Third World Countries : The United States Of America

The real and present danger to the United States of America.


"Montoya's short life story is the unsung tale of America's crumbling infrastructure—bridges, roads, drinking water, sewage lines, and the list goes on. Essentially, everything we rely on to move through our daily lives, and never stop to consider—until it breaks down.

  

In the next five years, the American Society of Civil Engineers http://www.asce.org/ estimates that the United States will have to spend more than one trillion dollars simply to sustain what we already have."


"We were parked outside his trailer in a rented white SUV. Around us in the darkness: a broken baby carriage, a rattletrap Volvo sedan, an anonymous pile of junk littered on the bare ground. I've seen this kind of chaos in refugee camps in Eastern Congo and gypsy settlements in Rome, but not in America."


"School is essentially a cluster of 27 portables sitting on a gravel lot in a neighborhood of downtown Albuquerque known as the "International District." Inside the chain link fence, the students had planted a small garden of tomatoes and healing herbs they were learning about. A larger garden had just been razed to make room for a larger trailer. There was a charred stump left where once the kids had made a painted pole for ceremonies. One night, it simply vanished—cut down either by vandals or by cold neighbors who could have chopped it up for firewood.

This site is supposed to be temporary. And Bobroff has raised $12.6 million dollars to break ground on the site where her school is supposed to be standing. Yet, due largely to red tape, construction has yet to begin. So her students are stuck in portables. For obvious reasons, winter poses a particular challenge.

For these students, who are used to feeling like second-class citizens, going to school in portables is demoralizing. What makes it worse is that their portables are parked next door to a neighboring public school. Since NACA has no gym, no cafeteria, no basketball court, no library, they have to ask to borrow them for dances or games from the school next door. This, too, has led to trouble. Last year, Montoya nearly got in a fight during lunch at the school next door."

Cowardly Republicans With A Big Mouth - Episode 219b

Perhaps you have followed American Politics under George Bush. In that case you may have heard of John Bolton. Bolton was Bush's candidate for the post of United States Permanent Representative at the United Nations. He did not survive all the criticism so after he filled the Permanent post Temporarily(...) he left the job before the Senate could throw him out.

As somewhat informed people know, the US government/Obama has decided to put the 9/11 mastermind(Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) on trial in New York. This has resulted in a lot of criticism from the Republicans(of all people!). They think that it is not wise to put a foreign moslim terrorist on trial in the US. The reasoning behind this criticism is that the trial may be the/a reason for other extremists to strike again.

I find it utterly ridiculous that the same political group that started the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq now crawls under their tables out of fear for more attacks.  These people are the bloodspitting over-the-top militaristic warmongers of 6 years ago yet they come up with 'security-reasons' to prevent terrorists from being tried in the US.

Anyway : I found this article about John Bolton's hypocrisy. It is just as valid for a Hell of a lot of Republicans.

Host Melanie Morgan: Given the nature and danger of bringing these terrorists to American soil, where do you think is the most safe place to be when they get here and this trial begins? Where would you put your family?

John Bolton: Well, not New York City, I'm afraid to say. This is part of the callousness and the really, lack of professionalism and judgment to put them on trial anywhere in the United States in civilian courts.

Declaring that you are 'afraid' of trials in the US is downright cowardly. Terrorists have already been on trial in Germany, the UK, Spain, etcetera. I guess the people in those countries do take their responsibilities.

The US Republicans apparently don't have the stamina to go through with this. Instead, they are organizing 'Tea-parties'. As Marie Antoinette said : "Let them eat cake".

Update : As an  extra : one of the sublinks in the article goes to this German site. 

In Paris, the headlines and the political talk I heard and read did not focus on our president or our prospects, but on the selection of a new — and no longer merely symbolic — leader for a United Europe. Europeans were talking to each other directly; Americans were not, as far as I could tell, very much a part of the conversation.

The narcissism of the 'American Elite' is indeed strikingly misplaced. For once I fully agree with the German(s) :

Look, man, the fact that your mom and your dad happened to conceive your pasty white ass on the hunk of soil known as the United States of America doesn’t make you Luke Skywalker. Grow up and get real.

Indeed.

The Railroad Barons of the 19th century

I found this article via via via etcetera. Interesting read re. the 14th Amendment and the way it has been/is being abused. The article is from 2002 but this kind of information does not really expire...

