Anthropomorphic America

I've been pondering the power of that term "heartland." Since I was raised in Kansas -- a.k.a "The Heart of America" -- I like to agree that the national spirit resides in the middle of the map. But I detest the way the GOP and Fox News use this term "heartland" to infer that the conservative and backwards values of many of that State's residents somehow reflect the true national soul. Kansas has long been home to radicals and rebels too (think John Brown). And, besides, I believe if we are truly to discern the inner life of America, we need to look beyond simply the Heart of America. For a national self-inventory, we need a more complete approach to our national anatomy.

So let's consider the map of the REST of United States as if it were a human body.

Did you know our country is a dude? Clearly, this is not difficult to imagine, since we have a natural point of anatomical reference in the peninsula of Florida - it acts and looks like the national d*ck. And both the humid climate and libidinous culture there verify this phallic assignation. Why, within this concept, the Florida Keys could even be droplets of pee. Take that Cuba!

Moving up along the Eastern Coast, past the pubes of Georgia and the treasure trail of the Carolinas, we arrive at Washington, D.C., the belly button of America. Yes, the capitol is the national omphalos that we ponder and worry about. It's also the place where lint and other schmutz collects in the form of politicians. It needs to be cleaned out periodically or it becomes infected. Hopefully we will clean out our national navel in 2006, with that giant Q-Tip known as the election.

Pennsylvania - you're the nation's brawny chest -- the proud home of the Declaration of Independence. Philly and Pittsburg are the nipples.

Further on up the American torso, we arrive at New York. Did you know that the "Big Apple" is also the nation's Adam's Apple, throat and mouth? It is from here that our national voice is projected -- where the nation's media outlets are headquartered and where, with all that talking, our business deals are struck. Naturally, all New Yorkers are Big Mouths.

On 9/11, our two front teeth were knocked out.

Farther north, we have Boston and New England. With the concentration of colleges here, including most of the Ivy League, it's simple to see that this region is the nation's brain. This is also the site of the Pilgrims and first American colonies, and therefore the origin of our national consciousness, or ego. Notice how the brains behind the American experiment always vote Democratic?

Let's go west now. Since Chicago bills itself as "The City of Big Shoulders" it's not a stretch to call this city, along with the surrounding rust belt of Midwestern states like Ohio and Michigan, the broad back of the nation. Once the proud home to American manufacturing, our shoulders slump now, a bit defeated.

More westerly still, we have the Dakotas and Montana - our national lungs where windy wide-open plains and open spaces allow us to breathe deeply and relax.

As was stated, Kansas is the Heart of America.

Then we hit the Rocky Mountain region - the spine of the United States, where rugged individualism rules the culture. High peaks, like so many vertebrae, line up vertically, north to south. Without this mountain chain, the nation would have appalling posture! We'd look like some hunched-over country prone to invasion and takeover, like Somalia, but way, way bigger.

Out West -Look! America has a huge fat ass, of course - and it's called California. It's warm and cushy and full of mudslides. San Francisco can be the tailbone.

That makes Los Angeles the national anus. It is from L.A. after all that American culture is digested and expelled out in the form of crappy television and movies and music. It is our national assh*le that produced Gigli, Ace Venutra II: When Nature Calls and Judge Dredd. Need I say more?

In fact, assholes are everywhere in L.A., looking to make it big in the motion picture industry, so that they can produce yet more crap.

Let's continue our tour of the nation's nether regions -- Arizona and New Mexico being the national taint. Of course, with the presence here of the vagina-like Grand Canyon, there is an argument to be made that the United States is some sort of freaky hermaphrodite. Eeewww!

That makes Texas and Louisiana the American balls. I feel this is so because it is from Texas, the left ball, that we derive that disastrous machismo, like so much testosterone, that has led us into wars and overconfidence. This is where Bush comes from, after all. But also LBJ, who started Vietnam.

Louisiana, and New Orleans specifically, is the other family jewel. It is the libidinous, humid source of our national sex drive - and the red-light source of jazz music and good times rolling. It is our better ball.

Let's face it: by this important anatomical analysis, Hurricane Katrina was a kick to the national nuts.

Lastly, let me assert that Canada is America's hat and Mexico is some kind of prosthetic leg - I haven't quite figured it out. South America is a clubbed foot of enormous proportion. We should see a doctor about it.

