Minority Report

Why is the Red Cross Dividing America?

With this ad campaign, the Red Cross claims that it is trying to send a message that "despite our differences, we can all come together to help America." 

Emphasizing differences is not a way to unite people. Neither is the suggestion that just because someone doesn't look white, that they automatically don't speak the same language or eat the same foods. I know a lot of people who look like this who talk like and eat the same foods.

There had to be at least a dozen other creative ways for the Red Cross to get this message across. Using a racial stereotype is hardly the best way to go...

Let them know:

[email protected]        The media person
[email protected]     The diversity chair
[email protected]        person in the executive office
[email protected]    person in the executive office

Rest in Peace, Fred Korematsu

Today, a personal hero of mine passed away. He is a pillar of civil rights history in our country, a true patriot, and a man of steadfast principle. Rest in peace, Fred. You will be missed.

On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which ordered the internment of all Japanese Americans. The Korematsu family was taken to Tanforan, a former racetrack south of San Francisco for processing. Korematsu decided to stay behind because he did not want to be separated from his Italian-American girlfriend.

Korematsu refused to relinquish his freedom and tried to remain unnoticed, to no avail. On May 30,1942, Korematsu was arrested and sent to join Tanforan. Later, all the detainees were transferred to the Topaz internment camp in Utah.
      
      Persuaded by Ernest Besig, then Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Northern California,       Korematsu filed a case on June 12, 1942. The premise of the lawsuit was       that Korematsu's constitutional rights had been violated and he had suffered       racial discrimination. However, the court ruled against Korematsu and he       was sentenced to 5 years probation. Determined to pursue his cause, Korematsu       filed an appeal with Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and, later, to the U.S.       Supreme Court. However, in December 1944, the Supreme Court ruled against       him, stating that Korematsu "was not excluded from the military area because       of hostility to him or his race."
      
      In OF CIVIL WRONGS AND RIGHTS, Korematsu says he felt that, "I'm an American and just       as long as I'm in this country that I will keep on going and if there is       a chance of reopening the case, I will do it." This chance came in the form       of Peter Irons, a law professor, researching the internment for a book.       Irons discovered long-forgotten documents that proved that the Justice Department       had misrepresented the facts to the Supreme Court. He took this evidence       to Fred Korematsu, and they both decided to re-open the case.
      
Peter Irons then enlisted a legal team consisting mainly of Asian-American lawyers. OF CIVIL WRONGS AND RIGHTS is, in part, the story of these idealistic young lawyers and their own fight to end the discrimination that also touched the lives of their family and community members. Their efforts ultimately uncovered documents that clearly showed the government concealed evidence in the 1944 case that racism — not military necessity — motivated the internment order. More than 39 years after the fact, a federal judge reversed Fred Korematsu's conviction, acknowledging the "great wrong" done to him.
      
In 1998, Fred Korematsu was awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom award, the nation's highest civilian honor. Former President Clinton praised Korematsu at the ceremony, stating that "In the long history of our country's constant search for justice, some names of ordinary citizens stands for millions of souls — Plessy, Brown, Parks. To that distinguished list today we add the name of Fred Korematsu."

...Nearing his 85th birthday, Fred Korematsu remains a tireless advocate for civil rights. Concerned about reports of harassment and possible illegal detentions in the wake of the September 11 tragedy, Fred continues to speak out against the backlash against Arab, Middle Eastern, and Muslim communities that have become the targets of discrimination and violence.

"There are Arab-Americans today who are going through what Japanese Americans experienced years ago, and we can't let that happen again," says Korematsu. "I met someone years ago who had never heard about the roundup of Japanese-Americans. It's been 60 years since this [arrest] happened, and it's happening again, and that's why I continue to talk about what happened to me."

Does the President Err on the Side of Life?

It's been revealed that President Bush and his wife both have living wills:

Susan Whitson, a spokeswoman for Mrs. Bush, declined to elaborate on what directives are in the Bushes' living wills. Many include "do not resuscitate" orders in cases where the patient has no hope of recovery or requires extensive medical assistance to stay alive.

Why should this be kept private? I'm curious if the president is condemning Schiavo to a vegetable life while he seeks escape for himself. Shouldn't we know whether he would err on the side of life for himself and for Laura?

Jeb: Laws? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Laws!

Only the Miami Herald has focused on Jeb Bush's foiled attempt (registration required) to forcibly remove Terri Schiavo from the hospice and reinsert her feeding tube.

Hours after a judge ordered that Terri Schiavo was not to be removed from her hospice, a team of state agents were en route to seize her and have her feeding tube reinserted -- but they stopped short when local police told them they would enforce the judge's order, The Herald has learned.

