A Second Korean War

As if World War 2 weren't enough, the early 1950's saw the outbreak of hostilities on the Korean penninsula. The communist north invaded the south in hopes of unifying the country under one government. The United States and newly created United Nations responded and the Korean war got underway. After years of fighting with many casualties on both sides, an armistice was signed at the 38th parallel, almost exactly where the war started!

Recently, North Korea has been continuing to advance its nuclear weapons program. It detonated a small nuclear weapon and test fired short and long range ballistic missiles. The international community responded with anger and threats of sanctions, the North Koreans responded with threats of military force.

The North Koreans sight South Korean pledges to join Obama's initiative to search sea vessels suspected of carrying nuclear contraband as an informal declaration of war. The unstable North Korean government issued a warning that any attempt to stop ships bound for communist nation would be met by military force. South Korean and American troops are currently on high alert in response to the diplomatic threats.

A shooting war, should it develop, would likely be similar to deadly skirmishes thay ere fought between North and South as recently as 2003. If any fighting occurs, that should be the worst of it. But what if it's not. North Korea has a large standing conventional military and an invasion would cost many lives on both sides. There are currently 25,000 American troops stationed in South Korea, more than president Obama is sending to Afghanistan as part of the surge. There are an additional 50,000 AMerican troops in Japan. In the event of an invasion, civilian casualties would likely be very heavy. Ultimately, the North would be outgunned and would lose the war, amidst tragic loss of life. Kim Jong might be tempted to use whatever operational nuclear weapons his country has in order to stave off military defeat and political coup. North Korea knows they are outgunned, so what is with all the saber waving?

North Korea can't claim that nuclear weapons will make their country more secure becasue they are doing the exact opposite. This is the closest that we have come to another Korean war since the 1953 armistice. The only logical explanation is domestic politics. The communist party in North Korea needs something positive. The poverty in North Korea is simply unbelievable. The government is not capable of feeding its own citizens. They rely on aid from the UN and other charitable sources so that they don't stare to death. The real victims here are the civilians, who are trapped under an oppressive regime that doesn't really care whether any of them live or die. Rumor has it that Kim Jong is grooming his son to be his successor as head of the communist party. The only thing preventing an uprising of the general populace is fear of violent reprisals and a twisted since of national unity against American oppression that is spoon fed to the masses via the government-run media.

The ultimate goal of American foreign policy should be the protection of lives, of our soldiers, allies and the North Korean civilians. North Korea poses no signifigant military threat to America and the outbreak of a general war is unlikely as it would be comparable to them committing suicide. Diplomacy and patience are still the way to go, but harsher sanctions might be needed. If North Korea gives weapons technology and knowledge to terrorists then there is no telling what could happen. So far Obama is doing and saying all the right things to prevent this problem from turning into a disaster. Only time will tell just how crazy North Korea really is.

Forgiving Michael Vick

I never cared much for the NFL. I always was and still am an avid college football fan. But watching Michael Vick at the Falcons stirred something in me that the rest of the league simply couldn't copy. There was something about the way that this Black man led his team to victory, using a skill set that is highly unusual for a professional quarterback, that made him worth watching. Vick's athleticism is the stuff of legends. He may not have been the best passer in the league but no one could run like him. This dual-threat provided a spark to the Atlanta offense that maybe didn't always win games but it frustrated opposing defenses and made the sport that much more entertaining.

More importantly, I used the Falcons to murder all my friends every year in Madden tournaments. At this point I was still a kid, maybe around 14 or 15 years old. My love for Vick continued to grow, until he was arrested for dog fighting. By this time, I was older and understood more of race relations here in America. I understood that everyone associated Vick with Black men, something I was trying desperately to become. His stupidity in running a dog fighting ring out of one of his many homes really can't be put into words. I was angry, not because of what happened to him, but because of what I felt would happen to me.

I worried that this entire debacle would add more fuel to the notion that all Black men are savages, animals without any sense of feeling or control. After all participating in something as barbaric as dog fighting is simply inexcusable. The media had a field day covering the trial and Vick's so called "boy" ratted him out to the feds. I wondered subconsciously if anyone would look at me differnetly because this idiot messed up.

