save themselves from being convicted by history for sitting back and twiddling our thumbs while Bush and his corporate bandits got away with mass murder. If not for her, we might be able to save ourselves from being convicted by history of looking the other way while the Bush administration legalized torture.  We might be  able to focus on the rape of our civil liberties in the name of “homeland security.” We might actually be focusing on electronic vote theft, or… what about an illegal, immoral, unjust war and those who are laughing all the way to the bank while they profit off it?  This is all Hillary Clinton’s fault, especially since she voted to authorize the war in the first place.  And I don’t think we have to strain our brains too hard to comprehend her devastating affect on the environment, while we’re at it.

So, I think this pretty much sums up my main reasons for hating Hillary Clinton.  Oh yeah, she’s rich, I forgot that one.  Feel free to add your own reasons.  Let’s turn the entire left-wing blogosphere into one big Hillary Clinton Hate Fest.  Let’s show that we’re not so different from those hate-mongering right wing extremists, like my mother.  Isn’t it great to finally have an issue that can bring us all together?

Also available in orange

It was such an incredible relief to find out that this initiative crashed and burned, and this news should help make sure that it doesn’t rise like a phoenix from the ashes.

From today’s Los Angeles Times:

BREAKING NEWS: Giuliani fundraiser was mystery initiative backer

A close friend and major fundraiser of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has identified himself as the mystery financer of the proposed California initiative to apportion the state’s 55 electoral votes by congressional district instead of winner-take-all.

He is New York hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer. He said he provided the $175,000 to initially finance the petition drive to get the measure on the June 2008 ballot. But as The Times’ Dan Morain revealed in an exclusive story on this website last night, the drive has foundered on internal disputes and lack of further financing.

The petition drive’s backers had remained a mystery since the effort was first revealed here in a July Top of the Ticket item. Democratic critics portrayed it as a power grab to wrest away some of the state’s electoral votes, which have all gone to the Democratic candidates for the past four presidential elections. Some 19 of the state’s 53 congressional districts would seem likely to vote for a GOP presidential candidate, enough to swing some recent national elections.

Of course the Giuliani campaign is denying any connection with this.

More about Paul Singer:

Singer oversees Elliott Associates, an $8 billion investment fund. He is also chairman of Giuliani’s northeast fundraising operation that produced a third of the New Yorker’s $33.5 million campaign war chest in the first six months of 2007. Singer and his employees have donated at least $182,000 to the Giuliani campaign so far this year.

.

I have to hope also that the huge email and internet campaign to educate people and warn them not to sign phony petitions being pushed under their noses at Farmer’s Markets helped to make sure this underhanded GOP coup was dead in the water.

Tonight, Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, issued a statement demanding to know “the truth about Rudy’s involvement in and knowledge about this shameful effort to disenfranchise voters.”

Yes, let’s find out the truth!

This story was at the top of the LAT website last night, but this morning I found it buried on page A16 of the paper edition.

This is a diary that I wrote about two weeks ago and never posted since I thought no one would be interested.  I mean, it’s not really breaking news that the Bush administration has blatantly violated at least 10 out of the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is it?

But tonight when I was watching Keith Olbermann and he played the clip of Bush touting the “Universal Declaration”  — as he called it in his pathetic ignorance… I felt my face get red and my hands start shaking and I literally felt sick to my stomach to hear this depraved hypocrite pretending to uphold something he has done everything in his power to destroy.

Follow me across the divide..
So much that we take for granted now in terms of the way we live our daily lives and consider the sanctity of our own “persons” is a relatively new phenomenon.  It really wasn’t so long ago when brutal public executions were considered a bright spot in an otherwise arduous and humdrum existence, and passing someone’s rotting head on a spike as you went to and fro about your daily activities was fairly commonplace.

Over the past millennium or so, it gradually began to dawn on people that there was a certain dignity attached to being a human which included respecting the dignity of others.

For modern times, the most enduring legacy of the Magna Carta is considered the right of Habeas Corpus. This right arises from what we now call Clauses 36, 38, 39, and 40 of the 1215 Magna Carta.

After a long and tragically blood-stained fight, certain of the arguments promoted by the Magna Carta were embedded in the Constitution of the United States, yes, that elegant document crafted by our enlightened founding fathers….

Fast-forward a couple hundred more blood-stained years, to December 10, 1948, when the United Nations enacted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, extending human rights protections on a global scale.

