What does it mean today? Has the dream come true?

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_a_Dream

 

"I Have A Dream" is the popular name given to the public speech by Martin Luther King, Jr., when he spoke of his desire for a future where blacks and whites, among others, would coexist harmoniously as equals. King's delivery of the speech on August 28, 1963, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, was a defining moment of the American Civil Rights Movement. Delivered to over 200,000 civil rights supporters,^[1] the speech is often considered to be one of the greatest and most notable speeches in human history and was ranked the top American speech of the 20th century by a 1999 poll of scholars of public address.^[2] According to U.S. Representative John Lewis, who also spoke that day as the President of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, "Dr. King had the power, the ability and the capacity to transform those steps on the Lincoln Memorial into a monumental area that will forever be recognized . By speaking the way he did, he educated, he inspired, he informed not just the people there, but people throughout America and unborn generations."^[3]

 

 

Today I wonder, has that dream really come true? Do we as a people really co-exist harmoniously today? Are we really all equal?

 

I wonder if that's true.

 

I've heard many point to Barack Obama's election as President of the United States of America in 2008 as a definitive 'yes' to such a question. And it's true that it's something truly awesome to expereince.

 

But the context of it isn't completely clear for me. For one thing, this country on many levels have been (and a largely still are) a very large mess of problems, many of which are unsolved. People's lives are more screwed up due to their loss of jobs, loss of their homes, loss of financial security. Many more face health crises, and even more face additional health care costs crises. Some of us wonder if everything we've worked for will mean something later on in life. I wonder if I'll have any money left to take care of my family when I can no longer work. Then I wonder about the state of the world. I wonder if I'm really doing my part to make the world a better place for my kids. I wonder why people in the country are not really doing more to address some of changes going on with our globe (i.e. that it's getting warmer) and why it's not being done now.

 

I ask that of others, but perhaps I really need to ask myself first.

 

And it's within this larger context - that is, people's lives are so much more messed up that they either hit or are near rock-bottom - that they finally decided to change who represents them in government.

 

And what further messes will they - and other kids - have to clean up, in addition to the ones mine and previous generations have failed to resolve?

 

And will my kids truly be seen for who they are. Often times, it doesn't matter how smart or how nice or how strong one is. Sadly, I think in this day and age, a lot of people still think with their eyes. They see a skin color and their underlying assumptions of what that means to them really dictate the way they treat the person in front of them.

 

There's no doubt the dream still persists. There's no doubt many of us still pursue it. To me pursuit of the dream of equality is just a part of the larger dream - the pursuit of liberty and happiness.

 

And I really think - there is still so much more to be done.

 

Trying to make amends?

Thank you so much for contacting Whole Foods Market with your feedback about John Mackey’s op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal. We offer you our sincere apology for any offense caused by this article. John intended to offer his personal opinion, and was not advocating his views on behalf of Whole Foods Market or its team members. We are sharing all of the feedback that we have received about this article with our entire Executive Leadership team and we appreciate that you took the time to share your feelings with us. Again, we offer you our sincere apology, and hope to have your support of Whole Foods Market in the future.

 

(A note received from Whole Foods Market when informing them about not doing business there anymore.)

 

Except John Mackey referred to Whole Foods in his editorial. So that invalidates the whole 'personal opinion, and was not advocating his views on behalf of Whole Foods Market or its team members' BS -
 
"At Whole Foods we allow our team members to vote on what benefits they most want the company to fund."
 
So no, it's not just his personal opinion.

 

 
If Whole Foods Market truly doesn't share his opinions, then they should prove that by not employing John Mackey's services as CEO or otherwise, permanently.

Deconstructing the fallacy of objectivity in newspapers, and exposing blatant lies.

http://columbian.com/article/20090825/NEWS02/708259961/-1/NEWS

 

Here's an interesting snippet.

 

"Not so, say two professional pollsters.

It's standard practice to use such faux "surveys" to raise money for a variety of causes, said Portland pollster Mike Riley. "It's common, trying to stir the pot to see what kinds of issues get attention."

"Both parties do that," Riley said. "They are using some of the hot-button issues to see what activates the voters. It's politics as usual within the party faithful. No one that I know puts any credibility in these types of polls."

Riley recalled a recent fundraising "survey" sponsored by Democrats that attempted to link issues of child safety and gun ownership. One question asked whether it is important to keep children safe and to keep them away from guns. The implication, he said, was "that guns shouldn't be in homes where children are present."

A tip-off that a survey really is a fundraising tract, Riley said, is when questions cover more than one issue. "It's called a double-barreled question" and would not be used by a professional pollster, he said.