I refused to look at it from his point of view, ever. All I could think about was the fact that the Black community has lost another role model to his own stupidness. Now that I think about it I can safely say that Vick lost more from his mistakes than I did. His wealth, image, prestige, fans, friends, everything that the world says makes a man a man were taken from him. In the time that he's been in prison I have realized my hypocrisy in condemning him. After all I have done plenty of stupid things, I'm just not famous enough for everyone to know about it. I still can't help but wonder how a person that has everything could throw it all away for dogs. I know good Black men who are struggling to make ends meet that would love to have just a tiny fraction of Vick's former success and wealth. But in the end I have to recognize that we're all human and that everyone makes mistakes. It doesn't excuse what he did, but he's paid his debt to society and its time to move on. I wish him the best in whatever lies ahead, and who knows, maybe it Matt Ryan starts sucking maybe my beloved Falcons will get their original franchise quarterback back.

Victims and Perpetrators of Genocide

The year was 1945. Europe lay in ruins, shattered by six years of dvastating conflict. World War 2 was the most costly in terms of human lives and monetary damage in the course of human history. At the heart of the tragedy in Europe lay the holocaust, the brain child of the Nazi's final solution to the Jewish question. More than 6 million innocent people lay dead in concentration adn extermination camps across German-occupied Europe. The destruction was so horrible that Europe's Jewish population was nearly wiped out. The prosecutors at Nurmenburg had to come up with new legal terminology to decribe the seemingly endless depths of the evil Nazi atrocities. Thus the term "crimes against humanity" was born.

The remaining Jews in Europe wanted a safe place that they could call their own. The zionist movement was born and thousands of Jews from acoss the world flocked to the newly created state of Israel to find a frest start. America protected this new country and provided it with economic and military assistance until it became a regional superpower, crushing its surrounding Arab enemies in war after war until it was stronger than all its enemies combined. Once external threats had been subdued, Israel turned to domestic problems in its newly conquered territories. Palestinians were the majority in captured ares like Gaza and the West Bank. These areas were policed by the Israeli military with an iron fist. Israeli settlers invaded the area and established homes and cites in territory that was already the home of Arab Palestinians. This led to uprisings called the intifadas adn ultimately to terrorist organizations like the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Hamas that continue to threaten Israeli civilians and disrupt any hopes of establishing a lasting peace in the area.

The obvious answer is a two state solution. The Palestinians were there before the Israelis however neither side is going away. Allowing the Palestinians to govern themselves from a capital in East-Jerusalem is not only fair, but it would make things easier on Israel as well. The occupation and blockade of the Palistinain areas must end immediately. All checkpoints and fences must be taken down, the Palestinians are people, not animals that need to be locked up and controlled like dogs. It is basically then a live and let live situation. Israel stays out of Palestine and Palestine stays out of Israel. It's sort of like OSU and Michigan the week before the big football game. OSU fans in Ann Arbor keep a low profile while Michigan fans in Columbus exist under pain of death. We don't have to like each other, but we also don't fight. And despite all the trash talking and cheers when OSU inevitably wins, it all resets for the next year, with little to no violence occuring.

Its obvious that Israelis and Arabs don't really like each other. But that doesn't mean that justice can't still be served. However some hard-liners in the current Israeli administration are totally against a two state solution. Bibi Netanyahu, the current leader of the majority political party in Israel, has said repeatedly that he does not support a separate and independent Palestinian state. Under his plan the status quo would continue. Militants would keep making terrorist attacks on Jews, the Israeli military would continue to oppress Palestinians, hard line Islamic extremeist would contune to gain a propaganda victory by dispaying this as a broader effort by the Democratic west to launch a crusade on Islam, and there would be no peace in the Middle East.

However there is a second solution that is being seriously considered by some people in Israel. The Meir Kahane Solution calls for the expulsion of all Palestinians from the occupied territories. Not in a friendly way either. This view was first put forth by a late rabbi who lends his name to the proposal. Jews of all people should know the horrors of genocide. How could anyone in good conscience make such a recommendation and be serious about it? I am convinced that this stupid Rabbi has a seat right next to Hitler and Stalin in hell.
source:http://news.yahoo.com/s/uc/20090519/cm_uc_crpbux/op_3310027

So there really are three options for Israel. Genocide, status quo, or moral courage. Moral courage would suggest the obvious, that a two state solution is not only the right thing to do, but from a selfish point of view would be beneficial to Israel in the long run. The Obama administration has committed itself to brokering a lasting peace between the two sides. Israel is going to have to come to the table willing to make some concessions. Otherwise they no longer deserve the American and Nato support that has made them militarily superior to their Arab enemies. I will not accept my tax dollars being used to oppress civilians in an unfair political and ethnically charged battleground. Its time to either put up or shutup. Israel has one more chance to get it right, otherwise more innocents on both sides will die. There blood will be on Netanyahu's hands.

