Trump, Iran, and Genocide

Below is something I wrote about a week after Trump threatened to destroy the civilization of Iran in early April. 

 

Tom 

 

 

I am glad that President Trump has so far not gone through with his threat to destroy Iran. It is damning of him and his voters that he made the threat and he is guilty of threatening genocide (“Conspiracy to Commit Genocide” and “Direct and Public Incitement to Commit Genocide” are crimes in international law (according to the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide ) and it’s reasonable to assume that Trump’s threat involved planning with high-ranking members of his administration). If there was no conspiracy because it was nothing but a threat, Trump should say so, apologize and acknowledge that even the threat by itself is harmful (and he would still be guilty of the incitement charge)). Although some of his supporters, for various and not-necessarily progressive reasons, have criticized him, the GOP don’t seem to understand how criminal it is to make the threat that he made. Some think that he was just being politically tactical and would never actually do it and therefore it’s okay. It’s so far from OK it is globally considered a crime. It reminds me of a scene in the Denzel Washington film "Training Day" where a cop interrogating college students who just bought drugs threatens to get the young woman in the group gang-raped.

The US should be more sensitive about this sort of thing- not because we have a great history of doing the right thing (we don’t). But because we did the wrong thing when it came to American Indians, because we are more familiar than most countries with the genocide of European Jews, and because we’re more familiar than most countries with the near-genocidal treatment of the Irish during the so-called “Potato Famine.” There are millions of Americans who lost relatives (and not distant ancestors) to Adolf Hitler’s Final Solution, and/or who are also similarily related to many Jewish people who were lucky to survive Nazi Germany- who would have been killed if not for that luck, Allied sacrifice, and/or their own efforts to escape the Holocaust.

I believe that one way to concisely capture the evil of genocide is that a 100%-successful effort could be described as the cultural equivalent of an animal species going extinct. I worry that putting it that way focuses too much on what other populations lose when the victim is (at least to a moderate degree) exterminated. But it contributes to understanding the severity of this crime.

Genocide is so horrible that it should be universally opposed by all nations. Although I am not a fan of the Islamic Republic, I have opposed Trump’s war since day one, and I have a little factoid relevant to this. Although I believe there is at least a fair amount of anti-Semitism in Iran (and I say that while supporting the Palestinians) in 2007 a TV mini-series was made by and broadcast by official Iranian media- a movie based on a true story of how an Iranian diplomat in Paris during World War II engineered some kind of Oscar Schindler-type effort that saved at least about 500 Jewish lives. The mini-series is called “Zero Degree Turn” and there’s an article that seems fair about it here.

Trump is of course selective, more so than most American politicians, in his opposition to genocide. It’s like his attitude to COVID-19, when he explicitly said that states would get more help from Washington if their governors publicly said nice things about him. It was a politically-indiscriminate PANDEMIC, and he saw it as transactional. He is, almost 100%, sensitive when it comes to the Holocaust, because he wants Jewish votes and Jewish money. When he thinks it will help him, he threatens the misanthropic destruction on an entire civilization.

Trump’s threat might give some nations and other actors the impression that genocide or threatening genocide is okay.

Lastly, Trump’s threat greatly undermines how the rest of the world sees the US. We have lost more moral authority on the global stage and we didn’t have much to begin with. It will increase support for or indifference towards any effort at carrying out another 9/11. We have already taken two steps backwards during Trump’s second administration in terms of conciliation with the Muslim world- supporting Netanyahu’s Gaza War, and the first month of Trump’s Iran War. What Trump has threatened would inflame hatred for us throughout the world.

If Trump were to go through with his threat it would be a nightmare for the Iranian people, a nightmare for the Middle-East, and would guarantee pandemic-level hatred of Americans for decades.

Star Trek: SNW Reviews A

I am now starting to do “reviews” of episodes of the new Star Trek series “Strange New Worlds.” Unlike earlier ST review posts this time I’ll be doing, at least MOST of the time, one relatively long essay for a single episode that merits some significant commentary (I wouldn’t be surprised if out of a final total of 46 episodes I’ll do one or two posts that are very brief). I’ll be focusing almost exclusively on the political aspects of the episodes but will usually not comment on the pervasive multiculturalism and gender equality of ST.

“Strange New Worlds” Episode One, Season One. See this for a plot summary.

This episode promises that the series will be roughly as political and progressive as most ST TV episodes are. I’ll get to the more important and general topics in a minute. One minor thing is that there are wind generators conspicuously visible in the background of a scene on Earth.

The main issues are war, civil war (of the sort that we face at this point in America), and Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Elsewhere I have gotten slightly long-winded about WMD. Bearing in mind that I didn’t come up with that term, it’s true that only one is INCREDIBLY DESTRUCTIVE, but they are all united by how indiscriminate they are or at least can be (it just occurred to me that Anthrax in an envelope might not be that indiscriminate, but Anthrax (for example) in the water supply is pretty horrible). Chemical weapons are totally indiscriminate although the non-persistent ones might not go far beyond a battlefield, but if that battlefield is populated, that’s a serious problem and the persistent ones are much worse. And I imagine a death from most of these weapons is worse than a death from a few bullets in the chest that kill you after an hour. Nukes are INCREDIBLY DESTRUCTIVE AND INDISCRIMINATE, most easily consume entire cities, there are some lasting and regional environmental problems, and radiation is a slow and painful killer. As far as the pinnacle of the nuclear threat (to humanity’s existence) you should read the book review I did here.                                       

The weapon developed by the aliens sounds very destructive- like it could easily destroy a StarFleet vessel. The idea of using such a weapon on the surface of a populated planet is horrifying.

In general I am very much against war, although I stop short of embracing pacifism. Some of my thoughts about war IN GENERAL can be found here and there in the posts here.

As far as the topic of a second civil war in this country… First, for the Trekkers out there, present and future, I have to point out that ST has shifted the date for the Eugenics Wars, I THINK for WWIII, and has now added an American second civil war, which apparently now all blend into each other. I kind of knew this sort of thing might happen- about 15 years ago I silently suggested ST should make a LOT of TV stuff and then, as there was more and more conflict between between the two histories (ST lore and reality) with the passage of time, just stop making ST, or reboot it possibly? 

Anyway, let me say some things about a second civil war here in reality. I sort of talked about this here, when I made a plea for, in some ways, partisan peace. There are probably a total of 2,000 more words scattered in different paragraphs on my blog that are relevant to this. I am not sure how you can find them, although probably about 15% of them are in a recent post here. Some times I think it might be becoming increasingly unavoidable, with Trump as President and the division that that means. His supporters simply do not believe the various sources that most of us (liberals and progressives/leftists) do and you cannot believe the things that people around Trump imply we support. That’s part of something that’s a big part of what’s wrong- there is no respect for the facts. I’m not saying that’s brand new or totally avoidable in politics, but it is much worse today than it usually is, and that worsening is 100% one-sided- CNN, for example, spends a HUGE amount of time fact-checking Trump, and spent about 5% as much time fact-checking Biden. I believe that there are some other fact-checkers out there that are also good and might possibly be more acceptable to Republicans (is it better if they’re NOT part of the media?). If it hadn’t just started requiring subscriptions I would, as I have in the past, strongly recommend the BBC News website- it’s WIDELY respected throughout the world, and it’s coverage of Northern Ireland 1997-2005 was close behind the Irish media in accuracy and not far behind how sensitive it was to the Irish perspective (if you know Anglo-Irish history and the early history of Northern Ireland, you’d understand the importance of that in coverage of The Troubles) (I say 1997-2005 because during that time each week I read an average of about 100 articles from Irish news sources (primarily the Irish News and the Irish Times) and about 25 articles from the BBC). GOPers would do a lot worse than getting their news there. I am not going to do an entire essay here on this topic and I think I have said all I have to say here about a possible second American civil war.

Trump’s “Great Escape” From Prisoner of War Empowerment

  (“The Great Escape” is a classic movie about Allied POWs in World War II) 

(The image is of Guantanamo Bay in Cuba during the early years of the War on Terror) 

 

Below is something I typed up and, since it was way too long to be a guest opinion, I turned it into a PDF pamphlet-like thing with some interesting format stuff that I can't reproduce here. I sent it to about 15 friends and relatives, about 10 Dem politicians, and two veterans groups that lean to the left and three that lean to the right. I sent it to the vets partly because I thought that a majority of them would represent a large chunk of those Americans who are either pro-Trump or are open-minded about him.

*********** 

Although as a progressive I had a mostly negative view of the late Sen. John McCain, when he was attacked in 2015 by President Trump in connection with McCain’s time as a Prisoner of War in Vietnam, I found Trump’s comment offensive. Trump said that McCain was not a war hero, which I agree with (Hugh Thompson was), but crucially also said that “I like people that weren't captured, okay?” (What does he think of American service members who were killed? In France in 2018 he allegedly referred to them as “losers”). Some of Trump’s supporters would probably say that it was in response to McCain calling Trump’s supporters “crazies.” But there are at least two statements indicating that Trump has always been quite hostile to McCain and I wouldn’t be surprised if that is because of the POW issue. For some bizarre reason, Trump seems to have never suffered much political damage from other Republicans for this.
 

There have been and are international agreements about the treatment of  POWs that make those protocols akin to human rights

I need to briefly state that I believe that what we did in Vietnam was wrong and I am to one moderate degree or another hostile to the US military. And that opinion of Vietnam is influenced not just by progressive analyses of the war, but also by a novel written by the late Vietnam veteran and (usually) hawkish fiction author Nelson DeMille.

