licentious radio

Monday, May 12, 2003
[11:27:52 PM]

One of the most unpleasant things I do is refuse to give money to homeless people. Who am I not to give a little money to someone who asks?

The story is that it's better to force homeless people to get money and food from some bureaucracy. Giving cash promotes panhandling, and may lead to drug abuse and what-not. They say. I wouldn't argue against that, but I don't know.

I know I don't want to inhale or even smell a homeless person's cigarette smoke. I know that I feel anguish each time I choose not to give somebody money.

When I lived in Houston, I gave beggars a lot of money. I got tired of it because most of them seemed to be lying hustlers. One time, though, a man walked up to me while I was eating and asked for money to buy lunch. I gave him a few dollars and he went inside. I tried to avoid looking around, but it's just a habit with me when eating out. So I did look inside once and he waved or smiled, and then seemed to get worried that I would think he had only ordered something to drink. His food just wasn't ready yet. I wasn't worried at all, in fact. I went back to reading and a woman walked up to me and said "I liked what I just saw," and walked away.

Outside the grocery stores around here, it seems there is always one homeless person begging. On Sunday I came out of Trader Joe's and there was no beggar. I became slightly dizzy. It felt like 1978 -- before Reagan.

When I first moved here I saw a particular woman beggar a few times. She was the most completely pathetic looking beggar I can remember. Not physically, but emotionally pathetic. I gave her some money the first time I saw her, but not after that. I asked if she knew where to get help, and she said she did, but they weren't open late at night.

Even if we give destitute people a little money -- from taxes or charities -- it seems like we should also give them something to *do*. They should be able to get more money -- doing *something* that's a positive contribution to society -- than they could get begging.

I hope that everyone who is hungry and out of cash is brave enough to say they need food and ask for enough money for a meal. I hope no one is hard-hearted enough to deny a hungry person a meal.

But I guess buying someone a meal doesn't solve anything in the long run, and maybe some people who beg all day are planning ahead for supper.

I don't understand how even a Republican could want to cut off more and more money that goes to support the destitute, homeless, mentally ill, etc. Suppose you keep even 30 percent more of your income, but the streets are crowded with beggars, car thieves run rampant, you fear car-jackings, etc. Throw more teen-agers in jail, and you get more violent crime in a few years. Suddenly a big portion of the government budget goes to building prisons. Let's have prosperity instead! Enough prosperity so our society can take care of the people who really need help, and so it's fairly easy for ordinary people to succeed -- and to avoid failure.

Health insurance is extremely important. Whole families get wiped out because of a single illness. Socially, this is *terrible*. Better to spread the risk and keep all those families on their feet financially -- working, spending, contributing to society.

Eight years of Clinton and we had just a little progress. Four years of Carter couldn't make up for the catastrophe of eight years of Nixon/Ford. Then Rayguns came along as Bush's stooge and set the country back sixty years. Now another thieving, murderous Bush has done more in two years than any previous Republican has dreamed of accomplishing. (Assuming Hoover didn't intend to create the Great Depression.)

With the corporate media in his pocket and a propaganda play-book that would make Hitler swoon, Bush has brought his thieving ways from Harken to the big-time. Deficits growing faster than even Bush can cook the books. But he's stuffed the pockets of enough crooked crony-capitalists that he'll erase all previous records for campaign payola -- and that's just what they can't hide off-shore. I mean, if you're Halliburton, how much is it worth to you to keep Cheney in the White House? Literally billions. And if you're Clear Channel? If you're GE/NBC?

The one thing is that there's no hiding any more. In the last forty years, Democrats=prosperity and Republicans=poverty. The only exception is that corrupt Republican crony capitalists still do OK financially with Republicans in the White House. Just not nearly so well as if the Democrats are running things.

We need twelve or sixteen years of Democrats running Washington to make us a prosperous nation again, so we can afford to take care of people who need help, both in this country and abroad.

Imagine our nation with almost no beggars, almost no homeless people, safe streets, clean air, clean water, flowering democracy, leading the world by example -- not at gunpoint.

[8:25:53 PM]
Ha ha. Budget deficit predictions are growing by $25 billion per month. The good news is that there are only a few months left in the fiscal year. The bad news is that by then the predicted deficit will be over $400 billion. And that's *after* cooking the books like only a Cheney or a Bush could.

[8:17:08 PM]
Are these really Democrats? Fighting a power-grab by vile religious kook Tom Delay?

House Democrats break quorum [statesman.com].

