The Prime Directive

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Thursday September 05, 2013 · 1:39 PM PDT

2013/09/05 · 13:39

One of the many geniuses in Gene Rodenberry's Star Trek is the Prime Directive: not to interfere with the development of other races or cultures. This directive is often broken or bent in all the story lines, but that's because the Prime Directive is hard.

Not to interfere in a civil war. Not to interfere in apartheid. Not to interfere in genocide. Not to interfere in holocaust. Not to interfere in ethnic cleansing. Not to interfere in slavery.... it is desperately hard for people of good will to sit by and do nothing when these inhumane events occur. And in fact, we have not yet learned to do so.

Mr. Obama has called for action - limited, targeted action - in Syria. It was clear to me hearing him speak that he believes it to be the right thing to do both as leader of a country and as a man with children. If he gets an authorization through congress, or the UN inspectors prove chemical weapons were used an authorizes action against Assad, then our historical response to atrocities will continue to be military action and intervention. Whether it is a successful action or not will depend on your definition of success.

If nothing happens though, if the people of the world sit back and allow this terrible situation to continue with nothing except humanitarian aid for the refugee and displaced we will have taken a first step toward Rodenberry's Prime Directive and the painful choice of watching misery and allowing people to make their own mistakes, solve their own problems, and end their own wars.

I do not know if this would be better or worse. I do know that it would be different.

Excuses, excuses

seetreeme

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Monday August 19, 2013 · 4:27 AM PDT

2013/08/19 · 04:27

I know that Glenn Greenwald's partner being 'stopped and frisked' is important and should make me mad about freedom of the press and all that. But he's got a really big megaphone and every journalist in the world is going to scream about it, unlike the tens of thousands of American citizens in large cities all over this country who are having the same thing happen to them on a daily basis.

I know that tens of thousands of Americans having their freedoms of speech, movement and liberty infringed upon is infuriating and I should be up in arms about it. But global warming is melting the icecaps and causing catastrophic storms and shit and I need to be worrying about that instead.

I know that global climate change is changing life as we know it on the planet, but while large corporations have governments enthralled, there's no way to stop fracking and drilling and genetically modified food......

And I, like everybody who is aware of these awful problems who isn't in the streets demanding change, who sits on their collective asses and harumphs about these issues and decries them on facebook and twitter is really overwhelmed with their own problems - can't pay the bills, gotta get braces for the kid, my co-worker is crazy/stupid/lazy....

But when does the collective 'we' stop making excuses? When 'they' tell us to?

Till Death do Us Part, unless you embarrass me?

seetreeme

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Tuesday July 30, 2013 · 10:42 PM PDT

2013/07/30 · 22:42

I've read and heard different opinions on why Anthony Weiner's wife ought to leave him. I've heard the question, "why does she stand by him?" spoken with disdain and incredulity. Or stating that she is embarrassing herself or feminism or some such thing for not repudiating him.

Feh.

While everyone is standing there pointing and judging and all I'd like to point out that staying with your wife or husband while they are publicly pilloried takes guts. That 'better or worse' is part of most American marriage vows. It isn't 'better or until you embarrass me'. Unlike Elliott Spitzer, Mr. Weiner hasn't broken any laws. Unlike Govenor Appalachian Train he hasn't had an actual affair. So really who's business is this anyway?

We have no tolerance for public sexual deviance, even though in many closets and bedrooms and under-the-bed boxes in millions of American homes is plenty of evidence of deviance. Mr. Weiner isn't all that different from every other person who has ever taken a selfie, traded pics, chatted, fantasized in the semi-public fun house that is the internet. Oh I've never done it. Neither have you I bet. Yeah right.

Could we all collectively grow up please? I'm feeling as if we're all getting our "holier than thou" on right now while at the same time slowing down to oggle the wreck as we pass by. Both reactions are pretty nasty.

Mr. Weiner needs help, not with sexual deviance or compulsion, but with this clear bout of self-sabotage. I find this self-inflicted wound of his to be sad and cause for compassion, not more judgment.

Poll

45 votes Show Results

There but for the grace of God go I pole: I have

45 votes Vote Now!

There but for the grace of God go I pole: I have

never sent a risque pic

37 votes

only sent one to my significant other

1 vote

flirted/sexted online

7 votes

Assange=Journalist. Manning=Traitor

seetreeme

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Monday June 03, 2013 · 10:00 AM PDT

2013/06/03 · 10:00

I have many friends very upset about Bradley Mannings' treatment, incarceration, trial etc. I have purposely not engaged them about this because for me his reasons for doing what he did do not matter at all. This is a case where the "who" and the "how" matters a great deal more than the "why".

Manning, in time of war, in-country, in uniform gave classified information to a third party.

That is the definition of treason.

That third party published the information. That is called journalism.

Manning should be tried, convicted and sent to prison. Assange should not.

More under the fold.

seetreeme

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Tuesday May 14, 2013 · 10:11 AM PDT

2013/05/14 · 10:11

OK, I know the DOJ thing with the AP has got the media totally hair-on-fire crazy because its all about them er.... all about the first amendment.

I know the IRS thing is terrible because some political action committees, um... social welfare organizations were unfairly targeted.

But I honestly can't get up the outrage. How many folks out there think all of this is just more bread-and-circuses to keep from doing anything effective on jobs, guns, environment, education, or any of another half-dozen real problems affecting Americans today?

Poll

24 votes Show Results

Are the DOJ/IRS stories important to you?

24 votes Vote Now!

Are the DOJ/IRS stories important to you?

My god I've lit my hair on fire!

