Politics

this is one of those rare times when i don’t really have much to say but i just feel like writing. so, here i am. if you know me in person (some of you do) than you know that i am rarely at a loss for words, especially if the subject involves something i have some knowledge about like technology or film/tv or even, on rare occasions, current events and politics.

so, it might come as a surprise to some that i am at a loss for a topic and something to say at the moment. what i am hoping is that the more i type here the more chance a topic will come to m and then i will be able to switch gears and get to the “important” and more substantive content. until then, i’m just winging it.

so, in that spirit, let’s keep gong and hope that something comes to me. in the meantime, while we wait for that small miracle, what’s going on in the world? war, terrorism, baseball, sex, drugs and rock and roll. no matter what happens in the world and i mean no matter what bad things happen in the world, there will always be sex, drugs and rock and roll. i’m not advocating drugs but i do like me some sex and rock and roll now and again. sometimes, both at the same time.

anyway, its a rare thing these days when you get to sit and just enjoy something for a few minutes. it seems that the older you get the more your time is just sucked away with things you never thought you would ever spend time doing. when you are young (a teenager) you never think you will spend most of your time working and very little of your time having fun. unless you are one of the lucky ones who has fun at work. unfortunately, i think those people are in the minority.

for most people, work is just that, work. a place you have to go and toil at for eight or more hours a day in order to get little green pieces of paper that you can trade for goods and services. granted, those goods and services (especially things like food and shelter) are important but are they so important that you should spend the rest of your life doing something you don’t like or may even hate just to have them? i don’t know for sure but i feel that they are not. they can’t be, can they?

i’m not telling you to quit your job and go live on the streets and become someone who asks me for a “dollar for the bus” while i’m sitting in my favorite starbucks trying to wax philosophical. no, i’m just asking if its really that important or if it has been artificially inflated and just seems more important than it really is. this brings me to a conversation i had with a guy named joe yesterday. and yes, joe is his real name. no anonymous protection here folks.

(the sun sets over the lebanese town of kfar kila in the distance behind metulla, israel. photo by michael j. totten)

i was writing yesterday and then was having a conversation with my friend shaun about the current state of affairs in iraq, the world, etc. joe, who was sitting at a nearby table was overhearing us. finally, he turned and engaged us in conversation. he told us that he agreed that our society was obsessed with material gain and also takes it upon itself to push its agenda on the rest of the world. he also agreed that our goals in iraq and in “the war or terror” were in many ways driven by religious fundamentalism and the desire to spread the christian doctrine to the less enlightened parts of the world.

i did not solicit these opinions from joe but was surprised to find out, after speaking to him for several minutes, that he was a successful business owner and a republican who had voted for george bush in the last election but was now very disappointed as to how things were going. again, he volunteered this info. joe told me that he was supportive of the President but felt that had lost sight of his goals and was now floundering and desperate to hold onto any rationale for our present situation.

he also told me he was strongly considering changing parties before the next election. another reason he gave for his support of President Bush and his policies was fear. in his circle of friends and business associates, it was considered un-american to criticize the President, his policies and the spread of democracy around the world. in fact, he felt his business and personal life would suffer if he were to express opinions outside the collective. how could it be that in this country, he was being condemned and was afraid to speak out and express his opinion? is this not one of the fundamental freedoms that we here in the usa enjoy?

i was amazed that he was afraid to speak and even more amazed that he chose to share this info with me, a liberal and a democrat. finally, he expressed his opinion that the other main reason we are in iraq is so that we can keep the oil flowing and so that oil companies can continue to dominate the world economy. if there was not oil, he reasoned, we would not be there. its not for atrocities or to spread democracy. if it were, there are far more people being killed and tortured in other parts of the world like somalia or the sudan than in iraq.

plus, he asked, are people not more interested in clean water and food for their children than in having the right to vote? voting is a great privilege but it rings a little hollow if your children are starving and don’t have any medical care.