There have been and are international agreements about the treatment of POWs that make those protocols akin to human rights and I think this partly reflects the fact that most supporters of, for example, the Allies in WWII, were concerned about the treatment of those captured by the Axis. In general this is probably influenced by the fact that POWs are, to one degree or another, vulnerable (they are physically defenseless and entirely dependent on their enemy captors for food, shelter, medical care, information, etc.).

The attachment that many in war have for their side’s POWs might also be inspired by the fact that many POWs respect their obligation to escape, and one benefit of this is that they tie down enemy forces far behind the front. (I have at least five movies about Allied POWs attempting escape)

I attended the 2002 National Conference of Sinn Fein Youth in Galway, Ireland and bought a shirt (at a SF bookstore in Derry) with an artist’s depiction of an attempted escape tunnel made by IRA prisoners (which said “WE ALMOST GOT AWAY, YOU KNOW” (an inside joke among republicans)). I told some of the kids about what I bought and when I mentioned that shirt one kid said “oh, yeah, my uncle was in on that!” In 1981 10 republicans (seven IRA, three INLA) died on hunger-strike demanding that they be treated as POWs. Many will say they were just terrorists with no popular support. They weren’t terrorists (see this) and when such critics examine more closely the facts surrounding the presence of 100,000 people at Bobby Sands’ funeral (see the middle 3rd, starting with “For about 5 years…” of this), they will know that the Hunger-Strike was a traumatic period for about 80% of the Catholic population in N. Ireland.

I do largely spend my time thinking about POWs focusing on the Allies, and the IRA, and the African National Congress, etc. but I also have my own (VHS) copy of “Hanoi Hilton” about US military pilots shot down over North Vietnam, and I believe that even the Waffen-SS in WWII deserved to be treated as POWs, etc.

As I said, these men and some women (probably especially the women) are (were) in harmful situations which could (have) become nightmares if their captors are (were) a state dismissive of POW rights and they end (ended) up with a psychotic jailer. Do I think they are (were) all heroes? I am far from totally objective and non-partisan and no, most of them are (were) not heroes. But I’m willing to bet that at least around half of them are (were) working-class or poor and very likely in a war that is (was) even more nightmarish than the very few ones I am tempted to call “good.” 

Was John McCain a hero? No, and I probably would have disagreed with about 80% of the votes he cast in the US Congress during his career. But Trump doesn’t understand the need to be at least concerned about the rights of those who get captured (IF his feelings about how POWs are treated reflects that concern he has had several convenient opportunities to express that and he has failed to do so). More critically, he frequently uses the word “loser” to describe McCain and this seems connected to the fact that the late US Senator was captured. McCain was, when he made Sarah Palin his 2008 running mate, a horrible person, but his time as a POW doesn’t mean he was a “loser.”

Some would say that Trump was motivated not by hostility to all American POWs but just hostility to McCain, but there is, in his own words, what he SAID (“I like people that weren't captured, okay?”), and there’s the consistency and intensity of his hostility for McCain, connected, in Trump’s own words, to the fact that he was a POW.

After wanting to do something like this for years, I finally wrote this essay now because a couple weeks ago I saw a bit of CNN video footage taken of the White House, and right below the American flag was the POW/MIA flag. I am sure that millions, maybe tens of millions of Americans who stand with that flag also vote for Trump, and these people would threaten physical violence if a Democrat said what Trump said about American POWs. 

 

Charlie Kirk's Murder And Political Violence in the US

This is about some thoughts I had in the wake of Charlie Kirk's murder. The first essay is what I submitted to the Daily Camera as a Letter-To-The-Editor and is I think exactly what they published here. The second essay is a longer version of the same- this time when writing something I'd like the paper to publish, after I felt that I was kind of done except for the disfiguring editing process so it would be under 300 words, I saved that first, longer version. It might perhaps be the better version because some of the editing I do involves deleting entire sentences or paragraphs which might be less valuable than the rest but are still valuable.

Tom

 

Editor,

After Charlie Kirk’s murder, we are close to another civil war. There’s been, for about 8 years, a “Cold Civil War.” In that time there’s been a large increase in political violence, from the massive insurrection of 1/6/21 by Republicans, to the sole-victim shooting of health care insurance CEO Brian Thompson in 2024.

I am not a pacifist and I define violence as something not inherently unjustified, although it could be defined as something inherently heart-breaking. When I look at Northern Ireland’s history, I defend almost everything the Irish Republican Army did. But I have also supported their 1997 cease-fire since day one. I believe very strongly in electoral politics, petitioning, non-violently protesting, etc. As a socialist I think a lot about how we can be more politically democratic (i.e. reforming the Constitution to reflect the fact that democracy is one-person-one-vote not one-state-flag-one-vote).

Kirk’s murder was wrong but to a very large degree criticizing Trump as a fascist is not deceptively encouraging people to kill people like Kirk- it’s simply not deceptive. Trump has always, since the 2016 campaign, made it clear he likes political violence. He believes that every civilian Executive Branch employee should be loyal to the President- this means that either A) he thinks that every four or eight years the entire civilian Executive Branch workforce should be completely replaced with new people, or B) he doesn’t foresee any future in this country where he is alive and not President.

There is one recent political murder that hasn’t gotten much attention. People should look into the 2020 case of Garret Foster being killed by Daniel Perry in Texas- after being convicted of murder, Perry was pardoned by the governor in 2024.

Tom Shelley

 

*************

 

After Charlie Kirk’s murder, we are close to another civil war. There’s been, for about 8 years, a “Cold Civil War” comparable to the standoff between the Soviets and the US. It can be traced back to the “New McCarthyism” after 9-11 that included censoring the anti-racist part of a book about George W. Bush by Michael Moore. In the last several years there’s been a large increase in political violence, from the massive insurrection of 1/6/21 by Republicans, to the murder of health care insurance CEO Brian Thompson in 2024 (he was probably killed because of the horrible health care situation in this country).

I am not a pacifist and we should understand that violence is not defined as inherently unjustified, although it could be defined as something inherently heart-breaking. When I look at Northern Ireland’s history, I defend, to one degree or another, almost everything the Irish Republican Army did. But I have also supported the 1997 cease-fire (permanent for many years now) since day one and have largely supported Sinn Fein (who bent over backwards to make the Peace Process work) since 2000. I believe very strongly in electoral politics, petitioning, non-violently protesting, etc. And have given a lot of thought as a socialist not just to making this country economically democratic and (what I call) sociologically democratic (i.e. racially just and racially equal) but also how we can be more politically democratic (i.e. reforming the Constitution to reflect the fact that democracy is one-person-one-vote not one-state-flag-one-vote).

Kirk’s murder was wrong. At this point it seems like nothing the Left has to own, but I still wanted to make my opinion clear. To a very large degree criticizing Trump as a fascist is not deceptively encouraging people to kill people like Kirk. It’s simply not deceptive. Trump has always, since the 2016 campaign, made it clear he likes political violence. He believes that every Executive Branch employee should be loyal to the President- this means that either A) he thinks that every four or eight years the entire Executive Branch workforce should be completely replaced with new people, or B) he doesn’t forsee any future in this country where is alive and not President.

There is one example of political violence that hasn’t gotten much attention. People should look into the 2020 case of Garret Foster being killed by Daniel Perry in Texas- after being convicted of murder, Perry was pardoned by the governor in 2024. 

Mexicans, Immigration, And The Irish

I submitted the Guest Opinion below to the Daily Camera about three weeks ago. I am not sure why it wasn't published- probably because they have a policy where in any rolling 365-day period no one can get more than four Guest Opinions published, and I think I had about 1-2 months left before it started over for me. The essay is a little TOO honest about something- I AM behind on staying informed about political developments here. I kind of HAD to say that, at least because of my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

 

I think it has some potential, more or less, to get more Irish-Americans to support immigrants, and to emphasize that for some reason(s) we are not hearing about white undocumented immigrants being deported.  

 

Tom 

 

I am a bit behind on reading articles about current events and politics, but I did some research for this, I have a 2003 CU-Boulder BA in Ethnic Studies, and I was with the “Irish Solidarity Movement” in America between 1997 and ending somewhere 2005-2020 (the ISM were people, some non-white, concerned about Northern Ireland Catholics).

Because I am about 2.5 months behind (I have a system where, for example, I save today’s articles until I read yesterday’s articles) I only just now read something that concerns me greatly. GOPers, including many in the Trump administration, are expressing hostility towards the Mexican flag, which has become prominent at many recent protests in America. 

The main thing that needs to be said is that I don’t hear any GOPers complaining about the display of the Irish flag at US demonstrations, etc. in the 70s, 80s, 90s. For about a year in college I displayed a very visible Irish flag outside my house. I took it once in the late 1990s to a progressive pro-Zapatista protest at the Mexican consulate in Denver and was welcomed.

I haven’t heard anything from GOPers about how in Colorado (and maybe elsewhere) there are special license plates you can get that have the Italian flag and a note that the driver is Italian-American. And the thing is, that statement, especially in the Denver area, could be described as incredibly offensive. I don’t know much about this parade post- 2000, but I am sure that many people with that license plate were involved with or supported the Denver Columbus Day parade, which was a celebration of the genocide of American Indians. I have not heard of American Indians and their allies denouncing those license plates as racist and trying to get them banned- but I wouldn’t blame them if they tried. Genocide is A LOT worse than the worst thing Mexico has done to the US.

Going back to Ireland and The Troubles, it wasn’t just British patriots who said that when Americans displayed the Irish flag, it was often in support of what some mislabeled a “terrorist” organization- the Irish Republican Army (the one associated in the past with Gerry Adams, and the one that bent over backwards around 2000 to help the Peace Process). I have, in an April 2014 post on my blog, proven objectively that the IRA were not terrorists (that is, I explain in detail the math and analysis involved). There is no Mexican organization attacking the US the way that the IRA attacked the British, and most of the people angered by the Mexican flag being displayed here would never feel that way about the Irish flag.

