Rethinking American culture

American culture continues to spiral downward to an oblivion and the only way to stop it is through our love and concern. Much has occurred over the past few days and week. The shooting massacre at Virginia Tech jarred us into disbelief and renewed our concerns over domestic violence, gun control and man''s inhumanity to man.

It was just days ago that the nation was embroiled in the Don Imus ''nappy-headed ho'' controversy along with the ''bitch-ho'' culture that rappers and hip hop artists have cultivated over the past 20 plus years.

And it was only a few months ago that the ''F-word'' slur towards the gay community with Isaiah Washington and later with Tim Hardaway was fodder for the evening news. Meanwhile America continues to be engaged in a prolonged war over nothing as it desperately tries to force democracy and Western values onto a people who resent it.

Bowing down to our own violence

Many days after the mass killings at Virginia Tech, grisly stories about the tragedy still dominated front pages and cable television. News of carnage on a vastly larger scale -- the war in Iraq -- ebbs and flows. The overall coverage of lethal violence, at home and far away, reflects the chronic evasions of the American media establishment.

In the world of U.S. mainline journalism, the boilerplate legitimacy of official American violence overseas is a routine assumption.

“The first task of the occupation remains the first task of government: to establish a monopoly on violence,” George Will wrote on April 7, 2004, in the Washington Post. But three years later, his Newsweek column laments: “Vietnam produced an antiwar movement in America; Iraq has produced an antiwar America.”

Current polls and public discourse -- in spite of media inclinations to tamp down authentic anger at the war -- do reflect an “antiwar America” of sorts. So, why is the ghastly war effort continuing unabated? A big factor is the undue respect that’s reserved for American warriors in American society.

This Earth Day, the need for corporate accountability is the Inconvenient Truth

The great green bandwagon that has come of age this Earth Day has been a very long time coming. With Rachel Carson's 1963 Silent Spring and Earth Day 1970 and the first arrests at the Seabrook Nuke in 1976 and the decades of writing and marching and organizing and fundraising, the landmarks to a growing green consciousness are epic.

The past fifty years have seen the rise of the movements for civil, gay, and women's rights; for an end to nuclear bomb testing and atomic power plants; for peace in Vietnam, central America and Iraq; for the right to open access and accurate vote counts in elections that cannot again be stolen, and much much more.

These national and global campaigns have been accompanied by never-ending battles at the grassroots, against Jim Crow, for equal housing, against local polluters, for paper ballots, and for an ever-growing range of vital causes that demand human attention if we are to retain our rights and dignity.

This on-going grassroots fervor is the essence of democracy, the lifeblood of our ability to survive and grow.

Stamp out postal rate hikes!

The Post Office is about to accept a hike in its rates that would put diverse and free speech in America at risk. Postal regulators have decided to adopt a plan that locks in special favors to the nation's largest publishers, like Time Warner and Hearst, while unfairly burdening smaller and independent magazines with higher postal rates. You can help reverse this unfair decision by signing our letter demanding that the new postal rates stop favoring Big Media over small publishers: Sign Our Letter to Stamp Out the Rate Hikes

The plan to give Big Media lower rates was submitted by Time Warner, the nation's largest publisher. Surprisingly, postal regulators chose the Time Warner plan -- with no public input -- instead of another proposal that would have imposed an equal increase on all publishers.

If implemented, the Time Warner plan could push many smaller publications to the brink of bankruptcy.

RE: Is "Green" Tom Friedman the new eco-Orwell of Solartopia?

Harvey Wasserman's piece is excellent.

Friedman is, as usual, speaking the issue of the day not necessarily his knowledge or experience. He's repeating the same unexamined, ignorant and largely corrupt notion of our energy future. He doesn't know what he's talking about.

Mass media has consistently and thoroughly ignored the rise of everything from organic farming to solar energy to new railways to eco-restoration to dozens of other trends that have occurred in the last 35 or so years, trends blithely dismissed as "new age" or "hippy dippy" or whatever. That's what they had to do because they can't handle the truth of it all. These new things don't fit the old paradigm so they are rejected, as are their proponents. It's not just a commercial denial, but a denial of the substantive change that many people know is happening, but don't want to face. Half this society is skidding along with it's heels dug in as it heads for the cliff, while the other half has already jumped off.

