What Has Happened to America...

This week something happened that has shaken the very foundation around me and evidently that of countless others.

I have voted in 12 presidential elections in my life time. I've had my share of winning and losing candidates I've experienced disappointment and since there are always winners and losers it stands to reason there always has to be some people who are on a losing side and wake up disappointed; assuming the mad it to bed at all.
 
It was during my morning drive that it occurred to me that that something major had occurred. Something that left me feeling  like an expatriate; removed from the country I love. The feeling was surreal. Clearly I had only left my home and was driving I-70 to my office. I had gone nowhere beyond my normal daily routine, yet I was in some altered universe. I had not left my country but rather, my country had left me.

You see my country spans across a continent with two great oceans on either side. On the east - stands a monument overlooking  New York City that was a gift of France. It  immortalizes the promise of America to the world.  "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" - words of Emma Lazarus, a New York poet best known for her poem The New Colossus from which these lines were taken. On the west, the great city of San Francisco whose Golden Gate Bridge is spans across the San Francisco Bay and is another great landmark for those arriving from the Pacific side. But the promise on  Lady Liberty in the New York harbor extends to those arriving from all directions.

And my country not only welcomes persons from other countries, other nationalities, other races, and any religions, it affords these persons who come to this country for a new life, for safety, the protection and freedoms and dignity afforded all of us. By extension, unless we are Native American, we have all made this journey in the past.

But back to my drive...  I know that  as I make this trip, today  and in the weeks ahead a new administration will take shape that has made as the counterpoint of it's campaign promises that threaten to shake the very foundations of what has made this the greatest nation. The role model for the rest of the free world and hope for those oppressed everywhere.

The future in this country is bleak for persons of other nationalities, for Blacks, Latinos, Muslims, Asians. For gays, lesbians, and trans-gendered people. Even women, who are not in the minority are open game for discrimination, sexual assault, and misogyny. The new leadership is not committed to protecting these people and in fact they have real reasons for fear. Already Black churches have been torched. Muslims have been assaulted, or shot and killed walking down the street. Promises of mass deportation and families broken up.  And the hard fought promise to make medical care for millions a reality as opposed to a matter for the privileged teeters on the brink of extinction.

This is not the America I know. This is an America that is broken. The idea the these things will make America great again, flies in the face of Lady Liberty. Perhaps she should be returned to her original benefactor



 

Outraged by Brutality Reminiscent of Past

For some days now I have been meaning to take the time to post about the recent string of police and security response to peaceful assembly.  I've seen some footage of incidents on cable news and read a few accounts and I am saddened by the turn to aggression by many of the authorities in the past week.
Even where we have previously seen police take a responsible attitude toward protesters there has been a shift in the response to their peaceful assemble.

Have we forgotten the lessens of the late sixties and seventies? The brutality on the streets during the Nixon years only heightened the tensions in this country. The response with force to peaceful assembly 
(a guaranteed constitutional right) is indefensible.  Spraying protesters who are sitting in rows with pepper-spray and clubbing individuals is only going build a toxic climate in this country.

We seem to growing very lax in terms of many of our constitutional guarantees.  When law enforcement abridges the right of peaceful assembly it is a fundamental attack upon every one of us, not just those in a particular location protesting a particular cause.  We don't have to be associated with that cause to be the victims because the erosion of on person's right of assembly risks the protection of our own right does do so on this or some other cause.

The former poet laureate Robert Hass, was beaten on the Berkley Campus by Alameda County deputy sheriffs.  Is it really necessary to beat a seventy-some year old man who is peacefully assembled? Or a man or woman of any age? 

Someone explain to me what threat is posed by this assemblage because the threat that is posed by police with batons and pepper-spray on a peacefully assembled crowd, that threat I understand.  The latter risks bodily harm, risks unhealthy tensions between authorities and citizens, and it jeopardizes the very constitutional rights we all  have as citizens of this country.



Above is one video shot at UC Berkley that demonstrates the response to assembled students.
I am outraged by this. I'm old enough to recall the Nixon years when young Americans were coming home from Vietnam in body bags by the thousands and brutality of those times. Do we really have to repeat this? Have we not progressed in the year that have followed?

Kind of funny and not so...