Portland pollster Bob Moore agreed.

"It's a fundraising appeal, is what it is," he said. "Everyone does it — Democrats, anti-tax groups, environmentalists. The audience that receives it has given to that organization at some point in time and is on the list to receive solicitations."

If such tactics "weren't effective, they wouldn't be using them," Moore said."

 

1. I find Mike Riley's conclusion in what he alleges is a Democratic survey is questionable. If I were the reporter, I'd have researched the 'survey' Riley alluded to here prior to publication, instead of taking his statement at face value. I'd verify the question actually asked - 'One question asked whether it is important to keep children safe and to keep them away from guns.', really exists.


2. Bob Moore listed in this article as a GOP pollster. - http://www.portlandtribune.com/news/story.php?story_id=122168669575618300

 

These two points makes me question the objectivity of the the pollsters and the article. Note that Moore says nothing about Republicans doing similar things all the time, but the article itself is about the Republicans doing the very thing.

Sounds like these two pollsters and the article are (in-effect) trying to do GOP damage-control.

As if I didn't have enough motivation to avoid getting fat ...

Obese People Have 'Severe Brain Degeneration'

 

http://www.livescience.com/health/090825-obese-brain.html (found via Huffington Post)

 

Here's a snippet -

Obese people had lost brain tissue in the frontal and temporal lobes, areas of the brain critical for planning and memory, and in the anterior cingulate gyrus (attention and executive functions), hippocampus (long-term memory) and basal ganglia (movement), the researchers said in a statement today. Overweight people showed brain loss in the basal ganglia, the corona radiata, white matter comprised of axons, and the parietal lobe (sensory lobe).  

 

As if that wasn't scary enough, the previous paragraph is nothing short of scary (emphasis mine)-

More than 300 million worldwide are now classified as obese, according to the World Health Organization. Another billion are overweight. The main cause, experts say: bad diet, including an increased reliance on highly processed foods.

Holy fucking crap!

I wonder sometimes if the stress of the added weight of people has any connection with global warming? That might seem hokey, but think about it -

• 
  
  People are getting heavier


• 
  
  They exercise less


• 
  
  Consequently, to get around, they need to ride in heavier transportation vehicles like vans, trucks, and SUVs


• 
  
  And the amount of CO₂ produced and sent into the atmosphere increases.

Is that so out of left field?

The main sources of greenhouse gases due to human activity are:

• burning of fossil fuels and deforestation leading to higher carbon dioxide concentrations. Land use change (mainly deforestation in the tropics) account for up to one third of total anthropogenic CO₂ emissions.^[22]

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas)

Who's paying to kill Health Care Reform in the US?

(h/t to Campaign for America's Future)

 

via http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/09/lobbyblog_n_228657.html ...

 

 

 

On this day 40 years ago ...

... the Beatles (John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr) gathered in Abbey Road studios to listen to the final running order of the album named after the studio.

 

Released	26 September 1969
Recorded	22 February 1969 – 20 August 1969, at Abbey Road Studios, Olympic Studios, and Trident Studios

 

It was the last known time all four of them were in a studio together.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbey_Road_(album)

 

 

Whole Foods Market ... say good-bye to my business.

Well after giving it enough thought - I've decided.

 

Whole Foods Market can fuck off. They can thank their CEO.

For one thing, the guy is a hypocrite - we found products at Whole Foods with HFCS in them. He even admits as much -
 
"Basically, we used to think it was enough just to sell healthy food, but we know it is not enough. We sell all kinds of candy. We sell a bunch of junk."

 

Here's a better summary of why I'm not giving them my business anymore- http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/8/13/765839/-To-John-Mackey-at-Whole-Foods

Poor journalism vs. purposeful propaganda: The battle over health care reform in the US.

http://mediamatters.org/columns/200908180002

 

I posted this because the first commenter really sums my feelings exactly (emphasis mine)-

 

"The truly sad part is that the Democrats in Congress and Obama are relinquishing their majority partly because of this media coverage. MMFA makes the argument that this is poor journalism. In fact, it is purposeful propaganda. These media outlets aren't interested in journalism, they work for conservative owners who want everything the Democrats attempt to fail. They have health coverage and don't care about us. They simply want low taxes and government regulation that allows them to make bigger profits. The media is their water boy. It is populated by traitors who take their pay to misinform and mislead listeners with full knowledge of their misdeeds.

Democrats have the majority but some members are beholden to lobbyists to such a degree that Obama's agenda will fail. This is not a great country anymore; it's a cesspool of selfishness and ignorance. We spend $7 trillion a year for a military to abate our fears of foriegners while we allow our country to rot from within.

