The SoapBoxers

Have you ever wondered why only two political parties are dominating the American political scene? In every other democratic nation of the world, there are multiple parties requiring coalitions to govern. Not so in the United states, where the only time cooperation is necessary is when the legislative and executive branches of the government are in separate hands.

There are several institutional reasons for the two party system in America. First of all, the United States is not a democracy, it is a democratic republic. This is important in that in a true democracy, the people are continuously involved in the governing process, such as in Switzerland where there are elections almost every week. Second, our elections are fixed by the calendar, not by events. In the socialist democratic nations such as France, Germany and the United Kingdom, any vote of confidence lost by the ruling party or coalition will result in a new election. Third, we have separation of our legislative and executive branches. In most democracies of the world, the legislature elects a prime minister who is the defacto executive of the country. Sure, the United Kingdom has the Queen and many nations have presidents, but these people are there to be the consistency rather than the power.

All of this still does not add up to a two party system. I believe that the United States falls into this habit (yes habit) based on our innate love of a stand up fight. We want just two people in the ring beating the snot out of each other. Everything we do for entertainment or even business is a one on one match. From sporting events like the BCS championship to the burger wars, we only concentrate on the top two. There are others out there, but all of the publicity goes to the top two with a slight mention of the also rans.

When this country was in its infancy, we had two parties; the Democratic-Republicans and the Federalist. After a few years, the Federalists dropped out and the Whigs came along. Just before the Civil ware, the Whigs collapsed and the Democratic-Republicans split into the Democrats and the Republicans. Most of the Federalists became Whigs when they lost several presidential elections in a row and were in a feeble minority in both houses. The same thing happened when most of the Whigs became Republicans.

The talking heads have always pointed out that a vote for a third party is a throw away vote. When you are talking pure ability to get elected, that may be true in the short run. A grass roots effort to fundamentally change an existing party can be devastating to that party’s power such as is predicted for the Republican party with the Tea party movement. But if neither major party supports even some of your basic values, then voting for the least bad is still a bad decision. It re-enforces the existing power.

It took 24 years for the Whigs to gain even a moniker of power after the Federalist collapse. It took 16 years of the Democratic-Republicans to recover from the Jackson Democrat revolt, which also resulted in the current parties.

There are plenty of options for you if you want to vote your platform, there are only two if you are voting for power.

Here are just a few of the ones I looked up, there are plenty more.

Modern Whig – http://www.modernwhig.org/
Green – http://www.gp.org/index.php
Constitution – http://www.constitutionparty.com/
Socialist – http://www.sp-usa.org/
Conservative – http://www.conservativepartyusa.com/
Libertarian – http://www.lp.org/
Communist – http://www.cpusa.org/

[Editor’s note: You may find more political articles from me as November approaches.  I’m not affiliated with either party.  I lean left on quite a few issues, but am quite conservative on others.  However, the intricacies of the process and the probabilities of certain events intrigue me – and it’s likely that this will serve as the basis for most of my articles.]

Lisa Murkowski, Republican Senator from Alaska, was defeated in the GOP primary by Joe Miller, a candidate backed by Sarah Palin.  Following her defeat, Murkowski announced that she will be mounting a write-in candidate for her senate seat – much to the disappointment of Republican leaders.  Former speaker of the house Newt Gingrich went so far as top say that Murkowski is “fundamentally cheating.”

The reason for the concern is obvious.  Either Miller or Murkowski would be a cinch to beat Democrat Scott McAdams head-to-head.  However, it is possible that Murkowski’s write-in candidacy will pull enough votes away from Miller to allow McAdams to pull off a victory with around 35% of the vote.  That’s a worst case scenario, of course – a Rasmussen poll from September 19 showed McAdams trailing both Miller and Murkowski.  It’s a wild card, though – and a risk the Republicans would prefer to avoid.

But is Murkowski – and other candidates who lose primaries but remain in the race – actually cheating?  By losing the primary, they have certainly given up the right to be listed as the Republican or Democrat on the ballot.  But it’s worth noting that this is all the primaries decide – the person who will be officially endorsed by the party.  They don’t determine a candidate’s overall eligibility for the race.  Murkowski can’t be the endorsed Republican in the race, but she’s certainly entitled to remain in the race in any other fashion – the Republicans have no control over that.  The Republicans and Democrats should not be given special priority on the ballots, and certainly should not be allowed to rule other candidates ineligible.

Of course, the other question is whether or not Murkowski’s run is a good idea.  Probably not.  She may have been better served to wait until 2014 and lock horns with Mark Begich.  You may remember that Begich narrowly defeated the late Senator Ted Stevens at a point when Stevens was neck deep in corruption charges.  Clearly, this helped the Begich campaign, and he might not be able to win against Murkowski.  A Murkowski win against Begich would result in both of Alaska’s senators being Republicans – something that would likely curry favor with Republicans.  Her current write-in campaign has only served to anger them.  Murkowski was currently removed as the ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee as retribution for her campaign.

