When this primary season began, I never would have imagined that my vote in the South Dakota primary (June 3rd) would actually have a chance of mattering...



My South Dakota absentee ballot arrived this week, and is being sent off tomorrow.

Go Obama!

I've had a wake up call this past weekend...

The things I post here sometimes have vastly greater impact than I could have ever reasonably imagined. Seeds planted flower months or even years later. My voice makes a difference.

So I want to raise my voice again to say that without hesitation, I support Barack Obama to be the next President of the United States.

I could go on and on documenting my reasons, and I have posted many of them over the past several months.

But when it comes down to it, for me it is about trust. After extensive research and reading and digging into all of the candidates, Obama has won me over. But more than that - he has lit up and inspired me like no other politician has in my lifetime.

Hillary's desperate scorched earth tactics to try and keep her campaign alive have overall been hurting her own parties chances against McCain. How can I trust a candidate who behaves this way?

It is time for the country to put an end to this divisive primary battle. I hope that the Democratic voters of Pennsylvania are up to the challenge.

Obama's recent endorsement by Governor Bill Richardson (a former Clinton cabinet member) is pretty big news, and deservedly so. Hopefully Richardson will trigger a domino effect of other prominent Democrats breaking for Obama, making it increasingly clear that Hillary's prospects heading into the convention are bleak.

But I am just as intrigued by the Obama endorsement I just read from Douglas Kmiec, the former Assistant Attorney General to Reagan and Bush v1.

Kmiec, now a Constitutional Law Professor, is a staunch Republican. But he had this to say as to why he would break with his own party towards Obama:

Today I endorse Barack Obama for president of the United States. I believe him to be a person of integrity, intelligence and genuine good will. I take him at his word that he wants to move the nation beyond its religious and racial divides and to return United States to that company of nations committed to human rights. ...

As a Republican, I strongly wish ... [long list of core Republican issues]

In various ways, Senator Barack Obama and I may disagree on aspects of these important fundamentals, but I am convinced based upon his public pronouncements and his personal writing that on each of these questions he is not closed to understanding opposing points of view, and as best as it is humanly possible, he will respect and accommodate them.

No doubt some of my friends will see this as a matter of party or intellectual treachery. I regret that and I respect their disagreement. But they will readily agree that as Republicans, we are first Americans. As Americans, we must voice our concerns for the well-being of our nation without partisanship when decisions that have been made endanger the body politic.

His full endorsement is well reasoned, and worth reading.

I have immense respect for people (of either party) who are willing to look beyond blind loyalty or personal gain, and who are willing to take a stand for what really matters to them.

Thank you Governor Richardson and Professor Kmiec for sticking your necks out. It is needed, and appreciated.

I've been growing increasingly disgusted with Hillary Clinton's campaign over the past few weeks.

Mathematically, it is essentially impossible for her to regain the lead before the convention. The only way she will be able to beat Obama is if she can convince enough super delegates to ignore Obama's lead and vote for her instead, an act that will tear the Democratic party apart.

But in her desperation, Hillary seems to be more than willing to sacrifice her own party to slightly increase her chance for victory. Based on her recent attacks on Obama, it even seems now that she would rather see McCain win in November, leaving the door open for her to run again in four years.

Her "victory at all costs" strategy is ruthless, and despicable. It is little wonder that so many Obama supporters would rather vote for McCain than Hillary, if Hillary does manage to grab the nomination.

I posted a few weeks ago about Hillary resorting to "the politics of fear", starting with this fear mongering "It’s 3 am and your children are safe and asleep..." ad:

The little girl in the stock footage Hillary used to create that ad is all grown up now, and she has this to say:

"That little girl was me," Casey Knowles says. "And I'm here to tell you that I'm not scared. I reject the politics of fear that Senator Clinton uses to scare up votes."

Casey has actually been volunteering for the Obama campaign for months now, and she was even a precinct captain in WA caucus.

What irony!

We've been in Iraq five years now, longer than both the Civil War and World War II.

In our history, only the Vietnam War lasted longer.

There is a lot of legitimate debate over how and when we should best end this. And even more debate over whether or not this fight should ever have begun.

When you are fighting something as amorphous as terrorism, how do you even know when the war is over?

I am glad however that there is NOT much debate over whether or not we should honor and respect our troops. They have a tough job to do, and for the most part they do it admirably.

My dear friend Ian Rhett wrote a song a few years ago, dedicated to his sister who is serving in the Marines. The song, and the video to go with it, are powerfully moving.

