Boo Hiss

The United States Supreme Court, secure in its conservative majority, has dealt a major blow to both the environment and American citizen’s rights, and I’m sorely disappointed.

At first (and second) glance, it looks like freedom of speech is guaranteed, IF you’re a corporation. If you’re a citizen it can be limited. The ramifications of these rulings will manifest themselves most dramatically during the upcoming elections, as the court has lifted a ban on corporations running ads for political candidates. This effectively means that any chance of health care reform has just gone out the window as the big pharmaceutical companies are going to mount smear campaigns against any candidate that will threaten their profits. Remember this in ten years when you can’t afford to take your sick mother or wife to the emergency room.

Chalk one up for United States President George Walker Bush — his appointees to the high court have just ensured that Mr. Bush and Vice President Richard Bruce “Dick” Cheney will get richer at the expense of every single citizen of the United States. Both men are heavily invested in the oil industry, you see, and the oil companies will run a zillion commercials on TV and radio against any candidate that wants to see the American economy switch from it’s dependence on foreign oil to any other energy source. Never mind that both our economy and our environment demand we find alternate sources of energy — what’s important is that the oil executives and shareholders get more money.

So, the next year and a half, you can thank President Bush and his conservative appointees to the Supreme Court every time your program gets interrupted by an ugly commercial.

To add insult to injury, how’s this little bit of speculation: Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney and their families may not even live in the United States after their terms are up. Mr. Cheney may very well go back to work for Haliburton, which is no longer a U.S. corporation as they’ve moved to Dubai, an Arab country. Mr. Bush’s family has been quietly been buying land (and a ranch, I guess) in South America — in a nation that has no extradition treaty with the United States. Both these men seem to be making long-range plans to take the money and run… Our money.

On a personal note…

Things have been very busy lately. There have been tons of things going on with the American Legion Riders (including a Patriot Guard mission last week) that have kept me busy. We’re even gonna start a band… We’ve had one jam session already, and no one got hurt — at least not badly — so we’re going to try it again soon. I’ve been working on the ALR website (moving it from one URL to another the hard way) and another site for a benefit we’re putting on later this summer. I haven’t had nearly enough time on either the bike or the bicycle yet this year; I feel the summer slipping away. Too many hours spent working, not enough money to pay the bills, stress. I’m under stressure.

I’m happy to do volunteer work. I just wish I could get the occasional paying job so I could get caught up a little…

My Favorite Drew Carey Line

“I have this great recipe for homemade meatloaf. You get two Big Macs and a blender…”

My Favorite Wife

If you haven’t seen Dagmar lately – she’s lookin’ good! There must be something to this “diet and exercise” thing… I’m so proud of her I could cry. She’s been working hard, and it shows.

Saber Rattling

This is absolutely nuts. Sometime last week Republican presidential candidate Duncan Hunter proposed in a debate that we toss a nuclear weapon at the Mideast. Leading Republican candidate Mitt Romney nodded sagely and said that “no options should be taken off the table” when it comes to the Middle East.

Oh, that’ll win the hearts and minds of the people… “We can’t find a way to counter your suicide bombers so we’re going to kill hundreds and hundreds of thousands of civilians and turn a few cities into radioactive slag.”

This is the United States of America. We hold ourselves to a higher standard than the rest of the world. We are the shining example of clear political thought, restraint and morality. We are known for helping our enemies (“Do unto others…”) and rebuilding broken nations. We do not allow torture. We do not allow people to be arrested without cause. We do not hold people without trial. Free speech is a bastion of our culture. We do not spy on our own citizens…

Or at least that’s the way it used to be. Sadly, it’s not so any more. We have reduced ourselves to the level of our enemies. This needs to change! We need to find our way back to honesty, accountability, morality.

Dropping tactical nuclear weapons isn’t going to achieve that goal. All that’s gonna do is give North Korea, Iran, Russia and even Pakistan a green light to drop a tactical nuclear weapon on us the first time they feel provoked — and we’re pretty good at provoking those particular nations lately. We need to maintain the morality of restraint. We need to remember to honor the human life.

We’re good people. We really are. We just need to start acting like it.

MORE Saber Rattling

I just heard this morning that Independent Senator Joseph Isadore Lieberman (I-Diot) went on national television and spewed even MORE venom into the world by saying the United States should mount covert raids across the Iraqi border into Iran in retaliation for Iranians training Iraqis to kill people. The Senator did say with a dismissive shrug that the majority of the work could be done by air.

Didn’t Senator Lieberman learn anything from Vietnam when we started bombing Cambodia, and sneaked across the border into Laos to close off the Ho Chi Minh Trail? I guess not. Historically, what the Senator proposes simply hasn’t worked. Do we need to deal with Iran? Yes. But we do NOT need to engage in a sneaky war with them, nor do we need to start throwing nuclear weapons around as others have suggested. We must regain and maintain the high moral ground.

