Putting Warnings Where It Matters

Published: Sunday, April 17, 2011, 8:00 PM

By Letters to the editor OregonLive.com
The sign at the door of the wine and coffee shop said "No minors allowed beyond this point." What do people imagine will happen if children watch an adult enjoy a nice glass of wine? Aren't they already doing that at home? It's a silly cultural remnant based on distant echoes of our puritanical beginnings.

The sign would serve much greater purpose if it were placed just outside a fast-food restaurant. A lifetime of bad eating habits, morbid obesity, ill-health -- all leading to a needless premature death -- begin with the 3-year-old's first trip to get "happy" with a meal. Now there's something worth warning us about.

Balancing the Budget? - Not So Hard

Close the corporate tax loop holes. Many major corporations in this country pay NO tax.
Cut total defense spending equal to its waste, greed, and fraud - say 25%.
Stop giving government subsidies to big oil.
Change Medicare part D to allow competitive bidding for pharmaceuticals across international borders.
Stop spending money on Dick Cheney's health.
Now enjoy your surplus.

Icing On The Cake

As it turns out the near miss federal shutdown came down to issues surrounding Planned Parenthood. And in the end, all the fuss, all the arguing and threats resulted in $38billion in cuts. 38 billion out of a 1,300 billion deficit projected for this year alone - 3% of what needs fixing.

This while the trillion dollars a year total defense budget, at the insistence of the republicans, is left untouched. This while big oil, despite billions in profits every year,  is to continue, at the insistence of the republicans, to receive 300 billion dollars a year in government subsidies.

We could have kept all the social programs that were cut, avoided the arguments and threats, and still reduced federal spending nearly 10 times more than we did by simply stopping the big oil free money handout. And let’s not forget the decision to continue the Bush tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy, made at the insistence of the republicans, just a few months ago.

This is not about fiscal responsibility. That is a lie. This is about undoing the new deal – and not for ideological reasons alone. What they want is more and more for the wealthy - on the backs of the poor and middle class. If they get to control women's bodies in the process - icing on the cake.

It's a Crazy, Whacky, World

Gulf spill company hands out safety bonuses 
Transocean Ltd., the owner of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded off the Gulf of Mexico last year, has given its top executives bonuses for achieving the "best year in safety performance in our company's history'', despite the blast that killed 11 people and spilled 200 million gallons of oil into the ocean.
03 Apr 2011

Gulf Coast fighting for recompense Residents and fishermen outraged as BP's compensation fund administrator denies 'loss of income' claims. 21 Jan 2011 Gulf spill sickness wrecking lives Nearly a year after the oil disaster began, Gulf Coast residents are sick, and dying from BP's toxic chemicals. 09 Mar 2011  Post-BP illnesses plague Gulf Coast US Gulf residents attribute ongoing sicknesses to BP's oil disaster and use of toxic dispersants. 16 Nov 2010  BP blamed for toxification Fishermen, cleanup workers and Gulf residents believe they are being sickened by toxic chemicals from the BP spill. 09 Nov 2010 Obama declares US Gulf coast safe President holidays in Florida town affected by oil spill after leak finally "capped". 15 Aug 2010 Fukushima: A 'nuclear sacrifice zone' Some experts believe Japan's nuclear disaster could become worse than Chernobyl. 08 Apr 2011Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), the company that operates the plant, said on April 5 that radioactive iodine-131 readings taken from seawater near the water intake of the No. 2 reactor reached 7.5 million times the legal limit. The sample that yielded this reading was taken just before Tepco began releasing more than 11,000 tonnes of radioactive water into the sea. The radioactive water discharged into the Pacific has prompted experts to sound the alarm, as cesium, which has a much longer half-life than iodine, is expected to concentrate in the upper food chain. There are 36 identical plants  in the US. Japan quake causes fresh radioactive spill    Thursday's 7.1-magnitude aftershock resulted in water flowing from containers onto the floor in all three reactor buildings at the Onagawa plant, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said on Friday.

