Ethics

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Our Troops Get Shafted. Again.

Saturday, April 12th, 2008

Part 1: Tour of Duty Changes
Bush made a big fucking deal about changing the tour of duty from 15 months to 12 months. While it was recommended to be 12 months deployed and 24 months home to keep troop moral and mental health high they decided that 12 on and 12 off was good enough. Well, at least it is a step in the right direction, right?
As with everything else with this administration there is small print: This offer only valid to troops starting their tours after August 1st. Now I bet we will see the rapid redefining of the term “tour of duty”.

Part 2: Voting Rights
VA secretary James Peake, in response to a letter from Senators Kerry and Feinstein, say they will not reverse their ban on either allowing injured veterans to register to vote or even helping an injured vet get somewhere where they could register to vote. The reasoning?
They consider registering to vote a “partisan political activity”. So if you are injured fighting for this administration and are laid up in a VA hospital somewhere your right to vote gets essentially revoked.

This administration makes the charge that people who are against the war are not supporting the troops. Here they are, yet again proving that they are truly the ones that are against the troops.
It is easy to get the masses worked into a frenzy powered by fear. Fear of terrorism. Fear of extremists. Fear of people who are different. Fear of who and what they want you to fear. Fear is what got us here and fear is what is keeping us here. I, for one, say fuck you. I will not fear what and when it is convenient for this administration. I will not have a Pavlovian-like fear on command response to the words “Muslim” or “terrorist”. I will not ignore your misdeeds in the name of your redefinition for freedom out of fear.
I will not fear you.
I don’t understand how you could continue to put our soldiers in harms way without the proper armor. Without the proper gear. Without the proper care. How you could continue this and still pretend to have the best interests of the troops in mind. You, Mr. Bush, you and all those working with you are traitors to this country and should be dealt with as such.


Wal-Mart: Not Just Lead in the Toys.

Thursday, March 27th, 2008

Debbie Shank was once a stock person at Wal-Mart. That was almost 8 years ago. That was before her accident. In May 2000 she was in a severe traffic accident that left he in a wheelchair and robbed her of her short term memory.
Two years later she and her husband won a suit against the trucking company that was at fault for the accident. After legal fees they walked away with $417,000 that was put in a trust for Debbie Shank’s care.
Because of some small print on her health plan policy Wal-Mart sued her for $470,000.
Let that sink in a second.

Wal-Mart, who made $90 billion last year, sued her, a disabled former employee, for more then she is worth.

How the fuck is this possible?
Well, the small print I mentioned earlier states that Wal-Mart has the right to recoup medical expenses if an employee collects damages in a lawsuit.
Fuck.

Wal-Mart sued and won. The Shanks lost their appeal. A week later they lost their son in Iraq. Thing is, she has no short term memory and even though she attended the funeral for her son she doesn’t remember that he is dead. Every time she hears about her son dying in Iraq it is the first time.

Her husband, who is 54 and recovering from prostate cancer, works two jobs in order to take care of the family. He had to divorce his wife in order to receive Medicaid. Sometimes I wonder how we are considered a civilized country.

walmart
Wal-Mart. Save money. Live better.


Is It Fair?

Tuesday, March 4th, 2008

I read a few news stories earlier today about a group of Buddhist monks in Thailand who were using the internet social networking site Hi5 to lure women back to the monastery for sex.  Some reports said they were raping these women, other reports say it was consensual so I’m not going to draw any conclusions about that.

I am going to predict, however, that these monks are going to be representative of the whole religion in the eyes of the unforgiving public.  It seems like a trend nowadays that if someone who holds religious office does something immoral, the entire religion is blamed for it.

Take the Catholics, for example.  The whole Catholic priest pedophilia scandal rocked the world when it was brought to light.  Ever since the first allegations of this came out, the entire Catholic faith was put under a microscope and every single Catholic priest was under suspicion.  I was raised Catholic, spent some time as an altar boy, went to a Catholic University and I can tell you first hand that I never witnessed any sort of misbehavior by a priest.  I was never molested, nor did I hear of any other child I knew being molested by a Catholic priest.

In college I spent a lot of time with the Franciscan order of Friars.  These were some of the most decent, moral men I had ever known and have known to this day.   Never did I see one act innapropriately toward anyone else.

This same type of stereotyping is going to happen with the Buddhists now that this incident has come to national attention.  Since the media likes to sensationalize everything, this is going to become a major scandal and the Buddhists are going to be treated as unfairly as the Catholics.

The reason it’s unfair is because members of any religious order who commit acts of immorality are singled out.  There are a lot of sexual predators on this planet, but they’re not stereotyped like Catholic priests are because they come from all walks of life.  There are literally thousands of registered sex offenders in the United States alone, and only a handful of those belong to any religious order.  It can be safe to say that there are more sex offenders that belong to a particular race (whether that be Irish, Black, Hispanic, Polish, or whatever ; I’m not singling out an entire ethnicity because I’m arguing against stereotyping here) than there are Catholic priests who commit these offenses.  There are probably more lay Catholic sex offenders than there are offenders in the clergy.  But that doesn’t make national headlines because it’s not sensational enough.


Olbermann is My Homeboy.

Friday, February 15th, 2008

If you missed it Keith Olbermann has a special comment last night. It may be one of the best things I have ever heard him say. This should be mandatory viewing.


McCain’s Senility Shows on Torture Vote / The McCain Contra Connection.

Thursday, February 14th, 2008

This is the vote I was waiting for. The torture vote. This vote would require the intelligence community to follow the Army Field Manual in regards to torture. This would effectively make waterboarding illegal.
McCain, a former POW who was tortured, has spoken about waterboarding on several occasions saying waterboarding “is not a complicated procedure. It is torture.” and “very exquisite torture.” In fact McCain was one of the few Republicans that spoke out against torture. He even supported the Detainee Treatment Act back in ‘06, which would “bar cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of any detainee.”
So how did he vote? Did he stick to his guns even though they are unpopular with the idiots in his party or did he sell out?
The fucker sold out. Maybe McCain needs a refresher course on what it is like to be tortured.

On top of all this Daisy Cutter over at Daily Kos did a little bit of digging and found that McCain monetarily supported the Nicaraguan Contras.

McCain supporters, you have been fleeced. Now touch the monolith little monkeys and see the truth.


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