So, fellow progressive Americans, whether you live in the American headland, heartland, spineland, mouthland or taintland, let's not let the Republicans monopolize the rhetorical possibilities of Anthropomorphic America.

He/she/it is ours to claim and promote as well!

The Incredible Shrinking Freedom Tower

Democrats should be on this like white on rice ...

The head of the Port Authority hinted yesterday that the planned 1,776-foot Freedom Tower will be scaled back if enough government tenants don't commit to moving in.

[...]
"If those resources are not sufficient to build it, then obviously our commitment to build it has to be modified," Coscia said.

He added, "The only thing the Port Authority has not committed to doing is spending whatever it takes to build the Freedom Tower."

In response to the attacks of 9/11/01 the Republican leadership has launched two wars and stripped away Americans' civil liberties such as due process, probable cause, habeas corpus, whistleblower protection, freedom to assemble, freedom of the press and freedom of speech.

But there's still just a gaping hole in the ground at the World Trade Center site, almost five years after the attack that brought down those massive towers.

Plans for a 1,776-foot-tall "Freedom Tower" have been drawn up and redrawn many times. The reasons for the redesigns first centered on architectural and political rivalries.

When a butt ugly compromise of a tower was finally unveiled, the NYPD took one look at the plans, which involved situating the tower mere yards from the heavily trafficked West St., and declared the tower would be a perilous security risk.

That's right, the Republican powers that be in New York (Pataki/Bloomberg) came up with a dainty, unprotected building with glass facades and hoped to build it within 10 feet of a busy road - a truck bomber's dream. This, for a structure that will surely top the al Qaeda's target list if it is ever built.

A tougher tower was designed. It was even slightly less heinous looking. On Monday, at last blasting began at Ground Zero as workers prepared the foundation of that tower.

But on Tuesday came word from Coscia that nobody, not even the United States government, wanted to lease space there. Therefore, the project could be scaled back into something smaller, something less symbolic, something less than was promised ....

It seems almost as if the Freedom Tower is shrinking at the same rate as our Freedom as Americans.

I really hope Democrats can summon the gumption to hold press conferences in front of the hole in the ground that Ground Zero will of course still be later this year and in 2008. What a symbol of the GOP's failure!

Same goes for unprotected chemical plants, unsafe ports and nuclear facilities and wide open borders to the north and south.  Let's have photo-ops at those places. The GOP is weak on security and strong on starting needless wars waged on falsehood. Let's make it clear.

As a resident of New York, where the GOP/Feds refuse to spend the equivalent of one day's cost of the Iraq War for our annual security budget, I think it's time for real security. In the subway, you cannot understand the PA announcements. On the streets, you cannot find a cop.

And at Ground Zero, you cannot find a Freedom Tower.

Marine Pens "Funny" Song About Killing Iraqi Family

We're creating monsters in Iraq. Or, perhaps we raised them here and sent them there. According to Stars and Stripes ...

A Marine Corps corporal seen in a video singing about killing members of an Iraqi family says the song was only a joke and not tied in any way to allegations that Marines killed as many as two dozen unarmed civilians in Haditha last year.

This Marine's song is called "Hadji Girl." First off, my brother served in Afghanistan with the 10th Mountain Division, so I'm aware that the term "Hadji," used by U.S. military personnel in-theater to describe any Muslim, is totally racist. It's the equivalent of the term "gook" used in Vietnam.

The song tells the story of a Marine who falls in love with an Iraqi girl and is taken to meet her family. The girl's family shoots her and then attacks the Marine, who uses her younger sister as a shield and watches blood spray from her head.

He then sings about blowing the father and brother "to eternity."

After Haditha and Abu Ghraib and that recent re-education on morals and values given to our troops in Iraq, one would hope that our soldiers could refrain from taking such celebratory pleasure in killing and humiliating Iraqis.

But not only did this Marine think that the killing of an Iraqi family was a great topic for commemoration in song, his Marine buddies loved the tune and "pushed him on stage with his guitar. Someone taped the performance and posted it on the Internet."

Great! So rather than shaming this Marine or telling him to get counseling, the songwriter is celebrated and encouraged by his fellow Marines. Can you imagine a high school senior performing such a song in a music class or a talent show? He would be suspended or expelled and the police would be called in fear of a Columbine-style attack! But in the U.S. military, such song craft is hailed and promoted. That's the way to win Iraqi hearts and minds, guys!

The one cosolation may be that the Marine seems contrite, now that he is under investigation, or under the glare of the media, or outed as someone who celebrates the death of "Hadjis."

