Respect Must Be Earned

Some seem to think that respect is a natural benefit of age, education, or position. Nonsense. Living long simply means one has seen and experienced a lot, not that wisdom was gained. Advanced education may merely mean one has been taught an extensive number of facts or techniques, not that the lessons were particularly well absorbed. A lofty position may simply mean one is a more adept game player, brown-nose, or down right cheat. True respect is gained by showing a propensity to seek cognizant enlightenment from one's experiences and use them to educate others, to show this knowledge to be a benefit to those of "lesser" status.

A related misconception is that surety of opinion or belief requires others to respect those views. In a free society one must respect the right to have those ideas, not that particular ideas are worthy of respect. Many find nothing adverse in bigotry, yet when challenged, they attempt to justify or otherwise claim supposedly justifiable reasoning. (Of course there are those who don't even try to rationalize, are even proud of their bigotry.) Political ideology is another area when more respect is demanded than earned.

Politics cover every aspect of life (some even positively). Many opposing views are worthy of mutual respect, if grudgingly. Others are just too radical to gain opposition respect. Still others are based on learned disinformation, misinformation, or plain wrong-headedness and it's very difficult to think they deserve respect, especially when attempts to educate are rebuffed due to a willingness, even pride, in their ignorance.

Interpretation of the US Constitution is one of those one of those political views where respect for the opposition is difficult. As one of the left-of-center, I honor the document's brevity as a construct intended by our country's founders' belief in societal evolution. Those right wing ideologues who say they fully comprehend the "original intent" and that it's not meant for interpretation are being obviously hypocritical. After all, they are expressing their interpretation. It is many of those same "originalists" who deny that the principle of separation of Church and state is in the Constitution, just because the word "separation" isn't included in the First Amendment.

Historical revisionism and the denial of the Constitution's authors' abhorrance of church-state entanglements are among the views for which I refuse, simply cannot, deem worthy of respect. While it's true that history is written by the winners, revisionists are out to change the facts, not interpretation. Separation deniers display an ideologue's willful ignorance of the writings and political tracts of the writers of our founding documents and their associates.  There are only two mentions of religion in the US Constitution and neither supports its primacy in our democratic republic. (The Treaty of Tripoly, passed with unanimous vote, even states definitively that the USA is not a Christian naton.)

Alabama's Roy Moore is among these deluded figures. He was removed from his position as the state's chief justice in 2003 for refusing to comply with a federal court order to remove a 2.5 ton decalogue he placed in the foyer of the Alabama Judicial Building. He placed it so all who entered would know he decides cases based on Biblical law, not US jurisprudence. The citizens were smart enough to refuse him the governor's mansion in 2006 and 2010 but had a relapse into willful ignorance when they again dishonored themselves by electing Moore, once again, their chief justice.  Moore's continual insistance that his idea if God's laws take precedence over civil law makes him unfit for the bench, unfit for any public office. With his fealty to only Biblical law, he'll be breaking his oath of office the second he takes it. But law isn't all that suffers from religious extremism and willful ignorance.

US Rep Paul Broun takes pride in his purposeful scientific ignorance. "[E]volution, embryology, Big Bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell." The "manufacturer's handbook" teaches us how to run our lives, churches, families, "all our public policy and everything in society." In other words, he's a Dominionist. It matters not to him that there are people who have other "handbooks," or none at all. He would prefer a theocracy based on only one version of a book that contradicts itself. "[A]s your congressman, I hold the Holy Bible as being the major directions to me of how I vote in Washington, DC." So his oath, his solemn vow, to uphold the constitution means nothing to him. And, to the detriment of democracy, he is far from alone.

