Say Anything Blog

Is liberal really a dirty word? Has the right wing been successful in making it that? Is the country really as conservative as many say it is?

It sure seems that way if you look at all the studies: The November 2004 National Election Study—which tries to eliminate the “moderate” option—found that 35 percent of those questioned call themselves liberal, compared to 55 percent who identify as conservative. A pew study and a study by Democracy Corp found nearly the same thing.

However, pollsters for Lewis Harris and Associates in 2005 found that when you question moderates, they turned out to share pretty much the same beliefs as self-described liberals—they just couldn’t bring themselves to embrace the hated label.

Here are examples of their opinions on key election issues: 66% favor government funded health insurance, 83% support stricter laws and regulations to protect the environment, 65 percent say corporate profits are too high, about the same number who say that “labor unions are necessary to protect the working person” (68 percent), and a 56 percent majority opposes making it more difficult for a woman to get an abortion, while 35 percent favor this position.

Eric Altermen, one time columnist for the Nation, has a new book entitled, “Why We’re Liberals: A Political Handbook for Post-Bush America” which elaborates on this article.
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/03/alterman_book.html
Think Again: Why We’re Liberals: The Polls Speak

Summary of Article:

With the world changing due to globalization, The Vatican believes there are “new sins“confronting Catholics, one of which is pollution. The Vatican is telling followers that sin is not just an individual act but can also be a transgression against the larger community, such as destroying the environment.

Senior Vatican official Msgr. Gianfranco Girotti said, “If yesterday sin had a rather individualistic dimension, today it has an impact and resonance that is above all social, because of the great phenomenon of globalization. In effect, attention to sin is a more urgent task today, precisely because its consequences are more abundant and more destructive.”

Other denominations have taken up the cause, too. The Southern Baptist Convention this month announced plans to fight global warming, and the California diocese of the Episcopal Church recently appointed its first canon for environmental ministry.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pollute14mar14,0,6420621.story
Vatican says pollution is also a sin - Los Angeles Times

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Can you believe it? Conservative U.S. Christians are teaming up with Turkish Muslims. For what you ask? To fight to promote creationism in Turkish schools.

Creationism advocates from the US traveled to Istanbul May 2007 to meet with their counterparts, seeking to galvanize their link in the fight to bring creationism to schools and universities in their respective countries.

The history of U.S. Christian involvement goes back to the 80’s when, according to Dr Ozgur Jenc, a professor at Bosphorus University, it was introduced as a wider state policy called the “Turkish Islamic synthesis.”

The country’s military rulers at the time, who had seized power in a 1980 coup, wanted to encourage religion to undermine the then-strong support in the country for left-wing ideas.

“They purged universities and high schools of thousands of liberal-minded teachers, replacing them with more religiously minded people. This opened the way to include creation in the curriculum.”

Education Minister Huseyin Celik, an AKP member ( Islamic Justice and Development Party), said he has an open mind over the debate about evolution, but in 2005, the Ministry reportedly suspended five teachers for advocating evolution too strongly.

One teacher, on the condition of anonimity, said the following: “In my school three out of five science teachers only teach creationism and I face pressure from them everyday. They also try to turn the children against us in their classes, saying we are atheists.”

http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?id=14772
Turkey’s survival of the fittest | Spero News

Summary of Article:

Could it happen? Could the Democrats actually get a filibuster-proof majority this election year? Although it is unlikely, many believe it is not out of the realm of possibility.The numbers are looking good.

Republicans have 23 seats to defend, including 5 left vacant by retiring incumbents, while the Democrats have just 12 seats to defend, with a competitive race expected only in Louisiana. Even there, the incumbent, Mary Landrieu, is a heavy favorite.

Democrats are also dominating the money race. Campaign finance data released in late February showed the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee with more than $30 million, compared with about $13 million for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

To make matters worse for Republicans, they seem to be losing heavily in the voter enthusiasm department. About 28.5 million people have voted in Democratic races so far this year, compared with 17.3 million in Republican races.

As far as incumbent Democratic senators, all look in good shape to be re-elected. None of their races are rated up for grabs. Jennifer Duffy, who analyzes Senate races for the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan publication said, “ “I don’t remember a time when I had a ratings chart that I am looking at now, where one party didn’t have any races in ‘toss-up’ at all.”

