Osama Bin Laden is Dead…Finally
So you should all know by now that Osama Bin Laden has been shot and killed during a special operation last night in Pakistan. His whereabouts have been known by a select few in the US military for a while now, and last night the CIA finally pulled the trigger and sent in a team of SEALs to find him and take him out. President Obama officially announced the news last night in a late night broadcast to America, which was a great speech until the last 2 lines when he went all “god,god,god,USA,god” on everyone. But I digress.
Since word of his death has surfaced, Americans have been rejoicing and cheering about how great it is that he is dead. “USA! USA! USA!” they cheer, which is certainly unifying for the people, but to me it seems to be getting a little bit…morbid. Yes, Osama bin Laden was responsible for the death of thousands of innocent people, and yes, killing him was absolutely justified, but some of the comments I’ve seen on Facebook and Twitter lately make us Americans seem more like brutes than anything else.
I won’t lie to you, I was extremely happy and relieved when I first heard the news. Americans have been waiting to hear about the final capture or killing of this one man for almost 10 years now. Yet my short moment of comfort in hearing about it was quickly followed by the realization that this means practically nothing in the long run. Be honest, do you really think this will stop more terrorist organizations from forming? Do you really think Osama Bin Laden was so special that he cannot be replaced by some other crazy individual somewhere else in the world? The answer is no, there really was nothing special about Osama Bin Laden.
Regardless, I am quite happy that this giant hide-and-seek match has finally ended and we can stop throwing senseless amounts of money at it. I sincerely hope that all of our troops will be sent home now that our primary target has been eliminated. But do you think that’s actually going to happen? Yeah… me neither.
Recently there has been a push in from conservatives in politics to change our national motto to one a little more religious. (example) History buffs will tell you that “E Pluribus Unum”, Latin for “out of many; one” is actually the national motto, but these religious zealots will try and tell you otherwise. In the example posted above, Rep. Forbes thinks we need to “reaffirm” (in actuality: change) our national motto as “In God We Trust” because he wants it to be displayed in public buildings and schools. I think he forgot about the ~12% of America that doesn’t trust in god, simply because we do not believe one exists. I think he also forgot that what he is trying to do is unconstitutional…
Revisionism is rampant in modern politics, and a perfect example of this is when you hear a politician spouting that “this nation was founded as a Christian nation!”
Well…no, it wasn’t. See below.
1) What about our money? - For those who have not done the research, the words “In God We Trust” were first put on coins starting in 1864 and did not appear on dollar bills until 1955, when President Eisenhower signed a bill into law requiring such. So during the first ~100 years of this country’s existence, our money said no such thing.
2) What about the Pledge of Allegiance? – In 1954, President Eisenhower CHANGED the pledge to add “under God”. This wasn’t the first edit of the original pledge, however. The original read:
I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
“One nation indivisible” has a much better ring to it if you ask me.
3) Weren’t the founding fathers Christians? – Well, some were, but many were not. Thomas Jefferson, for example, was an atheist, and many others were Deists. Regardless of their personal religious affiliations, they all shared a common goal which was to create a secular nation, mostly because they had all just left a nation which was hardly secular, and they realized that it was a bad idea to create a state religion.
So from these 3 examples, we can see that America was, in actuality not founded as a Christian nation, and was instead founded upon the notion that no law would be made respecting an establishment of religion. Funny, I think I’ve seen that somewhere before…
Regardless, politicians that feel they need to establish that this nation is religious need to realize that we do not all feel the same way, and that changing rules to respect religion is unconstitutional. I personally am quite tired of seeing “In God We Trust” on my money, having to skip over “under God” in the pledge, and just generally having religion stuffed down my throat everywhere I go. I am a US citizen, part of the “we”, and I do not “trust in god”, your argument is invalid. End of story.
“Shared Sacrifices”
This political cartoon relates well to my last post about the happenings in Wisconsin and similar situations popping up all around the country.
As many of you know, I live in Madison, WI which has been the epicenter of a major political protest thanks to our new governor, Scott Walker. At the heart of the debate is a bill designed to severely diminish the collective bargaining rights of state employees. He wants to cut their pay, reduce their ability to collect dues and spend them, and force a vote to keep the union active every year. All these things combined will surely mean that state unions will succumb to employer pressure and be shut down when the vote to do so comes around one year. In addition, the bill will effectively double the health care premiums of all state employees. He claims it will save the state a bunch of money and will help fix the $137 million deficit we currently have. However, it becomes obvious that this not the actual reason for this union-killing effort once you read into the details.
