Entries Tagged with free
January 10th, 2007
Over at Thudfactor, James has talking about how companies are willing to give things away to bloggers who mention them or review them in their blogs.
I don’t mean those payperpost folks that give you some piddling fee to misrepresent yourself and tell everyone you’ve used a product or a website and highly endorse it, heck, you’ll bet your first born’s life on it… (Yes, I checked it out. It made me feel dirty and slimy. I never did see where anyone got anything for free to try when the product cost money to buy and the payment never would have covered the cost of the product. Most of the stuff were things I wouldn’t have used.)
No, James is actually getting some free tea, that he actually likes just for talking about said tea by Adagio. He also mentioned that Microsoft is apparently giving away laptops to bloggers reviewing their new OS Vista. *Hmphf* How do I get on that list?
Anyway, he calls it bribery. He’s for it. So am I. Put me on the list. I’m bribeable. Free Stuff. Reviews. Yup.
Tags: bribery, blogging, Adagio tea, Microsoft, Vista, payperpost, free stuff
November 17th, 2006
I don’t know why, but I’m always a little shocked at what people will ask for on my Freecycle list. If you don’t know what Freecycle is, it’s an international network of people, “who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. Each local group is moderated by a local volunteer (them’s good people).” Basically there’s mailing lists broken down to regional areas all over the world and
When you want to find a new home for something — whether it’s a chair, a fax machine, piano, or an old door — you simply send an e-mail offering it to members of the local Freecycle group.
Or, maybe you’re looking to acquire something yourself. Simply respond to a member’s offer, and you just might get it. After that, it’s up to the giver to decide who receives the gift and to set up a pickup time for passing on the treasure.
Here’s the thing, there’s a lot of people on my local Freecycle group that send e-mails asking for stuff. You know, they start with “WANTED: ” in the subject line rather than “OFFER: ” or “TAKEN: “. To me this is just a tiny bit greedy. It wouldn’t even really bother me if there weren’t a lot of those kinds of posts and if they were all for the most part practical somehow.
You know, I thought it was interesting when some teachers posted on the list looking for various items for projects for their classes. One teacher was looking for vinyl records for her class, for example — not something you can just go to WAL-Mart for. It just so happened that I was getting rid of mine right then so I had no problem helping out.
But people ask for cars and boats on the list at least every few months. I mean, whole cars. Working ones.
And I’m not the only one moving apparently, there have been several posts in the last two weeks by several people stating that they have just moved into their first homes and have nothing and need everything including beds, sofas, kitchenware, etc. Lots of people asking for beds, computers, paintball equipment, musical instruments, Pokemon cards, video games, clothes, cat supplies, fish tank…
Look I get that you’re looking for a way to save money by searching for the things you want on Freecycle, but I just think it’s impolite and rude and greedy to post that you want people, strangers, stuff for free. It reminds me of the time my cousin came to my house when she was about 5 years old and she went around telling me how much she liked all of my toys with this expectant look on her face like she thought I was going to just offer to give her the things she liked because she said she liked them.
Here’s the whole point of Freecycle, people clean out their attics, their basements, their extra rooms, whatever, and they don’t want to just throw their old stuff on the curb (or they live somewhere like my new community where there are actually rules about that and no garbage pick up); they’d rather their old, loved, used things go to new homes where new people, albeit strangers, might love their old, used things just as much. I mean, that’s why I put my things on the Freecycle list — and I’ve gotten rid of everything from a computer desk to a recliner to a computer monitor to a shower radio.
Freecycle isn’t supposed to be where you go to act greedy. Especially if you have enough money to buy a house. I mean, o.k. I’m keeping an eye on the “OFFER” messages for someone who’s parting with a kitchen table because I’ve never had a kitchen big enough to have a table in it, but I’m not begging for one. I mean, I can afford to buy a house. If I miss the offer and someone else gets it, I have to believe it’s because that person needed it more and I can afford to go to WAL-Mart or Target and buy a cheap-ass kitchen table to use until I can afford a better one. I’m certainly not going to beg strangers for one.
I don’t even like asking my own family for stuff.
