Does Meat Rot In Your Colon? Busting A Vegetarian Myth.

From J. Stanton
Gnolls.org
http://www.gnolls.org/1444/does-meat-rot-in-your-colon-no-what-does-beans-grains-and-vegetables/

Does Meat Rot In Your Colon? No. What Does? Beans, Grains, and Vegetables!

How many times have we all heard this bunk myth repeated?

“Humans can’t actually digest meat: it rots in the colon.” And its variant: “Meat takes 4-7 days to digest, because it has to rot in your stomach first.”
(Some variations on this myth claim it takes up to two months!)

Like most vegetarian propaganda, it’s not just false, it’s an inversion of truth. As the proverb says, “When you point your finger, your other three fingers point back at you.” Let’s take a short trip through the digestive system to see why!

A Trip Through The Human Digestive System (abridged)

Briefly, the function of digestion is to break food down as far as possible—hopefully into individual fats, amino acids (the building blocks of protein), and sugars (the building blocks of carbohydrates) which can be absorbed through the intestinal wall and used by our bodies.

Click the picture for a more in-depth description, courtesy of the University of Cincinnati's biology department.

Here we go!
We crush food in the mouth, where amylase (an enzyme) breaks down some of the starches. In the stomach, pepsin (another enzyme) breaks down proteins, and strong hydrochloric acid (pH 1.5-3, average of 2…this is why it stings when you vomit) further dissolves everything. The resulting acidic slurry is called ‘chyme’—and right away we can see that the “meat rots in your stomach” theory is baloney. Nothing ‘rots’ in a vat of pH 2 hydrochloric acid and pepsin.
On average, a ‘mixed meal’ (including meat) takes 4-5 hours to completely leave the stomach—so we’ve busted yet another part of the myth. (Keep in mind that we have not absorbed any nutrients yet: we’re still breaking everything down.)

Click the picture for more fascinating information on gastrointestinal transit times!

Eventually our pyloric valve opens, and our stomach releases the chyme, bit by bit, into our small intestine—where a collection of salts and enzymes goes to work. Bile emulsifies fats and helps neutralize stomach acid; lipase breaks down fats; trypsin and chymotrypsin break down proteins; and enzymes like amylase, maltase, sucrase, and (in the lactose-tolerant) lactase break down starches and some sugars. Meanwhile, the surface of the small intestine absorbs anything that our enzymes have broken down into sufficiently small components—usually individual amino acids, simple sugars, and free fatty acids.
Finally our ileocecal valve opens, and our small intestine releases what’s left into our large intestine—which is a giant bacterial colony, containing literally trillions of bacteria! And the reason we have a bacterial colony in our colon is because our own enzymes can’t break down everything we eat. So our gut bacteria go to work and digest some of the remainder, sometimes producing waste products that we can absorb. (And, often, a substantial quantity of farts.) The remaining indigestible plant matter (“fiber”), dead gut bacteria, and other waste emerge as feces.
It turns out that pepsin, trypsin, chymotrypsin, and our other proteases do a fine job of breaking down meat protein, and bile salts and lipase do a fine job of breaking down animal fat. In other words, meat is digested by enzymes produced by our own bodies. The primary reason we need our gut bacteria is to digest the sugars, starches, and fiber—found in grains, beans, and vegetables—that our digestive enzymes can’t break down.
Now what is that called, again, when food is being ‘digested’ by bacteria…?

rot \ˈrät\ (verb) — to undergo decomposition from the action of bacteria or fungi

In other words, meat doesn’t rot in your colon. GRAINS, BEANS, and VEGETABLES rot in your colon. And that is a fact.

…And That’s Why Beans Make You Fart

It’s easy to tell when your gut bacteria are doing the work, instead of your digestive enzymes: you fart. That is why beans and starches make you fart, but meat doesn’t: they’re rotting in your colon, and the products of bacterial decomposition include methane and carbon dioxide gases. Here’s a list of flatulence-causing foods, and here’s another:
A partial inventory: “Beans, lentils, dairy products, onions, garlic, scallions, leeks, turnips, rutabagas, radishes, sweet potatoes, potatoes, cashews, Jerusalem artichokes, oats, wheat, and yeast in breads. Cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts and other cruciferous vegetables…”
One side benefit of a paleo diet is the elimination of the biggest, stinkiest fart producer—beans (due to the indigestible sugar raffinose)—and several smaller ones (wheat, oats, all grain products). And it sure seems like my gut bacteria have less to do now that my amylase and sucrase supplies aren’t being overwhelmed by an avalanche of starch and sugar.

But wait! There’s another punchline! Whenever we eat grains, beans, and vegetables, we’re not digesting and absorbing much of the plant matter…we’re actually absorbing bacterial waste products. Rephrased less diplomatically:
You’re not eating plants: you’re eating BACTERIA POOP.

Supporting Evidence: Where Things Rot

I know I really should have ended this article at the punchlines, but I’ve got more to say. Digestion is fascinating! (And before we go any farther, I am not arguing that we should never eat vegetables: I’m just busting a silly myth.)
First, I’ll footnote the essay above with these references.

J Appl Bacteriol. 1988 Jan;64(1):37-46. Contribution of the microflora to proteolysis in the human large intestine. Macfarlane GT, Allison C, Gibson SA, Cummings JH.
“In the stomach and the proximal small bowel, the microorganisms found as normal flora are a reflection of the oral flora. Bacterial concentrations in this region are 10(2)-10(5) cfu/ml intestinal content. In the colon, bacterial concentrations of 10(11)-10(12) cfu/g faeces are found.”
In other words, there are roughly 10 million times as many bacteria in the colon as in the small intestine. So bacterial digestion (‘rotting’) is not significant anywhere in our digestive tract but the colon.
Appl Environ Microbiol. 1989 Mar;55(3):679-83. Significance of microflora in proteolysis in the colon.Gibson SA, McFarlan C, Hay S, MacFarlane GT.
“Proteolytic activity was significantly greater than (P less than 0.001) in small intestinal effluent than in feces (319 +/- 45 and 11 +/- 6 mg of azocasein hydrolyzed per h per g, respectively).”
That’s a mere 3.4% of proteolytic activity occurring in the feces vs. the small intestine…and that doesn’t count what already occurred in the stomach. If meat were being digested in the colon, we would expect a far greater amount of proteolysis to occur there. And that 3.4% is likely due to dead intestinal bacteria (which make up a significant fraction of feces), not undigested meat.

Then, I’ll add this firsthand experience from an intestinal transplant survivor who spent months with a jejunostomy, watching the contents of his stomach drain directly into a bag.

“Can Humans Digest Meat?”

“Because I had such an extremely short bowel, my output was very high because no absorption had taken place. I was fed and hydrated by infusion and could literally live without eating or drinking at all. Because of my excessive output, we had to make a rig that had a hose extending from the ostomy bag that drained into a one gallon jug. Often the hose would get clogged and my wife or sister would have to use a coat hanger wire to unplug it. Now if vegan pseudoscience is right, we would suspect that the hose was being plugged by pieces of meat.
“Never once did we see any solid chunks of meat. I became so curious about this that I once swallowed the largest chunk of meat I could possibly get down without choking. Because of the shortness of my bowel, it only took about twenty minutes for my stomach to empty into the ostomy. Better than two hours later, there were no signs of any meat chunks. What was always clogging the ostomy tube were pieces of vegetables that were not fully chewed.
“Entire pieces of olive, lettuce, broccoli florets, grains and seeds were found. Yet, large pieces of fat were never witnessed. As a matter of fact, all the fat from the meat was already emulsified by the bile into solution. Over time, fat would coagulate on the side walls of the ostomy bag, but never were there any solid pieces observed.”
(Click for full article: Can Humans Digest Meat?)

Most Vegetation Doesn’t Even Rot In The Colon, Because Humans Aren’t Herbivores

Most of the edible part of a plant is cellulose, a polysaccharide (i.e. a very long chain of sugars) that is very difficult to break down. In fact, no digestive enzyme, in any animal, is capable of breaking down cellulose! So the only way that any animal can fully digest plants is for its gut bacteria to break down cellulose, and its intestines absorb the waste products.

Ruminant digestive system, courtesy of the University of Minnesota. Click for article.

Ruminants, including cattle, bison, deer, antelope, goats, and other red meat, have a special “extra stomach” called the rumen. They chew and swallow grass and leaves into the rumen, ferment it some, barf it back up again, chew it some more (called “chewing the cud”), and swallow it again, where it is digested a second time. Hindgut fermenters, like horses, have an extra-long gut. And rabbits run their food through twice: they eat their own poop in order to get more food value out of the plant matter they eat.
(For a better explanation of herbivore digestion, with lots of pictures, click here for an informative presentation (pdf) from the University of Alberta’s Department of Agriculture.)
Humans, in contrast, don’t have gut bacteria that can digest cellulose. That is why we can’t eat grass at all, why there is so little caloric value for us in vegetables, and why we call cellulose “insoluble fiber”: it comes straight out the back end.
This fact alone proves that humans, while omnivores, are primarily carnivorous: we have a limited ability to digest some plant matter (starches and disaccharides) in order to get through bad times, but we cannot extract meaningful amounts of energy from the cellulose that forms the majority of edible plant matter, as true herbivores can. We can only eat fruits, nuts, tubers, and seeds (which we call ‘grains’ and ‘beans’)—and seeds are only edible to us after laborious grinding, soaking, and cooking, because unlike the birds and rodents adapted to eat them, they’re poisonous to humans in their natural state.

You can demonstrate the purpose and limits of human digestion with a simple experiment: eat a steak with some whole corn kernels, and see what comes out the other end.

It won’t be the steak.

Live in freedom, live in beauty.
...
JS

Would Picasso or Einstein Endorse TED Thinking?

 Errors in the Idea Industry.

This started because I was intrigued by the idea that someone could be intellectually critical of TED Talks, a program I really enjoy.

An early point of the excellent article (reprinted here) referred to Guernica, and being me, I couldn't continue until I had educated myself about it somewhat.

I found this really interesting article and found some of the text actually added meat to the TED Talk article, so I have included it here first so you won't have to pause when you reach it in the 2nd article.