The evidence is obvious in the plethora of religiously moralistic legislation that is sweeping through Republican-held state legislatures.  Under the disingenuous guise of supposed fiscal responsibility and protecting women's health they are passing legislation that deprives women, children, and men of vital health services and shreds social safety nets. Their favorite target is family planning. Using Targeted Regulation of Abortion Procedures, TRAP laws, they have succeeded in more than decimating available health clinics. Most of these misogynistic lawmakers have all but shedded their deceptive cover of being concerned for women's health and have admitted that the sole intent of the laws is based on their interpretation of their religious moral code. Their claims of a larger moral standing that abortion, including many forms of birth control, is murder completely ignores the life and well-being of the woman. Their claims to the title "pro-life" is, therefore, wholly inaccurate. The "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" of women obviously is anathema to them. But women aren't the only ones undeserving of civil rights.

Another overly religious politician in Alabama is so sure his warped ideas of Jesus Christ's philosophy are of primacy that he wants those running for office to sign a pledge to oppose civil rights for about 10% of the population (homosexuals) and vow to rule by the Christian faith (as he views it). Apparently he also never read the US Constitution. Article VI, Section 3 states that there cannot be a religious test for office. Should the citizens be apathetic enough of their own country's principles to elect him he will be another who deserves impeachment the second he takes the oath.

Unfortunately, these two are far from being alone among elected officials. The revisionists who deny the fact that the US was founded as an areligious republic infest our local, state, and federal legislatures and all levels of the courts, including the Supreme Court. It matters not to them that there are million of people who disagree with their views. It doesn't matter to them that not even all Christians agree. They are blinded by their beliefs (I'm loath to call it "faith") and tyrannical in their opinion that all should believe the same as they. While that seems to be a tenet of some religions, it is, after all, only an opinion.

Point of disclosure: I'm an atheist. The power of these dominionists to influence policy and, tgerefore, others' lives helped me confirm my conviction decades ago. But my surity of no deity has no bearing on my opposition to these who seek to force their biblical laws on this nation. My opposition is because it is, and always has been, against the principles upon which this country was founded. It is against the document which spells out our governing rules. To want biblical law to govern here is simply unAmerican.

"Held in Public Trust" Is a Future Tense Phrase

Email from Sierra Club:

Surrounded by the oil and gas boom in North Dakota's Bakkan shale, Theodore Roosevelt National Park is plagued by drilling just beyond the park's borders. As you approach, it is impossible to escape the signs of fracking -- roads destroyed by truck traffic to fracking wells, retention ponds filled with mystery fluids, and flares from drilling rigs lighting the once dark night sky.


In 1883, Theodore Roosevelt traveled to North Dakota, hoping to hunt buffalo. But instead of wild plains and herds of bison, he encountered overgrazed lands and a nearly extinct bison population. These ravaged lands inspired President Roosevelt to establish the national parks system.


When President Roosevelt encountered destruction like this, he was moved to protect these special places, and now the torch is passed to us. Will you help protect our national parks from the dangers of fracking?


The fracking industry has its eye on our national forests and monuments, too. From George Washington National Forest in Virginia to Desolation Canyon in Utah, the natural gas industry wants a free pass to drill as much as they want without taking responsibility for the consequences. Fortunately, we have a chance to stop this. The Bureau of Land Management is accepting comments about their proposed rules, and it is up to us send a strong message that our wild places must be protected.


The magnificent views from our national parks, forests or, monuments should not be marred by drilling rigs and air pollution. The streams, rivers, and aquifers that feed these areas should not poisoned by toxic chemicals. And our special places should not be threatened by climate pollution from the fossil fuel industry.

Tell the Department of Interior Secretary Jewell and President Obama that we must protect our public lands from the dangers or fracking -- I did!

Find out more and send your message here: http://action.sierraclub.org/BLMfracking


Deb Nardone
Director, Beyond Natural Gas Campaign
Sierra Club

P.S. Please share this email with five of your friends, family, and colleagues. We have just a few weeks to send a strong message that our national parks, forests, and special places must be protected from fracking.
____


Tell the Department of Interior Secretary Jewell and President Obama that we must protect our public lands from the dangers or fracking -- I did!

