Author: paradox

I’m around the house, you know.  Every six-eight weeks for the past year I’d get volcanically sick for three days and be out for a week trying to get back, with no clue why.  25 pounds underweight, forced to stay in a hospital and quitting the labor force to try and get better, my boss reeled me back with FMLA offer of 90 days off.  I finally got a diagnosis, got on a benign medication for life and I’m soon to be a corporate cog again.  I re-enter that land of enchantment in 13 days.
For the first time in my life I had to ask myself this question:  what if I never get better and make it out of the house?  Jesus, Mary & Joseph, what if I had been expected to spend my entire working career in the house?

I’m not clueless in these four walls; in fact, I’m a notorious homebody, I only like leaving for food shopping and movies.  I scratched my travel itch in this life, I’d even rather stay home on vacations, frankly.  Even so, facing permanent domicile status made me look at literal American domestic politics with a new, and ultimately much more respectful perspective.

The first phosphorous round of insight was the crashing reality of the American horror show of working parents and lack of daycare.  This country falls apart without healthy families, yet our children need care while both parents are forced to work to make it here.  It’s just astounding that forcing both parents to work with no help in raising an incredibly vital national resource, our children, is a reality in this country.

[While I was off my wife gleefully cancelled all of our daughter’s daycare and gave me instant status as a Prince of Rides.  It’s a huge, painful issue that soon my daughter must go back to relatively shabby, expensive daycare, and my work schedule has been drastically altered so daycare can be cut back 65% this year, which we had started before my leave.]

Only with a corporate press and Republicans in power could this incredibly powerful issue of daycare been so shamefully neglected for so long–other civilized countries do not put their families through this and help with enviable daycare, Jesus and the saints save us.

I finally got a true glimmer of understanding to feminine political anger in this country.  Women were expected to raise the children, then they had to go to work and nothing was done for the family, yet somehow working mothers are expected to handle everything.  This is a plain outrage, and the fucking Democratic party has horribly failed its people yet again–no rationalizations or lying works as to how daycare is not on the political agenda in this country.

I’ve been a lifelong member of Kaiser Permanente, I’ve got no complaints, but I had to deal with an insurance company for my leave and it was a sorry, infuriating disgrace.  This, too, is a horrifying failure of the Democratic party, how healthcare is not a flaming banner of victory for 2006 and 2008.  At some point rationalizations and excuses are just not acceptable on any level for political leadership, the vital human issues causing so much horrifying pain is their duty to alleviate, no matter where it leads them or how uncomfortable it is.  I mean, if Americans can’t take care of their children or get healthcare, why the fuck be a politician at all?  We all know Republicans do it to pay off their rich cronies, but Democrats are supposed to be different.

No, I don’t give a shit if criticizing the party possibly hurts it.  It’s my party too, I’m forever told not to leave to make it stronger, so deal with it.

We all are nothing without a good and healthy home, yet as a society we attach so little status to performing the duty well. Shopping, cleaning, cooking, driving, home ownership…throw in a few kids and mate who spent the day away from the house and thinks sex is a good idea when rest can finally be had and oy, one has found a very, very tough work career.  No paycheck, expense account, bonuses or travel, either.

As I get ready to go back I’m vastly relieved not to have to attempt facing that, what a raw deal, truly.  I’m amazed and very respectful that so many women handled it so well for so long in this country, and I’m going to do much more in attempting to get daycare and healthcare on the American political agenda.  This is simply an unbelievable condition for a rich, modern democracy and it will not stand.

[Cross-posted at The Left Coaster]

Six days from now–December 9th–is the five year anniversary of the day I mournfully rhyme with Don McLean’s famous song American Pie:  the day the country died.  That’s the day, of course, when the Supreme Court decided to hear Bush vs. Gore and issued the stay on the Florida election, stealing the election for Bush.

Theft of the democracy and the utterly disastrous Bush presidency (9/11, the Iraq war, crippling deficits, horrible employment, widening class chasm, environmental degradation) has been a disgraceful painful consequence, but the day the country died I was equally horrified at the pernicious effects Bush vs. Gore would have on the very concept of the law itself.
Easily forgotten from that intense period was the feeling and idea of how freakish the circumstances of the atomically close election were–another 500 years could pass in the democracy and another wouldn’t be so remotely close.  This facet is reflected in the utterly absurd contention in Bush vs. Gore that this was a eternally unique decision that could not set precedent, a howling laugher that essentially said, well, just this once the law doesn’t mean a god damn thing, we of the Supreme Court can steal.  But hey, tomorrow everything snaps back to the same:  the law really is a valid human idea.

