I am a Children’s Librarian living in the Portland, Oregon area. When I am not Children’s Librianing I like to play with cameras and film. I also like playing the ukulele, knitting, sketching, and hiking.
Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards accused the Bush administration on Thursday of ignoring problems ranging from scarce flu vaccine to the war in Iraq while officials campaign in battleground states and asked, “Who’s minding the store?”
Well, that’s a good question…The article says that people such as Condi Rice (national security advisor) and the head of the Health and Human Services are campaigning for Bush right now. Why? Shouldn’t someone be doing something in Washington? I understand that our political system really is mostly to blame for this. I mean, it sucks that we put our candidates though absolute hell and force them to spend millions of dollars, and more importantly, hours and hours of time, to campaign for office. There is something inherently wrong with that system. Granted, I certainly don’t have a solution to it. But I really don’t think Condi Rice needs to be campaigning right now. There is lots of work to be done and somebody needs to be doing it.
Vietnam is over. To dishonor the service of veterans who opposed the war is contemptible. To intimidate the next generation of soldiers into silence is against all that America stands for.
The draft report finds: “President Bush does not speak about civil rights initiatives often, but when he does he promotes the faith-based program more than any other. He has presented the initiative as an end to discrimination against religious organizations, using terms such as ‘remove barriers,’ ‘equal access,’ and ‘equal treatment,’ which convey that such programs have civil rights relevance. In reality, the program does not remove barriers to discrimination. On the contrary, it allows religious organizations that receive public funds to discriminate against individuals based on religion in employment.”
Whereas the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s, and C�sar Ch�vez with the United Farmworkers Union, used faith to sustain them, Bush uses it as a bludgeon. Bush’s faith actually undermines the protection of civil rights. This agenda comes through loud and clear in the draft report: “The faith-based initiative, a so-called civil rights action, actually constitutes a retreat, not an advancement from employment discrimination,” especially against gays and lesbians.
This is an excellent article that wraps up the report by the Commission on Civil rights: U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Redefining Rights in America – The Civil Rights Record of the George W. Bush Administration, 2001-2004. When you look at all of these things, how Bush caters to rich white, upper-class men, it totally seem implausible that Bush will win. Doesn’t it? If the groups that Bush marginalizes get out there and vote we will defeat Bush! So vote!
This report finds that President Bush has neither exhibited leadership on pressing civil rights issues, nor taken actions that matched his words. The report reaches this conclusion after analyzing and summarizing numerous documents, including historical literature, reports, scholarly articles, presidential and administration statements, executive orders, policy briefs, documents of Cabinetlevel agencies, federal budgets and other data.
Wow….you have got to read it I mean, the committe takes the time to get this out to the people, and they have the balls to say what they are saying. AND the Bush admin tried to wait until after the election for it’s release….Take the time to read some of it. Amazing.
Since the public owns the airways, Sinclair Broadcasting and other big corporations ought to be required to act in a way which supports democracy, not attacks it. Sinclair Broadcasting has violated the fundamental responsibilities they are accountable for in a democratic society. If the president will not do his job to rein in corporate power, we will have to stand up for American democracy ourselves.
This is an excellent perspective piece written by Howard Dean regarding the Sinclair group’s descision to air an anti-kerry propaganda film.
I am still really upset about this. We have got to do something about these corporations using our public airways to do thier dirty work.
plan_to_win_the_peace_in_iraq.pdf (application/pdf Object)
Since it was mentioned in the comments section of my previous post that Kerry has supposedly not revealed clear plan on what he is going to do with Iraq, I have decided to post something on that. Click the link above to read Kerry’s plan to win the peace in Iraq. Here is a quote from that document:
John Kerry and John Edwards will make the creation of a stable and secure environment
in Iraq our immediate priority in order to lay the foundations for sustainable democracy.
That is the right way to get the job done and bring our troops home. John Kerry and John
Edwards believe the following principles should guide American policy in Iraq right now
and that if these steps are not taken, options in the future will become more limited. This
needs to be an urgent agenda to:
Internationalize, because others must share the burden;
Train Iraqis, because they must be responsible for their own security;
Move forward with reconstruction because that’s an important way to stop the
spread of terror; and
Help Iraqis achieve a viable government, because it is up to them to run their own
country.
REad the rest of the document to for more information. It has very specific details on what Kerry plans to do with Iraq. So don’t go spouting off here about Kerry not making his plan clear. Get your lazy ass off the couch, turn off Fox News, or CNN or any other news channel that analyzes the news and tells you what to think on the issues, and do some investigating on your own, and come up with your own conclusions, not the conclusions the spin masters want you to come up with.
The fact of the matter is that Kerry served our country respectably and he should be proud of what he did, and he is proud of what he did. He fought for his right and your right to speak out against things you feel are wrong. He fought for the freedom for you to stand up against your government if you feel they are making the wrong descisions. This isn’t a freaking dictatorship. Go move to a third world country if that is what you are looking for. This is a free society where we are free to speak up against things that we see are wrong. You don’t like it you can get the hell outta here.
