Could the future be algae powered?

Precious Moments

You know what is really annoying? Family blogs. Blogs about kids, moms, dads, pets, family trees, family holiday traditions...They seem to have taken over Blogger.com. A moment ago I was idly clicking "next blog" to see if I could find other interesting blogs to maybe follow, and one after another these wonders of pastel familial horror came up. I understand that people love their kids, and have amazing experiences as parents, and come across interesting things in the search for their relatives, but quite frankly, those things don't need blog posts. What happened to the good old diary? Keep track of all your lovely moments in a pretty little notebook, and pass it on to your kid, it will last longer, and it won't take so long for people like me to find relevant content on the web.

This War on Terror is brought to you by...

Read this news story today and felt compelled to rant.Basically, the U.S. will pull out its armed forces at the set withdrawal date, Obama will go up and say some “mission accomplished” bullshit, and the war will rage on, because it’s just business as usual up in Washington.

As the U.S. troops leave Iraq, they will be replaced by privately contracted soldiers from Dyncorp and Xe Services, which was formerly called Blackwater, until reports of massacres and other negative publicity led them to change their name. This is, in effect, the privatization of the war on terror. So, the question for me is, are things actually any better, or did they just take a major turn for the worse? As far as I understand the situation, the U.S. government (taxpayers) is still paying for the contracted services of these private armed forces, the men and women fighting will still be citizens of the U.S. and other countries currently fighting ( so there will still be casualties, parents will still lose children, and children will still lose parents), the corporations behind these armed forces are less accountable to the American public than even the American military is, and they have a reputation for being less concerned with civilian well being in those places where they are sent to do America's dirty work.

Is this the future of war then? I can't say I'm surprised, but I am disappointed. When the American people demand an end to the war and a withdrawal of the troops, they mean exactly that, an end to the war. They don't want to pay for a conflict the U.S. never should have started in the first place, and exploiting a loophole in the system to end a conflict without actually ending it is a dirty move on the part of the Obama administration.

Our Tax Dollars At Work

Lately in the news there has been a lot of talk about politicians on the right trying to keep your “hard earned tax dollars from paying for abortions.” I wonder what would happen if people decided to push for legislation to stop tax dollar funding of wars, after all, there are a great many people who vehemently opposed the war, and their numbers have only increased over the many years that the US has been involved in the current conflicts in the Middle East. Would legislation like that be considered legitimate, or would it be considered unrealistic and unpatriotic?

Frankly I think cutting tax funding for abortions is unrealistic, because unlike tax funding for wars, tax funding for abortions doesn’t even exist. Money is not allowed to pay for abortions currently, so what is the right fighting for? What they would argue is that there shouldn’t even be funding for places that perform abortions, whether or not that’s what the money is for, and they would specifically point out Planned Parenthood as an example. Abortion only accounts for 10% of Planned Parenthood's procedures though, the rest are STD testing and treatment, necessary routine tests for women’s health, and other entirely necessary services. If funding is cut from Planned Parenthood, which provides services to low income women across the country, many locations would have to close their doors, and rather than having the desired effect of reducing abortions, the abortions would increase. Women would have less access to contraceptives; there would be more unplanned pregnancies, and more abortions, legal or otherwise. There would also be higher rates of STD’s, more preventable deaths from things like cervical and breast cancer, and more of a burden on other tax funded health clinics for low income families as they are forced to take on the responsibilities of the now closed Planned Parenthood locations.

Now, maybe someone would argue that war is a matter of national security, so cutting tax funding for it just because the people don’t want war is entirely different than cutting funding to abortion providers just because some people think it’s immoral, but if you look a little closer it’s clear that it’s actually not as different as some might think. The point of the military and national security is to protect people and property in the US, it is part of what is understood as necessary to maintain a civil society, but it is only a part. The sustained existence of our civil society, where people obey the laws for the most part and can generally expect not to have their things stolen or to get assaulted on their way to work, is due as much or more to the availability of education, food, healthcare, infrastructure like good roads and public transportation, and other things which are commonly taken for granted, than to the military’s actions around the world. The right to and availability of abortion is one of the things that makes our relatively peaceful and prosperous society possible; statistics show that places where abortion is banned or availability is limited see a marked increase in crime and a general social and economic decline.

I haven’t even gotten into the rights of women, and I won’t, it’s an argument everyone is familiar with, but clearly the issue of whether or not to fund clinics which provide abortions with tax money is a ridiculous one at best. Cutting funding won’t reduce the number of abortions, will raise crime, will negatively impact the economy, and will piss off a lot of women, and until we’ve also seriously questioned whether people want their tax dollars paying for other things they’re morally, and politically opposed to, I think it’s also an entirely illegitimate issue.

Protest Song

Give it a chance, the lyrics are fantastic. This is the only song I can think of that goes down the list of foreign leaders the US has overthrown, if you're not familiar with them, check out a book called "Overthrow" by Stephen Kinzer, it's a great introduction to the side of US policy you don't hear about in the news.

More protest songs to come, comment with suggestions :)

Mission Accomplished

So many years after 9-11, and long after he'd ceased to be truly relevant, Osama Bin Laden is dead, presumably killed by the US military. Now, I know Bin Laden did horrible things, but I find it strange to really celebrate his death, it is only a symbolic victory, and an extremely minor one at that. Bin Laden no longer really had any power, and the forces the US is fighting against are deeply entrenched and will go on just fine without him. I suppose the reason for the sudden resurgent patriotism, back slapping and yee-hawing is that he's finally getting what he deserves, but he could never really pay for the things he did, and neither can so many others, on all sides of the conflicts going on today, who are responsible for human rights abuses but continue to live and work in the public with impunity. I think it is actually unfortunate that he's dead, that we couldn't take him alive and make some use of him, but then, it's not really in the interest of those in power to have him or any of their other enemies actually speak, as was the case with Saddam I have a feeling the US just wanted Bin Laden out of the way as soon as possible.

Now that Bin Laden is dead, I think it's likely that he will become a Martyr, there will be demonstrations and perhaps more violence briefly, and then things will go on as they were before, revealing once and for all the extent to which the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan never really were about getting those who perpetrated the 9-11 attacks. The conflicts we are in today represent a continuation of US foreign policy as it has pretty much always existed. The US is in the Middle East to protect its economic and geopolitical interests, which it will do it at any costs, and it will use whatever excuses it feels are necessary to justify its actions to the watching international community.

To those "realists" who think that these are matters of national security, and that these conflicts are necessary and cannot end yet, I would like to ask, what put the US in the positions it is in today in the first place? Why are our energy needs an urgent matter of national security? How were things allowed to get this bad? Why is the Middle East so unstable, violent, and undemocratic? Why is Iran so desperate to develop its nuclear capabilities? Why is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict so seemingly impossible to end? It would only take minimal amounts of research to implicate the US as the primary force behind the genesis of the problems it is today fighting against, and the events now are the beginnings of future conflicts we can only begin to imagine.

I don't want to be a kill joy, and I do understand the feelings of those thousands of people that rushed to Ground Zero and to the White House to celebrate when the announcement was made, and the site of people coming together as they haven't done in so long makes me warm and fuzzy on the inside, but even in this moment, and perhaps especially in this moment, I think it's imperative that people remain critical. This "historic" event takes place in a wide historical and political context, and it will be used to manipulate those same cheering people who so clearly just want a break.