Agents of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement told police in Pinellas Park, the small town where Schiavo lies at Hospice Woodside, on Thursday that they were on the way to take her to a hospital to resume her feeding.

For a brief period, local police, who have officers at the hospice to keep protesters out, prepared for what sources called ``a showdown.''

In the end, the squad from the FDLE and the Department of Children & Families backed down, apparently concerned about confronting local police outside the hospice.

''We told them that unless they had the judge with them when they came, they were not going to get in,'' said a source with the local police.

''The FDLE called to say they were en route to the scene,'' said an official with the city police who requested anonymity. ``When the sheriff's department and our department told them they could not enforce their order, they backed off.''

The incident,known only to a few and related to The Herald by three different sources involved in Thursday's events, underscores the intense emotion and murky legal terrain that the Schiavo case has created. It also shows that agencies answering directly to Gov. Jeb Bush had planned to use a wrinkle in Florida law that would have allowed them to legally get around the judge's order. The exception in the law allows public agencies to freeze a judge's order whenever an agency appeals it.

...Alerted by the Bush administration that Schiavo might be on her way to their facility, officials at Morton Plant Hospital went to court themselves Wednesday, asking Circuit Judge George Greer, who ordered the removal of Schiavo's feeding tube last week, what to do.

''It's an extraordinary situation,'' said Beth Hardy, a hospital spokeswoman. ``I don't think any of us has seen anything like it. Ever.''

Greer signed an order Wednesday afternoon forbidding DCF from ''taking possession of Theresa Marie Schiavo or removing her'' from the hospice. He directed ''each and every and singular sheriff of the state of Florida'' to enforce his order.

I think the Bush's and the rest of the Republican party have aptly demonstrated their contempt for the law. They only have use for laws that don't get in the way of what they want to do.

Et Tu, Jesse?

The parents of Terri Schiavo met and prayed Tuesday with the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who called her impending death "an injustice."

Joining the conservatives who have rallied to the parents' cause, the liberal Jackson said he would call state senators who opposed legislation that would have reinserted Schiavo's feeding tube and ask them to reconsider.

Terri Schiavo was in her 12th day without food and water. Her husband and guardian, Michael Schiavo, has insisted that he was carrying out her wishes by having her feeding tube pulled. His lawyer said Monday that an autopsy was planned to show the extent of Terri Schiavo's brain damage.

Jackson's arrival Tuesday was greeted by some applause and cries of "This is about civil rights."

"I feel so passionate about this injustice being done, how unnecessary it is to deny her a feeding tube, water, not even ice to be used for her parched lips," said Jackson, who has run for president as a Democrat. "This is a moral issue and it transcends politics and family disputes."

That Jesse has gotten involved in all this means that the issue is still largely a political one, despite his rhetoric. Clearly, Jesse has fallen into the "we must be more like the conservatives in order to beat them" camp that so many others like Joe Lieberman, the DLC, and CNN. It's sad to see him paint this as a civil rights issue and to pander to the right-to-lifers. Does this mean that Jesse also thinks we must "err on the side of life?" Is Jesse going to be speaking up for the civil rights of fetuses?

Someone needs to set Jesse straight. Either that or cut him loose.

 

Selling Schindler's List

You'd think with their daughter on the 11th day off her feeding tube, her death imminent, and having exhausted all legal channels to keep her alive, that the Schindler family would have more important things on their mind other than striking business deals. Apparently not:

The parents of Terri Schiavo have authorized a conservative direct-mailing firm to sell a list of donors to their legal expenses, making it likely that thousands of strangers moved by her plight will receive a steady stream of solicitations from anti-abortion and conservative groups.

"These compassionate pro-lifers donated toward Bob Schindler's legal battle to keep Terri's estranged husband from removing the feeding tube from Terri," says a description of the list on the Web site of the firm, Response Unlimited, which is asking $150 a month for 6,000 names and $500 a month for 4,000 e-mail addresses of people who responded last month to an e-mail plea from Ms. Schiavo's father. "These individuals are passionate about the way they value human life, adamantly oppose euthanasia and are pro-life in every sense of the word!"

Maybe tomorrow they'll announce how they've sold their story for a Fox television movie special...

You Go Girls!

Black and Asian women with bachelor's degrees earn slightly more than similarly educated white women, and white men with four-year degrees make more than anyone else.

A white woman with a bachelor's degree typically earned $37,800 in 2003, compared with $43,700 for a college-educated Asian woman and $41,100 for a black woman, according to data to be released Monday by the Census Bureau. Hispanic women took home $37,600 a year.

Not such good news for men-of-color:

A white male with a college diploma earns far more than any similarly educated man or woman - $66,000 a year, the Census Bureau said. Among men with bachelor's degrees, Asians earned $52,000 a year, Hispanics $49,000 and blacks $45,000.

