I’m Not The Only One

I recently came across this YouTube video which was shared by a friend on Facebook.

The film focuses on Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), which has conducted countless raids on the people of Uganda.  The raids primarily consist of kidnapping boys and forcing them into their army and kidnapping girls to use as sex slaves as well as whatever items of value they find.  The Ugandan military forced the LRA out of Uganda in 2005.  Since then Kony and his army has found refuge in neighboring countries South Sudan, Congo and the Central African Republic, pillaging and engaging in child abduction in Uganda’s border villages. (more…)

If you’re familiar with the Free State Project, then you must have heard of the annual Porcupine Freedom Festival, PorcFest for short.  Held in New Hampshire, this six-day festival turns an otherwise tranquil, law-abiding campground in the White Mountains into a bustling, noisy and exciting temporary autonomous zone, where freedom is not only discussed but practiced on virtually every square foot of the site.

A temporary autonomous zone is an area in which for a limited period of time, regulations from all three levels of government are suspended.  It is the closest most Americans will come to experiencing anarchy in action.  This is my second PorcFest, and my fiancee and I sell food there.  No permit, no business license, no government inspections, and nobody dies of food poisoning.  It’s not in my best interest to poison my customers, as this would result in no repeat business, and word of my bad food would spread like wildfire and I’ll have no new customers either.  In addition to FRNs (federal reserve notes) I also accepted as payment silver and copper. (more…)

You’d probably call me crazy if I told you a book written eight years ago focusing on the flaws of the Clinton Presidency would have a greater wealth of relevance for Americans today than it did when it was written.  But Rob Nelson’s Last Call: 10 Commonsense Solutions to America’s Biggest Problems conveys serious issues facing our country (ironically, issues that have gone unresolved since 2000) and unintentionally puts the last eight years with George W. Bush in context.  The author draws examples from his own life, his experience working with the Clinton administration and being the co-founder of a Gen-X grassroots organization that was once 30,000 strong to illustrate then ten most pressing issues (which are actually far worse than they were when Clinton left office) to which he offers radical yet sensible solutions.

It’s almost impossible to not hear many Americans these days, especially liberals, look at the turmoil of the Bush Administration and long for the days when Bubba was in office. Bill Clinton’s Presidency as a result has become romanticized, with Bill’s less noble moments vanishing from public memory.  Written way back in 2000, Nelson frowns on what he considered to be the lame duck Presidency of Bill Clinton (needless to say, this book was published before George W. Bush became President) that failed to serve the Americans of the future.  This eight-year old critique offers a refreshing view of the Clinton Presidency, debunking the existence of the so-called “budget surpluses” of the Clinton years, Clinton’s signing of the Defense of Marriage Act which basically refused to acknowledge gay marriage, and continued air strikes in the Middle East and Africa.

The book focuses on the U.S. national debt, something that is often ignored in the discourse of national politics because it isn’t very well understood.  Most Americans don’t understand why it exists and understand even less how it will absolutely cripple the economy 10, maybe even 20 or 30 years in the future.  The U.S has borrowed trillions of dollars from banks around the world and pay about $300 million a year in interest payments alone.  At the end of the day, all debts must be repaid, Nelson argues, and the leaders of the present have decided America can gleefully live beyond its means, doling out funds to as many special interest groups as possible, and stick future generations with the tab.  As the then-twenty-something Nelson says, he was born at the beginning of the end of the American Dream. (more…)

If there’s one thing bloggers love, it’s a good rebuttal.  We’re constantly offering rebuttals of arguments, comments or news stories we don’t agree with.  For anyone familiar with Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (which has become required reading in many universities), Adam Shepard’s Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream offers a well-deserved objection to her thesis that in America the poor stay that way no matter what they do.

While Nickel and Dimed is inherently flawed, I highly recommend checking it out (borrow it, don’t buy it) before reading Scratch Beginnings, if for nothing else than to gain a good chuckle at the former and a greater appreciation of the latter.  For those unfamiliar with Nickel and Dimed, the book is the result of a social experiment conducted by Ehrenreich between 1999 and 2000 in which she attempted to examine the lives of America’s working poor by taking whatever low-wage job she could find and living off her earnings. While some may deem Ehrenreich to be a better writer than Shepard, there’s little doubt as to which author has the better story to tell. (more…)

I just finished reading “Revolution!: South America and the Rise of the New Left” by Nikolas Kozloff. Kozloff is no stranger to Latin America (he has a Ph.D. in Latin American History from Oxford University) and impressively demonstrates his profound knowledge of the history and politics of South America.

