CITIZEN ALERT v1.202LONG TIME NO SEE

I have been away from CITIZEN ALERT for awhile. I think this was the longest down time since I started it last year. I just got busy with band stuff, but hey, the tracks were sent off to mastering today so there!

So much has happened since my last blog. Let's go with the DEMS first debate the other night. You guys know that CA has been with Joe Biden from out of the gate. I liked him because he's a straight talker, he understands Iraq and he was the first to have a plan, and I believe the first to say he was running for president. I can just understand the guy when he explains something period.

Now, I had been hearing about Dennis Kucinich and I wasn't paying that much attention because I didn't think he had any kind of shot. Hell Biden was even way back in the pack. But man, Kucinich shocked me during the debate. I have never seen a candidate speak the things out loud that I speak out loud. To say the things that I wish politicians who say. When I sit around and daydream about, "well, if I were President I would..." Dennis Kucinich talks about exactly what I would talk about. He's wants to legalize pot, get rid of our nukes, he was against the war from the get go, he wants to IMPEACH CHENEY, he wants the US to join the international criminal court, he wants to change Americas image from being above other nations to being AMONG other nations!! I was stunned. A freaking dove presidential candidate. Wow!

Do I think he'll get the nomination? HELL NO! But he gets my vote. I still like Biden and I thought he probably picked up some points, but I'm going Kucinich in the primaries. I want him to get at least enough votes to keep him on the world stage because we need a man like him saying what he is saying. We need the anti-Cheney!

CITIZEN ALERT v1.201GONZALES ON TUESDAY

Man, I haven't been able to get to CITIZEN ALERT a lot lately. Been busy. Things should kick back into high gear soon though. I'm looking forward to Tuesday's grilling of A. Gonzales over the firings. I've always thought this guy was cocky as hell; he really rubs me the wrong way, but I love now that the smugness is starting to wear thin when you hear him start to say that his memory is "hazy" on a few topics. Ha! He's starting to come apart. Bye bye Al!

Also from the ACLU today:

Your immediate action is needed to help protect police reform. As you may have heard, AB 1648 - a bill that would protect California police reform - will be heard in the Assembly Public Safety Committee TOMORROW (Tuesday, April 17, 2007). It’s critical that you call your Assembly member Anthony Portantino. He holds a critical Public Safety Committee vote and has NOT yet indicated his support for this bill. CALL TODAY to urge him to support AB 1648.

AB 1648 would overturn a California Supreme Court decision in Copley Press v. Superior Court, that prevents local civilian police review agencies from holding public hearings or releasing records related to police misconduct complaints. This increase in secrecy will only damage police community relations and decrease trust and accountability. AB 1648 would:
-Reopen public hearings and appeals on complaints against police officers.
-Give police chiefs freedom to release internal documents that support their disciplinary decisions.
-Make these records accessible under the California Public Records Act.

It’s critical that you call your Assembly Member TODAY to show your support and to ensure that this legislation moves forward.

Assembly Member Anthony Portantino (District 44)
Capitol Office: 916-319-2044

*Because of the urgency of tomorrow's scheduled hearing, we're asking you to please call your Assembly member's Sacramento legislative office to ensure that your voice is heard.

Suggested Message:

Hello. My name is (YOUR NAME) calling from (YOUR CALIFORNIA ZIP CODE). I’d like to urge (REPRESENTATIVE) to support AB 1648, a bill that would restore police transparency and improve police community relations – which are key to good government and publicly accountable police. Again, I urge (REPRESENTATIVE) to support AB 1648. Thank you.

CITIZEN ALERT v1.200IMMOKALEE WORKERS

News from the School of the America's Watch:

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) has scored an amazing victory in their struggle for farm labor justice. This morning, the CIW, McDonald's, and its suppliers announced an agreement that guarantees:

1. A penny more per pound to workers harvesting tomatoes for McDonald's;
2. A stronger code of conduct based on the principle of worker participation;
3. And a collaborative effort to develop a third party mechanism for monitoring conditions in the fields and investigating workers' complaints of abuse.

SOA Watch congratulates CIW on this groundbreaking victory in their ongoing campaign for fair wages and better working conditions, respect for fundamental human rights and an end to modern-day slavery in the agricultural industry. This is a testament of grassroots power!

SOA Watch and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers have had a long-running relationship of mutual collaboration for several years. SOA Watch activists have joined the CIW for demonstrations at the headquarters of Taco Bell's parent company in Louisville, Kentucky and on the Taco Bell Truth Tours, and CIW members traveled to Georgia to participate in the growing November actions to close the School of the Americas at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia.