I really liked the initial Picasso quote attached to the 1st photo.

http://www.oneonta.edu/faculty/farberas/arth/arth200/guernica.html

Picasso's Guernica

What do you think an artist is? An imbecile who has only eyes if he is a painter, or ears if he is a musician, or a lyre in every chamber of his heart if he is a poet, or even, if he is a boxer, just his muscles? Far, far from it: at the same time, he is also a political being, constantly aware of the heartbreaking, passionate, or delightful things that happen in the world, shaping himself completely in their image. How could it be possible to feel no interest in other people, and with a cool indifference to detach yourself from the very life which they bring to you so abundantly? No, painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war-- Pablo Picasso

In 1937 Pablo Picasso painted Guernica, a mural that was the centerpiece for the Spanish Pavilion of the World's Fair in Paris. The official theme of the Paris Exposition was the celebration of modern technology. The Aeronautics Pavilion, featuring the latest advances in aircraft design and engineering, was a centerpiece of the exposition. It is a bitter irony that Guernica, the most lasting monument of the exposition, is the Twentieth century's most enduring symbol of the horrors of war and the inhumane use of technology. It is a portent for the terrors of the next decade. The painting is based on the events of April 27, 1937, when the German airforce, in support of the Fascist forces led by Generalissimo Francisco Franco, carried out a bombing raid on the Basque village of Guernica in northern Spain. At that time such a massive bombing campaign was unprecedented. The hamlet was pounded with high-explosive and incendiary bombs for over three hours. The non-combattant townspeople including women and children were indiscriminately cut-down as they fled their crumbling buildings. The town of Guernica burned for three days leaving sixteen hundred civilians killed or wounded in its smoldering remains. The Fascist planners of the bombing campaign knew that Guernica had no strategic value as a military target, but it was a cultural and religious center for Basque identity. The devastation was intended to terrorize the population and break the spirit of the Basque resistance. In effect it was intended to "shock and awe" the Basques into submission. The bombing of Guernica was a sensation in the world press. The Times of London called it the arch-symbol of Fascist barbarity.

Picasso's painting is without question the most important anti-war work of art produced in the Twentieth Century. It is a testament to the horrors of Fascism. The authority of this image is reflected in the hanging of a tapestry reproduction of Picasso's painting outside the Security Council of the United Nations, an institution which emerged after the defeat of Fascism. It is poignant that this symbol served as the backdrop to many of the public statements by diplomats engaged in the Security Council debate during the winter of 2003 over the use of military force in Iraq. On January 27, a blue curtain was used to cover the tapestry, because someone (it is not clear whether it was a diplomat or member of the media) confidentially approached U.N. officials expressing concern that it would not be an appropriate background if the ambassador of the United States at the U.N. John Negroponte, or Secretary of State Colin Powell, talk about war surrounded with women, children and animals shouting with horror and showing the suffering of the bombings.

I think Guernica deserves our serious attention. It testifies to the power of representations of war, and should serve as a cautionary tale to us. Although "smart" bombs can be targeted with extreme accuracy, their impact on representations of war in international public opinion can not be controlled. While preparing this webpage on March 26, 2003, reports came in concerning a bombing of a market in downtown Baghad. Both Iraqi and "coalition" spokesmen deny responsibility for the bombing, and there is a major public relations campaign on both sides accusing the other side of responsibility.

PBS has produced a valuable website focusing on Guernica as part of a series entitled Treasures of the World. Review this site. Make sure to read the linked pages. At the end of this page I have included a couple of other links. Explore these. The webpage constructed by David Hart as part of his Responses to War includes excellent details isolated from the painting as a whole. Examine the implications of these details.

In considering the painting, I think it is important to understand it in relationship to the tradition of history painting that dominated European painting at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries. The large size of the painting and its oblong format echoes these history paintings which represented the most privileged form of painting. Painters like Baron Gros in works like Murat at the Battle of Aboukir were important precedents for Picasso. Compare Gros' painting to Picasso's:

History painters like Gros produced grand public displays of the accomplishments of the French forces of Napoleon in his various campaigns. Gros' painting of Murat at the Battle of Aboukir illustrates the heroic calvary charge of the French General Joachim Murat to retake the fortress at Aboukir as part of the Egyptian campaign against the Turks. Paintings like this have an added power today considering our current campaign in Iraq. Again they raise the critical question of representation.

I was glad that Michel was not telling me that TED Talks was crap, but very interested as he used TED "thinking" to describe a problem general to the "Idea Industry".

It is a real problem and one that often peeks out to me during a TED presentation.

How can you get the lofty ideas and ideals of researchers to move out of theory and into practice?

Are there any significant obstacles to the realization of all these great ideas?

Well, there are and that is the problem with the method of TED.

I think Michel does an admirable job of presenting his case.

His obvious passion almost overwhelms him near the end as he makes his points that growth and understanding is about engagement and that in theories, we present problems to be considered rather than solutions that end inquiry and discovery.

Umair Haque: What’s wrong with TED thinking?

Michel Bauwens

25th April 2013

http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/umair-haque-whats-wrong-with-ted-thinking/2013/04/25
Excerpted from Umair Haque:
” let the phrase “TED thinking” serve as a shorthand for the way we’ve come to think about ideas and how we share them, whether it’s through an 18-minute talk, an 800-word blog post, or the latest business “best-seller.” Hence, this post isn’t really about TED (so please don’t leave me raging comments saying “But my favorite TED talk!!!”). “TED thinking” is just a symptom: and the underlying syndrome is our broken relationship with Great Ideas. Herewith, my tiny argument:
TED thinking assumes complex social problems are essentially engineering challenges, and that short nuggets of Technology, Edutainment, and Design can fix everything, fast and cheap. TED thinking’s got a hard determinism to it; a kind of technological hyperrationalism. It ignores institutions and society almost completely. We’ve come to look at these quick, easy “solutions” as the very point of “ideas worth spreading.”
But this seems to me to miss the point and power of ideas entirely. Einstein’s great equation is not a “solution”; it is a theory — whose explanations unravel only greater mysteries and questions. It offers no immediate easy, quick “application” in the “real world,” but challenges us to reimagine what the “real world” is; it is a Great Idea because it offers us something bigger, more lasting, and more vital than a painless, disposable “solution.”
Yet in the eyes of TED thinking, it is of limited, perhaps little, value. One can imagine Einstein being invited to give a TED talk on E=MC2 — and the audience wondering “Well, what’s the point of this? What can we use it to do? How can we make megabucks from this, next year?” When ideas are reduced to engineering challenges, the focus naturally becomes near-term utility in the so-called real world. We focus on implementation without ever stopping to question our assumptions. But Great Ideas don’t resound because they have “utility” in the real world — they are Great for the very reason that they challenge us to redefine the reality of our worlds; and hence, the “utility” of our lives.
So Great Ideas aren't just “solutions”. Indeed, many of the Greatest Ideas are problems. Guernica doesn't offer any solutions to the problem of human suffering: it asks us to do something more vital, and more worthy: to reflect on, consider, and perhaps so gain a truer intimacy with the problem of war, violence, atrocity, and its permanence throughout history. Picasso would never have been invited to deliver a TED talk about Guernica because it offers no quick, easy, palatable solution (“Human Violence: Let's End It!!” #fivewordTEDtalks). Instead, it offers the precise opposite: a hard, unflinching, uncompromising portrait of grief. TED talks get rapturous standing ovations — but stand in front of Guernica for 18 minutes and exactly the opposite will happen: you will, and should, cry.
Great Ideas, then, don’t merely easily please us with their immediate utility — often, they break our hearts with desperate futility; with both the aching impossibility and sure inevitability of the trials and tests of human life. But that’s precisely what makes them Great.
Now: Yes, there was recently a TEDx in Pakistan — and there, beset by fundamentalism and violence, I believe it’s a tremendous force for good. But that’s the lowest of bars. You and I must aim higher.
The idea of our age is that Great Ideas can be simplified, reduced, made into convenient, disposable nuggets of infotainment — be they 18-minute talks, 800-word blog posts, or 140 character bursts. But can they — really? Could Aristotle really deliver the resounding, history-redefining message of the Nicomachean Ethics in…eighteen minutes? Or a series of “thought leader” blog posts on LinkedIn? Or would that, in a very real sense, cheat you and I of the power and purpose, the meaning and message, the very import and impact of the larger body of work?
Imagine I invented an Orgasm Machine. Press the button, and poof!! Effortless, instantaneous climax. Sounds great, right? But my machine would also rob you. Perhaps not of pleasure; but of the tension of love, the challenge of desire, and the drama of sex. TED is like an Orgasm Machine for the human mind. It gives us the climax of epiphany, without the challenge and tension of thought.
And in that way, I think TED thinking cheats us. Not just the “audience,” but all of us. By putting climactic epiphany before experience, education, and elevation. Sure, we can spend our lives, in this digital age, getting quick hits of epiphany from our pundit overlords. In that sense, TED thinking is like a one-night stand with ideas. One night stands can be fun, and may sometimes even lead to something more — but they’re not the great, worthy love affairs that change our lives. So I worry: TED thinking encourages something like an obsession with trivia — when it’s the searing, painful, transformative experience of Big Love you and I should be aiming at.
The TED-ification of ideas turns them into something like superficial commodities. Yet, Big Love is never just skin-deep: it involves mind, heart, body, and soul. And so while “turning complex ideas into plain English” is surely important, critical thinking asks all of us to get not just comfortable with “communication”, but uncomfortable with all the complexity, ambiguity, and nuance of a great relationship.
“Ideas conferences” like TED present us with something like an ethical vacuum. There are no sources of evil in TED world — apart from a “lack.” Insufficient Technology, Edutainment, and Design (or “innovation”, “growth”, “insights”): these are the only shortcomings the human world faces. There is no venality; no selfishness; no cruelty; no human weakness that is not readily amenable to the cure-all of Perfect Technology, Edutainment, and Design.
Hence, in TED world, there are heroes, but no villains. There are self-reliant supermen; but no rent-seekers, no criminals, no charlatans, no mountebanks, no fraudsters, schemers, or…just plain humans. There is good, but no evil. No ethics is possible given this calculus. It is an anti-ethics that perfectly describes the vacuity of our age. In this sense, TED thinking is a kind of Nietzschean enterprise: one beyond good and evil, where Supermen save the world. Yet, the real world asks us to have an ethical calculus precisely because the human heart is capable of great cruelty; of evil, of indescribable atrocity.
To me, this is the greatest and truest failure of today’s idea industry: it is a mind without a heart. TED thinking cheats us of the better angels of our nature; of ethos itself, the highest, truest, and noblest of all the arts of human thought.
Great ideas, then, demand something from us — something more than pleasure. They demand more than just our “attention” — and far more than our standing ovations. They demand not just our eyes, wallets, and hands, but our hearts, minds, and souls. They demand our heartbreak, our hurt. They demand our minds don’t just “accept” — but, as critical thinkers, object, protest, question.
In this way, Great Ideas demand precisely the opposite of TED thinking. They demand our lasting engagement, dedication and commitment; our time and energy; our frustration and infuriation; our suffering, passion, and pain — not merely our easy wonder and wide-eyed astonishment. They demand not just our rapture, but something more human: every bit of our fuller, truer, better selves.
That is precisely how Great Ideas change us: not merely by pleasing us, but by challenging us. That is precisely how they elevate us: not merely by pandering to us, or by provoking us, but by enlightening the whole of us. That is precisely what makes Great Ideas truly worthy — not just easily palatable, and commercially profitable.
Let me be clear: once again, this isn’t just about TED — but the ideas industry, and how, ironically, it oft seems hell-bent on turning each and every human on planet Earth into either a breathless “pundit” or a zombified “consumer”. But we are better — each and every one of us — than that. We are pilgrims on a hard journey; searching for the timeless, simple truths of lives well-lived. The pundits shout to our caravans from the bazaars, touting their potions and tonics. But it is only Great Ideas, waystones shimmering faintly in the distance, which have pointed and will point generations of voyagers before us and after us, that will guide us towards the waters of life itself. That is why they matter.
“TED thinking” is shorthand for the ideas industry’s obsessive, infantilizing, and creepily weird fixation with “innovation”, with “growth”, with “change”, with “value”, “utility”, and “marketability.” It is the epiphany industry. But epiphany should never be an industry. Why? Not just because such a casual approach to human thought reduces and simplifies, stripping and emptying us. But because it promises to spoil the timeless beauty of The Real Thing: The very idea of Great Ideas. The notion that ideas are worthy not merely because they “solve our problems” — but because they challenge us with problems to which our lives are the truest answers.”