Across the country, in the state of Delaware, there is a situation that is very similar, yet very different.  Mike Castle, backed by the GOP establishment, was upset by Tea Party favorite Christine O’Donnell in the primary.  The only person happier than O’Donnell was her Democratic challenger, Chris Coons.  Coons was trailing Castle badly in the polls – but leading O’Donnell by a wide margin.  Overnight, this race turned from an almost certain Republican win to an almost certain Democratic win.

What could save the bacon for the Republicans?  Well, if Mike Castle were to run as a write-in candidate, he might be able to eke out a win and put the seat into GOP hands.  He’s mulling the possibility and has until the end of today to decide.  The wrinkle in this is that it’s going to be awfully hard to portray Castle as playing within the rules while at the same time painting Murkowski as a cheater.

Don’t all teenage dates end on top of satanic altars? I guess the new darling of the Tea Party and Republican Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell would like everyone to believe that. The comment comes from a past clip of one of her many appearances on the show Politically Incorrect that was brought to light once again by its host Bill Maher on his new show Real Time (see the clip as part of her Greatest Hits on Youtube). The clip has her stating that she once dabbled in witchcraft and one of her first dates ended up on a satanic alter with blood dripping from it. I guess her new campaign slogan should be YES WICCAN!!!

Now while like most things O’Donnell says or has said, the clip is amusing but this one in particular won’t have much of a factor on her losing the Senate race in Delaware. That’s because her tea party crowd just loves them story of redemption. Of how she could overcome her ways of witchcraft and being at the altars of the evil Obama and come to a better life today of living of others campaign contributions.

This is the real thing about the Tea Party’s new love interest. It is truly amazing to me how a crowd so hell-bent on how government should be not allowed to waste their money, yet they have no qualms about letting their political prostitute O’Donnell use their money any way she desires. Yes I called O’Donnell a political prostitute, that is what she is. She does not have a job and lives off money given to her for running for political office. So I hope the tea party loves their position as the political Johns right now.

This past Sunday O’Donnell was to appear on a couple of the Sunday news shows, but quickly cancelled those appearances after Maher released his clip adn promise that he hd many more to release. Granted she said that she was overworked and needed to relax and get away for the weekend. We have to believe her right? After all, she did once say that she would not have even lied to Hitler to save Anne Frank. Unfortunately teabaggers she isn’t that honest either. She lies as much as Sister Sarah, just she is not as crafty about it. She quickly went into redirections of her motive throughout the weekend ending up with she overbooked events and Delaware events and voters should be the focus. Good for her, if that was the actual motive, but it was not as Delaware voters are her main concern.

I think the last stat I saw on the issue was that over 80% of O’Donnell’s contributions this cycle were from outside of Delaware. So if Delaware needs to be the focus maybe she should return some of that money she was so adamantly trying to get at just last week. On Hannity last night O’Donnell professed she will do no more national interviews because Delaware needed to be the focus. However while it would be the good reason, it is not her real reason, she just doesn’t want to have any more missteps on her way to losing the Senate race than she will have anyways from her own past comments.

I say on her way to losing the race because that IS going to be the endgame of this race in my opinion. A seat that was once thought to go to the dark side is now a pretty safe seat to hold. Even polls so right biased seem to think so. The Fox News battleground poll had the Democrat Chris Coons up 54% to 39% over O’Donnell. On an amusing note though in the same polling if Mike Castle would be the nominee he would be trouncing Coons 48% to 33%. Now since I usually don’t believe anything that comes from Faux News alone, another usually right biased poll Rasmussen has Coons up 53% to 42%. So way to stick it to the establishment teabaggers, by making an obvious pickup into a safe seat for the opposition instead.

Now the only poll that matters is the one on election day, but the result will be no different than the pst two times she has run before, especially now that everyone is vividly aware o how much of a nut she is. So I sit here waiting with bated breath at the next piece news to come out from O’Donnell whether a current misstep or a past one. The are all amusing to me. Until that time though I will protect myself from the invasion of mice-human hybrids and continue to be master of my own domain.

For the first time, President Obama is actually proposing an economic stimulus package which will provide some permanent benefit to the country, and everyone is condemning him. I am a fiscal conservative, so by nature I am opposed to government spending beyond the bare minimum (military, road, ports and courts). Starting three years ago and up until the beginning of September, every “stimulus” was simply spending with no true benefit.

First we bailed out the banks, then the automobile manufacturers. We threw a lot of money at states which resulted in a lot of signs telling us where the money was being spent, even though all of the projects were already underway before the money was approved.

Now for the first time, the President has proposed upgrading the country’s infrastructure. This means new projects on highways, railroads, seaports, airport, bridges and canals. The right claims this will just save the unions and only provide a single year of employment. The left claims that it is a waste to support the oil industry by encouraging more transportation. I feel that the President is correct. Infrastructure programs are beneficial long after the work is complete. Ask your grandparents about trying to get from Chicago to Los Angeles before the interstate system was completed or before jet aircraft and the building of O’Hare and LAX.