Scott Walker, as this article’s title implies, is merely a puppet for the interests of billionaire corporate giants, the Koch brothers. They donated over $100,000 through various ways to Walker’s campaign, making him clearly in debt to them with his legislation. Their “astroturf” movements like Americans for Prosperity and The Reason Foundation have been against public-sector unions for a long time. Walker is merely doing what these people are telling him to to, which is not in the best interest of any middle class, public sector employed person.
So with this bill in motion, the stage was set for some craziness to go down in Madison, the state capital. People started organizing in the town square and in the halls of the capitol building. Teachers in Madison called out sick a majority of last week in order to protest the legislation and to join the masses at the capitol. Best of all, all of the Democrat legislators have fled the state in order to prevent quorum, effectively not allowing a vote on it until they return. Walker has tried to make the state police bring them back to force a vote, but since they are beyond state borders, they can’t do anything In response to these protests, the Tea Party (also largely funded by the Koch brothers) has been organizing counter-protests, and will be busing in these people this weekend to show support for the bill.
So what do I think? I think Scott Walker needs to go. Within the first month of his installment as Governor, he spent $140 million on his corporate buddies who financed his campaign and then blamed it on public employees. He gave back an $810 million grant from the federal government to build a high-speed rail system in the state. He is doing just what his corporate sponsors tell him to do, and this does not ever benefit the working and middle class.
If there’s one thing in politics that I wish I could wrap my head around but simply can’t is why monetary lobbying is legal. After all, the definition of bribery is “the practice of offering something (usually money) in order to gain an illicit advantage”, and I would certainly say that these days, lobbying does just that.
This country was founded upon the principal that politicians are elected by the people, and for the people. We all get a vote, and our vote counts as a measure of who we think most accurately represents what we stand for. In a system without lobbying, this would be the case, and without monetary incentives from corporations to do things, politicians would certainly be more inclined to vote along what they campaigned on. It seems to me like lobbying is the cause of so many issues in Washington, and without it, the people would actually be represented properly.
The citizens of this country and in democracies all around the world are not being represented accurately due the massive influx of money being pumped into policy decisions. A great, recent example of this would be the impending Comcast/NBC Universal merger in which 87% of the politicians supporting the merger have received money from Comcast. How is this legal? Most people of this country are smart enough to know that approving this merger would be a huge problem, but their voices are not being heard over the thousands, if not millions of dollars, being put in the pockets of politicians.
If there is one thing I wish I could change about politics right now, this would be it. I think this one simple change would change the entire system for the better, and quickly! What do you think?
Read Your Bibles
For you Christians out there, I urge you to please read your bibles. Old Testament and New Testament, cover to cover. I especially hope those who believe that the bible is the direct word of god do this, because they will soon see how impossible that would be.
I know personally that reading the bible in my spare time was one of the major reasons I started questioning religion in the first place. The contradictions are endless, and the cherry-picked passages you hear in churches just don’t do the book justice at all. I know when I read some of the passages in Deuteronomy, I was shocked at what I found. Let me give you a couple examples:
If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid. Deuteronomy 21:18-21
If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity. Deuteronomy 25:11-12
Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woolen and linen together. Deuteronomy 22:11
From these few passages, the book tells us we should kill stubborn and rebellious children (almost every child in the world), cut off the hands of a woman who grabs a man’s privates during a fight (not sure how often this happens these days), and that you have broken god’s law if you have ever worn a mixed-fabric garment (you have). These are just some selected passages from one section of the bible. There are myriads more ridiculous passages strewn throughout the Old and New Testaments, and I challenge you to read them for yourselves.
Next, I ask you, wouldn’t an all-powerful, all-knowing god be smart enough to not contradict himself within the bible? Apparently not, because as you can see here there are a ton of contractions, some even within the same book, written by the same author.
So I ask you politely, please read your bibles!
I think America just hit a new all time low. I don’t care what you think about why 9/11 happened, I don’t care what your political ideology is, what our government is doing right now is disheartening to say the least.
I am referencing the recent decision by our Senate to block the legislation to give much needed aid to the people who sacrificed their well being in order to help others after the 9/11 tragedy. The James Zadroga 9/11 Health Bill should have been an easy decision for our government, but instead childish politics have forsaken some of the most selfless people in this country. The bill was supposed to give 74 billion dollars in aid to the first responders of the WTC disaster, but because of the GOP’s pledge to not vote on anything before next year’s taxes have been settled, they are now receiving none of that money.