Find out more and send your message here: http://action.sierraclub.org/BLMfracking

The video NSA doesn't want you to see

One Man's View of Corporate Failure

The following was forwarded to me by a friend of its author. Thought yall might find it interesting:



Exit Interview



To: Alaska Communication's,



After almost 23 years with this company, first and always as a Data technician and then as Foreman, I believe I have worked here long enough to understand the trajectory of its culture, its people and its identity. And I can honestly say that the environment now is as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it.



To put the problem in the simplest terms, the interests of the customer and employees continue to be sidelined in the way the company operates and thinks about making money. Alaska Communications is one of (and I have to use "one of") Alaska's largest telecommunications providers and it is too integral in the communications scope of things to continue to act this way. The company has veered so far from the place I joined that I can no longer in good conscience say that I identify with what it stands for.



It might sound surprising to a skeptical management, but culture was always a vital part of ATU's success, (it began dissolving under the ACS-AC regimes). ATU revolved around teamwork, integrity, a spirit of humility, and always doing right by our customers and equally as important its employees. The culture was the secret sauce that made this place great and allowed us to earn our customers trust for 50 years. It wasn't just about making money; this alone will not sustain a company for so long. It had something to do with pride and belief in the organization. I am sad to say that I look around today and see virtually no trace of the culture that made me love working for this company for many years. I no longer have the pride, or the belief. I truly believe that this decline in the company's moral fiber represents the single most serious threat to its long-run survival.



How did we get here? The company changed the way it thought about leadership. Leadership used to be about ideas, setting an example and doing the right thing, and most importantly, listening to and ultimately respecting its front line employees. Today, if you make enough money for the company (by any means) you will be promoted into a position of influence.

I hope this can be a wake-up call for everyone. Make the customer and your own employee's the focal point of your business again. Without either, you will not make money. In fact, you will not exist. Weed out the inept people, no matter what position they may have or how much money they make for the company. And get the culture right again, so people will want to work here, and for the right reasons. People who care only about making money will not sustain this company - or the trust of its customers and employee's - for very much longer.

Profit is not the end goal but the means to fulfilling a business's purpose of making a positive difference in the world.

I knew it was time to leave when I realized I could no longer look my fellow employees or anyone in the eye and tell them what a great place this was to work for.



Therefore, May 3rd 2013 will be my retirement day from Alaska Communications.


Craig J. McCracken
Ex-Foreman - Uncommon Sense
Special Applications-Data

Reasons Barack Obama Must Be Re-elected

Mitt Romney would drag the country backwards, economically, socially and in the area of Civil Rights.

A Republican president would have the opportunity to nominate more than 1 Supreme Court justice. This would have devestating repercussions for many civil rights gained in the past 50 years. Romney has made clear that his choices would rule ideology and religion over Constitutional law.

His economic plan's unviability can be demonstrated by Googling "mathematically impossible." He misleads and outright lies about his so-called "job creator" status, outsourcing and Massachusettes' economic state after his governorship.

He would have cheerfully voted for the Blount Amendment. He claims to not old the same antiquated viewson reproductive rights as Gov Bob "Vaginal Probe" McDonnell, Rick "Anti-contraceptives" Santorum, Todd "Legitimate Rape" Akin, and his own running mate, Rep Paul "Personhood" Ryan. He wants full civil rights, including property rights, for a bundle of 2 or 3 cells (fertilized egg).

He wants employers to decide if their employees can have birth control solely based on their own opinion. Romney heads a Republican party that claims to be for smaller government yet has no problem deciding what healthcare decisions women can make for themselves and which that "hands off" government will make for them. They even want to control what a woman's healthcare provider can tell her, even as far as forcing lies to be told by the doctor concerning the patient's condition.

Romney does not support equal pay for women doing equal work as men.

He has no apparent interest in diplomacy that doesn't involve armies. He has shown so little interest in the realities of foreign affairs that he thinks Syria is Iran's "path to the sea." As Rachel Maddow asked, "Doesn't he know what Persia means?" And for a businessman, he has a very niave view of the intracies of trade negotiations.