Nuisance Laws Abused In Domestic Violence Cases

04/24/2013

Shut Up or Get Out: PA City Punishes Domestic Violence Victims Who Call the Police

By Sandra Park, ACLU at 3:24pm

Last year in Norristown, Pa., Lakisha Briggs' boyfriend physically assaulted her, and the police arrested him. But in a cruel turn of events, a police officer then told Ms. Briggs, "You are on three strikes. We're gonna have your landlord evict you."
Yes, that's right. The police threatened Ms. Briggs with eviction because she had received their assistance for domestic violence. Under Norristown's "disorderly behavior ordinance," the city penalizes landlords and tenants when the police respond to three instances of "disorderly behavior" within a four-month period. The ordinance specifically includes "domestic disturbances" as disorderly behavior that triggers enforcement of the law.
After her first "strike," Ms. Briggs was terrified of calling the police. She did not want to do anything to risk losing her home. So even when her now ex-boyfriend attacked her with a brick, she did not call. And later, when he stabbed her in the neck, she was still too afraid to reach out. But both times, someone else did call the police. Based on these "strikes," the city pressured her landlord to evict. After a housing court refused to order an eviction, the city said it planned to condemn the property and forcibly remove Ms. Briggs from her home. The ACLU intervened, and the city did not carry out its threats, and even agreed to repeal the ordinance. But just two weeks later, Norristown quietly passed a virtually identical ordinance that imposes fines on landlords unless they evict tenants who obtain police assistance, including for domestic violence.
Today, the ACLU, the ACLU of Pennsylvania, and the law firm Pepper Hamilton filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Ms. Briggs, challenging the ordinance. These laws violate tenants' First Amendment right to petition their government, which includes the right to contact law enforcement. They also violate the federal Violence Against Women Act, which protects many domestic violence victims from eviction based on the crimes committed against them, and the Fair Housing Act, which prohibits discrimination based on sex, and was enacted 45 years ago this month. The ACLU has long argued that evictions based on domestic violence can discriminate against women, because such evictions are often motivated by gender stereotypes that hold victims responsible for the abuse they experience, and because the vast majority of victims are women.
Norristown is not alone. Cities and towns across the United States have similar laws, sometimes referred to as "nuisance ordinances" or "crime-free ordinances." We represented a domestic violence victim in Illinois, who after years of experiencing abuse, decided to reach out to the police for the first time. The police charged her husband with domestic battery and resisting arrest. Yet only a few days later, the police department sent her landlord a notice, instructing the landlord to evict the victim under the local ordinance based on the arrest. The message was clear: calling the police leads to homelessness.
A recent study of Milwaukee's nuisance ordinance showed that domestic violence was the third most common reason that police issued a nuisance citation, far above drug, property damage, or trespassing offenses. The study also established that enforcement of the ordinance disproportionately targeted African-American neighborhoods. The result? Women of color, like Ms. Briggs, were less able to access police protection.
Effective law enforcement depends on strong relationships between police and members of the community. These ordinances undermine that trust, by punishing victims who call 911 and coercing them to endure escalating violence in silence. Even worse, Norristown reports that domestic violence victims make up 20 percent of its homeless population. In order to reduce domestic violence and homelessness, Norristown should repeal the ordinance, and keep it off the books for good. And other towns that are considering enacting or enforcing these ordinances should learn the same lesson.

Monsanto’s Dirty Dozen

Posted on May 12, 2011 by GMO Awareness

When you take a moment to reflect on the history of product development at Monsanto, what do you find? Here are twelve products that Monsanto has brought to market. See if you can spot the pattern…

#1 – Saccharin

Did you know Monsanto got started because of an artificial sweetener? John Francisco Queeny founded Monsanto Chemical Works in St. Louis, Missouri with the goal of producing saccharin for Coca-Cola. In stark contrast to its sweet beginnings, studies performed during the early 1970s,* including a study by the National Cancer Institute in 1980, showed that saccharin caused cancer in test rats and mice.
After mounting pressure from consumers, the Calorie Control Council, and manufacturers of artificial sweeteners and diet sodas, along with additional studies (several conducted by the sugar and sweetener industry) that reported flaws in the 1970s studies, saccharin was delisted from the NIH’s Carcinogen List. A variety of letters from scientists advised against delisting; the official document includes the following wording to this day: “although it is impossible to absolutely conclude that it poses no threat to human health, sodium saccharin is not reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen under conditions of general usage as an artificial sweetener.” (*Read the Chemical Heritage Foundation’s History of Saccharin here.)

#2 – PCBs

During the early 1920s, Monsanto began expanding their chemical production into polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) to produce coolant fluids for electrical transformers, capacitors, and electric motors. Fifty years later, toxicity tests began reporting serious health effects from PCBs in laboratory rats exposed to the chemical.
After another decade of studies, the truth could no longer be contained: the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a report citing PCBs as the cause of cancer in animals, with additional evidence that they can cause cancer in humans. Additional peer-reviewed health studies showed a causal link between exposure to PCBs and non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, a frequently fatal form of cancer.
In 1979, the United States Congress recognized PCBs as a significant environmental toxin and persistent organic pollutant, and banned its production in the U.S.  By then Monsanto already had manufacturing plants abroad, so they weren’t entirely stopped until the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants banned PCBs globally in 2001.
And that’s when Monsanto’s duplicity was uncovered: internal company memos from 1956 surfaced, proving that Monsanto had known about dangers of PCBs from early on.
In 2003, Monsanto paid out over $600 million to residents of Anniston, Alabama, who experienced severe health problems including liver disease, neurological disorders and cancer after being exposed to PCBs — more than double the payoff that was awarded in the case against Pacific Gas & Electric made famous by the movie “Erin Brockovich.”
And yet the damage persists: nearly 30 years after PCBs have been banned from the U.S., they are still showing up in the blood of pregnant women, as reported in a 2011 study by the University of California San Francisco.

#3 – Polystyrene

In 1941, Monsanto began focusing on plastics and synthetic polystyrene, which is still widely used in food packaging and ranked 5th in the EPA’s 1980s listing of chemicals whose production generates the most total hazardous waste.

#4 – Atom bomb and nuclear weapons

Shortly after acquiring Thomas and Hochwalt Laboratories, Monsanto turned this division into their Central Research Department. Between 1943 to 1945, this department coordinated key production efforts of the Manhattan Project—including plutonium purification and production and, as part of the Manhattan Project’s Dayton Project, techniques to refine chemicals used as triggers for atomic weapons (an era of U.S. history that sadly included the deadliest industrial accident).

#5 – DDT

In 1944, Monsanto became one of the first manufacturers of the insecticide DDT to combat malaria-transmitting mosquitoes. Despite decades of Monsanto propaganda insisting that DDT was safe, the true effects of DDT’s toxicity were at last confirmed through outside research and in 1972, DDT was banned throughout the U.S.