Will I Ever Write a 9-11 Poem and Other Thoughts on America Since that Fateful Day

I recall once before blogging about 9-11 and remarking that I had never been compelled to write a 9-11 poem. Given that we are approaching the 10th year anniversary of that tragic event I thought it was worth addressing this again in my own mind and explore some other post 9-11 impacts of  my own.

While it has been nearly 10 years I think 9-11 remains pretty fresh in our minds and the feelings most Americans have remain pretty raw. I think there are several reasons for this.

• Any child of say 10 up into the teens was old enough to realize what happened on that day and ten years later these people are young adults. They have grown up with nearly half there life under the specter of 9-11 and therefor for many of these people it is a singularly defining moment.
• The events of 9-11 prompted an American war response that has continued to this day, at considerable expense to the American economy and loss of life and quality of life for many American servicemen and families.
• Since 9-11 we have all seen dramatic changes in security that have eroded some personal liberty and freedoms for which Americans have long held themselves different from other world citizens.

In spite of how fresh in our minds 9-11 remains for us I have continued distance from it poetically.  I recall one draft of work that has some vaguely distant reference to 9-11 but certainly is not a poem about 9-11.

Immediately after the attack everyone and their pet dog was writing poems about the event. I totally get this because poetry tends to be a terrific release of emotional energy. But doing so, releasing such energy onto a page does not necessarily make for the best poems. There were in the days and weeks immediately thereafter some horrible poetry written on the subject.  Not all of course was bad, I've read some remarkable ones, but I decided long ago that any poem I would write on the subject would need to be quite remarkable.

To me the 9-11 tragedies lives on daily. It is as if the loss of innocent lives that day were somehow not enough. It lives on in many ways and the least of which I'll summarize here:

• Fear!  Not a new word to us for we've been warned about the cost of fear on our lives decades ago, but to be frank, fear now touches us every time we travel, it has reached our economic stability, and it courts families daily that have sons, daughters, husbands, wives, etc. overseas in war zones.
• Civil liberties... in the years following 9-11 the individual civil rights and privacy of Americans have been in a watershed of erosion.
• National stature...  So many things from the breach of rules we have lived under for such a long time with respect to treatment of prisoners in detainment  to the very ill-conceived reasons for preemptive war in Iraq have led others to question our stature as a leader of the free world.
• Military readiness - our ability to defend ourselves from real threats has been severely compromised by the misguided long term military engagements that continued today as a result of 9-11, and to what end? Have they made us any safer?

For my generation, 9-11 although certainly tragic represents not a singular defining moment in our lives. We have had many of them. Much the same way generations before us have.  Perhaps my problem is that quite frankly my generation has had way too many tragic events.  The 1960's alone were littered with the losses of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy and the Vietnam War. And let me say at this point I am not going to engage in debate over which is worse, the murder of one man or that of some 3,000. The deaths of JFK, MLK and RFK were not singular losses but the loss of hope and dreams for millions. They were no better or worse then they deaths on 9-11 as all were tragedies of a national level.

I suppose the one thing about the lack a poetic response to 9-11 on my own that mystifies me is that I am not at all adverse to poetry of witness. I actually am a pretty big advocate of/defender of it. Carolyn Forché is just one of many poets I admire, with a reputation for very such very work. But 10 years later, I still have nothing to add.

Saturday morning and lots going on in my mind

I can't help but wonder what the ultimate damage assessment and loss of life will look like on the Gulf coast from the savage path of Ike.  It all seems sorrel having so much news coverage and yet we know so little of the human tragedy yet. It's still all drama and yet you know the loss is there.

Then too there is the horrific train collision in the LA area. Yet another reminder how fragile life can be even in the daily grind.

If you look past all this, there is still a campaign going on, though the candidates attempt to tip-toe through the human suffering so as not to offend.

In reality an election is going to happen in the end and it is perhaps one of profound importance when you consider where this nation has been in the past 8 years. Our economy has gone from one of deficit reductions in the years prior to Bush taking office to one that is historic in terms of national debit. At the same time we are seeing banks and major investment houses collapse in their own debt write-offs for losses that not only are corporate losses but translate to shareholder losses as well.  And those  share holders are not all wealthy individuals who can sustain the risk of their investments, but in many cases baby boomers whose retirement pensions are often tied to such investments.