"I will never perform this song again, and I will remove all video and text in relation to this that I have control of," said Belile, 23, who is assigned to the Marine Light/Attack Helicopter Squadron 167 based at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point.

He's only 23, so maybe this was a byproduct of immaturity under stress and exposed to questionable American military values.

Let's hope we never have to hear this song. Let's hope there men and women of goodwill left in our military after this Iraq War ends in, what ... ten years, fifteen years? And let's hope Iraqis can forgive us someday, for our invasion and "Shock and Awe," for allowing the looting, for our torturing, for our indiscriminate killing, for the white phosphorous, for Haditha and for this Marine's song and the mindset in our military that found it enjoyable.

Notes on Protective Headgear

Pennsylvania's stupid law that does not require motorcycle riders to wear helmets very likely today cost the Super Bowl-champion Pittsburg Steelers their star quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, who was riding his hog without head protection and was involved in a wreck. What a dumb way to loose your career, if not your life. In fact, Ben Roethlisberger had been warned about the dangers ...

Asked why he doesn't wear a helmet -- something he wouldn't think about doing on a football field -- Roethlisberger pointed out Pennsylvania's 35-year-old state law requiring helmets to be worn was amended two years ago.

"Obviously Pennsylvania doesn't think people need to (wear a helmet)," he said. "There's a law you've got to wear it in football."

I've always been on the fence about motorcycles. On the one hand, they're obnoxiously loud and the people who ride them often have a Cowboy Complex whereby they don't feel good unless they are ripping by you at 100+ m.p.h. or revving their hog in the middle of the night outside your house.

On the other hand, motorcycles get pretty great mileage, so they're much less evil than, say, cars or SUVs despite their annoying quality.

But common sense dictates you should wear a helmet at a minimum when out riding, just as you should wear your seatbelt in a car. Now, I realize bikers are busy lobbying state legislatures to revoke helmet laws in the name of personal freedom. After all, who wants Big Government (unless you live in New Orleans)? But often laws are on the books for good reason: You should wear your helmet on motorcycle; you should not drink and drive; you should not possess fully automatic weaponry; you should not possess heroin; you should have to support your kids financially.

Maybe, now, Pennsylvania will reevaluate the price of so-called personal freedom. Or at least maybe the Steelers will reevaluate how they structure their contracts...

Many NFL contracts prohibit engaging in dangerous activities, but Roethlisberger's deal apparently doesn't specifically ban motorcycle riding.

[Steelers coach] Cowher didn't criticize Roethlisberger's riding, but is visibly uneasy with it.

"I certainly don't condone that," Cowher said. "It (playing pro football) is a very small time in your life and you've got to be very careful -- you can see it documented with Kellen Winslow in Cleveland. There are choices and consequences ... not just in riding motorcycles, but where you go and who you associate with. You have control over them but once you make your decision, they control you."

What I Learned from Tank Man and the Heroes of Tiananmen

It was 17 years ago today, June 4, that armed forces of the People's Republic of China rolled into Tiananmen Square and opened fire upon thousands of student protestors, who had audaciously constructed a paper-mache replica of the Statue of Liberty in the center of square.

It was the formative political moment of my life - I was 19 years old, living in Massachusetts, taking summer classes. I remember the pride I felt as an American when the committed young college students - most of whom were my age then - put up Lady Liberty as their symbol of democratic unity, and to honor our Ideals (the ones enshrined in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution).

I remember more vividly the horror I felt seeing those tanks roll into the nighttime square on video, the crackle of gunfire everywhere, the shaky images of student running while holding lifeless bodies, the grotesquerie of dead kids on the ground, reminiscent of a large scale Kent State (which I had learned about as a kid from my mother, who was once a hippie anti-Vietnam protestor).

Most clearly from that June 4 summer I remember, with his shopping bags full of courage, facing down a menacing column of Chinese tanks. Refusing Death's intimidation, unaware his resolve was to be broadcast around the world - a symbol of Democracy as inextinguishable as the Statue of Liberty's torch.

According to Wikipedia the attack by the Government upon these students and intellectuals left "between 400 and 800 civilians dead, and between 7,000 and 10,000 injured. An initial report from local hospitals put the number at around 2,000 dead."

I remember the shock I felt watching a government oppress its own citizenry like that, and the gratitude I felt to be and American where, even though George H.W. Bush was president, our leadership would never intimidate or attack its own people to preserve its own power.