While U.S. foreign policy focused more on Mexico and the Middle East in the last 20 years, South America (with the exception of Colombia) was left to its own devices, without interference from their powerful neighbor to the north.  Most Americans may vaguely recall South America as a continent full of banana republics ruled by totalitarian thugs who are as corrupt as they are brutal. But as Kozloff explains in “Revolution!”, over the last few decades, the nations of South America have shed the dictatorships which held them hostage and caused many a dissident to disappear.
In its place are an array of leftist governments headed by socialist leaders like Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales who seek to use their country’s newly nationalized natural resources to finance various social programs, all the while demonizing capitalism and the United States.

As Hugo Chavez has replaced Fidel Castro as the ideological enemy of the United States, it is no surprise that the bulk of the book focuses on Chavez and his Bolivarian Revolution. Not only is Chavez mentioned on almost every page (Jesus Christ gets fewer mentions in the New Testament of the Bible!) but an entire chapter is devoted to the Venezuelan President’s propaganda campaign conveyed through the country’s state-owned television stations, state-sponsored art exhibits, state-owned movie studio, state-owned publishing company and laws requiring that 50 percent of what DJs play be Venezuelan music.

Kozloff does not hesitate to expose the endless arrangements between Chavez and former Cuban President Fidel Castro, or Chavez’ lofty goal of creating institutions to rival U.S. institutions such as Mercosur, a free trade bloc between South American nations, a movie industry to rival Hollywood and El Presidente’s obsession (bordering on fetish) with Simon Bolivar, the liberator of Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador.
The book is an exercise in outstanding, insightful investigative journalism, a kind rarely seen in this country.  The research in Revolution dives deep into the histories of South America’s largest economies, detailing past dictatorships (many of which were supported by the U.S. in exchange for allowing American oil companies to freely drill into natural oil and gas reserves while leaving behind environmental disasters) such as the Pinochet regime in Chile, Roberto Viola in Argentina and many other military-driven coup d’etats resulting in totalitarian regimes elsewhere in the continent.

The author does a pretty good job of remaining objective, interviewing both supporters and critics of Chavez, Morales and other key players in the governments of Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador and Peru.  But Kozloff’s true political leanings as a leftist certainly come forth in his writing.  The word neo-liberal appears almost as frequently in the book as Chavez’ name does.  As I turned the pages, I could almost feel Kozloff rooting for this ideological shift in South American politics, this trend towards, as Chavez calls it, “socialism for the 21st Century”.

Revolution! is definitely an eye-opener for any American who gets all of their news from the mainstream media.  If nothing else, readers will become aware of the diverse history and political culture of South America’s nations.  That South America is not a monolithic demographic, but a cluster of neighboring societies that have fought as well as allied with each other, not unlike the countries of Europe.

After reading Revolution! it becomes obvious that the rise of the new left is not a comprehensive one in the continent, as governments focus on the social welfare aspects of socialism and not much else, as countries like Argentina, Peru and Chile shy away from the notion of mimicking Venezuela, and as Colombia remains a strong U.S. ally.

Chavez is bent on creating a South American version of the European Economic Union, with the mission of undermining U.S. supremacy in the Western Hemisphere.  But after reading Revolution! it becomes obvious that if such a union materializes in the future, it will most likely not resemble Chavez’ vision but will rather be an awkward compromise between free market principles and socialist values, with ideological differences set aside in the name of a united South America.

I’ve been a fan of Bill Maher since his ABC show “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher” and I am an avid viewer of his latest show on HBO “Real Time With Bill Maher”.

However I was disappointed with some things he has said on his show, things that make him sound really ignorant. I’ve posted the following onto the HBO.com Real Time message boards because apparently Bill and his staff read these postings.  I figured I’d also post it here.

Bill Maher-Out of Touch With Latinos
Mar 9, 2008 5:07 PM

I am a Latino and I’ve been a fan of Bill Maher since Politically Incorrect, but I’ve always been a bit disappointed on his coverage of Latino issues and Latino guests. For one thing, the only Latino guests I’ve ever seen on either of his shows were Cristina Saralegui, Vicente Fox (the Mexican ex-President with the German last name) and that Cuban-American Congresswoman from Florida, three of the whitest Latinos I’ve ever met. Why not Carlos Mencia, Tego Calderon, Nydia Velazquez, Bill Richardson or Antonio Villagrosa?