Meanwhile, we continue to spend $10 billion a month (not even counted in the federal budget) for the ongoing military action in Iraq. A war that was a mistake from the very conception.  All this time, things grow worse in Afghanistan, the country with the real connection to 9-11, not Iraq.

Quietly on the home front, the Bush administration continues to pursue a course of action that threatens our very constructional protections.  One by one eroding our rights as citizens. The most recent example seeks to take us back some 30 years to the Nixon era when it was necessary to clean up the constitutional abuses of a very paranoid president who felt it necessary to abuse powers to spy on the American people.

This week, as a perhaps final legacy of this administration, the FBI announced it is seeking to implement new rules as of October 1 that would allow agents pursuing national security leads to employ physical surveillance, deploy informants and engage in "pretext" interviews with their identities hidden to assess the danger posed by a subject. Such assessments could be initiated even without a particular fact or concrete lead that a person had engaged in wrongdoing. Additionally. as in the days of Nixon, it is suggested that changes still could be made in some areas, including ground rules for FBI agents who secretly infiltrate activist groups or collect intelligence at public demonstrations and events without a suspected terrorist threat.

It's a lot to chew on this Saturday morning. The underlying question now is, can I clear my head and write today?

Technorati Tags: Afghanistan,Iraq,Bush,Nixon,national debit,investments,financial institutions,FBI,civil liberties,Ike,war,election

A Summer of Discontent?

As the Beijing Olympics opens to all it's anticipated fanfare, what will be the storyline that emerges around the world?
Will it be one of a China that is developing into a more modern society with tremendous economic growth, or will it be one of a nation that in spite of a globalizing influence, remains backwards and determined to suppress civil dissent?

I will be anxious to see how free reporters and bloggers are to bring us the story of these Olympic games. Historically coverage has been as much about the culture of the host people as it has about the athletic competition. There is a strong national pride that is evident among the Chinese people connected with these games. I'm sure China wants use to these games the enhance their world image, but will the world see a picture of China that is real or one that is filtered through the only lens that the government allows us to view?

Travelers' Laptops May Be Detained At Border - washingtonpost.com

Travelers' Laptops May Be Detained At Border - washingtonpost.com

Planning to travel abroad? When you re-enter the U.S. the Department of Homeland Security has disclosed that Federal agents may take your laptop computer or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing. These officials may share copies of the lap top's contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons.

The policies cover any device capable of storing information in digital or analog form:

• including hard drives
• flash drives
• cellphones
• pagers
• ipods
• video and audio tapes
  

They also cover:

• all papers and other written documentation
• including books
• pamphlets
• pocket trash
• pocket litter

Yes that would miscellaneous paper scraps in your pocket.

With all the talk about abuses in the civil liberties of people by the Chinese government, I'd say that under the Bush administration we are well down that slippery slide. More information on protecting privacy issues can be found here

IMMUNITY FIGHT A VICTORY FOR GOVERNMENT LAWLESSNESS

When the Bush Administration tapped private phone lines with the aid of phone companies but without any court order authorizing the wiretaps, it set into motion a series of challenges for violating the privacy rights of millions of Americans. That battle ended today when the Senate voted in favor of the new FISA bill today by a 69-28. Barack Obama joined every Senate Republican by voting in favor of it. Sadly my own Democratic Senator from Missouri, Claire McCaskill also sold out to Bush and the phone companies voting for the final bill with immunity for phone companies that have already provided private information from American citizens to the Bush administration without court order. Sen. Hillary Clinton had the courage to voted against it.

Earlier amendment to pass the bill without immunity failed - Obama supporting that effort while McCaskill again voted the Bush & phone company line.

Your Privacy For Sale

Small wonder the Bush administration has insisted on immunity from prosecution for AT&T and other telecommunications that granted government access to private phone conversations and e-mails without due process or order from any court. The political action committee at AT&T contributed the maximum amount allowable by law to the Bush/Cheney campaign — twice.

CIA in the news....

• CIA rejects secret jails report
• CIA jails in Europe 'confirmed'
• UK apology over rendition flights
• US judge blocks CIA flight case - "The very subject matter of this case is a state secret," Judge James Ware wrote in a ruling.
• Inquiry into destroyed CIA tapes
• US 'may' use waterboarding again
• Doctors' Group Says It Has Evidence US Military Tortured Detainees

Habeas Corpus Lives!