Tags: greed, Freecycle
November 6th, 2006
52 - Percentage of Americans who can name at least two members of the cartoon Simpsons family.
28 - Percentage of Americans who can name at least two freedoms granted in the First Amendment.
21 - Percentage who believe the right to own a pet is one of them.
Source: Health, July/August, 2006.
Tags: First Amendement, The Simpsons, Freedoms, trivia
November 3rd, 2006
The flippers have agreed to fix the window with the broken seal before closing. It was added to the list of items that have to be completed that includes fixing the fire code issue in the basement, installing the smoke detectors, checking the exhaust fan for the oven/stove, and fixing the light over the back of the garage among a few other minor things like adding a garbage disposal.
So…I’ve put it off as long as I can. The packing boxes that I ordered online and thought would be delivered by today won’t be here until Tuesday, but I need to get started packing. I only have 3 weekends, maybe 4 if the closing gets put off until after Thanksgiving. My goal for this weekend is to pack up my CDs, DVDs, knick knacks, file cabinet, desk, and games. I need boxes for this. I tried asking for some on Freecycle and got nary a reply. I grabbed only one paper box from work. So Office Depot or Office Max it is this afternoon.
I think I’ll just start piling the boxes up in a corner in the office upstairs and go from there.
I just am leary. I have this bad feeling that I’ll get all packed and everything will fall through. I have that kind of luck.
Tags: packing, moving, Freecycle, Office Depot, Office Max, luck
November 3rd, 2006
This Thursday Thirteen from Carmen’s Gone to Plaid blog just begs to be reposted and forwarded via email all across the Internet to everyone everyone knows before Election Day next Tuesday. There are some excellent reminders in there no matter who you’re voting for (and you should be voting for someone).
(note: my own Thursday Thirteen is a few posts down.)
Thirteen Reasons (or Not) You Should Vote for Me if I Ran for OfficeTuesday is Election Day (GO VOTE!).
[…snip…]
PS: You have the right to disagree with me (isn’t America great?), but not to be mean in my comments.
- Being a Democracy isn’t easy. Take free speech. You may not like what I say, and you have the right to disagree. But I still have the right to say it. That includes questioning our leaders without being called “unpatriotic.” Questioning our leaders and speaking your mind is the most patriotic thing you can do. However, these freedoms require responsibility.
More
Tags: vote, Election Day, Democracy, free speech, Patriot
August 17th, 2006
As promised, I’m passing on my latest finds…or I’m trying — Pugly is trying to keep me from using the computer –
- DealCatcher – The best thing at DealCatcher is the printable coupons. You know how every now and then someone will send around a printable coupon for Borders or Barnes & Nobles or some theater? DealCatcher collects all of those things all in one handy place. It keeps track of sales from tons of stores plus you can look for product reviews and rebates. Oh, and since I live by my Bloglines feeds, I was downright excited to discover you could subscribe to rss feeds for DealCatcher!
- Borders Rewards — I went to Borders yesterday to coincidentally use a printable coupon I found on DealCatcher. I was offered a Borders Rewards membership. I’ve always said no because of a real screw-up with my old Barnes & Nobles club membership, which they charged you for. However, the clerk told that the Borders Rewards cards are free. Now, one of the things I noted is that some of those printable coupons are for members only and are a much bigger discount, so that alone is a good incentive. Plus, they’ll email you more coupons and when you use the card, you earn special holiday and other discounts. Pretty nifty!
- LibraryThing — This one isn’t so much a shopping thing, but it’s a pretty nifty tool: LibraryThing allows you to enter what you’re reading or your whole library. From LibraryThing, you can search Amazon, the Library of Congress and 45 other world libraries. Once you create your library, you can show it off on their site, put your books on your blog, or keep it private. Plus, LibraryThing connects you with people who read the same things, even that obsure stuff, which allows you to get recommendations. The free account allows you to enter 200 books; if you have more than that, you can enter as many as you like for $10 (year) or $25 (life).