I also agree with the President’s decision to visit the Pentagon on September 11. I was shocked to hear that he was not going to ground zero, primarily because all of the news outlets made it sound like he was going golfing or something. The problem was he was not going to New York City, where these reporters are based. The Vice President was there, that should not be considered an insult. If we are to have the President physically attend every major remembrance, he would never have a chance to get anything else done.

Are the losses at ground zero somehow more important than the Pentagon? What about our losses at Pearl Harbor? The Northridge Earthquake? The San Francisco Earthquake of 1900? The Galveston Hurricane of 1901? The Gettysburg battle field? Should the President visit each of these sites on the appropriate anniversary?

He went to the Pentagon. He went to New Orleans. He even picked up a tar ball on the Gulf Coast. What is it that we want him to do? What can he actually do? He has been in office almost two years and New Orleans is still a mess. Does this become his fault?

We as Americans really need to think about what the President’s roll is. He is not a messiah, nor is he a pariah. He is a man, elected to be the executive of our government. He is to enforce the laws passed by congress and guide our foreign affairs. He can be a cheer leader, a consoler, even a lecturer, but he is not a rock star or super hero. I am more that willing to criticize any President’s policies, but to criticize every decision is to make a caricature out of yourself.

[Editor’s note: although the sentiments of this article remain the same today, please note that the article is from September 2010 and refers to events in that time frame.]

Benjamin Franklin once said, “Certainty? In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.” As the Bush tax cuts are set to expire and the mid term elections only 2 months away, Congress is scrambling on what to do about the tax cuts.

If the democrats choose to back President Obama’s plan to soak the rich in taxes it would be political suicide. Let’s think about this. Right now we already tax the rich heavily. And who hires people, the rich? Who owns businesses? The rich. Why would taxing them benefit anyone? If they have less coming in, they’re less likely to hire people. With unemployment at record highs, why risk that? Again, if you have less coming in (or more going to the government) you might not only not hire people, but cut positions. And that would cause our unemployment rate to go even higher.

In this current economic climate, how does taxing more, which would cause fewer jobs to be available (or loss of even more jobs) even make sense? Trust me. I’m not rich. I’m not pleading this case for my own pocketbook. It just doesn’t make economic sense to tax the rich at this time. Everyone is already taxed too much. The government takes too much of what is ours. Benjamin Franklin was right.

If the tax breaks are allowed to expire and the rich are taxed more by our government, I hope people let their voices known on election night. Chris Christie said, “Higher taxes is the road to ruin. We must and we will shrink our government, and that means making some tough choices, tightening our belts.” In the current economy everyone has been forced to tighten their belts … why not the government?

I just feel that I have to make one more comment, well several actually. If someone owns a book and wants to burn it, they have every right to do so. If someone can buy a property and establish a place of worship, they have every right to do so. If they are doing something to make a statement and annoy other people, that is their right, at least in the United States. These decisions just make them jerks.

I am personally glad that the Koran burning did not happen. I also hope that it never does. Back in the 1950, when zealots took books from schools and public libraries to burn, that was a crime of theft and destruction of public property. When they go out and buy copies of the Koran to burn, that is just bad taste and poor economic choices.

As far as the Mosque goes, I tried to do a little research. There is very little hard data for the religious demographics of Manhattan or for that matter, the number and location of Mosques. Based on a Columbia University study, and Google Maps (neither professes to be a good source), there are roughly 102,000 Muslims in Manhattan with 17 Mosques. There are roughly 1,029,000 Christians in Manhattan with 173 churches. That seems to be parity. The existing Mosques and Churches are pretty evenly spread around the island, with only 1 Mosque on the southern tip, but 26 churches in the same area.

As far as parity goes, are we claiming that only Christians who work in the financial district deserve easy access to their places of worship? This would seem rather presumptuous. Is it bad taste to open one that close to ground zero? I don’t think so since there is one even closer according to Google Maps. Is it rude to make it a 13 store building and name it Cordoba House (referencing the first major victory of Islamic conquest in Spain)? To me, this starts pushing to towards jerkdom, regardless of how reasonable and calm the good Imam sounds on CNN.

We have to remember, we are in the United States, and that means anyone can act like a jerk any time they want as long as they do not actually harm anyone. This is not true for other countries. For example, in Canada, you can be put in prison for hate speech if you quote the Bible against homosexuality (interestingly, quoting the Koran for the same purpose has not resulted in prison yet, but give them time). In Saudi Arabia, bringing a Bible into the country can result in prison time, and opening a Christian church is forbidden (except in military bases for foreign armies and at foreign schools).

I feel very fortunate to live in the Unites States, where anyone can stand on a corner and expose all of their prejudices for the entertainment of the all who will listen.