According to Wikipedia:

The proclamation was ratified during the General Assembly on 10 December, 1948 by a vote of 48 in favor, 0 against, with 8 abstentions (all Soviet Bloc states, South Africa and Saudi Arabia).

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (abbreviated UDHR) is an advisory declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly (A/RES/217, 10 December 1948 at Palais de Chaillot, Paris). It consists of 30 articles which outline the view of the United Nations General Assembly on the human rights guaranteed to all people. Eleanor Roosevelt, first chairwoman of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) that drafted the Declaration, said, “It is not a treaty…[In the future, it] may well become the international Magna Carta…”

The UDHR opens with these inspiring words…

Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people…

Enter George W. Bush and his right wing extremist cabal, and — in the words of the great Keith Olbermann —

The president has now succeeded where no one has before.  He’s managed to kill the writ of habeas corpus.  Tonight, a special investigation, how that, in turn, kills nothing less than your Bill of Rights.

There are 30 articles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Bush administration is clearly in violation of at least ten of them.

Article 5: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

This seem clear enough, but…

Bush Approved Torture Techniques

12/20/04 “ACLU” — NEW YORK — A document released for the first time today by the American Civil Liberties Union suggests that President Bush issued an Executive Order authorizing the use of inhumane interrogation methods against detainees in Iraq.

Anybody feel the clock start to move backwards?

Article 6: Everyone  has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

Again, pretty clear, no argument there, except…

RICHMOND, Virginia (CNN) — A federal appeals court Wednesday ruled President Bush has the authority to designate U.S. citizens as enemy combatants and detain them in military custody if they are deemed a threat to national security.

But what about….

Article 7: All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Oh, except in the case of Extraordinary Rendition.

Beginning in the early 1990s and continuing to this day, the Central Intelligence Agency, together with other U.S. government agencies, has utilized an intelligence-gathering program involving the transfer of foreign nationals suspected of involvement in terrorism to detention and interrogation in countries where — in the CIA’s view — federal and international legal safeguards do not apply.

However, in an ironic twist, under certain very special circumstances, SCOTUS can suddenly become squeamishly oversensitive about the equal protection clause…

Shame, Partisanship and Cowardice

Vice President Gore was also doomed by another clever Catch-22 trap: Had the Florida Supreme Court set a uniform standard for manual recounting, the U.S. Supreme Court would likely have struck it down because the court had usurped the State Legislature by “creating a new law.” But by not doing so, the Florida Supreme Court ruling was struck down any way on grounds there was a “violation of the equal protection clause” because there was no uniform standard!

But, moving right along…

Article 8: Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

NOT according to Bush….

Bush blasts Amnesty report on Guantanamo

WASHINGTON – A human rights group’s report about conditions at the U.S. military’s prison at Guantanamo Bay is “absurd,” President Bush told reporters Tuesday.

The Amnesty International report, released last week, said prisoners at the U.S. Navy base had been mistreated and called for the prison to be shut down.

The president, addressing a news conference at the White House, said the Amnesty document was an “absurd report.”

But, wait a minute…

Article 9: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Federal lawsuit follows anti-Bush T-shirt arrests

By The Associated Press
09.15.04

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A couple arrested for wearing anti-Bush T-shirts to the president’s July 4 appearance at the West Virginia Capitol filed a federal lawsuit yesterday alleging their First Amendment rights were violated.

Nicole and Jeff Rank were removed from the event in handcuffs after revealing T-shirts with President Bush’s name crossed out on the front. Nicole Rank’s shirt had the words “Love America, Hate Bush” on the back and Jeff Rank’s had “Regime change starts at home” on the back.

Thankfully, there is still some justice to be had, since the Ranks eventually won a $80,000 settlement from the federal government.

Nice try.  

Disgusted yet?  But, wait, there’s more…

Article 10: Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Congress letter to Bush: Close Guantanamo

WASHINGTON – A group of 145 members of the House of Representatives sent a letter to President Bush on Friday urging him to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and move the detainees there to military prisons in the United States.

“The closure of the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay would represent a positive first step toward restoring our international reputation as the leader of democracy and individual rights,” the letter said.

And…

Article 11.1: Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense.

Except…

President Discusses Creation of Military Commissions to Try Suspected Terrorists.

And.

Extraordinary rendition flights & CIA secret prisons revealed by European Parliament

The CIA flew 1,245 secret flights into European airspace, according to a European Parliament draft report obtained by ABC News.