Tags: free, Borders
August 7th, 2006
I created a new category called “Free Stuff” because I’d been emailing friends and family with information on free things they could get or discounts they could have but had been neglecting to share that information here. Part of me didn’t think I needed to share here because, well, I assume y’all are a bit more web saavy than say my mom and can find these sorts of things on your own, but then I suppose I could be nicer and share the wealth and make it easier, couldn’t I?
So, without further ado, I shall start with three websites every bargain hunter should have bookmarked:
- Freecycle.org — The Freecycle Network is the world’s largest swap meet but don’t be intimidated, you only sign up to receive or review messages from other members in your town or region. The idea is that rather than just toss what might be in your garage or basement or that beat up bookshelf, you post it to the freecycle forum and someone who needs it contacts you and comes and gets it. Just because you’re done with it, doesn’t mean someone else can’t use it. Membership is, of course, free. I like to check every day or so and while I might not find anything I might want, it’s fun to read what people are looking for or offering — everything from old cars to doggie potty training pads to palm pilots.
- Second Thoughts — I know I’ve mentioned Jeremy Stoll’s website before. Jeremy posts links to other websites that are giving things away. These things could be anything from magazine subscriptions to product samples to coupons to movie tickets, etc., etc. Sometimes you have to fill out a survey. Usually you have to provide a valid email address and snail mail address. I have had about 25-30% luck with the links. Usually the recognizable product names are trust-worthy to actually send you what’s promised. I haven’t tried any of the magazine subscriptions or movie tickets. I’ve gotten all of the coupons and snacks for pet products, however.
- Congoo.com — Real Simple magazine gave me this one. I hate when a blog references an online article but when I follow the source link, the article is on a site that has a subscription policy. Congoo.com is the answer to that. Keep in mind that there is a limit to the number of articles you can access per month using this free service, however.
Tags: free
July 31st, 2006
O.K. This is interesting.
I’ve always recommened The Gradual Vegetarian for anyone interested in becoming a vegetarian. It’s an excellent book and I wish I’d had it when I tried the whole 100% Vegetarian lifestyle thing cold turkey (so to speak) back in the early to mid-90’s when it was almost impossible to find good meat substitutes in regular grocery stores and health food stores were hidden away in secret parts of town like Diagon Alley.
Really now there are so many more choices for people and a lot more reasons to go vegetarian than just moral and religious.
But that said, back to the “O.K. This is interesting…” One of the RSS feeds I read, provides links to “free” things and one of those free things today is a “free vegetarian starter kit”. I’m not sure what’s in it and it’s obvious that this particular site is an animal rights website so I’m sure the literature will be associatiated with the whole moral aspect of not eating meat because it’s wrong to kill and the mistreatment of animals. However, if you’re interested in getting the kit, click here.
If you just want the link to the website with the links to free stuff, click here. (I’ve only gotten about 5% of the free stuff I’ve filled out my name and address for. So far, the free Tyson chicken was the best.)
Update: I sent off for the free kit to see what was in it. I do not recommend it to anyone with a weak stomach. The materials contain color photos of butchered animals. Glancing through the materials, I feel that if you want information on how to eat in a balanced, healthy way as a vegetarian, you are better off purchasing something like The Gradual Vegetarian: The Step-by-Step Way to Start Eating the Right Stuff Today or Being a Vegetarian For Dummies.
Tags: free, vegetarian, animal rights
July 19th, 2006
Apparently our military is feeling a bit uncomfortable with the Wiccan Pentacle and has been a bit slow to approve it for placement on military grave markers (9 years and still counting). It’s o.k. to serve and die as a Wiccan but don’t expect the same respect as Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and atheists in death.
At the Veterans Memorial Cemetery in the small town of Fernley, Nev., there is a wall of brass plaques for local heroes. But one space is blank. There is no memorial for Sgt. Patrick D. Stewart.
That’s because Stewart was a Wiccan, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has refused to allow a symbol of the Wicca religion — a five-pointed star within a circle, called a pentacle — to be inscribed on U.S. military memorials or grave markers.
The department has approved the symbols of 38 other faiths; about half of are versions of the Christian cross. It also allows the Jewish Star of David, the Muslim crescent, the Buddhist wheel, the Mormon angel, the nine-pointed star of Bahai and something that looks like an atomic symbol for atheists.
