Wolf Blitzer is moderating in New Hampshire, and he asks the entire crop of potential GOP candidates for ’08 to raise their hand if they believe that gays should be allowed to serve in the military. Not one hand went up. This is called ‘stroking the Republican base like it needs to be stroked’. There is no other way to arouse the voters who show up to cast ballots in a Republican primary, but with a dominant grasp of the issues, along with the magic words that’ll bring them to attention. It is a formula that can only be ignored in those rare instances when the voter is faced with star-fucking as an alternative.
If you hope to circumvent the reality of what it actually takes to make it through this gauntlet of intolerance, then you’d better be famous. Because nothing else to an ‘up is down’ right-winger is nearly as potent as the thrilling dynamic of feeling akin to someone on TV. And when it’s the most irrational right-wing subset of them all, this phenomenon is taken to the absolute limits. Hence the natural partnership established between former Marine Corporal Matt Sanchez and the brain trust over at a blog called ‘Right Wing News‘. Anyone unfamiliar with Mr. Sanchez, can bone up on his story with a few lines from something I posted on 4/12/07:
12/4/2006 – On this date the New York Post publishes a column written by marine Corporal Matt Sanchez concerning harassment of the military on the campus of Columbia University (3)
2 – Number of times Sanchez subsequently appeared on Fox News (Hannity and Colmes – VIDEO) (The O’Reiley Factor – VIDEO)
3/2/2007 – On this date the American Conservative Union honored Matt Sanchez with the Jeane Kirkpatrick Academic Freedom Award at the 34th annual CPAC (4)
200 – Dollar amount required for a man to pay Sanchez for sex (5)
3 – Number of gay porno films Sanchez is known to have starred in
12,000 – Amount of money the Marines have accused Sanchez of stealing from various donors to fund a fictional deployment to Iraq (6)
After finding out about his past, it is obvious what happened next. The show-biz folks who turned him into something he wasn’t – pumped him up for their own sake – proceeded to drop him like his name was Foley and pretend he’d never existed. Only problem was, in the process of creating this fictional character, nobody ever bothered to let the poor guy know that he wasn’t real. It is a hallmark of the star-fucking cannibalistic nature at play here, that the most relevant ones (Coulter, BillO), those who can actually create these characters, are sharks in the ocean, forever moving forward, feeding and forgetting.
In the subsequent interactions I’ve had with Sanchez this week, on deadissue and Right Wing News, it has become clear that this is what happened. And although it sounds bad, I can assure you that it is getting worse by the day. As his star was falling so rapidly, he had the misfortune of crossing paths with his mirror image, and the cycle began once more. Only this time the podium and network studio is a laptop in Fallujah, and the audience of millions is a delusional collection of right-wingers on a blog where “the truth” = “civil war in Iraq is a myth created by the liberal media”.
Stephen Colbert on one of his best nights doesn’t even come close to a couple hours at ‘Right Wing News’. And while liberal blogs like Firedoglake are turning into juggernauts, this blog (like most of its right-wing brethren) has moved in the exact opposite direction. An exclamation point to this observation is the periodic post containing nothing but a handful of advertiser links (unlabeled, just posted as ‘Link #1, Link #2, etc.) with a request that readers give each of them a few clicks. With that in mind, you can imagine how excited they became when a crumb from show-biz table named Sanchez fell their way and agreed to post exclusively on ‘Right Wing News’ from within Iraq.
Insomnia plagued my post-Sopranos Sunday night on through to Monday morning. Along the way I came across “Exclusive To Right Wing News: Embed Matt Sanchez Reports From Fallujah“. Naturally, I signed up for an account and started posting comments. Hours later I check in and continue commenting, only to get abruptly banned from the site. Not surprised by it, as experience has taught me that for a right-wing blogger, Monday mornings are sacred. Another battle I had a while back was with the owner of ‘Right Thinking From the Left Coast‘. He’d lined up a scathing hit piece on Cindy Sheehan on a Monday morning, and even though I’d tore this guy up a number of times in the past, it wasn’t until I called him on timing the Sheehan post along with other bloggers for that morning that he was compelled to block my IP address. Swarms of storm troopers descended upon deadissue that same day, furiously flinging feces for what seemed like forever.