[2:17:31 PM]
For Democrats: how about a promise to declassify the Bush September 11 cover-up. On the campaign trail you could promise to declassify the documents that prove 1) Bush's incompetence, and 2) Bush's outright malfeasance.

The guy's dirty. He's guilty of running away from military service as a draft-dodge, he's guilty of untold $$$ fraud with Harken, he's guilty of going AWOL on the fight against terrorism, he's guilty of outright malfeasance -- ordering the FBI not to follow terrorism leads that might lead toward the Saudi ruling family (Bush family business partners and Bin Laden funders, not coincidentally).

A guy who put his family profits and political ties before the fight against terrorism, and let 3,000 Americans get killed deserves nothing but a life sentence in prison -- how about Camp X-ray?

That's just a start. But when Bush is in New York to wrap himself in September 11, if you don't make it clear that September 11 was Bush's *failure* -- that those people wouldn't have died if Gore had been in the White House fighting terrorism the way he and Bill Clinton fought terrorism -- if you punt on that, how are you going to win the election? By saying that a $500 billion tax cut for the rich is too much -- it shouldn't have been more than $400 billion?

Just for example, the Bush junta classified the information of *who received* a particular briefing. Why did they classify that? Would Bin Laden have been in a better position to strike if he knew that Bush received that briefing? Or is it that Bush received the briefing, and then lied outrageously when he claimed no one could have guessed Bin Laden would attack? Hint: consider the pattern of secrecy in the White House and with Cheney. We *know* they're covering up their mistakes.

[9:49:22 AM]
You've got to wonder about these New American Century kooks. What do they mean when they say "democracy"? They certainly don't mean that the governments we install will do the will of the people in those countries.

Most Middle-eastern countries are run by CIA plants like Saddam, or the anti-CIA factions, like Iran. We made all of the problems there. So installing "democracies" is just another round of US client regimes.

But you wonder how the chaos required to completely destroy Iraq can be conducive to anything but terrorism. Did these guys really think creating a stable government would be a cakewalk? Did they really think that creating a stable government would even be the goal?

There's a horrible feedback loop in the works -- the more the US tries to crack down and make things safe, the more the people in Iraq will protest against the US.

The real plan is probably to let Iraqis destroy everything themselves, then install a new repressive regime at the point when people are desperate to stop the wanton violence. The new regime will be the same as the old regime -- minus the top fifty or hundred party leaders, not counting the ones who were in on the deal for surrendering Baghdad without a fight.

Attempting to re-impose an essentially fascist Sunni tyranny is likely to lead to a low-level civil war. But we can give our side body armor and light tanks and support them with bombers and artillery. That should just about complete the destruction of Baghdad.

The whole point is that -- someday -- we'll have a government there that will give us first crack at the oil. It doesn't matter if this is years away. The oil will still be there, and it will only be worth more -- vastly more.

Of course Cheney and Rummy never signed a document calling for the utter destruction of Iraqi infrastructure and civil society. That would be impolitic, after all. But are we really supposed to believe that they thought conquering Iraq would let us magically install a regime that would be democratic, but completely subservient?

So here's a new definition of democracy: rule by Rovian propaganda, with the masses too busy working for food to complain, and a handful of corporate mega-thieves closely tied to the government. In short, the Bush/Milosevich model of modern statehood.

The biggest trouble is how to impose that on a religious-leaning Shia majority. That's where the low-level civil war comes in. Kill off the clerics and the people who would fight, then make a peace that leaves them with 20% of what they had, but more than they had during the fighting. Now everybody's happy, right? They'll have free-trade pacts to ensure free-trade on everything Iraqis import, while ensuring protection in the US from anything Iraq exports.

Ta-da! Democracy.

[9:13:56 AM]
Blair promised Short that "they" would do the right thing after the war, even if the war was obviously a horror. "They" is Bush/Rumsfeld, with Blair on a little leash like a French [sic] poodle.

The question is how could Short have believed Blair? The answer is probably that she didn't have to believe him. She could wait and see. She waited, and now it's obvious. Despite a steady stream of obvious pre-war lies, Bush/Rumsfeld have left no role for the UN except forking over cash and maybe handing out food someday.

Short -- having at least an ounce of integrity (...that being an ounce more than any of the Bushistas and lapdog Blair) -- resigned. It was a tough spot. Loyalty would have made it difficult to leave before the war, even with a clear expectation that the promises were lies. A resignation then would have been a more powerful statement. Staying on lent her credibility to Blair -- the only bit he had in the whole affair. "Used".

"Welcome to the fight. This time I know our side will win."??? Not likely, I suppose, but a pleasant fantasy for a Monday morning.