Cluster Bombs Ban

So you may or may not have heard about the recent dispute about the banning of cluster bombs. If you are like most people and don't know exactly what a cluster bomb is, it's simply a large bomb that is launched (from the ground, or more often dropped from a plane) that breaks into many tiny "bomblets" before it hits the ground. These spread out and cover a large area, and from the military point of view, they are very useful for "taking out dispersed ground targets," in other words, killing a lot of people who are standing far apart from eachother.

The controversy lies in the fact that a large amount of cluster bombs, from 10 to 40 percent, do not detonate when they are supposed to. They merely land on the battlefield, then are forgotten in the heat of conflict and left there. Years later, they can be set off by being touched, which is a huge risk to civilians, particularly children who don't know better than to pick up a bomb. You could just google image "cluster bomb victims", and there will be hundreds of hits. I didn't include any pictures because I didn't want to force anyone to look at the reality, but if you aren't squeamish, just look at the pictures and see how horrible the weapons really are.

This debate draws a parallel with the prior controversy over landmines, which many countries agreed to ban with the Ottawa Treaty, which took effect in 1999. But guess which country is not a signatory to the Ottawa Treaty, and has already shown resistance to the recent effort to ban cluster bombs. That's it, the good old US of A. The American urge to have the world's strongest military, no matter the monetary or moral cost, is yet again keeping us from banning a weapon that does serious harm to civilians, many years after a conflict is over. An estimated 300 people die every year in Vietnam from cluster bombs that were dropped by the United States. I'm honestly not sure whose decision it is to ban them or not, if it's just an executive call, or if something must be passed in Congress, or what. But I would like to know who it is that is keeping our country on the list of those who continue to use weapons notorious for harming civilians.

Here's what you can do to help: sign online petitions. I'm sure there are many sites out there that have petitions going, but I'll only post the link to one. It takes less than twenty seconds to put down your name, zip code, email, and some other little bits of info. By adding yourself to the list of people against cluster bombs, you will help send a message to the world's governments that the citizens of the US will not stand for allowing the continued use of weapons that kill innocent people years after being dropped. And if you like cluster bombs or don't care, just don't sign. As always, it doesn't take any effort to keep things the way they are, it only takes work to change them.

To sign the petition:
http://www.clusterbombs.org/i-want-to-sign/

To learn more:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/05/19/cluster.bombs/#cnnSTCText

Faux News Strikes Again- Trotta Style

This past Sunday, Fox News contributor Liz Trotta made some pretty shocking remarks regarding Barack Obama. While responding to Hillary’s now infamous RFK remarks, she made the following comment,

[...] and now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama. Um, uh, Obama. Well both, if we could.

Trotta immediately followed this comment with laughter, as the host of the show mockingly asked her to “tell us how you really feel.” On Memorial Day, she made a half hearted apology, where she characterized it as a “lame attempt at humor,” and said she was “sorry to anyone I might have offended.”

Besides the fact that you know and I know she is not sorry for what she said, there is something bigger at risk here, much bigger. I have been noticing more and more that Fox News is beginning to bring people on air who regularly leave their position as objective news reporters to make their own personal commentaries on political issues.

The mainstream media is meant to provide information to the masses, pure, unbiased information that people can then take and interpret in their own highly personal ways. When big news sources like Fox continually put people like Liz Trotta on air, who seem to advocate the assassination of someone like Barack Obama, the media is failing as an institution. This is by no means the first time anyone from the media showed their own political colors, I’m just saying that as we near closer to November, this becomes a pretty big issue.

What I saw as I watched Liz Trotta on Sunday was not one lunatic political analyst making a monumental mistake, I saw a calculated attack on both Democratic Presidential candidates. I think that Fox may have tipped their cap at the violent hate filled tactics that we should expect as the election nears closer. They claim to be “fair and balanced,” but you and I both know that is a lie.

