The Road to Good Intentions
Please help to stop the next war by going to StopIranWar.com. Listen to General Wesley Clark’s appeal to stop Bush and Cheney from destroying more lives, families, and countries.
Applause to Dennis Kucinich for introducing a resolution to impeach Cheney today. His logic makes sense — first Cheney, then Bush, so that we don’t move from one dictator to another.
As I watched this video and looked on the faces of the boys just a year or so older than my son fighting a war that isn’t as much about freedom as it is ego, my heart broke. How many lives are we going to destroy before we admit that this war was a mistake that we cannot correct?
When it finally ends, we will have many, many veterans who are not yet even 25, maybe not even 21, who will be disabled, will be suffering from post-traumatic stress, and will discover that we have very little to offer them.
Let’s stop, regroup, and take care of the American people Bush claims to represent.
Sphere: Related ContentThis week in review
The ship is sinking
The ship is sinking
The ship is sinking
There’s leak, there’s a leak,
in the boiler room
The poor, the lame, the blind
Who are the ones that we kept in charge
Killers, thieves, and lawyers
Bloody moon rising with
a plague and a flood
Join the mob, join the mob
It’s all over. It’s all over, It’s all over
There’s a leak, there’s a leak,
in the boiler room
The poor, the lame, the blind
Who are the ones that we kept in charge?
Killers, thieves, and lawyers
God’s away. God’s away, God’s away
On Business. Business.
-Tom Waits
Technorati Tags: tom waits, killers, thieves, lawyers, news, weekinreview
Sphere: Related ContentGeorge Bush’s 18-minute Gap
White House E-Mail Lost in Private Accounts
The White House acknowledged yesterday that e-mails dealing with official government business may have been lost because they were improperly sent through private accounts intended to be used for political activities. Democrats have been seeking such missives as part of an investigation into the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.
The email accounts in question are ones like SJennings@gwb43.com quoted in this post.
I call bullshit. If you believe these emails were inadvertently lost or ‘mishandled’, I have a lovely beach lot in Arizona to sell you. Maybe it’s time for GWB to channel Richard M. Nixon for lessons how how NOT to cover up a scandal.
Technorati Tags: law, legal, email, USAttorneyGate
Sphere: Related ContentWell, DUH
Republicans Lag Behind Democrats in Friendly Internet Networking Sites
Since I have never applied the term “friendly” to Republicans, this doesn’t surprise me one bit.
Musings on Music, Religion and Politics
You get witch-hunts and wars
When church and state hold hands”*
Music is the place I go when I feel profound sadness, joy, confusion or anger. Someone once told me that people are either drawn to music for the lyrics or the melody, but rarely both. Not so for me — the most resounding tunes are the ones with resonating lyrics and melody. If one or the other is missing, the music is incomplete.
One artist who never fails to disappoint, and has something for every mood I happen to be in is Joni Mitchell. Despite an impressive discography and career spanning more than 40 years, her music has become a boutique offering on iTunes for fringe consumers like me who load up on Mingus, Coltrane, 70s classics with a smattering of fusion. Joni’s a little bit of all of that — her tunes are complex and her lyrics incredible.
The snippet of a lyric I started this post with is from what I consider to be one of her best albums, despite the fact that it hardly made a ripple on the music scene when it was released. Dog Eat Dog was a step onto the ledge for Joni. With razor-sharp lyrics, a rockier sound, and experiments with synthesized music, Dog Eat Dog represents her departure from the mellow jazzy feel of smoky bars into a harder-edged lyrical statement of life in the mid-80′s ‘me’ frenzy. 22 years later, the lyrics feel as fresh as they did when I was still married to the first husband, my first kid was 4 and we’d crank up the tunes in my bright orange VW Beetle while driving off to preschool.
“Tax Free” is Joni Mitchell’s push back on the “Religious Right”; targeting the Pat Robertsons and Jerry Falwells who were so vocal back then, raising voices of condemnation and judgment. What, you say? Back then? What about now? And yeah, isn’t it pathetic that 22 years later the lyrics and delivery of this song feel so fresh to me that they could have been published yesterday?