For yet a third time, the U.S. Supreme Court has rebuked the Bush Administration on it's handling of the detainees at Guantanamo. It struck down a 2006 law the Republican-controlled Congress passed at the request of the President, called the Military Commissions Act. The act suspended habeas corpus - a prisoner's right to challenge his or her detention. In the court's decision, Justice Anthony Kennedy, said, "The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times." I've found it very difficult to understand how it can be viewed otherwise. It is such a fundamental part of our justice system. I will be anxious to hear what the President has to say about this decision.

Rachael Ray - "jihadi chic"

Oh my God! The spastic idiocy of some people!

So Dunkin' Donuts runs an ad on its Web site featuring Rachael Ray holding a cup of the company’s iced coffee while wearing a black-and-white fringed scarf. Along comes conservative bloggers Charles Johnson and Michelle Malkin et al. and suddenly Rachael's the scarf became a keffiyeh presto, Dunkin' Donuts has at “jihadi chic.”

Of course this spreads all over the Internet faster than a computer virus and the next thing you know, Dunkin' Donuts ran for cover from the legion of lunatics who put Joseph McCarthy to shame. The company issues the following statement, “In a recent online ad, Rachael Ray is wearing a black-and-white silk scarf with a paisley design, It was selected by a stylist for the advertising shoot. Absolutely no symbolism was intended.” It added that the decision to remove the ad was made, “because the possibility of misconception detracted from its original intention to promote our iced coffee.”

Michelle Malkin eventually praised D.D. for killing the advertisement and took the opportunity to fill us all in. “The keffiyeh, for the clueless, is the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad.”

OK, I'm pretty certain that's exactly what Rachael Ray had in mind. A cleaver clandestine operation to use coffee... but not just any coffee, Dunkin' Donuts Iced coffee to spread terror throughout the land.

Before you think that I take the threat of terror lightly, I believe there are people who wish Americans harm. I believe they generally are paranoid about the prospects of an open society with individual rights and liberties. It's not so much that they hate you and I individually, they don't even know us. It is what we represent that they fear and hate. So when I see this kind of knee-jerk craziness I am saddened that there are Americans who feed right into the cause they think they are fighting.

This is the kind of paranoia that leads to suppression of the very rights and liberties that the terrorists despise. This is one of the greatest dangers of terrorism. A bombing that kills innocent people is a tragic loss, but when it happens we see it for what it is.When terrorists create the kind of fear and paranoia that leads a President and telecommunications companies to suspend our rights and liberties without due process, it takes us one step closer to the loss of the very liberty countless men and women have fought and died for. And each act, each tiny chip away at our rights take us a step closer to the same oppressive controls that these individuals exert over others.

Dunkin' Donuts, Charles Johnson and Michelle Malkin, along with a host of other ultra-conservative bloggers who fanned the flames of this stupid notion, deserve nothing more than our scorn and disapproval for the disservice they do to a free nation, not to mention the ill will their ignorance heaps on many honest, good, peaceful people whom they lump into the label of terrorists.

Poet Laureate of the Blogisphere and other things...

Thanks to Jilly, I caught this note on the 2008 Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere. Click on the link to see details about nominations, etc. Last year I didn't catch it until nominations were over, but I did make it in time to vote. Previous winners:

Amy King, Ron Silliman, and Jilly Dybka.




On another note..... China Resists Human Rights Link to Olympics

By Sam Beattie Beijing - 27 March 2008

China hosts its first-ever Olympic Games, in just five months. In Beijing, people are working hard to clean up the city and to get ready to host the world's most prestigious sporting event. The city has undergone enormous changes in the seven-year build-up to the event, but human rights activists say the government has failed to live up to some Olympic promises. Sam Beattie reports. Full Story

Thumbs Down

The end of the Bush Administration can hardly come fast enough. Even as it seem there is a light visible through this dark 8 year long tunnel, this one man continues to trash the reputation of this nation as a moral example to the rest of the world. His veto this weekend of the Congressional bill banning waterboarding as an interrogation method only continues erosion of U.S. credibility on human rights.