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/07/america/senate.php
Democrats dream of filibuster-proof Senate majority - International Herald Tribune

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Several religious groups have recently sent letters to President Bush urging him to sign the Intelligence Authorization Act which prohibit harsh interrogation techniques including waterboarding and other forms of cruel and inhumane treatment. The bill has already passed the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate; however, President Bush has indicated that he will veto it.

The Methodists, Bush’s own denomination, have launched a campaign entitled, “United Methodists Do Not Torture,” and more than 1,000 people have signed its petition calling for Bush to sign the legislation. Bush previously refused to meet with Methodist bishops during the run up to the Iraq war, which they publicly opposed.

Other groups who have sent letters include the National Council of Churches, the Islamic Society of North America, the Fuller Theological Seminary, and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.

Rev. Michael Kinnamon, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, stated the following: “Our Scriptures couldn’t be clearer in their condemnation of cruelty and abuse. “The letter we have sent sums it up very succinctly: torture is an intrinsic evil.”

http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?idarticle=14660
US Christians urge end to torture by military | Spero News

Article Summary:

Do we really want this man to be our next president? Do we want a president who has had a history of problems controlling his temper? A number of prominent people have serious concerns.

Sen. Bob Smith, a New Hampshire Republican who served with McCain on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the following: “I have witnessed incidents where he has used profanity at colleagues and exploded at colleagues . . . He would disagree about something and then explode. It was incidents of irrational behavior. We’ve all had incidents where we have gotten angry, but I’ve never seen anyone act like that.”

Democrat Paul Johnson, the former mayor of Phoenix, saw McCain’s temper up close. “His volatility borders in the area of being unstable. Before I let this guy put his finger on the button, I would have to give considerable pause.”

Rep. John LeBoutillier, a New York Republican who was on a POW task force in the House said that people who disagree with him get the f*** you from him.

The article also elaborates on McCains “charmed life” with the media.

For example, only a few news outlets, like the Phoenix New Times in Arizona and the National Journal, have run an Associated Press story reporting McCain’s 1998 joke suggesting that Chelsea Clinton was ugly and that Janet Reno and Hillary Clinton were lesbians.

“Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?” McCain said at a GOP fund-raiser in Washington. “Because Janet Reno is her father.”

the Arizona Republic, in a front page article and separate editorial in October 1999 said this about McCain: “McCain often insults people and flies off the handle. Moreover, he is often sarcastic and condescending.” The paper said that it was “time the rest of the nation learned about the John McCain we know in Arizona. There is reason to “seriously question” whether McCain has the ‘temperament’ to be president.”
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/8/30/123006.shtml
John McCain’s Temper Preceded Vietnam

Summary:

It looks like the tough on crime crowd is breaking the bank with their lock-em-up-and-throw-away-the-key philosophy. According to a new report released by the Pew Center on the States, a staggering sum of $49 billion was spent on corrections last year, up from less than $11 billion 20 years earlier. The rate of increase for prison costs was six times greater than for higher education spending, and in Four states — Vermont, Michigan, Oregon and Connecticut — they now spend more on corrections than they do on higher education. One of every 100 adults is in jail or prison in the U.S., and 2,319,258 Americans were in jail or prison at the start of 2008.

“Getting tough on criminals has gotten tough on taxpayers,” said Pew’s project director Adam Geld. Many states like Kansas and Texas have made changes in their correction policies to save money. They are making greater use of community supervision for low-risk offenders and employing sanctions other than reimprisonment for offenders who commit technical violations of parole and probation rules.

The report also revealed alarming statistics on incarceration by race and gender: “While one in 30 men between the ages of 20 and 34 is behind bars, for black males in that age group the figure is one in nine.” The racial disparity for women also is stark. One of every 355 white women aged 35 to 39 is behind bars, compared with one of every 100 black women in that age group.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-prison-population,1,2119528.story
Record-High Ratio of Americans in Prison—chicagotribune.com

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British foreign secretary David Miliband apologized to the Commons after it was learned that two of the infamous CIA rendition flights, which are used to carry suspected terrorists to be tortured, landed in 2002 on the Island of Diego Garcia, a British territory. Britain previously denied any involvement in the rendition operations.

The Independent of London reported that the British government admitted that the U.S. failed to inform Britain of the flights. Miliband downplayed the incident by stating that there was no deliberate cover up and the U.S. acted “in good faith.” However Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that Washington’s failure to disclose the flights earlier was a “very serious issue.”

CIA Director, Michael Hayden admitted that earlier assertions that there were no landings in British territory were wrong, and Secretary of State Rice called Miliband to apologize for the “administrative error.” It was also found out that one of the detainees was ultimately transferred to Guantanamo.