This chart illustrates how much dioxin an average American consumes per day

#6 – Dioxin

In 1945, Monsanto began promoting the use of chemical pesticides in agriculture with the manufacture of the herbicide 2,4,5-T (one of the precursors to Agent Orange), containing dioxin. Dioxins are a group of chemically-related compounds that since become known as one of the “Dirty Dozen” — persistent environmental pollutants that accumulate in the food chain, mainly in the fatty tissue of animals. In the decades since it was first developed, Monsanto has been accused of covering up or failing to report dioxin contamination in a wide range of its products.
#7 – Agent Orange
During the early 1960s, Monsanto was one of the two primary manufacturers of Agent Orange, an herbicide / defoliant used for chemical warfare during the Vietnam War. Except Monsanto’s formula had dioxin levels many times higher than the Agent Orange produced by Dow Chemicals, the other manufacturer (which is why Monsanto was the key defendant in the lawsuit brought by Vietnam War veterans in the United States).
(Pictured at left, Anh and Trang Nhan, with their father, when they first arrived at the Hoi An Orphanage; below are the same brothers shortly before Trang’s death. Source: Kianh Foundation Newsletter, Dec. 2011)
As a result of the use of Agent Orange, Vietnam estimates that over 400,000 people were killed or maimed, 500,000 children were born with birth defects, and up to 1 million people were disabled or suffered from health problems—not to mention the far-reaching impact it had on the health of over 3 million American troops and their offspring.
Internal Monsanto memos show that Monsanto knew of the problems of dioxin contamination of Agent Orange when it sold it to the U.S. government for use in Vietnam. Despite the widespread health impact, Monsanto and Dow were allowed to appeal for and receive financial protection from the U.S. government against veterans seeking compensation for their exposure to Agent Orange.
In 2012, a long 50 years after Agent Orange was deployed, the clean-up effort has finally begun. Yet the legacy of Agent Orange, and successive generations of body deformities, will remain in orphanages throughout VietNam for decades to come.
(Think that can’t happen here? Two crops were recently genetically engineered to withstand a weedkiller made with one of the major components of Agent Orange, 2,4-D, in order to combat “super weeds” that evolved due to the excessive use of RoundUp.)

8 – Petroleum-Based Fertilizer

In 1955, Monsanto began manufacturing petroleum-based fertilizer after purchasing a major oil refinery. Petroleum-based fertilizers can kill beneficial soil micro-organisms, sterilizing the soil and creating a dependence, like an addiction, to the synthetic replacements. Not the best addiction to have, considering the rising cost and dwindling supply of oil…

#9 – RoundUp

During the early 1970s, Monsanto founded their Agricultural Chemicals division with a focus on herbicides, and one herbicide in particular: RoundUp (glyphosate). Because of its ability to eradicate weeds literally overnight, RoundUp was quickly adopted by farmers. Its use increased even more when Monsanto introduced “RoundUp Ready” (glyphosate-resistant) crops, enabling farmers to saturate the entire field with weedkiller without killing the crops.
While glyphosate has been approved by regulatory bodies worldwide and is widely used, concerns about its effects on humans and the environment persist. RoundUp has been found in samples of groundwater, as well as soil, and even in streams and air throughout the Midwest U.S., and increasingly in food. It has been linked to butterfly mortality, and the proliferation of superweeds. Studies in rats have shown consistently negative health impacts ranging from tumors, altered organ function, and infertility, to cancer and premature death. Reference the above “GMO Risks” page which includes countless references to support these statements.

#10 – Aspartame (NutraSweet / Equal)

An accidental discovery during research on gastrointestinal hormones resulted in a uniquely sweet chemical: aspartame. During the clinical trials conducted on 7 infant monkeys as part of aspartame’s application for FDA approval, 1 monkey died and 5 other monkeys had grand mal seizures—yet somehow aspartame was still approved by the FDA in 1974. In 1985, Monsanto acquired the company responsible for aspartame’s manufacture (G.D. Searle) and began marketing the product as NutraSweet. Twenty years later, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released a report listing 94 health issues caused by aspartame. (Watch a quick video here.)

#11 – Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH)

This genetically modified hormone was developed by Monsanto to be injected into dairy cows to produce more milk. Cows subjected to rBGH suffer excruciating pain due to swollen udders and mastitis, and the pus from the resulting infection enters the milk supply requiring the use of additional antibiotics. rBGH milk has been linked to breast cancer, colon cancer, and prostate cancer in humans.

#12 – Genetically Modified Crops / GMOs

In the early 1990s, Monsanto began gene-splicing corn, cotton, soy, and canola with DNA from a foreign source to achieve one of two traits: an internally-generated pesticide, or an internal resistance to Monsanto’s weedkiller RoundUp. Despite decades of promises that genetically engineered crops would feed the world with more nutrients, drought resistance, or yield, the majority of Monsanto’s profits are from seeds that are engineered to tolerate Monsanto’s RoundUp—an ever-rising, dual income stream as weeds continue to evolve resistance to RoundUp.
Most sobering however, is that the world is once again buying into Monsanto’s “safe” claims.
Just like the early days of PCBs, DDT, Agent Orange, Monsanto has successfully fooled the general public and regulatory agencies into believing that RoundUp, and the genetically modified crops that help sell RoundUp, are “safe.”
Except Monsanto has learned a thing or two in the past 100+ years of defending its dirty products: these days, when a new study proving the negative health or environmental impacts of GMOs emerges, Monsanto attacks the study and its scientist(s) by flooding the media with counter claims from “independent” organizations, scientists, industry associations, blogs, sponsored social media, and articles by “private” public relations firms—frequently founded, funded and maintained by Monsanto.
Unfortunately, few of us take the time to trace the members, founders, and relationships of these seemingly valid sources back to their little Monsanto secret. (Read more on this page.)
Fooling the FDA required a slightly different approach: click on the below chart compiled by Millions Against Monsanto to see how many former Monsanto VPs and legal counsel are now holding positions with the FDA. And don’t forget Clarence Thomas, former Monsanto attorney who is now a Supreme Court Justice, ruling in favor of Monsanto in every case brought before him.

A Baker’s Dozen: #13 – Terminator Seeds

In the late 1990s, Monsanto developed the technology to produce sterile grains unable to germinate. These “Terminator Seeds” would force farmers to buy new seeds from Monsanto year after year, rather than save and reuse the seeds from their harvest as they’ve been doing throughout centuries. Fortunately this technology never came to market. Instead, Monsanto chose to require farmers to sign a contract agreeing that they will not save or sell seeds from year to year, which forces them to buy new seeds and preempts the need for a “terminator gene.” Lucky for us… since the terminator seeds were capable of cross-pollination and could have contaminated local non-sterile crops.

What’s the Result of our Monsanto Legacy?
Between 75% to 80% of the processed food you consume every day has GMOs inside, and residues of Monsanto’s RoundUp herbicide outside. But it’s not just processed food—fresh fruit and vegetables are next: genetically engineered sweet corn is already being sold at your local grocer, with apples and a host of other “natural” produce currently in field trials.
How is it that Monsanto is allowed to manipulate our food after such a dark product history? How is it they are allowed to cause such detrimental impact to our environment and our health?
According to the Organic Consumers Association, “There is a direct correlation between our genetically engineered food supply and the $2 trillion the U.S. spends annually on medical care, namely an epidemic of diet-related chronic diseases.
Instead of healthy fruits, vegetables, grains, and grass-fed animal products, U.S. factory farms and food processors produce a glut of genetically engineered junk foods that generate heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer—backed by farm subsidies—while organic farmers receive no such subsidies.
Monsanto’s history reflects a consistent pattern of toxic chemicals, lawsuits, and manipulated science. Is this the kind of company we want controlling our world’s food supply?
P.S. Monsanto’s not alone. Other companies in the “Big Six” include Pioneer Hi-Bred International (a subsidiary of DuPont), Syngenta AG, Dow Agrosciences (a subsidiary of Dow Chemical, BASF (which is primarily a chemical company that is rapidly expanding their biotechnology division, and Bayer Cropscience (a subsidiary of Bayer). View a complete list of companies doing genetic engineering on this website.
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Keystone - A Climate Catastrophe'

"If you really think the environment is less important than the economy, try holding your breath while you count your money." - Dr. Guy McPherson

Published on Wednesday, April 17, 2013 by Common Dreams

'Cooking the Books and the Planet': Report Slams State Dept. KXL Findings

'Any objective analysis of the impact of building Keystone shows that it would be a climate catastrophe'

- Jon Queally, staff writer

Students from Santa Monica High School join hundreds of protestors on Feb. 17 at Los Angeles City Hall demanding President Obama to reject the Keystone XL pipeline. (Credit: Charlie Kajio/cc by 2.0)A new report by some of the nation's top environmental groups on Tuesday shows that approval of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would add at least 181 million metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, the equivalent of pollution from 37.7 million cars or 51 newly built coal-fired power plants.
The report—“Cooking the Books: How The State Department Analysis Ignores the True Climate Impact of the Keystone XL Pipeline” (pdf)—is a direct rebuttal of the government authored environmental impact statement (known as an SEIS) which was released in draft form last month and that environmentalists say is a deeply flawed and short-sighted look at the project, especially as it relates to the science of climate change.
The report was researched and authored by Oil Change International with input and review by the Natural Resources Defense Council, 350.org, Environment America, National Wildlife Federation, Friends of the Earth, the Sierra Club and Greenpeace.

“Any objective analysis of the impact of building Keystone shows that it would be a climate catastrophe,” said Ross Hammond, senior campaigner for Friends of the Earth. “Instead, the State Department seems ready to buy into the pipeline propaganda of an army of lobbyists who are trading on their ties to Secretary Kerry and President Obama to taint the decision. The president must act in the national interest, not the interests of Big Oil, and reject the Keystone XL pipeline.”
The key findings of the group's research concluded that:

• The 181 million metric tons of (CO2e) from Keystone XL is equivalent to the tailpipe emissions from more than 37.7 million cars. This is more cars than are currently registered on the entire West Coast (California, Washington, and Oregon), plus Florida, Michigan, and New York – combined.
• Between 2015 and 2050, the pipeline alone would result in emissions of 6.34 billion metric tons of CO₂e. This amount is greater than the 2011 total annual carbon dioxide emissions of the United States.
• The International Energy Agency has said that two-thirds of known fossil fuel reserves must remain undeveloped if we are to avoid a 2 degree C temperature rise. Constructing the Keystone XL pipeline and developing the tar sands make that goal far more difficult, if not impossible, to reach.

