The Terrorists Have Won

The knock-and-announce rule is dead. As a constitutional scholar, my stomach turns at this latest development, but it is only one more sign that the Neocon's true agenda is to get rid of all those pesky civil liberties that prevent the Government from telling us exactly how to live our lives. I can hear those that are thankful it's dead say things like "Well, if you aren't breaking any laws, it's not a problem." Do you know how many cases I've seen where the police got a search warrant for the wrong person because they had the same name as the suspect or they got the address wrong? Hope you enjoy the police knocking your door off its hinges and busting in on you--better really hope no one in the house has anything that's against the law because if it's in plain sight--you're screwed and going down as the homeowner whether it's your stuff or not. Welcome to the start of the Police State.

Don't think the Terrorists have won?

Well, we're at war with a country that had no ties to 9/11. The people of that country are ambivalent about our assistance in toppling Saddam Hussein because while he is a soulless, corrupt dictator into things like torture, we opened the doors for all the Muslim extremists to come flooding over the borders and force Iraq back into the Dark Ages. We gave them a toehold, and it's not going well. I'm not a pacifist. There are times when war is necessary--for example, I do think the action in Afghanistan following 9/1l was necessary. But when a person signs up for the military, they are offering to put their very lives on the line for their country--that is a pledge that should not be taken lightly, and we've got men and woman dead or maimed for no reason other than Georgie Peorgie and the Chickenhawks felt like flexing a little muscle and forcing democracy down the throats of an indigenous population--the lessons of the Korean Conflict and Vietnam completely lost on them. We're best buds with a theocracy (Saudi Arabia) that encourages its citizens to hate the U.S. and everything it stands for to deflect their ire from their own government over their poverty rate and lack of economic opportunity but you know, they have OIL! And you know how most of the Neocons made their money? OIL!

We are on the precipice of becoming a fascist nation--destroying our democracy is one of the terrorists' goals, and we are only too happy to turn over our civil rights for some illusion of safety. If we leave things in the hands of the Neocons (there are Republicans who still support the actual stated aims of the Republican party--reducing taxes, minimizing Government, reducing spending--and idiot Democrats, so I'm not singling out parties), the life you enjoy now will not be the life you have in 10 years.

Fourteen Defining
Characteristics Of Fascism
By Dr. Lawrence Britt
Source Free Inquiry.co
5-28-3


Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread
domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

Now, that's something to be terrified of.

Trying to Reason with Hurricane Season

You know, I thought once we got my mom moved out of Florida, hurricane season wouldn't create this sick feeling in my stomach and I wouldn't get that same level of worry and sadness coming over me watching the bands of green, yellow, orange and red sweeping over some part of the country. I thought maybe I wouldn't have every news outlet in Florida bookmarked and obsessively check it. I was wrong.

I worry about Lali, Cibby, littleone, and their families. I worry about other friends who are more like family that live there. It isn't just weathering the damn storm. I have friends whose homes were damaged. I know people whose businesses were severely affected--the damage was either minimal or didn't happen, but the fact that these blasted things always seem to hit on a weekend seriously hurt some friends who own a beautiful little gallery in downtown Deland, some other friends who own a hair salon, and a couple sets of friends that own restaurants--and I see a hurricane coming and suddenly, I'm thinking of everyone who owns a small business in its path, who are going to be hurting whether their business sustains serious damage or not. And I'm thinking of all the people who have lost homes, who might have just started rebuilding, who *any* report of a hurricane headed there way has to cause some despair.

Ivan was a bitch. It destroyed parts of Florida, trashed a friend's home in South Carolina, and caused flooding up here the likes we hadn't seen in over 30 years (even the MM and I have a major yard repair from that bitch.)The flip side to nature's beauty is her wild, untamed ways we so easily forget sipping a frozen drink, sitting in a lawn chair on a sunny day.

May Arlene be the worst of it this season.

I am a Unitarian. I find this hysterical, have joined, and shall henceforth be known as Sister Broadsword of Love and Mercy. Coffee and cookies are required at any Unitarian function or else the revoluntaries tend to get restless.

I f*blurring HATE blogger right now.

The Purse


I opened the black leather purse and inhaled--stale perfumed talc and Clorets breath mints. I grabbed the golden-tubed bright red lipstick that was Grandma's signature color. I slipped off the lid and admired the rounded tip—it was a talent of Grandma's to reshape the hard edges of a fresh lipstick into a perfect hemisphere. The tissues in Grandma's purse were free-floating and always seemed so much softer than anything out of the box. Inevitably, one of them would have the imprint of her scarlet lips. Grandma always carried a make-up bag stuffed full of modern liners and shades, but I only ever saw her use the lipstick, and the bejeweled compact in its velvet pouch—kept separately from the clear plastic make-up bag. I laughed as I fingered packets of crackers from long-ago lunches smashed to crumbs. Grandma always slipped them from her plate and stashed them in her purse for emergencies. They'd live in her bag for years until they burst open and coated the contents with cracker dust. Grandma's wallet with the driver's license Grandad had helped her cheat to get because she didn't want a State Identification card, pictures of me and Mom, the tip calculator, and scraps of paper with cryptic messages written in her elegant cursive. The two pairs of sunglasses—the pair she was supposed to wear and carried with her to assuage her guilt—her Terminator Granny glasses, and the pair she actually wore because she looked good in them. Grandma's rain hat—compacted to a size no bigger than a cigarrette lighter. Did they still make those? Or was it another relic from a more glamourous time, when a woman could face anything if she'd freshly applied her lipstick, her nose was powered, and her hair was perfectly coiffed?