Religious Hypocrisy and Gay Marriage

For those of you who haven't been following the recent Miss America Pageant scandal, things are starting to get interesting. It all started when celebrity judge and gay rights blogger Perez Hilton asked Miss California a loaded question during the interview portion of the competition. "What are your views on gay marriage?" he asked. She replied, "well I think it's great that we live in a country where everyone is free to choose. But you know, no offense to anyone but I think that marriage should be between a man and a woman. That's how I was raised and that's what I believe."

The reaction was immediate. Some liberal gay rights supporters immediately denounced her as a bigot and other b words that aren't worth mentioning but you know what they are. Why? Because she didn't give the politically correct answer that Hilton and all the other judges were looking for. I'm sorry but any so called competiton where questions are asked and a honest answer isn't expected or wanted isn't worth the time of day in the first place. I mean what was Carrie supposed to do? She didn't ge the normal is world peace possible bs that pageants normally throw out there to contestants. Instead Hilton either knowingly or unknowingly made her the next battle cry of the culture wars that is tearing America apart at the seams. Conservatives in the audience applauded her response while liberals sat and fumed. As an aside, for Hilton and his cronies to decry her honest answer as her being a dumb bitch only furthers misogny and the cultural dismissal of women who are not submissive and subservient to current cultural norms. Hilton apologized the next day for his language only to later retract the apology and say that he considered calling her something even worse. Real classy Hilton, way to demonstrate your tolerance for other opinions. I hope you are not the poster child for the gay rights movement because if so you just set everyone back.

So Carrie became the runner up to some another woman wearing too much makeup because she was bold enough to speak her mind. I completely believe her when she said "no offense" People need to realize that gay marriage is a devisive issue that will take time for people to come to a consensus on. But Carrie's words, demeanor, and attitued are a far cry from hatred or intolerance. As a matter of fact, she shares the same religious beliefs that I do. As I said in an earlier post i just happen to support gay marriage because I believe that people have a right to self determination in such private matters, (and no, abortion does not fall under my definition of a private matter). I will never attempt to force my beliefs upon others and I am a full supporter of tolerance. However I applaud Carrie for her bravery in bringing honesty to pageant that is all fake and misogynistic anyway. The idea that women are only good for walking around in bikinis and and answering stupid scripted hypothetical questions is simply mind boggling.

Well that should have been the end of story but unfortunately things always take a turn for the worst. Soon after the pageant ended accusations came out that Carrie had recieved plastic surgery on her breasts. They turned out to be true but it is so common in America today that no one really cares. Then topless photos from modeling shoots that Carrie had recently done showed up on the web. Some people contended that these photos were a breach of her contract and that she should be stripped of the Miss California crown. But it gets much better. Instead of defending her right to the title or simply saying nothing at all, Carrie is actually using this completely unrelated forum to continue to talk about marriage! Carrie accused her critics of using this slander as an opportunity to silence her on the marriage issue. I concede that probably most of the reason why all of this is happening is because of her politically incorrect answer to Hilton's question. However my problem is with what she said to the reporter next, "From this day forward I promise I will use my naked breasts for good. I intend to fight back with the two greatest weapons I have: my naked boobies." SHe later went on so say that she would be both "tireless and topless" in her efforts to fight civil unions.
source:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-borowitz/miss-usa-vows-to-use-her_b_202163.html