To mark the fifth anniversary of this conflict, I'd like to encourage everyone to listen to this song and watch the video here.

No matter what your stance on the war, you will be moved. And if you are moved, please share this.

Ian's description of the song:

"Semper Fi" is the Marine Corps motto, and means "Always Faithful".
"(I Know Why You're) Semper Fi" is a song inspired by my sister, an active duty Marine. I'm a musician committed to generating kindness and inspiring peace and I'm also profoundly grateful for the commitment to serve demonstrated by my sister and her military community.

The goal of the video is to create a middle ground in a deeply divided national dialogue about the war - to respectfully acknowledge the sacrifice and dedication of the men and women fighting on our behalf, and to ask aloud, "When does the time for peace finally arrive?"

Supporting the troops doesn't mean giving the government a blank check of public support. In my opinion, supporting the troops means not only acknowledging their commitment, but also taking responsibility for speaking out to their civilian leadership on their behalf by exercising the rights for which they and their predecessors fought. Their job is to follow orders, and they do it better than anyone else on the planet. Our job as citizens is to hold our government accountable. To be silent, in my opinion, is to dishonor both freedom and the sacrifices made in its pursuit.

"One of Clinton's laws of politics is, if one candidate is trying to scare you, and the other one is trying to make you think, if one candidate's appealing to your fears, and the other one's appealing to your hopes. You better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope." - Bill Clinton, October 2004

Hillary is clawing for any sort of leverage she can get against Obama, and she has resorted to classic fear mongering in her latest ad.

"It’s 3 am and your children are safe and asleep. But there’s a phone ringing in the White house. Something’s happening in the world..." Give me a break.

According to Bill Clinton (2004 edition), he should be endorsing Obama over Hillary. That sounds like a good plan to me.

I am hoping that by Wednesday morning Hillary will be ready to end this primary battle. She is running out of room to stoop any lower.

The thing I want most from our next president is leadership that brings our country together.

Watching the rise of Obama has thrilled me in this regard. He seems to have an almost magic touch for bringing people from diverse backgrounds together. To illustrate this - in the past two days both Bill Clinton's 1992 national campaign manager and a Republican ex-senator have signed on to endorse Obama.

The endorsement from former Rhode Island Senator Lincoln Chaffee is particularly interesting, considering that John McCain had once campaigned to help Chaffee get re-elected.

“I believe Senator Obama is the best candidate to restore American credibility, to restore our confidence to be moral and to bring people together to solve the complex issues such as the economy, the environment and global stability,” Mr. Chafee said in a conference call with reporters today. ... Asked about switch of loyalties, Mr. Chafee said: “I’m sure Sen. McCain will understand.”

John McCain is also known for his bipartisan work - and in fact Obama and McCain have long praised each other for this focus on building bi-partisan consensus. I am hoping that they will continue to maintain this mutual respect for each other even as the race between them intensifies.

Hillary on the other hand has proven to be a divisive force. She may have some solid proposals and on many issues I agree with her - but I think having a president who can bring all sides together to actually get things done is more important than having a president with the best proposals on paper.

In the style of the Barak Obama "Yes We Can" video, here are some select John McCain clips crafted together into a hilarious / scary song:

I actually think this video is too harsh on McCain - his sense of humor and his pragmatism and his pessimism blend together in some unfortunate ways sometimes. But no matter what, he is going to have a hard time ever living down this quote:

President Bush talked about our staying in Iraq for 50 years
Maybe a hundred, that's fine with me
I don't think Americans are concerned if we're there for a hundred years, or a thousand years, or ten thousand years.

The contrast with Obama couldn't be more striking:

Now tell me - which one of these leaders has the potential to inspire this country to come together?

The choice seems pretty simple:
The audacity of hope, or the pessimism that dares to imagine ten THOUSAND years of war.

You decide.

I've gotten swept up in the excitement of the presidential race this past week, and the momentum building behind Barrack Obama has been pretty incredible to watch.

He swept five primary races this weekend - winning (by substantial margins) Washington, Louisiana, Nebraska, Maine, and the US Virgin Islands.

Obama even won a Grammy award today for the "Best Spoken Word Performance" for a reading of his book The Audacity of Hope.

Not a bad weekend at all.

This snippet from Newt Gingrich's reluctant endorsement of McCain in an interview with CNN is telling:

Gingrich said he had traveled to Idaho last weekend, when Illinois Sen. Barack Obama attracted a crowd of at least 16,000 in Boise, and that the ability of a Senate Democrat to attract a crowd of that size in that solidly-red state was “inconceivable.”

