Bumper Stickers for 2006

Bad President, Bad precedents

War is what happens when the corporations own the government.

Whatever happened to compassion?

Not my president. Not my war.

Sadam’s out, now what?

Bribery is against the law, unless you are a lobbyist.

Legalize Truth

Who would Jesus torture?

War for oil is just bad foreign policy.

When Bush says democracy, he means capitalism.

Theocratic Oligarchy, the new America.

Is America just now discovering the meaning of Compassionate Conservative?

It may have taken five years, but the true colors of the “compassionate conservatives” have now come to light. At one time conservative meant a balanced budget or at least fiscal responsibility. Our nation under the control of the Republicans have taken a budget surplus and turned it into the largest deficit in history. This deficit continues to grow unabated with no meaningful efforts to get it under control.
Compassion once meant upholding human rights. Now there are reports of secret prisons and torture and abuse of prisoners in the hands of the US military. Under the "patriot act" anybody can be spied on by the government, arrested and held without due process.
It is abundantly clear that “compassionate conservative” was merely a campaign phrase which,in practice, has now developed the opposite meaning.
We know the Christian right voted in mass for George Bush. But in that support did they intend for such un-Christian behavior as overthrowing a government, invading and occupying a far off country, or waging a war in which tens of thousands of innocent civilians have been killed?
I don’t believe anywhere in the Bible is a passage that reads, “… And therefore go out amongst the people and lie to them heartily so you may take their wages to finance invasion and destruction in the lands of those who have voiced a grudge against you”.

One Big Problem with George’s War

Boy, George sure was ticked on Veteran’s Day. He jumped all over those who oppose his decision to invade Iraq saying "it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began." But in trying to set the record straight, he asserted: "When I made the decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, Congress approved it with strong bipartisan support."
If I remember right there were three reasons given to support the case to go to war. First, Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, second, there was a Iraq Al Quida connection, and third, the Government of Iraq was attempting to acquire nuclear weapons.
We know now all these assertions have proven to be false.
The administration had the responsibility to look at all the information and provide all that information to Congress, not just the information that supports its view. Had the administration not chosen ignorance, looked more thoroughly at the intelligence, been patient, and not been so eager to go to war, they may have provided Congress with other options and thus Congress likely would not have approved the invasion of sovern nation.
In the weeks approaching the vote on the October 2002 joint resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq, the administration launched a media blitz stating their position and the expected outcome of the war. I remember Secretary of State Rumsfeld on “Face the Nation” saying, “In and out in three months”, and “we will be welcomed like the liberators of France”. They may not have manipulated the intelligence, but they certainly manipulated the media.
The administration may now want to blame others for the mistake of going to war, but the blame is squarely on the administration for their ignorance, poor planning, and myopic and excessive willingness to make war.

Is KGEZ off the Edge?

The brief experience of local hate radio in the Flathead Valley may soon come to a whimpering end. The out-of-state former millionaire developer who came to Montana some years ago may have bit off more than he can financially handle this time. Reports from the AP this morning state Mr. Stokes, who has continually complained about taxes and government has now taken and spent $350,000 of the people’s money and has no way of paying them back. A piece of land in the way of the Highway 93 widening project south of Kalispell is at the center of a dispute between Stokes’ radio station, KGEZ “the Edge”, and the State of Montana. The State assessed the land at $100,000, Mr. Stokes wanted $1,000,000 for it. While in dispute the State put up $750,000, which Mr. Stokes drew down to nothing. The final offer to the Station was $ 400,000.
In the report the station’s creditors are now threatening foreclosure.
The reason this new story is important is that Mr. Stokes has used his station over the years to criticize policies we as Montanans find dear to our hearts. The environmental movement (He calls the environmentalists Nazis and associates them with the Third Reich) is a favorite topic that he uses as a scapegoat for a multitude of social and political ills. He lead an unsuccessful but expensive lawsuit of the local “liberal” community college because the questioned the results of an election. He supports the war in Iraq, but does not believe in taxes. He wants the support of the community, but alienates everyone who doesn’t share his point a view. He states he is for free speech, but criticizes those who speaks up against his views.
Judging from the few callers to his program, there are several people supporting the station; they call themselves “patriots”, but in fact, they are as sheep being blindly lead by self-destructive maniac. They fail to question the logic or reasoning behind the views espoused.
Although the local program is amusing, like watching a babbling clown, it will be refreshing when the reactionary right realizes there is not place for hate speech in the Flathead Valley.

Doing More for the Katrina Homeless

As the images of thousands of evacuees fade from the national consciousness, a new and more alarming reality is developing on the periphery of our view. The reality is that the thousands made homeless by recent hurricanes will remain without permanent housing for a very long time, and some may never establish long-term housing. Current Federal disaster assistance policies do very little in assisting the poor and those without adequate resources in acquiring permanent housing. There are low interest loans for those who can afford to repay, there are billions of dollars available for temporary housing in the form of rental assistance and mobile homes, but the Stafford Act, which guides federal recovery efforts, has no provisions for long-term housing to assist those who are below the poverty guidelines. Although there are repair grants under the program, Congress has limited these amounts to $5,200 for minimal repairs, and $10,400 in total replacement funds; this is woefully inadequate to make any substantially damaged home habitable again and certainly insufficient to replace a destroyed home.
The Stafford Act, leaves the long-term needs of the poor to various voluntary agencies. And those agencies are doing what they can, but with the magnitude of the disasters in recent years, there will still be many thousands of people homeless as a result of these storms.
Congress has long ignored the problems of the disaster homeless in their need for permanent housing. Hurricane Katrina presents an opportunity to rethink our policies in housing the poor and those without resources. There are disaster resistant housing designs as well as policies to prevent construction in hazard prone areas. If there were a mechanism to incorporate Federal dollars into the funding of non-profit corporation’s housing programs, it would go much further to alleviating the suffering of our nation’s most vulnerable population.