Close Guantanamo Bay

Published: Tuesday, April 05, 2011, 8:05 PM

By Letters to the editor OregonLive.com Guantanamo Bay detention center was created to skirt domestic and international law in order to detain civilians without the bother of due process, or even basic human rights. It is a cowardly approach that demeans our country in its cruelty and superficial legal maneuvering.

Along the way it has ensnared, isolated, tortured and ruined the lives of innocents and the lives of their families - by the dozens. Collateral damage in a time of war? - except we haven't bothered even to declare war.

Due process is designed to protect innocents and to ensure dignity and humaneness in the pursuit of justice. Guantanamo Bay does none of these things. What does that say about us as a country, as a people?

The internment of US citizens with Japanese descent during WWII was a sad, shameful time in our history. It lasted four years. The imprisonment of human beings in Guantanamo Bay without trial or resolution has now gone on for eight.

Humanitarianism, As It Suits Us

Published: Saturday, April 09, 2011, 10:58 AM

By Guest Columnist The Oregonian
By Charlie Phillips 

President Barack Obama has given a rousing speech justifying, yet again, American military intervention in the internal affairs of another sovereign nation. He justified his actions by stating that his motive was humanitarian. I have no doubt he believes that. But, historically, virtually every military action has been justified in those terms -- even the worst. Japanese troops brutalizing China in World War II believed they were there to create an "earthly paradise" and to protect the suffering population. And that's just one example.

 
Libyan Leader Moammar Gadhafi waves to supporters as he arrives to speak in Tripoli, Libya, Wednesday, March 2, 2011.

Noam Chomsky has proposed a test of legitimacy when leaders make such claims. To paraphrase: When citing noble intent as justification for their aggressions, does a call for humanitarian intervention and responsibility to protect extend to defending the victims of their own crimes or those of their allies? If no, all bets are off.

Did Obama, for example, call for a no-fly zone during the incredibly brutal and indiscriminate U.S.-backed Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 2006? No. In fact Obama holds up as a trophy his support while in Congress of this atrocity. Has he called for intervention in the violent suppression of dissent by the dictatorships in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain?  How about Darfur, North Korea, China? No, no, no.

And lest we swell too much with patriotic pride at what a great benevolent protector of innocents we as Americans are, let us never forget how we sat idly by and watched 800,000 murdered in Rwanda while we and the rest of the world did nothing.

Had Obama at least mentioned oil, his case for intervening in Libya would have taken on greater meaning and honesty. Libya is rich in oil, and specialists believe there may be a lot more where that came from in untapped resources. The truth is the U.S. and United Kingdom have given support to Libya's cruel dictator, right up until just the last couple of months -- despite his atrocities -- for access to that oil.

But the problem with Moammar Gadhafi, and the reason the U.S. and Europe want him out now, is that he is no longer reliable. We want a more obedient leader. Saving the lives of innocent civilians along the way to getting that more reliable client is icing on the cake and something we may take pride in. It is also a powerful point of rationalization -- something Obama uses to help him sleep at night, no doubt. But have no doubt, if it weren't for Libya's riches and strategic importance, the U.S. government would be willing to watch yet another genocide, another Lebanon, another Rwanda.

We cannot justify military aggression with arguments of humanitarianism and the need to protect only when it suits our greater needs and purposes. Obama and the U.S. have failed the Chomsky test, miserably so. We are involved in the internal affairs of three countries now, using war and destruction as our means. All three are in fact unjustified. It has to stop. 

This Party Isnt For You

The reason I think blue collar republicans support the elitist policies of the republican leadership - money for the wealthy, less government oversight, stick it to the masses - is that they believe they are just one lottery ticket, one invention, one lucky happenstance from becoming part of the elite themselves and they don't want to ruin the party before they get there.
To hell with their neighbors, co-workers, and their kids teachers who are being harmed by these policies - the losers.
The key to turning this around is to successfully vilify the elite who are doing this to the middle class.
Convince these Bobby-Bobs that these guys are stacking the deck against them and their kids.
No way they're getting into the party.
Do that and you can turn this around, focus spending on where it is needed, pull a few teeth from the military industrial corporate monster.
Don't do that and forget it.
You will never get this government to spend money on the middle class and poor = on America.