...the railroad barons represented the most powerful corporations in America, and they were incredibly tenacious. They mounted challenge after challenge before the Court, claiming the 14th Amendment should grant them human rights under the Bill of Rights (but not grant such rights to unions, churches, small companies, or governments). Finally, in 1886, the Court's reporter defied his own Chief Justice and improperly wrote a headnote that moved corporations out of the privileges category and gave them rights - an equal status with humans.

Alaskan Politics - The Quagmire

People who know me also know that I am very interested in the circus that is American Politics. In this respect, last year was obviously a year in Heaven. Now that the US Elections have come and gone, most people are focusing on the economical crisis, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and of course the new Health Insurance System that Obama wants to set up. It seems to me that - especially outside the US - interest for the major players is limited to Obama, Hillary Clinton and one or two former members of the Bush Administration. And all the while there is the enigma that is called Sarah Palin...

Sarah Palin is dividing the US as few others have done before her. It is not so much 'The Woman Palin' who is the cause of this; it is more a matter of Rightwing Christian America having found a poster-girl for bringing religion into politics. Even America's founding fathers knew that this is a recipe for disaster but apparently those wise insights are now lost on a large part of the american population.

I vividly remember the TV Evangelists of the 80ies with their unspeakably absurd 'church services'(remember Genesis spoofing them in 'Jesus He Knows Me'? "And The Lord Said Get Me Eighteen Millon Dollars By The Weekend!!!"). These people, the Jim Bakers, the Pat Robertsons, the Jimmy Falwells etcetera, used to be limited by laws that forbade the mixing of politics and religion. Any religious entity that was found to be mixing the church with politics would by law be prosecuted and their tax-exempt status would be revoked. Clearly this made the religious far right cautious when engaging in politics nevertheless.

What is happening now is - in my opinion - far worse : after 25 years of influencing politicians behind closed doors, the Religious Right is now working in the open more and more, and hardly anyone is screaming murder; Keith Olberman perhaps is, but he suffers from the stigma of being seen as a far left tv commentator and is therefore put in 'The Liberal Corner' with all the consequences that this has. He basically 'criticized' himself out of a general audience in order to win a pretty much left wing fanbase. The only name on tv that comes to mind is Jon Stewart. At the moment he is seen by the audience as the most trusted news achor on tv in the US. But wait a minute! Jon Stewart is a comedian! So the person most people trust to give them proper information is a tv comedian?


Anyway; just like I followed the idiocy around Michael Jackson for some time some years ago, I am now keeping an eye on the backwaters of American Politics. Not so much the new Obama-plan or an attempted republican filibuster, but more about the people behind the current stage, waiting - no dying - for their moment in the spotlights. And one of those people is most definitely Sarah Palin. I found below article in Vanity Fair, a magazine I am starting to appreciate more and more lately. What were they thinking in the McCain Campaign? Well, they probably weren't...


It Came From Wasilla


May Heaven and Earth help us if she ever gets to the real top of american politics. We'll need all the help we can get.

Creepy Palin and the Christian Suicide Bombers

The more I read about that woman the creepier she gets.

Inside Sarah's Church

Behind the Third Wave’s histrionics lies an aggressive brand of Dominionism focused on purging “demon influence” from entire geographic areas through prayer or more forceful means if necessary. Becky Fischer, a Third Wave youth pastor who gained fame as the anti-hero of the award-winning 2006 documentary Jesus Camp, urged pastors to indoctrinate an army of spiritual suicide bombers to seize control of the country.
“I wanna see young people who are as committed to the cause of Jesus Christ as the young people are to the cause of Islam,” Fischer said in the documentary during an unguarded moment. “I wanna see them as radically laying down their lives for the Gospel as they are over in Pakistan and Israel and Palestine and all those different places.”

and...

The Third Wave arrived in Alaska through a “spiritual warfare network” founded by an Anchorage-based Haida Indian named Mary Glazier, who claimed to have converted 60 members of her family, including her formerly alcohol-abusing parents. Seeking a “battle strategy” against the rising tide of sin that consumed her son, who committed suicide in 1990,
Glazier tried to gain access to the state’s prison system, a pit of desperation. A young female prison chaplain opposed Glazier’s evangelizing intentions. Glazier responded by branding the woman a witch and began to utter imprecatory prayers. “As we continued to pray against the spirit of witchcraft,” Glazier recalled with glee, “her incense altar caught on fire, her car engine blew up, she went blind in her left eye, and she was diagnosed with cancer.”

Really friendly people with lots of compassion and understanding for others. And people ask me why organized religion makes me sick to my stomach...