He has tacitly, and vocally, condoned the racist, bigoted attiudes of "birthers," anti-homosexuals, and radical religionists (who seek a theocracy).

President Barack Obama holds the opposite view on all the above. His vison is forward-looking (hence his camaign's catchword). The President also has shown himself to be more than able to handle diplomacy and dealings with the rest of the world. The President also knows that the only way to make money is to spend it (one would think a self-defined businessman would acknowledge that). So to boost our economy, healing our broken infrastructure and investing in long-term energy solutions
will help make our country healthy again.


Civil rights are too important to ignore

You've Been Owned!

Next week, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether you have the right to sell your stuff on eBay. Do you really own the smartphone or computer you’re using to read this? If you sold your books, would you be breaking the law? A federal court in New York says you would be, even if you legally paid for and bought them. It's unbelievable, but trademark and copyright holders are trying to use a legal loophole to take away your right to sell things that you own. The mainstream media is starting to catch on, with the Wall Street Journal just running an article headlined, "YOUR RIGHT TO RESELL YOUR OWN STUFF IS IN PERIL". Please add your name at right to fight back. Public interest advocates are taking the case all the way to the Supreme Court, and Demand Progress is joining up with a coalition of groups -- including many of those that came together to kill SOPA -- to support the rights of ordinary Internet users and everyday consumers. Once again, big entertainment company lobbyists are fighting us in the courts to ensure their profits are given higher priority than consumer rights. But this time the MPAA and RIAA have the Obama administration on their side -- they've all filed legal briefs asking the Supreme Court to restrict our right to resell the things we own.. We only have a few weeks to make our voices heard before the Supreme Court makes a lasting ruling. We are working to defend a long-standing principle known as the "First-Sale Doctrine." This common-sense rule gives us the right to sell most property we own, but big businesses have been trying to chip away at out our rights in the courts. If the Supreme Court supports the lower court’s decision, we won't really “own” anything if any part of it was made in a different country. And practically anything you own -- from your iPod to your house -- could have been made abroad, in whole or in part. If we lose this fight, practically anybody who wants to resell products they bought -- from Macbooks and iPhones to our clothing and textbooks -- will have to ask copyright holders for permission first. And they'll have the right to deny it! It's bad for so many reasons: It'll undermine Craigslist and Ebay, hurt the environment, increase incentives for manufacturers to move jobs off-shore, and effectively ban the traditional American yard sale. For more info, please check out Marvin Ammori's article about the lawsuit. http://m.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/06/if-youve-ever-sold-a-used-ipod-you-may-have-violated-copyright-law/258276/

Delivery of petition on PA's voter ID law

Email from Steve Singer on delivering a petition about stopping Penbsylvania's voter-suppressing voter ID law:

Dear ,

I thought you might like to read a description of our petition delivery
today:

Eyes were opened as 15 of the more than 2,200 of you who signed our
petition against Pennsylvania's new voter I.D. law delivered it to the
Allegheny County Elections Bureau - in person.

On Tuesday, Aug. 14, we met at the county court house in downtown
Pittsburgh. I made signs and had two printed copies of the petition with
me. It was a busy street with scores of business people returning from
their lunch breaks. When they saw the slogans on our signs, eyes widened,
jaws dropped and foot traffic slowed so pedestrians could get a peak at
who these strange people were. Some slogans in red, white and blue were:
"Just Say No!", "Count Every Vote!", "Civil Rights First!", "No Fraud = No
Need for Voter I.D.", "Poll Tax, Literacy Test, Voter I.D.?" and "Voting
is a Right Not a Privilege!"

Two African American gentlemen stopped us to ask what we were protesting.
When we told them, they asked to join us - one of them loudly chanting
from the sign I gave him, "Civil Rights First!"

