Response to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

President Ahmadinejad,

Thank you for your concern for the civil liberties of the American Public, those are concerns which I happen to share. I would however caution you against pointing fingers at the erosion of civil liberties in the US, when your country has much less freedom than this one. In the US all religions are respected, whereas in Iran people are persecuted for not following your particular branch of Islam. In fact, I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine of Iranian descent who came to America with his family precisely because his family was not allowed to be Christian in Iran. I am not well versed in the teachings of the Qur'an, but I do expect that it contains an admonition against duplicity as most all Holy Books do.

I am in agreement that it is not right that the US blindly sides with Israel. As with any conflict, there are three sides to every story: yours, mine and the truth. I don't believe that either side in that conflict has a monopoly on the truth or the moral high ground. I also disagree with your stated desire to wipe Israel off the map. The solution in this case is in the middle ground.

President Ahmadinejad, I would like to see better relations between our countries, but that is not possible as long as your country relegates women to second class citizens, is dedicated to eradicating another country from the map, and is unwilling to come to the table to seek common ground for the betterment of planet Earth.

Thank you,
Operation:Mindcrime

Some Muslims, Some Jews, and Some Christains

OK, now that sounds like a set up for a joke, right? It probably is, but in this case they all got together at Ronald Regan national airport to pray together to protest the recent harassing of a couple of Imams on a recent US Airways flight. The media beats us over the head constantly with how much Jews and Muslims supposedly hate each other (some of them apparently do) but here were some Imams and a Rabbi coming together with common cause. This is a small show of togetherness, but one that should be emulated on a much grander scale.

It was non-violent protests led by Mahatma Ghandi in India that brought the greatest empire in the world, the British Empire, to its knees. With his sheer force of spiritual faith he was able to get the people around him regardless of whether they were Hindu, Christian, Muslim, or Buddhist to work together for the common cause of Indian independence from England. That was no small feat. Since his death you can see the fragiminetation that has taken place between the Muslims and Hindus in India. (for further reading on that issue I recommend doing a google search for Kasmir.) Ghandi's model was used by Dr Martin Luther King, Jr and others here in the United States to bring an end to legalized segregation.

Imagine if you will for a moment, after the Muslim world was inflamed by the Pope's quoting of a 500 year old text, if instead of all the violence one or more of the Grand Imams had contacted the Pope with an offer of dialog and prayer. Many innocent lives would have been spared, and that so called divide between the Muslim world and the West would be slightly less.

Those in power want to keep us separated along the lines of race, religion and class so they can keep us controlled. When they have us controlled they have a docile work force upon the backs of which they can profiteer. When they have Americans distrusting of Muslims they can invade countries like Iraq and Iran, and the inhabitants of those countries have already been dehumanized. The leaders over there are doing the same thing, because by inciting hatred for America keeps their people under their control.

I recently flew across country, and had an enjoyable flight. There was a guy next to me who appeared to be of middle eastern descent. We had a bit of a pleasant chat as the plane taxied then climbed to 10,000 feet. At that time he opened his laptop and iPod and got to work. I lost myself in the music of Tool in my CD player and enjoyed the different perspective on the world from 37,000 feet.

Yeah, I know, it seems odd that Operation:Mindcrime is advocating non-violence and prayer. It comes down to this, where did violence get Nikki in the CD? It got him hard time and hell-bent on revenge. I am advocating real changes, and those are rarely accomplished from the barrel of a gun.

Black Friday is Coming!

Black Friday is coming. The Retail Corporations are bombarding us with ads on how great their lowest prices ever will be on that day. Come celebrate the Christmas holiday buy giving us your hard earned money. It works, sadly. Most stores do more that DAY than they do on an average two week span.

How did it come to be that the holiest day of Christianity has become an orgy of conspicuous consumption? I am not a Christian, but I do believe that Jesus was not a big fan of being showy with wealth. (Could that be why many stores have changed the title from Christmas to Holiday? nah more on that in a minute.)

These retail corporations are the modern sweatshops. They pay just above minimum wage and continually are looking for ways to keep "costs" (read payment to employees) down. The treatment of Wal*Mart workers is something that is well documented. The treatment of workers in the rival Target Corporation is not as well documented, but a quick scan of www.targetunion.org tells some interesting tales of workers who are underpaid and LOCKED IN when the store is closed.

This is the busy season for retail workers, and the front line employees are the ones who take the abuse from the customers while the CEO's count their profits and figure the next round of "Cost" cuts so they can get their bonus for scoring a win against the working people.

Retail workers unite! Stand together for better wages and working conditions!

Welcome to Operation Mindcrime

OK, so I stole my name from an awesome Queensryche CD from the late 80's, but now is the time. For years Washington has been tethered to their masters in the corporate world disregarding the needs of the people whom they claim to serve. As time has gone on they have become more blatant in their service to their corporate masters. If you think that it begins and ends with that schmuck Jack Abrahmoff think again. He was just careless enough to get caught. There IS a class war happening in the US. The conservative talking heads with simple minds like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Bill O'Reilly love to say that there isn't and chide any moderately liberal candidate who talks about the needs of the working calls as 'appealing to the class war sensibilities' while neglecting that there IS a class war and it is being waged by the upper class on the workers of the US. CEO's routinely get seven and eight figure bonuses for scoring victories against the working class by reducing pay and benefits. For the CEO to get the really big score he needs to get the knock out blow of eliminating jobs.

There are more of us than there are of them, and together we can take the power back.