This thing with Sanchez was much easier going than that episode, as I simply created a new username and continued on. Before that happened, I posted to deadissue what I wasn’t allowed to post to ‘Right Wing News’ in response to one of his comments:
~~~
Matt Sanchez is a blogger in Iraq, and he’s posted a rant about how the mainstream media is too chicken-shit to leave the Green Zone (he apparently is notified of the activities of the entire media apparatus in the country on a regular basis)…stop me if you’ve heard this one before from a right-winger…and so he is debunking news articles, one in particular about a suicide bombing that was reported by the Wall Street Journal, without facts or a follow-up to the news division or even a single word from the article itself. You’re just supposed to take his word for it, and that is precisely what 99/100 readers of Right Wing News are prepared to do.
I was able to post comments up until I submitted this (went into moderation and so I posted a comment that showed up on the site – meaning that, I wasn’t banned until they read the following):
Right Wing News – Fair enough, I’ll disregard the particulars regarding such and such, and simply debate Mr. Sanchez on the points he makes. If “street cred” is necessary for everyone here to take what I have to say seriously, then let me say up front that I’m an Army veteran, currently doing all I can to assist fellow veterans and soldiers who are still in the system. This consists of letter writing on their behalf, advice on how to address grievances within the system (trying to prevent people who need help into just going AWOL, as unfortunately a number of soldiers end up doing before they reach me or one of my colleagues).
I LOVE these people! The individual stories are horrendous, and for the most part transcend politics entirely. I could go on, but to blog-whore this one time and point you to ‘deadissueMilitary‘, you’ll find many actual accounts from soldiers and marines who are there today, as well as others who aren’t. Up front let me say that on a philosophical level, I believe the side-plot of media-mania in politics is detrimental in a situation like we have in Iraq. To flatly accuse reporters from the WSJournal of not getting a story right is something that should be confirmed with a request to their news division. A few months back there was an AP story about worshipers being doused with kerosene and set on fire outside of a mosque, to which a blogger decided it was fake, and that post was copied throughout the blogsphere.
It had to do with a source that the blogger felt did not exist, but after AP confirmed that he certainly did exist, as was proven (to the detriment of that source btw, as policy in Iraq for the police is to not provide information to the press, and so, this man could be dead by now over this)…what then? Perhaps in the instance Matt is pointing out here, there was more than one suicide bomber attack, and he is confusing that one with the one he describes here. How can we know if that is the case? Sadly, we have to dig up those stories ourselves, as Mr. Sanchez hasn’t bothered to compare the WSJournal article with his own recollections…nor has he leveraged his fan base here to track down an authority in the WSJ newsroom that can provide more details on the article and how it originated.
My main point here being…that Mr. Sanchez expects us to take his reporting at face value, yet besides a “trust me because I’m in Iraq”…bottom line, disregard MSM reporting because it is false and biased, but don’t apply that skepticism to what I write.
Matt: The reporting is, indeed, atrocious. The Washington Post report about the Green Zone running out of food, or members of the military not being able to blog were flat out lies.
The item regarding soldiers not being able to blog was based on an Army policy, of which, a copy was disseminated to the public through the media. It pertained to all electronic communication (including email), with each having to be approved by the command prior to it being sent, or else it is considered “unauthorized”. This isn’t about a “liberal media bias”, it’s the policy. Here is that document – Army Regulation 530-1.
Matt:I’m currently one of FIVE embeds in all of the Al Anbar Province. A province roughly the size of South Carolina.
And what about regional media? Iraqi media? You point out the fact right here that you are but one individual in a land that is vast in size, yet in your piece, the way you take a large brush to the media’s role in Iraq makes it seem like a small place. If one person (you) can single-handedly prove that a news organization like the WSJournal is making up their stories, then Iraq must be a small place after all.
Matt:I’m surprised that the people who are most opposed to Iraq are the people who want to know the least about Iraq, and just don’t have the guts to come out here.
I take this with a grain of salt. There hasn’t been a day gone by where the right-wing passed up an opportunity to pretend that only their side was invested in Iraq and/or had the “guts” to even be there, and I honestly attribute this posturing to a Napoleon complex. With the amount of journalists killed in this war already, it is insulting to read, in 2007, that they are all cowards, fabricators, etc.
Hence the reason why this piece by Mr. Sanchez is propaganda, and should not be taken seriously by anyone. If this one man is more capable than entire media outlets operating within Iraq…well, how likely is that? Let’s be real. We can admire someone for their bravery, but if they have to gain their relevance by assaulting the bravery of others – ironically (or not) the people he is competing against – it presents ethical questions that cannot be overcome by simply saying “trust me, I’m in Iraq and you’re not”.
