Monthly Archives: October 2011

Why Not Pot?

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Any military leader can tell you that each person in their unit responds differently to various leadership styles. It’s certainly the case that individual patients will respond differently to various forms of treatment. So what’s up with the VA and DoD ignoring the possibility that medical marijuana might actually help some of their patients? Looks political to me. But the point isn’t just about medical marijuana; it’s about finding individual treatment regimens for individual patients. Read more . . . 

Three Strikes Against Wall Street

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. . . Occupy Wall Street isn’t about demands, it’s about making a statement. It’s a statement that the current system isn’t working for the average American (and based on the worldwide events this weekend, it’s not working for a lot of people in a lot of places). It’s a statement that the common people seem to have been abandoned by a government that cares more for corporations than for workers, more for the rich than the poor, more for the powerful than the weak . . . A good government controls the market so that the market serves the citizens . . . Games, and markets, are made to work through rules. Rules only work if they are enforced. If the game no longer serves the fans, or the market no longer serves the citizens, then the rules need to change. When we look back over the last half century, we see a market that increasingly veers away from its role of serving the citizenry . . . The occupy movement is a withdrawal of consent. It’s not a war on capitalism. It’s an acknowledgement that we are doing capitalism badly, and in a way that does not serve to help real people in their real lives.
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Quote: Barrack Obama

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Barack Hussein Obama II, (born August 4, 1961)
The 44th President of the United States

As was true 50 years ago, as has been true throughout human history, those with power and privilege will often decry any call for change as “divisive.” They’ll say any challenge to the existing arrangements are unwise and destabilizing. Dr. King understood that peace without justice was no peace at all; that aligning our reality with our ideals often requires the speaking of uncomfortable truths and the creative tension of non-violent protest.

Quote: Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

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Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., (October 15, 1917 – February 28, 2007)
American Historian, Writer, Social Critic, and Agnostic

As a historian, I confess to a certain amusement when I hear the Judeo-Christian tradition praised as the source of our concern for human rights. In fact, the great religious ages were notable for their indifference to human rights in the contemporary sense. They were notorious not only for acquiescence in poverty, inequality, exploitation and oppression but for enthusiastic justifications of slavery, persecution, abandonment of small children, torture, genocide.

Drive-Thru Baloney: Don’t Buy ‘Christian Nation’ Propagandist David Barton’s Junk Food History

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Barton claims that through “exhaustive research” he has become an “expert in historical and constitutional issues” and that he owns a “massive library” filled with “tens of thousands of original writings from the Founding Era.” What he does not say is far more telling – he makes no mention of any degrees or training in history, because he doesn’t have any . . . Drive Thru History America is a revisionist, biased text written by a hack historian and it should be kept out of all classrooms.
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It’s 2011 — Why Is God Still Involved In American Politics?

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. . . [I]t’s indicative of a larger eroding of the separation of church and state, which concerns not just atheists but all people who understand the importance of maintaining a secular government . . . We’re a long way from the days when John Kennedy assured the public that he respected the separation of church and state and would keep his faith separate from his policy-making decisions . . . Things that used to be considered beyond the pale in politics, such as religious intolerance or ministers blatantly claiming they know who God supports in an election, have become normalized . . . Neither atheists nor believers benefit when leaders are guided more by religious dogma than by rationality. Angels and demons might be a fine thing to worry about when you’re in church on Sunday, but when you’re trying to govern real people in the real world, it’s far better to rely on evidence and empirical facts, interpreted through reason and not through the guesswork of faith.
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