Despite all this, said 350.org executive director May Boeve, "the State Department says that the pipeline would have negligible climate impacts."
Boeve's group is among those urging its members this week to use the public comment period set out by the State Department to voice their opposition to the tar sands pipeline and hopes that this new report will help inform the broader public about the inherent dangers of Keystone XL, whether it eventually spills or not.
“The report clearly demonstrates that we can’t protect future generations from the worst impacts of global warming while allowing ourselves to become hooked on even dirtier sources of fuel,” said Daniel Gatti, Get Off Oil Program Director for Environment America. “We need President Obama and Secretary Kerry to say no to tar sands, and no to the Keystone XL pipeline.”
And Inter Press Service adds:

At the heart of this criticism is an observation of conflicting national policies: that approval of the Keystone XL would contradict stated U.S. climate policy.
“At the top of a long list of problems with [the SEIS] is the simple assertion that the Keystone XL pipeline would have no impact on climate change … in the belief that these emissions will be released regardless of whether the pipeline gets built. This is simply incorrect,” Steve Kretzmann, lead author of the new report and a researcher with Oil Change International, an advocacy group, told reporters Tuesday.
"Further, whether or not that oil would be burned anyway is a separate question … The State Department needs to assess this project’s climate impact by looking at whether Keystone XL would survive national policies to limit climate change to two degrees Celsius, which is this country’s stated goal – and we believe it would not.”
Since the Keystone XL proposal was first put forward by TransCanada, a Canadian company, in 2008, scientists have come to a clearer understanding of what’s today called the world’s “carbon budget”. This refers to the percentage of remaining fossil fuel resources that can be burned without bringing about the catastrophic forecasts of what could happen if the Earth’s average temperature rises more than two degrees Celsius by the end of this century.

Also on Tuesday, the public advocacy group Public Citizen released a separate report which debunked another central claim of pipeline proponents—that building Keystone would lower domestic gasoline and fuel prices for US consumers. In fact, claims the group, their findings support the idea that gas prices would almost certainly go up, not down.
According to the group:

Because the pipeline is designed to send oil from Canada to overseas markets (Canadian Energy Minister Ken Hughes recently said that it is a “strategic imperative” to get petroleum products “to the ocean, so that we secure global prices for our products”), it will not enhance U.S. energy security. In fact, a major purpose is to divert tar sands oil from U.S. Midwest refineries, where it is refined and sold in the domestic market, to the Gulf Coast, for export. That means the pipeline will work to raise – not lower – prices for U.S. consumers.
The fact that the oil will be shipped outside the U.S. raises questions about the validity of claims that the pipeline will improve national energy security. In fact, not only will U.S. consumers not see the oil, but much of it will be owned by China, which is the largest foreign investor in Canada’s tar sands, representing 52 percent of all foreign investment since 2003. The report documents the many Chinese companies that have bought into the Canadian tar sands, including China National Offshore Oil Corporation, China National Petroleum Corporation and China Investment Corporation.

“Keystone XL proponents are relying on two key arguments to urge the project to be approved: reduced prices for U.S. consumers and national energy security,” said Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program and report author. “Our analysis shows that the pipeline is almost certain to fail to advance either of these objectives.”

Corporate Betrayal of America

Published on Monday, April 8, 2013 by Common Dreams  

by Paul Buchheit
 

Multinational corporations have built their businesses on the backs of American taxpayers. They've depended on government research, national defense, the legal and educational systems, and our infrastructure.
(Photo: Lindsay/flickr)
Yet they've turned around and mocked us with declining tax payments. They've cut workers. They've refused to invest their massive profits in job-producing research and development. And they've insulted existing employees with low wages and dwindling retirement support.

As a final disdainful act, many of them have tried to convince us that they LOSE money in the U.S. while only making profits overseas.

 Here are the facts.

Business Built on Our Backs
(a) Research
The most essential aspect of business growth is the long-term basic research that is largely conducted with government money. Starting in the 1950s, taxpayer-funded research at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (the Internet), the National Institute of Health (pharmaceuticals), and the National Science Foundation (the Digital Library Initiative) has laid a half-century foundation for corporate product development. Even today 60% of university research is government-supported.
The tech industry is a special case, with many computer and communications companies coming of age in the 1990s, when industry funding for computer research declined dramatically and government research funding continued to climb. As of 2009 universities were still receiving ten times more science & engineering funding from government than from industry.

(b) Infrastructure
Thanks to the taxpayer-funded National Highway System, corporations have acquired access to markets across the country for over 60 years. Along with road construction came the water, electric, and telephone facilities needed to sustain their businesses.
Today, the publicly supported communications infrastructure allows the richest 10% of Americans to readily manipulate their 80% share of the stock market. CEOs rely on roads and seaports and airports to ship their products, the FAA and TSA and Coast Guard and Department of Transportation to safeguard them, a nationwide energy grid to power their factories, and communications towers and satellites to conduct online business. Private jets use 16 percent of air traffic control resources while paying only 3% of the bill.

(c) Law
A litany of advantages accrues to the business world through the legal system. The wealthiest Americans are the main beneficiaries of tax laws, property rights, zoning rules, patent and copyright provisions, trade pacts, antitrust legislation, and contract regulations. Their companies benefit, despite their publicly voiced objections to regulatory agencies, from SBA and SEC guidelines that generally favor business, and from FDA and USDA quality control measures that minimize consumer complaints and product recalls.
The growing numbers of financial industry executives have profited from 30 years of deregulation, most notably the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. Lobbying by the financial industry has stifled reasonable proposals like a sales tax on financial transactions.
More big advantages are enjoyed by multinational corporations through trade agreements like NAFTA, with international disputes resolved by the business-friendly World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organization. Federal judicial law protects our biggest companies from foreign infringement. The proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership would put governments around the world at the mercy of corporate decision-makers.

(d) Education
Public colleges have helped to train the chemists, physicists, chip designers, programmers, engineers, production line workers, market analysts, and testers who create modern technological devices. At the primary and secondary levels, the "equal opportunity" principle mandated by the Supreme Court in Brown vs. the Board of Education has contributed to business growth, building the math and language skills that until recently led the world.

(e) Defense
The U.S. government will be spending $55 billion on Homeland Security this year, in addition to $673 billion for the military. Most of their resources, along with local police and emergency services and the National Guard, are focused on crimes against wealth.

Belittling Us Instead Of Paying Us Back
Instead of paying for their decades of government-supported growth, corporations have nearly stopped paying taxes, leaving payroll deductions and individual income taxes as the main sources of federal revenue.
From 2003 to 2011 total corporate profits more than doubled from $900 billion to almost $2 trillion, but the corporate income tax rate dropped by more than half, from 22.5% to 10%.
On top of this, the most profitable corporations get the biggest subsidies. The Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in welfare assistance to financial institutions and corporations. According to U.S. PIRG and Citizens for Tax Justice, 280 top-earning Fortune 500 companies, which together paid only half of the maximum 35 percent corporate tax rate, received $223 billion in tax subsidies.
What have they been doing with their windfall profits? Anywhere from $2.2 trillion to $3.4 trillion in cash is being held by non-financial corporations, who have chosen to fatten stockholders rather than invest in new production facilities and the employees needed to make them functional. Worse yet, as reported by The Nation, Market Watch, and Business Insider, they've been steadily cutting jobs in order to 'streamline' their operations.
For the employees who remain, average real wages were $17.42 in 2007, down from $19.34 in 1972 (based on 2007 dollars). Wages as a percentage of the economy are at an all-time low.

An Added Insult -- Profits Declared Overseas, But Not in the U.S.
Multinational corporations use the vacuous argument of an excessive U.S. tax rate to defend their tax avoidance, although in reality the U.S. has the third-lowest rate of tax revenue per GDP among all OECD countries.
The biggest tax avoiders are not content to just shirk their tax responsibilities. To sustain the image of profitmaking for their investors, many of them claim hefty worldwide incomes while reporting little or no income in the United States. Pfizer, for example, just declared their fifth straight annual loss in the U.S., despite a five-year income total of over $50 billion.
A review of SEC data reveals more chicanery. In the last two years Citigroup reported $27.8 billion in foreign income, but a $5 billion loss in the United States. Exxon credits the U.S. for 1/3 of its revenue and 40% of its assets, but only 15% of its income. Apple has 2/3 of its employees in the U.S. but claims only 1/3 of its profits as U.S. income.

Summing Up the Absurdity: You Made Us the Best, But We Don't Have To Pay
Forbes responded to suggestions of American decline with this stirring defense: "We lead the world in Internet innovation, music, movies, biotech and many other technological fields that require out-of-the-box thinking. From Apple to DreamWorks Studios, from Amazon to Zynga, we are the world's innovators."
They might have added, "And we don't have to give anything back to the people who made it all possible."

Paul Buchheit is a college teacher, an active member of US Uncut Chicago, founder and developer of social justice and educational websites (UsAgainstGreed.org, PayUpNow.org, RappingHistory.org), and the editor and main author of "American Wars: Illusions and Realities" (Clarity Press). He can be reached at paul@UsAgainstGreed.org.

Democrat or Green Party! Should America Dump The Democrats?

Thanks to Sasha Brookner for posting such an interesting letter.

The "Greens" are often put forward as ultra-left, crackpot lefties, but when you listen to Jill Stein and other Greens or read the Green Party Website about their party platform about social and political reform, what you find instead are intelligent, practical, reasonable and sustainable solutions to most of our social and political issues.  Things you never hear about from Republicans and Democrats.

The Green Party is not about super-goofy, tree hugging, nut jobs - but instead makes a strong, reasonable and practical statement about the role of government and the protection and nurture of society.

I don't belong to a political party, but I do really appreciate the perspective and ideas of the Green Party.