~~~
My new persona ‘kent_brockman’ posts this same text to RWN, and rather than respond to these points I make, the brain trust is mostly concerned with protocol, “Trench Raider: Morever (sic) if you look at the comments section of the lastest post on the site deadissue.com, you will see were he admits to acting as a proxy for the banned user of the same name by posting material for him…(moderators take notice)”
The moderators are adamant about booting anyone who brings up Sanchez’s dicey past as a gay prostitute, and in full-on star-fucker mode, they’ve decided suddenly that gay people aren’t so bad after all, and even if they serve in the military, it’s alright as long as they allow themselves to be exploited by the right-wing in some way. They’ve got to insist that the man is legit, or else resort to posting the exact same thing without the famous name attached to it. Sanchez seems to be reveling in his celebrity.
Matt Sanchez (12:53PM) I’m one of five embeds and if I’m not right the MSM could NOT contradict me–they’re just not here. I’ve been out on the streets of Iraq where we’ve been greeted like saviors. The people of Fallujah know the military is protecting them from a group of people who are trying to kill them.
Matt Sanchez (2:13PM) The US is NOT an occupier. We’re the ones helping this government stand up on its own.
Matt Sanchez (2:43PM) I’ve been RPG’ed, shot at and saw the remnants of a suicide bomber after he(?) blew himself up. I’ve had an IED go
off in front of me. Do you really think I’m afraid of the Pink Press, or people like you Kent-Brockman?
It got old and I eventually informed them that kent_brockman was deadissue, then called it a day. The tone of my comments changed greatly from the beginning of the day, as over time I honestly felt bad for the guy. He was telling these people what they wanted to hear…that the war was being misreported by the mainstream press, and the state of things over there is exaggerated. For some reason he went to Iraq as a civilian to prove this first hand. Fast forward past the final banning from RWN – Sanchez ended up on deadissue later on that night and it wasn’t pretty:
Matt Sanchez: As for “being co-opted” Give me a break. The leftist, liberal “progressive” biased monopoly on distorted press is a bane on this country. I know liberals believe feeling sorry for others makes them feel superior but I don’t need your “care”.
deadissue: Sanchez, after being famous, then going all the way to Iraq to make it in punditry, to be posting exclusively on “Right Wing News” is a bad sign. That was my main point in all of this. Tell me that Malkin, Coulter and all the other GOP heavies you rubbed elbows with a few months ago are quoting your reporting from Iraq…no? Not really?
Keep on living the conspiracy theory out Matt…fact is, you decided to land onto the Titanic 3/4 of the way down, and you’re wearing out the bullshit that was already old in 04-05. Guaranteed, the likes of Right Wing News will toss you a bone, but if you ask anyone in the know, I’d imagine they’d consider both you and the site equally fucked at this point, so why not combine forces and sink even faster…
Just be warned, that once you pile up a few more entries like the one today, you will be picked up by the people, only more of them will be on KOS than any of the right-wing sites. And if you’re cool with all of that, you’ll still have to face up at some point with the fact that these people you’re hoping to inspire on the right, are the same ones who deem homosexuality immoral and use the community as a wedge issue whenever they can.
So you’re turning your back on the military and the gay community…all so you can become a product in right-wing world, which is a fantasy that died the second your past came to light. Just like Tillman, they’d gotten what they needed out of you, and now they’re done. I fear that you started believing in the hype, but I did my good deed for the week. Good luck Matt!
Matt Sanchez: Ok, the emotional left is being dismissive of what they don’t want to understand. Good luck in the prozac-bliss.
deadissue: “The emotional left”…Wasn’t it the pro-war GOP house minority leader Boehner who was crying two weeks ago on the floor?
Look, I’m not the one in Iraq sucking down kool-aid. That is where your emotions got you. Now you’ve got a wing-nut fanbase that still isn’t clued in on the fact that a civil war is taking place over there.
They send out the delusional self-hating gay guy, because no one else was so desperate for relevance that they’d actually put their fairy tales to the test over there…until they found you. A suitable mark.
So there you have it. Another gay Republican. Unfortunately, this one in particular appears to be searching for something in the worst possible place on earth a person could be right now. If and when he returns…for there to be no redemption, and in spite of his sacrifice, no hope of ever reattaining that peak which initially led to the creation of his persona…it will be devastating I imagine. Who will be around from the crowd hoisting him up now?