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't she say "no offense" How did a simple and unexpected pageant question turn into yet another crusade against homosexuality? And better still, how is she planning on fighting immorality with immorality? That's like me tryign to fight a forest fire with gasoline, it makes no sense whatsoever. Now to be fair, I'm not saying that to speak out on moral issues of the conscience that one has to be perfect.The bible clearly states in Romans that ALL have sinned. I know that I'm no perfect yet I speak up when I feel things aren't right. Its the entire purpose of the blog you are crrently reading. Yet what Carrie is doing is different. She is actively sinning to combat another person's percieved sin, and smiling while doing it! This is wrong on many levels. It makes her a huge hypocrite.
For her to stand her and say that it's wrong for two people who love each other to be together yet ok for her to expose her God given private sexuality for public consumption is a double standard. If we accept the bible as truth then we have to accept all of it, not just the parts we like. Furthermore this once again reinforces the incredibly damaging and common notion that a woman's sole purpose is to sastify a man's sexual appetite.

Forget the moral aspect for a minute, from a common sense standpoint this approach has an approximate score of zero. Who is she trying to reach with these so called "weapons". The men that see this are going to exactly be paying attention to what she has to say. Their eyes and focus will naturally be on everything but her face. And the women won't care, heck they should all be ashamed. The only women that might be interested in such a sight probably hate Carrie's guts anyways for her views on gay marriage. When she answered the question and nothing more, everything was ok. But in a matter of weeks she has become the very bigot that Perez Hilton accused her of being in the first place. And the absolute best part is that America's supposed conscience is totally going along with all this. I have yet to hear one word of dissent from Republican Christians, people who act like they are the only ones in America who are going to heaven. Are they ok with this? I don't want this woman representing herself like this. It's demeaning and quite frankly it makes her look like an absolute moron. But more importantly I don't want her representing Christian's like this. It makes all of us look like idiots and morons too. I am not a moron.

Are Republicans so desparate to stem the tide of Gay marriage that they are willing to sell their souls to do it? I think we should all be more focused on the fact that America has one of the highest domestic abuse rates of any industrialized country in the world. We wag our finger at the Taliban for trhowing acid on women in schools and then we come home from work and beat the hell out of our women when they "get outta line". Hypocrisy. We spend all this time talking about how gay marriage is the end of the traditional family yet we encourage our males to be pimps and players and to dodge their fatherly duties after they have knocked up yet another female. We watch shows like Flavor of Love about a guy who already has kids with multiple women who he doesn't support, We watch him live in a house with supposedly "real" women and try to get married, knowing full well their relationship won't last more than a year. I personally want to disown Flavor and everybody like him. They make me ashamed to call myself a Black man. Yet we promote this as an image of ouselves through the mass media! We ignore drugs, pornogrhaphy, infidelity and everything else, just so we can worry about what Gay couples are doing. I say enough! End the hypocrisy now.

Republican Intolerance

Following Obama's victory in the 2008 presidential election, the Republican party claimed they were switching gears to "connect with a new electorate". Indeed the millenial generation of which I am a proud member not only voted overwhelmingly in support of Obama, but also shares characteristics with past generations who were heavily pro-democrat. According to surveys conduted by the Pew Research Center and several political scientists, Millenials are more likely to view the world as capable of being a good place, more likely to believe that we can make a difference. This is one reason why Obama's change slogan rang so clearly with young voters. We know that change is possible under the right leadership. On the issues, millenials are more likely to say they support health care reform and social security and welfare. Gay marriage also enjoys a narrow majority of support among young voters. Demographically speaking, the millenial generation is the most racially and ethnic diverse that this country has ever seen. Young people are now more likely than ever to be exposed to and educated about other cultures. Young Americans are even more likely to share several different cultures because of the increase in racially diverse couples.

All of this bodes well for the Democrats, who have long taken up the mantle for social justice and racial equality. The Democrats will forever be remembered as the party that catapulted a Black man to the oval office. The Republican party is now struggling to rebuild their image in the face of defeats in the last two major national elections. In an attempt to show off their racial diversity, they appointed Michael Steele, a Black man, as chairman of the Republican National Convention. However his attempts to merge hip hop and politics and to make the Republican party cool have been a dismal failure. Worse than his PR campaign fiasco was when Michael Steele made a comment that Rush Limbaugh, a conservative radio talk show host, was not the leader of the Republican party and then recanted and apologized a few days later on national television. It would have been funny to watch had it not been so sickeningly pathetic. Seeing Steele grovel to a heartless racist like Limbaugh really made my skin crawl. For those of you who haven't heard Limbaugh's incredibly inflammatory comments concerning racial minorities simply go to youtube and look them up. You'll be amazed at what you find.