It was 9 years ago on a Tuesday morning, the weather not unlike it was for me here this morning in central NC – high 70’s, not a cloud in the sky. I awoke to my cat, Madison, nudging me that it was time for breakfast. I sat up quickly from my half-sleep and noticed it was 8:20. I was going to be late. Normally on such a beautiful day I’d get my cycling clothes on and bike down Smith Street to downtown Brooklyn where I’d catch the Brooklyn Bridge footpath and ride over to Manhattan, usually crossing the City Hall complex through the gardens and then riding down Broadway to work at 1 NY Plaza.

But not today, I was late. I fed Madison, scrambled to get some clothes on and half walked, half jogged to the F-line subway station at Smith and 9th, about 2 blocks from where I worked. I figured I’d be about 5-10 minutes past my normal arrival time of 9:00. The subway went underground after the next stop and I fell into my normal routine of staring at the NYC subway map on wall so as to not make eye contact with anyone. About 10 minutes later the train pulled into Borough Hall station and I quickly exited and climbed the stairs to transfer over to the N/R Borough Hall station (they are not connected underground, but because I used a MetroCard the transfer was free). Another subway trip, this time the N/R line to Whitehall Street station which was right on One NY Plaza, where I worked. It was just a few minutes after 9:00 when the train pulled into the station, I got out and did my usual rush to get ahead of the crowd and started going up the stairs 2 at a time. I was about halfway up the last staircase when it happened.

New York City, especially lower Manhattan during the day, is a noisy place. Living there for a while you get acclimated to strange and loud noises. I don’t think my mind first noticed the extremely loud jet airliner noise but I do remember focusing and pondering for a second or so when I heard a massive boom that sounded not unlike a piano soundboard breaking. Yes, a piano soundboard. It’s a pretty unique noise, because all the strings snap at once and create this massive cacophony of both resonance and dissonance at the same time. A second after that, just as I was coming up to street level I heard what was clearly the sound of people screaming – not just a few people, tens of thousands of people screaming. I looked north, where the noise was coming from, and saw hundreds of people in the streets, moving south. I looked eastward toward the large, open plaza part of One NY Plaza and almost immediately saw a co-worker; Myung, and he looked scared. I can honestly say in the 4 years I had known him while working with him he had never appeared scared before. I quickly walked up to him and asked, “What’s going on?”

“F*cking terrorists, it had to be. They crashed a small Cessna into the North Twin Tower to get everyone’s attention, and then just now crashed an airliner into the South tower.”

I took that bit of news with about as much grace as anyone else would; my jaw probably dropped and I said, “What?!”

“Yeah, just now. 767 or something. It came from that way and slammed right into the twin towers.” He pointed South and drew a line through the air from the direction of Staten Island toward where the WTC would be if we had clear sight lines to it. I started walking toward Broad Street where I’d be able to look north and see the WTC. I didn’t get halfway across the plaza when I saw my boss and the other 5 members of my group. They had spotted me and were walking towards me.

Jim was my boss. He was only a few years older than me and was at first glance the perfect California surfer dude. He was tall, had perfectly spiked blonde hair, good looks, and was well tanned. I didn’t even have time to ask what was going on, when we were all within a few feet of each other he said, “We’re getting out of here, all of us, back to my place. We’re taking the ferry – it’ll be safer over in Jersey. I don’t think we should stay here or take bridges out of Manhattan. In fact, everyone in my group but myself and the other Netware/Windows guy, Phil, lived in central Jersey so it made sense that they’d all want to head back there. I thought about it for a moment and then told them that I had to get home to my roommates and to make sure my cat was safe if things got worse. I expected protest, even being ordered to go with them on the ferry to Hoboken, but Jim just nodded and said, “Ok, man, good luck. Keep in touch with the pagers.” Everyone in my department had two-way pagers with mini qwerty keyboards. Jason, my best friend at work, extended his hand, shook my hand and said simply, “good luck.”

I made my way through the crowd on the plaza to Broad Street and that’s finally when I looked up and saw the Twin Towers. The south tower almost completely obscured the view of the north tower, but I could clearly see the massive, smoldering hole where the 2nd airliner had hit. With the way winds are in lower Manhattan, this was the first time I could smell it too. Ever smell burnt electronics? It was pretty close to that, with a bit more of a sharp smell of metal burning. It was absolutely surreal to see a massive hole in what was the most iconic view of NYC for me. Jason had taken a few pictures of it before they left the 31st floor where I worked:

I continued on up South Street, walking at a pace just slow enough that I could stare in disbelief at the WTC without bumping into anyone else. My plan was to take the Brooklyn Bridge footpath across and then walk down Court Street all the way home. It was about at South Street Seaport that I noticed a lot more than the normal clutter and mess on the street. The street was teeming with fairly fresh paper. I looked down and picked one up – it was a resume. I folded it up, put it in my pocket, and wondered if that particular person were still alive or not, or if they were even there. It could have been someone scheduled to interview next week. It could have been someone there for an interview that day. For all I knew in my state of disbelief and shock it could have been someone on one of the planes – I was always too scared to go back and look at that resume and see if the owner of it had died, and now I can’t find it after having moved from NYC. At this point police had started to organize the chaos a bit and there were more than a few of them directing pedestrian and vehicle traffic. I think it was at Beekman Street that I turned north-west and started to move toward the entrance of the Brooklyn Bridge footpath. I moved up Beekman for a few blocks, past Pace University and toward Park Row. I was just going past the Downtown Hospital where there were quite a few police officers gathered and I overheard one of them saying to someone else that emergency crews were using the Brooklyn Bridge and all civilian traffic was being routed up to the Manhattan Bridge. I decided to double-time it at that point. I also realized at that point that my family and my girlfriend would be worried about me. My parents were in England on a long overdue second honeymoon so they had almost no way of getting in touch with me.

