On this day, Memorial Day, please take the time, just a minute if that's all you have, to not only think of those who fought in our wars, but also think about how few of those wars were really necessary, and how many of them were begun based on lies to the american people.
Read more>>>

author: Charles Bowden

name: Steev

average rating: 4.08

book published: 2002

rating: 5

read at: 2004/01/01

date added: 2009/03/06

shelves: politics

review:

Randall Kuhn gives us a more accurate, complete, and compelling analogy than the simple ones made recently about the Israel-Gaza situation:

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor ended an opinion piece by saying "America would never sit still if terrorists were lobbing missiles across our border into Texas or Montana." But let's see if our political and pundit class can parrot this analogy.

Think about what would happen if San Diego expelled most of its Hispanic, African American, Asian American, and Native American population, about 48 percent of the total, and forcibly relocated them to Tijuana? Not just immigrants, but even those who have lived in this country for many generations. Not just the unemployed or the criminals or the America haters, but the school teachers, the small business owners, the soldiers, even the baseball players.

What if we established government and faith-based agencies to help move white people into their former homes? And what if we razed hundreds of their homes in rural areas and, with the aid of charitable donations from people in the United States and abroad, planted forests on their former towns, creating nature preserves for whites to enjoy? Sounds pretty awful, huh? I may be called anti-Semitic for speaking this truth. Well, I'm Jewish and the scenario above is what many prominent Israeli scholars say happened when Israel expelled Palestinians from southern Israel and forced them into Gaza. But this analogy is just getting started.

Be sure to read on.

Great politically-charged hiphop video that mentions war taxes in one verse about 2/3 of the way through. It's also a great image collage.

• 06:27 big day today. polls already opened here at 6, half an hour ago. the sun is just starting to rise. #vtv #
• 06:34 need to finish getting ready, charging batteries, breakfast, and then meet rest of crew in half an hour or so. then it's out to film. #vtv #
• 09:24 Saw 2 guys w guns frm az state attny ofc hanging out @ s. Tucson pollng place. #Vtv - got footage. #
• 11:06 back at studio taking a break & catching up on news. looks like my last from phone tweet didn't make it. it's quiet in tucson. #vtv #
• 12:23 Couple of friends said lines were long wher thy votd right at opening but now no lines. #vtv #tucson #
• 12:48 ok this is weird. txt tweets are coming in way slow. #
• 12:48 back in studio to upload footage from 2 polling places in south tucson. #vtv #tucson #
• 13:05 Just checkd @ Grijalva?s hq and they say no reports of prblms - all quiet in tucson! #
• 13:24 messing with Compressor to get it to compress video the way Video The Vote wants it. #vtv #
• 13:52 watching mary capturing footage she and francesca shot of a polling place (church) with a yes on 102 sign on their main sign. #vtv #tucson #
• 16:55 taking a break and waiting for more reports of poll place troubles. things have been pretty quiet this afternoon. #tvt #tucson #
• 17:06 mccain "holding out from the bunker" acccording to CBS pundit just now. is that a reference to Hitler? #
• 17:12 only 11% of kentucky results in and they're already calling it mccain's? wtf? #
• 17:18 amazed at the blurring of the line between prediction and fact on TV coverage of the election. especially with onscreen graphics. #
• 17:23 looks like we're getting another video the vote assignment from our dispatcher... #vtv #tucson #
• 17:25 Retweet: #jennyholzer POLITICS IS USED FOR PERSONAL GAIN #
• 17:26 border patrol parked outside polling place on tangerine road! we're going out to get footage!! #vtv #tucson #immigration #intimidation #
• 18:14 I guess tucson not as quiet as we thot. Heading out 2 3 dif trouble sites! #Vtv #tucson #

For the first time in my life I'm proud of my country.

author: Luis Alberto Urrea

name: Steev

average rating: 4.02

book published: 2004

rating: 5

read at: 2005/11/10

date added: 2008/10/28

shelves: politics

review:
I read this when I first moved to Arizona and it gave me a healthy respect for the desert and a great sadness about the modern-day exodus across that desert that is happening.



Sad, shocking, inspiring, enraging book.

At a McCain rally some racist wingnuts were handing out weird Obama "Change" bumper stickers that had the muslim crescent and star as the "C" in the word change, and a soviet hammer and sickle. Muslim republicans and even some (more) rational conservatives confronted them on it. Here's a pretty good video about it by the American News Project:

http://www.americannewsproject.com/videos/158

author: Eduardo Hughes Galeano

name: Steev

average rating: 4.17

book published: 1998

rating: 3

read at: 2008/10/01

date added: 2008/10/20

shelves: politics

Brian Boyce, one of my all-time favorite collage videomakers, weighs in with this quick and dirty Palin detournment:

Palin and McCain have to be defeated. They just have to be. I think they will be, but I admit that part of that optimism is denial, because the alternative is just too much to even think about.