“On Super Tuesday, there were 14.6 million Democrats who thought the presidential nomination was worth voting for, and there were 8.3 million Republicans” who felt the same, he said. “That is a warning of a catastrophic election.”

He said there was “something happening” in the country that conservatives did not understand, and “I believe we need to change or expect defeat.”

Something happening indeed.

Obama has proven he can inspire hope and fire up imaginations across the country, and across party lines.

Count me in!

This speech (and the song made from it) leaves me feeling lit up and inspired.

Our country needs leaders like this.

It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation.

Yes we can.

It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail toward freedom.

Yes we can.

It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness.

Yes we can.

It was the call of workers who organized; women who reached for the ballots; a President who chose the moon as our new frontier; and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the Promised Land.

Yes we can to justice and equality.

Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity.

Yes we can heal this nation.

Yes we can repair this world.

Yes we can.

We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.

We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics...they will only grow louder and more dissonant ........... We've been asked to pause for a reality check. We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope.

But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.

Now the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of LA; we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people; we are one nation; and together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story with three words that will ring from coast to coast; from sea to shining sea --

Yes. We. Can.

From: www.yeswecansong.com

Though I won't have a chance to vote until long after the fighting's done (the South Dakota primary is June 3rd), I've been closely following the primary race.

After a lot of research and consideration of all the candidates, it is my strong belief that Barack Obama is the best choice for the next president of the United States.

Here are my brief thoughts on the candidates:

The Republicans:
Ron Paul - I love that he has brought some libertarian idealism into the mainstream debate, and I have several friends who have become passionate Ron Paul supporters. But beneath the surface, there is a lot about Ron Paul that scares me. I am glad that he is not turning out to be a serious contender. Rolling back the clock to 1776 is NOT the way to fix the problems in our country.

Mike Huckabee - Anyone who suggests that we need to "amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards" has no business leading such a diverse country as our own. Who's god? And not even Christians have much agreement around just what "God's standards" are... The separation of church and state is one of the cornerstones of America. A Huckabee victory in this election would be a disaster.

Mitt Romney - This quote from Barney Frank sums up my opinion of Romney: "The real Romney is clearly an extraordinarily ambitious man with no perceivable political principle whatsoever. He is the most intellectually dishonest human being in the history of politics." Romney seems willing to do anything to get elected, even seemingly changing his core beliefs. I don't trust him.

John McCain - Over the years, John McCain has earned my respect and admiration, though his recent swing towards the right is troubling. McCain has always acted independently, he is not a sheep to the Republican party, and he has a great track record of working bi-partisanly. Even though I disagree with him on many issues, at least I respect him. He is the only Republican candidate on the ballot that doesn't scare me.


The Democrats:
Hillary Clinton - Similar to Romney, it seems to me like Clinton will say and do anything to get elected. I don't trust her. She even lied about the origins of her own name to gain some political points once. She is also a divisive force, and having her in office will polarize the country. After eight years of Bush, we need someone who can heal this country and bring all sides together. Hillary is not fit for this job.

Barak Obama - Obama on the other hand seems to have been born to be a bridge. His integrity is rock-solid, and he is an inspiring speaker and leader. We need someone who can bridge red states and blue, and who can re-earn respect for America form the rest of the world. Who better to do this than a man with roots in America, Africa, and Indonesia? I think Obama is the only candidate who can truly heal the wounds and undo the damage of the past eight years.

I found Obama's Call To Renewal speech inspiring, particularly in contrast to the how Bush, Huckabee, and even Ron Paul have tried to mix religion and politics:

Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.

Now this is going to be difficult for some who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, as many evangelicals do. But in a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice. Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality. It involves the compromise, the art of what's possible. At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It's the art of the impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God's edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one's life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime, but to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing.

This is the sort of reasoned and eloquent leadership we need in the White House.

The closer I look at Obama, the more I respect him. I may disagree with some of his positions, but at least I find them to be reasoned and balanced. This is in such sharp contrast to most of the other candidates. The closer I look at any of the others, the worse they come across to me. The closer I look at Obama, the better I feel about him.

I am very much hoping that Obama pulls off a major victory in Super Tuesday tomorrow.

If you are able, vote!

This is America?

Student writes essay, arrested by police

"I don't see how somebody can get charged by writing in their homework. The teacher asked them to express themselves, and he followed instructions."

Allen Lee, an 18-year-old straight-A student at Cary-Grove High School, was arrested Tuesday near his home and charged with disorderly conduct for an essay police described as violently disturbing but not directed toward any specific person or location.