While on the few blocks from St. James Place to the Manhattan Bridge I pulled out my phone and tried a few times to reach my girlfriend, getting nothing but busy signals. I pulled out my pager and wrote up a simple text message – “I’m ok, walking home to Brooklyn right now” and sent it to her e-mail. She’d later tell me that despite the initial panic and dread of hearing the news and getting nothing but busy signals trying to call me, she almost immediately thought of checking her e-mail. My sister wasn’t so level-headed or lucky. She didn’t have an e-mail address that I knew of or remembered back then, so I sent her a text-to-speech message that would prompt her to press “1” to listen as a computerized voice read off what I put in my pager. I would find out later that she must have thought it was some sort of automatic warning/emergency response and that they were calling her because I was injured or dead. I may be a pretty technical person, but apparently my sister isn’t.

It was almost 10:00 and I was a few hundred feet from the Manhattan Bridge on Bowery Street by that point and the smell was already making it uncomfortable but not hard to breathe. I had been pausing to look up at the towers every so often and did so right then. With Columbus Park and City Hall Park being a majority of the land between where I was and the WTC, I had a clear view right at that point, and was staring right at the South Tower as it began to fall. From my vantage point I could more feel than hear the rumble of the collapse and the steel girders rattling around sounded not unlike a massive set of wind chimes. It was such an unexpected noise that I remember specifically thinking that exact thought: “wow, that sounds like a giant set of wind chimes.” A large woman in her 40’s next to me screamed, “oh, God!” and stumbled as she tried running toward the bridge in shoes clearly not meant for running. The white cloud of pulverized concrete, dust, ash, etc came rushing out in all directions and while it certainly reached where I was standing it wasn’t nearly as bad as what many saw and videotaped. One of my co-workers still in One NY Plaza managed to look down and take a few pictures of what that looked like:

I moved across the Manhattan Bridge footpath at a brisk pace at that point. About the middle of the bridge my pager went off, it was a message from Jason saying that he had seen the tower collapse and heard reports that the Pentagon and a State Department building had been hit as well. I thought the same thing he did: that it was raining airplanes and someone had declared war on us. I think I broke into a full-fledged run at that point to reach the Brooklyn side. I was thinking the worst: there would be more planes crashing and a lot more panic would devolve into looting and riots. I was going over a mental list in my head of things to do when I got home: break out the cat-carrier and get Madison into it, get some bottles of water together, get my baseball bat and pepper spray easily available, and then bunker down and prepare for armageddon.

I didn’t know what kind of chemicals I was breathing in at that point, having been in the dust cloud that spread when the south tower collapsed. The smell of burnt metal/electronics was even more pungent at that point, so as soon as I got to the Brooklyn side of the bridge I went into the first corner store I found and went to buy a bottle of water; I was going to get my bandana out of my backpack and soak it in the water and put it over my nose and mouth so I could at least have a bit of a filter from the stench. I went to the cash register to buy the bottle and a very rotund man with a thick Brooklyn accent turned to me and pointed to a small TV in the corner and said, “Didja see that sh*t? It just fell. Crazy.” He saw me getting out my wallet to pay and said, “Don’t worry about it. Pass on the good deed to someone else who might need it. We gotta all stick together with sh*t like this happening.” I gave him as heartfelt a smile as I could manage and was able to say thank you without my voice cracking too much at the really kind gesture he had just made. I went back outside and started for home, just about 2 miles straight down Court Street. I walked fast. I was in my late 20’s and in good shape but was still walking fast enough that my legs were burning a bit. All over there were police with traffic stopped letting various vehicles through. At the corner of Court and Atlantic there were police cars all over and they had quite obviously commandeered a bus and were loading it with police to drive across to Manhattan.

I don’t quite remember when I got home, I have to guess just after 10:30, because when I walked upstairs to our third floor walkup my roommate Andy was there – I hadn’t heard a peep from him before I left that morning so I thought he had gone to work. Turns out he was taking a mental health day and had only woken up around 10:00, not having any idea what had happened. He told me he kept hearing sirens go by (we lived a block from the Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn/Battery tunnel) and had half-slept through most of it, only turning on the TV to CNN when he saw the smoke coming from the direction of lower Manhattan out our back window.

“I saw the south tower fall. Collapsed.” I said to him.