(tanks in the street. photo by michael j. totten)

all in all, he made some very interesting points and i enjoyed our conversation very much. we agreed to perhaps continue our conversation again at a later time to be determined. or, maybe it would be just random chance that would bring us together again. who knows?

actually, this has happened to me at starbucks more than once before. it seems people with intelligence sometimes frequent these establishments and often wish to engage in conversation. its part of what makes our country so great. the fact that two people (or more) can sit around discussing the good things and the bad things about our country and its leaders. try that in china or north korea. one day, you and your family might just disappear.

so, people with intelligence do frequent expensive coffee establishments. and yes, i go there too.

ok, this could, of course, be a fake. as many like it have been in the past. however, this looks more real than anything i have seen so far on the web so . . . you never know. could be real.

in other things around the web:

here’s a list of the 50 worst video games ever. at least according to the folks at game revolution.com

in 1939, Disney openly discriminated against women becoming animators in a circulated memo. having worked at Disney with the animation department i can tell you i don’t remember meeting very many women animators at all. and that was pretty recently.

our planet is the hottest it’s been in 2000 years. i wonder if there’s something to that global warming stuff? of course, the brain-trust that is the bush administration maintains that global warming is just a theory and isn’t a real threat. hmmm.

and, the FBI arrested 7 people who may be involved in a plot to blow up, among other things, the sears tower.

last but not least, they are watching you so don’t do anything weird. your tax dollars at work.

look at the picture and then check out the story here. isn’t it hard to sell something when nobody is buying? you bet your ass it is.

you think you do and say dumb things sometimes? well, wired has compiled a list of the biggest technology-related blunders spoken by people in power who are supposed to know better. they also have lots of people around them who are supposed to stop them from saying stupid stuff.

fortunately, these “handlers” were out to lunch several times so we get to laugh at the silly things grown-ups say. if you are not interested in clicking on the wired link, some of the more choice quotes are below (aka my favorites) but at wired, they do provide “context” and some explanation so it might be a good idea to go there anyway. whatever. enjoy!

“Screw the nano.”

— Motorola CEO Ed Zander

“I’m going to f***ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I’m going to f***ing kill Google.”

— Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, in statements attributed to him in court documents by former Microsoft engineer and recent Google hire Mark Lucovsky

“Most people don’t even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?”

— Thomas Hesse, president of Sony BMG’s global digital business division

“All research up until now has been conducted in strict observance of the government-set guidelines.”

— Korean stem-cell researcher Hwang Woo-suk

“I know what I don’t know, and to this day I don’t know technology and I don’t know accounting and finance.”

— Bernie Ebbers, ex-CEO of WorldCom

“Lightweight, and crank it on, and you shuffle the shuffle.”

— President George Bush

To All My Fellow Americans Who Voted for George W. Bush:

On this, the fourth anniversary of 9/11, I’m just curious, how does it feel?

How does it feel to know that the man you elected to lead us after we were attacked went ahead and put a guy in charge of FEMA whose main qualification was that he ran horse shows?

That’s right. Horse shows.

I really want to know — and I ask you this in all sincerity and with all due respect — how do you feel about the utter contempt Mr. Bush has shown for your safety? C’mon, give me just a moment of honesty. Don’t start ranting on about how this disaster in New Orleans was the fault of one of the poorest cities in America. Put aside your hatred of Democrats and liberals and anyone with the last name of Clinton. Just look me in the eye and tell me our President did the right thing after 9/11 by naming a horse show runner as the top man to protect us in case of an emergency or catastrophe.

I want you to put aside your self-affixed label of Republican/conservative/born-again/capitalist/ditto-head/right-winger and just talk to me as an American, on the common ground we both call America.

Are we safer now than before 9/11? When you learn that behind the horse show runner, the #2 and #3 men in charge of emergency preparedness have zero experience in emergency preparedness, do you think we are safer?

When you look at Michael Chertoff, the head of Homeland Security, a man with little experience in national security, do you feel secure?

When men who never served in the military and have never seen young men die in battle send our young people off to war, do you think they know how to conduct a war? Do they know what it means to have your legs blown off for a threat that was never there?

Do you really believe that turning over important government services to private corporations has resulted in better services for the people?

Why do you hate our federal government so much? You have voted for politicians for the past 25 years whose main goal has been to de-fund the federal government. Do you think that cutting federal programs like FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers has been good or bad for America? GOOD OR BAD?

With the nation’s debt at an all-time high, do you think tax cuts for the rich are still a good idea? Will you give yours back so hundreds of thousands of homeless in New Orleans can have a home?

Do you believe in Jesus? Really? Didn’t he say that we would be judged by how we treat the least among us? Hurricane Katrina came in and blew off the facade that we were a nation with liberty and justice for all. The wind howled and the water rose and what was revealed was that the poor in America shall be left to suffer and die while the President of the United States fiddles and tells them to eat cake.

That’s not a joke. The day the hurricane hit and the levees broke, Mr. Bush, John McCain and their rich pals were stuffing themselves with cake. A full day after the levees broke (the same levees whose repair funding he had cut), Mr. Bush was playing a guitar some country singer gave him. All this while New Orleans sank under water.