From Blue to Green: Why I Left the Democratic Party

The Huffington Post
March 21, 2013
by Sasha Brookner
“Of two evils, choose neither.” ~ Charles Spurgeon
In the 16th century, the Eastern Orthodox Christians had a unique aphorism: “Better the turban than the mitre.” They were referring to the preferable conquer of the Balkans by the Ottoman Turks rather than the Western Roman Catholic empire. Today, that lesser of two evil principles isn’t about maintaining freedom of religion; rather it’s used by Democrats to justify genocide, drones, Guantanamo, rendition, kill lists and cutting heat subsidizes for the poor under the past its sell-by date defense that Republicans would double these demons. It is evident that this perpetual comparative doctrine has reached steroid proportions. Although President Barack Obama may wear the “turban” when it comes to certain domestic policies, such as gay marriage and embryonic stem cell research, when it comes to foreign policy, corporate interests, and saying farewell to Magna Carta, both the Elephants and the Donkeys are wearing the Bishop’s hat.
In 2008, I complacently cast a vote for the so-called Marxist, Muslim, crypto-Mau Mau leader. At the time, I thought his rhetoric on hunting down Osama bin Laden and his cadre of non-threatening, Pashtun goat-herding boogie men was simply posturing for xenophobic independents. I mean this was a devoted peaceful father who didn’t spank his children and volunteered at soup kitchens. We’re talking about a man who turned down a lucrative corporate gig for grassroots basement community activism. Goodwin Liu was on his short list for the 9th circuit; hell, he sat in front of feminists and spoke about rescinding the Hyde Amendment. If Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels could have ever made their utopian government functional, this was the guy who could swing it. Don’t laugh at me. Over the next four years the nausea and culpability I felt for casting that less than prescient ballot and not supporting Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney would take it’s toll on my conscience and nervous system.
“He’s playing chess!” Obamacrats screamed emphatically when it was abundantly clear the Ivy Leaguer was failing horribly at checkers. While Republicans transformed into strategic tacticians taking chapters from Sun Tzu’s Art of War and marching their elephants over the Alps, Democrats were busying themselves reading Iyanla Vanzant. Obama’s bi-partisan agenda skyrocketed to epidemic proportions – apparently a pre-existing condition for which he was previously denied treatment – leaving him perpetually naked every time he walked away from the political poker table. Frustrated amidst even his moderate ideas being obstructed by the GOP, he would come out of his economic meetings and relieve his stress going H.A.M on Kabul. He even felt the need to make the stomach-turning Jonas Brothers drone joke in protection of his precious daughters – who, unlike little girls in MENA, will never come close to seeing glimpses of war. In his autobiography, Obama said, “War might be hell and still the right thing to do.” I’m sure this bit of philosophical reflection holds true only as long as it’s not his family experiencing that “war” or “hell.” Our president only has a predilection for playing commando leader with other parents’ children. And when resistance fighters return fire Michelle offers their families big bear hug condolences and rhapsodizes over how valiantly they died for our freedoms. Watching the Obamas donate money to veterans’ organizations is like watching pimps offer charity to domestic violence shelters.
Obama’s political tenure reads like acute moral fragmentation. He has ordered some of the most catastrophic cuts to our civil liberties while throwing in a couple Lily Ledbetter Acts to keep liberals placated. Congressional obstructionism was not the culprit when our president renewed the egregiously Orwellien Patriot Act via non “sunlight before signing” autopen. It was not to blame when he refused to shut down Cheney’s beloved interrogation facility in Cuba even though half the tormented water drown prisoners have been cleared. A few Wall Street bankers received “consent orders,” but no prison buddies named Bubba. Meanwhile, our heroic Bradley Manning rots away half naked in a cell, two more Planned Parenthood clinics in Texas were recently shut down and Obama’s lust for war has extended from Afghanistan to Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, Mali and Yemen. We haven’t even entered into his beloved drone curriculum which makes Bush’s water boarding look compassionate. The current administration’s three billion dollar a week jingoistic kill brown people program could have easily been invested into eradicating homelessness, canceling student debts, rebuilding 98,000 elementary and 25,000 high schools, and providing superlative pro bono job training – all of which pose a much greater threat to our country than desert nomads across ocean divides who draw their diabolical plan of attack against America with sticks in the dirt. Boehner and crew’s impediments were not the issue when our chain smoker president broke his campaign promise to respect state’s rights and started hunting down medical marijuana dealers. Watching a man who consumes a product that leads to the death of 6 million users annually go after the hemp guys was like watching a drunk driver moralize to cranberry juice drinkers. Instead of learning from the preeminent philosophers throughout antiquity who preached mastery of self before mastery others, Obama has used his tenure in office having romantic affairs with the Disposition Matrix, Illegal Wars, and NDAA’s Section 1021(b)(2) which allows for indefinite detention and cold-blooded murder of U.S. citizens at his Tuesday discretion, all of which would have gotten the younger Barack laughed out of his Harvard law classes. But hey, aren’t his daughters adorable? And that Michelle she sure can Hula Hoop. I wonder how her vegetable garden is doing? And Bo! Democrats love them some Bo.
Although George W. Bush was possibly the most repugnant president in United States history next to Woodrow, Harry and Richard, the only U.S. Constitutional passage he was familiar with was the Second Amendment. Obama on the other hand is a constitutional legal eagle, meaning he’s actually heard of George Mason and the Fifth Amendment. This makes his lack of deference to the only legal text that could perhaps arguably make us “exceptional” even more egregious. Regrettably, Obama’s entire candidacy has been viewed through a lens of proportionality, the 112th and 113th Congress have been incomparable secret weapons. Contrasted against a group of anachronistic, pseudo-Christian crusaders with an ongoing agenda to criminalize 12-year-old incest victims who abort embryos, Obama would have to be Pol Pot to fall below the bar set up for him. The “liberal” party has taken to genuflecting in front of a man who can only look decent next to psychopaths.