How stupid must we be to still fear socialism when we have successful social programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Fannie Mae, public education, food stamps, HUD, subsidized college student loans, FDA, etc. People just don't get that our government protects us from all kinds a vagaries, both intentional and circumstantial, through tax collection and spending. Universal healthcare is the natural extension of the programs we already rely upon. "

 

To be fair, on some level, I think a large group of these individuals represent a block of people who -

1. 
   
   are upset that the Republicans lost the 2008 US Elections


2. 
   
   are upset that they lost the 2008 US Presidential Election to a moderate/progressive


3. 
   
   cannot get over the fact that the man who won the 2008 US Presidential Election is half black and half white.

But that's not just what's happening here. I think these large insurance companies and their demand for profit is on some level driving this hysteria.

 

It would be funny seeing all these individuals who attend the public 'town-hall' meetings with their swastikas, and denunciations of of Obama, the Democratic Party, Socialism, Liberals, etc.

 

That is, it would be funny if it weren't so sad. Have they ever experienced a situation where health care wasn't just driven by private insurance companies?

 

To me, health care is a right, not a privilege. This table sums it up -

 

Country	Life expectancy	Infant mortality rate	Physicians per 1000 people	Nurses per 1000 people	Per capita expenditure on health (USD)	Healthcare costs as a percent of GDP	% of government revenue spent on health	% of health costs paid by government
Australia	81.1	4.7	2.8	9.7	2,999	8.8	17.7	67.0
Canada	80.4	5.4	2.1	8.8	3,678	10.1	16.7	70.0
France	80.9	4.0	3.4	7.6	3,449	11.1	14.2	79.7
Germany	79.8	3.8	3.5	9.8	3,371	10.6	17.6	77.0
Japan	82.4	2.8	2.1	9.3	2,474	8.2	16.8	82.7
Sweden	80.8	2.8	3.5	10.7	3,202	9.2	13.6	81.7
UK	79.1	5.0	2.5	11.9	2,760	8.4	15.8	87.0
US	77.8	6.9	2.4	10.5	7,290	16.0	18.5	46.0

 

As Paul Krugman summerizes -

 

" ... all that stands in the way of universal health care in America are the greed of the medical-industrial complex, the lies of the right-wing propaganda machine, and the gullibility of voters who believe those lies."

 

When will enough people in the US stop believing in those lies?

 

UPDATE: It appears there may be some hope -

 

Health Reform Supporters Start To Outnumber Critics At Town Halls

 

Rep. Baird holding town hall in Clark County

 

 

Wanna continue to be a blob and a drain to society?

How come?

http://blog.soloflex.com/archive/danger-high-fructose-corn-syrup/ (emphasis mine)

Four companies control 85% of the $2.6 billion business - Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, Staley Mfg and CPC International.  16 plants in our corn belt manufacture the stuff, huge vats of murky fermenting liquid, fungus and chemical tweaking.

The number one source of calories in America is from HFCS in soda pop.

CPC International apparently redirects one in Wikipedia to Unilever.

It really pains me to see people coming into the office and downing that first can of soda. It's even more painful to watch those same people chug can after can of this stuff day in and day out. And in the business I'm in (software and IT) I find it disturbing to see so many software developers downing cans of HFCS. I sometimes wonder if that affects the code they write. Indeed, I wonder if there is a correlation between someone cranking out code while downing cola.

Hey - they can call it 'coca-code'!

Eric Alterman hits the 'media' on the head.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/08/ta080609.html (by way of HuffPo)

I've said it before, and I'll say it here.

The top 5-6 'news' outlets are owned by large entertainment/media corporations. And by 'media' I mean television, music, movies, not 'journalism'.

They use their 'news broadcasts' to sell information for profit. And that information is really whatever viewpoints makes the most money. Their 'media' are really placeholders to sell their sponsors' products and services through ads. They are not in the practice of journalism.

The only thing these corporations understand is their bottom lines - net profit and stock price.

The only way to fight that is to not use them.

I cut out network television at our house. And we don't carry cable (I refuse to pay for 'cable news' channels). I get my news about various things from online sources not connected to these (that's where I realized that I don't need CBS/MTV/Nickel-and-Dimodean, NBC, ABC, Faux, or CNN in my house).

If enough people came to this realization and acted, these corporations would either have to change to survive, or they would go out of business.

Sotomayor confirmed as next US Supreme Court Justice - to be sworn in Saturday.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/07/sotomayors-swearing-in-to_n_253693.html

 

For all the bluster of the American Right, their actions confirmed the state of their movement - Impotent and ineffective.