Good point…now, were bread lines a bad idea because it made the starving people lazy?
I don’t know what bread lines have to do with welfare, but obviously they were not a bad idea. I looked up “bread lines” in Wikipedia, and the food was actually offered by private charities. Many people need a helping hand at some point in their lives, but that helping hand should come from the private sector, not from government.
I take that back. EVERYONE needs a helping hand at some point. Children need help growing up to be responsible adults. You don’t want the government rearing your kids, though. Private individuals do a much better job.
Napoleon:
Isn’t one of the benefits of welfare that it enables single parents to stay home with their familieas and raise their own children.
Welfare does not tend to encourage those single parents to become responsible adults. Welfare helps people, it does not help them help themselves. Private individuals are better at helping people help themselves.
Napoleon:
So what is your take on habitiat for humanity? I am not asking this to make a point I really wonder about habitat, ever since I helped with a habitiat house it has seemed to me that their are more effective ways to help low income indaviduals, certainly their are ways to build better houses than using me as a carpenter.
I’m not really familiar with Habitat for Humanity (other than the name of course). According to Wikipedia, the outfit has built more than one million houses worldwide. I don’t have any doubt that it could be improved; there’s always room for improvement. I’m not in a position to evaluate its real effectiveness, though.
The thing about Habitiat for humanity is that they give a couple of houses away, albeit with a lot of restrictions , but it seems to me a little like a lottery, if you are lucky enough to get one of these houses great, if not what do you do.
This contrasts with a government program that everyone can qualify for. I always think of Social Security and survivor benefits as a program that prevents a lot of homelessness and hardship. If someones parent dies especially when that parent is the main bread winner, they are looking at a very big change in lifestyle and going to college is pretty unlikely. Thanks to survivor benefits the person at least is not looking at homelessness. I don’t think we are talking huge bucks here, I think the max benefit per month is $750 a month per kid. That dollar figure is from a couple of years ago so the number may be different now.
My point is that it is unfair to expect people to beg money off their family or depend on the wims of stranger for support and that is why I think an equitable public welfare system is better than a hodgepodge of charities.
I just found the source for the $80,000 thing I mentioned previously. The source cited is the Statistical Abstract of the United States. The author (whom I don’t trust) says to add up all the social spending, and then divide it by the number of people in poverty. Whether that yields the number he came up with or not, I don’t yet know.
The same author does later give the following quotation from the Economist magazine, though:
Americans suppose that social welfare programs are about helping the poor. This is not true. More than 85% of all benefits go to the middle and upper classes, both old and young. Households with incomes above $100,000 get slightly more federal money each year than those earning a tenth of that.
I’ll see if I can find that quote somewhere else. Or perhaps if someone else on this blog subscribes to the Economist, he or she could look up the quote in the Economist archives.
Here’s another article (by a liberal) on the same thing http://citypages.com/databank/18/842/article3201.asp It includes the quote from the Economist that I mentioned earlier.
Napoleon:
The Steve Perry article was pretty interesting, I think where he gets the 85% is by looking at Social Security payments and it makes sense that people who make more will probably recieve slightly more as SS is calculated on the highest payments over so many quarters and people with higher incomes probably max out their social security payments. I liked the part where he suggested removing the cap on social security earnings which would end the regressive nature of the social security tax and ensure the system would be solvent for years to come. As far as means tests for recipients I am not a big fan of that, but I think right now SS payments are reduced by certain payments from private pensions anyway.
Social Security is met as a safety net and it has been effective for that I really don’t think that a private network of charites could replace it.
Al, have you been to Sanchez’s blog lately. I’d love to know what you think of his “interview” with Sgt. Rojas.
Hey Napoleon:
I got this from fingers and tubes in every orifice.blogspot.com, I hope it is not true but it probably is and it bolsters your claim of problems with government programs. Although, I think it also shows a problem with the way our society treats pregnancy and mothers.
The above is the actual medical record documentation. The following is how things really transpired.
Me (after reading triage sheet and rolling my eyes): Hi, I’m Dr.____. I’m the doctor in charge of the EMERGENCY Department tonight. I see that you came by AMBULANCE. What was so bad that you had to call 9-1-1 at 3 AM to be rushed to the EMERGENCY ROOM by AMBULANCE? What is your MEDICAL EMERGENCY? What is your LIFE OR LIMB THREATENING problem??
