Excerpt: Obama's plans to extend the Afghanistan War with a big surge, and to leisurely end the Iraq occupation while maintaining US hegemony over the rest of the world using military power are ridiculous. We are nearing national bankruptcy and every 100 billion wasted abroad means that the day Americans are storming the barricades behind which politicians are cowering is just that much closer ...
Excerpt: A Carbon County, PA inmate was feared to have a heart attack and was flown by helicopter
to Lehigh Valley Hospital in Allentown. He turned out to have had seizures and the bill
to the county, after a 60% reduction, was almost $44,000. Commissioner Charles Getz said
the county should be able to attach the costs to inmates ''so they follow them for the
rest of their lives.'' ... Excuse me, Charlie, but this is just the type of mentality that is so common among
politicians towards prisoners. ...
Excerpt: Everyone in the same boat as the Gazans, who have lived in fear of such an assault and are quite possibly next on the hit parade, are eerily silent on the media front. More disturbing than the lack of emotion or action on the part of the Western world is the sudden silence and stillness of the Middle East, the people most directly affected.
Excerpt: This looks like an ominous pattern with the disastrous young Obama presidency: he has appointed a cadre of bumbling apparatchiks to surround him. Supposedly he wants to surround himself with a diversity of opinions, but from what I have seen he has a room full of clowns and doofuses.
Jan. 12, 2009 Losing hope by Chris D., Unknown News
Excerpt: I used to believe that people could pull together and change the course of the world, it was a matter of opening their eyes, taking responsibility, and realizing their own power. The longer I live, the more I have my doubts about humanity, and about just how much longer I'll live to continue doubting.
Excerpt: If I were in Obama's place I'd have some pretty draconian plans in mind for reining in Israel over the long term. But the best way to do that would require first having the American public overwhelmingly behind me...
We believe in liberty and justice for all, so of course, we oppose many US government policies. This doesn't mean we're anti-American, redneck scum, pinko commies, militia members, or terrorist-sympathizers. It means we believe in freedom, as more than merely a cliché.
We believe you have the right to live your own life as you choose, and others have the equal right to live their lives as they choose. It's not complicated.
We believe freedom leads to peace, progress, and prosperity, while its opposite -- oppression -- leads to war, terrorism, poverty, and misery.
We believe it's preposterously stupid to hate people because of their appearance, their race or nationality, their religion or lack of religion, how they have sex with other consenting adults, etc. There are far more apropos reasons to hate most people.
We believe in questioning ourselves, our assumptions, each other -- and we especially believe in questioning authority (the more authority, the more questions). We believe obedience is a fine quality in dogs and young children, but not in adults.
Like America's right-wingers, we believe in
individual responsibility,
hard work to get ahead,
and stern punishment for serious crimes.
We believe big government should not be blindly trusted.
But unlike most right-wing leaders, we mean it.
Like America's left-wingers, we believe in
equal treatment under law,
war as a last (not first) resort,
and sensible stewardship of natural resources.
We believe big business should not be blindly trusted.
But unlike most left-wing leaders, we mean it.
Like libertarians, we believe it's wrong and reprehensible to arrest people for what they think, believe, look like, wear, eat, smoke, drink, inhale, inject, or otherwise do to themselves.
But unlike many libertarians, we're not obsessed with the gold standard, we don't believe incorporation is humanity's highest achievement, and we don't believe everything in life comes down to dollars and cents. We've read and enjoyed Ayn Rand's novels, but we understand that they're works of fiction.
We're skeptical, and we're sick of so-called 'journalists' who aren't skeptical at all.
A reader asks, what are our solutions? We propose no solutions except common sense, which is never common. We like the principles of democracy, and the ideals broadly described as 'American'. The US Constitution is a fine and workable framework for solutions, when it's actually read and thoughtfully understood by intelligent statesmen and women. So, no manifestos from us. We don't dream that big, and if there's one thing the world doesn't need it's yet another manifesto.
Our suggestion is: think. A fact-based instead of faith-based approach leads to solutions for most of the recurring issues of our time, from abortion to global climate change, pollution to universal health care, careful but real regulation of industry and economy, hunger, war, terror, human rights for humans not for corporations, science not religious doctrine in public schools, equal protection and prosecution under law, etc. Approach problems without glorifying stupidity, without demonizing intelligence, and answers usually come into focus.
These pages are published by Harry and Helen Highwater, happily married low-income nom de plumes and rabble-rousers from Madison, Wisconsin (with a few friends scattered around the world helping out).
We try to spotlight news that hasn't gotten enough (or appropriate) attention in American media, along with our opinions and yours.
We bang our keyboards against the wall, because it doesn't hurt as much as banging our heads.