Shocked, I remember thinking at the time that I certainly wasn’t going to go rob a bank since the Supreme Court said theft was just dandy, but what effect would abrogation of the presidency and the law have on the administration and Republicans in power?

Think about it:  what kind of signal does it send to an American Executive branch that when it comes to the law, they are given a free pass?  Five years into the total disaster of the Bush presidency an answer is now crystal clear:  Bush and Cheney truly do know the law means nothing to them and have become the most felonious administration in United States history.

Bush, Cheney, Rove, Powell, Rice, Wolfowitz, Perle, Hadley and Libby are all war felons.  Their crimes include lying to start the Iraq war, sanctioned use of torture at Abu Ghraib prison, proposed bombing of Al Jareeza, and civilian war crimes in Fulluja with white phosphorous and Marine snipers.

Libby has been indicted for the felony of obstruction of justice in the criminal investigation of Valerie Plame.  Bush, Cheney, Hadley and Rove are felons in the Plame matter, but whether they will be served with indictments remains to be seen.

Gonzales and Ashcroft are felons for circumventing the law in sanctioning torture.

The Administration has consistently demonstrated that habeas corpus means nothing to them with the “prosecution” of Jose Padilla.  Many have commented that American democracy collapses with just this singular element removed.

News just broke that the Justice Department knew the Texas redistricting heist was illegal, but overruled that internal judgment and approved it anyway.

Delay is under indictment for money laundering.  A continuing lobbying scandal involving Jack Abramoff has already exposed representative Ney as a felon, and has the potential to indict many more Republican congressmen.  Cunningham, representative from San Diego, pleaded guilty to a string of felonies last week.

Frist, majority leader of the Senate, is under investigation by the SEC for being an incredibly bad and stupid liar regarding his “blind” trust.  A number of felonies are likely in all of this, but whether a complaint for indictment is ever issued is unclear at this time.

Unfortunately the list goes on very much further–abuses and disregard for environmental law are particularly egregious and numerous.  Enforcement of labor law remains a total joke, and Microsoft the monopolist was let off.

It’s obvious five years later, Bush vs. Gore ushered in an unprecedented era of elected public servant lawlessness and felonies unknown in the country’s history.  What a surprise–they were empirically shown the law means nothing to them, why should they have behaved any differently?

Most painful of all in this nightmare is the blanket denial that still surrounds theft of the election and trashing of the law itself.  When that felon hag O’Connor announced her retirement I was appalled, but not surprised, to see that Bush vs. Gore was never mentioned in her legal career history.  That little case that installed the worst president of our history and chucked the law in the trash bin?  That’s nothing, nothing at all.

Little more can be expected of our corporate whoring press, one supposes, but here, in this space in time with the five year anniversary of Bush vs. Gore so close upon us, it will not be denied and the truth will not be hidden:

Bush vs. Gore was and is the greatest legal disaster in United States history.  Not only did it steal the democracy, it set an appalling precedent of total disregard for the law itself, which can be aptly seen in the currently long felon list in the Republican administration and Congress.

Yo Liberals–

I don’t usually go for this kind of humor, but I actually liked it.  I tried it out on some friends and they liked it too:

http://www.atomfilms.com/contentPlay/shockwave.jsp?id=cant_afford_gas&preplay=1

It’s worth a few chuckles, believe me.  It also shows that the utterly horrifying folly of our non-existent energy policy is finally starting to trickle down into the popular culture a bit.

Peace be with you.  Happy Friday, eh?

[Cross-posted at The Daily Kos and My Left Wing]

The United States Navy rules the oceans of the world.  For readers under-appreciative of the vast scope of that sentence, consider this:

With a force of approximately 50 Los Angeles class attack submarines the Navy can shut down or sink all commercial shipping anywhere, at any time, for as long as necessary, with absolutely nothing to stop them.
The Navy has its own air force with approximately 12 commissioned aircraft carriers, around 960 combat aircraft with every imaginable air and land weapon.  At $4.5 billion to build, another $2 billion to equip and another $1 billion annually to maintain they can project significant force anywhere on the globe in hours.