After the Steele fiasco the Republican party turned to Louisianna governor Bobby Jindal as the smart new minority face of the party. However ever since his responce to the presidential state of the union address, the media has stopped caring about anything he has to say. Still insisting that they are not the party of no while throwing tea parties and drawing enough attention from homeland security to be labeled a potential domestic terrorist threat, right-wingers all across the nation look for a new sense of direction. Two recent events show a trend that I hope and pray is not the future of the Republican party, otherwise the Dems will be in power for a VERY long time.

The first offense to American decency comes in the form of political trickery played out by the Republican party in relation to the new hate crimes bill that is being sent through Congress. Representative Steven King proposed that the term sexual orientation exclude pedophiles, even though the bill already does this by defining sexual orientation as "consensual homosexuality or heterosexuality". This behavior is clearly legal, while pedophilism is not, EVER. So why would a Republican representative introduce an amendment proposing a clarification that has already been made? Why to later blame it all on Democrats of course! His amendment was not a good-hearted attempt to separate homosexuals from law breaking child molesters as that distinction had already been made. It was instead an attempt to tie the two together by forcing the Democrats to vote against his stupid amendment. They of course did, and what followed was lower than a child bully's playground antics. After the vote, Sean Hannity and other conservatives on the Fox News Network blasted Democrats for siding with pedophiles. Supposedly because Democrats showed some moral courage and voted against an amendment they knew to be corrupt they now somehow want to protect pedophiles. This twisted logic could only come from people who are messed up in the head. In the end, this is all a pathetic attempt to smear the Democrats and to prevent passage of the Hate crimes bill, a law that specifically defines hate crimes as being "motivated by prejudice based on the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of the victim. Of course the Republican party doesn't want to protect minorities, the disabled or women.
source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20090507/cm_huffpost/198326

In keeping with the "lets build up or party by offending the general public and alienating potential voters" strategy, Joe the Plumber, the unofficial conservative hero during the 2008 presidential campaign, dropped this intellectual bombshell in an interview with a Christian publication "I would never let openly homosexual people anywhere near my children". Really? Why are you afraid that the gay gene is going to rub off on your kids and make them undesirable to your oppressive theocratic ideology? I love this comment, I really do because it allows us to examine the current firestorm behind gay marriage. As a Christian I believe what the Bible says,even the parts that I don't like. So if it says that homosexuality is wrong then it's wrong. But here is the difference between me and Joe the Plumber. I don't believe i should force my beliefs onto other people. Just because I believe something doesn't mean that everyone else does. This is where the idea of the separation between church and state comes into play. I am a full supporter of Gay marriage because I don't believe I can tell other people how to live their lives, especially when their decisions only affect themselves and cause no harm to them or anyone else. If gay people are allowed to marry then that IN NO WAY infringes upon my rights or my commitment to raise a family in the traditional manner the way that God intended. I also am not stupid enough to assert that Pedophilia and Gays are the same thing. The real reason that Joe doesn't want gays near his kids is because he harbors some irrational and completely idiotic fear that gay people want to rape, molest or in some other way harm his kids. This is the same kind of fear used in the South to justify violence, segregation and lynching for hundreds of years. They were doing it to protect their white women from supposedly dangerous Black men that wanted to harm them. Such irrational fears must be put to rest, forever. Similar arguments are being used to prevent happy and stable gay couples from adopting, while hetrosexual couples that abuse their kids are allowed to keep them. What kind of logic is that? Is a heterosexual couple that locks their kids in cages at night and beats them severly for the smallest of infractions really better than letting them live with a loving couple whose names just happen to be Jim and John or Sally and Sue?
source:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/04/joe-the-plumber-queer-mea_n_196116.html

The Republican party is scratching their heads about why they no longer have political power while they let idiots like Joe the Plumber, Stephen King, and Rush Limbaugh make a mockery of justice here in America. Newsflash neocons, the reason you're losing votes is because America is tired of your bigotry, racism and hatred. We've moved on so why haven't you? If the Republican party really wants to win again, stick to anti-abortion and fiscal responsibility and lose the war-mongering and intolerance. It will serve you well in the long run.