The report is the result of a year-long investigation into secret CIA “extraordinary rendition” flights and prisons in Europe.

No European country has officially acknowledged being part of the program.

Also check out Maven’s recent diary…

In a little-noticed filing yesterday, the Bush Administration tipped its hand as to how it plans to scuttle yet another lawsuit that could otherwise expose details of one of the many the nefarious policies it has been carrying out behind our backs:  extraordinary rendition (which is really nothing more than a euphemism for “kidnapping”) to secret CIA prisons overseas.

Again, moving on…

Article 12: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

But, but…

Bush says feds can open mail without warrant

WASHINGTON — President Bush quietly has claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans’ mail without a judge’s warrant.

Bush asserted the new authority Dec. 20 after signing legislation that overhauls some postal regulations. He then issued a “signing statement” that declared his right to open mail under emergency conditions, contrary to existing law and contradicting the bill he had just signed, according to experts who have reviewed it.

And then there’s…

Article 19: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Except that…

Bush to criminalize protesters under Patriot Act as “disruptors”

Bush wants to create the new criminal of “disruptor” who can be jailed for the crime of “disruptive behavior.” A “little-noticed provision” in the latest version of the Patriot Act will empower Secret Service to charge protesters with a new crime of “disrupting major events including political conventions and the Olympics.” Secret Service would also be empowered to charge persons with “breaching security” and to charge for “entering a restricted area” which is “where the President or other person protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting.” In short, be sure to stay in those wired, fenced containments or free speech zones.

Who is the “disruptor”? Bush Team history tells us the disruptor is an American citizen with the audacity to attend Bush events wearing a T-shirt that criticizes Bush; or a member of civil rights, environmental, anti-war or counter-recruiting groups who protest Bush policies; or a person who invades Bush’s bubble by criticizing his policies.  A disruptor is also a person who interferes in someone else’s activity, such as interrupting Bush when he is speaking at a press conference or during an interview.

Oh, and…

Article 21.1: Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.

…not to bring up a controversial subject, but…

Was the 2004 Election Stolen?

Evidence Mounts That The Vote May Have Been Hacked

Report: Florida data suggests e-voting problems

Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley published on Friday a statistical analysis of irregularities in Florida voter behavior that contends that the voting patterns favored President Bush to the tune of 130,000 to 260,000 votes.

The report, by four U.C. Berkeley researchers, analyzed the statistical relationships between Florida’s Nov. 2 results of the election and a variety of factors, including historical trends in Florida, racial factors and county size. According to the analysis, people using electronic voting machines tended to favor President Bush in proportion to the number of registered Democrats in each county.

And, as we all well know…

WND Jimmy Carter: Gore beat Bush in 2000

Five years after the controversial 2000 presidential election, ex-President Jimmy Carter now says he’s certain Al Gore defeated George W. Bush.

“Well I would say that in the year 2000, the country failed abysmally in the presidential election process,” Carter told a panel Monday at American University in Washington, D.C. “There’s no doubt in my mind that Al Gore was elected president.”

And then there’s…

Article 21.3. The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

But, then again…

Among activists and investigators looking into allegations of vote fraud in the 2004 Presidential election, the company always mentioned was Diebold and its suspicious electronic touch-screen voting machines. It is Diebold that has multiple avowed Republicans on its Board of Directors. It was Diebold that gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to Bush’s election campaign. It was Diebold CEO Walden O’Dell who vowed to deliver Ohio’s electoral votes to Bush.

The Guinness Book of Records describes the UDHR as the “Most Translated Document” in the world.

Anybody want to take a guess if Bush has ever read it?

Next question.

Why is this man president of the United States?

Leader of the free world?

He ought to be in jail.

I’m so sick of the primary soap opera that I’m just about to bust a gut.  It’s not bad enough that THIS administration has preempted the last vestiges of what used to pass as news in this country with coverage of their obscene and ethically bankrupt war in Iraq.  Not that we don’t need to know what’s going on there, obviously we do now that it’s a fait accompli.  But I have to wonder if part of their strategy isn’t subjecting the American Public to a relentless stream of White (House) Noise that plays out as a complete information blackout.

As of now, the other half of whatever “news” was left over is being preempted by the most ridiculous run-up to the Primary Elections that I have ever witnessed in all my born days.

More after the jump.
Beyond endlessly debating the potential issues of potential presidential nominees, now we are debating the possible hidden meanings behind something the wife of a potential nominee said and if it was a slam at another potential nominee’s notoriously eventful marriage.