The disclosure of the rendition flights brought condemnation in the editorials of British newspapers. The Guardian asked, “Why… has the U.S. waited until now to reveal what has been going on? Why have all those official requests from London failed to elicit the truth until now?”

Liberal Democrat Edward Davey called for a full inquiry and said extraordinary rendition was “state-sponsored abduction” and the government must ensure that Britain was not used to “facilitate” it.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0222/p99s01-duts.html
CIA rendition flights landed in British territories | csmonitor.com

I finally did it. After passing a rack of cloth bags for sale at my local grocery store for the umpteenth time, I broke down and paid a couple of bucks for one, liberating myself from the infamous and ubiquitous plastic bag- an item which belongs in the hall of shame along side other menaces like the handgun and cigarette.

My hatred for these hideous, pain in the ass creatures goes way back. I recall one nearly destroying my snowblower during a blizzard, forcing me to hand shovel the rest of the day. Another time, one melted while stuck to the bottom of my car engine. The odor, which hung in my car for weeks, was similar to that of napalm. But putting all the personal inconvenience aside, my main reason for changing was that the plastic bag is reeking havoc on our sick planet.

According to PlasticBagEconomics.com, one of a number of sites trying to educate the public, over 1 billion plastic bags are given to customers daily throughout the world. They account for over 80% of the litter on our roads, parks and beaches; and in every square mile of ocean, there are an estimated 46,000 pieces of plastic which soak up such deadly compounds as PCB and DDE (a breakdown product of the notorious insecticide DDT), causing the death of countless birds, seals and whales every year.

To add to this ecological nightmare, being non biodegradable, the plastic bag is a serial killer; for after the death of these birds, whales and seals, their carcasses decompose and the plastic is free to roam the ocean and kill again and again for years to come. Finally, most plastic bags are made of polyethylene – more commonly known as polythene, which makes them extremely hazardous to manufacture.

To be sure, a lot of good work has been done by activists throughout the world to stop the scourge of the plastic bag. Because of their action, laws have been changed in many places and education has made many more aware of their danger. Meanwhile, I hope more folks go cloth. It is a small step to help the planet. Let’s keep fighting the good fight.

The IVAW (Iraq Veterans Against the War) have asked anti-war groups not to hold a mass D.C. demonstration on the 5th anniversary of the Iraq war. Instead, they plan to testify between March 13-16 about the atrocities they committed or witnessed while serving in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.  More than 45 current and former soldiers will testify to the indiscriminate killing and injuring of civilians, the use of chemical weapons, torture, denial of medical care, and mutilation of the dead.

The goal of the hearings is to show that systematic government policies are to blame for the myriad atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan. The hearings, Winter Soldier Investigation: Iraq and Afghanistan, is similar to the 1971 Vietnam-era investigation. However, Jose Vasquez, the president of the New York chapter of the IVAW says that this is a different world and different war. The list of questions from the 1971 hearing needed updating.

To avoid the lack of attention by the media in the 1971 hearings, the IVAW has called on artists, journalists, filmmakers and other media makers to help spread testimony from the hearings. “Our target audience is GIs,” said Vasquez, who explained that by fomenting resistance within the military and within military families, IVAW is in a unique position to undermine the continuation of U.S. war policies.

http://www.indypendent.org/2008/02/07/return-of-the-winter-soldier-iraq-vets-prepare-atrocity-testimony/
The Indypendent » Return of the Winter Soldier: Iraq Vets Prepare Atrocity Testimony

A campaign has been launched to build a permanent memorial to a bear which spent much of its life in Scotland after fighting in World War II.  The bear was adopted by a Polish Military unit which found him wandering in the hills of Iran in 1943. As he grew he became an important part of the unit. Known as Voytec- the soldier bear- he was trained to carry heavy mortar rounds. “He liked a cigarette, he liked a bottle of beer - he drank a bottle of beer like any man,” said Augustyn Karolewski.  “He was even given a name, rank and number."When the troops were demobilized, Voytek spent his last days at Edinburgh Zoo where he died in 1963. Mr Karolewski went back to see him on a couple of occasions and found he still responded to the Polish language.
“I went to Edinburgh Zoo once or twice when Voytek was there,” he said."And as soon as I mentioned his name he would sit on his backside and shake his head wanting a cigarette."It wasn’t easy to throw a cigarette to him- all the attempts I made until he eventually got one.”. Eyemouth High School teacher Garry Paulin is now writing a new book, telling the bear’s remarkable story.  I am not making this up:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/south_of_scotland/7208505.stm
BBC NEWS | UK | Scotland | South of Scotland | Honour sought for ‘Soldier Bear’

Summary of Article Link:

With the help of Ron Suskind’s book entitled, “ The One percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America’s Pursuit of It’s Enemies Since 9-11,” columnist Nat Hentoff puts a face to those destroyed CIA video tapes. The face is the horrific ordeal of Palestinian Abu Zubaydah who was physically and mentally tortured while in a secret CIA prison after his 2002 capture in Pakististan.