There are strong connections between the Irish struggle and the chicana/o movement here. A veteran chicano Denver activist I used to know named Leo Griep-Ruiuz told me that “politically aware” chicanos don’t think it’s a coincidence that IRA member Bobby Sands died on hunger strike MAY 5TH 1981. In 1998 or 1999 I attended a Cinco de Mayo fund-raiser in Denver for the Chiapas Coalition (which was supporting the Zapatistas in Mexico). I asked if I could speak for a couple minutes about Bobby Sands and they agreed. The audience, probably hundreds of Zapatista supporters, responded very positively.

I have also been wondering, have there been any white undocumented immigrants arrested and deported in the last 7 months? Between the fact that I HAVE read a TON of articles about Trump’s agenda between January and June and I recently consulted some friends, I get the impression that there haven’t been so many that it would reflect their numbers here, or any at all. Specifically, any Irish? I know that there must be a lot of undocumented Irish here, partly from the fact that around 10-20 years ago at least two large Irish political parties (SF and Labour) frequently called for legalizing them. Various other facts I’ve come across also contribute to my certainty that there is a substantial population of them.

The double standard we see among GOPers when it comes to Mexicans on one hand and the Irish on the other, is simply racist.

A LTE About Two Examples Of How Trump Is Anti-Democratic

This was submitted as a letter to the Daily Camera in April 2025 and published on April 18th. To be honest, I have collected a bunch of little facts about Trump that I dream of making more visible to either the whole population and/or certain chunks of the American population, either when they will do the most damage, or when I have a good excuse for reminding people about them, etc. I briefly but sufficiently weaponized two of these facts below.

 

Tom

Editor,

Donald Trump is getting closer and closer to making plain his contempt for democracy. In some ways this letter might soon be unnecessary. But it wouldn’t hurt to offer more evidence and develop comprehensive arguments that might be better than what we’ve been doing so far.

There is one thing from the last election that I don’t think was used to attack Trump. That is, his calls for reforming Nebraska’s election laws so that, with the Electoral College, it’s winner-takes-all. Nebraska, as well as Maine, awards two of it’s electoral votes based on the result for the whole state, and then gives one more vote per congressional district to whoever wins each of the districts. But Trump had nothing to say about this in relation to Maine, and the thing is he would have benefited in the election from a winner-take-all law in Nebraska, but not in Maine. He has no principled objection to what Nebraska does, he just wanted to win and didn’t care how.

Trump recently suggested that he might have the Federal government take over the running of Washington DC. It’s already bad enough that DC doesn’t have statehood (which means they have no votes in Congress), it would be a huge (undemocratic) step backwards if that were done. Even progressives don’t believe in getting rid of local government- to one degree or another we love it. I think the non-white majority in DC is pretty much why Trump and other GOPers oppose statehood for the city. I should also remind everyone, especially those who rose to power as leaders of the Tea Party movement (i.e. Rand Paul), that a massive part of why America fought a war for independence was the problem of “taxation without representation.”

Tom Shelley
Gunbarrell 

"Childless Cat Gentlemen"

Below is a LTE I sent to a local paper, a month ago, who didn't publish it. In a CNN article here, Vance kind of walked back his "Cat Ladies" statement.

Tom

Editor,

 

When JD Vance spoke about “childless cat ladies” I imagine most people outside the GOP thought it was offensive and ridiculous, and it is. But until a few weeks ago I didn’t recognize it as SEXIST and it seems like very few people have spoken of that aspect (I imagine most women DID recognize it as sexist from the very beginning, but as far as I can tell the media either never or almost never mentioned it).

First, there is another aspect of this that also hasn’t gotten much attention. Vance said that these “childless cat ladies” are miserable and want everyone to be miserable. That is ridiculous, although I’m not sure how FOUL (instead of FAIR) it is. On one hand it seems relatively harmless (it’s neither Watergate nor is it Bloody Sunday)) but I have to admit it kind of pisses me off. The most important thing to say about it is that encouraging GOP voters to think that liberals and progressives are (allegedly) trying to spread misery because they’re unhappy does nothing to encourage the kind of respectful, fact-based conversations about politics that this country desperately needs if we’re going to avoid civil war.

But the main point I want to make is that the initial statement said nothing about “childless cat gentlemen” and I don’t think Vance has fixed that. It stinks of misogyny and ignores the fact that men are also part of creating a new life and should take on about 1/2 of the work that raising a child involves. I can imagine a lot of “childless cat ladies” who WANT kids but can’t find an available man who meets their criteria and also wants to have kids.

Women are not solely responsible for the aspects of America that Vance sees as problems.

 

Tom Shelley

Gunbarrell

Two Brief Essays About The Artifical Electoral Equality Between The Small States And The Big States in America

The first one is an LTE I sent about 4 weeks ago to the Daily Camera who published it a few days later.

Editor,

 

The attempt at killing Donald Trump brings up the claim that republicans in this country are oppressed. Some republicans even compare their situation with that of Jews during the Holocaust. This is total nonsense.

 

Members of the GOP are far from oppressed. Part of this is how the Senate works- the GOP have an undemocratic advantage in that institution. Every state, no matter it’s size, has two senators. This creates an unjustified equality between the large states and the small states when California SHOULD have 52 times the voting power in the Senate that Wyoming has. Democracy is one person one vote, not one state flag one vote. And there’s also the fact that state Senates are based on the former principle and do not involve every county in the state having the same number of State Senators.

 

The problem is, to one degree or another depending on how you define small and big, a majority of the small states at least lean towards red and a majority of the big states at least lean towards blue. Until that changes (and I doubt it will anytime soon) the way the Senate works makes it unjustifiably easy for the GOP to elect a majority of the upper house, even when the number of residents represented by the GOP in the Senate is smaller than the number of residents represented by the Dems in the Senate.

 

We need to either abolish the Senate or reform it so that every senator gets a number of votes equal to how many congressional districts there are in their state. Not only will this end the unfair advantage the GOP has, it will, independent of which party benefits, make the legislative PROCESS in this country more democratic.

 

Thanks,

 

Tom Shelley

*******

The second is another LTE about a related subject which was published by the Boulder Weekly today. This is what I submitted plus a few small changes made after I submitted it. The edited version is here. 

Editor,
 
The Electoral College is pretty unpopular- a recent Pew Research Center poll says that in 2023 2/3 of Americans wanted to get rid of the EC so that the winner of the popular vote becomes President. In 2000 and 2016 the GOP candidate who won in the EC lost the popular vote. We need to do SOMETHING about it (assuming that the moderately democratic nature of the US survives the next year). I believe that the key thing that needs to be done is to amend the constitution so that all states (and Washington DC) are stripped of the two extra votes they get because all states have two senators.
 
One fact that should be considered is that since the 2000 election some people did the math and found that, if it wasn’t for the two extra votes that every state and DC get, Gore could have totally lost Florida and yet would have won in the electoral college (I found a couple of good web-sites and did the math myself and it’s true). Gore would have won by either 12 or 13 electoral votes (one EC voter who was supposed to vote for Gore abstained). Although this isn’t a massive distortion of democracy like the related problem with votes in the Senate is, it IS undemocratic to create even a small yet false degree of equality between the big states and the small states (California SHOULD have 52 times (not 18 times) more voting power in the EC than Wyoming does). And depending on how you define small and big, to one degree or another a majority of the small states at least lean red and a majority of the big states at least lean blue. So, currently the set-up helps the GOP, but even if undoing that wasn’t part of this, addressing the problem with the EC WOULD move the US political system closer to the (small-d) democratic end of the spectrum.
 
Besides what I propose above, what other options do we have? I think that getting rid of the EC completely might be a bad idea. I’ve read that that might result in EVERY SINGLE STATE doing at least one recount. I at least kind of support the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which would require states who have signed up to it to (when the electoral votes of Compact states add up to a majority) have their EC voters vote for whoever won the popular vote. I think it’s flawed but a lot better than nothing. On the other hand it doesn’t seem like a very permanent solution and says nothing about the horrible idea, that comes up at least four times in our political system, that there should be some degree of equality (or total equality) electorally between the small states and the big states.
 
Because the US Constitution sometimes DOES say (erroneously) that democracy is one state flag, one vote instead of one person one vote, and that applies to amendments, the permanent solution I propose might be elusive. But I would like to see the EC reformed so that the votes are based solely on the number of congressional districts. And until we get there the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is a good idea.
 
Tom Shelley
Gunbarrell

Britts Out! (Katie Britt, immigration, and sex-trafficking)

(a very similar version of this was published as a guest opinion in the MSM paper for Boulder here) 

 

(That’s what I say about Ireland and the US Senate!)

As you probably know, a month ago GOP Sen. Katie Britt was under a storm of criticism in response to her rebuttal speech after the State of the Union address by President Biden. She told the story of a Mexican woman sex-trafficked when she was a young teen in Mexico- well, for the most part Britt didn’t want you to know it was in Mexico. Britt’s been less than consistent about this, but the idea was to make you think it was in this country and on Biden’s watch (when in fact it was during the George W. Bush administration).

In addition to everything else that has been said about Britt’s rebuttal, I have some more to add. Crucially, read the two paragraphs towards the bottom that are in italics, they’re very important.
 
She was talking about the surge in migration from Mexico to the US, but she also talks about sex-trafficking and Mexican drug cartel activity and she is conflating all three of them (it should be noted that the Mexican woman who was trafficked was not a victim of the cartels contrary to what Britt implied). Has sex-trafficking surged? I’ll be honest- I don’t know, but I think Britt wants you to think it has and that it's coming here with Mexican migrants.