The Navy has its own nuclear deterrent force, approximately 12 ICBM subs always on duty. Each one cost $2 billion to build, and just one of them can end life on the planet.

The Navy has its own army, an elite corps of light infrantry that is alleged to have the best mobility in the world–ready to ship at a moment’s notice.  This army even has it’s own air wing, helicopter carriers at 50,000 tons each, which carry vertical takeoff jets along with an amazing array of assault and lift helicopters.  Vast assault hovercraft scurry out of the bows of ships to scream forces to the beach from other ships in the amphibious unit.

The Navy has its own search and rescue corps, which in recent years has also tacked on some drug enforcement elements.  Helicopters, cutters, and boats by the thousand.

To make all this run the Navy has a huge armada of fast supply ships–fuel, ordnance, parts, food–anything to make an advanced technological human enterprise run, they can deliver with serious lift helicopters and pumps.  Usually underway, moving right along at sea.

The Navy even has two hospital ships, one of which is always instantly ready to get underway and fully staffed with reservists.  They’re incredible hospital ships, capable of almost any medical procedure.

The commanding officers of every United States Navy ship take the ability to instantly be ready for combat and sea readiness extremely seriously.  All the incredible effort and treasure expended on the Navy is useless if it can’t be instantly used where it’s needed.

I don’t watch much television, but the few snips I’ve seen about NOLA never have a Chinook helicopter in them, no Navy corpsman rescuing people.  No supply ships, no amphibious assault ships, no boats, nothing.  Of course some coast guard helicopters but–I can hardly believe this as I type it–the United States Navy was AWOL for NOLA.

Reports are beginning to surface as to why the amphibious assault carrier Bataan, right there and ready, did nothing.

I’m not interested in the fucking excuses that are about to follow, wherever they come from. I need to say something else.

I am respectfully requesting that every officer in the United States Navy take a real good look at every enlisted man and woman’s face they meet this day.  Please see the faces for what they really are:  young earnest trusting souls who depend on your leadership to save their lives and those of our citizens in the most dire teams of need.  They’ll give up their own lives to make sure it happens.

Look at those faces, realize the towns and cities they came from, and know that everything the United States Navy was built and kept ready for failed a city full of faces just like them. Much more importantly, are you, as an officer, ready to take them into battle with the leadership we’ve just seen?

That answer is No, I know the officers of the Navy.  I am also respectfully requesting that when responsibility for this utter debacle is meted out the enlisted men and women of the Navy not be so shamefully scapegoated as Army did to its people in Abu Ghraib.  Do you, as an officer, really want to be part of an organization like that?

In the last five years I have lived through incredible heartache and terrible events, but these last eight days are by far the worst I have ever seen.  With everything else that was and is the ultimate horror, I never, ever, expected the United States Navy to be AWOL when we needed them.  Never.

[Cross-posted at The Left Coaster]

California passed its budget for fiscal year 2006 yesterday after the CTA had given up on Arnold’s 2 billion betrayal (saving the fight for the Fall election) and the Democrats wanted no part in being Arnold’s whipping boy by stalling.  Both sides in this current debacle know the public has an equally low view of both of the governor and the legislature, so it was all kissy-kissy to the press yesterday on what fine, deliberative compromising statesmen our elected representatives are.
There has been some word in the last two weeks of, amazingly, another set of compromise initiatives to be offered in the special election this Fall that would be backed by both Arnold and the Democrats to somehow bridge the insane attack on unions–especially the CTA–that Arnie so stupidly launched this spring.  There’s also a direct assault on the legislature’s powers, so how a fantasy initiative compromise comes forth for a public election is a grim spectacle of absurdity no one really wants to contemplate.

Everyone is furious at that idiot Arnold for foisting a nasty fight on everyone in what could have been an off year, but there is no doubt that unless some true miracle occurs after August a huge fight with the unions is on, and if this year’s results are any indicator Arnold is simply going to get the shit beat of him as public servants hound him, publicize his betrayal to our children, and plummet his numbers.  The mighty Terminator looks likely to lose next year with this year’s mauling not even half over.

To review, two of the initiatives on the ballot go after unions–one by forcing them to get membership approval for political spending, the other a direct stab at the California Teachers Association by screwing beginning teachers with a 5 year tenure wait instead of the usual two.