Zubaydah’s torture, euphemistically referred to by the Bush Administration as “alternative” interrogation procedures, included sleep deprivation, exposure to extremely loud music and cold temperature, and denial of needed medication.

So far Attorney General Mukasey has not given the green light to an independent outside special counsel. Instead he turned it over to a career federal prosecutor to report back to him. Many questions need to be answered, like who authorized the torture. So far both leaders of the Democrats, Pelosi and Reid, have been weak in demanding the necessary investigation.
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0803,hentoff,78870,6.html
village voice > news > Nat Hentoff: What the CIA Had to Destroy by Nat Hentoff

Here is yet another study that shows the state of our health care system. According to research supported by The Commonwealth Fund, the United States places last among 19 countries when it comes to deaths that could have been prevented by access to timely and effective health care.

While other countries made strides and saw these types of deaths decline by an average of 16%, the U.S.experienced only a 4% decline. Ellen Nolte of the London School of Hygeine and Tropical Medicine said that it is difficult to disregard the observation that the slow decline in U.S. amenable mortality has coincided with an increase in the uninsured population.

The mortality rates per 100,000 people in the leading countries were:France (64), Japan (71), and Australia (71). The other countries included in the study were Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The US had a staggering rate of 109 deaths per 100,000.

http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?idarticle=13444
US gets poor scorecard on preventable deaths | Spero News

The American people are painfully aware of the tragedies of President Bush’s senseless war in Iraq ; however, look for yet another tragedy it will soon cause right here in my home state of Wisconsin. Federal grants to help state and local police fight crime will be slashed by nearly two-thirds in 2008, from 6.48 million in 2007 to only 2.3 million in 2008. The cuts will occur this summer.

The executive director of the state agency which disburses the money said the cuts are draconian. The West Allis, Wisconsin Police Chief said that he wonders how much longer Milwaukee County’s Metro Drug Unit will keep running. The funds also aid in an important crime prevention program which helps police officers and community prosecutors work together in a geography based system.

Rep. Dave Obey who fought hard to restore the cuts said the following: “ we restored some of the cuts, but he {Bush} insisted on his total numbers because he wanted to pump every dollar into that stupid war in Iraq.

Nationally, the program was funded at 520 million in 2007 and 170 million in 2008. Look for things to heat up even more this summer, compliments of “W” and his war in Iraq.

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=701521
JS Online: Federal aid for police to decline

Could it be true? Is their a Republican that actually cares about the health and welfare of people? It looks that way. I am happy to read that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is having some success in fixing the broken down miserable mess we call health care in this country. He has been able to get a bill passed through one house of the state legislature that would insure all 36 million residents of California

Perhaps he tired of the horror stories he heard in his state. For example, the one about the woman who was denied a brain scan by her insurance company despite repeated requests from her doctor, only to be diagnosed with a tumor during a family visit to Japan.

“I thought that when you had insurance you had access to any treatment that you needed,” she said, tears welling in her eyes.

“If I hadn’t gone to Japan maybe I wouldn’t be here now. I would never have had the chance to know what was causing me so much pain.”

Or the story told by by the Reverend Andy Bates, who runs a mission which offers food, housing and medical care to some of the area’s regulars.

In the course of a year and a half he documented more than a hundred examples of “patient dumping” on Skid Row.

Said Bates- “I’ve seen a lot on these streets, but nothing compares to the woman who was dropped off in a hospital gown, an [intravenous drip] still in her arm, who died 10 minutes later in our reception area of pneumonia - discharged simply because she couldn’t afford to pay her hospital bill.”

Under Governor Schwarzenegger’s plan, employers, hospitals and cigarette smokers would share the cost of funding California’s healthcare reforms.

The bill still must go through the state Senate where ironically his biggest opponent will be guess who, you got it-- his fellow Republicans.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7157980.stm
BBC NEWS | Americas | Healthcare for all in California?