USTR Ron Kirk must be removed from his position

USTR Ron Kirk has got to be the worst bureaucrat in a city filled with bad bureaucrats. He has been hiding the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal in the Pacific region that could have incredibly far-reaching consequences, from the public and from Congress despite calls for him to relent and release them. I have no idea if his orders are from President Obama, but if not, then I'm calling on legal action to have him removed from office, particularly from Congress or the courts. This behavior and the way the TPP has been negotiated and its potential consequences means he is not fit for the job.

Hollywood needs to get its act together

I, like a lot of young liberals, have a love-hate relationship with the entertainment industry. Sure, it helps with free speech issues and getting Democratic politicians elected, but the problem starts when they try to legislate things they can't control, like the Internet, as we saw with SOPA. The problem is, Hollywood is trying to legislate a problem (copyright infringement) but attempting to do so stifles Internet freedom. Also, the secrecy surrounding these attempts at legislating through laws and trade agreements means the public has no input on something that could affect them. This has got to stop. Hollywood has to get its act together and stop trying to legislate the Internet. It's not going to work. All it does is cause problems for normal people who can't hire expensive lobbyists. Just STOP. We've had it. SOPA was one thing, but Hollywood lobbyists are still trying. Part of what I hate about this is that it makes me seem like a conspiracy theorist, which I'm not. I think they're stupid. But unless Hollywood stops trying to legislate the Internet and makes it easier to watch content online, normal people are going to look (rightfully) paranoid.

Mitt Romney should not be President

When he made a birther joke last Friday in Michigan, any pretense that Mitt Romney is a "serious" Presidential candidate where thrown out the window like a bag of bricks. Romney has shown so much disrespect for his opponent, race-baiting and outright lying about President Obama's record that I don't think Romney belongs anywhere near the White House, not even on a tour. His attitude shows he feels entitled to the White House, even though voters (appropriately) don't trust him and his refusal to release his tax returns just smacks of secrecy and privilege. He acts like the average voter is below him. The antics of his fellow Republicans also shows they shouldn't be running a country club, much less the government of the most powerful country on Earth. Fact of the matter is, they have to lose. Their extremism is revolting and were it not for the fact that so many people agree with them, the dirty money and their attempts at voter suppression, they'd be looking at a landslide loss in this year's elections.

Ron Paul will never be president

I'm going to get a lot of flack from ron paul supporters, but I don't care. The facts are this: ron paul is simply the same old right-wing, conservative crap that has been ruining this country for years. And while I agree with his drug and war policies, there are aspects of him that keeps him from ever becoming accepted in the mainstream.

Let's start with the company he keeps. President Obama was accused of "palling around with terrorists" and his relationship with Jeremiah Wright was questioned. If that's the case, then Congressman paul's got some splainin' to do.

That guy in the middle there? His name is Don Black. He runs a little site called "Stormfront". What is it? It's one of the largest neo-nazi/neo-fascist/white supremacist websites on the internet. What is Congressman Paul doing associating with him, you ask? Well, that's something I'd like to know, too. But the fact he pals around with known racists should drive any middle-of-the-road voter away.

There's also some guy named Alex Jones, shown here:

Yeah, real mean, buddy. Anyway, he's one of the most popular conspiracy theorists in the country. He's the biggest proponent of the "9/11 Truth movement", which basically says that the government was behind 9/11. First off the, Bush administration was too incompetent to manage hurricane relief, much less pull of a terrorist attack on its own country, but I digress. Congressman Paul has appeared on the Alex Jones Show several times (I'm not sure exactly how many times). This also means many of Jones's listeners are Ron Paul supporters and vice-versa. Time Magazine has something about this from 2007 (thanks to Screw Loose Change):

But Paul's popularity can't necessarily be explained by a previously undetected craving for gold-standard debates on college campuses. His message, even if packaged in obscure economic lectures, is that there is something very corrupt, very Halliburton-Blackwatery going on with our military-industrial complex, and that can attract some pretty weird followers. At the Iowa State event, a student stood outside in a tricornered hat and Revolutionary War–era suit, ringing a bell. Representative Tom Tancredo, another long-shot G.O.P. candidate, tells me that after a debate in New Hampshire, one of his staffers walked up to a guy in a shark costume and asked him if he was a Ron Paul supporter. "No. They're all nuts," replied the shark. "I'm just a guy in a shark suit." There is a subset of Paul supporters who believe 9/11 was an inside job by the U.S. government. And there are anarchists as well: They've picked Nov. 5, Guy Fawkes Day, for a fund-raising drive. 