“Both of them,” he said somberly. “North one just a few minutes ago.”

I got out both of my pepper spray canisters and set them on the kitchen counter. Andy didn’t seem too concerned, so I held off on my plan to get my baseball bat out, and picked up Madison and sat down on the couch to watch the news. Every few minutes I’d try calling my girlfriend and my sister. At some point that morning I sent a page to my co-worker Mohammed, a fairly devout Muslim, that said, “There’s going to be a lot of angry people today, and I’m praying that you and your family will be safe. I know that who you call Allah and who I call God are one and the same.” I was already angry that this had happened and I considered myself fairly rational and not the slightest bit hawkish – I could only imagine the epitaphs of “glass parking lot!” and “nuke ’em all!” that were being muttered all across our country right now out of anger in the direction of Mecca.

The rest of my day was a lot less exciting. I got a response from my girlfriend telling me she’d call when she could get through. I got a tearful call from my sister saying that she finally figured out I was ok and would tell my parents I was ok. My other roommate Louis came home ok – he had been working on a construction crew that would have been driving past the WTC a few times that day. Andy’s girlfriend Penny came home from her teaching job looking like she had suffered at least 1 nervous breakdown. I sent a pager message to my immediate co-workers that I was home safe and got replies from all of them that they were safe as well. I personally knew at least a dozen people that worked in and around the World Trade Center and all of them were ok. A co-worker of mine had an uncle who died at the WTC, you might have heard of him. There was a man in a wheelchair in the North Tower who was being helped down the many flights of stairs by a few kind souls who ignored emergency responder advice to get out ASAP. One of the people helping him down who did not make it out was my co-worker Henry’s uncle.

Late Wednesday night I took my girlfriend’s parent’s car from NYC to North Carolina (where I live today). I drove through the night and ended up taking the long way through Maryland and West Virginia because I had heard DC would be near impossible to drive through. I had been planning that trip for a few weeks later anyway, but it seemed as good a time as any with everything that went on. We discussed seriously what had been discussed in passing many times before: we loved each other enough to want to (eventually) get married.

Funny that 9 years later and hundreds of miles away the weather would be almost identical.

[Editor’s note: Photos courtesy of Jason Consorti. Check out Jason’s WTC page. Click on images to see an enlarged version.]

[Editor’s note: The Angry Squirrel’s column was originally scheduled for this weekend.  However, he has already been forced the rewrite once because of the fluid nature of this situation, so his article is running today to ensure the timeliness of his writing.  Fiction Friday will occur on Sunday this week.  A new recurring character will be introduced.]

It’s times like these that I always have to remind myself of the five percent doctrine – that no matter what five percent of the population will always be crazy and it is an untreatable disease. Saturday is the ninth anniversary of the attacks on September 11th and dubbed by Pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center as International Burn The Koran Day. After much time publicizing the event and recent media attention and backlash from many, the wacko Jones decided to back off and cancel his event. Obviously he was looking for a graceful exit and thanks to figures like the former half term Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin earlier in the day helping him link in his mind a correlation between the community center to be built not even within view of ground zero and his little stunt, he found that out in stating he would was cancelling the event because they had promised to move the center if he cancelled his burning of the Qur’an. Granted, now once the truth be told he had no such agreement, he now is back to praying about the event and it is suspended until he can sort things out.

The gist of it to me seems that the Iman in Florida got him a meeting with the people in NYC about the center and possibly moving it, and he took that to mean they were going to move it, or more likely the case he went ahead and used that as the reason for him to have a further backtrack towards doing the event again since the truth would come out immediately after his announcement. Obviously in my opinion he was like a deer caught in headlights now with all the pressure against him and wanted his way out.

Then again if there was really a ploy from the Iman in Florida and the parties in NYC to get him to cancel it by promising him what he wanted –  which I don’t believe to be the case – I really could not blame them one bit. After all you’ll tell the guy with the gun pointed at you what you think he wants to hear so maybe he’ll lay down his gun and spare you. So even if it was all a ploy on their part, who cares.

But have no fear Pastor Jones, your movement has truly gone national at least – as many supporters of his cause on Facebook and many others across the country have vowed to burn the holy book of the Islamic faith on Saturday. And best of all for Jones an even nuttier Pastor who has a small congregation of hate preaching individuals is taking up the cause, and luckily for Jones and unluckily or the country as a whole these guys don’t know how to back down off of anything.

The Reverend Fred Phelps and his merry band of misfits are taking up the cause now. Here are some excerpts from interviews this evening from the Church’s usual spokesperson, Phelps’ daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper. In talking about Jones cancelling his event she said, “The false prophet Terry Jones caved – like all false prophets do, and like we told you he would.” She the continues to talk about how everything as usual for them will everyone else’s fault and will not be their own, “While you sissy brats browbeat and jockey with the false prophet Terry Jones–pretending like the lives of those soldiers are your political and personal pawns–we will tell you the truth. The blood of the dead soldiers is dripping off the hands of General Petraeus. The blaspheming talking heads (politicians, talk show hosts, false prophets, arrogant Pentagon-perverts) of this nation of proud sinners have put the bulls-eye of God on the backs of these soldiers. Burning the Quran could not possibly imperil your soldiers any more than you have.” Then she goes on about Muslims as well in the interview stating, “It’s time to talk to the false religious systems of the world–we’ll start with the perverted Muslims and their pedophile prophet Muhammad! We will burn your Quran on 9/11/10. To tell the world that the Muslims are the servants of God — and they will bring the final affliction to Israel and the Jews according to the promises of God.”

