Baruch's Blog

Hard to believe I posted last 6 days ago. It's been a good week for me personally. Things are working out well for me here. I accepted a 20 hour a week as an on-call crisis stabilization worker, starting next week. I did an afternoon of chair massage today. It looks like I will be offering an Elements of Magic class, and also doing some one on one teaching of the craft. I'm also going to be doing some PR for a local musician. I have a diverse palate. I enjoy doing different kinds of things. It keeps me engaged, interested.

I continue to read about and discuss the current political...what to call it...bizarro world comic-like events. Here are a couple of things I've posted recently on the NYTimes site and the Washington Post site.
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If McCain "wins" it will be due to election rigging and voter suppression, both of which the GOP is extensively involved in.

1. It has been reported in West Virginia last week during early voting that election machines were switching votes from Obama to McCain. This also happened in Ohio in 2004.

2. The GOP continues to try (and in many cases succeed!) to disenfranchise especially minority (Democratic) voters across the country. They tried it here in Montana but were stopped by a Republican judge who was appalled at the GOP's blatant efforts to derail democracy in the 2008 presidential election.

If McCain wins through fraud, then a lot of people are going to be pissed off. We've had the last two elections stolen so that the corrupt idiot and his gang of criminals could occupy the White House. I think Americans have had enough.

If McCain wins, through fraud, and people are pissed off enough, some people may choose to take to the streets. Why wouldn't they??

When the election was rigged in Ukraine and people took to the streets, they were praised by the US press, by Bush even, as standing up for democracy. So if our election is stolen, again, why shouldn't we stand up for democracy, take to the streets, and refuse to accept the next criminal regime?

I do not advocate violence. I advocate liberation.
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The answer is a resounding "No!" (to more nuclear power) for a multitude of reasons. Safety is the first issue. There is no such thing as a safe nuclear power plant, there are only plants which haven't YET had an accident. Included in this issue is that of nuclear waste, which cannot be safely disposed of. Economics is second. They are NOT cheap, they always run way over estimated cost, and nuclear power is yet further centralization of power generation and further profiteering by large corporations at the expense of the people, and the earth. We need to decentralize. Each town or even each building can produce much of it's own electricity through wind, solar, hydrogen. And we have barely scratched the surface in terms of what we can do by being more energy efficient. Third reason...by turning our focus to renewable energy we will create more jobs than nuclear power ever could, both in terms of R&D and in terms of implementation.

The arguments in favor of nuclear power are short sighted and based in an economic model which disrespects life, commodifying life and reducing everything to it's monetary value. Life is sacred. It is immoral to commodify life. A society which is powered by immorality, where can that lead? Look around and we see it. Divisiveness, politicians who steal elections and lie, corporate control of government, a military industrial complex run completely amok, and the list goes on.

We as a nation need to invest in renewable energy or we will make ourselves extinct.
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Sarah Palin...well I've never met her so I am not going to make a personal assessment, but from what I've seen of her on TV, and what I've read both about her and quoting her, she seems to me like a spokesmodel. She's Vanna White. I would be thrilled to see her on a game show. I bet she'd be great at it too! She's sparkly and kind of cute in her affectations. But a heartbeat away from the presidency? Noooo, not a good idea.