But I’m sure Senator Lieberman knows what combat is like and realizes the sacrifices he’s asking others to make on his behalf. Oh, wait, he never served in the military, did he… Nor do his children, come to think of it.

Something to be aware of when discussing Senator Lieberman and the Middle East is the fact that he receives a LOT of donations from pro-Israel groups who hope he’ll continue to enact legislation that favors Israel. Senator Lieberman and his wife Hadassah are both Orthodox Jews and have staunchly advocated for Israel — part of which is working to continue the war in Iraq, one of Israel’s enemies. It’s also no secret that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants to wipe Israel off the map and has declared the Holocaust never happened.

So… Iran hates Jewish people, and Senator Lieberman (who happens to be one of those Jewish people himself) is taking tons of money from other Jewish people for his campaign, and is calling to invade Iran. Could it be that the Senator has an ax to grind? Could he be pushing a hidden agenda? Is he trying to get us to fight Israel’s wars? Don’t get me wrong — I’m NOT defending Iran, nor am I advocating we abandon Israel. I just want to make sure we have our reasons and priorities straight before we start the bombing runs…

Thoughts on War in General

Someone mentioned in a comment to a previous post that I seem to be anti-war and pro-soldier. That’s correct for the most part, I guess. But I have to admit, I’m not a complete dove — there are times when war is necessary, unfortunately. If someone were to invade Iowa, I’d certainly call for war. If someone were to drop a nuclear weapon on Canada, I’d probably call for war. In other words, my philosophy is kind of “don’t mess with my family and friends and I won’t mess with you.”

When the twin towers of the World Trade Center fell and it became apparent that it was the work of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda my immediate reaction was “well, let’s go get him!” The United States sent troops off to Afghanistan to find bin Laden and nullify al-Qaeda, and I was fine with that.

But Dagmar and I watched in horror as United States President George Bush gradually convinced the nation that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was the one that was actually behind the 9/11 plot, and that they were on the verge of launching weapons of mass destruction at western targets. We could see, my wife and I, that this simply wasn’t so — Hussein was an evil man who did evil things in evil ways, but he wasn’t responsible for the attacks of 9/11, nor did he have weapons of mass destruction — our own inspectors confirmed that. When the United States lined our troops up and pointed them towards Baghdad we watched the war from our couch, simultaneously aghast and appalled at what we were doing and proud of how well our troops were doing it. When Baghdad fell we thought our objective had been met and hoped the war was over, but it wasn’t. When Hussein was captured we thought our objective had been met and hoped the war was over, but it wasn’t. When Hussein was executed we hoped the war was over, but it wasn’t.

Meanwhile, the man who actually did the United States damage, Osama bin Laden, ran free in Afghanistan, and is still free to this day.

I simply feel we are in the wrong war. We should not have gone into Iraq; we needed to keep our focus on finding al-Qaeda operatives. Once we did go into Iraq, we should have had clear objectives and a definition of victory. Despite our troops’ best efforts, we’re now finding ourselves bloody umpires in a civil war in Iraq, left unable to defend ourselves should our true enemy al-Qaeda choose to attack. The blame for this goes squarely on the Bush administration — mainly former government bigwig Donald Rumsfeld, vice president Richard Bruce “Dick” Cheney, adviser Karl Rove, John Ashcroft, Paul Wolfowitz and President George Bush. They willfully ignored intelligence reports that opposed their wishes, replaced military leaders who didn’t agree with their ideology, and generally attempted to micromanage the war from the White House. This didn’t work when we fought in Vietnam, and it didn’t work in Iraq. (President Bush should have learned from his father, who was president during the Gulf War. During that war the president gave the military clearly defined goals and objectives, and let the generals do what they’re trained to do. Consequently, the war was over quickly, and victory was decisive.)

How do we now get out of the war in Iraq? I dunno. But we need to find a way. Our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines have done exactly what we asked them to do, and have done it admirably. We need to get them home; get them rested up and ready to defend the United States against our true enemies. The war in Iraq has cost us more money that is imaginable, and that money must be paid. (Sadly, our children and grandchildren are going to be paying for this war for a long, long time.) We, as a nation, have been slowly mortgaging and pawning off our assets to pay for Iraq. Our creditors will come calling. We also need to find the resources to care for those that served in Iraq — they deserve the best care we can give them.

I’m very aware that there are other opinions, and that there are probably a few big holes in my argument that can be found, but this is simply my rather grumpy opinion on my rather grumpy blog. I’m tired of going to funerals.