Second, I was really disappointed last Friday to see that Bill has bought into the mainstream media-propagated bullshit regarding the Latino vote being against Barack Obama? Last week he “caucused” some Mexican-Americans in Texas and kept saying “But don’t Latinos have a problem with black people?” “Would your parents have a problem if you brought home a black guy?” and even whined “Why won’t any Latinos admit that there is a blood feud between Latinos and blacks?!?” Nobody will admit to something that doesn’t exist, Bill. Bill Maher was looking for Black-Latino tensions the way George Bush was looking for WMDs in Iraq. And in both cases,

I find it fascinating that everyone is an expert on the Latino vote except for Latinos. Eating at Taco Bell does not make you an expert on the Latino vote. And the whole rumor about tensions between blacks and Latinos came from the Clinton campaign, which was obviously a successful effort to divide and conquer, which is how white people have defeated people of color for hundreds of years.

I am an Obama supporter, and I have found that Latinos, although supportive of minority candidates in local elections will vote for the Democratic leadership in Presidential elections. Obama is not part of the DNC leadership, but the Clintons certainly are. Also, Obama began his Latino vote outreach much later than Hillary did, plus the Clintons are obviously well known to the Latino community for a much longer time.

I think this whole reporting of the so-called friction between the black and Latino communities are based on isolated incidents and are an accurate reflection of the abysmal lack of mainstream news coverage of the Latino community and a sign of lazy reporting in general, which has become the norm in this country. I’m very disappointed that Bill Maher of all people has stopped thinking for himself and has joined the chorus of the ignorant in declaring themselves experts on Black-Latino relations. I found it ironic that in his New Rules for last week he mentioned that people should not listen to outrageous rumors just because it was said on television or the Internet. I guess he picks and chooses which rumors to follow blindly.

Many white people did not vote for Obama either; should this suggest a “blood feud” between the white and black communities?

For Black History Month the Food Network has added a black couple to join the channel’s impressive lineup of culinary artists who host their own cooking and other food-related shows. The newly added program is called Down Home With the Neelys, a cooking show hosted by husband and wife Pat and Geena Neely whose owns a chain of successful barbecue restaurants, Neely’s Bar-B-Que, in Tennessee and expose viewers to such recipes as Get Yo’ Man Chicken, Southern Creamed Corn, BBQ Spaghetti, Memphis-Style Hickory-Smoked Beef and Pork Ribs, and the Neely Family’s BBQ Sauce.

My fiancee is a wizard in the kitchen and even her own blog, ItaliaRican Kitchen (Her mother is Sicilian and her father is Puerto Rican), complete with recipes and little nuggets of culinary wisdom. My favorite dish of hers is hands-down her spinach pete, a dish which can be best described as spinach pizza without the sauce. (more…)

I just finished reading “Boomsday” by Christopher Buckley, and I must say, it is one of the most entertaining and thought-provoking books I have ever read.

Some may know Buckley for his bestseller, “Thank You for Smoking” which was adapted in to a screenplay and made into a movie. Buckley fits into that small niche known as the political novelist. Other political pundits may express their opinions, predictions and knowledge in the form of nonfiction literature. Buckley however uses narratives to illustrate his point.

Boomsday was written to convey Buckley’s view and that other many others concerning our nation’s trillion-dollar deficit. Our current President and Congress have succeeded in its bi-partisan effort to make government as expansive and unnecessarily intrusive as possible, a feat that has required a lot of money the U.S. doesn’t have to spend. Between liberals and their entitlement programs and conservatives and their entitlement programs and tax cuts, it seems neither side is deeply concerned about reducing our national debt anytime soon.

(more…)

This week I’d like to review a very entertaining book I just finished, “Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy” by Peter Schweizer. It is not often that a book about political or ideological leaders, self-appointed or otherwise, that has made me laugh so much. Shweizer has certainly done his homework on the 11 liberal icons whose rhetoric is repeated ad nauseum at college campuses around the world.

Published in 2005, the author has handpicked these very influential individuals and skewers them with their own hypocrisy. Among these big boppers of bullshit are Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Michael Moore, Al Franken, Ralph Nader, Noam Chomsky and Barbra Streisand. Using his subjects’ real estate transaction records, tax returns, court records and public statements, Schweizer skillfully reveals not only how the aforementioned not only contradict their own publicly stated rhetoric, but how these “die-hard liberals” live more like closet conservatives.

As Schweizer reveals, these 11 liberal hypocrites buy stock in oil companies and defense contractors, surround themselves with Caucasian employees, fight unionization in their own companies, have worked for the Pentagon and various multinational corporations. They use every imaginable avenue to avoid paying their fair share in taxes and fight environmental projects that take place in their own backyard. (more…)