From the Chicago Sun Times (also receiving relentless coverage elsewhere).

Oh, puhleeze!  Could be a swipe at the Clintons?  Well that’s worth hours and hours of endless speculation!

Is this a conspiracy to distract us from every single real issue that should be of concern to us, or just a happy accident that so many media magnets happen to be running for the chance to run for president all at the same time?

I feel like this country is frozen in the headlights of speeding propaganda under-the-influence; rubbernecking the endlessly contrived media circus.

Hey, just give me the pamphlet that outlines the positions of potential Democratic nominees on the important issues, with background that documents their track record on those issues. I’m all for a couple of high profile intense debates that give us the opportunity to evaluate all of the potential nominees under pressure.  So let’s see them all in the line up, and then, well, enough already!

Whew.  Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.

Nothing against the forums if they give real people chances to meet and evaluate real candidates as people.  But the way candidates for candidacy answer questions with prepackaged sound bytes on national television, and the way they promote themselves on the “Campaign Trail” doesn’t tell us anything in comparison with the official record of their past conduct and the way they outline their current positions on key issues.  I can get all this from a few paragraphs to study before I go to the polls and I do not need this interminable soap opera.

Obviously it’s important who the next president should be, but it’s even more important to pay attention to whether or not our votes will actually count when we bubble in the dot or touch the screen or punch the card or pull the lever.

And, hey, let me add that I’m also heartily sick of the nasty infighting that goes on in so-called “candidate diaries.”  Who really believes that insults and name-calling is the best way to GOTV for their favorite candidate or pet cause?  Not that I’m conspiracy-minded or anything, I retired my Tin Hat with honors, but I have to wonder if there may or may not be a few paid operatives out there stirring up the blog-pot?  Just a thought.

I can see that there is no way to have a strategy discussion on the issue of marriage rights for all couples, no way to focus on the larger issues as I see them.  I’m sure it’s my failure as a writer, and I apologize for that.

And it’s starting to really upset me to have to repeat over and over that I am not against same-sex marriage.  It is starting to really upset me that, after all of the years I have posted on this forum, my fundamental advocacy of human rights should even be called into question.  But I guess that’s why they call it a “wedge issue.”  It was foolish of me to think I could shed any light on the situation.

So that’s why I deleted my diary.

I am grateful to my Carpal Tunnel Syndrome for forcing me to cope with my addiction to computers.  LOL!

But, seriously…

Over the past few years, I have actually convinced myself that writing messages to and receiving responses from strangers using pseudonyms was a substitute for friendship and community. What has happened on this website in the past week has proven the fragility of such an assumption.  I was AWOL for several days and when I came back it took me awhile to piece together what happened and even now I have a very fragmented picture.
I think the problem with introducing politics into any community is that this will invite the indulgence of negativity and venting against the imaginary “other.”  The fact is there is no other, we are all coping with our own inner devils.  The veil of anonymity invites narcissistic behavior, since it is always a challenge to step up to the plate and take responsibility. Always.

I tried to express my feelings about this some months ago in my diary entitled “Don’t Think of a Troll.”  My point was that the more we focus on “trolling” and use this terminology the more we invite “trollish” behaviors and why don’t we as enlightened and loving people try to introduce some more enlightened and loving terminology to manifest an unfavorable environment for malicious mischief?  This inspired some interesting discussion on BT and also on DK, but eventually became a swamp for flame wars on DK and finally a DK administrator PM’d me to remove the diary altogether, which I did.

Mainly I’ve found that on the internet people easily become polarized.  Even on a liberal/progressive website, people eventually gravitate towards opposite ends of the spectrum even if the spectrum is really tiny such as one person we all know and love having a really bad day and exhibiting unacceptable behavior which includes using abusive language.

The other problem with resting on anonymous political affiliation as the foundation for community is that people’s political position can shift from day to day based on external events or internal struggles, and even these subtle shifts act as earthquakes and tsunamis in a community that rests on political affiliation vs. a standard of behavior that manifests in the rule of courtesy.

I don’t think we need to reinvent courtesy.  We are all hard-wired for language at birth and courtesy is not an ambiguous concept so it is not a stretch to require that we all be courteous to one another in our use of language.  We also have to bear in mind that no one is perfect and everyone can have a bad day and get carried away with themselves. Everyone.  So here is where we introduce the concept of forgiveness and allow people time to find their own emotional balance and absorb whatever input they are receiving to apply in their own way to their own personal growth.