The Governor’s Visit, Revisited

Well, I did indeed go see Democratic presidential hopeful Tom Vilsack (soon to be former Governor of Iowa) speak at the Elk’s club last night. As I suspected, I ended up standing quietly in a corner, not asking questions (I’m shy, you know). But I do have a few observations…

The first thing I noticed is that there were a LOT more people at this event than there were when Senator Joe Biden visited town a few months ago. I kinda thought there would be twenty-five or thirty people there last night, but I’d estimate somewhere between 150 and 175 people were there. Volunteers were taken by surprise, too – there weren’t enough chairs (which is why I stood in the back). For the first half-hour I was there I kept myself entertained by watching some poor lad scurrying around trying to find chairs for people, and watching the news people twitch and stare at their watches.

And they had plenty of time to twitch and tap at their watches — the governor was at least half an hour late. That, coupled with the lack of seating, gave me a bad impression from the start.

Mr. Vilsack was introduced by prominent local politicians, but as there was no sound system I couldn’t really hear what they said. But when Mr. Vilsack started his speech I could hear him fairly well. Mr. Vilsack came across as a polished public speaker. He didn’t use notes or anything like that, there weren’t any “um, er…” moments, and he addressed the audience well.

As I expected, he spoke in generalities and gave an upbeat message. He did have a few specific ideas, mostly in the area of alternative energy. Oddly enough, that topic came up from an oblique source… After a short discussion on environmentalism, a man in the audience asked Mr. Vilsack if America is going to switch from a petroleum-based economy to an ethanol-based economy, how are we going to keep the farmers from planting “from fence to fence.” (It’s a common joke in this area that the farmers plant their crops with one tractor tire in the ditch, meaning that they use every available scrap of land possible, leaving no habitat for wildlife.) Mr. Vilsack responded by saying he was in favor of using switch grass instead of corn to make ethanol, and he had several nifty facts and figures to back up his proposal. He never did address the man’s question, though… As most politicians, Mr. Vilsack was adept at working a question around to an answer he wants to give. In other words, he wanted to talk about switch grass, so the first agricultural question that came his way had switch grass as the answer.

When asked about immigration, Mr. Vilsack’s reply was pretty middle-of-the-roadish. “I don’t have any five-second sound bite for this,” he said. “It’s a serious issue.” He thinks illegal immigrants should be fined, pay any back taxes they owe, learn English, then they’ll be eligible for citizenship.

There were no startling statements about Iraq, either. He wants to pull the majority of the troops out, leaving a force in northern Iraq. He feels there’s a “culture of dependency” in Iraq, meaning that the Iraqi people are depending too much on America to pull their cookies out of the fire, and that the Iraqis should be pulling their own cookies out. (I’m not sure how much I agree with that… We did, after all, toss those cookies into the fire to begin with. Granted, we’ve been teaching cookie extraction to the Iraqis for the past four years or so, but…)

All in all, Mr. Vilsack handled himself well, but he didn’t really offer any new ideas. I was hoping to hear him say, “The problem with Iraq is that there’s no clearly defined goal. If elected President, I would state our goal and aim in Iraq, then let the military handle it as they’re trained to do.” But he didn’t. He said the war was a mistake. We know that already… He said the war is costing us money. We know, we know. He said a lot of things that we already know, and he got applause for saying those things. (A man asked Mr. Vilsack why we can’t take a percentage of Iraqi oil sales in return for the nearly $1 trillion we’ve spent on the region thus far. Mr. Vilsack said that he’d be in favor of looking into finding out where our money has gone. Well, other than the Bush administration, who isn’t in favor of finding out where our money has gone?)

The audience seemed to have a lot more questions, but I guess Mr. Vilsack had to get to his next engagement and cut the meeting a bit short.

When the meeting broke up, I did a once-through of the parking lot. The only vehicle from Polk County was a big honkin’ Chevy Equinox SUV. I looked it up – it gets 21 miles per gallon. I was really hoping to see Mr. Vilsack get into a hybrid or E85 car. To his credit, though, I read an article saying he recently got rid of his 13 mpg GMC Yukon.

My overall impression? Not bad… I didn’t leave the meeting feeling particularly inspired or hopeful, though. Hopefully I haven’t misquoted or misrepresented anything Mr. Vilsack said. If anyone who was at the meeting has other impressions, I’d be happy to hear ’em!

Has Mr. Bush Learned Anything?

Oh my… I just heard that United States President George W. Bush has just announced that the government now has the right to open anyone’s mail at any time with no warrant. Did he not hear us when we voted last November? Does he not know that we’re a little tired of him taking our freedoms away, bit by bit, in the name of security? I don’t like this. I don’t like this one bit.