As the media started to converge on us, I gathered the assemblage to
instruct them on what we were going to do. We also practiced chanting a
call-and-response of "Just Say - NO!", "Count Every - VOTE!" and "Civil
Rights - FIRST!" A police officer asked us to please not block the
sidewalk, but he was very friendly, knew we were within our rights to be
there and we made a special effort to follow his instructions. After doing
a few brief interviews with the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, and some
others, we marched a street over to the county office building - home of
the election bureau.

The plan had been for a small delegation of us to enter the building but
the overwhelming majority wanted to come inside so we entered en mass. It
took two elevators for the entire group to get to the 6th floor but we
made it. Once on the right floor, we encountered two senior citizen
African American ladies leaving the election bureau. They had been trying
to get information on the voter I.D. law. When they saw us and we
explained why we were there, they, too, joined us.

We entered the office, and the man behind the counter seemed stunned. The
entire group could barely fit in the room. I politely asked him if Mark
Wolosik, Division Head was there. He said Wolosik would not be in for the
next few days. I had been prepared for this because I had talked to
Wolosik on Monday when he told me he would not be in but that we could
drop off the petition. I explained to the secretary why we were here. He
accepted the copy and gave us a stamp showing that it had been received.

We then returned to street level. We chanted a few times and four or five
of us shared stories about how the voter I.D. was affecting us,
personally. A journalist from radio station 90.5 recorded the testimonies and interviewed me afterwards. At that point I thanked everyone for coming
and they thanked me for organizing the event. We parted after only half an
hour, but a half hour very well spent.

One of our group, Barry Specter, video taped the entire outing and will
edit it and post it to youtube. I had already given an interview to
WTAE-TV earlier in the day and gave one after the event to
TalkingPointsMemo.com.

To everyone who attended the petition delivery today at Allegheny County
Elections Bureau, thank you so much for coming. I think we had a pretty
good turn out, and we sure got a lot of media coverage. Below are links to
just some of it. Be on the lookout for possible articles in the Pittsburgh
Post Gazette and Tribune Review tomorrow or Thursday.

Some of our local news coverage can be found here:

WTAE-TV (ABC):
http://ctv4.criticalmention.com/playerpage/player?params=Y2xpcElkPTM1MzQwMDYmc2xpbT0xJnBvd2VyZWQ9MSZyZXBvcnQ9dHJ1ZSZoaWRlQ2xpcENvbnRyb2xzPTEmbm9oZWFkZXI9MSZub21lbnU9dHJ1ZSZhdXRvUGxheT0xJnBhcnRuZXJUb2tlbj04YTgwODM3OTM4NDliNWNlMDEzOTI3YzliYjNhNTNjYQ==
KDKA-TV (CBS)
http://ctv4.criticalmention.com/playerpage/player?params=Y2xpcElkPTM1MzQwMDcmc2xpbT0xJnBvd2VyZWQ9MSZyZXBvcnQ9dHJ1ZSZoaWRlQ2xpcENvbnRyb2xzPTEmbm9oZWFkZXI9MSZub21lbnU9dHJ1ZSZhdXRvUGxheT0xJnBhcnRuZXJUb2tlbj04YTgwODM3OTM4NDliNWNlMDEzOTI3YzliYjNhNTNjYQ==

WPXI-TV (NBC)
http://ctv4.criticalmention.com/playerpage/player?params=Y2xpcElkPTM1MzQwMDgmc2xpbT0xJnBvd2VyZWQ9MSZyZXBvcnQ9dHJ1ZSZoaWRlQ2xpcENvbnRyb2xzPTEmbm9oZWFkZXI9MSZub21lbnU9dHJ1ZSZhdXRvUGxheT0xJnBhcnRuZXJUb2tlbj04YTgwODM3OTM4NDliNWNlMDEzOTI3YzliYjNhNTNjYQ==

WESA-FM (NPR)
http://wesa.fm/2012/08/14/report-seniors-could-be-disenfranchised-voter-id-law