At one point in a March 10th The Guardian article, she is quoted as saying:
 
“We have to tell those stories, and the liberal media needs to pay attention to it because there are victims all the way coming to the border, there are victims at the border, and then there are victims all throughout the country.”
 
I believe that although this is in conflict with what she was saying the rest of the time, she was trying to say in that quote that this kind of sex-trafficking is common in Mexico and Mexicans want to come here and rape your wife or daughter, etc. and only Donald Trump can stop them. She was saying that the sex-trafficking inside Mexico, deaths of migrants at the border and deaths of Americans at the hands of immigrants inside America are one unbroken chain that can only be addressed comprehensively by Trump’s approach to immigration. This is nonsense.

Tough immigration policies will not affect the Mexican drug cartels (it certainly wouldn’t have stopped what happened in Britt’s anecdote because the cartels and the the border had nothing to do with it). Separating children from parents at the border will do absolutely nothing to the cartels. I’m not sure what WILL stop the cartels because I’m not as familiar with recent Mexican history as I should be, but tough immigration policies are not going to help.

As far as “there are victims at the border,” I am not sure what she’s talking about, but there are reports that migrants waiting to cross the border often find themselves in bad situations, which probably does include all kinds of sex crimes. I am not sure how much time is spent at the border by migrants who are not asylum seekers, but as far as the asylum seekers, you must remember that Britt’s party and her hero, Trump, strongly support the “Remain in Mexico” policy where asylum seekers must wait in Mexico until a decision is made about granting them asylum. So, the GOP believes that Mexico is just one big nightmare for teenage girls trying to get to America, but they want such survivors to either wait in Mexico for months or years, or to just stay in Mexico permanently.

As far as victims in this country, yes, it occasionally happens as it might have recently with Laken Riley (I said it- satisfied, MTG?) (I said “might have” because of the presumption of innocence). Those are tragedies but you need to consider a few things:
1) From what I have read non-immigrants here are more likely than immigrants here to commit crimes (yes, that statement probably is based on ignoring the “crime” committed when they enter this country without documents- but that’s a victimless crime).
2) That percentage of the immigrant population that commits violent crime must be incredibly small- why punish everyone in that population because of a very few bad apples?
3) I cannot remember a lot about how often this happens but what about the immigrants who die at the hands of racist and violent white people who listen to the anti-immigrant rantings of people like Britt? Fueling that racism as Trump does will only increase the number of immigrants who get viciously beaten to death by angry teenage males.

In her statement that I quoted above Britt implies that liberals ignore what she's talking about. There are probably better counter-examples than this, but I’m going to go with something that I think is important and probably doesn’t get mentioned very much. The TV show Law and Order: Special Victims Unit FREQUENTLY makes it clear that NYC is a "sanctuary city" where cops don't collaborate with Immigration authorities and not only do they oppose all kinds of sex crimes in general, there was one season 19 two-part episode (Remember Me and Remember Me, Too) about a "coyote" (someone who helps undocumented immigrants get across the southern border and to their destination in the US) who repeatedly raped women he was transporting. Another episode, “911” in season seven, is about a young girl who was brought over the Mexican border by someone who then sold her to child pornographers. In season 16 there is an episode “Girls Disappeared,” about sex-trafficked teenage girls crossing that border. There might be other episodes like that.

 

(UPDATE 7/19/24 The woman Britt talks about was sex-trafficked far from the border)

Liberals and progressives believe that migrant women and girls being sexually exploited and/or assaulted is a serious problem, but they don't support Trump's extreme approach to immigration.

Law and Order Reviews D

I have done reviews of many episodes of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and published some more general thoughts about it here.  In that post I offer a smaller number of general thoughts about the original Law and Order show (the one that went from 1990-2010). Although I do not like L&O as much as I like the SVU version, I do like it. There’s some liberal or even progressive stuff here and there and they’re good detective stories, and they’re homicide detectives- if they were narcotics, I’d probably be a lot less fond of the show.

Although I’m not sure I have done and will do this consistently, with the original Law and Order show I will make a note and maybe offer some comments when the issues that are at the core of Law and Order: SVU appear on this show.

“Heaven” Season 2. See this for a plot summary.

There are two things worth mentioning. First, the senior police officer says that in the absence of a tragedy like the lethal fire they’re investigating, most New Yorkers don’t care about brown-skinned immigrants.

Also, the junior ADA says (approvingly) that constitutional protections like the 4th and 5th Amendments are for everyone including undocumented immigrants.

“Severance” Season 2. See this for a plot summary.

The killer was hired for the job by a crooked defense contractor.

“Blood is Thicker” Season 2. See this for a plot summary.

There’s one brief mention of how GOP politician Dan Quayle (VP of the US 1989-1993) avoided Vietnam by joining the National Guard, at a time when getting in the Guard meant you wouldn’t be sent to Vietnam. Although the Washington Post article I just read wasn’t explicit about Quayle’s position on the war at the time he avoided it, in general he was a hawk during his political career. There were millions of people who supported the war and tried to avoid fighting in it because they didn’t want to be killed.

“Vengeance” Season 2. See this for a plot summary.

There’s a tiny bit of dialogue between minor characters that might be considered pro-union.

“Sisters of Mercy” Season 2.  See this for a plot summary.

To one degree or another this is about a man, probably around 30 years old, coercing girls in their mid-teens into having sex with him.

Donald Trump and the 1/6 Capitol Riot

Below is something I sent as a letter to the editor of two local papers. UPDATE 8/3/24 On 7/14/22 the Boulder Weekly published this.

 

Former president Donald Trump was acquitted by the Senate last month in relationship to his role in the 1/6 riot at the Capitol. Part of the argument in favor of convicting him was that he had used the word “fight” when encouraging his supporters to protest at the Capitol that day. His defenders have pointed out that people often use that word without referring to physical violence, and they’re right. But Trump still bears some responsibility for what happened. His use of the word “fight” needs to be considered in connection with two things. First, he painted a picture of America being in grave peril if the results of the election were not overturned. Second, he has a history of encouraging political violence. During the 2016 election campaign, there were at least a couple times when he encouraged his supporters to physically attack protesters at his rallies. There’s also his statement directed at the Proud Boys during the first Presidential Debate last year- “stand back and stand by.” The proud boys are all about political violence and they were at the Capitol that day. Trump had spent months lying about the election and we shouldn’t be surprised that his followers did what they did on 1/6 when he said “fight.”

Tom Shelley
Boulder
https://theblackandthegreen3.blogspot.com/

Bi-Partisanship and Respect in American Politics

(UPDATE 3/23/21 I have looked at the multiple definitions in multiple dictionaries and I need to clarify what I mean by "respect." I'm talking not about admiration for someone, but about how we want to be treated. I feel like everyone deserves respect. I'm talking about treating people the way we would want to be treated; about respecting their rights; not having a double standard (like the one Senate Republicans had when it came to confirming Amy Coney Barrett in Oct. 2020 after blocking the confirmation of Merrick Garland in Feb. 2016 (they said Feb. 2016 was too close to a Presidential election and said that the winner of that election should appoint a replacement to the Supreme Court)). I hope that clears it up, but I am definitely not talking about admiring Republicans)

 

********

 UPDATE 5/18/24

1. I kind of said this below, but I've been wanting to say SOMEWHERE, something about Mike Pence (of TRUMP/PENCE 2016/2020) that I don't think a lot of people say. If it weren't for Mike Pence, we would be in a civil war right now.

 

 2. You should read an article here. This is far from the first sign that the GOP is dragging this country into a civil war, but it has alarmed me to such a degree that I am almost tempted to retract what I am saying this post.

********

President Biden campaigned as the person who could unite the country and work in a bi-partisan way. Our country is in something close to a “cold civil war” and we should worry about it getting worse. Biden might have to pursue some moderate policies because he barely has a majority in the Senate and the Dem majority in the House is small. But he should not be pursuing moderate policies in an effort to be a uniter.

The cold civil war is largely the work of republicans who have become very partisan and have decided that anything goes in politics. They already have an unfair advantage in the Senate and to a lesser degree Presidential elections because of how every state gets two senators and each state get two extra votes in the Electoral College because of the two senate seats (most of the smaller states are conservative). The police forces are largely republican and are not always professional about their job. And yet republicans talk as if they’re the oppressed in this country, instead of people of color, for example. And there’s reason to believe that many of them BELIEVE they are oppressed or are on the brink of being oppressed (see that link above).