Grover Norquist and all the national GOP freaks want to gut the unions and the CTA, especially, as a test case so they can see if they can get vouchers passed with the unions crippled.  The know they will never, ever get vouchers in California with the CTA standing guard.

I was reading over Atrios and Digby this morning over a flap between progressives and unions and was just appalled.  The Democratic party has seriously lost its way in not cultivating labor as an issue, and it total failure to grasp labor issues is the primary reason party registration growth continues to flat-line.

Duncan Black, may your recovery as economist progress massively further in this life.  Unions do a lot more than get crowds to political events.  The California Teachers Association is the one and only organization safeguarding consistent, adequate funding of education through teaching, otherwise each district would run amok in its own funding levels.

Even after a 30 year fight after the tax freaks squatted in Mississippification creeps everywhere.  If the CTA goes down this year vouchers will not be far behind.  The GOP then will complete its goal of dismantling public education, and California will forever be a lost dream.  Public service unions preserve the American dream in California, never doubt it.  Yeah, they show up when they’re supposed to at rallies too.

We live in an age where Walmart and vast swathes of grossly underpaid service workers cannot effectively organize.  When they bother to vote half of them vote for Republicans.  Issues like health care, day care, worker safety, and retirement security are nowhere on the national Democratic agenda for 2006.  How can we even win back The People’s House (only 17 seats!) without recruiting new voters?  They’re right there in front our eyes, yet we refuse to engage them, defiling and betraying a noble political heritage.

I am immensely pleased to see Nathan Newman get a slot at the superb House of Labor at the TPM Café.  He tells that story so much better than I, and I urge all sincere Democrats to regularly read Nathan and Josh’s impressive site.

I am a Democrat only because there is no other place for me to go.  I am very, very weary of spitting upon my party and impatiently ranting, often in the most foul juvenile manner, for those DC idiots to get it together.  It would help if some national big-time Democrats hoping for a 2008 shot came out to help in 2005 and learned some labor politics.  Never too early.

I do not know much of this world, but I do know the California Teachers Association is one of the greatest forces of good our state has ever had.  Democrats can finally wake up, embrace their cause and start winning elections, or lose and see the Democracy wither and die.  California will not survive two generations of voucher education.

[From the diaries by susanhu with slight format edit.] With timing that could not be more horrible for George Bush, one of our Chinook helicopters with 17 service people aboard went down in Afghanistan yesterday, the news hitting the wires here about 1100 pst. All through the day the status of our men was “unknown.” As of this morning, 19 hours later, their fate is still “unknown.”

Every family of every person serving in Afghanistan instantly worried and is still worried sick this very second about their loved ones. It’s been an extremely difficult 19 hours for them.
Please tell us the fate of our service people on that helicopter now.  After the treatment Pat Tillman got I simply assume the military lies when it feels it needs to, and with the timing of the Chimperor’s speech yesterday I’m positive we’re being lied to–again.

“Unknown.”  Afghan forces have sealed off the area, but they have no communication devices?  “Support aircraft” are in the area, but no observations can be communicated?  We’ve got a Chinook out there but cannot instantly dispatch another helicopter to report what happened?

“This is a tragic event for all of use, and our hearts and prayers go out to the families, loved ones and service members still fighting in the area,” said Brig. Gen. Greg Champion.

The New York Times and the AP wire have the story prominently displayed, but nowhere in their stories are these sentences:

“Despite the fact that US forces have the most sophisticated “support aircraft” in the world, multiple layers of communication devices, Special Forces, and Afghan supporting forces on the scene military officials still insisted they have no news of the 17 men aboard.”

“Military officials consistently refused to speculate when the news would be released.”

“Military officials insisted the Pat Tillman episode, where the military lied for propaganda purposes, did not erode their credibility in reporting this incident.”

Until I see sentences like that not only am I going to assume we’re being lied to again, I know the war felons running our country are yet again being enabled in their lying by a compliant, complicit corporate press.

The Left Coaster extends its deepest sympathies to all the families with service people serving in Afghanistan.  May your loved ones come home soon, whole in mind in spirit.  Our thoughts and prayers are with you in this time of trial.

[Cross-posted at The Left Coaster, The Daily Kos and MyDD]