Vermont Nuke Letter

Jesus fucking dog Christ! Why aren't the American people uncontrollably ANGRY!!!!!!! One reason, no doubt, has to do with our positively worthless mainline media, who do absolutely nothing for the American people. I mean, imagine if the lost Michael Jackson had been leaking tritium! But instead of the months straight of pure horseshit media coverage given to the pathetic Michael and other such pop culture rot, the Vermont Senate vote to disband its deadly nuke plant gets maybe a few minutes of, eh, I don't know what, exactly. Take me back to my youth, to a figurative, now distant time just before Jack London wrote "The Iron Heel," and I swear I'll join the good guys in his novel and take to the streets. I'm ready to kill certain people, artificial ones mainly, also known as corporations. What a stinking fucking mess we nutty humans, American style, have gotten ourselves into. Nietzsche, way the fuck ahead of our American "leaders" (laughter, laughter!) in terms of everything decent, said that in individuals insanity is rare, but that in groups, NATIONS, PARTIES, and epochs, it's the rule. If that divine pathetic bastard referred to by some as "God" is anywhere

The GITMO distraction

America’s charade of change comes complete with national “debate” and a slight readjustment of the center to accommodate the Bush Lite policies of the Obama presidency.

What matters is that any change President Obama proposes be symbolic rather than substantive. A furious battle then ensues over the symbolic change so that, if it does finally come to pass — with the president weathering the endless flow of invective and fear-mongering from the Republican right — it will appear as though something was actually accomplished.

Meanwhile, business as usual holds course. The great swell of hope for a renewal of American society that swept Obama into office — for a real accounting of the crimes of the Bush administration, not to mention a reversal of its most heinous policies and a return to value-based governance — dissipates into the vague, scattered disappointment of millions of supporters, who once again have no focus for their disaffection.

Activism is change, not academic squabbles and bickering

An activist is a person who feels strongly about a cause and who is also willing to dedicate time and energy towards advancing and realizing this cause.

This might be my own limited interpretation of what activism means. I was born and raised in a Gaza refugee camp where the daily struggles of the community included challenging military occupation while attempting to survive under the harshest of circumstances. Activism then involved civil disobedience, general strikes, confronting armed Israeli soldiers with stones and slingshots. But it also involved much more than that.

Activists in my refugee camp, whether they're identified as Islamist, secularist, socialist or any other name, ensured the community remained unified in the face of adversity. They did not always succeed, but efforts were abound. Activists provided sustainable community support to families with sons and daughters that were killed in clashes or incarcerated in Israeli prisons. They rebuilt people's homes after they were demolished by Israeli dynamites or bulldozers. Some activists even offered free haircuts to those who couldn't afford them.

Zero public option + one mandate = disaster

Not long ago, the most prominent supporters of the public option were touting it as essential for healthcare reform. Now, suddenly, it's incidental.

In fact, many who were lauding a public option as the key to a better healthcare future are now condemning just about anyone who insists that the absence of a public option makes the current bill unworthy of support.

Consider this statement: "If I were a senator, I would not vote for the current healthcare bill. Any measure that expands private insurers' monopoly over healthcare and transfers millions of taxpayer dollars to private corporations is not real healthcare reform."

That statement is as true today as it was when Howard Dean, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, made it three months ago in a Washington Post op-ed. But now, a concerted political blitz is depicting anyone who takes such a position as a menace to "real healthcare reform."

The new face of terror

Meeting our makers: face to face with sweatshop workers who make what we buy

On Monday, April 26, at Capital University, we might be willing to give the shirts off of our backs after meeting a Bangladeshi garment worker and a Pakistani who works in a factory that produces some of the balls soccer moms watch their kids kick around.

“The conditions are very bad in some of these factories. In fact, in Bangladesh, very recently there was a fire in a garment factory. The same factory had a fire six months ago and people died in both of those fires,” said Karen Hansen, an activist who works with Ohio Conference on Fair Trade, one of the groups sponsoring the event locally, along with some labor unions and the Ohio Sweat-Free Campaign.

Hansen said she disagrees with those who say sweatshops are justified in that people working in them would be worse off if the industries left their countries.

“That's one story they like to tell, especially those who profit off of those conditions. But there are plenty of places where they are creating fair-trade soccer balls and fair-trade garments. So, we know that it can be done,” Hansen said.

Progressive blunt "Tea-Baggers" attack on Rep. Kilroy!

Hundreds showed up at what was supposed to be a right wing attack on Congresswoman Mary Jo Kilroy's office yesterday in Columbus. The event, however, proved to be much different from what the "Teabaggers" announced and had planned.

Dueling demonstrations, each with around 200-300 folks, lined Olentangy River Rd., the "Teabaggers" attacking Kilroy for her strong support of health care reform and an equal or greater force of people there supporting her stand.

"We just had to come out and stand with Mary Jo," said Tim Ely, a Business Agent for the Pipefitter's Union. "She's stood up for us in the legislature, and I'm just sick and tired of these right wing thugs lying about health care and going around intimidating people. That crap's going to stop, now!"



How the Democrats can reclaim the youth vote

If the Democrats don't get the youth vote, they're toast. That happened in Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, where young Obama voters stayed home in droves. It's an ugly conceivable future portended by a new Harvard poll that shows forty-one percent of young Republicans planning on voting in November, compared to 35 percent of young Democrats and 13 percent of independents. A recent Pew poll showed a similarly disturbing pattern: Young voters still prefer the Democrats, but their margin is slipping and their enthusiasm level is worse.

Some reasons and some solutions:

Nuke pushers to Vermont: "Drop Dead"

The nuclear power industry is sending a clear and forceful message to the citizens of Vermont: "Drop Dead."

The greeting applies to Ohio, New York, California and a nation under assault from a "renaissance" so far hyped with more than $640 million in corporate cash.

The Vermont attack includes:

1) A direct threat to ignore the state Senate's 26-4 February vote against renewing the Yankee reactor's operating license. As a condition of buying Yankee, Entergy long-ago ceded to the legislature approval of any extension of an operating license, which expires in 2012. But Entergy now says it will spend all the corporate cash it needs to evict the current Senate and install one more to its liking.

2) Vermont's pro-nuclear Republican Governor Jim Douglas says the Senate's vote is "meaningless." Douglas is not running for re-election but is certain to become a high-priced Yankee arm-twister when he leaves office.

3) Entergy has also implied that if it fails to buy itself a pro-nuke legislature in 2010, it will sue over any denial of the license extension.

Rachel Corrie: Justice delayed is justice denied

I sat down seven years ago this month with my son Adam and told him about the tragic death of a brave American woman named Rachel Corrie. As I informed him who she was, where and how she died, he stared at her two photographs in the paper and said, “Daddy, I will name my first daughter Rachel.” Adam was only nine years old, and I couldn’t have been more proud of him.

Rachel Corrie had a heart bigger than Texas. She paid the ultimate price fighting to uphold the international law that bans collective punishment.

Rachel was a 23 year-old Evergreen State College student from Olympia, WA. Rachel responded to the U.S. and Israeli rejection of a UN Resolution recommending an International Peace Keeping Force be sent into Palestine to serve as a human rights monitor there by enlisting in the International Solidarity Movement (ISM).

ISM is a group of international volunteers who partake in non-violent direct action resistance to the Israeli occupation. Members of the group live in Palestinian communities and experience first-hand the violence to which Palestinians are subjected every day by the Israeli military.

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