And speaking of gratitude I must express my gratitude to dozens of users of this community who have supported me and responded to me in positive ways and who have given me encouragement and helped me believe in myself when I was up against some serious life struggles.  Thank you, thank you!

So I hope we can all stick together and weather this recent meltdown… we all know there is much more at stake than these little dustups that are easily gotten over and will hopefully soon be forgotten so that we can continue to be a force for good in this world.  Again I say that my CTS has forced me to get some perspective on the role of computers in my life and how I use my free time and what qualifies to me as “socializing.”  So if you need to take a break and get some perspective that is a good thing but please don’t abandon the camaraderie that we have built here!  We need you!

Oh yes, and please let me add that I know I have been jerk at times and I apologize for those times when I have slipped and ask for and thank you in advance for your generous forgiveness.

In December 2006, my primary physician Dr. Qozi-Habash and I discussed the need for me to see an orthopedic hand specialist for my severe carpal tunnel syndrome and so I found Dr. Auerbach who is recommended on the Sorehand website (http://www.geocities.com/la_rsi/treatmnt.html) and also happened to be only two miles from my workplace.  I called Dr. Auerbach’s office and they could not make an appointment without an authorization from Workers Comp, so I call the Workers Comp caseworker Naun Roy and he said I needed to get the authorization from Dr. Qozi-Habash to authorize Workers Comp to authorize the consultation with Dr. Auerbach.  So I contacted Dr. Qozi-Habash and she said to make an appointment with her on Jan. 2, which I did.  
During that appointment she completed the paperwork for me to go back to work from a prescribed period of rest including a recommendation that I be trained on voice recognition software which was originally recommended by the Workers Comp doctor – Dr. Knight – who subjected me to a formal Workers Comp mandated evaluation.  Dr. Qozi-Habash also authorized seeing the hand specialist Dr. Auerbach, so I tried to call caseworker Naun Roy the morning of Jan. 2 and left three messages so that he could expedite the authorization.  I wanted to fax him the form that Dr. Qozi-Habash had completed, but could not get Naun Roy’s fax number since he was not returning my calls, so I finally called the main number and they gave me his fax number so I faxed the form to him.  

Then at work my boss observed that Dr. Qozi-Habash had written the “date of return to work” on the wrong line since it indicated work modifications and in that case he would need to know what were the exact modifications required.  So I called Naun Roy and he happened to answer the phone and he explained that use of voice recognition software was not considered a “modification.”  He said he had got the fax and he said he would authorize the visit to Dr. Auerbach and I said I would contact Dr. Qozi-Habash and let her know that use of voice recognition software did not constitute a work modification. He also told me that since Dr. Qozi-Habash was recommending training on voice recognition software he would call the human resources department at my employer to see whether or not they would be able to provide this training and — if not — Workers Comp would be obliged to provide it.

So I contacted Dr. Qozi-Habash and the next day she wrote an addendum to the Workers Comp form using one of her own prescription forms saying “return to work with training on voice recognition and no restrictions.”  My employer accepted this and I returned to regular work on 1/3 and also filled out the form from Workers Comp accepting regular employment.  Also that morning I called and left a message for Naun Roy telling him about Dr. Qozi-Habash’s note and asking if he needed a copy in which case I could send or fax it to him.  He never returned this phone call.

Then on 1/5 I received a notice from Naun Roy that he was challenging Dr. Qozi-Habash’s treatment of my condition, which meant that I would have to go before a panel and face a Qualified Medical Examiner to challenge her recommendation that I return to work with modifications.  So I called him and he answered the phone and we had a very stressful interaction during which he completely refused to acknowledge our long conversation on Jan. 2 about the fact that use of voice recognition did not constitute a modification and also refused to acknowledge my phone message on Jan. 3 concerning Dr. Qozi-Habash’s addendum clarifying that I was returning to work with no restrictions or modifications per her note dated 1/3.  He said that he was initiating the challenge because she had indicated on the form that I was to return to work with modifications.

Naun Roy told me that it didn’t matter what I said or what Dr. Qozi-Habash said since he was looking at a form where the date was written next to returning to work with modifications (incidentally there is also a box next to that line which is not checked).  He also insisted that our phone conversations were irrelevant since he was looking at the form and responding to the form that he claimed to have received from Dr. Qozi-Habash.  