The line "There is a subset of Paul supporters who believe 9/11 was an inside job by the U.S. government." should be indicative of what kind of people are supporting him. If you go on YouTube and look at any video of the Congressman, either pro-, or anti-, his followers are there, spouting some pretty heavy stuff. I'll give you an example from this video:

another fascist libtard revising history. What church, what priest? You have 0 answers you liar! Do you agree that the top two killers in world history were atheists? Are you atleast wise enough to concur that #3 killer Hitler abandoned God, was shacked up, and lived an alternative vegetarian lifestyle? The [censored for user's privacy] smackdown starts now!

Okay, that's one quote, and it's not quite indicative of his supporters, but you get the general idea.

This on the other hand, might be:

He's right, "glee" is the proper word to describe the Bush administration's reaction to 9/11. Anyone who disputes this can go read page 28 of the official document "The National Security Strategy Of The United States Of America [for 2002]", wherein the attacks are officially described as having opened up "vast, new opportunities" for the government.

What kind of cold-blooded monsters would see the murder of 3000 people on U.S. soil as a good thing? The monsters who run the U.S., that's who.

They are so rabid they make Turkish football (soccer) fans look like a wine and cheese crowd. Any criticism of him is taken as a personal offense. And I've had to deal with them myself. I reckon they're going to come and yell at me, too.

So, this is the first part of my little opinion piece on why Congressman Ron Paul won't be popular with the masses. And believe me, this is just the start. I'll have a few more posts up soon about his company, polices and those newsletters everyone's talking about. He could still win the Iowa Caucuses, but I doubt he'll win the nomination or the presidency.

Occupy Carbondale

The Occupy Movement started in New York City on September 17, 2011. Since then, it has exploded into an international movement against corporate greed and government corruption. It is the biggest story of the Revolutions of 2011 aside from the Arab Spring, which the organizers of the movement say inspired it. Occupy protests have sprung up in every major city on the planet and in smaller cities, including college campuses.

That includes Carbondale, Illinois. Occupy Carbondale started in October of this year. Its first meeting was at the Gaia House, which is right across from Quigley Hall and the SIUC campus. I've been tracking the protests since I attended the first meeting in September. While I count myself as a supporter of the movement, I had to take up the role of journalist while I did my project.

For my project, I attended a general assembly of Occupy Carbondale at their old location in front of Quigley Hall. I had actually been to the site several times before, mostly to get a few questions out of the participants and several organizers had agreed to be interviewed on a later date. Pay attention to that, guys.

About two weeks before Thanksgiving break at SIU, I went to a general assembly on a cold Thursday night. Since the origins and the purpose of the movement is already well-known to the general public, the better idea was simply to see how the general assemblies were conducted.

Things got under way, but I found some complications during recording. One of the organizers asked to pass a resolution that I be allowed to record. The thing is, there was someone there who already knew I was going to come with a recorder and interview people. I felt like I'd been cheated or something.

Luckily, my recording was approved. But, I only had about 7 minutes worth of recording time on my recorder, so I was forced to make it quick. It didn't help when the woman who put my recording up to a vote announced they were leaving the site for the Big Muddy IMC.

Once the assembly was over, all that was needed to do was to interview people. It went really well, since the people I asked were eager and willing to talk. The guy named Dan though, he was really interesting, since he was straightforward and to the point. One other interviewee, though, went on an anti-IRS and anti-FED rant before I turned off the recorder because they were getting too long. However, the others were very intelligent and offered good answers to my questions. I wish I could have done more, but I think that I did the best I could with the material I had.

Here's the link to the documentary