My lips are bare, my nose-shiny, my hair-unruly. No wonder it hurts so much.

Strong Medicine

I am one of those crackpots who doesn't trust doctors. Although I am the first person to tell someone else to go to the doctor if they are exhibiting scary symptoms, I'm not going myself until I'm either (a) unconscious, or (b) absolutely certain it's necessary, meaning I've lost a limb. This distrust--it's built-up over the years. Some of it is based in logic. A lot of it is based in emotion. A lot of it is based on watching loved ones suffer, die, with the doctor standing there looking tortured and confused.

Distilled into a bumper sticker: Doctors are human. Fallible humans. And some, much like any other profession, are dumber than a box of hair and it's terrifying to realize a medical board has turned them loose on an unsuspecting community who come to them, looking for help at their most vunerable.

I've spent entirely too much time in hospitals and doctor waiting rooms for a person my age, and I wasn't even there because something was wrong with me. I've found myself forced into the position of being the family "prosecutor" and cross-examining doctors as though they were hostile witnesses because they are so unwilling to go into detail, especially if the news was bad. While the others around me were in shock, it was my job to get all of the facts. And through doing that all of those years, I realized how little doctors know about what's going on inside any of us at any one time. The good ones are willing to talk to you about that, which I appreciate. They lay out the options, they make recommedations, it's a team effort between patient and doctor. The bad ones have decided they should never be questioned, that they are like Gods, that their word is law and you are a fool to think otherwise. You are a fool not to question them. It's your body. Your disease, your injury, your illness. It's happening to you. And doctors don't always have your best interests at heart.

One of the reasons I've been so off of doctors lately is the last time I went for a check-up, I mentioned something that was sort of bothering me but wasn't that big of a deal. It was the first time I'd seen this doctor--she didn't know me as a patient. I was shuttled out the door with a prescription and several samples and none the wiser about what might be going on with me. The pharmaceutical industry would like that to be the outcome of every American's doctor visit. We should all be taking pills. They have reps come into doctor's offices and provide them with all sorts of perks in an effort to get the doctor to prescribe their drug. My MIL worked for years as a nurse in a neurology practice. She never needed to bring her lunch to work because the reps were always feeding the office. My MIL did bring her lunch on principle. She's the kind of RN that believes you should only be prescribed something if you need it. Me? I came home, looked up the prescription on the internet, saw it was way too much medicine for the problem I described, and decided that doctor was one I'd never be seeing again. And this is just a little story. I've got a long list of missteps--in my own care, in the care of those around me--including two major ones that led to my father's death.

It's not that easy to walk away from a physician. With the advent of HMOs, EPOs, and point of service plans, we're all required to name a primary physician, and they make it almost impossible for you to get away from a physician you don't like. While the health insurance industry blathers on at me about choices, they keep taking mine away. They keep making it harder for me to find and go to doctors that I trust. And then they complain about malpractice insurance.

Did you know that 90 percent of malpractice actions are filed against the same 10 percent of doctors? Yet those doctors are allowed to keep practicing. Medical boards are extremely reluctant to suspend or take away doctor's licenses. So doctors that have proven themselves incompetent several times over are allowed to go forth and harm again. While not a fan of my profession, the problem with malpractice is not the lawyers. The problem is the state medical boards not regulating physicians. California capped recovery on medical malpractice suits three years ago. Unlike the current rheotoric, what happened was not the decrease in malpractice and health insurance premiums that were promised. Instead, California's premiums rose faster than most of the other states.

Medicine, health care, it's a business, which is a dangerous thing for it to be. It's no longer about making people well, it's about making a profit. The current disaster that is our healthcare system demonstrates those two goals cannot live in harmony. More and more of us can't even afford insurance. More and more doctors are becoming businesspeople first, healers second. I am expected to put my life, my body unquestioningly into their hands, which is against my nature, and if it weren't, it is against my experiences. I don't blame the doctors entirely--they do need to get their state medical boards to take care of the incompetents, but they are under siege from business interests on all sides. I can't go to the doctor and listen to her advice without wondering how much of it was sponsered by Pfizer or Merck, and how much of it was tailored to fit the confines of my insurance plan.

So I am one of those crackpots who doesn't trust doctors.