Egypt

While Egypt is in the midst of their own revolution, there is a question that I want to ask the rest of the world, especially my country (the US).  As an American, what is our responsibility or part in these revolutions?  I’m not asking whether we are responsible for getting a government together for Egypt that is just (like we tried to do in Iraq), but I am asking what, as a single person, should be my task as these protests go under way.  How do we show our support in a completely peaceful manner?

Larger cities have had their own protests in support of the Egyptian people.  Some people have donned Keffiyehs.  Many of us have sat around in the lounge, watching the news rather than silly films and have been discussing what has happened at dinner tables.  But, at the end of the day, how do we show our support and our own responsibility?

This is my question for you.  What is your responsibility in the Egyptian protests for a new government and the ousting of Mubarak?  How will you show your support?  Will you show your support?  In fact, do you even support the protests?  This is what I want to know.

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Here’s what I want to see:

More and more articles are coming out about the 2012 presidential elections, most of which are chalk-full of Sarah Palin interviews about a possible presidential run.  Aside from the fact that she’s now a Fox News analyst and has a reality show that are taking up significant amounts of time, I’m not sure if she would be able to win the primaries because of her rather strong views.  So, I’m not really sure if she’ll get the nod from the GOP to begin with because they may realise that, though you need to be highly conservative to first win the nomination, becoming more moderate afterwards may be a difficulty.  But you know what I want to see for the Republican nominations?  Mitt Romney or TRON PAUL!

Oh, I’m sorry.  That’s Ron Paul.

And you know what?  I’d be pretty happy seeing that kind of race against Obama (who, let’s not kid ourselves, will most likely get the Democratic nomination).

You may question why I’d like to see that race, so let’s just put down the basics on each of these guys:

Obama: Well, come on, he’s signed a ton of great legislation into effect during his time thus far, and I’m not even talking about the health bill which is literally the only reason that I can now get insurance once I’m off of my parent’s policy (because of pre-existing conditions, may I add).  He’s signed in bills to help recreate jobs in environmental sectors that not only help our economy but also help install more efficient forms of energy across the country.  He’s boosted scientific research, shut down Gitmo, and cut taxes for small businesses.  All of which I’m fond.

(T)Ron Paul:  I know that the odds are small that the will even run because of his age, and they’re even smaller that he would get the Republican nod even though he is what a true Republican is, but I still have hope as a Libertarian!  One of the cool new things he’s working on is creating a bill that makes it illegal for Federal employees to hide behind their immunity if they’ve totally fucked things up (so, basically holding people accountable).  He also strongly believes that what we do to other countries can often piss them off and cause more problems, which is a strong thing to admit, and he’s up for putting America first when it comes to our military rather than just stretching our troops across the globe.  Plus, ending subsidies for oil companies sounds like a good plan.  It may not work, but even the idea is a start.

Mitt Romney: I’ll fully admit that he’s not one of my very favourites, but out of the major Republicans up for the nomination, he’s one of my faves.  I like his position on the second amendment.  He’s in favour but also supports a waiting time and limit on assault weapons.  There’s a difference between owning a hunting rifle and an AK-47, and he understands this.  I also appreciate that, though he’s pro-life, he is also in favour of allowing states to decide legislation for themselves.  I also like that he supports diplomacy with Iraq and Afghanistan rather than a purely military approach.

None of these candidates are perfect.  Obama can be a bit closed-minded to conservatives, Ron Paul’s education plans are a little frightening, and Mitt Romney has a bit of a problem with separating church and state.  But you know what?  If I’m going to be reasonable with who may get to be nominated, then I’m going to be reasonable with picking these three guys as my favourites.

So, tell me what you think.  Who would you like to see in the 2012 race?  Who do you not want to see?  Tell me why; I’d love to hear it!

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I haven’t been sleeping well the past few days.  Between the overbearing thunderstorms, thinking too much, and the weirdest dreams, it’s been a gamble whether I’ll get a full night each day.