Stewart, 34, is believed to be the first Wiccan killed in combat. He was serving in the Nevada National Guard when the helicopter in which he was riding was shot down in Afghanistan last September. He previously had served in the Army in Korea and Operation Desert Storm. He was posthumously awarded a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star.
[…]
Wicca is one of the fastest-growing faiths in the country. Its adherents have increased almost 17-fold from 8,000 in 1990 to 134,000 in 2001, according to the American Religious Identification Survey. The Pentagon says that more than 1,800 Wiccans are on active duty in the armed forces.
Wiccans still suffer, however, from the misconception that they are devil worshipers. Some Wiccans call themselves witches, pagans or neopagans. Most of their rituals revolve around the cycles of nature, such as equinoxes and phases of the moon. Wiccans often pick and choose among religious traditions, blending belief in reincarnation and feminine gods with ritual dancing, chanting and herbal medicine.
Federal courts have recognized Wicca as a religion since 1986. Prisons across the country treat it as a legitimate faith, as do the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. military, which allows Wiccan ceremonies on its bases.
“My husband’s dog tags said ‘Wiccan’ on them,” Stewart noted.
But applications from Wiccan groups and individuals to VA for use of the pentacle on grave markers have been pending for nine years, during which time the symbols of 11 other faiths have been approved.[“Fallen Soldier Gets a Bronze Star but No Pagan Star” (WashingtonPost.com)]
Hat tip: Thudfactor.
Tags: Faith, Wiccan, Freedom of Religion
May 12th, 2006
In a nation where free speech is the last line of defense against absolute power, they don’t want you to know, because the more you know, the worse they look.
– Rep. Jim McDermott, “The Big Chill” (Huffington Post)
I highly recommend reading Representative McDermott’s whole blog post too.
Tags: Quote of the Day, Jim McDermott, Freedom of Speech, politics
May 2nd, 2006
Jacob Hornberger, founder of The Future of Freedom Foundation, wrote an excellent commentary on April 26th and I wanted to share part of it:
… we now live in a nation in which the president has the omnipotent power to ignore all constitutional restraints on his power. That might not be the way the president and his legal advisors put it, but that is the practical effect of what they are saying to justify his powers. They effectively claim that the Constitution vests the president — as military commander in chief during the “war on terrorism” — with such extraordinary powers that he is able to ignore restraints on his powers imposed both by the Constitution and by Congress.
No restraints on declaring and waging war against other nations. No restraints on the power to secretly record telephone conversations of the American people. No restraints on the power to kidnap and send people into overseas concentration camps for the purpose of torture and even execution. No restraints on the power to take Americans into custody as “enemy combatants” and punish them — even torture and execute them — without due process of law and jury trials.
If all that isn’t dictatorship, what is?
“But President Bush is a good man. He’s trying to protect us. He’s waging war against the terrorists. He’s not evil like other dictators in history. He was elected. He can be trusted.”
People who say that are missing the point. The suggestion is not that Bush is an evil man. The point is simply that Bush now wields the same omnipotent, dictatorial powers that other dictators in history have wielded. That is not a small transformation in American life when it comes to freedom.
“Well, then, where are the mass round-ups, and where are the concentration camps?”
Again, people who ask that type of question are missing the point. The point is not whether Bush is exercising his omnipotent, dictatorial power to the maximum extent. It’s whether he now possesses omnipotent, dictatorial power, power that can be exercised whenever circumstances dictate it — for example, during another major terrorist attack on American soil, when Americans become overly frightened again.
Unless the American people figure out a way to reverse what has happened to their country — and have the will to do something about it — they will earn the mark of shame reserved for those people in history who voluntarily relinquished their freedom in exchange for the aura of security. Like all others in history who have chosen such a course, they will ultimately learn that they have lost both their freedom and their security. [“A Democratic Dictatoriship” (The Future of Freedom Foundation)]
I very much believe that the average American really wants to believe that the kind of abuses that Bush is actually claiming he has a right to and has actually been committing in the name of President of the United States of America simply can’t happen “here” in this country. This is America. We are the good guys. We are better than that. Our Leaders will protect us.