The CIW has figured prominently in the annual November protests. In 2004, the story of exploitation in Florida's tomato fields served as the central theme of a spectacular, 500-person street theater that was preformed in front of 16,000 people. In 2006, CIW members spoke from the stage to over 20,000 people and addressed the links between militarism and the modern agricultural industry.

Justice will prevail. Just as it is only a matter of time until the School of the Americas will be shut down, there's also no doubt that fundamental rights to a decent wage and fair working conditions in the tomato fields of Florida will be won.

CITIZEN ALERT v1.199UGH!

This "pre-election" season fund raising competition/news commentary is just driving me nuts. Rumors are flying around that Friday Gonzales will get the boot, and the US will attack Iran by that afternoon, and Hillary has more money than Bill Gates or something.

Somebody please wake me after the primaries. I'm just tired of everybody!

CITIZEN ALERT v1.198A BETTER BREED OF CREEP

Everything was better "back in the day" wasn't it?

When I was a kid every summer my parents would take me, my brother and sister to Brownwood, TX for a family reunion. We stayed in a camping ground by a lake for the weekend and met with all our aunts and uncles and cousins. This happened every year and it was always a jam packed event.

Over the years the numbers began to dwindle, and the reunions became less fun because, well, less aunts, uncles and cousins. I think at one point it turned into a day event instead of a weekend. My grandmother or maybe it was one of my aunts - either way she was old - explained it to me. "This happens over generations. Our reunions always hit a low point as the kids growup, and older people die, you lose attendance until those kids that growup have kids of their own and want to bring them. The people that are running it now, get too old to do it anymore and the younger ones don't care yet or haven't learned yet. It's a generational gap." Well, this made loads of sense to me.

It makes me think about not only generational gaps but also the homogenous effect society can have on its own culture as arts and traditions pass from one generation to the next. Punk isn't AS punk as it was in 1977. They don't make movies like they used to. They're more about action than story. Even the radio is playing the same 10 songs over and over again. A WATERED DOWN VERSION OF THE ORIGINAL.

Why wouldn't this apply to politics? I've yet to hear any pundits out there discussing how this effects our politics. It has. You want to talk about watered down, we've gone from BUSH TO CLINTON TO BUSH and now maybe back to CLINTON and somewhere back there JEB BUSH is waiting his turn. We've watered down our presidents to two freaking families.

Take a look at the Republican party. Is the "worst president ever" a victim of this generational gap in learning, or just a watered down version of what republicans used to be? Either one is bad.

President Bush's grandfather Prescott Bush was a U.S. Senator under Eisenhower. Would you be surprised to know that Prescott Bush worked with the American Birth Control League back in the 40's and served as treasurer of the first national capital campaign of PLANNED PARENTHOOD! Today his grandson is a far cry from being a chip off the old block on that one!

But let's look at all these guys. Prescott was a supporter of Eisenhower. Nixon was not only Eisenhower's running mate, his daughter married Ike's grandson. Nixon becomes president and who's working for him, none other than Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. George H. W. Bush was also Nixon's UN ambassador and later the RNC chairman. Under Ford, he almost gets to be VP but instead ends up as Director of the CIA. Then in the 80's Bush is upped to VP under President Reagan who had been California's governor during all this. Do you know who talked Nixon into making George Bush, Sr. the Director of the CIA? Cheney and Rumsfeld. Bush later made Cheney his Sec. of Defense. George W. Bush would later make Cheney his VP and Rumsfeld his Sec. of Defense.

Since the early 60's these guys have been in the inner workings of our government running incestuous circles around each other, and as links go in the chain it would naturally be Cheney's turn to be president, but he's turned that down flat as most of the world now hates his guts. Thus ends the chain. The older generation has died off, Eisenhower, Ford, Nixon, Reagan. Rumsfeld and Cheney believe it or not were the young snots.

Is it any wonder that the 2008 Presidential election is a free for all? Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the DEMS have a similiar story but as you can tell from the lineage above the REPUBS have been running things a bit more.

And now, the bloodline has ended. The sacred cows for the most part have hit retirement. We are left with a new generation of politicians that will be embarking into the darkness. And the young snots against the advice of the last remaining sacred cow Bush, Sr. have royally screwed up everything. Is Iraq evidence of politicians "just aren't what they used to be"? And can the new breed of creep overcome this generation gap and drag us out of the dark ages? Sorry I don't have an answer for you. My guess is 20 years from now, we'll hate everyone that was helping Obama now.

CITIZEN ALERT v1.197THE LESSON

Everyone is responsible for everyone else.