More than the other things, though, the dreams have been getting me.  I dreamt a friend from uni drove all the way to my house simply to say ‘hello’, then next thing I knew, I was swimming in the Missouri River.  Only, it wasn’t tainted muddy brown.  It was small and as clear as a swimming pool but with a currently flowing through it.  And as I swam, the current of the river began to get streaks of dark black.  Shit.  Oil spill.  And I was running and swimming and running and trying to get away from the oil, but, well, it completely invaded.

I woke up a bit confused.  For a girl who lives in Missouri, I shouldn’t be quite so worried about this oil spill, but I guess it effects even those who don’t live near the coasts.  Maybe I’m upset that it has taken three months just to contain the oil.  Or maybe it’s that, even though I don’t eat seafood, I can still feel sorry for the seafood economy and the local businesses of the south.  Or maybe it’s just my chagrin at how the government is handling the mess by not allowing reporters to even be 60 feet from the oil.  Yeah, not even sixty feet from oily seagulls or even a hospital that was treating someone who was injured by the oil (some type of allergic reaction).  That upsets me, since it isn’t allowing for freedom of the press.

But that right was taken away a long time ago.

Still, I suppose I’m stressed and that that’s just bubbling in my subconscious, alongside a million other things.  I’m very eager to get back to school, so that may be another thing making me bounce off the walls and have my mind doing flips.  Tell me what you think of the oil spill / disaster.  I could talk for days about it, but I’m interested in hearing what other people have to say.

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True American Values

From a site about ‘true American Values’:

“As arrows are to an archer, children are to a father.”

So, children are instruments for killing things or hitting darts for entertainment?  Last I checked, children weren’t meant for that and shouldn’t be used as tools of destruction.  And why should the children only be used or coveted by their father?  What’s the say of all the mothers out there who birthed and helped to raise those children?  There’s no winning me over with sexist or discriminatory remarks, now.  Nice try American-values website, but you didn’t quite hit the bull’s eye with this one.

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News

Reading the news, as usual, brings out the worst of me.  It brings out the fight and the kick and the ‘that’s just not fair’ attitude that will bite back at anyone who opposes me.  Now, I’m not closed-minded about politics.  I won’t sit here and tell you that your opinion is wrong, but boy do I get angry over certain state decisions and how they effect the thinking of the people effected.

I was reading an article about how the prime minister of Japan just stepped down a few days ago amidst the roe with the US over the base at Okinawa.  The US has had it’s base there since the end of World War II in order to better keep power in the East, but Japan is avidly against the base.  First of all, it’s a giant patch of the city taken over by a foreign army.  Second, after the 1995 rape by three US servicemen of a twelve year-old Japanese girl, the people aren’t too happy about having the soldiers there.  I understand that there’s probably a need to have a base, but I also think that Japan and the US should come to some agreement that can keep both sides happy–rather than the problem being so large that the head of a country ups and leaves.

It also got me to thinking about something way long ago.  Back in sixth grade, I remember a teacher who would basically shove his political opinions down our throats during class.  While I now thank him for forcing us to read Animal Farm (as it is my favourite novel), I do not thank him for the animosity he taught us against President Clinton and those who supported other nations.  He complained about how Clinton had sold a part of the US to Japan for a base in California, and how terrible this was.  He would lament on about how he knew some guy who flew his American flag upside-down for all eight years of Clinton’s presidency in order to show that he was in distress from the politics.  For an eleven year-old, what our teachers said was solid truth, so I believed for still some years that Clinton must have been an evil politician and that Bush was the way to go.  Of course, it only took me three years to find that things weren’t quite that way.  It was around the same time I ‘woke up’; thinking for myself just became natural, and I began to question my conservative upbringing in the same way that I now question my early liberal views during high school.  (I’m a libertarian, if you should need to know.)

But what struck me was that my teacher was so angry over Japan getting the same rights that we have in America.  America makes bases all over the world, so why can’t other countries do the same?  Sure, Americans will yell, ‘But they can’t!  They’re (insert nation here)!  They could be terrorists or communists or socialists, et cetera!’