8 reasons why I now go Green, not the machine

1) Because Naderization Doesn’t Scare Me
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” ~ Mohandas Gandhi
If I hear another President Roseanne Barr Macadamia Nut joke, I’m going to tell the Taliban people are burning Qurans and start giving out home addresses. Our world can no longer afford to make Green Party jokes; they’re just not funny amidst our current political climate. It is offensive to think I would succumb to Spoiler Controversy extortion by the so-called progressive party whose current claim to fame is attempting to raise the minimum wage by a radical buck and a half. Now there’s a joke for anyone who’s looked at a calendar lately or skimmed through Keynes’ General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. Considering our president can’t even pass a paltry $9/hour through Congress, he might have well have opted to start with what economists compute is the 2013 accurate livable wage sum – $21.72. Clearly over the past five years, if we’ve learned nothing at all, it’s that our presidential elect was never gifted in the art of negotiations, continuing to start every bill to exit poverty with the lowest possible numeral, eventually exiting stage left with the number below that.
Democrats have taken to blackmailing wanderers considering Green with an indictment of Ralph Nader who they contend handed over the presidency to George W. Bush in 2000, but who actually took 1% of votes equally from both Republicans and Democrats. They might as well blame the Socialist Party, the Electoral College, the quarter million Democrats in Florida who voted for Bush, eco-friendly tree huggers who wouldn’t have touched Gore with a 10 ft. long stick. Or, they could blame the real culprits – Thomas, Scalia, Kennedy, O’Connor, and Rehnquist.
In 1996, Ralph Nader spent less than $5,000 in his bid for presidency; yet he won over almost 1% of the American population. In 2000, he campaigned for roughly $300,000 and received 2.8 million votes. Imagine what numbers Jill Stein could pull if she garnered 5% support and qualified for millions of dollars in federal funding. Before clearing our memory cache, remember the original Republicans emerged as a third party back in the 1850′s with only a single issue, abolition. Unlike the early Republicans and Free Soil Party, Greens have an injustice conquer list that makes the Fair Sentencing Act look reactionary. In addition to the biotic crisis, their objectives include supporting grassroots democracy, social justice and equal opportunity, ecological wisdom, non-violence, decentralization, community based economics, feminist and gender equity, respect for diversity, personal & global responsibility, and future focus and sustainability. How could any sentient being support men obsessed with war over the Green Ten Key Values?
I know, I know this presidential election (like all since 1991) is “too important” to support the Party of Peace. I mean, think about it. If Republicans had taken the Oval Office it would have been conservative pandemonium. The Patriot Act would still be in effect; the Corpus in Habeas wouldn’t have to be produced; Guantanamo would be bustling; drone architect John O. Brennan would be appointed chief counter-terrorism advisor; Wall Street bankers would escape prosecution; Erik Prince would further his million dollar no-bid private military contracts; Planned Parenthoods would be defunded; millions of Mexican immigrants would be deported; billions of our tax dollars and military supplies would be sent to Israel to continue Gaza occupation and we would have militarily invaded and bombed the hell out of six new countries….
Oh wait.
Obama’s charm, wit, wife and ostensible liberal demeanor somehow made Democrats start liking these things again – or perhaps they were anesthetized to them to begin with and Blackwater, Fallujah and Iraqi children were just used as scapegoats when the guy they disliked was in office. Throughout the Bush regime, Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary, was a regularly sought-after anti-war speaker at Democratic events; but phone calls abruptly halted when Obama took office. Democrats play the same partisan politics as Republicans, using the ritual sacrifice of brown babies to the U.S. military industrial complex as pretexts when the Grand Ol’ Party is at the wheel. One could witness this pathology on Real Time with Bill Maher when Democrat strategist James Carville practically screamed at conservative political commentator, S.E Cupp, after she brought up her concern over drone attacks. What could be more depressing than when cold-hearted Republicans want to discuss the death of hundreds of babies while defensive Democrats shake their heads exasperatedly to shield their party’s deity from critique? I can’t imagine if the Mormon guy had used his magic underwear to catapult himself into office and left his Inaugural Ball early to bomb Yemen that Democrats and MSNBC wouldn’t be having seizures. Instead news that several Yemeni citizens died in a blast after cocktail hour was far less important than the Jason Wu gown Michele sparkled in at the Ball.
When I hear the regurgitated echo from Democrats that exercising suffrage on behalf of the Green Party is nothing but a “statement vote,” I can’t help but roll my eyes at their myopic vision and obstinate support of this Ineptocracy.
Going Green is a long-term strategy vote.
The Abolitionist and Feminist Suffrage movements knew they weren’t going to win the 13th or 19th amendment the first year, or the year after that, or hell, even 50 years down the road. The time-line of civil rights progress is never swift. How botched have our Poly-Sci classes become when self-identified liberals who denounce war still vote for it in perpetuity like meat eaters who claim they detest the killing animals, choosing to ignore the vision and growth of the Green Party as temporarily unviable. One can even cast aside those lessons from Plato, Aristotle and Machiavelli, and consider our foremothers. They didn’t bleed, sweat and cry for sixty years so we would be intimidated into exercising suffrage for a demagogue who works in the shadows of obscurity, killing off our sisters around the globe. I know for certainty Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t march in Selma and Montgomery so we would someday have a black president who would be bombing orphanages in Africa under the guise of safeguarding his beloved middle-class. Statistically speaking, I have a greater chance of being struck by lightening or gobbled up by a Carcharodon Carcharias than blown to smithereens by a man wanting to be Shaheed, according to this skewered logic we might as well pull a Jacques Cousteau and take to the oceans to kill off the great white shark population. We can even force minimum wage workers to fund the excursion, since it’s for their own benefit.
Even the recent drone sightings on American soil and the Congressional passing of the FAA Reauthorization Act projecting that 30,000 unmanned aerial vehicles will be flying our friendly skies by 2020 isn’t enough to get Democrats to tear off their tacky bumper stickers. The trite response “Well would you prefer Romney?” has become fixed in the Democrat echo chamber. No I wouldn’t prefer Romney, I would prefer liberals stop cowardly supporting mass murderers and men running our constitutional pages through Fellowes and Ativas and instead work towards assisting Jill Stein in garnering 4.6% more of the electoral vote so the Green Party can inch closer to overthrowing a corporate duopoly more concerned about catering to Goldman Sachs and Halliburton than the Bill of Rights.
Got it?
2) Because of Obama’s Cognitive Dissonance
“It was the curse of mankind that these incongruous men were thus bound together that in the agonized womb of consciousness these polar twins should be continuously struggling. How then were they dissociated?” ~ Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Barack Obama is a member of the Chamaeleonidae family, he has more incarnations than Hindu deities and trying to measure his shape-shifting would have driven Euclid to insanity. His two-faced rules of conduct are steeped in a distorted sense of violent patriotism and delusional valiance. Dr. Jekyll’s eyes water up over senseless U.S. violence, like the mistaken identity murder of Chicago teen Hadiya Pendleton, while Mr. Hyde pre-emptively strikes any breathing foreigner rumored to dislike America with Arabic Hadiya corpses written off daily as mistaken identity collateral damage. This is indeed a strange case.
While American MQ-9 Reapers and MQ-1 Predator drones make their 24/7 rounds, Obama justifies Zionist proclivities and Gaza genocide with a straight faced outcry of “No country on Earth would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders.” This is a fascinating statement because Obama’s prized UCAV’s have become perfectly acceptable descending upon third worlds, causing severe emotional and psychological distress to families at best, and dismemberment at worst, while Israel is the only region in the Middle East given Western permission to defend themselves.
The existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre once summed up “bad faith” as the belief that one individual could operate in two completely different patterns of behavior and find a way to reconcile the duplicity. That paradigm was clearly visible during Obama’s tearful vigil in the death of 20 children at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in contrast to his callous indifference after he ordered the slaying of 21 children in the Bedouin village of al-Majalah on December 17, 2009. The Yemeni children didn’t even receive an admission of guilt let alone crocodile contrition, proving Obama’s moral compass doesn’t function well when pointed East. Our first black president has taken a chapter from the Antebellum, making it clear that brown foreigners are three-fifths of a person in contrast to American’s full human agency – not even worth body counts.
Obama has become the self-righteous fingerwagger of no return. He loves to moralize to Russia about their imprisonment of feminist punk-rock collective Pussy Riot, but refuses to discuss his own prison industrial complex which houses more men per capita than 196 countries. Obama was all keen on sermonizing Burma over the house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi, who is no more remarkable than American political prisoner exile Assata Shakur. On Syria, Obama said: “The Syrian government must stop shooting demonstrators and allow peaceful protests.” On his 99% constituents tasered and pepper sprayed by militia looking cops during Occupy Wall Street?
Crickets.
Our government’s lectures to the rest of the world’s system of jurisprudence for dissenters seem a little awkward amidst the recent arrest of Organic Consumers Association‘s Alexis Badden Mayer peacefully protesting outside of the White House and the ongoing prosecution of our truth-telling freedom fighters under obscure Acts implemented during Word War 1. Obama seems to have a great deal of outrospection about the failures of foreign governments but utterly lacks interest in curbing our own human rights abuse record.
Obama took it to a new low when he used Malala Yousafzai as a scapegoat for the Afghan war, calling her shooting “reprehensible, disgusting and tragic.” Huh? Out of all the Malalas you have been responsible for recklessly depriving life, you want to shine a spotlight on this girl and fund her medical treatment? Our Apaches didn’t land at Al-Majalah or Garani to fly any of those Malalas to top tier UK hospitals on private jets. Spare me the idea America is actually blowing up half of the Middle East on behalf of little girls trying to acquire an education. Remind me how many schools we’ve built over there again? Zero. How many have we accidentally bombed? Good question. Using the Malala logic we’d be in the Democrat Republic of the Congo right now, not best friends with the crypto-leader of the M23′s. And, please, don’t get me started on Susan Rice.
The Obama administration has shown they have a very selective commitment to human rights – not to mention an expensive habit of dropping million dollar bombs on ten dollar tents.
3) Because Insurance Run Healthcare Sucks
“We’ll have doctors and nurses and hospital administrators. Insurance companies, drug companies – they’ll get a seat at the table, we’ll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN.” ~ Barack Obama
If you don’t recall a single meeting about implementing universal healthcare broadcast to the American public, it’s not because you were on the cable television network’s wrong digit. It’s evident this lack of on-camera discourse was because Obama cut a corporate friendly backroom deal before Michelle had even finished decorating the East Wing. Oh and not even a mere mention of the 2008 Hyde Amendment pledge. Obama’s appropriation of Republican Bob Dole’s aged well-being plan would ultimately be a blow job to United Health, Johnson & Johnson, Kaiser and Blue Shield providing them with 30 million additional clients of which they can appropriate 70% of patient profits. Anyone with medical coverage who has ever requested and been denied an MRI is cognizant that insurance run hospitals produce sub-par care. When we make human suffering a commodity, for-profit providers continually block expensive but necessary scans and refuse to let doctor’s inform their patients about cutting-edge modern technological advancements like VNS Therapy as to not upset their brethren anti-depressant pill market. Contrary to popular belief, Obama’s Affordable Care Act won’t lay the groundwork for Universal Healthcare; conversely it will hand over more tax dollars to these billion dollar juggernauts to use as additional funding to lobby against Vermont’s favorable Single Payer system. While Democrats had control of the House and Senate in 2009, Obama could have at least made a good faith attempt to put his campaign promise up to the floor for a vote.
Subsequently, it would be nice if Obama fans could stop perpetually using insurance run healthcare to balance every atrocity committed under this administration. Saddam Hussein, Fidel Castro and Muammar Ghaddafi provided their people with actual universal healthcare, and nobody brought it up when they were using poison gas, instituting forced labor camps or firing rockets into little girls’ bedrooms.
4) Because Democrats Are Not Saving Our Birth Canals
“For millions of women, federal programs are their only means of getting healthcare. Abortion is the only medically necessary health service excluded from Medicaid coverage. Failure to provide a service that only women need is discrimination.” ~ Barack Obama (2008)
Fast forward to Wednesday, January 21, 2009 when Women’s Reproductive Rights became a distant 100th on the Planned Parenthood minister’s “To-Do” list. He only once mentioned the organization’s name on the national stage while campaigning against Romney in 2012 – and even then it was safely in the context of cheering for mammograms and cervical cancer screenings, not abortion. Receiving pamphlets on gestational phases is not the polemic issue for religious nuts and skirting around bio-ethical conversations pertaining to our fallopian tubes has become disrespectful. The moment Democrats begin to justify Planned Parenthood clinics because they uniformly don’t offer abortion services, they appropriate Republican values, deprecating their most important and necessary function. We don’t need conversations in support of mammograms, we need full fledged, third rail electrocution conversations about the elephant in the room: terminating an embryo/fetus to reduce the number of unwanted children in this country flooding the foster care system and being raised by mothers still reading Judy Blume.
Democrats still attempt to blackmail women with the notion that if we don’t go for the lesser of two evils that feminist’s adored family planning clinics will cease to exist. Newsflash: This past month, two Planned Parenthood clinics were shut down in Texas, completely disregarding Norma McCorvey’s historical legal precedent. In Arkansas, a 12-week abortion ban is advancing in the House. In New Mexico, they’re creatively working to criminalize rape victims who abort embryos as “tampering with evidence” while mandatory delightful vaginal ultrasounds are being forced upon women in attempts to guilt them into having unwanted children. This past month, four clinics were forced to shut down in Wisconsin after losing $1.1 million in state funding. Thank god poor women have Obama in office! Even amidst Congress auditing the hell out of everything Planned Parenthood, from their suction tubes to fax cartridges, and the 50+ bills that have been brought to the floor to defund and/or criminalize the termination of pregnancies, Obama has remained mum on the subject. He hoped he could avoid the conversation by throwing $15 Ortho Tri-Cyclen scraps to middle-class women who have health insurance. It worked. And not to fret ladies of the ignored lower socio-economic class, you can continue to obtain free birth control at (yup you guessed it) Planned Parenthood.
5) Because Democrats Also Love Playing G.I. Joe
The grandiloquence War on Terror is merely a euphemism for ruthless ethnic cleansing indulged upon by a group of resource grabbing oil loving drunk with power geopoliticans who could use a good ethics of war reading from Cicero’s De Officiis and the Mahabharata.
Under Article 2 of the Geneva Code, Obama’s wars overseas does indeed constitute Genocide, defined as the “deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group.” Genocide includes imposing measures intended to prevent births within a group and we can cue Robert Gibbs who justified Obama’s murder of 16 year old Abdulrahamn Anwar al-Aulaqi by his lineage empathetically issuing the quote, “He should have had a far more responsible father.” Genocide is also defined as forcibly transferring children of one group to another which is seen by the estimated 2.3 million Afghan Refugee Camp regulars.
Meanwhile Obama continues to delude the American public of his success, bragging about the 22 men with white turbans tilted over their left ears he’s wiped off the map. The only omission is, as Stanford, New York University and Policy Mic have reported, there is one Taliban death to every 50 civilians killed. When you kill a man’s child you go to war with their father it has nothing to do with Al-Qaeda; subsequently, we’ve engendered thousands more Arabs who now hate America and that 22 number starts looking a little less remarkable. In a region where the U.S. should be trying to win over supporters from jihadist influence, drones prove alienating and the pedantic Quran reader’s most effective recruiting tool. The mercurial rise of the once marginalized Muslim Brotherhood can also attribute their Arab Spring ascension to power as an alternative to Western imperialism. Hassan al-Banna’s descendants are definitely not beneficial to the Malalas. Our politician’s adrenaline pumping game of Cowboys and Indians has also precipitated military suicide rates that surpass combat deaths in 2012, hitting a 349 record number.
It is difficult for men and women who haven’t lived on the outer reaches of empire not to let war become an abstraction. The West may talk about drone warfare being “bad” or “questionable” over Frappuccinos but it rarely conjures up any genuine emotive response, less my beloved Code Pink cheerleaders. It has become abundantly clear over the past decade that a Fatima Akbar will never achieve parity to a Sally Smith.
The Scandinavian Committee who slept on Gandhi but awarded the United State’s 44th president a Nobel Peace Prize should be mortified to find out their compassionate patriarch of mankind runs a torture facility in the Wardak province of Afghanistan and incarcerates their other Peace Prize nominees. Unlike the eight African-American Nobel Peace Prize winners that came before him, Obama’s prestigious accolade has become a white elephant. Contrasted with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who in 1964 took his award as a duty said: “The Nobel Prize for Peace was also a commission – a commission to work harder than I had ever worked before for ‘the brotherhood of man.’”
6) Because You Tilt at Windmills
“Just then they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that rise from that plain. And no sooner did Don Quixote see them that he said to his squire, “Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them. With their spoils we shall begin to be rich for this is a righteous war and the removal of so foul a brood from off the face of the earth is a service God will bless.” ~ Miguel de Cervantes
What both parties keep shielded from the American public is that neither the Taliban nor Al-Qaeda own a single armored tank, let alone F-22 frequent flier mileage. Jihadists are often goat herders who reside in dirt huts with no voltage. Their lack of electronic sophistication was transparent upon a glimpse into the King of Al-Qaeda’s “lap of luxury.” Homeboy looked like he could only get reception via tin foil on the antennas of his compound’s 80′s style TV. Bin Laden’s constituents haven’t mastered basic air travel, what are they going to do, ride their camels across the Atlantic Ocean to institute Shari’s Law? In case everyone failed to notice, they had to hijack our planes for 9/11, so wouldn’t a better plan of self-preservation simply be keeping them off flights headed this way? Apparently not, because you see these guys have the combined IQ’s of Ghazali and Khaldoun and the military tactics of Saladin. This is why wardens are too terrified to have them transferred from Guantanamo to federal prison because unbeknownst to science, The Students and The Base have metal springs in their feet so they can jump over 100 ft high electrical fences. They can pass through walls by melting underneath doors then reforming on the other side. And don’t let them touch you with a Quran or you’ll instantly turn to stone, then crack. Mass propaganda has transformed these non-tech savvy nomads into the Voldemorts of the world actually capable of inciting an American holocaust of Third Reich proportions. Over the past 11 years there hasn’t been a single attempt by a Jihadists to sneak a bomb onto a plane from one U.S. city to another (CIA false flags don’t count) while polls show the majority of Afghans didn’t even know what “America” was until we started blowing up their neighborhoods.
More recently, Obama authorized millions of dollars to be sent across the globe to support the Yemeni military, even amidst our country at 10% unemployment, 650,000 estimated homeless and 40 million children not receiving adequate nourishment. Our government cut off head subsidizes for the poor in 2011, closed mental health clinics and cut funding for domestic violence shelters, but suddenly has a Carte blanche to bankroll a third world’s counter-terrorism operations because one underwear bomber hailed from the region. Yes we must defend destitute Americans from the threat of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula living in one of the driest, poorest and least developed country in the world. Patriotism is all about cutting safety nets then assuring the people who need them that our government loves them so much they will be protected from Salafism. Thank you President Obama for defending us from our 1 in 1 billionth chance of becoming victim to Yemeni terrorism – and continuing to funnel money away from struggling Americans for DARPA’s Vulture Program so we can have futuristic war robots – while the Soup Kitchen down the block is having another coat drive. Regardless of if you’re a fan of doing the impossible extermination of the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, Mujahideen and anyone wearing a burka, the war against “terror” has statistically been completely counterproductive to that goal. Several years ago there were only about 150 members of AQAP. After ongoing strikes from drones, tomahawk missiles and cluster bombs there are currently 1500 members. How can Obama sophists contend this is a “smart war” or a “war of attrition” when playing Whac-a-Mole on the bad guys is doubling their membership exponentially? The misguided War on Terror has been the most dim-witted battle since the domino theory days. It’s like a war on acne and the more you pick and squeeze the more depressing your pimple problem becomes. We torture Osama’s Egyptian friends, he blows up East African U.S embassies, we bomb anti-malarial drug producing pharmacies in Sudan and then act surprised when Al-Qaeda starts issuing “America Die” manifestos. Confucius once said “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.” Our target countries practices the same Code of Hammurabi as the rest of us – an eye for an eye and the Twin Towers die. Unfortunately, we’re not all as mature as Sweden who handled the 2010 Stockholm Bombings by simply stepping up their self-defense, which according to our Castle Laws, happens at home.
7) Because My Entire Life History is Stored on a Super Computer in Utah
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” ~ The Fourth Amendment
The majority of Obama’s loyal supporters have no clue that he’s ordered AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon to systematically turn over their customers’ personal correspondence. Somewhere near the Church of Latter Day Saints, there is a mega computer that has access to every single e-mail/text you’ve ever sent your friends, co-workers or weed dealer. Most simply brush it off as “Well I’m not planning a suicide bomb mission so who cares” but this invasion of privacy has very little to do with 72 Virgins. These correspondences have been handed over to NSA, FBI, CIA and every other government acronym who is now privy to any naked photo you’ve ever sent a lover, perhaps a note telling a friend you cheated on your taxes, psychiatric records that could deny you future government job opportunities and whether you have a library book check-out preference for J.D Salinger, Mark Twain or god forbid the Quran. The interesting detail about the Patriot Act’s “sneak and peak” clause is that it’s been used much more frequently to snag drug dealers than locate Jihadists. So back to those weed dealer correspondences…
8) Because I Hate Personality Cults
A few weekends ago, I was walking down Crenshaw Blvd. in South Central Los Angeles and noticed a woman selling candles with Obama’s face plastered on them, Virgin Mary style. I couldn’t help but think how eerily reminiscent it was to Kim ll-sung. The same lady selling Saint Obama candles also had some First Lady earrings for $5 a pop. I’ll pass. When Michelle’s new bangs conjure up more talk in the African-American community than the National Defense Authorization Act, it’s time to check the celebrity fan club. Personal brand narratives should be inconsequential when electing politicians and I would be embarrassed by any woman voting for Sarah Palin because her X chromosome genetic strain would provide role model status to young girls.
Obama has made war so acceptable to his loyal African-American supporters that when Lupe Fiasco argues otherwise in front of Hip-Hop crowds he’s booed off stage. Remember when anti-war songs were cool in the black community? We can never forget Bob Marley’s “War” or Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On.” Black people were right there in the front row waving their hands side to side. There was never a time where Renaldo “Obie” Benson of the Four Tops got booed off a stage when he asked why our government was sending kids overseas.” In one era, Muhammad Ali could proudly be remembered saying:

“No, I am not going 10,000 miles to help murder kill and burn other people to simply help continue the domination of white slave masters over dark people the world over. This is the day and age when such evil injustice must come to an end.”

Fast forward 50 years later to find the famed boxer saluting the first black president at inaugural soirees. Nowadays anyone who dares sell out by speaking up against Obama’s imperial violence, from Cornel West to Tavis Smiley, are immediately shunned by the same community that is rarely even referenced by their beloved president. This is the same community that once rallied in New York on April 4, 1967 with tearful eyes listening to Dr. King’s anti-Vietnam War speech, “A Time to Break Silence.”
Tragically, our president could bomb Uganda off the map and those who have created a fictive kinship with the first family would get more riled up if they found out Barack was cheating on Michelle with a white woman. There is something diabolical about a black man who refuses to speak on direct issues related to the black community from the Jim Crow neo-slavery prison industrial complex, police brutality, Troy Davis, Mumia Abu-Jamal and disproportionate black unemployment levels because his family’s melanin content alone is deemed sufficient. I guess you can’t expect much more from a president that admires Reagan, the man responsible for the iconic “black welfare queen.”
Cynthia McKinney calls Obama “the more effective of the two evils” perhaps because he can encourage extra judicial killings all too familiar to the African-American community and still win hearts by belting out a rendition of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together.” Unlike backing gay marriage for the LGBT community, birth control for Women and The Dream Act for Latinos, he doesn’t need to worry about offering one piece of legislation directly targeting African Americans because he knows he has that vote by design. He can woo Harlem fundraisers through vocal chords, then revert back to telling the black man uptown if he wants anything changed he should “take off his house slippers.” Malcolm X and Frederick Douglass would be so proud.
Jill Stein may not sing love songs from the 70′s, have a fashion savvy husband or chill with Oprah Winfrey, but legislation that directly affects me, my community and my sisters around the globe is far too important to vote for voyeurism over policy. I rather a white woman that fights on behalf of the black community, than a black man who has statistically paid less attention to race in Executive Orders and podium appearances, than John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Jimmy Carter.
*****
When you cast a ballot for either corporate binary it’s inevitable that you’re voting in the interests of Goldman Sachs, DynCorp, Exxon Mobil and Monsanto. As both Democrats and Republicans continue to loot the U.S Treasury to fund armed forces, expand indefinite detention to ordinary U.S. citizens, nonsensically send billions of our tax dollars to corrupt foreign governments while forcing the elderly to work cash registers at K-Mart clutching defibrillators, there will be alternatively only one party left to choose from.
Hillary won’t get my vote in 2016. I’m not riding the donkey anymore.