Then, after early condemnations of the attack from the Bush I administration, I recall that Brent Scowcroft was sent to secretly deal with Deng and open diplomatic channels for the normalization of trade relations between the U.S. and China. I remember hearing the argument that we could affect democracy in China through trade and business contact.

But I was shocked we would want to do business with dictators whose actions went against their peoples' best interest. If we the United States, the planet's richest and freest country, could not afford to boycott killers and repressors of Democracy, what country in the world could?

Next, as the Chinese Democracy Movement, or "June 4 Movement," was squelched, with its leaders and participants either executed, put into prisons or deported, and their supporters purged from government and the media, I remember Bill Clinton campaigning against Bush I and his business-as-usual policy towards the Chinese Communist Leadership.

I supported Bill Clinton as a volunteer, worked at Madison Square Garden during the 1992 Democratic National Convention, and then voted for the man. I even attended his Inauguration and stood with the crowds in the freezing cold.

It must have been just weeks after taking office that Clinton reversed himself, in a total betrayal of his campaign rhetoric, and announced he supported Most Favored Nation (MFN) status for the People's Republic of China. Right then and there, I knew Clinton had sold me out, since China was my most important issue.

Clinton offered the same reasoning: our business ties to China would enable more Democracy in China. We'd influence them to be more like us.

But those dead Chinese kids in the Square were my age!

Next, I remember a decade of U.S. manufacturing jobs going to China. Jobs that here offered high salary, vacations, health care, a pension, went to China and became subsistence wage jobs carried out in sweatshops and conditions that would make the most callus Gilded Age Robber Barron blush.

U.S. companies lead by the Gap and Nike and today by Wal-Mart were only too happy to exploit the advantages of Chinese Police State. (I would only learn later that Hillary Clinton had been on the Wal-Mart Board of Directors for an extended time during that evil company's most spectacular growth period).

Meantime, our manufacturing base was depleted while our political fortunes -- and our Democratic heritage -- went into steep decline as the tech-obsessed, sex-scandal ridden Clinton Years ended and, in 2001 We the People were saddled with George W. Bush.

Next came September 11, 2001.

Under Bush, we've abandoned whole sections of the U.S. Constitution, like those regarding checks and balances, due process and the rule of law, and ignored the Rights given to the People under the First and Fourth Amendments. We've invaded countries without an honest cause; established a worldwide archipelago of secret prisons; tortured and kidnapped so-called "Enemy Combatants;" declared U.S. citizens "Enemy Combatants;" wiretapped the American citizenry; and have accepted the niceties of the "Free Speech Zone" and an elitist government that conducts the People's business in secret. Oh yeah, and we quietly accepted fixed elections in 2000 and 2004.

In China, our Internet corporations actively work with the authorities to censor and suppress dissident thought. They will do the same here, I bet. In China, they have a press that is indistinguishable from state propaganda. Here, in the United States, the mainstream press reads more and more like it was scrubbed by Karl Rove.

It seems to me that through trade and through acceptance of our political differences, we've become more like China that China has become like the U.S.

We're more like the repressive police state that killed it's own people on June 4, 1989, than China is like the democracy we were on that same date. It's not hard at all to imagine this Government or its successor killing American democracy protestors in some great city square.

Who knows what Bush and Bloomberg and the NYPD would have done if thousands of protestors at the 2004 GOP convention had defied them and gathered upon Central Park's Great Lawn?

What's worse: we have a lack of Tank Men in the United States.

There was Cindy Sheehan down in Crawford. There's Russ Feingold in the Senate (the only one to vote against the Patriot Act in 2001). There was that "Go F**k yourself, Mr. Cheney!" guy on the Gulf Coast. There was Steven Colbert at the White House Correspondent's dinner.

But we need more. We need many, many more Tank Men. How dow we find them? From where do they come? New Orleans? Iraq's killing fields? From among the 9/11 families? I don't know.

Let's all mourn for those killed and maimed this day Seventeen Years ago. Let's mourn for the dead and fight for the living in China, in the United States, and everywhere. Friends, we have common cause.

And let's pray for more Tank Men.

They Know Where You Surfed the 'Net Last Summer!

This N.Y. Times story blew me away this morning, and I've seen no mention online, so here goes...

The Justice Department is asking Internet companies to keep records on the Web-surfing activities of their customers to aid law enforcement, and may propose legislation to force them to do so.