But, really, if we have the right to go and make military bases all over the place, why can’t other countries have the same right to have military bases in the US or around us?  What makes us so damn special?  For the ‘Land of the Free’, we certainly don’t seem to like giving freedom outside of our borders.  I guess equal rights end at the imaginary lines we’ve created.

But it does invoke a lot of passion in me when someone will criticise me for thinking this way.  The people who say, ‘well, if you don’t like America, why don’t you leave?’ just end up sickening me.  If you don’t like America, you try to change it.  It’s something our country is all about.  When we were pissed about not having voting rights, women went into the streets and fought.  When we were pissed about Vietnam, college kids shoved flowers into soldiers guns.  When we were pissed about our soldiers dying in Afghanistan, we protested outside of Bush’s ranch.  It’s for the same reason that, even though I don’t agree with the Tea Partiers, I don’t mind them protesting.  Sure, many of them don’t know at all what they’re talking about, but if they want to campaign for an America they more approve of, then have at it!  That’s the point!  To me, showing others that nations aside from America should have the same rights as we do to set up bases or make nuclear weapons or fuck up the Earth should be my right to think and say.  After all, if we’re allowed to do something, why should that give us the right to deny that allowance to someone else?

What’cha say?

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Globalisation

For my history final, I have to write a paper about globalisation, and it ended up being an incredibly enjoyable experience to write it out tonight.  I just hope that I’ll be able to remember all of it for this morning’s final (it is 2.30 in the morning, after all) since it has to be hand-written in class.  Anyway, enjoy.

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Story in the Works

I was bored on Tuesday, waiting for my despised art class, when I came upon an interesting idea for a story.  I’d been thinking over the weekend how I’d like to write something futuristic, maybe about robotics and humanity.  Unfortunately, the same lame ass idea popped into my head.  Scientist builds perfect human-android-thing.  Human-android-thing escapes.  Human-android-thing kicks ass.

Sorry, but that idea is not only over-used, but also just ridiculous.  Give me something with more depth.  I begged my head to just give me something that actually made sense, some idea that I could add social contexts into, when I stumbled upon it.  An intriguing idea that was more political than robotic, but still satisfying.

What if, in the future, economic turmoil of our time is still having adverse affects?  What if it caused massive crime, a full depression, etc?  What if a president got into power during this time of turmoil by promising a decrease in crime using a new bill that would supplement the police force with robotic counterparts?  What if this bill changed quickly after this president assumed office and actually destroyed modern police forces to replace them with robotic enforcers?  Crime drops dramatically, but what happens to those cops?

My question with writing this short story is this: How will what we do today to protect ourselves later harm our rights and livelihood?  It asks if humanity matters.  With robotics to do our jobs, what does that leave for us to do?

I hope to finish the short story over Thanksgiving break so that I can post it.  I’m excited about the political contexts that are hidden in the story thus far, along with how it’s told.  There is no chosen one.  No saviour.  It’s told around one man because this is his story of how the world is at the time.  But, in the greater scheme of things, he is completely insignificant.  And that’s what I find so intriguing, aside from everything else.  I enjoy that a story can be told so strongly about someone, but then you find out that this person doesn’t matter at all.  He’s just a speck out there.  Nobody cares in his world, but by damned, I’ll try to make you care.

Really, I’m excited to finish this story.  And when it’s all edited, I’ll post it.

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Consistency

Note: This is a long one and more of a look inward than that of a page ripped from a diary.  No need to read unless you want a lot of background on me and some philosophy.

Lately, I’ve wondered about how much consistency there is in my life.  I’m naturally a creature of habit, stuck in her old ways: I sit in the same seat each day for my classes even though I’m allowed to sit where ever I wish (and I always sit in the middle front for each class, too), I awake the same way each morning, listen to the same music repeatedly, and I refuse to change around the furniture in my room (I’ve had the same set up in my  bedroom since I was six).  Yet, I’m also changing quite a bit and in ways that I didn’t recently realise.

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