Patient (clueless to the sarcasm): Oh, I think I’m pregnant again.
Me (thinking that this clueless girl still don’t get it): You must be in a lot of pain or bleeding severely to come in by ambulance, huh?
Patient: No. I just didn’t have a ride.
Me: So you’re not having any pain or vaginal bleeding?
Patient: No, no pain. No bleeding.
Me: Did you take a home pregnancy test?
Patient: I didn’t have one.
Me: You know they sell them at Walmart. They’re open 24 hrs.
Patient: Well I couldn’t go to Walmart in the middle of the night.
Me: So you took an ambulance?
Patient: Yeah, but my insurance will pay for it.
Me: Insurance? It says here that you’ve got Medicaid.
Patient: Yeah, that’s my insurance.
Me: No, dear. Medicaid is not insurance.
Patient (quickly interupting me): Yes it is! That’s my insurance!
Me: No, dear. Medicaid is not insurance. Medicaid is a government hand out! It’s only called insurance if you’re paying for it.
Patient: Well, what ever! Medicaid will pay for it.
Me: Good grief! You didn’t have to take a $400 ambulance to the hospital for a simple pregnancy test.
Patient: But I didn’t have a ride.
Me: You could have taken a cab. Surely you got $20 bucks for a cab. And those pregnancy tests are under $20 bucks at Walmart ya know. $400 bucks ambulance ride versus $20 bucks…You could have save us tax payers a lot of money, ya know.
Patient: My insurance will pay for the ambulance.
Me: Good grief! How many times do I have to tell you that Medicaid is not insurance? And it won’t pay for nonemergent problems.
A quick 5 seconds physical exam. Push on the belly, no pain. Scribbled the discharge instructions and handed to patient to sign:
Go to local pharmacy and buy a home pregnancy test. Follow up with your medicaid assigned gynecologist if positive. If having pain or vaginally bleeding, return to ER.
Patient: So you’re not gonna run a test to see if I’m pregnant?
Me: No, a possible pregnancy is not a medical EMERGENCY.
Patient: But my insurance will pay for it.
Me: Not if I don’t order it. And even if I did order it, Medicaid…Oh never mind, just go to Walmart or any drug store and get yourself a home pregnancy test, alright. They’re the same urine pregnancy test that we use in the hospital anyway, and it’s much cheaper, too.
Patient (indignantly): So how am I gonna get home now? I got 4 kids at home.
Me: Well, you should have thought about that before you took an ambulance. Surely you didn’t think that we would admit you to the hospital for a possible pregnancy, did you? Your kids are not at home by themselves are they?
Patient: You’re a mean doctor!
Me: No I’m not! If I was, I wouldn’t have ask about your kids. They’re not home alone by themselves are they?
Patient: No, they’re with a friend of mine.
Me: Alright. I’ll see if the charge nurse can help you with a cab voucher home. There’s also a cop here from your part of town. Maybe he can let you hitch a ride home in a while.
It’s so frustrating trying to convince the local EMS folks to be not so fearful of litigation and have the balls to call their on line medical control and get a refusal to transport order for all these silly nonemergent problems.
Adden: I must issue an apology to all of my EMS brethens regarding the above statement. The problem is not with the heroic folks pounding the streets because they are only following orders and protocols established their chicken-shit administrators and medical directors who are the real ones fearful of lawsuits.
posted
I’ll go check that out.
I realize that private charities are not perfect, but I doubt that they are less efficient than the government is. Plus, donations to charity are voluntary, not compulsory. The War on Poverty has been going on for decades, with no success in sight. Millions of people still live in ghettos, and their family life is worse than ever. Small wonder, since most of the funds don’t go where they are supposed to go.
Napoleon:
I was looking at the Heritage foundation web site and they argue that people are considerably more affluent than they were 30 years ago and I think the conclusion that they are getting at, is that the US is such an affluent country that poverty is a non issue. One of the points they made is that almost everyone has a color TV so they must be affluent. They are right in that the US is affluent and the poor people here in in the US probably do live better than middle class in some countries, part of the reason for this might be that the war on poverty has succeeded at least to some degree. It is probably not possible to eliminate all poverty, some people due to mental illness or addiction will probably never be able to function in a manner that enables them to have a full time job and live the American dream; and some people are just plain lazy. I don’t think as a society we should turn our backs on any of these people and it takes both public and private assistance to avoid people starving in the streets, plus many programs attempt to help people train for new jobs and become better functioning indaviduals.