This is not an isolated event. You will see more of this, and of that I am sure. As it continues to happen, the other media sources will make a big deal for a few days, the talking head will be forced to make an apology, and then the media will find some other scandal to focus on, and the commentator will get off scot-free. Yet the message they implanted into millions of heads across the country will not fade so easily. The mainstream media still seems to find calling Obama “Osama” pretty damn funny, and until they stop, people across the nation will continue to believe he is Muslim, or even a threat to our country.
It needs to stop, and yet the only tool we have is our viewership. They control our information, and so we need them, and they know it. What can we do except turn off our television sets and deprive them of their demographic? Nothing, but in doing that, we become uninformed. It is a nasty little pickle we find ourselves in.

The only solace we can find is to only look towards sources we know that we can trust, such as The Washington Post, or The New York Times. If you are looking for political information, I suggest you look to one of those newspapers. If its on the TV, take it with a grain of salt.

That is my advice, do with it what you will. Or not, since I’m just some random guy writing on the internet.

Democratic Primary Season, day 144

Well, it's been two months since I last wrote about the Democrats, but one would think that the only thing that's changed is that both candidates now have higher delegate counts, although Obama is now in much better shape. With only three contests remaining, he has a majority of pledged delegates attending the convention, a lead in superdelegates, and increasing media coverage labelling him as the presumptive nominee. He is now only fifty-seven delgates shy of the requisite 2026 needed to be nominated. Yet Clinton, who trails Obama by nearly 200 delegates, remains in the race, not because she has any real chance, but because she refuses to leave.
Let's face it, the only reason that Obama isn't already labelled the presumptive nominee by everyone is because no one wants to have to break it to the Clintons--and that includes Bill as much as it does Hillary. But as they become increasingly desperate to show by any way they can that Senator Clinton deserves the nomination, one wonders if it's time for someone to tell them to get out now with class than to drag this thing to the convention.

The thing is, Clinton doesn't have a clear path to the nomination. The logic employed by Clinton supporters to show that she should get the nomination over Obama's head is increasingly tortured, with ironies and contradictions that make the summer gas tax seem like a good idea in comparison. She claims that she will not leave the race until "every voice was heard and every vote counted," yet she claims she is leading in the popular vote by counting Michigan (where Obama supporters were not even given the chance to vote for him) and Florida, and by discounting the people in caucus states, because somehow their opinions don't matter (or is it simply because Obama has dominated the caucuses?) She claims every voice needs to be heard, and so the votes in Florida and Michigan must be counted, even though that didn't become important to her until she realized that her nomination was about to be "stolen." She says she wants the votes of Americans to be counted, yet is desperately making her case to the superdelegates to buck the pledged delegates and choose her over Obama.
Recently she went so far as to claim that the Democrats need to change their nomination process, because the current one "fails to represent the will of the American voters." I quote,

“I think that’s an issue for debate in the future because I believe we should have primaries everywhere, and everybody, as many people as possible should be encouraged to vote...We ought to group them so that nobody is at the tail end, so everybody has a chance to participate. But that’s all for the future.”

You know, I didn't realize Hillary was the champion of nomination reform until the current system gave someone like Obama the chance to turn over the establishment candidate. I mean, give me a break. Lets face it, if the primaries were all held on the same day, Clinton, with national name recognition and a convincing lead in polls, probably could have won the nomination outright. However, the spaced out nature of the nominating process allowed Obama to gain name recognition as he won contests, particulary his surprising win in the Iowa caucuses. Now, suddenly, it's not democratic to give relative unknowns the chance to win popular support?
What this comes down to is that Clinton feels that she deserves the nomination, and when the people chose someone else it was because of some flaw in the nominating system. Will it ever occur to her that the Democratic Party perhaps found someone they liked more? It's as if she's personally offended by this whole ordeal, and her arguments are tantamount to claiming that the votes of the people don't matter at all. Give it up, Hillary.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/05/24/clinton-democratic-nomination-process-needs-to-change/

How Kennedy's Situation Affects the Senate

I'm sure most of you have heard by the time that you're reading this that Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) has been diagnosed with a malignant glioma (brain tumor) in his left parietal lobe. The prognosis for the condition that he has is anywhere from less than 1 year to live to five years to live (under the best circumstances). For a man of Kennedy's age, such a diagnosis seems to be fatal at some point.