As you know, the Republicans are currently blocking ALL legislation through the Senate in order to secure marginal tax cuts for those making more than $250,000/year. I would think that the party that has campaigned tirelessly on the shoulders of the 9/11 tragedy would have enough of a heart to let this bill pass, but it appears that tax cuts for the American elite are more important than medical aid for the selfless. To make things worse, over the next 10 years the GOP’s tax plan will add 700 billion dollars to the national debt, and if you’re keeping up with the math that means the tax cuts they will be receiving for just over one year would pay for this bill in whole. One year of paying the same taxes as they did in 2000 and we could give the 9/11 first responders the care they deserve, and they deserve so much more than that. Around 1000 people have died already due to the conditions that they endured at ground zero, and thousands more are developing cancer and lung disease as we speak. These people need our help, not the richest 2% of America.
If these actions do not tell you who really controls this country then I don’t know what can. Clearly money has become stronger than our morals. Clearly money has become more important in this country than even the will of its people. Money, power, and pure greed run this country now, if you cannot see this then you are surely blind.
These politicians do not have our best interests in mind; they are strictly focused on their own. For most of the individuals leading this country, it is more important to be re-elected than to do what is right. We need to see through their selfish motives and stand up for what is right. The people who voted against this bill do not have the American people in mind, because those who sacrifice their own well being in order to save others, those who did it and asked for nothing in return, those are the people who should be considered the most American. Yet those are the people that our politicians have just let down.
It’s time to us as voters to be responsible Americans and get rid of the politicians who ignore the will of the people who voted for them and instead follow the wills of those who fill their pockets. Selfishness and greed can no longer be allowed to control the fate of this country and its people.
Ever since 9/11, it’s been really hard to ignore the fact that our rights are being systematically removed, all in the name of “security”. Looking back at the past decade, this all started with the formation of the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration under George W. Bush.
First, they took the reflexive actions at airports in order to prevent another terror attack like 9/11 from happening again. They locked plane cockpits, put a gun inside, and put a Marshal on every plane. These things, in my opinion, are relatively justified, and really had no effect on my travels whatsoever. Then they moved on to the “what ifs”. They made you take your shoes and sweatshirts off at the metal detectors, they made you take your laptops out and put them in a separate tray, they made you put your liquids in special sized bags and in limited amounts, and finally they recently implemented the body scanners and “enhanced” pat-downs (see previous post for my opinions on that).
Now this was in airports, and these measures I could still understand, as they were doing these things in reaction to small attempts at sneaking bombs on planes. Regardless, I think these were a little overkill, and anyone who has gone through airport security in the past 10 years can attest that the lines have gotten progressively worse over time. They do nothing to prevent an attack like that on 9/11 and in fact those types of attacks would be near impossible after locking the cockpit.
At any rate, we continue the story with so-called “VIPR teams” which have extended airport-like security measures to train stations, bus stations, and major sporting events. When Homeland Security representative Gary Milano was asked why these were being rolled out, he responded that they were “inventing the wheel in advance” just in case someone were to try and commit a terrorist attack at one of these locations. This is ludicrous. There is no reason to extend security like this to these types of areas. You can see from the youtube video just how absurd this type of security is… but wait, it gets worse.
Recently, the Department of Homeland Security has extended their reach even further into the lives of US citizens. They have now teamed up with malls and stores, most notably Walmart, to deliver a nice message from Secretary Janet Napolitano: See Here. Apparently the United States is being flooded with so much “suspicious activity” that we need to remind people shopping to call 911 to report it. I don’t know about you, but I personally see tons of people doing things I would consider “suspicious”, but do I think they are doing anything warranting a call to the DHS? Absolutely not. This is a clear attempt to instill a sense of fear into the people of America. When people are afraid, they are more willing to give up their freedoms in order to survive, this was very clearly demonstrated by the passing of the Patriot Act. People have been giving up their 4th amendment rights at airports for years now, and even more so since the implementation of the body scanners.
Another video of this kind, this one from the Mall of America, is here. Again, why do we need these messages when shopping at the mall? The message is simple: “BE AFRAID”.
What I would like to happen is for the people of America to wake up and realize that the DHS and the TSA have been trampling on and continue to trample on our rights as citizens. They are doing it because you are scared, and they are intentionally keeping you this way in order to pass their agenda without you resisting it. It’s time to stand up and say “No! It’s not OK to take away my rights for ANY reason, including security.”
If we do not start resisting these measures, more will come. The DHS will continue to implement new laws and procedures to further remove your rights. The way things are going, this country will become a police state right in front of your eyes, and by that time it will be too late.
Stand up for your rights while you still have them.
Write your Senators and Representatives and tell them that the DHS and TSA are not helping this country, and are actually hurting it by implementing unconstitutional practices. Complain at stores that show these messages and tell them you will boycott their stores if these messages are not removed. Resisting this fear-mongering is the only way to show these organizations that we do not want to live in a police state, and that our constitutional rights are immutable, even in the hands of our own government.