I guess where we differ is that I don’t mind paying some taxes to help people in need and I think, I can also show where some of these programs benefit me or potentially could help me out later so I view them as extra insurance. Also, in my opinion it seems that the benefit to me and others far outweighs the cost so I don’t mind paying these taxes. I get the impression that you don’t feel you are getting your moneys worth from the taxes you pay and I guess on that we will agree to disagree.
The fact that my tax dollars are wasted is only one part of my aversion to welfare. Another part is that I don’t like being told how to spend my money. Also, as I’ve touched on briefly, I think welfare does more harm than good. I suppose we will have to agree to disagree, but is it all right if I claim victory in our debate anyway? 🙂
napoleon – do you consider reduced priced school lunches, tax credits for health care or public funding for an inner city kid to attend a charter school “welfare”. I’m curious as to where the line is, because there are these things that result in a net profit for our society as a whole.
If a child is healthy, educated and fed, they will grow up to be less of a drain on our heath care dollar, and will end up earning more as adults. I’m pretty certain that many if not most Republicans in the House would consider those three things as “welfare”.
I disagree with the logic in this case, because the benefit isn’t just the child’s, but you and I as well. With the cities I feel it’s a zero sum game, where half will be in jail or dead, a quarter will be addicts, and the remaining ones might have a chance to get to college and produce for this economy. If you apply funding to targeted areas where it might increase the number of kids who will make it, rather than live in prison at a cost of 50K a year, or end up on drugs or dead…
If the program is put in place and it produces results, then in the end, you actually benefit. It’s an investment.
Al- I think you touched a point on school vouchers and school choice which conservatives have wanted to increase. i would personally like to see the federal government’s role way less active in education. as far as welfare, public housing, etc i think al you would appreciate milton friedman. I am reading freedom to choose: a personal statement and he can explain things far better than i ever could on social/economic programs in a way that makes sense and in a way that lets you understand that in a great deal of cases that the government makes problems worse (even though the ideas may be noble in theory). just read that or any other of his books. as previously stated here, liberals and conservatives ultimately want everybody to benefit, however, its the means that is diasgreed upon.
karl-
in your post #67, that is the difference, I and perhaps napoleon believe that I should be able to GIVE me money to a cause than to have it taken from me. at the same time, you cannot possibly GIVE if the money you have earned is not Yours. And i believe this takes away and marginalizes the virtue of Charity. I participate in a program called Compassion International. It is a Christian organization where you sponsor a specific child in a country and pay for his school, vaccinations, etc. Fantastic and very personal organization where only you impact someone else’s life in a drastic way. To me that is the most effective and efficient way for people to help another.
DAMNIT – – – I still haven’t sent that book. Sorry – It’ll be on the way shortly, I promise.
I’d like to read some Friedman…he has to agree with some of what I say. The concept I’ve been really pondering most is what I eluded to in this last comment. When the assistance is rightly seen as an investment, it is then that the assistance is not only warranted, but it is our DUTY to make sure it is given!
This conflicts with many of my right-wing influences’ perception of it being a virtue to believe that ‘every man for himself’ is not only the right concept, but the only truly fair concept. It gets very much into the philosophical realm from here, and that is where these same influences get off the train. I’d really like to read someone today who can explain to me the Ayn Rand set of values, and how it exists today after so many years of trial and error.
but when you say it is our duty you infer that government makes the choice for you. with freedom to choose, there comes the very real option that people you dont agree with are going to do things you don’t like and say things you don’t agree with. for assistance to be an investment, there must be incentive for the individual invested in. other wise it cant be an investment because there is no potential for return.
Simply put – my point of view focuses solely on the cost of housing an individual in a prison. The yearly cost for that is what I want to mitigate. If we start there, I think there is a ton of room for right/left to meet in the middle on.
The child not ending up in jail is the return on investment here. As otherwise, instead of a fellow taxpayer, we end up with a financial burden. So you have to invest on the front end. Have to!
Bmili:
Sounds like you may sponsor a child in a foriegn country. The reason that child needs vaccination and education that has to be paid for by another person, is that the country this child lives in, probably does not have a publicly funded education system or publicly funded vaccinations. Ultimately that is what seperates the US from some third world countries, we don’t have to depend on the kindness of strangers to help protect children, the US has a social safety net that attempts to protect everyone not just the few that have the good fortune to get sponsored by someone.