Now I grew up in Topeka and am quite familiar with Phelps and his clan well before they became an international sensation. They really don’t give a damn what anyone thinks of them and hate everyone under the sun that doesn’t belong to their church. They won’t back down like Jones has seemed to have done so we as a nation and mainly our soldiers abroad will have to pay the consequence for the actions. The blood will be on the radical Christians hands this time around for inciting a worldwide riot of response from their actions.

Man I wonder why whenever I heard Phelps and Jones on the news today I kept having the voice of Bobby Boucher’s mother from the movie The Waterboy going over and over in my head saying “Islam is the Devil.”

Like I said though it will not just be the Phelps’ taking up Jones’ cause now and he may choose to continue to do so himself as well with his original event. Although major media outlets have vowed not to cover images of the actual events that are to take place, it is the modern age of “journalism” and the videos will be up and they’ll spread like wildfire and cause the radicals on the other side to have many International Burn and American days.

That last point is what my main focus of this column this month was going to be (until the recent changes in the event changed how I was going to write this), which is why should outsiders not view Americans or Christians by their worst elements, when Americans and Christians want to judge Muslims by their worst elements.

Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.

-Ambrose Bierce

When I hear the phrase “we the people” I think of your average Joe Citizen. I think of people down on their luck in the inner city, struggling to make ends meet. I think of a guy living in Westchester county with an acre of land and a beautifully manicured lawn. I don’t think of Exxon. Or Pfizer. Or Halliburton. Strangely enough, though, the Supreme Court of the United States thinks of those corporations – all corporations, really – in the same category as “we the people.”

Earlier this year in January with the ruling of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, when the John Roberts led supreme court ruled that corporate funding of independent political broadcasts could not be limited under the First Amendment. This ruling was absolutely unprecedented, but was yet another small step in giving corporations power at the expense of the people. This was an absolutely partisan ruling that struck down the previous bi-partisan McCain-Feingold act that prohibited all corporations from broadcasting “electioneering communications.” In very simple terms the Supreme Court ruled that anyone is essentially “an individual” in terms of campaign donations and political broadcasts. The First Amendment, one of the few things that still separated people from corporations, was now declared by the majority opinion (5-4 almost strictly along party lines) to apply to corporations too.

Since that ruling any group whatsoever can now spend any amount of money on political advertisements that they so wish and do so in a fashion that allows them to obfuscate where the money is coming from. Combine this with the Florida court ruling that says media agencies – even ones specifically devoted toward broadcasting “the news” – are allowed to lie under the first amendment, and you have an environment perfectly set to have corporate shills and puppets running our country.

Not that they don’t already.

One of my favorite authors, William Gibson, often writes about a dystopian future where corporations rule the world by propping up cardboard cutout governments that are technically legal but amount to nothing. In these books no one thinks twice about the fact that these corporations field standing armies, assassinate anyone they deem a threat, and produce products that are known to be harmful to humans simply because they make a profit. We’re not too far from that today. This country was originally set up to be run for the people by the people – a vote by the masses would ensure the brightest would lead this country and have only the best interests in mind for the people. There already are politicians associated with certain high-power corporate entities. Joe Lieberman is widely known for being the senator from Etna, not Connecticut. The Cheney administration seemed to have the best interests of Haliburton and the military-industrial complex in mind rather than those of the country. Now that donation money can flow even more freely you’re going to see a lot more political attack ads against people the corporations don’t want in power and the people they do want in power winning more offices.

What’s one of the biggest ways a corporation gains money and power? At your expense. When Major League Baseball’s Expos were shown to be floundering economically it was decided by a consortium of MLB owners to move the team. They already had the buyer picked out, and through tax breaks, outright grants, and local government donations the Lerner Group effectively purchased the team for no money. Based on the value of the Nationals compared to the Expos it can even be argued that they were paid to take the team. Taxpayers in DC were told a stadium would boost income and revenue for the local economy, they were repeatedly told a popular lie the money would “trickle down.” from the rich to the poor. Yet here we are years later and the income gap between the poor and rich has widened, even more so in Washington DC than other areas.  [Read David Cay Johnston’s book A Free Lunch for more background on the Nationals sale].