However, his challenge to me was dated 1/3 and there is no possible way that he could have had any paperwork to respond to on 1/3 apart from what I myself faxed to him.  I can guarantee that Dr. Qozi-Habash’s office would not have faxed him that form and the U.S. mails could not have miraculously delivered anything so fast.  In fact the office manager at Dr. Qozi-Habash’s clinic returned just a phone message on 1/5 that I had left her over a week before. So there is no possible way Naun Roy could be looking at anything apart from what I faxed him on Jan. 2 merely for the purpose of expediting the authorization to see a hand specialist.  

As an aside it is totally ridiculous that I have to go through such a long convoluted process to see a hand specialist when I am suffering and in need of medical attention, just because it so happens that my injury was designated by Workers Comp to be a work injury. I have my own insurance and they are perfectly happy to cover my medical needs and should be able to access medical care when I am suffering, but I now find that my access to my own insurance is obstructed by a hostile, suspicious, and almost paranoid system that treats me like a criminal just because I was injured at work, and treats my need for access to health care, and my doctor’s intention to facilitate my health care as some sort of malicious conspiracy.

I might add that I would never have filed a Workers Comp claim if my employer had not compelled me to do it.  He felt that, since CTS is a work-type injury it was best for all concerned to gain clarification.  Now it appears that the Workers Comp system is a free-agent generating malicious mischief for its own amusement.  Meanwhile I continue to suffer and my employer continues to do its best to accommodate an injured worker.  Of course the employer and we-the-injured taxpayer are paying for this useless, obstructive, and punitive bureaucracy.

The first thing everyone says is… get a lawyer.  Of course with lost work time and my livelihood in jeopardy the last thing I can afford is a lawyer.

“Nightmares at Dr. Auerbach’s Office” to follow.

I have severe CTS and been trying to make an appointment with a Dr. Auerbach who is listed on the RSI-LA website and is in my area.

http://www.geocities.com/la_rsi/treatmnt.html

I called his office several days ago and tried to make an appointment but was told that since I was on Workers Comp they need an authorization first.

(more)
So it took me two days (with persistence) to contact the WC case manager and he said that first I needed an authorization from my own doctor who is handling the case.  It took me two days to get hold of her and she said I needed to make an appointment with her so that puts us at 1/2/07.  

I have an appointment on 1/2/07 at 8:30 AM for her to complete the paperwork to authorize WC to authorize Dr. Auerbach’s office to make the appointment.  

So now that this is in progress and to avoid further delay, I called Dr. Auerbach’s office to set up the appointment and they ABSOLUTELY refused to schedule me until they had the paperwork from WC first.  Absolutely, given all my reassurances that this would be in place before I appeared in front of the doctor.

This is discrimination.  

I have my own insurance, which is now no longer accessible to me since (as Dr. Auerbach’s office informed me) it’s against the law for them to bill my insurance for a work-related injury. Apparently being injured at work now presents new and special barriers to receiving desperately-needed medical care.

I begged and begged and begged them to make the appointment, assuring them that now that the process in place I would cancel at the first sign that WC wouldn’t authorize.  Dr. Auerbach was totally available as of 1/4 and the day was wide open so it’s not as if he’s swamped with patients and I would be bumping someone else.

So now apparently work-related injuries put people in a special class of suffering human beings who can’t make doctor’s appointment without the authorization of a bureaucracy festooned with red tape strategically placed to delay and hinder the medical care that they so desperately need.

Excellent, Governator!  Well done!  Your corporate sponsors must be showering you with campaign contributions for dismantling what little was left of worker’s rights and protections in California.

Link to Raw Story article on Sean Penn and The World Can’t Wait.

I didn’t see a diary about this and want to make sure that everyone knows about this planned nationwide demonstration to confront the bush-fascists.

Promoted by Steven D, with minor edits.

In addition, here’s the link to the webpage for The World Can’t Wait where you can find additional links to locations where protest events are being held today. Hopefully one of them is in your town.

Cross posted at Daily Kos.

I’m not writing this diary to stir up controversy or make trouble, I’m writing because I sincerely believe that language has power. Language is the physical manifestation of our thoughts and feelings, and conveys these thoughts and feelings to others.  The structure of language — and language itself — has the power to shape the way we think and feel about ourselves, and our world.

For just one example, in the 1960s, before the Civil Rights Movement, it was considered respectful and proper to use the word “Negro.”  However, civil rights leaders decided against “Negro” in favor of “Black.”  Then, during the 1980s, there was a movement away from “Black” in favor of “African-American.”  