Workplace discrimination and the continuing difficulties of minorities to get into higher-paying management positions could help explain the disparities among men, experts say.

We're not even close.

The Cradle of Freedom and Democracy

Here's what our freedom and democracy look like to an  Iraqi or Afghani or Muslim from any other country looks like:

Arkan Mohammed Ali is a 26-year-old Iraqi who was detained by the U.S. military for nearly a year at various locations, including the infamous Abu Ghraib prison. According to a lawsuit filed against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Mr. Ali was at times beaten into unconsciousness during interrogations. He was stabbed, shocked with an electrical device, urinated on and kept locked - hooded and naked - in a wooden, coffinlike box. He said he was told by his captors that soldiers could kill detainees with impunity.

(This was not a boast from the blue. On Saturday, for example, The Times reported that the Army would not prosecute 17 American soldiers implicated in the deaths of three prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.)

...No charges were ever filed against Mr. Ali, and he was eventually released. But what should be of paramount concern to Americans is this country's precipitous and frightening descent into the hellish zone of lawlessness that the Bush administration, on the one hand, is trying to conceal and, on the other, is defending as absolutely essential to its fight against terror.

With this kind of treatment, I'm sure most people in the Middle East cannot distinguish between "freedom and democracy" and the regular treatment they get under despotic regimes.

Supporting the Troops

This is how we support troops in America:

Sgt. John J. Savage III, an Army reservist, was about to climb onto a troop transport plane for a flight to Iraq from Fayetteville, N.C., when his wife called with alarming news: "They're foreclosing on our house."

Sergeant Savage recalled, "There was not a thing I could do; I had to jump on the plane and boil for 22 hours."

He had reason to be angry. A longstanding federal law strictly limits the ability of his mortgage company and other lenders to foreclose against active-duty service members.

But Sergeant Savage's experience was not unusual. Though statistics are scarce, court records and interviews with military and civilian lawyers suggest that Americans heading off to war are sometimes facing distracting and demoralizing demands from financial companies trying to collect on obligations that, by law, they cannot enforce.

Some cases involve nationally prominent companies like Wells Fargo and Citigroup, though both say they are committed to strict compliance with the law.

The problem, most military law specialists say, is that too many lenders, debt collectors, landlords, lawyers and judges are unaware of the federal statute or do not fully understand it.

The law, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, protects all active-duty military families from foreclosures, evictions and other financial consequences of military service. The Supreme Court has ruled that its provisions must "be liberally construed to protect those who have been obliged to drop their own affairs to take up the burdens of the nation."

Yet the relief act has not seemed to work in recent cases like these:

• At Fort Hood, Tex., a soldier's wife was sued by a creditor trying to collect a debt owed by her and her husband, who was serving in Baghdad at the time. A local judge ruled against her, saying she had defaulted, even though specialists say the relief act forbids default judgments against soldiers serving overseas and protects their spouses as well.
• At Camp Pendleton, Calif., more than a dozen marines returned from Iraq to find that their cars and other possessions had been improperly sold to cover unpaid storage and towing fees. The law forbids such seizures without a court order.
• In northern Ohio, Wells Fargo served a young Army couple with foreclosure papers despite the wife's repeated efforts to negotiate new repayment terms with the bank. Wells Fargo said later that it had been unaware of the couple's military status. The foreclosure was dropped after a military lawyer intervened.

I'm really tired of all these companies, politicians, and assorted other assholes who brag about how much they support our troops. Just because you print an advertisement or put some stupid magnetic ribbon on the back of your SUV (have you noticed it's always two ribbons), doesn't mean that you give a shit about the troops.

If you cared about the troops, you'd not have put their asses on the line for the wrong war in the first place. If you cared about the troops, you'd be working hard to get them back home to their families safe. If you cared about the troops, you'd be making sure that their families are taken care of while they're away and that when they return, they have their medical and other needs fulfilled.

I'm tired of magnetic ribbon troop supporters.

Sexploitation

My friend at Docblog has a colorful description of his tour through Thailand:

Everything in Pattaya, the first leg of our tour, was geared towards the sex industry.  Everywhere you walk, there was a skeezy white dude with a Thai ho on his arm.  After seeing this 24/7, it was surprising to see a white dude without a Thai ho. Every bar had Thai chicks hanging out on stools, looking around, waiting for their next white client.  And these weren't your normal white dudes either.  These were really old, fat nasty looking white dudes, which basically raised the skeez factor up a few notches.

If it's not sex, then it's working in little factories producing Nike sneakers and whatever Wal-mart sells for $0.03 an hour... Thanks really old, fat nasty looking white dudes!