Wendy Davis' stance on gun control murders morality and common sense!

My God, that one-time, now has-been Texas politician Wendy Davis supports the open carry of guns as well as other expansions of "gun rights" in Texas (link)! Karl Rove was right, she's the "wrong gal" to run for governor of Texas, but for different reasons. Let me be one of the first to rain on her parade by saying things that do not reflect all my political/moral beliefs, but are solely aimed to wreck her her misbegotten campaign.
So, Wendy Davis supports abortion rights. She's okay with murdering babies. It's obvious. The ones that get born despite her clearly murderous intentions are now at increased risk of death by gun than if they had been born into a civilized country like Australia. If Wendy Davis truly believes in gun rights she won't back down when organizations (like maybe Move On?) lobby her to change her stance. If she is a political hack and changes this "gun rights" stuff she is the classic "ditzy blonde." Either way I hope she lands on the trash heap of Texas history. I hope she can't get elected dogcatcher.
Texas and the United States deserve wisdom enacted in a Constitutional manner, not just another idiot governor.
My parents (of the generation that fought WWII) and my grandparents would not support Texans walking around with guns. They lived hard lives and wanted a bit of gentility. This Wendy-wonder is not a true Texan. My parents and grandparents were.

it's called "jury duty", yes and it's also our right

This link to a piece by Natasha Lennard in Salon made me do a double take. My first reaction was sympathy with the concept of non-cooperation with a grand jury investigation, but as I read on common sense overwhelmed my knee-jerk reaction. The story deals with people who refuse to cooperate with any grand jury because of anarchist principles. My synapses took me to two memories related to a time I was called for regular jury duty. I listened to a man pleading with a court officer for release from duty because he feared retaliation from the family of the accused. Furthermore, he made the case that all people of his race should be excused from juries in trials of fellow Navajos. (I name the race because it seems to leave it out would result in an assumption of the incorrect race.) One could easily make the argument that no group of people should try to be left out of trials involving one's peer group! Only those who do not understand the nature of criminal justice in America's reservation borderlands could think that all trials involving Native Americans should be handled by native laws, people, and traditions.
I told the arguments of this man to a coworker who is also a Native American. She agreed with him, but specifically stated a fear that all reasonable people should have of retaliation and, furthermore, she stated an implicit trust in law enforcement. "If they are brought before a grand jury, they must have done something"
I see this woman's argument as the polar opposite of anarchy - fascism. Both are dangerous to our freedoms. Both are stupid.
Jury duty is both a duty and a right in our democratic system. When any juror feels pressured to change his/her mind and s/he relents, that person is a moral coward. Whereas in many places in many times, freedoms have been brutally seized from the people, it is a sickening fact that Americans willingly give up our freedoms at the least hint of trouble.
The exact case that the hero of Lennard's blog refused to cooperate in was a "small, victimless explosion of an incendiary device at a Times Square army recruitment center in 2008." Oh, well, let us praise the anarchists who apply the concept of "nobody talks, everybody walks" to the terrorist threat, Natasha. In fact, the entire concept is so stupid that it reminds me of the perversions of protest that grew out of the activist '60s, the Weathermen for instance. These anarchic perversions of what is right and just do great harm to the cause of justice and freedom. They twist the simple-minded into lumping anarchists with socialists, non-violent demonstrators with molotov cocktail - throwing revolutionaries.
Ms. Lennard, are you a revolutionary or are you a CIA/FBI plant? Is Salon practicing journalism or pandering to the ignorant masses? Are we as a people still capable of analytical thought or are we programed? 

the inner fear Americans have of each other is palpable - and related to gun violence

I won't go into personal details that may come across as paranoid; my thesis either resonates with you or it doesn't. I feel that a perfect storm of irrational fear exists in the United States that is directly related to our inability to stand up to the gun lobby and its childish interpretation of our Constitution. People who state that we should simply ban all guns are equally guilty. There is no "well regulated militia" here; there is a sick love of simplistic jingoism that puts everyone at risk. The United States also has this history of rooting out "Un-American" behaviors (see my Pete Seeger link to his testimony before the infamous House committee). Toss in 9/11 and government spying and you have a perfect salad of indigestible poisons. We are told to watch out for dangerous behaviors. That's our Homeland security! Americans give up all rights in our Bill of Rights without any orange-revolution style protests, but we stand by the gun lobby even as it perverts our daily lives and brings us closer and closer to a Soviet-style torture and gulag state. So you think it won't impact you? It already has. You think we need a leader to guide us out of this mess? S/he would be assassinated. We must all be the leaders.