I’m sure that every other nation and people that found themselves lost and misled and trapped one day thought the same thing. That sort of thing couldn’t happen in their village, their country, their nation, their empire. They were invicible; they were great; they were blessed; they were the good guys. Their leaders were supposed to protect them.
I just don’t want to wake up in a police state some day because September 11th happened. It was a tragedy it happened. There are things we can do to fight back, to protect ourselves, but we don’t have to give up everything and destroy our freedoms and everything that made us a great nation, America, the good guys, just because it happened. That’s not going to make anything better.
Destroying ourselves so the bad guys can’t won’t solve the problem.
Tags: Democracy, dictatorship, George W. Bush, The Future of Freedom Foundation, Freedoms, 9/11
April 18th, 2006
Abu Bakker Qassim and A’del Abdu al-Hakim have been held in Guantanamo Bay since June 2002 after they were captured by bounty hunters in Pakistan in 2001. At the time they were fleeing China in search of religious and political sanctuary and in the chaos involving the “enemy combatant” round-up that led to anyone and everyone being handed over for American dollars, bounty hunters sold them to America and they were locked up.
Last year, the U.S. military determined that they were not in fact “enemy combatants.” You’d think then that everything would then be find and dandy for Abu Bakker Wassim and A’del Abdu al-Hakim.
However, both are still residents of Guantanamo Bay and their address doesn’t look likely to change any time soon.
The Bush Administration wisely says it cannot return them to China as they are Uighurs and would face persecution there. “Beijing has frequently cracked down on Uighur dissidents, who are seeking autonomy in the country’s north-western Xinjiang province. The Chinese government accuses Uighur militants of waging a bombing and assassination campaign, and receiving training at al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan.” [“Guantamao Uighur Appeal Rejected” (BBC News)]
The problem is that these men are innocent. They’re still in prison.
The Bush Administration doesn’t want them in the U.S. for some reason — you’d think after such a screw up, we might want to make it up to them, make nice.
I just don’t get why someone isn’t making a bigger deal about this. If these were Americans being held in a prison somewhere, we’d be all up in arms. These are innocent men. They’ve been proven to be innocent. We are violating their rights, holding them indefinitely for no reason. That’s it’s own kind of torture, in my opinion. These men have lives we’re stealing from them. This is that Freedom we’re bringing to the Middle East.
Tags: Abu Bakker Qassim, A'del Abdu al-Hakim, Guantanamo Bay, detainees, innocent, Freedoms
April 4th, 2006
I’m alway on alert for stories and reports about how things are going in Afghanistan. We hardly ever hear anything about how things are going over there since the invasion of Iraq started and, yet, supposedly, Afghanistan is really where all of this War on Terror stuff started. At the very least, Afghanistan is where the Taliban and Osama Bin Ladin was after 9-11. And we did a lot of bragging in the early days about how we were bringing them freedom and democracy and how we were going to rebuild the country. Remember all of that?
Now, Afghanistan hardly gets a mention in the news. Even when they had elections, it wasn’t even one of our top stories. Iraq has taken over our lives. Afghanistan is the forgotten bastard child. Kind of a shame really because apparently a lot has been happening while we weren’t looking.
More
Tags: Afghanistan, Freedoms, Democracy, Taliban, Kandahar, Pakistan, al-Qaeda
March 28th, 2006
This parking lot is apparently a no-Bush zone.
Tags: Freedom of Speech, photo
March 21st, 2006
These folks didn’t have anything real political to say. Their comment is more on how we live our day to day lives. It’s good advice.
(That’s not blurry photography, I’m afraid. I went back and looked. They wrote like that.)
Tags: photo, Freedom of Speech
March 16th, 2006
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
–Voltaire
Without going back and digging through my own posts about Cindy Sheehan, I’m sure when she first arrived on the scene last summer in Crawford, Texas, I thought she was kind of nifty. I figured as long as she was participating in peaceful, anti-war protest she was doing a good thing and I pretty much backed her.
I’m all for Freedom of Speech. I mean, I have my limits of what’s good taste and what’s appropriate. I’m from the “harm none” mentality and also the “you don’t wear jeans to church” crowd.
