the state of 2010

i’m not one who believes in apocalyptic theories, whether it’s the Second Coming of Jesus Christ Our Lord or 2012: The Mayan Prophesy or even just mundane, secular, Nuclear WWIII.

but the fact that this is 2010 and

1. Arnold Schwarzenegger still holds a very high political office in the USA and

2.To replace him, two of the top winning candidates in yesterday’s CA election are extremely rich white republican WOMEN who were CEOs of HUGE CORPORATIONS (which TK calls the “Girls Gone Wild Senate Race“…ouch! oh, what does this say about the world, especially California, today? the socio-eco-politico-anthro discussion could be endless)

and

3. Ozzy Osbourne is now a health columnist for the Times of London

really sort of freaks me out in a dystopian 1984 kind of way, without even mentioning everything else.

June 8 2010 - SF/CA Election Cheat Sheet + Why voting “No” is important

False Profit Cheat Sheet

A Prop 13, Seismic Retrofit – YES
CA Prop 14, Top-Two Primary – NO
CA Prop 15, Fair Elections – YES
CA Prop 16, PG&E Monopoly – NO
CA Prop 17, Insurance Persistency Discounts/Rate Hikes – NO

SF Prop A, SFUSD Parcel Tax – YES
SF Prop B, Earthquake Safety Bond – YES
SF Prop C, Film Commission Appointments – YES
SF Prop D, Public Employee Pensions – YES
SF Prop E, Costs of Protecting Dignitaries – ?
SF Prop F, Rent Increase Appeals – YES
SF Prop G, Transbay Terminal – YES

For full explanations visit False Profit.com

If you live in Alameda County, like me, go to SmartVoter for information about the Alameda County items on the ballot, specifically Measures A-D, which are minor, or visit the East Bay Express voter guide.

In general, I’m against voting for huge state measures at the ballot box (voters being swayed by commercials and misleading short summaries should not be making decisions; elected officials guided by experts should be making decisions, that’s why we pay them), and I especially agree with the Green Party - “When we can’t understand a proposition’s effects and side effects, we should usually vote No.”

To be clear: For those of you who don’t understand your ballot propositions and therefore just figure you won’t vote, NOT VOTING is not the same as Voting No.  VOTING NO IS IMPORTANT.  It keeps badly organized, faulty laws that people don’t really understand from being implemented.

do you know what oil tastes like?

this pelican does.

this just breaks my heart.

cognitive dissonance is not a problem

hey, Oklahoma?

As we know from last week’s discussion, Oklahoma lawmakers are now mandating that women undergo completely unnecessary vaginal ultrasounds so they have all the information they need before deciding to obtain a legal medical procedure.

Except that Oklahoma lawmakers want to make sure women don’t have all the information they need before deciding to obtain a legal medical procedure if it means they might decide to obtain a legal medical procedure.

for shame. so many conservatives talk about keeping the government out of their choices and our lives, but somehow this is ok?

totally socialist

hat.tip@titaniumdreads

us and them

the nobel prize now = an A for effort?

many discussions recently about entitlement, telling all children they are smart, beautiful, can do anything, ‘EVERYONE IS A WINNER’, and how this leads to false benchmarks, false hopes……seems to have leaked over to the Nobel arena.

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15622

When war becomes peace,

When concepts and realities are turned upside down,

When fiction becomes truth and truth becomes fiction.

When a global military agenda is heralded as a humanitarian endeavor,

When the killing of civilians is upheld as “collateral damage”,

When those who resist the US-NATO led invasion of their homeland are categorized as “insurgents” or “terrorists”.

When preemptive nuclear war is upheld as self defense.

When advanced torture and “interrogation” techniques are routinely used to “protect peacekeeping operations”,

When tactical nuclear weapons are heralded by the Pentagon as “harmless to the surrounding civilian population”

When three quarters of US personal federal income tax revenues are allocated to financing what is euphemistically referred to as “national defense”

When the Commander in Chief of the largest military force on planet earth is presented as a global peace-maker,

When the Lie becomes the Truth.

Obama’s “War Without Borders”

We are the crossroads of the most serious crisis in modern history. The US in partnership with NATO and Israel has launched a global military adventure which, in a very real sense, threatens the future of humanity.

At this critical juncture in our history, the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to President and Commander in Chief Barack Obama constitutes an unmitigated tool of propaganda and distortion, which unreservedly supports the Pentagon’s “Long War”:  “A War without Borders” in the true sense of the word, characterised by the Worlwide deployment of US military might.

Apart from the diplomatic rhetoric, there has been no meaningful reversal of US foreign policy in relation to the George W. Bush presidency, which might have remotely justified the granting of the Nobel Prize to Obama. In fact quite the opposite. The Obama military agenda has sought to extend the war into new frontiers. With a new team of military and foreign policy advisers, the Obama war agenda has been far more effective in fostering military escalation than that formulated by the NeoCons.