In “Tax Free”, Rod Steiger overlays Joni’s vocals as a fire-and-brimstone preacher who pronounces at the end that “we should turn the United States Marines loose on that little island south of Florida and stop that problem.” Sound familiar? It should, except now we have James Dobson playing Falwell’s role, proclaiming the demise of the family at the hands of the liberals and endorsing Newt Gingrich as the Republican candidate for president, school districts across the country fighting a them/us battle over allowing any mention of creationism in their curriculum, school libraries banning books, a Messiah College graduate taking the Fifth amendment in the US Attorney investigation, 3,482 American soldiers dead in Iraq and Afghanistan (as of 4/1) and a President resident in the White House who insists we’re doing the Lord’s work, bringing righteousness to the darkest corners of the world.
Politics and religion don’t mix in cocktail conversation in smoky bars or the hallowed halls of the White House. They need to be separated, because when they’re mixed, they create a noxious fizz that obfuscates issues and bestows a false sense of righteousness on the power-hungry hypocrites inhabiting the halls of the White House and Congress.
Let’s not limit it just to Christians. Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN), who routinely preaches his anti-vaccination gospel and pushes forward with the proven-false claim that vaccines lead to autism has deep ties to Sarah Elizabeth Clay, who is a board member for the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a known front for Scientology and used to be his top aide. Burton is the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, one of the most powerful committees in Congress. Whether Burton himself is a Scientologist is up for grabs, but a look at his record certainly indicates like-mindedness with their anti-vax, anti-psychiatry stance.
No politician should be expected to leave his personal beliefs at the door to his office. At the same time, the decisions and policies that come from our government should be made because they are the right thing for those they govern, not out of misguided self-righteousness and religious zealotry. In Joni’s conclusion to Tax Free, she asks:
And he’s not heaven sent
How can he speak for the Prince of Peace”
When he’s hawk-right militant?*
Jesus understood that, too. That’s why he didn’t engage in the political tomfoolery leading up to his crucifixion. He left the intrigue to Pilate and Herod, knowing that engaging in the petty, backstabbing political games would dilute his message and distract him from His purpose. On this Good Friday, I choose to exercise my freedom of religion and First Amendment right to free speech by calling for our political leaders to lead and not preach, and our religious leaders to lead and preach apart from the political arena.
“Jesus said, ‘Feed my sheep.’” (John 21:17) He didn’t say “Legislate my sheep.” It’s time to stop confusing the two.
This post was written in solidarity with those blogging on this Easter weekend against theocracy. Read more here.
* “Tax Free” by Joni Mitchell 1985 (Dog Eat Dog)
Technorati Tags: blogagainsttheocracy, first amendment, politics, religion, theocracy, James Dobson, culture, Joni Mitchell
Artifice, Brutality and Innocence
Deep in the night
While madmen sit up building bombs
And making laws and bars
Theyre gonna slam free choice behind usLast night I dreamed I saw the planet flicker
Great forests fell like buffalo
Everything got sicker
And to the bitter end
Big business bickered
And they call for the three great stimulants
Of the exhausted ones
Artifice, brutality and innocence
Artifice and innocenceOh these times, these times
Oh these changing times
Change in the heart of all mankind
Oh these troubled times- “Three Great Stimulants” Joni Mitchell, 1985
And so the times don’t change, particularly with regard to brutality and artifice.
Brutality: When Bush doesn’t get his way, he just does it anyway, like he did today with his horrible recess appointments. Appointing “Mr. Swift Boat” (Sam Fox) to an ambassadorship should be considered the same as flipping off the American people.
Artifice: Orrin Hatch lies about Carol Lam, claiming she was appointed by President Clinton and served as his campaign manager.
Innocence: 
— from taminsea
Commemorating the 94th soldier from Fort Lewis to die in Bush’s dirty little war. My oldest son is 26 and served at Fort Lewis until his discharge on September 11, 2002. I’m grateful every day that he is not there, sacrificed at the altar of George Bush’s greed, hubris and brutal policies.
Impeachment proceedings should begin now.
Technorati Tags: Orrin Hatch, Carol Lam, Sam Fox
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