tom_thinks

This Blog is Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.

So, I'm watching alot of C-Span today. It seems I really enjoy getting myself all pissed off, because I've been watching it all day. It started this morning with the Senate confirmation hearings for Alberto "Torture is Cool With Me" Gonzalez, then C-Span switched over to cover the certification of the Electoral Vote. What angers me most about these two events, is that regardless of what arguments are brought forth, the outcome will be the same. As I listen to Nancy Pelosi describe the unequal access to the polls in Ohio and elsewhere, I am hopeful that this challenge will draw attention to those issues, but I know that the Congress will not even consider throwing out the vote from Ohio. Pelosi even clearly announced more than once in her speech that George Bush is the president. While I realize that Bush managed to win this election, its still really depressing to hear. After a brief break to perform work-related duties, I'm back. Dennis Kucinich is letting them have it and so are a whole bunch of Democrats. Where were you in 2000? All we needed was one Senator back then and how different the world would be. But anyhow there's nothing to be done about that now. Candice Miller (R-Mich) is on message with all the Republcans, anyone who makes any objection is a conspiracy theorist and a sore loser. "Get over it," I heard from one of Florida's Republican representatives. Well I'm not gonna 'get over it.' I'm still pissed. We've got to do something to stop election fraud and make the vote fair. Would the outcome be the same if the election was fair?
Cynthia McKinney is on now. I'm so glad she's back in Congress, that put a little smile on my face today.

Back to Gonzalez; It seems like there's really no way that Republicans would go against Bush and that's it. We're going to have a man that has been George Bush's lapdog for most of his career, who believes that the President has the authority not to follow laws passed by Congress if he decides it to be unconstitutional, totally ignoring the third branch of government, the judiciary. He believes the President can authorize torture and he will soon be our chief law enforcement officer.

Will the newfound enthusiasm of progressive grassroots organizing be enough to counter the inevitable damage that will be done by Bush and his cronies? Obviously there's a lot to do and today it seems more a monumental task then ever.

So, once again Bush has blown an opportunity to improve the image of the US overseas. Instead of reaching out and using the vast resources of our country to aid the millions of people affected by the tsunamis across Asia, Bush, proposed 15 million dollars in aid from his vacation home. Then undr criticism he upped it to 35 million dollars. What a big spender. Its a good thing he didn't dip into the 40 million he's spending on his own inauguration, because with Bush in charge we're all going to need one hell of a party to ease the pain right? The fact is Bush and the US government are being stingy AND foolish. Not only are we barely giving out a week's lottery winnings to aid the largest natural disaster in hundreds of years, but we're squandering an opportunity to show Muslim nations that the United States can also be a helpful force in their region. Clearly being percieved as a nice guy by millions of Muslims hasn't been something Bush has ever been interested in, and our country suffers for it.
Many individual Americans and charitible groups are picking up the slack (see below to donate), but that shouldn't let Bush and the government off the hook.
From the Boston Globe:

The perception that America is the most generous country in the world is one held by a majority of Americans, according a 2001 poll by the Program on International Policy Attitudes based at the University of Maryland. The think tank, which studies public attitudes toward various international topics, found that the average American believes that the United States spends 24 percent of its budget on assistance to developing nations, more than 20 times the actual figure. Even when researchers told those being questioned that foreign aid does not include military assistance to other countries, the average response was that the United States spends 23 percent of its budget on foreign aid.

But the relatively low US per capita donation to the tsunami-ravaged region reflects a larger pattern of a decline in official US foreign assistance in recent decades.

In the aftermath of World War II, the US government gave as much as 2 percent of its total gross national product to help countries rebuild. That figure dropped to about 0.5 percent of GNP during most of the 1960s and 1970s, and it fell precipitously during the Reagan administration to its current level of about 0.15 percent of GNP, according to figures compiled by Sachs and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development based in Paris.

Its about time the US government and George Bush start living up to the extpectations of the American people. We have the means to spend 87 billion dollars in one chunk for an unecessary war in Iraq, 3.5 billion dollars for disaster relief from the Florida hurricanes, but only 35 million dollars to help in this huge disaster. If you're as pissed off about this as I am, join MoveOn's call to the President to shell out some cash. http://www.moveon.org/tsunamirelief/

I'm sure that you've heard about the horrible Tsunamis resulting from a massive earthquake in the Indian Ocean. There are ove 50,000 people known dead and millions of people have been displaced. Please join me in donating to the International Federation of the Red Cross & Red Crescent to aid in the relief effort.

Now you can have the power to turn off any television set you encounter. Tired of obnoxious news commentators on the tv in your breakroom? Tired of all the televisions at the bar or the restaurant you're eating at? Just turn it off. Check out TV-B-Gone its only 15 bucks and fits on your keychain, so you can always be ready to free some minds.

A great Thanksgiving read:

In today's American supermarket, there are no seasons, no limits. The world's harvests and manufactured meals are at your fingertips. The supermarket appears to symbolize the best of democratic capitalism, offering consumer choice and a largess born of amazing productivity. But how does all this food actually get here? Is it really as cheap and convenient as it seems?

In fact, this veneer of epicurean egalitarianism conceals a less glamorous set of realities. Our most basic necessity has become a force behind a staggering array of social, economic and environmental epidemics - pesticide-laminated harvests, labor abuse, treacherous science, and, at the reins, a few increasingly monopolistic corporations controlling nearly every aspect of human sustenance. The way we make, market and eat food today creates rampant illness, hunger, poverty, community disintegration and ecological decay - and even threatens our future food supply.

Its doubtful he'll do it but why not take a moment and send a quick note to your rep urging them to call for his resignation. (from Public Citizen)

Washington -- House Republicans adopted a rule change Wednesday that would allow their powerful majority leader, Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas, to keep his post if he is indicted on state corruption charges stemming from a fund-raising scandal that has already involved three of his associates.

How did your villanous republican representative vote on the Delay Rule? Talking Points Memo is leading a charge to find out which members of congress supported the rule in a sneaky voice vote.

Josh Marshall gets it:

It's just time for some of these folks to go -- not because they're bad people (though more than a few are opportunists and backstabbers) or they lack expertise but because the party needs some new blood. The lessons of the 70s and 80s or even the 90s are not directly relevant to today.

The Washington Post has created an online calendar of U.S. casualites in Iraq. Every soldier that has been killed is included and so is their photograph if availible. Also included is the soldier's hometown and how they died. This is a site that everyone should see. Spread the word. If only they had such a list for the Iraqis that have died from this war. Do we even know how many have died? Don't they each have names and faces too?