...

Today, Cary-Grove students rallied behind the arrested teen by organizing a petition drive to let him back in their school. They posted on walls quotes from the English teacher in which she had encouraged students to express their emotions through writing.

...

Cary Police Chief Ron Delelio said the charge was appropriate even though the essay was not published or posted for public viewing.

Disorderly conduct, which carries a penalty of 30 days in jail and a $1,500 fine, is filed for pranks such as pulling a fire alarm or dialing 911.

How is arresting this kid, turning his life upside down, and leaving him with a criminal record going to do anything to make anyone anywhere any safer? This is just a sad and twisted abuse of power.

*sigh*

Once you establish that it is acceptable to arrest somebody for creative writing, what next? How about for holding dissenting political opinions?

That would never happen in the US, right?

Or could it?

We are much further down the slippery slope towards locking up dissenters than I ever used to imagine was possible...

We are already turning away people at our borders for having objectionable (?!?!?) moral or political stances. These are not "questionable individuals" who pose any sort of risk of violence to our country, but rather - we are actually turning away respected academics and activists and professionals and scholars and writers and artists.

This article from a Canadian newspaper left me feeling disgusted with my country. Under the banner of the Patriot Act, look what our government has done lately:

• Andrew Feldmar, a highly respected Canadian academic and psychotherapist, has been banned forever from entering the United States (where his two children now live) after a random stop and background check by a border guard turned up a paper he had written for an academic journal chronicling his research over THIRTY years ago into LSD.
  
  Andrew has already lived through an out-of-control government witch hunt once before - when he was three years old in Nazi-controlled Hungary his parents were taken to Auschwitz...


• Bolivian human rights leader and lawyer, Leonida Zurita Vargas was prevented from entering in February of 2006. She was planning to be in the U.S. as part of a three week speaking tour on Bolivian social movements and human rights. The tour would have taken her to Vermont, Harvard, Stanford and Washington D.C...


• The U.S. Department of Homeland Security denied Professor John Milios entry into the country upon his arrival at John F. Kennedy International Airport last June. Milios, a faculty member at the National Technical University of Athens, had planned to present a paper at a conference titled "How Class Works" at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Milios told Academe Online that U.S. officials questioned him at the airport about his political ideas and affiliations and that the American consul in Athens later queried him about the same subjects.


• The American Civil Liberties Union, on behalf of the American Academy of Religion, the American Association of University Professors and PEN American Center, filed a lawsuit this year challenging a provision of the Patriot Act that is being used to deny visas to foreign scholars. They did this after Professor Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss intellectual, had his visa revoked under "the ideological exclusion provision" of the Patriot Act, preventing him from assuming a tenured teaching position at the University of Notre Dame. It's a suit that attempts to prevent the practice of ideological exclusion more generally, a practice that led to the recent exclusions of Dora Maria Tellez, a Nicaraguan scholar who had been offered a position at Harvard University, as well as numerous scholars from Cuba.


• In March 2005, the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act request to learn more about the government's use of the Patriot Act ideological exclusion provision. Cuban Grammy nominee Ibrahim Ferrer, 77, who came to fame in the 1999 film Buena Vista Social Club, was blocked by the U.S. government from attending the Grammy Awards, where he was nominated for the Best Latin album award in 2004. So were his fellow musicians Guillermo Rubalcaba, Amadito Valdes, Barbarito Torres and the group Septeto Nacional with Ignacio Pineiro. The list goes on.


• And so on...

Land of the free? Ha. Only if you agree.

This quote sums it up:
"This is about the marriage of the war on drugs and the war on terror, and the blind, bureaucratic mindset it encourages. Government surveillance in the name of the war on drugs and the war on terror is in danger of making us all open books to zealous governments. As someone mentioned at a privacy conference I attended in London, U.K., several months ago, all the tools for an authoritarian state are now in place; it's just that we haven't yet adopted authoritarian methods. But in the area of drugs, maybe we have."

The Patriot Act, the War of Drugs, the War on Terror are all sickening to me. Our country is turning into a mockery of the ideals we were founded upon, and it makes me sad to see the course we are on...

How much further are we willing to go? How much more of what America stands for are we willing to sacrifice for a false sense of safety? When is enough enough? And do enough people even care anymore?

*sigh*

Go here: Savenetradio.org

Without an immediate intervention from congress, most US-based Internet radio stations are about the be hit with a bill that will bankrupt them and forever put them out of business. This sucks.