Even though our military leaders are against it, President Bush’s advisers are against it, the public is against it, and the soldiers themselves are against it, Mr. Bush is going ahead with his “troop surge” in Iraq. Instead of letting the military run the war, Mr. Bush is going to put more of our troops in harm’s way in spite of the generals’ protests. Not enough troops to make a difference, in my opinion, just enough to make us a bigger target.

Iowa Governor and presidential hopeful Tom Vilsack will speak in Sioux City Wednesday afternoon. I’m hoping to go see him… I’ve got a few questions to ask. (I don’t mean for this post to sound mean-spirited or negative — I actually like Mr.Vilsack’s philosophies quite a bit, and he seems like a nice guy. But I do want some answers.)

I’m wondering how Mr. Vilsack’s programs will help my neighborhood if he’s elected President in 2008. I’m thinking of bringing him a few photos like this one of my neighbor’s garage (which has since been painted). I envision myself asking him why he allowed this sort of poverty and decay to happen in Iowa while he was Governor, and how it’ll be different when he’s President. I’d like to ask him why there are so many homeless people in town. John Edwards’ work to end poverty resonates very loudly in my neighborhood; what can Mr.Vilsack offer? Mr. Vilsack was elected in 1998, back when the minimum wage was $5.15 an hour. Eight years later, why is minimum wage still $5.15 an hour?

I’ve heard people grumbling that they elected Mr. Vilsack in 2002 to be Governor of Iowa for a four-year term and have only gotten three and a half years out of him, since he’s been concentrating on his presidential campaign for the past few months. I’m curious how Mr. Vilsack counters that particular bit of criticism. (If he says something akin to “It’s common practice,” or “It’s how the game is played,” I’ll have to wonder if, once elected President, he’ll bow to special interest groups or cater to Big Oil, as “that’s how the game is played.” I’m hoping that Mr. Vilsack is a man who will Do the Right Thing, regardless of what others around him do.)

I’d also like to ask him when he was in Sioux City last. Did he spend much time here? The meeting Wednesday is scheduled to start at 5:15. I noticed on his web site that he’s scheduled to be in Council Bluffs, a good hour down the road, at 7:45. That means that at most he can be in Sioux City for an hour and a half… Is that enough time to find out what our needs are? This section of the state is very conservative; I’m curious why Mr.Vilsack hasn’t spent more time in these parts. We need Democratic leadership to show an honest interest in us.

During much of Mr. Vilsack’s tenure as Iowa Governor he was working with a hostile state government, led until the midterm elections by Sioux City’s own über-conservative Chris Rants. It sure seemed to me that Mr. Rants, who was Iowa’s House Majority Leader at the time, set the agenda and made the state government dance to his tune. I’d like to ask Mr.Vilsack why he didn’t work harder to overcome the conservative Iowa House, and how he’d handle a similar situation if he were President.

I’d also like to ask him why the state’s fleet of automobiles aren’t all E85 hybrid vehicles. Mr. Vilsack is a strong proponent of alternative fuels; why isn’t Iowa doing more in that area? If elected President, what would Mr. Vilsack do about our current crisis? I imagine he’ll say the same things most candidates say. “We need to promote wind power. I’m all for expanding ethanol usage. We need to conserve.” I’m interested in HOW he plans to do that. Will he fund it via a gas tax? But I’m even more interested in trying to find out if he’s actually serious about it, or if he just gives lip service. Is he familiar with Brazil’s success in that area? One indication will be in what kind of vehicle he drives away. If he gets into an SUV to drive the hundred miles to Council Bluffs I’ll be disappointed.

I’d like to ask him where he was when the National Guard unit in LeMars returned from Iraq. And where he was the day they left, for that matter. It seems to me that someone who’s trying to get elected Commander in Chief of our armed forces, and who has been in charge of his state’s National Guard for eight years, might want to be seen rubbing elbows with soldiers from Iowa when they return from war.

I’d love to know if Mr. Vilsack is in the campaign to be President, or is he hoping to get on the ticket as someone else’s Vice President. But even if I asked that question, I wouldn’t trust the answer, though. Of course he’d say he was in it for all the marbles. Any other answer would be political suicide.

These questions and thoughts are all off the top of my head. Does anyone else have anything to add?

Again, I didn’t mean for this post to sound negative towards Mr. Vilsack, but I do have concerns about these issues… And I know that once I get to the meeting my natural shyness will kick in and I’ll stand in a corner in the back with a pocket full of photos, keeping my mouth shut, only to kick myself later for not speaking up.

The meeting is at the Elk’s Club, 1001 Tri-View Avenue, at 5:15 Wednesday, January 3 if anyone wants to attend. It’s open to the public as far as I know.