I find myself very depressed this Veteran's Day for so many reasons. I didn't go to a parade or eat BBQ with fellow military veterans. This weekend was spent alone, at home, not speaking to anyone in person. I'm just too angry and depressed to be in polite company making small talk. And knowing myself well enough to know that I have an argumentative and sarcastic nature, I don't want to be "that guy," who is the social buzz kill for those who prefer to enjoy Veteran's Day like little kids who believe that the Easter Bunny has hidden a treat for them to find on the White House lawn. Some veterans need that Neverland to simply cope with the conflicting surreality raging in their minds between their belief in duty, honor and country and being frontline chum in the war machine of corporate interests.
While my personal situation certainly is a part of my unhappiness with how military veterans have been treated in the United States, I honestly don't feel comfortable detailing my personal situation or whining about it in a public forum. Certainly, there are literally millions of fellow veterans far worse off than I am. I'm grateful for many positive things in my life which have mitigated the severity of my woes, none of which has anything to do with being a veteran.
Since I do often write about U.S. politics and foreign policy, those are the areas where my complaints will be primarily laid.
So-called War on Terror
When the Berlin wall fell, the neocons within the Washington D.C. establishment of government, politics, defense, state, think-tank and lobbying organizations licked their chops for their version of America Superpower 2.0. It's not a secret conspiracy. It's been out in the open for many years. Infotainment media might have had a role in distracting middle America from the machinations of powerbrokers struggling in our nation's capitol, but one can't blame the inanimate shiny keys when the citizenry is fixated on Paris Hilton. Citizens have responsibilities as well as rights in a representative republic.
One of those responsibilities is to vote. Many of you simply suck for your slackerness. You think it's cool to be a slacker? You are exactly the bored, uninvolved type of person that facist regimes around the world and throughout time have exploited. Thanks for nothing, assholes.
If you think politics is boring, try some Orwellian prison time. We can build a border wall around the United States and you can live in that federally monitered society, like East Berlin, and you can wave the party flag and pray to your Lord Jesus that your son or daughter, niece or nephew, won't be drafted when the next war for oil with Iran, or Venezuela, or Nigeria happens. Good luck with that plan.
Right now, 2007 was the deadliest year for military personnel serving in Iraq.
Right now, 2007 was the deadliest year for military serving in Afghanistan.
Right now, your local TV news probably doesn't even air any news about Iraq.
Right now, you think everthing is just fine and dandy.
Right now, only 1 percent of the citizens of the U.S. are active military.
Right now, you're probably thinking about ways not to think about this reality.
That's why I stayed home and hunkered down. I'm burdened with the knowledge of the facts and it screams to blow away the mythology of the ignorantly blissful and patriotic around me.
"Several years ago, I was the Lead Animator of Matrix Reloaded. It was a great job, but it wasn't my dream job. I wanted to make my own feature film. So I quit to pursue my dream.
For the past 4 years, I've been working at my computer 14 hours a day, 7 days a week. I've spent my entire life savings and maxed out credit cards. After all this time and effort, my movie is almost done. I present to you a preview of my feature film directorial debut... Killer Bean Forever."
— Jeff Lew, Director
You know how I like independent films! This animated film looks pretty damn cool. I can't wait for it to be finished. I can't imagine rendering all those CG frames at home for a feature length film. .
Do check out the Killer Bean Forever website for news about the upcoming release. Lew also has some interesting information about animation, too.
I did get to finally go to theater and see "30 Days of Night." It was quite shocking on the big screen. Living in Florida, though, the cold of Barrow, Alaska scared me much more than did the pesky vampires. I felt that sense of dread from the bitter cold that I used to feel during Michigan winters. It's a good horror flick.
It seems the Democratic party leadership was caught flat-footed. The Republicans decided that to debate H.R. 333 on the floor of the House might serve to embarrass the Democrats, so they supported the resolution in parliamentary votes.
Immediately following Kucinich reading his Cheney impeachment resolution, Democratic majority leader Steny Hoyer made a motion to table (kill) H.R. 333. Normally a 15 minute vote, the vote tally was kept open for an hour. Despite this, and because of the support of Republicans and the anti-war caucus, Hoyer's motion to kill H.R. 333 failed. Hoyer then made a motion to refer H.R. 333 to the House Judiciary Committee. This motion passed. Being referred to committee meant that no open floor debate on the merits of impeaching Vice President Cheney could be held or heard today.