Most of my new music discoveries come via Pandora, and I love listening to the uber-awesome Radio Paradise whenever I am working online. Both of them teeter on the eve of bankruptcy due to a ruling (and now a denied appeal) by the Copyright Royalty Board that will charge Internet radio stations vastly more than over-the-air or satellite stations pay to play the same music.

The Copyright Royalty Board is basing its rates for streaming music primarily on how much Yahoo was willing to pay to acquire Broadcast.com ($5.7 billion dollars!) at the height of the dot.com mania. Never mind that the founder of Broadcast.com (Mark Cuban) has confessed that "the Yahoo / RIAA deal I worked on, if it resembles the deal the CARP ruling was built on, was designed so that there would be less competition, and so that small webcasters who needed to live off of a "percentage-of-revenue" to survive, couldn't."

Read more details from Mark Cuban's perspective here.

To make things even worse, the new royalty rates are retroactive back through 2006, hitting these online stations with a huge overdue bill that none of them will be able to survive.

Pandora will be hit particularly hard. The new rules mandate a $500 minimum royalty charge to be paid per "station". Pandora lets you create your own channels customized to your personal tastes - I have nearly two dozen set up myself. In other words, Pandora may owe OVER $10,000 for having let me listen to music!!! Insane!

It only takes a minute to send a letter to your congress-folk via Savenetradio.org. Go there now!

And enjoy Paradise while it lasts...

I've long felt that gas is way under-priced. If the cost of maintaining highway infrastructure and the overall environmental impact of fossil fuels were priced into gasoline, gas would indeed cost a lot more - and as a result people would make more conscious choices around their consumption.

I am pleased to see that Tom LaSorda (the CEO of Chrysler) agrees with me:

I've focused on what we are doing, from a technology perspective, to reduce petroleum consumption – and, since they are directly related, greenhouse gases. But I need to mention one more item in this vein. For those who advocate 4 percent annual CAFE increases over the next 10 years-which translates to a 50 percent fuel economy increase-we know how to do that, too.

In fact, we already do it...in Europe. The U.S. combined fleet averages 24-25 mpg, and in Europe the fleet averages 36 mpg. That's a 50 percent difference.

Why is there a huge disparity between our fleets there and here? After all, we are the same companies in Europe that we are in the U.S., with access to similar technologies. The difference is the European approach to energy and greenhouse gas policies. They've made some tough political choices. They've highly taxed gasoline, making the price three times higher than in the U.S., and they have incentives on diesel fuel. As a result of these policies, fuel economy is always high on a customer's list, and not just when there's a spike in fuel prices.

Through policies which affect consumer demand, the mix of vehicles sold in Europe is radically different than here – about 60 percent compacts or smaller, compared to about 15 percent here; and about 50 percent of passenger vehicles are diesel powered.

There's no magic at work here. A gas-engine mid-size car in Europe gets the same mileage as a gas-engine mid-size car in the U.S. It's just that customers demand a very different mix of vehicles in Europe.

The European model, while far from perfect, is based on policies that leverage demand and market forces, not on policies that fight them.

However, in the U.S., our policies have historically addressed the supply side – light-duty vehicle fuel-economy standards. But, consider how a 50-percent fuel-economy improvement relates to new vehicle technology alone. If all the new vehicles sold in the U.S. 10 years from now were hybrids or diesels – something that no one really believes is feasible – fuel economy would improve by only 25-30 percent.

It is stupid to pass laws requiring auto makers to make more fuel efficient vehicles. Auto makers will build what the market demands. The key to reducing greenhouse gas emissions is to focus on the demand side. If consumers demanded more efficient vehicles, the auto industry will provide them.

Like he said - look at Europe.

Read his full statement to congress here.

Now if only congress had the political will to raise gas taxes...

Cows taste good. Cows are easy to take care of. Cows feed themselves. Cows make more cows.

No wonder so much of the world has grown increasingly dependent on eating them.

But that is not a sustainable practice, and more and more research is coming out showing just how bad the livestock industry is for the environment. This is real scary stuff.

I found this report posted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations to be fascinating, and horrifying.

Which causes more greenhouse gas emissions, rearing cattle or driving cars?

Surprise!

According to a new report published by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalent than transport. It is also a major source of land and water degradation.

Says Henning Steinfeld, Chief of FAO’s Livestock Information and Policy Branch and senior author of the report: “Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems. Urgent action is required to remedy the situation.”

When emissions from land use and land use change are included, the livestock sector accounts for 9 percent of CO2 deriving from human-related activities, but produces a much larger share of even more harmful greenhouse gases. It generates 65 percent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CO2. Most of this comes from manure.

