A bit late, as usual, I finally got around to watching some of the “Winter Soldier” hearings, testimony by anti-war Iraq veterans about their war-time and post-war experiences. For the unlettered, the hearings were conducted by Iraq Veterans Against the War and mimic the eponymous hearings of yesteryear held by Vietnam veterans. As expected, the testimony is sometimes nauseating and sometimes heartbreaking, and quite often insightful. The sort of thing you should show to your mom. Check it out, if you have ten minutes to spare.
Governments throughout history have been tools of oppression; they need not be.
A large part of the reason for my new-found Mike Gravel fanhood is his National Initiative, a piece of legislation/Constitutional amendment he has been promoting for several years. In his own words, the problem with representative democracy:
We’re accustomed to thinking that, when we go to the polls on election day, that we’re exercising our power. Really, what we’re doing is we’re giving our power away, and giving it to politicians who have manipulated the electoral process; and then, once they get in office, they obviously - dictates of human nature require that they will put their interests before the public interest. That’s the way representative government works.
This gives me paroxysms of joy to hear. Yes! finally, someone who actually believes in democracy!
Gravel proposes changes allowing a national initiative process, whereby people can vote directly on federal laws. The details can be read here, if you’re curious. I’m sure there’s room for improvement (for example I’m dubious of the use of public opinion polling as part of the qualification process), but at first pass it seems well-organized and attempts to address some of the major pitfalls of state-level ballot initiatives. Read the section titled “A Strong Deliberative Process” and you will hopefully get a warm, happy feeling in the pit of your stomach.
An interesting twist, as Gravel acknowledges, is that Congress is unlikely to enact legislation which directly undermines its power. To answer that, Gravel proposes that the people vote directly on the issue of creating the initiative (as organized by his non-profit company Philadelphia II, where you can, in fact, start the first part of approving the initiative right now). Would it fly? Who knows? But it’s certainly worth trying, and I think if it did NOT fly, despite approval by a majority of the electorate, it would be quite revealing enough to shake the foundations of this country.
Finally, here’s Gravel himself on the subject. If you don’t already know, you can get your fill of Gravel on YouTube - he posts Q&As with random questions from folks on a regular basis. Golden.
Here’s some video of old white guys doing the right thing.
The first you’ve probably seen, of Republican mayor Jerry Sanders of San Diego coming out in support of gay marriage. If you haven’t, you MUST watch it. You might even cry.
The next is a composite of Old Man Winter Mike Gravel’s tidbits from the last debate. Gravel is a crazy old man, to be sure, but goddamn, he is so right. Even about how angry he is.
Doomu went to the trouble of translating a “message in a bottle” from Le Monolecte, in La France, to the people of Iran, expressing the sentiment that we are not our governments, that “these conflicts they are trying to seed in our minds are not our conflicts.” The least I can do, I think, is help it along on its way. Possibly this is the wrong direction to reach Iran from France, but long journeys are strange ones.
I’m stealing this from Bob Harris, because it is awesome and makes my soul sing. The female newscaster (the hero of this piece) is Mika Brzezinski, daughter of Zbig. The cocksucker next to her is Joe Scarborough, MSNBC’s conservative commentator and former House Representative.
My god, there really are human beings out there. Fuckin’ A.
Apparently, one of the leaders of the Oglala Sioux tribe in South Dakota has decided she’s not going to put up with this “banning abortion” shit. She says, “I will personally establish a Planned Parenthood clinic on my own land which is within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Reservation where the State of South Dakota has absolutely no jurisdiction.”
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