It’s crucial for any group that has historically been oppressed or disenfranchised to claim ownership over the way people talk about them.  Not only does this help neutralize derogatory language, it enlists the entire community in bringing about much needed social change.  By cooperating, we enter into an agreement to transform cultural attitudes that have been contributing factors to social injustice.
“Language” is a thorny subject because you have to use language to talk about it.  Language structures our experience; it both creates and recreates culture, and cultural attitudes and beliefs are embedded in vocabulary, syntax, and usage.  It can be like walking through a minefield to use language in order to root out the social and political injustice that’s embedded within it.  

This exercise becomes particularly difficult when it extends to the subject of gender relations.  Women are another historically oppressed and disenfranchised group that has appropriated language as a change agent with respect to deeply embedded cultural attitudes that are demeaning.  For this reason, “feminists” are concerned with the way language is used to talk about — or images used to depict — women.  

Language has been and remains the single most powerful tool through which male supremacy is perpetuated. Since the “female” is subsumed by the “male” as a property of language, “feminists” must stake out their linguistic territory and be ever vigilant to protect it.  I use “feminist” in quotes because every woman who believes in her social and political equality, and claims them for herself, is by default a feminist until we have achieved complete and lasting gender equity.

These examples do not offer an exact parallel to my argument against using the word “troll,” but illustrate the power of language to influence culture for better or worse.  Internet usage of “troll” is a big subject.  For example, on wikipedia there’s practically a whole book about it.  I’m not trying to define the word or offer a comprehensive study of what have become known as “trolls” or “trollish” behaviors.  I’m proposing an inquiry into whether or not widespread usage of this word is constructive with respect to the ultimate goals of the progressive blogosphere.

I have spent a considerable time at both Daily Kos and Booman Tribune and can say with complete confidence that the vast majority of participants are deeply invested in caring about the welfare of other human beings.  For the most part, these are people who are fairly comfortable and successful in their own lives, but care deeply about the systems and organizations that are (or should be) in place to protect the rights and promote the well-being of others.  For me, this is the definition of a progressive.  It’s someone who works not only for themselves and their family, but for the good of the entire human community, of the earth, and every living being.  

A progressive is someone who can’t be happy just knowing that his or her family and close friends have nice homes, send their kids to quality schools, and enjoy “the good life” with their inner circle.  Progressives want every single person to have equal assess to the comforts of life, to be given the freedom to live their lives in peace and dignity, and to have a voice in their government.  This is the true meaning of democracy.  

The project of the progressive blogosphere, I believe, for most participants, is to work towards preserving and strengthening democracy, and extending it to as many people as possible.  This is an incredibly important project, and – if successful – could have significant consequences.  In case you haven’t noticed (LOL!), there’s a lot at stake now.  We live in dangerous times, and they seem to be getting more dangerous every minute.  We want to do everything in our power to achieve our progressive goals, and it’s not always easy to find effective outlets for our activism.

However, I believe we can exercise our activism in important ways simply by changing the way we use language to demonize other people and their behavior through words like “trolls” and “trollish.” There’s simply too much at stake for us to waste time and energy in endless bickering and arguments; and endless bickering and arguments will always be the result when people habitually use language that is dehumanizing.

I have witnessed countless occasions when calling someone a “troll” or “troll-rating” their comment(s) simply poured oil on the fire, derailing discussions and helping to subvert the agenda of the original diarist or poster.  I have witnessed numerous occasions when someone from the other side of the aisle has posted a polite comment just to test the waters and was instantly “troll-rated” into Hidden Comments. I have seen otherwise intelligent and important discussions disintegrate into schoolyard babble about whether a certain poster was a “troll” or not.  I have witnessed the “troll police” stomping out discussions and people “troll-rating” other comments just to be nasty or vindictive.  I argue that if we dropped the word “troll” and named disruptive behavior something neutral but descriptive, it would save us a lot of headaches and help to keep activity on the blog focused on accomplishing our important progressive goals.

I was moved to think deeply about this topic, after participating in a diary that was posted on Daily Kos by Steven D, about a month ago, on the topic of election fraud.  I was inspired to go back and study this diary after I found out that a writer whose voice and opinions I had learned to respect and value got banned from Daily Kos as a result of some interactions on that discussion thread.  I wanted to witness these interactions for myself and try to understand what led up to the banning.