So, anyway, I don’t recall if what I’ve said about Cindy here. I haven’t exactly agreed with everything she’s said or done in public and let’s face it, she’s said and done some real doseys. I think she makes us serious liberals look like “moonbats”, but I will defend her right to say what she believes as long as it isn’t gay bashing, sexist, racist, or otherwise outright hateful.
And I don’t believe that liberals are the only ones with a right to Freedom of Speech either.
Merrilee Carlson also lost her son in Iraq, but unlike Cindy Sheehan, her name hasn’t become a household name and she hasn’t been making the rounds of late night talk shows or public press events. Yet, she has her own message and her own organization and she’s been trying to get the word out. Merrilee Carlson believes that “we have to take a step back and look at what we have asked our military to do. We have asked them to do a job. It doesn’t matter how we got there. The fact is we are there and we have a job to finish.”
O.K. So I don’t agree with her message exactly. I understand it. I understand where she’s coming from. I understand why she feels that way even, but I don’t agree. However, I do think she has as much a right as Cindy Sheehan to make her message known. Starting last August and September, when Cindy started making headlines, Merrilee started to feel the need to balance things out, to “correct the record”. After all, her opinion is just as justified and right as Cindy’s.
In the last couple of weeks the organization that Carlson chairs, Minnesota Families United, has been in the center of a controversy that, by any objective reasoning, should have made national news.
Minnesota Families United teamed with Progress for America Voter Fund and produced two television spots. Minnesota was used as a test market for the spots and PFA made a rather large statewide television buy. The ABC affiliate in the Twin Cities market, KSTP, refused to air the spots.
The decision not to air the first MFU commercial was made by Rob Hubbard, General Manager. His objection was over two lines in the spot:
1) The media only reports the bad news, but American troops are making real progress
2) You would never know it from the news reports, but our enemy in Iraq is Al Qaeda.
Hubbard’s position was that those lines did not apply to his television station; therefore, he would not allow the spot to run. Hubbard says he would have run the spot if they edited it to make it clear they were talking about the media in general, but not KSTP specifically.
It is certainly understandable that Hubbard is worried his viewers might get the wrong impression. After all, the reason these spots were produced in the first place is that these families of our fallen heroes believe millions have gotten the wrong impression regarding the progress our soldiers have made in Iraq. Still, the question remains: Do these families deserve to have their voices heard, or should they be stifled?
This debate is not happening, because this story never made national news. To recap: In an election year, a group used Minnesota as a test market for a possible national buy and one of the prominent stations took the position that the spot should not air. Maybe this didn’t become news because of the hypocrisy of the industry. They often try their best to protect themselves from the type of stories they inflict on others.
The news hook gets better.
On Thursday, February 16th, the Chair of the Democrat Party in Minnesota called on all TV stations to pull the ad. The top Democrats in Minnesota want to suppress the message of Carlson’s group.
Merrilee Carlson was born and raised a Democrat. She doesn’t like politics and she wants to make it clear that her group is non-political. So, the Democrats in Minnesota are trying to suppress the message from mainstream families who have suffered the loss of their children from the war in Iraq. Why is this not news?
That other mom was a full-time, anti-war protester for more than a year before she came up with the PR stunt to go to Crawford during the president’s vacation. The media accepted the stunt and gave her message enormous coverage. This prompted Carlson to take action for her message. Now Carlson is in the middle of legitimate news and the media is silent. [“Pro-military mom silenced by mainstream media” (Townhall.com)]
A Google search of Merrilee Carlson brought up precious little than a few opinion articles about the above issue and this article about the death of Sgt. Michael Carlson — o.k. 29,100 links. In comparison, I could look at about 9,770,000 different links on Cindy Sheehan if I had the time and interest.
Anyway, I find it fascinating that Democrats are campaigning to keep her commercial from airing. Yet another disappointment from that party and proof that they’re all alike. I find it interesting that she is a Democrat to begin with. I also find it terribly fascinating that I found this violation of an American’s Civil Rights on not one of the liberal blogs I read but on the most right-wingingest blog I read.