The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Robert S. Mueller III, and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales held a meeting in Washington last Friday where they offered a general proposal on record-keeping to a group of senior executives ... from America Online, Microsoft, Google, Verizon and Comcast.

Apparently, Gonzales kicked off this confab by showing a bunch of child porn to the assembled Internet execs! Only in Bush's America!

Yes, indeed, to set the mood, the man behind the torture memo wanted to show these corporate reps that if they were anti-spying, they were pro-child-porn. What better way to make this captive audience squirm than by a display of illegal child porn? ("A Clockwork Orange" comes to mind, doesn't it?):

 An executive of one Internet provider that was represented at the first meeting said Mr. Gonzales began the discussion by showing slides of child pornography from the Internet. But later, one participant asked Mr. Mueller why he was interested in the Internet records. The executive said Mr. Mueller's reply was, "We want this for terrorism."

Hmmm...a shifting rationale for spying on Americans, whom the Justice Dept. seemingly thinks of as a collection of pedophile terrorists. Maybe that's why they don't count our votes in national elections, at least not the ones cast for Democrats.

Anyway, what records do Gonzales and Mueller want to keep on Americans?

While initial proposals were vague, executives from companies that attended the meeting said they gathered that the department was interested in records that would allow them to identify which individuals visited certain Web sites and possibly conducted searches using certain terms.

It also wants the Internet companies to retain records about whom their users exchange e-mail with, but not the contents of e-mail messages, the executives said. The executives spoke on the condition that they not be identified because they did not want to offend the Justice Department.

Get that? They want a record of your surfing history (don't bother clearing it on your browser), terms you've searched on search engines and your e-mails. I wonder if Microsoft has a way of recording what you write in MS Word docs, or on Excel spreadsheets, because I'm sure that stuff must not fall under the Fourth Amendment protections against unwarranted searches.

One civil libertarian attended the meeting, incredible as it may sound. His take on this sh*t?

They also talked of their value in investigating other crimes like intellectual property theft and fraud, said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, who attended the session.

"It was clear that they would go beyond kiddie porn and terrorism and use it for general law enforcement," Mr. Rotenberg said.

[...]

"This is a sharp departure from current practice," he said. "Data retention is an open-ended obligation to retain all information on all customers for all purposes, and from a traditional Fourth Amendment perspective, that really turns things upside down."

Friends, Rotenberg's group EPIC has a web page full of good tools for maintaining your electronic privacy. If you haven't considered the need for surfing with a cloak or some privacy protection (ditto for e-mails) this diary should be your wake up call.  

Here's the EPIC page of privacy tools.

To bad we need to worry about this stuff. The U.S. Constitution is dead! Long live the Constitution!

POLL: Bush is the worst president ever! Mission Accomplished!

Spying, lying Bush kicked Nixon's lying, bigoted ass in this ranking. Bravo, King George!

Strong Democratic sentiment pushes President George W. Bush to the top of the list when American voters pick the worst U.S. President in the last 61 years. Bush is named by 34 percent of voters, followed by Richard Nixon at 17 percent and Bill Clinton at 16 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released today. Leading the list for best President since 1945 is Ronald Reagan with 28 percent, and Clinton with 25 percent.

President Bush is ranked worst by 56 percent of Democrats, 35 percent of independent voters and 7 percent of Republicans, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds. Best ranking for Reagan comes from 56 percent of Republicans, 7 percent of Democrats and 25 percent of independent voters. Among American voters 18 - 29 years old, Clinton leads the "best" list with 40 percent.

Okay, it's settled. Here is the poll.

It's sort of interesting that Reagan tops Kennedy and, gosh, I suppose Truman too. (Truman should have never dopped the Big One on the Japanese without at least showing them an A-bomb test).

But "worst prez ever" Bush is the logical extention of "best prez" Ronnie's trickle down Reganomics and cultural values. I guess the big dif between them is that Reagan was "The Great Communicator" while Bush is A BIG LIAR. Personally, I'd give my props to FDR, but he's beyong the 61 year limit.

And, by the way, look at how pathetic Dubya's support is:

The main reasons cited by American voters who approve of Bush are that he is a strong leader who does what he thinks is right - 18 percent; and that he is doing a good job handling terrorism - 15 percent.

All in all, I'd say we don't have to wait for history to judge the Bush Admin. (although historians will surely tear him to smithereens) -- the American people have already spoken! And, for my part, I agree.