It would take ANOTHER day before the President would do a flyover in his jumbo jet, peeking out the widow at the misery 2500 feet below him as he flew back to his second home in DC. It would then be TWO MORE DAYS before a trickle of federal aid and troops would arrive. This was no seven minutes in a sitting trance while children read “My Pet Goat” to him. This was FOUR DAYS of doing nothing other than saying “Brownie (FEMA director Michael Brown), you’re doing a heck of a job!”

My Republican friends, does it bother you that we are the laughing stock of the world?

And on this sacred day of remembrance, do you think we honor or shame those who died on 9/11/01? If we learned nothing and find ourselves today every bit as vulnerable and unprepared as we were on that bright sunny morning, then did the 3,000 die in vain?

Our vulnerability is not just about dealing with terrorists or natural disasters. We are vulnerable and unsafe because we allow one in eight Americans to live in horrible poverty. We accept an education system where one in six children never graduate and most of those who do can’t string a coherent sentence together. The middle class can’t pay the mortgage or the hospital bills and 45 million have no health coverage whatsoever.

Are we safe? Do you really feel safe? You can only move so far out and build so many gated communities before the fruit of what you’ve sown will be crashing through your walls and demanding retribution. Do you really want to wait until that happens? Or is it your hope that if they are left alone long enough to soil themselves and shoot themselves and drown in the filth that fills the street that maybe the problem will somehow go away?

I know you know better. You gave the country and the world a man who wasn’t up for the job and all he does is hire people who aren’t up for the job. You did this to us, to the world, to the people of New Orleans. Please fix it. Bush is yours. And you know, for our peace and safety and security, this has to be fixed. What do you propose?

I have an idea, and it isn’t a horse show.

Yours,
Michael Moore

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I could not have said it better myself. I may not always agree with Mr. Moore but sometimes, he gets it right on the money.

Take care all.

if this is how the most powerful country in the world treats its citizens, we are in deep trouble. there are many people out in the world who are criticizing the government, FEMA, George Bush and anyone associated with the aftermath of Katrina. they will probably express my anger and amazement far better than i can. an article like this does a pretty good job to start.

let me just say this. a government owes its citizens a few basic things. we elect people who are supposed to run our government and provide for those basic things. i firmly believe that one of those basic things is to protect its citizens. when a hurricane destroys a city and the people of that city have to wait days for even the most basic needs of food and water and some who can’t wait end up dying from dehydration or starvation, the government has failed on a massive level.

the people who were elected to run our country have proven once again they do not have an effective plan to manage a crisis. if they can’t handle something as basic as giving water and food to people who need it in an emergency, how can we expect them to be able to manage a war or a “war on terror”. simply put, they can’t.

i am not going to put the blame completely at the doorstep of the white house and the President but surely, some of it should go there. if you cut millions from the army corps of engineers so that the corps cannot complete the levy system, you have a problem. and as we know, the levy system failed in a big way. even if,as some are saying, the funding cuts were not directly responsible, because you can’t now for sure what would have happened, only what did happen, it still looks bad and someone should be accountable for it.

although, the depth and breadth of the incompetence and blame can be spread around to many other people including the director or FEMA, who has actually never had a job even remotely close to the one he has now and was, in fact, asked to resign his last job for incompetence. i also fault the state and local governments of Louisiana for not doing enough. if you tell people to evacuate to a certain location, try having some food and water there for them. make a plan and work the plan. its not really that hard to figure out.

if you live in New Orleans and surrounding areas, you know where you live. you also know that something like this could happen. so, if you know these facts and make a disaster plan which involves directing people to evacuate to a place such as the Superdome, try having some provisions and facilities for people when they get there. you had a day in advance to at least have some sort of provisions for these people and what happened? nothing. only further suffering that could have been mitigated if someone in charge would have had a plan or a clue.

i really didn’t want this to be a rant against the government or against anyone, really. i just expect a few things as a citizen of this great country. i did not vote for George Bush but it doesn’t make me feel any better. the people in New Orleans needed the help and leadership of the people that they trusted to be in charge. the people they trusted let them down. i really hope we learn something from all of this so that the people who died while waiting for food and water didn’t die for nothing.

sadly, it seems our government will not learn anything and they keep having a problem accepting blame for anything or even admitting that something actually is wrong at all. blaming the locals or saying that no one could have predicted a disaster like this is complete bull. man, the balls on these people. i’m sure the President will keep telling everyone that they are doing a great job and defend the director of FEMA forever. in fact, i wonder how long it will be until the President gives William Brown a Medal of Freedom?