Please note that I do not use links or direct quotes because I’m uninterested in pointing fingers, getting personal, or rehashing the issue of election fraud.  This subject has been done to death in the diaries, and people are going to feel the way they feel about it.  No matter how much I might disagree with someone, they have just as much right to their opinion as I have.  I made a conscious decision not to use quotes or direct links, and avoid the use of names, because I’m hoping to focus on larger issues that I feel should be of concern to this community.

As I reread Steven D’s diary, I noticed that one person (with an UID in the 90,000) was subtly and persistently needling and baiting the person who eventually got banned.  The comments themselves seemed polite on the face of it, but looking at an overall pattern this person’s behavior was clearly disruptive.  He or she didn’t have anything very constructive to contribute to the discussion, and was way over-invested in sabotaging opinions he or she disagreed with.

Just out of curiosity, I “shrunk” down all the comments in the thread to subject, name of poster, etc, then copied and pasted them into a Word document.  (Even without the text of the comments, this took up 37 pages!)  Next I did a “replace” on the name of the person who I thought was being disruptive and — since Word counts the number of replacements — I discovered that this person posted 110 out of the 812 comments in the thread, many less than a minute apart.

I don’t know about you, but I call this being over-invested to the point of addiction.  If it had been a bar, and I had been the bartender, I would have told this guy to call a cab and go home!  Obviously there’s no limit on the number or frequency of comments one person can post in any given thread, but my point is that there are lots of ways of being disruptive completely under the radar, ways that are hard to detect and analyze, but which in this case, I believe, had serious consequences to another poster, and to the Daily Kos community, which lost the voice of a well-informed, articulate, and valuable activist.

Another side effect of the 110 subtly confrontational comments peppered throughout the discussion thread following Steven D’s thoughtful and cogent diary about election fraud, was to incite a lot of arguments and name-calling that really made me wonder.  Who are the people who talk to each other like this?  What would it look like and sound like to have them all in a room together, trading insults?  Would it be a playground pissing match? A barroom brawl?  A post-modern remake of Long Day’s Journey into Night with a family of remote anonymous strangers filling in for the drunken Tyrones?

Reading Hidden Comments over some period of time, I saw that occasionally there were sincere people who appeared to be right-wing refugees from the disastrous Bush administration.  They came over to test the waters and were immediately “troll-rated” into oblivion.  This seemed sad, as I can easily imagine that there will be many disaffected Republicans looking for a new home, and maybe DK is not a place that can transition them into a better way of thinking, so where can we send them?  Do we just act nasty, call them names, and drive them back where they came from?

Recently I suggested on an Open Thread that there should be a site where we could refer disaffected Republicans for guided re-entry into the reality-based communities.  The response was, “you can’t rehabilitate sociopaths.”  This may be true, but all Republicans aren’t sociopaths.  Most of them are people, just like us, who happen to believe in a “conservative” agenda that basically doesn’t exist anymore, and sooner or later a lot of them are going to fly the coop and go looking for a new place to roost.  Hopefully, some of them will come to roost here because our progressive activism will support an environment that is less about identity politics and more about human beings. Yes, it’s an uphill battle, but the more tolerant we can be of differing opinions, as long as they are polite, the faster we can heal our nation and set a course for a brighter and more equitable future.

Through studying the interactions following Steven D’s diary, I came to the realization that maybe it’s time for us to grow out of our “troll-calling” phase and invest in a more strategic use of language on behalf of a desperate fight to save our country and our planet.  The nomenclature of the rating system accustoms us to language that is little more than childish name-calling and steers us away from the more productive course of addressing the behavior rather than attacking the person.  So my suggestion would be for us to stop using “troll” and “trollish,” and get out of the name-calling business altogether.  Perhaps the zero rating could be changed to “disruptive, or maybe “spam,” or maybe just plain “zero,” since we all know what that means!  And if someone rates a comment zero, perhaps they should post just one more comment that explains the rating in courteous language and then leave it alone.

I believe that in these dangerous times we desperately need to seek the common ground with each other, with our fellow progressives, and with our fellow beings on both sides of the political spectrum.  Let’s seek the common ground and plant our feet firmly there.  No matter how brainwashed people are by corporate MSM propaganda, they’re still people living out their lives in the same world as us, they have the same needs, and bottom line they care most about the same things we care most about. Maybe someday we will look back on our “troll-calling” days as a phase, a part of growing up with the internet, and rejoice that we were willing to become more thoughtful in our use of language when the time came for us to focus on accomplishing an agenda that is vital to our future, and the future of this planet.