Democrats promoting liberal and progressive policies some or most of the time are not the problem (I define liberal as to the left of Bill Clinton and to the right of Sen. Elizabeth Warren and I discuss that more here). Republicans spreading conspiracy theories like QAnon and calling for the death of democratic politicians and invading the US Capitol as they did in Jan. are the problem. QAnon started with the idea that the Democrats and the so-called “Deep State” (bureaucrats hostile to Trump) are a cannibalistic, Satanic elite that sexually abuse children. There is nothing on the Democratic side that’s both A) so widely accepted and B) so wildly slanderous. Democratic members of congress don’t call for the death of their republican opponents but GOP Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene HAS called for the execution of prominent Dems (a great video refuting one of the GOP arguments in her favor is here). Even during the eruption of Black Lives Matter protests last Summer violence was uncommon and it was aimed at targets other than democratic institutions- the Jan. 6th riot was aimed at overturning the results of a democratic election. (How do I know it was a democratic election? All of the dozens of republican lawsuits were either dismissed by a judge or were withdrawn. Even the Supreme Court of the US wouldn’t help Trump, and there are many statements by government officials like then-Attorney General William Barr which contradicted Trump’s claim that there was fraud on a scale large enough to explain Biden’s win)

Those are just a few examples of the many, many ways that republicans have become incredibly partisan. Biden pushing, for example, a massive COVID-19 relief bill as he’s doing now is not the kind of partisanship that’s the problem. When republicans oppose that kind of effort, I don’t see it as a problem unless they’re using the filibuster some large chunk of the time. If Biden wants to be a uniter, he just needs to not do the sort of things I described in the paragraph above and I can’t see him doing anything like that at all. He doesn’t, for example, believe in packing the Supreme Court, something that’s only questionable, not comparable to the things mentioned in that paragraph. He should act like he’s accountable to Congress and avoid the behavior we saw from Trump in his dealings with Congress. He needs to give the GOP (individually and collectively) credit when it’s due (for example, Mike Pence didn’t give in to Trump’s demands about Congress certifying the 2020 election results, or that a large majority of the House GOP voted to keep Liz Cheney in their leadership after she voted to impeach or that two apparently good COVID-19 vaccines were developed on Trump’s watch or that in 2005 the Chair of the RNC admitted that Nixon’s 1968 campaign appealed to segregationists and apologized for it). He needs to abstain from having a double standard and seriously criticize any Democratic politician or official if (and it’s a huge if) they say anything comparable to what Marjorie Taylor Greene said. Although I’m not sure what is involved with the “reconciliation” parliamentary move (it’ll probably be how Biden’s COVID-19 relief bill gets passed in the Senate) it seems like something that Democrats can’t and shouldn’t use often, just like the filibuster shouldn’t be used too often (actually, at this point I think the filibuster has been abused by the GOP and is a bad thing and that it should be gotten rid of independent of which party is in the majority of the Senate).

Biden should treat the GOP with respect, but you can disagree like crazy with someone and still treat them with respect, so he shouldn’t try to be a uniter by pushing moderate policies.

(I believe that there’s a spectrum between democratic and undemocratic and that our political system is  closer to the former than the latter, and I did a post here about the different ways America can become more politically democratic (there's a similar post here))

 

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UPDATE 11/13/25

I need to add two more items to this post.

First, a paragraph that I wrote about the danger of a second American civil war, for a separate post    should also be here:

Some times I think it might be becoming increasingly unavoidable, with Trump as President and the division that that means. His supporters simply do not believe the various sources that most of us (liberals and progressives/leftists) do and you cannot believe the things that people around Trump imply we support. That’s part of something that’s a big part of what’s wrong- there is no respect for the facts. I’m not saying that’s brand new or totally avoidable in politics, but it is much worse today than it usually is, and that worsening is 100% one-sided- CNN, for example, spends a HUGE amount of time fact-checking Trump, and spent about 5% as much time fact-checking Biden. I believe that there are some other fact-checkers out there that are also good and might possibly be more acceptable to Republicans (is it better if they’re NOT part of the media?). If it hadn’t just started requiring subscriptions I would, as I have in the past, strongly recommend the BBC News website- it’s WIDELY respected throughout the world, and it’s coverage of Northern Ireland 1997-2005 was close behind the Irish media in accuracy and not far behind how sensitive it was to the Irish perspective (if you know Anglo-Irish history and the early history of Northern Ireland, you’d understand the importance of that in coverage of The Troubles) (I say 1997-2005 because during that time each week I read an average of about 100 articles from Irish news sources (primarily the Irish News and the Irish Times) and about 25 articles from the BBC). GOPers would do a lot worse than getting their news there. I am not going to do an entire essay here on this topic and I think I have said all I have to say here about a possible second American civil war.

Second, I need to explain that I recently did something on the fringe of trying to avoid a civil war. I did a little project where I typed up something that touched on various aspects of the Prisoner of War issue (I imagine I am practically the only person who considers that an issue, but it’s very important to me and I explain why in a blogpost version of the PDF essay I put together here) The thing is, one batch of email addresses I sent it to were the “contact us” email address or the leadership addresses of six veterans organizations- three that lean a bit or a lot to the left (About Face (Iraq vets against the war), Common Defense (for progressives and liberals in the general vet population) and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (liberal, but probably includes a lot of moderates as well)) and three that lean to the right (Vietnam Veterans of America, Veterans of Foreign Wars and American GI Forum (probably moderate and for Latinos and Latinas)). I focused exclusively on the POW issue but I think it had potential to make some of them more likely to listen to what I have to say on other issues (although I don’t think I got more than 10 page-views of my blog in connection with emailing veterans groups, my effort could have resulted in some of them reading significant parts of my blog). 

Two New Poems: "Mass Incarceration" and "Iraq"

 I wrote two new poems. For more about my poetry, see this. Both of these are based on songs I don't like.

You can see all the poems by clicking on the "lyrics" label at the bottom.

“Mass Incarceration” based on “Justice” by Skrewdriver. Original lyrics are here.

0. I THINK that when I first typed this about 5 years ago, I was thinking of the 1990s, and assumed that things in recent years were a little less obscene. I could be wrong about that, and even if it's less bad now, it's still bad.
1. This is about the mass incarceration of Blacks in America. It was the result of “law and order” laws like the 1994 Crime Bill and racist cops, DAs, judges, witnesses, jurors, and the poverty that prevents many black people from getting a good lawyer instead of an over-worked, underfunded public defender. I am not saying that all cops, judgers, jurors, etc. are racist, but many of them are
2. I am not a fan of the kind of gangs that are based in communities of color, but I know that in the past there was a lot of guilt-by-association involved with how law enforcement decide who to arrest. Also, in the movie “Set It Off” a working-class black bank-teller is suspected of being the inside-woman in a robbery because she sort of knows one of the robbers.
3. I think this has changed in the last 10-20 years, but for a long time crack convictions came with a longer sentence than cocaine convictions, and to a large extent cocaine was more popular with whites than blacks and crack was more popular with blacks than whites.
4. I can’t remember the figures and they varied over time, but Blacks were much more likely to be in prison than whites were. Blacks were more likely to be in prison than in college. The rate of incarceration for blacks was very high and America’s general rate of incarceration is very high compared to other countries, maybe all of them, I can’t remember.
5. 44% of this version is me, 56% is the original.

6. I give this poem 2 stars out of 5.

Their knees feel weak as they’re dragged from the court


Convicted because of with whom they consort


One by one, the judge locks them all away


Trumped up charges is the game the DA plays
 


Chorus:


Call that justice, well it just ain't fair,


How much longer before we care


Call that justice from a racist judge


The cop’s testimony was a total fudge

 

Stripped in a cell, they’re shackled in chains


Lost all their dignity, but trying to keep sane


A longer sentence if you happen to be black


their excuse is that instead of coke it was crack


(Repeat Chorus)


Call this a democracy and “the land of free”


They say there’s equality and meritocracy 


Here's the reality, a racist state


Warehousing Black people behind prison gates

**********

“Iraq” based on “They Stand Alone” by No Remorse. Original lyrics are here.

1. This is about the occupation of Iraq.
2. I think another reason for invading Iraq is that it provided multiple opportunities to give money to corporations. Besides arms contractors and those doing privatized work for the military (security, laundry, food, interrogations, etc.), corporations getting money for reconstruction spent about half of what they got doing actual reconstruction (often a contractor would keep half and give the rest to a subcontractor and sometimes THAT corporation would keep half and give the rest to another subcontractor).
3. Black gold is another term for oil.
4. There was a lot of corruption in the Iraqi government.
5. Haliburton was a company that Dick Cheney had been a leader of before he became VP. It got a lot of US Gov’t contracts to do stuff in Iraq.
6. Laos was bombed as part of the Vietnam War.
7. Although the original is supportive of the Palestinians and sometimes fascists are anti-intervention, this is basically in conflict with what the authors of the original lyrics believe because a lot of American Nazi skinheads joined the US military during the Occupation of Iraq and volunteered to go there and because I think that a lot of white supremacists and fascists in America were pro-war during the Vietnam War.
8. 59% of this version is me, and 41% is the original.

9. I give this poem 2 stars out of 5.

A tank rolls out on the sun bright sand.
Gunfire's heard in an occupied land.
People run, scared for their lives
The sounds of death, sounds of screaming wives

chorus
US Army man, you must go.
Your humvees and your CEOs
Iraqis you must make a stand.
You must work to free your land

A nation, full of black gold
In the minds of American oil companies, it’s already sold
Propped up by pillars, of corruption and graft
An occupation supported by ground attack aircraft

Millions for Haliburton, while Iraqis die.
World-wide news media frequently ask why.
Headquarters of Satan, in the Bush White House
It's an imperialist project, just like the bombing of Laos

Trump, Masks and Conspiracy Theories

Two miscellaneous thoughts about Trump. The first about masks and the second one about right-wing conspiracies.

 1. First, Trump has said (three times with large audiences) that a recent CDC study found that 85% of people who wear a mask get COVID-19. I’m going to rely primarily on a CNN article to refute that and add a couple things. First, the CNN article is here. Second of all, this shows that trump, like many Americans, still doesn’t get it- a mask isn’t supposed to offer more than partial protection to the wearer. It protects people around the wearer in case they are pre-symptomatic  or asymptomatic- in case they have COVID-19 and don’t know it. You can still  get it with a mask because the mask doesn’t protect your eyes, but the only way for the virus to get out is through your noes and mouth (well you also sort of have to worry about your hands as well to some degree). Third, I can only imagine how much damage he did tossing around that fake information. Bearing in mind what CNN says about its accuracy, he must have strengthened the resolve of mask skeptics like a steel beam placed in their spine. I mean, if 85% of mask wearers get COVID-19, who in the world would wear a mask?