USA: cornering the market on morality

“We have morality on our side….”
---William Blum

Ironic words flowing from the pen of a man who has devoted forty years of his life to hard-core dissent against the United States, the most moral nation in the history of civilization.

We are a nation founded upon bedrock principles of Christianity.

Would Christ not have approved of chattel slavery, the Native American genocide, and the millions of “savages” we have slaughtered to expand our borders and to maintain “Pax Americana?” Those who have died to sustain our peace and prosperity were but martyrs for a cause greater than themselves. In a sense, each one of them was a little Jesus.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Guns don't kill people. Crazy people with guns kill people. Crazy people who slip through loopholes in gun laws kill people.

            Everyone knows when Cho Seung-Hui got his guns. Nobody knows when he went bonkers.

            It had to be before December 2005, when a Virginia judge found him "an imminent danger to himself because of mental illness. A temporary detention order commanded that the 5-foot-8 Virginia Tech student be taken to Carilion St. Albans Behavioral facility in Christiansburg.

            The order claimed he was "mentally ill and in need of hospitalization, and presents an imminent danger to self or others as a result of mental illness, or is so seriously mentally ill as to be substantially unable to care for self, and is incapable of volunteering or unwilling to volunteer for treatment."

            Except, Special Justice Paul M. Barnett's order had an asterisk.

Your Earth Day To-Do List!

The bad news: Global warming is real. The better news: there are real ways you can help. In honor of Earth Day, here are five things you can do to make a cleaner planet and a better tomorrow. The best part is they are low-cost or free -- but have a huge impact.
1. Reduce. Here's a bright idea: Swap out five standard light bulbs for energy-saving compact fluorescents. They use 25% less energy and last 10 times as long. Other ways to save: unplug unused appliances and take public transit. For more cool tips, go to the Natural Resources Defense Council website: Act for Change

2. Offset. Once you've done what you can to reduce your impact on the environment, offset the rest. Make a donation to reverse the greenhouse gases you produce. Go to CarbonFund.org: CarbonFund

3. Recycle. Have an old cellphone just sitting in a drawer? CollectiveGood can send these phones for use in developing countries, or safely recycles materials from them. To donate your phone today

"I hope it's your family members that die" - US Representative Dana Rohrabacker

"I HOPE IT'S YOUR FAMILY MEMBERS THAT DIE" said US Representative Dana Rohrabacker to American citizens who questioned the Bush Administration’s unlawful extraordinary rendition policies.

Congressional hearings provide a deep insight into the inner spirit of our elected representatives-and sometimes, the insight is not pretty.

On April 17, we witnessed Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) unleash his unbridled anger onto members of the European Parliament’s committee on Human rights who were invited guests and witnesses in the House Foreign Affairs European subcommittee hearing. The European Parliamentary human rights committee had issued a report in January, 2007 sharply critical of the Bush administration’s extraordinary rendition program in which persons from all over the world were detained by either CIA or local police and then flown by CIA jet (torture taxi) to other countries where they were imprisoned (Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Libya, Djibouti, Morocco, Yemen. The report was equally critical of European governments for allowing the unlawful flights to take place.

The accomplices: Sundance George and Butch Reid and the Virginia Tech massacre

He had accomplices. Don't kid yourself: 23-year-old Cho Seung-hui didn't forge his two little pistols in his smithy shop.

He had a dealer, a guns-and-bullets pusher-man who put the heat in his hand, took the kid's money and pocketed it with a grin.

"Whether you are looking for a pistol for affordable training or simply the excitement of shooting, the P22 is the pistol for you!"

That's the ad on the Walther website for the student-reaper, a Walther .22.

Not that Walther, or its fellow murder-maker, Glock, which crafted the other Weapon of Student Mass Destruction, the Glock 9mm, kept all of the killer kid's money. The gun makers religiously tithe a portion of their grim reapings to their friends in Washington.

This report isn't about gun control legislation or the right to bear arms or any of that sideways crap. This is about a group of co-conspirators who dropped two killing devices into the hands of someone who shouldn't have had access to a plastic spoon.

Pages

Subscribe to ColumbusFreePress.com RSS