Pete Seeger was an American patriot.

I have been thinking of googling for the transcript of Pete Seeger's testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Found it here.
If American troops are fighting for American values are they not fighting for freedom of speech? Pete Seeger, veteran, was an upright yankee man with balls as big as the world!

Democrats are going to sell us out; they are not the answer to the Republican schemes

The Keystone Pipeline decision is not only an environmental issue. It will speak to the very nature of what America is, what we have become. The Guardian has this article on it.

The Keystone Pipeline depends upon the immoral perversion of the use of "imminent domain" as expanded by the Supreme Court decision in "Kelo v. City of New London." This decision opened the door to private property theft by government to benefit corporations - fascism. The Keystone Pipeline will be the wedge, a new Mason Dixon Line, that will lead to the fulfillment of Texas Governor Rick Perry's dream of a "mile-wide" zone of pipelines, power lines, highways, railways, etc. It will lead to a highly militarized zone between the east and west. And, Canada, it will be an ideal route for a northern invasion of your country. Why are you capitulating to the worst of U.S. style capitalism? Don't you want refining and shipping jobs?

You can read Salon's article on the United States Post Office here.

It is so pathetic. The arc of "privatization" (=taxation without representation) has been clear at least since the 1980s. Democrats have always been part of the problem; either they refuse to see what is before their eyes or they participate in the Republicans ongoing success story - tearing down our country and giving away what our tax dollars have bought. The postal union and others wait until the final crisis before making noise - a futile cry, a whimper. 

Democrats killed the Jimmy Carter presidency. Democrats failed to see that the election of Obama was a populist moment. And Democrats will fail us again and again. Republicans, at least, are easy to read. They are an open book. The Democratic Party and the people who depend upon them to "save us" wait until the situation is hopeless. At least my UPS drivers are consistently more polite than my local post office workers. Goodbye post office. Now watch as the buildings we the people paid for are sold for peanuts.

Old-fashioned Populism is the all-American answer to defeat the Corporatist Two-Party System ruining the U.S.

Here is a link to JimHightower.com. It will open in a new window and I encourage you to read: SEEDS OF A MOVEMENT: A 21ST CENTURY POPULIST RENEWAL IS FLOURISHING AT AMERICA'S GRASSROOTS

So you thought Texas was full of yahoos? Think again. This man was elected Texas Commissioner of Agriculture in a state-wide election in 1982. Texas was a hotbed of the old populist movement and it was farmers who led the way against the railroad and banking interests. Jim Hightower is the living embodiment of an old Southern tradition.

Nothing convinces me more that the Democratic Party is not going to lead us out of our moral decline in this country than the fact that it was the Democrats who failed to recognize the populist revolution that elected President Obama. Back-stabbing Republicans were predictable. Back-stabbing Democrats are the enemy and I don't cry when they are defeated. 

I have not heard Democrats take a solid stand against the perverted use of eminent domain that must be if the Keystone Pipeline is to be built. I have not seen the Dems protect the innocent children of America from gun violence even though a simple, literal interpretation of the Constitution clearly indicates that regulation is allowed.

I've blogged on these issues before, so I'll end now, leaving you time for Jim Hightower.

about Natasha Lennard's Salon piece and the futility of her call for militant protests against google

Words are barely adequate to express my outrage at Natasha Lennard and her Salon article, here.
What an utter misbegotten piece of crap. You want to protest the surveillance state but you are too much a coward to protest from the top down? The surveillance state originated with the CIA and all its offshoots and you merely want to harass Google employees AND their families. By God I'll not be surprised when someone gets shot and the shooter walks free. You don't know whose "buttons" you are pushing Natasha. 
I also read this example of courage on the same day as I read Natasha's piece of crap. Read here the US edition of the Guardian's coverage of the heros of the Ukraine.
If I ran google, I'd immediately step down my cooperation with spies, but I would also move my entire fuckin' operation to Texas. Please come to Texas in the springtime. Try Austin.