Red & Blue's prayers go out to Sen. Kennedy and his family. Ted's oldest brother Joe died during World War II, and his two other brothers, John and Robert, were both assassinated in the 60's. This family has seen more tragedy than most, so we can only hope that they will be able to deal with this situation and stay strong at Teddy's side. Either way, it seems as though the Lion of the Left may be on his last legs.

Ted Kennedy has been serving in the Senate since 1962, which makes him the second longest serving member of the current Senate, behind President pro-tem Robert Byrd, who is 90 years old. Kennedy was re-elected to a new 6-year term in 2006 and won't be up for re-election again until 2012. So now we need to look at the question, what happens if he cannot complete that term?

If Sen. Kennedy retires or dies in office, Massachusetts law requires that a special election be held to fill the seat somewhere between 145-160 days after he leaves office. That means for a minimum of 145 days, his seat will be vacant. Under the current composition of the Senate, the Democrats and Republicans both hold 49 seats. There are two Independent Senators, Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) who both caucus with the Democrats. This gives the Democrats a VERY slim 51-49 majority within the senate, especially considering the fact that Dick Cheney, a Republican, would vote to break ties if there were a 50-50 split in the Senate.

So, should Ted leave the senate, for 145 days, the Senate would be 50-49 Democratic advantage. They would keep the majority, but barely. If in the special election, a Republican wins the seat, the Senate will suddenly be split 50-50, and the Republicans will have the majority as long as a Republican stays in the White House.

The composition of the Senate is already shaky for the Democrats, considering the fact that one of the Independents they NEED to retain majority is supporting John McCain in the upcoming election, and seems to be showing even more Republican tendencies as time goes by. I am talking of course about Joe Lieberman. If he were to change his mind and caucus with the Republicans, the Senate would be split 50-50. It is almost assured this won't happen, since it would be political suicide for Lieberman in Connecticut, but the possibility remains.

Either way, Kennedy's situation greatly affects the Senate, and you can be sure people will be watching what happens to him very closely, especially President Bush. But Kennedy is a fighter, and considering his loyalty to the Democratic party, and how much his seat means to the party, you can be certain he won't be resigning any time soon.

Kyle: You have to keep in mind, though, that Kennedy represents Massachusetts, one of the most consistently Democratic states in the nation. Currently, all 10 Congressmen are Democrats, as well as Kennedy and Junior Senator John Kerry, and it is well known as a liberal bastion. It seems unlikely that a Republican would be able to win a Senate seat in this political environment, so I think the more serious issue here will be the loss of Kennedy as a leader in the Senate and in the Democratic Party.

Alex Severin- "Mr. Gore, choose a side!"

Mr. Gore, Mr. Activist, Mr. Vice President, or whatever you would like to be called, your vote is an absolute necessity to the completion of this excruciatingly lengthy process. I for one, and I know I am not the only one, have grown extremely weary of the constant party bickering and underhanded attacks that are being leveled by both candidates (although Mrs. Clinton has been throwing more punches as of late).

The coveted endorsement is one that both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are bitterly fighting for, and for good reason. Gore, who recently turned 60 years old, has been called the “party elder” and is viewed as a father figure for the Democrats. But Gore remains stubborn on the issue, justifying his indecision by saying,

“I’m simply watching and listening to the campaign. As a delegate to the convention I will cast my vote at the proper time. I haven’t ruled out making an endorsement prior to that time, but I haven’t been moved to do so.”

Others suggest, no matter how farfetched an idea, that Gore, not unlike John Edwards, may be waiting it out until a nominee is determined so he would be in contention for the Vice President spot again. To me this seems extremely unlikely, but intriguing in its own way. Gore has helped achieve magnificent things for this country (remember that he occupied the Vice Presidency during a time of grand economic prosperity in which the US government sat on a three trillion dollar surplus) and despite his increasing age, he could help increase environmental awareness in a country with the greatest ratio of hummers per square mile (sarcasm of course!).

No matter what Gore’s intentions are, the time is now! Mr. Gore, your vote is necessary in order for the presidential process to move forward. One thing is for certain, the longer the democrats battle without choosing a clear winner, the more time Republican hopeful John McCain has to run a virtually attack-free campaign. And no mater if you are a Clinton supporter or an Obama supporter, allowing McCain to run free of criticism helps no one!

Written By Alex Severin