And it accounts for respectively 37 percent of all human-induced methane (23 times as warming as CO2), which is largely produced by the digestive system of ruminants, and 64 percent of ammonia, which contributes significantly to acid rain.

Livestock now use 30 percent of the earth’s entire land surface, mostly permanent pasture but also including 33 percent of the global arable land used to producing feed for livestock, the report notes. As forests are cleared to create new pastures, it is a major driver of deforestation, especially in Latin America where, for example, some 70 percent of former forests in the Amazon have been turned over to grazing.

Interestingly, the while the UN report does list many potential remedies (such as better managing the diet of cattle so as to produce less emissions) - they seem to miss the most simple and obvious solution: encourage people to eat LOTS less meat.

You can find the UN report here.

I just sent this feedback to the political organization MoveOn.org:

I typically strongly support MoveOn's politics, policies and goals - but yet I keep teetering on the edge of removing myself from your lists.

You send me TOO MUCH EMAIL. (Several a day in the weeks before the election?!?! Please!)

I would love to hear from MoveOn once a month. Tops.
Even during election season. No matter what.

I would then happily read that entire email. I would respond with donations of money and time and letters to congress, and more.

But now I typically delete all of your emails without even opening them. I end up feeling battered hearing from you SO often.

PLEASE - I know there are others out there who feel the same way I do. Make an option for us to stay on your list but only get email once a month.

If we want more, let us opt in to it.

Otherwise - I am afraid that soon I will be opting all the way OUT.

Thank you...

- chris

MARKETEERS: Really, I love that you love your (product/cause). And I want you to share that passion with me. But just because email is cheap and easy, that doesn't mean I want to hear from you every day - or even every week. This means you, MoveOn. And also Apple, Amazon, American Express, and all the rest who keep battering my inbox.

I do WANT to get email from you. Offers, causes, calls to action, new product announcements - all of that. I welcome it. But you are welcome ONCE A MONTH. More than that and you start to piss me off. And I am likely to remove myself from your lists entirely - or put you on my Spam blacklists. And then you will never be able to get your URGENT / AWESOME message through to me. And is that the call to action you are really after?

"One of the terrorists believed to have planned the 9/11 attacks said he hoped the attacks would be the beginning of the end of America. He didn't get his wish."
-- George W. Bush, upon signing the Military Commissions Act of 2006 into law.

Actually, it looks as if perhaps his wish is coming true, Mr. President...

Washington Post:
President Bush this morning proudly signed into law a bill that critics consider one of the most un-American in the nation's long history.
The new law vaguely bans torture -- but makes the administration the arbiter of what is torture and what isn't. It allows the president to imprison indefinitely anyone he decides falls under a wide-ranging new definition of unlawful combatant. It suspends the Great Writ of habeas corpus for detainees. It allows coerced testimony at trial. It immunizes retroactively interrogators who may have engaged in torture.

ACLU:
The president can now - with the approval of Congress - indefinitely hold people without charge, take away protections against horrific abuse, put people on trial based on hearsay evidence, authorize trials that can sentence people to death based on testimony literally beaten out of witnesses, and slam shut the courthouse door for habeas petitions. Nothing could be further from the American values we all hold in our hearts than the Military Commissions Act.

"He who sacrifices freedom for security is neither free nor secure.“ -- Benjamin Franklin

Please someone - tell me how on earth can this be considered progress? This "War on Terror" has done more to undermine what I consider the true values of America than any terrorist ever has. When will this war be over? How will we know we've won? And how on earth can starting off down this slippery slope ever be considered worth it?

*sad & disgusted*

This essay from Jimmy Carter just crossed my inbox, and it is very worth reading, sharing, and saving.

From the essay:

As the world's only superpower, America should be seen as the unswerving champion of peace, freedom and human rights. Our country should be the focal point around which other nations can gather to combat threats to international security and to enhance the quality of our common environment. We should be in the forefront of providing human assistance to people in need."

What has me the most upset about America lately is that WE SHOULD BE THE GOOD GUYS!  We should be the country that sets the example, and which takes the moral high ground.  We should aim to do it better than everyone else. 

Our nation was founded on idealism.  When did that get thrown out the window?  How dare we sacrifice the things we hold most dear in the name of "protecting America".  It just doesn't make any sense.

As Benjamin Franklin once said - "Those willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both."

Anyway - read this essay.  Think about it.  And lets get America back on track....

( This isn't the real America )