QOTD: still hope

“We did not come to fear the future. We came here to shape it.”
~Barack Obama, 9/9/09

SUPPORT THIS.

the Whole Foods-Healthcare debate

the topic is a little dusty now, but Food Democracy Now has a poll on whether you got riled up enough about the CEO of Whole Foods’ editorial on healthcare to boycott WF:

__I am boycotting but would reconsider if Mackey resigned.
__I’m not boycotting, but Mackey should resign.
__I am done with Whole Foods.
__Mackey’s entitled to his views; I am not boycotting.

also, read the Food Democracy Now argument about why boycotting won’t help health care reform.

i am well aware that many food democracy advocates already hated WF before this happened (not to even mention all those who think they’re just making bank off of rich yuppie types susceptible to greensumerism/greenwashing) and don’t really actually care about justice issues - it’s all just savvy, savvy marketing). i myself only shop there when i am in need of certain organic items that can’t be found elsewhere, or during times when i’m hungry or need something and it’s the only non-Safeway grocer open within 20 minutes of my house (HELLO BERKELEY BOWL AND YOUR EARLY CLOSING HOURS.)

i know that while WF is expensive and their clientele is about as bourgeois as you can get, but their buying practices and messages are well-intentioned and they support a lot of small farmers.

as for this particular instance, i basically agreed with Mackey’s 8 points for reform, but what got the boycott started and where he lost his followers were his statements after the 8 points on the moral arguments for public healthcare, such as this:

Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care—to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?

and then goes on to say:

Rather than increase government spending and control, we need to address the root causes of poor health. This begins with the realization that every American adult is responsible for his or her own health.

Unfortunately many of our health-care problems are self-inflicted: two-thirds of Americans are now overweight and one-third are obese. Most of the diseases that kill us and account for about 70% of all health-care spending—heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and obesity—are mostly preventable through proper diet, exercise, not smoking, minimal alcohol consumption and other healthy lifestyle choices.

i pretty much agree with this taken at face value. i think we need to invest way more money in preventative healthcare and food and nutrition eduction, but for many of the liberal shoppers of whole foods, this sort of statement was unacceptable, with millions crying foul about how poor people don’t have the same kinds of access and choices that WF shoppers and employees have and so blaming them for their health problems and denying them access to public healthcare is unfair.

i don’t think that’s what he was saying though. i’m ALL FOR A PUBLIC HEALTHCARE OPTION (no matter how you cut it, it’s better than none), but i also think the American people need to be more responsible for their own well-being, and also that our food system needs some serious changes. i mean, did you see this, how that green “Smart Choice” label food companies have started putting on their processed foods somehow applies to things like Coco Puffs and Fruit Loops? (they’re made with whole grains!)

also, overall, while i am a huge proponent of voting with your dollars, and thus boycotts make sense to me, i generally find the ones that go around the internet to be baseless and ineffective (boycotting X gas company while filling your car up at Y does nothing to bring down gas prices, for example), and i’m also really not into armchair internet activism where you post some standard message to your Facebook status about healthcare (DO SOMETHING INSTEAD) or send around emails about how Barack Obama is a socialist while sitting there on your ass collecting social security and welfare checks.

anyway, i digress. no, i have not boycotted Whole Foods.

\m/ in baghdad

one day after work last week jason picked me up and we went to the berkeley marina for a walk. toward the end, he asked a question to the effect of “so why do you think people care so much about what is going on in Iran?”. there are democratic atrocities happening all over the world, every day, that Americans ignore.

my answer was two part:

1. we had an election stolen from us. we know how it feels. we are still angry. there is empathy.

2. throughout the GW years there was always the threat of war with Iran, and i think even though the Obama administration is less warlike, that threat is not gone. in most American minds, it is the next war. so now that the country is imploding, if this does not come out well, if the conservatives succeed in stealing this, is it not evident that there will be a call to war on the part of those in the American government who believe that is the right action? while Amercians support “democracy” and “freedom” and human rights for everyone, everywhere, and we are all grieving for the loss of these things in Iran right now, we cannot deny that, collectively, a large part of the attention right now is selfish: we do not want ourselves another war.

.::.

last night we watched the documentary “Heavy Metal in Baghdad“, about perhaps the only heavy metal Iraqi band ever, and what happened to the members once the war started. it’s a humanitarian piece, and not even really political. a well done docu, a totally unbiased look at the effect of our war on Iraqi people just like you and me. listening to them yearn for their homeland, saying that they’d rather die in Baghdad than live in “less than zero” refugee status in Syria where they have nothing and no one, seeing them struggle to even survive, let alone be musicians and artists, as we in America have the freedom to be, is heartbreaking. i think the most popular reviewer on netflix summed it up best: “I never gave a sh!t about the war until I saw this. This documentary really shows the human condition there and not the crap you see in the news.”

metalhead or not, watching this while sh!t is going down in Iran gives it a lot of current meaning. will Iran end up like Iraq? is that where this is headed? please, gods, do not let it be so.