In the 1940’s, corporations typically paid around 33% of our government’s tax income. This had failed to 15 percent in the 1990s. On the flip side, the individual tax burden has risen from 44% to over 70% in that same time frame. Corporations feel no remorse, feel no pain, don’t age, don’t worry about the environment, don’t care about the quality of food, and have only one goal: to gain as much money as possible for the few that run it. Corporations are considered people and have all those advantages, yet they don’t have the built-in regulation that most people have: a conscience. A sense of what is right and wrong. How many times can you think of a corporate disaster that cost lives or greatly damaged lives where before any government interaction that corporation jumped to do the right thing and fixed their damage. I honestly can’t think of any. Now how many times can you think of where the reverse happened, where a corporation caused massage damage or death and then dragged their feet doing the right thing and in the end never did make things whole? The Deep Horizon oil spill, the Exxon Valdez, Toyota’s acceleration/brake problem, Union Carbide’s Bopa disaster. In each of those situations I clearly remember more effort and possibly more money going into telling us they were working on fixing the problem than actually fixing the problem.

Think of how scary a world we already live in, in terms of corporate power.

Now think that the vast majority of politicians get the vast majority of their money from corporations with the express intent that the money given is to sway political decisions in corporate favor.

William Gibson, we’re not far from the ethics of Neuromancer while still being pretty far away from the technology that makes that world a wonder. I’d call that a horror book.

Wow would be my minimalist reaction. I remember growing up watching movies with John Cusack in them. He usually played the role of an outsider but was always kind of a hero. I certainly admired him as an actor. Has he stopped taking his Prozac though?

Please see this story regarding John’s recent Twitter posting:

John Cusack is openly a Liberal in every sense and probably has no appreciation for Fox News. However, I’m starting to wonder if he can even stomach the ultra liberal rants of MSNBC. Based on this latest Twitter posting, I’m more inclined to say that he has seriously fallen off his rocker and he can’t get up.

It’s no secret that I’m a Conservative with several Libertarian views. I have many friends with Liberal views although the majority if my friends share viewpoints that are closer to mine. None of my friends would ever go so far as to write something like this though. Additionally, I would never write this about MSNBC either.

So the questions that comes to mind: Where does free speech come to an end? Where does liability kick in? In other words, at what point does the right of free speech cease or at least become intertwined with liability for the actions of one’s self and others? We all know that free speech is no longer protected if those words incite a riot or are considered “fighting words”. In my opinion this is balancing very close to that exception. Cusack goes so far as to be almost specific in the actions. He hasn’t drawn out a plan, but it’s getting close. Naming specific people (targets) likely would convince many on a jury to find against him.

Consider if I were to post this: “I can no longer stand the liberal rants and view points of the Angry Squirrel. I can no longer stomach his naive and unfounded positions based solely on bleeding heart rhetoric and not fact. We need to have a satanic slaying at his home in Kansas City, KS on 9/11/2010.” OK, this is obviously not true and I would never wish any harm to come to anyone, especially the Squirrel. Now, imagine if anyone actually cared what I said…say I’m Tom Cruise (the head nut job), Will Smith or John Cusack. I would have rock star status, not IT Guy status. The point is, who is going to read a post and act? Probably only someone that was already nuts, but could this be what prompts someone? Should this be protected?

Eminem has dealt with similar issues with his music. There are questions being raised about Eminem’s latest work again (Love the Way You Lie) because of the domestic violence lyrics. I’m a rap/hip hop fan so I personally enjoy the music and don’t think too much about the lyrics. However, there are a number of people that do and some may be swayed by statements such as this. Where do we draw the line?

How about desecrating the flag which is a huge hot button of mine? Should we allow people to urinate on the American flag? How about burning the flag?

Yesterday we saw James Lee take over the Discovery Channel building and hold three people hostages over his extreme beliefs. What if this person was “encouraged” by someone like Eminem or John Cusack? Does that make him any less guilty? Does that reduce the guilt of the actor and impute some of that guilt on the person generating or spawning the idea? Accessories?

If I were the judge hearing these cases, here is how I would rule.

1. John Cusack would be found not guilty but my ruling would include that this is very close to inciting violence. If his post were any more specific (like mine was about the Squirrel) I think it clearly violates the free speech exceptions and he’s liable for the actions of others if they choose to follow his direction.
2. Eminem would be found not guilty as well. He doesn’t spell out specific plans or specific people. Will someone tie their girlfriend/wife to the bed and burn the house down because of his song? That is very possible.
3. The flag. The US Flag should be a protected symbol. It IS a symbol of our Country, our freedom and what our veterans have fought hard to protect. In my opinion this should clearly be an exception to the right to free speech because this WILL incite riots and the words/actions would be deemed fighting words.
4. James Lee (Had Lee survived) – Sorry, you will be locked up until such time that we can generate enough electricity to kill you…slowly; or until your fellow inmates take their own wrath upon you and your idea to sterilize the people of the world. You’re a disgrace to your family, people sharing your view and you will give people like me less reason to embrace your environmental ideology. Guilt of the accessory or the instigator would depend on what actions/discussions had taken place but there would be a good chance I would see them as guilty too.

I’m interested in other people’s reactions to this. Let me know!

Squeaky…