It's been widely reported that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was quoted as saying, "Impeachment is off the table." It is also known that House Judiciary Committee Chairman, John Conyers, told anti-war Code Pink activists that winning the 2008 election was more important than dividing the Democratic party over the issue of impeachment or the Iraq occupation.
This is about the Constitution
One could say both Republican and Democratic party members are playing politics. However, when asked specifically how the introduction of H.R. 333 might benefit his presidential campaign, Kucinich stated flatly, "I introduced this resolution six months ago. This isn't about my campaign. This is about the Constitution. This is about the rule of law."
I applaud Kucinich for bringing his Cheney impeachment resolution to the House of Representatives today. I think that many Americans believe that Bush and Cheney have most certainly committed acts worthy of impeachment far greater than even presidents Nixon or Clinton.
And honestly, I think both political parties are acting very cynically with respect to their political strategies. I think that many people are not happy that the result of the 2006 election that simply put the Democratic party in power only to see the party lose their spine in opposition to the Bush administration. If the Republicans think that impeaching Cheney would somehow be embarrassing to Democrats, perhaps it is a cynical strategy that supposes that the American people don't care about the rule of law or their U.S. Constitution. GOP leadership could be misunderestimating again.
Why impeach Cheney?
Kucinich lays out the reasons quite plainly. You can and should read the text of Kucinich's speech here. Supporting documentation is here.
In a nutshell, Kucinich's resolution to impeach Cheney has three articles.
1. Cheney "has purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States by fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify the use of the United States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq ..."
2. Cheney "purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States about an alleged relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda in order to justify the use of the United States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq ..."
3. Cheney "has openly threatened aggression against the Republic of Iran absent any real threat to the United States, and done so with the United States proven capability to carry out such threats ..."
According to USA Today, the Writers Guild of America has gone on strike today. The 14,000 member union of writers is responsible for creating the content of most of the entertainment industry's production of television shows and films.
Negotiations apparently broke down over the issue of new media compensation -- a few pennies per internet download or DVD sale.
The last time that the Writers Guild of America went on strike was in 1988. The strike lasted almost six months and devastated many small businesses in the entertainment industry. All of those hundreds of people you see listed in the end credits of a film are negatively affected by the WGA strike.
"This is ultimately about money, but it's also about respecting writers as the primary creative artists who create content that earns billions of dollars for these companies," says Lost executive producer Carlton Cuse, a member of the guild's negotiating committee.
When Carlton Cuse says billions of dollars, he's not exaggerating. A handful of mega corporations are raking in billions in profits each year from their media holdings. For your information, here are the companies and their 2006 profits:
The mega corporations own radio, TV, movie, internet, print and other holdings. General Electric could literally be called the engine of the U.S. war machine as they actually build the engines for most of the combat aircraft and the Abrams tank.
Unhealthy Democracy
When only a handful of companies own the media you consume, you have very little choice. When the government allows media to consolidate even further, gobbling up smaller independent companies and each other, it moves media toward a monopolistic capitalist version of a dictatorial state-run model.
A society without independent news is not a healthy democracy. We already know that the Bush administration's illegal wiretapping was facilitated by the large communications companies. We already know that the news media failed us and acted as propaganda entities before the Iraq war. We can see now how they don't challenge and simply supportingly parrot the Bush administration's continual drumbeat for war with Iran.
We already know Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez shut down opposition media in his country to further consolidate power and kill any dissent. This weekend, the Musharraf regime in Pakistan shut down all television media except state-run television in order to kill any dissent for his state of emergency, which is simply a political coup. How hard do you think it would be for the Bush administration (or any administration) to make a handful of phone calls and control the content, or shut down U.S. media in a so-called state of emergency here in the United States?
You Can Fight Back!
This is not conspiracy theory to people who follow the machinations of those in power. Corporations just want to make more money. Government officials always want to help support the growth of the economy. However, when profit is the sole motive, other cherished values of our society are the victims.
Truth is the first casualty. Individual liberty is easily compromised. People in power want to stay in power. Political dissent gets a jackboot to the head. Technological innovation is stagnated without the venture capital for researching and developing new ideas.
The Federal Communications Commmission (FCC) -- which sets the rules and regulations for media in the United States -- is about to hold the last public meeting in Seattle, Washington on November 9th to take public comment concerning the further consolidation of our media (PDF). Anyone that can, should attend, and voice your opposition to the Bush administration proposal to allow big media companies to further consolidate in our country.