To hell with sponsoring! I’m getting me a ranch and a whole gaggle of them sickle-cell anemia kids…to keep! Nappy headed or not, I’m in it for them.
Don is that you? It is great that you are posting here until sirrius puts you on.
Oh, c’mon! That’s jive.
karl, he is actually living in a socialist/populist country
MrImus;
I have always admired your hipness, I think that is why the cool kids like Lieberman and Mccain used to come on your show. In their world you are the coolest.
The other problem with leaving charity up to private groups is most these private groups are going to have some sort of religous agenda, before they feed these poor kids they are going to make them recite some sort of allegence to whatever “god” the particular group believes in. These groups are just exploiting the fact that these kids are in a bad situation to create more followers. Especially with kids the help should come with no strings attached.
One thing I admire about Don Imus is his incredible hipness
karl- i take it you havent been involved in much charity work or community service. when churches were responding faster, housing, feeding, helping people find work after katrina better than the federal govt; they did nothing of the sort. last time i checked salvation army didnt work like that either (there are some but are in the minority). i find it funny how often people get scared of the idea of religion but its also kind of sad too.
Bmili:
I don’t know if I would call what happened after hurrican Katrina a triumph for private charites. If anything it shows the need for a well run government agency to help dissaster recovery. It is telling that after all this time the ninth ward is still not rebuilt and people are still living in trailers. stuff like that happens in the third world, and leaving disaster relief to private charites will help the US to resemble a third world nation in no time.
As far as volunteering with charities, I worked at a samaritan shelter for a while and spent two summers as a wrangler at a Y camp while in high school. Plus I worked on a habitat for humanity house. In each of those cases I noticed that it is about 50% people who want to help or are there for other reasons and about 50% people who are there to preach. Although at the Y camp it was probably more like a third, with one third their because they liked the mountains and the activities they got to do, a third that needed a summer job and it was all they could find and a third that wanted to preach.
Now I volunteer at a local animal shelter and with an alpine rescue group, in both cases I notice that the group is much more focused on the goal at hand because they are not trying to manipulate people into believing in something, they really are just trying to serve someone, ultmately they are much more honest about what they are trying to do and why they are there; and I think it is much more satisfying for the volunteer and the recipient than a christian charity where they pretend they want to help and all they want you to do is believe in some diety.
Just thought I would throw this up here it seems to fit with some of the issue on this thread:
By SARA KUGLER
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NEW YORK (AP) – Poor residents will be rewarded for good behavior – like $300 for doing well on school tests, $150 for holding a job and $200 for visiting the doctor – under an experimental anti-poverty program that city officials detailed Monday.
The rewards have been used in other countries, including Brazil and Mexico, and have drawn widespread praise for changing behavior among the poor. Mayor Michael Bloomberg traveled to Mexico this spring to study the healthy lifestyle payments, also known as conditional cash transfers.
In New York, the two-year pilot program with about 14,000 participants will use private funds Bloomberg has raised because he did not want to spend government money on something that is highly experimental. More than $43 million has been raised toward the $53 million goal, Deputy Mayor Linda Gibbs said.
The theory behind cash rewards is that poor people are trapped in a cycle of repeated setbacks that keep them from climbing out of poverty. A person who doesn’t keep up with his vaccinations and doctor’s visits, for example, may get sick more often and struggle to stay employed.
Sanchez is posting videos at a site called Live Leak. On one of his videos he casually mentions that a man pictured on his blog and that man’s brother were blown up at a hotel the other day.
The man is pictured here:
http://mattsanchez.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/06/11/sheik.jpg
Sanchez uses his blog to attack the “liberal media” for exaggerating the violence in Iraq, yet when he’s touched by the violence — or rather when people he exploited to promote rose-colored neocon spin are touched by violence, he almost forgets to mention it.
So far he hasn’t bothered to update his blog to let people know the sheiks that he blogged about on June 11 were killed by a suicide bomber.
His Live Leak video is posted here:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=540_1182967071
Thanks dude! You uncovered an essential element of a mission like the one he’s on. It requires a lack of humanity. Those who use the war to drive their hatred of something else like the media are ethically challenged. This is a great example of it.
Was ist das?