2. In the NBC Trump Town Hall that partly replaced the second debate, Trump was asked to reject a popular conspiracy theory. Referred to as QAnon, it is basically saying that Democrats are part of a satanic conspiracy based on pedophilia. I’m not sure how connected it is to the Pizzagate conspiracy theory or if it is separate. Pizzagate resulted in an incident of armed violence and QAnon could, too. Pedophilia (a sexual attraction by adults or adolescents towards pre-pubescent children) is a serious problem. And Trump refuses to say this conspiracy theory is nonsense. Instead he says that all he knows about them is that they’re against pedophilia and apparently that makes it okay. He also emphasizes that he only RE-tweets QAnon stuff. But A) he has the FBI and the rest of the intelligence community at his fingertips- he knows that QAnon is slanderous, politically-motivated nonsense, B) Who ISN’T against Pedophilia? and C) when you retweet something you are, to one degree or another, endorsing it.

The Electoral College and the Election of the President

There’s a ballot initiative on the ballot in Colorado that takes aim at how the Electoral College works. It’s called Proposition 113 and it would do the following: it commits CO to an alliance of states that have taken a similar position and when that alliance represents so much electoral power that it’s Electoral College members could elect the President, CO’s electors will vote in the EC for whichever candidate won the popular vote even if that candidate didn’t win CO.

I don’t like how America places someone in the White House. In 2000 and 2016 that person did not win the popular vote, and look at how many people have been placed on the Supreme Court partly by the two Republicans I am talking about- George W. Bush and Donald Trump. If Trumps wins the EC, he’ll again do so without winning the Popular Vote (although that would be the least of our constitutional problems if he wins  the EC).

At one level, we should simply put in the White House whoever wins the popular vote. But A) there are other problems with the EC and B) I have heard one argument about what Prop. 113 would do that prompted me to vote against it.

First, that argument is that if the EC were abolished and the popular vote placed a candidate in the White House, there would be recounts (possibly recount after recount) in all 50 states after the election. It seems quite possible it might take weeks to stop the recounts after they’ve become excessive- it might be what happened in FL in 2000 but 51+ recounts instead of just one (I am not sure how many others there were, but I’m pretty sure that only one made it to the SCOTUS).

There are 1-2 reforms of the EC that would satisfy me and which would help us avoid that possible nightmare scenario and still have more respect for the intent of the voters.

The first one is not the one I feel strongly about. It’s doing half of what Maine and Nebraska do where there are two EC votes that reflect the majority of the state overall and one vote per Congressional District that goes the way each District goes. I like the second part, about the districts. It could be called proportional representation compared to what happens when ALL the Electoral Votes of a state (with more than one District) go to the same candidate.

The important part is that all the states need to shed the two extra EC votes they get because they have two senators. These two extra Senate-based votes create a small but false and undesirable degree of equality between the big states and the small states. California should have 53 times the power in the EC that Wyoming has (CA has 53 Districts, and WY has one). As it is right now, CA has a little more than 18 times more power in the EC, but it has 69 times the population.

I’ve read some good sources that say Gore actually WON Florida in 2000 when all the votes are counted. But let’s say he lost FL fair and square. Someone did the math and if it weren’t for these two additional votes that every state gets, if all they got were just based on Congressional Districts, he could have lost FL by a landslide and still won the EC. To one extent or another, depending on how you define a small state (I draw the line at them having more than 9 congressional districts) about half of the the small states are reliably conservative, and a minority are reliably liberal, and a few are battleground states, although those numbers could change.

Right now, if these Senate-based votes were eliminated 220 Electoral Votes would be needed to win the election. Although I’m open minded that they may be biased with polling information, I like following the polls and the averages of the polls on the web-site Real Clear Politics, a site that is generally leans to the right. If you strip away two from each of the numbers they use, the total EC votes that Biden would have locked down in the Solid Democrat, Likely Democrat, and Leans Democrat states would be 185. Right now, 10/13/20, Biden is doing very well in WI (8 Votes), MI (14), PA (18) and NV (4). Looking at just those four states, Biden has two instead of just one path to victory (WI could be replaced by NV and Biden could still win; the way things are actually set up, MI, PA and NV wouldn’t be enough).

In general, shedding those Senate-based votes makes it easier for the Dems for the foreseeable future. And even when that ceases to be the case with shifting political trends, it would just be more (small-d) democratic if the EC were without those Senate-based votes.

I don’t feel strongly about the first reform I described (that NE and ME do). And I don’t think that Prop. 113 is horrible. But I think that getting rid of those Senate-based votes is incredibly important. One reason I bring this up is that it also exposes how messed up the Senate is- as i’ve said elsewhere, the Senate needs to be reformed. I think that each senator should get a number of votes equal to the number of Districts in their state, and that number should be used for everything in the Senate, including committee votes.

Proud Boys and Nazi Skinheads

Some of this is at this point widely-known but one part of it isn’t. After Trump’s endorsement of the Proud Boys (which he has kind of walked back) in the first presidential debate, a lot is known about the Proud Boys. A fair amount of background is available here and here.

They’re militant white supremacists but don’t appear to be skinheads. I had gotten the impression that the skinhead population had declined in recent years but was still surprised that there were reports of Antifa fighting the Proud Boys but nothing about them fighting Nazi skinheads. When I read stuff about Trump coddling the Proud Boys I thought it would be better if he were coddling Nazi skinheads because it would be easier to attack him over that.

I recently read a CNN article which said that they wear Fred Perry shirts. The thing is, skinheads, including Nazi skinheads, wear Fred Perry shirts. There seemed to be some connection between the Proud Boys and Nazi skinheads. When I brought this to the attention of several political friends, one of them (Dave Anderson, a columnist for the Boulder Weekly) responded and provided links to the following two stories:

1) Proud Boys and skinheads: MLS faces an incursion from the far-right.

2) Far-right skinheads join Proud Boys in assaulting protesters in New York City following Gavin McInnes event.

They indicate that there ARE connections between the Proud Boys and Nazi skinheads, something that I don’t think has been mentioned by the mainstream media in America.

Another aspect of this is, when did the GOP start believing that political differences should be settled with violence? In my experience they have believed that for a long time.

In 2005 when the Ward Churchill scandal broke, I went a protest at CU-Boulder in support of him. I was wearing an anti-Columbus shirt and a College Republican said that he loves Columbus. I explained about the genocide on Hispanola (when Columbus was governor of the island that is now made up of Haiti and the Dominican Republic at least 99% of the indigenous population was killed) and he said that when he moved into a new apartment he killed off the indigenous population of spiders. Instead of continuing to be patient and explaining how offensive that was, I called him a motherfucker. He asked if I wanted to fight and speculated that I don't believe fighting solves anything- he said it does solve things. I stood next to him but looked straight ahead silently until he was silent for 1-3 minutes and then I left.

Also, in 2003 right before a big anti-war rally I organized, I bumped into three college republicans who were going around covering up the flyers for the rally with their pro-war flyers. When I confronted them about that, one of them, who I think was Iraqi, said he wanted to beat me up. After a short confrontation we parted company.

The Black Lives Matter Protests and the Trunp Administration

Although I have been following developments and reading commentary about the Black Lives Matters protests like crazy, I have not attended any protests. For MULTIPLE reasons, taking part in protests would cause me the kind of anxiety and stress that would make my mental disabilities much worse than they are.

But, even though I currently am not getting a lot of visitors to this blog (I’m getting some and will soon get more), here are my thoughts about the issues thrown up by the protests.

Many people (like Trump) don’t understand this, but this is not about George Floyd. This is about hundreds of years of black lives being valued less than white lives in this country, including an apparent surge in the murders of unarmed Black people by police in the last several years, as well as some modern-day lynchings that more or less don’t involve the police. I was told at a BLM protest march around 2015 that in a 365-day period ending shortly before that day about 200 black people, armed or unarmed, had been killed by American police. I’m sure some of them were armed, but A) I’m very open-minded about allegations that cops plant guns and B) around that time there were SEVERAL highly publicized cases where undeniably unarmed Black people were killed by police. Police are practically never convicted, or even prosecuted (and rarely fired) for such deaths. Although there isn’t solidly comprehensive information about how often unarmed black people are killed by police here like there’s information about the security forces killing Catholic civilians in Northern Ireland’s Troubles, one reason I believe it’s a widespread and serious problem is that both the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League, two organizations that generally get along with police, have expressed support for BLM. That’s here and here. They are making these statements because even though they are sort of pro-cop, they are even more anti-racist and anti-injustice and anti-inequality. And that’s the agenda they see in BLM. (And in the case of the ADL, their support for BLM is also despite the fact that BLM has expressed criticism of Israel)

Trump claims to be sensitive to the death of Floyd, but he clearly isn’t beyond the death of that one individual. He isn’t sensitive to what Floyd’s death symbolizes. His National Security Advisor has said “No, I don't think there's systemic racism. I think 99.9% of our law enforcement officers are great Americans.” Based on multiple facts, a lot more than .1% of police are racist. That’s based on simple common sense, but also the following:

1) What I wrote about the SPLC and the ADL and BLM.
2) In 1992, when the controversy over the Body Count (Ice-T’s heavy metal band) song Cop Killer broke, the (then- 35,000 member) National Black Police Association kind of backed Ice-T. According to an article in the Orlando Sentinel:

The 35,000-member National Black Police Association says it won't join the boycott. Police should try to get at the root of black discontent and try to change it, said Ronald Hampton, the group's executive director.

"Where were these police groups when the police beat up Rodney King?" Hampton asked. "Why were they not appalled by the actions of their brothers? It rings of hypocrisy.”