Everyone these days is talking about the TSA’s new “procedures” that they implemented recently. I figured I’d give my 2 cents on the issues at hand.
If you haven’t heard, the TSA has been installing hundreds of Backscatter X-Ray machines which are able to see through clothes, which makes it easy to spot weapons. Great right, well yeah… until you realize it’s a huge invasion of privacy. Why? Because it effectively takes graphic pictures of you naked. Don’t believe me when I say graphic? See for yourself HERE.(warning, it IS graphic) Think those pictures are not saved? Think again. Now, getting a “virtual strip search” every time you fly is probably not something most people would like to do, but that is not the only issue with the machines. They also emit some degree of radiation, which some are saying is minute and others are saying could me more harmful than we think. Do you really want to take the risk of being subject to a high level of radiation every time you fly? I know I don’t. So, they created the “opt-out” procedure.
Because the TSA would really like you to use their new expensive “pornoscanners”, they no longer offer the type of screening that was in place for the past few years. Now they have created “enhanced pat-downs”, which are so “enhanced” that they are causing people to sue airports, claiming that have been sexually assaulted. I wouldn’t consider it sexual assault, as I think that term comes with “intent to harm” attached to it (I don’t think the TSA agents are trying to harm anyone), BUT I do know one thing: If you were on the street and somebody touched you in the way that the TSA has been allowed to, you could charge them with misdemeanor assault, possibly even a felony assault. Even police officers are not allowed to do searches of that kind without probable cause or reasonable suspicion, so why does the TSA have that ability without either?
Well, let me tell you about the REAL reason why the TSA has changed their policies recently: money. Former Homeland Security Secretary, Michael Chertoff is one of the major proponents of these new scanners. Would it surprise you that after he left the government, he started working as a consultant (lobbyist) for Rapiscan, one of the leading manufacturers of these devices? Well, it’s true. He got a $350 million contract from the government to push these machines into airports as well. So as usual, the money will guide you to the answer.
So why the new pat-down procedure then? Because they KNEW no one would want to voluntarily subject themselves to possible high levels of radiation and/or be seen naked by some random TSA agent. So they made the “opt-out” an even worse option, as no one I know particularly enjoys being excessively groped by some random person each time they fly.
But all this comes down to: Is it really making our country safer? I personally do not think it is. On 9/11, hijackers did not use explosives to blow up a plane, they took over the cockpit. What have airlines done in response? They locked the door to the cockpit and put a gun in every one. Scientist have admitted that the underwear bomber from last year did not have enough explosives to do any sort of damage IF he succeeded, which he did not. If you really think about it, there are hundreds of other places where terrorists can strike, why would they ever want to use an airplane again? In addition, Adam Savage of Mythbusters recently announced at an event that he (by accident) brought 2 12″ razorblades on an airplane without being stopped at all. Safer… right? No, not at all, which is why many people consider TSA security to be nothing more than security theater.
But this also completely ignores the question of WHY the terrorists are attacking, and how we can work with the people of the world to reduce the CAUSE of the attacks. Instead, government officials insist upon effectively turning airports into police states, and using fear to allow the TSA to consider American citizens “guilty until proven innocent”. These new policies are unconstitutional, and need to be removed immediately in order to protect our civil liberties. The TSA has been ramping up procedures steadily since 9/11, and if we allow them to keep increasing the invasiveness of their procedures, what is next? Well, some people have been talking about passengers being required to wear “shock bracelets” when aboard airplanes so that the on-board Marshal could stop anyone from attempting to do any damage… yes, farfetched, but the way things have been going, and if a “shock bracelet” company paid someone enough, I could definitely see it happening.
Security at airports should exist, as there are still very real threats to be aware of. The closed-environment nature of an airplane does require some heightened security, but security should not be an excuse to strip American citizens of their civil rights. American people should not be considered “possible terrorists” every time they fly. No attacks have happened since 9/11 with the procedures that were in place for the past 9 years, there is no reason to change them now.
It’s time for the American people to wake up and realize that they are effectively being stripped of their civil liberties for no other reason than to fill the pockets of corporate executives and the dirty politicians who take their bribes. Stand up for your rights and tell everyone you know why these policies need to end immediately.
UPDATE: The TSA chairman has now announced that those “opting-out” of the scanners during national opt-out day (TODAY) will be considered “domestic extremists”. So apparently asking for personal privacy and to not be potentially subjected to radiation is now considered domestic terrorism?