Error Gave F.B.I. Unauthorized Access to E-Mail

WASHINGTON — A technical glitch gave the F.B.I. access to the e-mail messages from an entire computer network — perhaps hundreds of accounts or more — instead of simply the lone e-mail address that was approved by a secret intelligence court as part of a national security investigation, according to an internal report of the 2006 episode.


A report in 2006 by the Justice Department inspector general found more than 100 violations of federal wiretap law in the two prior years by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, many of them considered technical and inadvertent. {and the ones that were not technical and inadvertent where what?}

Source: New York Times - February 17, 2008

It's Friday - yeah!

A few poetry items of interest:

While Elizabeth Bishop published only about 90 of them in a handful of books, the Library of America is publishing a new collection of her poems and prose. PBS, who in my estimation has a reputation for providing some wonderful reporting on poetry, has a story about this here.

An East St. Louis woman has filed suit in U.S. District Court against Gillan Graphics and Awards, Inc., alleging it sold copies of a poem she wrote for her mother. Felicia Gayden claims she owns a copyright on a piece of original poetry, entitled "Dearest Mother" which was taken to Gillan for framing by the Plaintiff for presentment to her mother. Gayden later realized Gillan Graphics was selling a framed version of her poem with title and minor changes. [Story here]

The Seattle Arts & Lectures (SAL) Poetry Series opens with Li-Young Lee [ Story here]

On a political note, Thumbs Up for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who would not be intimidated by President Bush over the deadline on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. When the President continues to thumb his nose at Congressional oversight I am glad to see she has the courage to stand up against his pressure. There needs to be more transparency in surveillance when American citizens are involved and when the administration has a history of acting without court authority where there are specific legal system in place to provide protection of rights.

E-Commerce News: Privacy: AT&T Tech Paints Stark Picture of NSA Telecom Spying

Ask your Senator and Congressman Why AT&T and others should be granted Amnesty or Immunity from prosecution for violating your right to privacy without due process?

E-Commerce News: Privacy: AT&T Tech Paints Stark Picture of NSA Telecom Spying: "By Chris Maxcer E-Commerce Times 11/07/07 1:33 PM PT Mark Klein, a former employee of AT&T who has rallied against the telecom giant for its part in assisting the NSA in spying on Americans' communications, is visiting Washington to convince lawmakers not to let telecoms off the hook when it comes to lawsuits. Klein said he was privy to a secret NSA room in an AT&T facility which acted as a repository of secret data."

The explosive possibility of mixing coffee with books

Iran is a country that is enormously literate. Iranians love for poetry spans centuries, but reading of all types of material is serious business in Iran and is evidenced by the vast numbers of book shops that are available to the public. In recent times, books and coffee shops have seen an increasing union in this country and that combination which allows for intellectual discussions between people milling around these shops have become a concern for an Iranian government that has a notable bent on suppression of the press and Internet traffic. So it probably should come as no surprise that the commingling coffee shops and book stores have been targeted by a new rule against the “mixing of trades.”

The possibility of people engaging in thought provoking discussion in groups where there is a presence of literature that could influence thought, evidently is a frightening thing to this otherwise repressive government. I guess you can just never be to careful of what might happen when thinking people put their heads together.

The power of words against oppression.

It's always amazing to me the lengths many under oppression will go to by contrast to the relative apathetic nature of many in America. (see A war on words)

When Burmese officials use military force to crack down on pro-democracy advocates, it is the military against words. The opposition to oppression in Burma has little to offer but the burning desire to be free and the courage not to be silenced. Journalists and poets as well as the monks in rebellion against the government have been the target of officials who fear them to the point of imprisonment. These will be the historians of Burma. The officials do have cause to fear their words because they tell the story of oppression - a history the government can only change by changing itself.

Bush Presses Congress on New Eavesdropping Law - New York Times

Bush Presses Congress on New Eavesdropping Law - New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 — President Bush prodded Congress on the issue of eavesdropping today, warning that he will not sign a new law unless it confers immunity on the telecommunications utilities that helped the National Security Agency eavesdrop without warrants."

Why should a telecommunication company that gave private information about millions of U.S. Citizens to the government without a court order be given immunity from civil action? I'm sorry Mr. President, but even YOU are not above the law!

Giving them immunity says to everyone that it's ok in the future to violate people's civil liberties because if the President wants it, he'll just cover your ass.