Smokey's Corner: Independence Day?

How can we take pride in the U.S. of A?
-- Legacy of slavery

-- Genocide of First Nations

-- Torture of folks under our name. Okay, these maybe are potentially dangerous people. But TORTURE??? Is that what we really want as a society?

-- Our leaders start a horrendous and tragic war (tragic for all participants) based on greed. Greed. Of course, this isn’t the first war that was started because of greed. And our leaders do not safeguard the citizens of Iraq ... no ... they don’t even care about the citizens of the U.S. [see next bullet item] ... so why should they care about the citizens of Iraq? They do not safeguard the art, history, and antiquities from the Iraqi National Musem -- they allow it to be plundered!

-- Remember New Orleans? You can google “Rebuilding New Orleans” and read all kinds of articles. The main point of each is: help from government at any level has been minimal. This is such an outrage. Today, I wore my t shirt. One the front it says: “Remember New Orleans?” On the back it says: “The Real Looters: Bush, Cheney, and Halliburton.”

-- The availability of guns and drugs. No one has ever convinced me that we as a society cannot control the influx of drugs. I am a conspiracy theorist. I do not believe that it is a coincidence the there is racism, easy accessibility of guns, drugs flowing everywhere, and, in my town, 99% of the folks murdered by shootings are black and brown folks ... young men to be exact. Our sons. Oh, yes, they are our sons. Maybe not biological ... but they are our sons. I don’t think there’s one thing that is a solution. But if we really came together and had real support from influential people who could hand over some cash for programs, I believe we could lick this. But, there’s too much money being made. And, I believe, that some of our “leaders” are making that money and laughing all the way to their Swiss bank accounts.

-- The demonization of immigrants. And folks, it’s not just “illegal” immigrants. I’m an immigrant ... but, I’m white and have a certain kind of accent ... so I pass as a U.S. born person ... and I’ve heard some anti-foreigner statements by people. Plus, I think that lots of people are manipulating things and trying to put a wedge between “legal” and “illegal” immigrants. I won’t have it. I’m an immigrant. I want a fair immigration policy. Not based on demonizing certain people.

-- Working people. That’s most of us, right? We work hard for our money. It’s getting harder and harder to make money to pay for food, buy a house, save for our old age, save so that we can help our kids a little get some higher education or training so they can get jobs. OUR LEADERS ARE LOOTING OUR MONEY !!! Want to see the cost of the Iraq war? Go to http://costofwar.com. It’s $440 Billion right now as I type this. But if you go to the website, you’ll see how fast the numbers increase.

I don’t feel that festive today, Independence Day. Because right now, I feel very dependent on incompetent and greedy politicians.

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Folks, we gotta balance all that serious stuff ... that furious-making stuff, with humor. Here’s David Letterman talking about various things [from the Oakland Tribune]

“Here’s something kind of interesting: I know Paris is very happy to be out of prison, although she did ask to keep the handcuffs.”

“Martha Stewart is recovering from hip surgery. Yeah, apparently it was from an old whisking injury.”

And about how hot it is in New York City ...
“It’s so hot, Dick Cheney shot an old guy with a Super Soaker.”

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I am a big fan of Spike Lee. Paper says he’s going to make a movie based on the novel, “Miracle at St. Anna” by James McBride. It’s about four black American soldiers, all members of the Army’s all-black 92nd “Buffalo Soldier” Division in World War II. They become trapped behind enemy lines in an Italian village in Tuscany in 1944. Lee hopes this movie will highlight the contribution of black American soldiers who fought and died to liberate Europe. I don’t think there’s been a movie about this overlooked subject.

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Movies I really wanna see:
SICKO
Ratatouille
Ocean’s Thirteen
Surf’s Up
A Mighty Heart
Evening
[I probably won’t see even half of them. I like my nest too much. DVDs are just too easy and available.]

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