Anyway, go check out Merrilee’s website and watch her commercial, whether you agree with her or not.
Tags: Merrilee Carlson, Cindy Sheehan, politics, Freedom of Speech, anti-war, pro-military, Iraq, grieving mother, Minnesota Families United, Democrats
March 15th, 2006
This is a great post by The (liberal) Girl Next Door:
Someone recently told me that it’s not quite time to panic, that things in this country may be bad, but we haven’t yet reached the point of no return. So I’d just like to toss out the question. When is it time to panic? When does mere concern turn urgent, and will we all recognize the signs in time?
[…]
Or is it time to panic when, as Patricia Goldsmith suggests, there is no opposition left? It has long been the case that our two party system is nothing more than political theater. We have two political parties feeding from the same corporate troughs and serving the same corporate interests. If we continue to buy into the lies of either side and continue to separate from one another reducing public discourse to screaming at one another from opposite sides of the wedges driven between us, we give the only power we have left away to leaders who will only abuse it. If we willfully divide ourselves, we will be easily conquered.
I don’t want to panic before it is warranted, but I sometimes wonder if we will recognize the last straw. Don’t we remember that in Germany, the Nazis took control of government, not in a violent coup, but by passing laws that gave them increasing power and control over the people and the news they received? We keep hearing that it’s not time to panic just yet, but if history has a lesson for us right now, it’s that panicking too late won’t do a damn bit of good. Do we really, as a country, want to sit idly by watching evil become a way of life? Most of us judge the German people not as victims, but rather as willing accomplices. Will we judge ourselves the same?
I have been wary of using the Nazi comparison, but since Sandra Day O’Connor, the voice of reason on our high court for decades, feels comfortable warning of a dictatorship, I guess I feel justified. We are being fed propaganda, our government is becoming increasingly secretive, dissenting voices are routinely being silenced, and this administration appears to be accountable to no one. If it isn’t quite yet time to panic, I fear the time is fast approaching.
Read the whole well-thought-out post! I don’t know about you, but I’ve been feeling panicky for a while, but then I come by it naturally. I thought it was just me being paranoid. Apparently, I’m not alone. That’s somewhat comforting. I think.
Tags: politics, George W. Bush, Impeach, Freedoms, liberals, Sandra Day O'Connor, voice of reason, dictatorship, Nazi Germany, propaganda
March 14th, 2006
More Spying on Americans just for exercising their American rights…
PITTSBURGH (Reuters) -FBI anti-terrorism agents spied on a peace group simply because it opposed the
Iraq war, part of an “unprecedented campaign” to spy on innocent citizens, the American Civil Liberties Union said on Tuesday.
FBI documents acquired under the Freedom of Information Act and provided to reporters show the FBI conducted surveillance of the Pittsburgh-based Thomas Merton Center for Peace & Justice at anti-war demonstrations and leaflet distributions in 2002 and 2003.
One of the FBI documents, unveiled at a news conference by the two groups, carried the headline “International Terrorism Matters” and referred to the FBI’s work with an anti-terrorism task force that includes several agencies.
Another FBI document said the Pittsburgh Joint Terrorism Task Force had learned that “The Thomas Merton Center … has been determined to be an organization which is opposed to the United States’ war with Iraq.” [“FBI spied on Pittsburgh pacifists, papers show” (Yahoo!News)]
I like lambert’s response on Corrente:
They’ve been calling us traitors for years, so why not take them at their word? Although the logic is a little odd: There aren’t a lot of committed pacifists who turn into terrorists, and most terrorists I’ve heard of don’t want to draw attention to themselves by handing out leaflets. Still, who expects logic from these guys?
Tags: FBI, politics, anti-war, protest, spying on Americans, Freedom of Information Act, Thomas Merton Center
March 14th, 2006
I swear to each and every one of you that I looked around for a visual representation of Republican pride or protest or something but to be honest, the liberals are much more visually “vocal” — particularly in this area of the country.
So, here’s this week’s. Someone is using their front door as a billboard to make a statement in this quiet neighborhood.
Tags: politics, photo, Freedom of Speech, George W. Bush, Worst President Ever