3) From what I’ve heard, some massive majority of cops are registered to vote GOP and for the following reasons I believe that is a racist party.

A) Not only do they get no more than about 10% of the Black vote, and only around 25% of the Latino vote (and that would be lower if (more or less) white Latinos were excluded from the calculations), they also get no more than around 25% of the Asian-American vote. That last fact is crucial. Even though Asian-Americans as a group do at least as well financially as white people do as a group, and even though there is the history of FDR and Internment, Asian-Americanss look at the GOP and see it as even less attractive than the Dems.
B) There ’s also the fact that in the 1960s and 1970s Segregationist Democrats migrated to the GOP because the Dems became a civil rights party. In 2005 the GOP ADMITTED (and in all fairness apologized for) using the “Southern Strategy” of 1968 where they appealed to segregationist southerners in order to elect Nixon.
C) As I’ll explain further down, Trump is a racist.

There’s also the fact that, according to HuffPost, the Trump Justice Department ignored police brutality:

“Since President Donald Trump took office, his appointees at the Justice Department have all but eliminated the federal government’s police reform work. The Civil Rights Division’s police practices group has shrunk by half, and it hasn’t opened any major pattern-or-practice investigations that could rein in police departments that regularly violate constitutional rights.”

(Also, see this).

(There’s a lot of things I will gloss over because there’s so much attention on them anyway, like Trump’s use of the phrase “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” or what happened to facilitate his photo-op with the Bible)

Trump is a racist. Here’s some of the most solid evidence:

1) A few years ago was the first time Trump called Antifa a terrorist organization. It was after Antifa members had done what they’re defined by, and that’s not actually or allegedly rioting. They were fighting people clearly identifiable as fascists, and no, I don’t believe that cops are clearly identifiable as fascists. They were fighting FASCISTS.
2) On a similar note, when an anti-fascist was killed in 2017 in Charlottesville by a fascist, Trump said there were “fine” people on both sides.
3) There’s his attitude to the exonerated victims of a racial miscarriage of justice.
4) When asked about David Duke endorsing him, his response in an interview was:

Well, just so you understand, I don’t know anything about David Duke. OK? I don't know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists. So, I don't know. I don’t know, did he endorse me or what’s going on, because, you know, I know nothing about David Duke. I know nothing about white supremacists. And so you're asking me a question that I'm supposed to be talking about people that I know nothing about.

5) There’s his opinion that Lincoln screwed up dealing with what led to the Civil War. Trump thinks that if the then-late former President Andrew Jackson had been President in 1861 the Civil War would have been avoided. Since Jackson was a slave owner and an opponent of abolitionism, that would have involved, at best, a compromise friendly to the South that would have barely affected the life-span and geographic scope of slavery or the treatment of slaves. There’s information about that here and here.
6) His Veterans Affairs Secretary is a neo-confederate.

(As far as those last two, I should explain two facts about the Confederacy. First, they considered ending slavery so they could get military support from Europe and win the war, but decided not to- slavery was more important to them than independence. Also, when Black Union soldiers were captured, they were treated differently than White POWs and in at least one case were simply executed instead of taken to POW camps. The Confederacy was about slavery and racism)

I recently had a bit of a breakthrough on what needs to be done to make significant progress on ridding this country of racism. In addition to everything else people are doing, we need more unions. That’s based on the following:

1. Union households are more likely to vote Democratic than non-union households, and many of the organizers and staff in the labor movement are people of color and most of the whites are anti-racist and most union supporters are people of color or anti-racist whites.
2. In 2000 in a discussion on the email list of the Young Democratic Socialists (now YDSA) a member who was organizing workers in Indiana said that his competition was the Klan (UPDATE 1/26/22 That is, competition for the hearts and minds of the workers).
3. Eammon McCann is a socialist and anti-Unionist activist in Northern Ireland. He was one of the main leaders of the N. Ireland Civil Rights Movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s (he was one of the speakers at the rally/march that was attacked by the British Army on Bloody Sunday in Derry in 1972, and he was an organizer of the second Civil Rights march, the one in Derry in Oct. of 1968). He has held several different senior and very senior positions in the Northern Irish TRADE-union movement in the last 40 years. In 2016 he was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly and in 2017 he would have been but they reduced the number of seats returned from each constituency form 6 to 5 so he was basically runner-up. As far as I can tell, in the last 40 years at any given time two mainstream or professional news publications have been publishing his columns. He is an expert on sectarianism in N. Ireland. In a column written in the 1980s or 1990s and included in the 1998 anthology of his columns “McCann: War and Peace in Northern Ireland” he wrote:

The trade union movement is better placed than any other to purge the politics of this island of sectarianism. No other institution brings Catholic and Protestant workers together on a regular basis in pursuit of a common purpose which is antipathetic to sectarianism

(Mark Langhammer, who was the leader of the Northern Ireland part of the Irish Labour Party for several years around 2010, told me in 2005 that he agrees with McCann)

I think you could easily say the same thing about racism in this country.

Unfortunately, in recent decades, as the labor movement has become more and more anti-racist, it has gotten smaller and smaller, thanks to the GOP, corporations, and moderate Democrats.

*************

In conclusion, although I’m concerned the protests will result in the spread of COVID-19 and I have been unable to take part in them, I am glad that the protests are happening. They seem likely to be successful in multiple ways and have exposed more than usual the fact that our society is racist and that Trump is a racist.


A new mural in Belfast, N. Ireland.

Some Thoughts About the Republican Party, COVID-19 and Democracy

When it comes to a few voting reforms like vote-by-mail, they claim there is potential for the almost non-existent problem of voting fraud (that they believe is common) to get worse. Apparently there is a little more than almost zero potential for fraud with voting-by-mail, but in at least in some states it is so tiny. There is also a history of mail-in ballots being challenged more often than regular ballots.

READ THIS AS FAR AS WHY VOTE-BY-MAIL MIGHT BE A BAD IDEA.

But there is apparently even less possibility of fraud or challenges with early voting (perhaps no more than voting in person on election day) and the GOP hates that as well.

The thing that vote by mail and early voting do is reduce lines on election day outside polling places in precincts that don’t have enough stations (I just looked it up to be sure and a station is sometimes defined as "A place where one performs a task" and I wasn't sure if "machine" is the right word because I think that sometimes there is no machine involved). So many people in such precincts end up leaving the line because, (and this is more common with working-class people), they have to go to sleep so they can get up and go to work. And if they’re people of color they’re more likely to have a boss who will penalize them for being late for work than if they’re white. (UPDATE 11/5/20 There's also a class dimension as self-employed and professional people often have more control over their schedule than everyone else does and can make arrangements to sleep late the day after the election in case they're in line to vote late at night)

With COVID-19 early voting is also an important option, and one that can be set up pretty easily, easier than setting up vote-by-mail. If there’s early voting about 8 hours a day (everyday and on work days, 12-8 PM or something like that) for 1-2 months before the election, we’ll have plenty of time to vote, we can do it a small number at a time (depending on how big the room is, so we can be six feet apart). If you go there one day a month before election day and there’s a line stretching around the block because of social-distancing, just come back another day.

(For all I know it *MIGHT* be necessary for a county to have greater security (including cameras?) where the ballots are stored, but that would only be for 1-2 months’ and it wouldn’t be a lot of extra security. I haven’t heard of any problems with the accumulation of ballots due to vote-by-mail and/or early voting, although this would be different and MIGHT require new arrangements like extra security)

It’s not absolutely perfect, I was thinking as I typed the paragraph about security, but I think it might be best, especially with COVID-19, if we have both vote-by-mail as available as possible, and also have extensive early voting. We are rapidly approaching a point where it will be too late for Congress to effectively mandate vote-by-mail for everyone in every state (that has to be mandated soon, so states can have all the materials needed printed, which takes a long time) and last I heard, the GOP is totally against that. There might be a massive number of challenges in the event of universal vote-by-mail, which would seriously delay the results, maybe for months.

Fuck George W. Bush: Three New Poems

Below are three more poems. For an explanation of how I write my poems, see this. The last one is based on lyrics I agree with, the others are NOT.

For the rest of the lyrics, click on the "lyrics" label at the bottom.

1. Smash the Klan II. What you think it's about.
2. From Out of the Ashes. The birth of the Provisional IRA in Northern Ireland.
3. Surf the Euphrates. About the Iraq War.

“Smash the Klan II” based on “Aryan Pride” by Final War. Original lyrics are here.

1. This is about slightly militant opposition to the KKK among white people. It’s sort of inspired by the time that I joined around 100-300 people in 1995 protesting a “rally” by the Klan in Boulder. At the end we surrounded the building they had rallied in front of and trapped them there for about an hour or two until the police tried something sneaky that involved getting them out in an ambulance.
2. Instead of “crossing the border,” many Mexican-Americans are partly or totally descended from Mexicans who lived in what was Mexico until it became CA, NV and the South-West of the US (and TX).
3. The 54th Mass was the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, the segregated Black unit that fought in the American Civil War and whose story is told, accurately or otherwise, in the movie “Glory.”
4. Racists have a greatly exaggerated sense of how much anti-white bigotry there is. In a paragraph more than half-way from the top of this post that starts with “Even without that…” I explain why I think anti-white bigotry is a very small problem.
5. I exaggerate how easy it is for white people to get a job, although if we focus on times when it’s a white person and a person of color, it IS pretty easy for the white person to get the job. Affirmative Action helps a lot, but “Hispanics” and Blacks still have an unemployment rate fairly close to twice that of white people (it’s a bit higher for Blacks than for “Hispanics” and the gap fluctuates a bit, but it’s around twice; see this). Racists think that white people are discriminated against and have more trouble getting a job. Of course, that’s probably because they think that the natural order of things should involve full employment in good jobs for white people and see anything else as unfair.
6. My thoughts about the white identity and European-American ethnic identities are in the first 2/5 of this (you should also read the conclusion, which is the second to last section) (I realize that BEFORE they read that many anti-Klan white people might not like what I say, but I think that after they read it, they will).
7. The St. Patrick Battalion was a group of American soldiers, most Irish and almost all Catholics, who deserted the US Army during the US-Mexico War and joined the Mexican Army. I’m sure it varied from individual to individual, but to one degree or another they thought that what the US was doing to Mexico was unjust (they were also alienated by anti-Catholic bigotry in the US Army (and of course Catholics *used to be* on the Klan’s list as well)).
8. After I started altering stuff, I switched the first verse with the chorus. Also, there were only three verses in the original, and the fourth verse is totally mine.
9. **70% of this poem is me, 30% is the original. I don’t know if the 3rd line of the second verse in the original lyrics I found on-line is what was actually written by the original lyricist.

