Letter to A Child I Haven't Met Yet

To my child:

It will be years before you read this. The fact is that you're not born yet, maybe not even conceived. I don't know when we will get the call from your birthmother asking about what kind of people we are so, waiting, I imagine what kind of person you will be.

And I wonder what kind of world it is into which you will be born and raised. As I write this, our country wobbles on the edge of an unjust war, our economy is a wreck and the freedoms that I and all the adults who will know and love you were raised to expect are being eroded. By the time you read this, the very water you drink could be sold to you by a company far away that cares only about profit. I try to be hopeful about the future, but right now I'm fearful.

I understand now how some folks can want to not bring a child into a world plagued by war, but I can't share their feelings. To be honest, your mother and I need you. There is something basic in people that hopes for a better future, and you are, or will be, the embodiment of that for us. The knowledge that there are hundreds of thousands of children in Iraq this morning who represent that same hope for their parents, yet who are sick for lack of medicine or in grave danger of being killed when this invasion starts, keeps me awake at night.

By the time you read this letter, all this will be either ancient history or part of your current reality. You will have your own set of issues as you become conscious of the world around you, and with luck, we will have raised you to be a questioning, thinking person, capable of getting past the fog of dubious news and opinion with which we are bombarded every day. No matter what I say as I get older and crankier, hold on to your dreams and what you know to be right and never, ever let anyone tell you to shut up and sit down.

Love,

Dad

First-of-the-week roundup...

Let's make note of the really stupid shit first. You may have heard by now about the flap concerning Rabbi Michael Lerner not being allowed to speak at the anti-war rallies over the weekend. International ANSWER, one of the main organizers for the rallies, apparently nixed Rabbi Lerner's podium appearance, either because 1) they're raving anti-Zionists or 2) because the coalition in charge of organizing the events had agreed to exclude anyone who spoke against one of the affiliated groups.

You know what? A pox on all of them. This idiocy has cast an enormous pall over an unprecidented show of unity between left factions. If I could I would ban discussion of the Israel/Palestine issue from all leftist interaction. It's a tar baby. Both sides have legitimate claims and grievances, and both sides have done horrible things in the name of those claims and grievances. It's sapping our strength.

All that being said, the world made a loud noise for peace this weekend. This is from Alternet:

But on Saturday, Feb. 15, I emerged from the largest demonstration I've ever attended in Dallas with more hope than ever before that our situation will improve. It wasn't just that 5,000 or so people from one of the most right-wing regions of the world, the former home of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and the fictional J.R. Ewing and many others who represent cold-hearted, selfish economic and political policies, had braved the wind and cold and threats and everything else to make a statement to Bush Inc. that a blood-for-oil-personal-revenge-world-domination-military-boost war against economic-sanctions-wracked Iraq was unacceptable.


It was the wide array of people from all walks of life – high school students showing they cared about more than their own problems, soccer moms protesting for the first time, retired school teachers, professionals in suits, war veterans, parents who also brought their young children – that gave me the most hope.

Sadly, we were also treated to the spectacle of a crowd in a Chicago nightclub trampling 21 of their own to death after someone released pepper spray inside the building. Can anyone doubt that the Bush administration's level orange alert bullshit played a major role in the hysteria?

Feh. If anyone needs me, tell them I'm being sized for my Sparky the Wonder Penguin thong...

To everyone around the world who has gathered, marched, chanted, spoken, shouted or sang today in opposition to war with Iraq, whether it be in a crowd of hundreds of thousands in a major city square or a crowd of 5 on a small-town street corner...

Thank you.

They're starting to arrest protesters in New York. Be careful.

So...is anyone really counting the votes?

Malloy interviewed Bev Harris on the show yesterday. Ms Harris is leading an investigation into Georgia's new touch-screen voting machines, and the questions raised so far about the security of the software used to tabulate the votes is approaching the "damning" level.

In early February, 2003, programmers for Diebold Election Systems admitted that they had been parking highly sensitive company files on an unprotected web site, a serious security mistake by anyone's reckoning.

The very next week officials from the state of Georgia admitted that a program "patch" was administered to over 22,000 unauditable touch-screen voting machines in Georgia. This took place shortly before the November 2002 election.

A single, certified, and carefully examined version of the actual vote-counting program is allowed on the voting machines.

However, when a program is "patched," new code is inserted into the existing program, usually correcting a fault, or sometimes adding a feature. If a patch is to be applied to the actual vote-counting program, it must be certified to make sure no errors or unauthorized changes are introduced. But no one bothered to certify this patch.

Much more here.

Kevin at Lean Left brings this up concerning "Total Information Awareness" - Conferees in Congress Bar Using a Pentagon Project on Americans. NYTimes requres login, etc etc. An excerpt:

Senator Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican who co-sponsored the Wyden amendment, said: "Protecting Americans' civil liberties while at the same time winning the war against terrorism has got to be top priority for the United States. Congressional oversight of this program will be a must as we proceed in the war against terror. The acceptance of this amendment sends a signal that Congress won't sit on its hands as the TIA program moves forward."

We can certainly hope that they'll continue to do more than just not sit on their hands. Score one for the good guys, at any rate.

It's the DU Poets Against the War Poetry Slam!

Drop by if you get a chance. Wear a beret, speak out.

Tales of Republican Slime - Episode Two and a Half

I've now made several unsuccessful efforts to download Patriot Act II, aka the "Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003". The pda seems to be corrupted and is the size of War and Peace.

No matter. I called the offices of Zell Miller, Saxby Chambliss and Denise Majette yesterday to find out the positions my elected representatives mean to take on this bill, and no one seemed to know what I was talking about. That seems odd, especially given that several provisions have already been put before the Senate.

Make no mistake, friends - the Republicans mean to complete the remaking of the US into a police state. From the infowars site:

SECTION 501 (Expatriation of Terrorists) expands the Bush administration’s “enemy combatant” definition to all American citizens who “may” have violated any provision of Section 802 of the first Patriot Act. (Section 802 is the new definition of domestic terrorism, and the definition is “any action that endangers human life that is a violation of any Federal or State law.”) Section 501 of the second Patriot Act directly connects to Section 125 of the same act. The Justice Department boldly claims that the incredibly broad Section 802 of the First USA Patriot Act isn’t broad enough and that a new, unlimited definition of terrorism is needed.

Under Section 501 a US citizen engaging in lawful activities can be grabbed off the street and thrown into a van never to be seen again. The Justice Department states that they can do this because the person “had inferred from conduct” that they were not a US citizen. Remember Section 802 of the First USA Patriot Act states that any violation of Federal or State law can result in the “enemy combatant” terrorist designation.

Call your Representative now.

Tales of Republican Slime - Episode Two

By now you've doubtless heard mention of Patriot Act II. I'm waiting for the pdf of the whole damn thing to download from Public Integrity, then we'll add whatever weight we can to the commentary on this thing.