Many people hate the Klan for spreading prejudice
Gay people, Muslims, and Jews are on their fucking list
Black people aren’t criminals like you see on your TV
The border crossed Mexican-Americans, its a fact of history

Chorus
Brothers and sisters, join together as one.
We’ve got the fucking KKK totally on the run
in memory of the brave 54th Mass soldiers who died
Fuck the Nazis, and fuck the Klan and fuck Aryan Pride!

Racists cry “Black man, yeah Black man full of hate”
Widespread anti-White bigotry is the bullshit story they narrate
Its fucked up how white people can secure any job by race
It’s funny how the Klan deny that that’s totally the case.

Chorus

Our solidarity won't be broken, and we won’t hide from an affray
We will keep on working until we asphyxiate the KKK
Our message will be spread. Our voices loud and clear
Inform the youth, of the truth, the Klan’s greatest fear.

Chorus

We’ll never be proud of being white, it’s an artificial identity
It’s totally steeped in privilege, hate and inequality
We’re proud of being Irish, Scottish and German, Greek, Polish and Italian
We’re in solidarity with the oppressed, just like the St. Pat’s Battalion

*********

“From Out of the Ashes” based on “After the Fire” by Skrewdriver. original lyrics are here.

1. This is about the aftermath of the anti-Catholic pogrom in the Lower Falls Nationalist/Republican area of Belfast in Aug. of 1969 (it wasn’t INCREDIBLY Republican BEFORE that month, but not long afterwards it certainly was). In July, August, and September, and mostly during a period of 2-3 days, in Belfast, 1,505 Catholic families fled their homes (probably something like 18% of Belfast’s Catholic population, probably something like 1.8% of the North’s Catholic population). In one night alone 650 families were burnt, or at least forced, out of their homes.
2. The DUBLIN-BASED LEADERSHIP OF THE IRA had demilitarized it in the years before Aug. 1969 and only a few IRA weapons were available to help defend the area, a defense that was largely unsuccessful.
3. The Civil Rights Movement that started in mid- and late 1968 was overwhelmingly committed to non-violence and had hoped to democratize N. Ireland.
4. Provos refers to what we call in recent decades Sinn Fein and the IRA. They broke off from SF and the IRA (what became known as Official SF and Official IRA) partly because of the leadership’s decision to demilitarize the IRA.
6. Initially the British Army kind of saved the Catholics from police-led loyalist mobs and were welcomed for about 9 months, but they became increasingly like the notorious Black and Tans unit of the British Army that served in Ireland during the War of Independence 1919-1921.
7. Squaddie is a term for British soldier.
8. On the night of June 27th 1970, the Church of an isolated Catholic enclave in East Belfast was attacked by a loyalist mob. The British Army wouldn’t defend the area but members of the PIRA did. It was their first major action.
9. I like calling The Troubles the Second Anglo-Irish War, the first being the War of Independence.
10. There is or was a T-Shirt designed by either SF or their old American support organization Irish Northern Aid, that said: “From Out Of The Ashes Arose The Provisionals.” It was referring to the ashes of the mythical bird, the Phoenix (in this case representing the IRA they split off from (actually, I used to think it was the ashes of the burned out homes, and I kind of prefer that interpretation because there were some good people in the Officials in the early 1970s and I don't believe in speaking positively about the feud between the two groups)).
11. Skrewdriver were British and supported the British and Unionist causes in Northern Ireland.
12. Based on a fairly scientific look, only .3% of the PIRA’s operations resulted in civilian death.
13. **62% of this poem is me, 38% is the original.

The fires burned for hours, it was a time of terror.
Dublin had ordered the IRA disarmed but they were totally in error
Those nights there were burnt out homes, our community was battered
Non-violence had been our people’s hope, but now that hope was shattered

Chorus
After the fire, the ruins there did lay.
After the Provo victory there will come a brand new day.

The Falls stood in misery, and initially welcomed the British Army Man
But increasingly the Squaddies acted just like the old Black and Tans
Then, on the night of June 27th, it was known the Provos had come alive-
Seeds of resistance once sown, now had grown, new life that would not die.

Chorus

The new Anglo-Irish War is approaching, and with the Provos we shall be.
They rose from the ashes of August ’69 and they will fight for you and me.

*************

“Surf the Euphrates” based on “Surf Nicaragua” by Sacred Reich (despite their name, their politics are very progressive- I'm fairly familiar with all of their music and at least some of it is more or less socially liberal and it's also economically progressive and it's anti-war). Original lyrics are here.

1. This is about the Occupation of Iraq.
2. The Euphrates is a major river going through Iraq.
3. One of the MANY reasons Bush had for invading Iraq was that it has a lot of oil.
4. A major argument in favor of invading was that Iraq was connected to Al-Qaeda. In fact, shortly after the war began a poll found that about 70-75% of Americans thought Iraq was responsible for 9/11. It was such bullshit that Tony Blair didn’t use that argument when trying to convince the British people and Parliament to invade. It’s also been strongly suggested that the % of the anti-US forces that were foreign Islamists was very tiny.
5. There were no Weapons of Mass Destruction found, and that was predictable based on what the UN weapons inspectors were saying just before the invasion and what former Marine and former UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter said around 2000.
6. Donald Rumsfeld was the Secretary of Defense.
7. Based on multiple pieces of anecdotal evidence and the existence of Iraq Veterans Against the War (now, About Face), and how unpopular Bush became shortly after the 2004 election, I imagine a lot of American soldiers who voted for Bush in 2000 or 2004 wished they hadn’t after they did one or more tours there.
8. I think another reason for invading Iraq is that it provided multiple opportunities to give money to corporations. Besides arms contractors and those doing privatized work for the military, corporations getting money for reconstruction spent about half of what they got doing actual reconstruction (often a contractor would keep half and give the rest to a subcontractor and sometimes THAT corporation would keep half and give the rest to another subcontractor).
9. This poem is not pro-insurgency. It was reasonable and natural that a large majority of Iraqis wanted the US out, but my favorite slogan of the anti-war movement was “Support Our Troops, Bring Them Home.” Also, some group at some point, and they may have been anti-war, was raising money to send men and women serving there body armor, and I would have supported that (it’s different than giving them extra ammunition with which to kill Iraqi civilians). (it’s also not pro-Saddam- it would be great if Saddam had been pushed out of power in a better way, but the methods that the US and UK used were bad)
10. Besides the insurgency, there was other instability caused by the invasion and occupation- Al-Qaeda attacks on Shiite neighborhoods, ethnic cleansing by Shiites and possibly some by Sunnis, and tension between some of the Shiite population and the Occupation forces. At one point it came close to a full-blown Sunni-Shiite Civil War.
11. The Surge was a brief but dramatic increase in the number of soldiers and Marines in Iraq.
12. Between 1991 and 2003 Iraq was frequently bombed by the US and UK.
13. I think that Bush supporters enjoyed the political dimension of the war, where they tangled with anti-war groups. We were in a time of a “New McCarthyism,” where disagreeing with Bush was seen by a lot of people as politically taboo. As I said, at the beginning of the war, the vast majority of Americans blamed Iraq for 9/11.
14. As far as Bush’s reasons for invading Iraq, here is something I included in two posts about anti-Semitism:

Bush's reasons for invading Iraq were many, Israel was a small part of it. There was the opportunity to give lots of money to corporations in multiple ways, the strong desire for using the US military that most GOPers have, the desire to teach the world a lesson in terms of what the US will do to them if they piss off D.C., the desire for oil, the idea of democratizing the Middle-East. I also heard something about it being connected to countering the growing strength of the Euro. It's possible they half believed that stuff about WMDs and Al-Qaeda. Israel was a small part of it.

15. Bush liked the idea of being a popular war-time president the people would rally around.
16. **46% of this version is me, 54% is the original.
17. In a post here I describe what I did to oppose the invasion.

I know a place Where you're all going to go
They'll pay you to kill for oil If You're eighteen years old
First You'll need a haircut And then some new clothes
They'll stick you in Baghdad To play G.I. Joe

CHORUS:
You think you’re fighting Al Qaeda and that you’ll find WMD
But it’s total bullshit, concocted by Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney
But now it's too late You're entering Iraq
You voted for Bush, you’ll soon wish you could take it back

What is this we're fighting for and What are our goals
To create a cash cow for US corporations and improve Bush’s polls
Instability  and Sunni resistance grow deeper everyday
The situation worsens, the Surge is on it's the way

CHORUS:

Lessons we have learned Are easy to forget
Hints of Vietnam How soon we all forget
First we used sanctions and bombs, now go in the troops
Another chance for the Right to slander anti-war groups