1 vote

Its just business as usual

5 votes

They're important issues

5 votes

Hey Angelina had a double mastectomy!

1 vote

Not important

7 votes

Meh

4 votes

You're an idiot

1 vote

Mother's Day - Not

seetreeme

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Sunday May 12, 2013 · 10:34 PM PDT

2013/05/12 · 22:34

Who thought up this holiday anyway? My Dad was convinced that it was 'made up by Hallmark" and refused to let us celebrate it. We had to pick flowers for our Mom out of the garden and sneak cards to her because Papa just didn't like the idea of it. I have no idea why; he wasn't a bad guy, he just got a bug up his ass about it and there it stayed.

Needless to say, I have no idea when Father's Day is.

But I think the fact that we had to kind of go out of our way to give Moma something on Mother's Day meant more to her than if we'd taken her out to brunch and did the whole big thing so many people do. I know our Mother really thought our way of showing her we loved her on Mother's Day was special and I always thought I'd have something special too when I became a mom.

Until I was diagnosed with cancer and I could not have kids. Then all of a sudden every year Mother's Day became agony for me. And it's gotten worse in many ways since becoming a step-mom to four kids, all teens now. Their biological Mom cannot stand to have them acknowledge me as a parent and they've all been trained not to think of me that way - even though I've been part of their lives for seven years now.

And so here's another Mother's Day. Where I'm not the mother.

A lot of women are in a similar boat today. People who's mother's have died; who are estranged from their children; who are infertile; whose children have died or worse: people who's mother's (or children) were abusive or destructive... so many people for whom today is not a happy occasion. I've cried through a dozen years' of mother's days and I have no wisdom to offer the women who are suffering through today except to say, you're not alone. There's a lot of us out here, just getting through the day, same as you.

Maybe in some ways my Father was right. For a lot of people this day that is supposed to be about thankfulness becomes about loss; maybe on some level that was what Papa objected to. I know he hated the marketing though; its why he felt it wasn't a 'real' holiday, that Madison Avenue just wanted an excuse to get people to spend their money and its so much worse today than it was when I was a kid. The day has been turned into an extravaganza of sales, gifts, brunches, flowers, celebrations...and every ad just punches you in the gut again with your own loss.

But, its almost over now, Thank God.

Starve the Beast (NRA)

seetreeme

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Thursday April 18, 2013 · 10:24 AM PDT

2013/04/18 · 10:24

If you believed that the gun safety legislation should have passed yesterday and you are an NRA member, quit.

If you are angry that this lobby, who is really working for the manufacturer's and not the members sold you out yesterday, quit.

If you are pissed off and have a member of the family or a friend who is a member of the NRA urge, argue, cajole, nag, plead...for them to quit.

Having the NRA's membership rolls shrink significantly because of the Senate's vote yesterday will do more to reduce their power than anything else we can do.

Well, except to vote those cowards in the Senate who killed the bill out of office at the first opportunity.

Poll

14 votes Show Results

If you are a member of the NRA, will you quit?

14 votes Vote Now!

If you are a member of the NRA, will you quit?

Yes

4 votes

10 votes

What's bugging me about Gay Marriage

seetreeme

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday March 27, 2013 · 8:09 PM PDT

2013/03/27 · 20:09

What bugs me the most about gay marriage is that we are calling it "gay marriage".

It isn't gay marriage. Its the right to marry, not gay-marry.

Its MARRIAGE. PERIOD.

Our language about this subject needs to catch up.

Rape, Consent and Changing our Culture

seetreeme

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday March 16, 2013 · 1:38 PM PDT

2013/03/16 · 13:38

I haven't been following the Steubenville case closely, but from what I've read here on Daily Kos and the NY Times this case doesn't seem all that unusal to me...which is in itself a monstrous tragedy.

And not just for the girl, but for the boys too. Our culture, especially the jock-culture is teaching young men that this is ok behavior...if you don't get caught...or if the coach can fix it. The real tragedy here is routed in human biology. Male sexuality gets set kind of in stone when they are in their teens, unlike female sexuality which is more fluid*. Young men who are sexually abused by pedophiles become pedophiles. Young men who start out with non-consensual sexual experience become jerks on one end of the spectrum and sexual predators and rapists on the other.

So a young man who believes its ok to try and have sex with a drunk girl, or that you can keep badgering a girl into having sex or that anything you do is ok so long as you don't actually beat the girl up -- those young men are going to be stuck with that as part of their sexual makeup probably for the rest of their lives.

It is not enough to decry this behavior and throw these two boys in jail. We have to start educating about consent before children become teenagers. By Junior High or Middle School there needs to be a graphic, explicit education program for all our children about what consent is, what non-consent can look and feel like, and how to approach sexual experience in a healthy, consensual fashion. Forget just abstinence-only education which is leaving our children completely unprepared for the realities of the technical side of sexual experience. Currently we leave them without any way of understanding or navigating the emotional and psychological aspects of it either. We don't even pay lip service to it.

Until we do young women are going to be raped and young men are going to be emotionally deformed into predators and nothing will get any better.

* If you'd like more information on human sexuality check out "Sex at Dawn" by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha

Droning On

seetreeme

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Thursday March 07, 2013 · 2:09 PM PST

2013/03/07 · 14:09

Rand Paul's use of a real filibuster yesterday was beyond pointless.

Do you know who has the power to stop the Administrative Branch of Government from ever using Drones (or any other weapons for that matter) on the American People?

Congress.

A one line law would do it, and no one wound have the stones to vote no on it:
"The United States may not use drones or other unmanned weaponry on American Citizens on American soil for any reason whatever."

Done.

Of course showboating is a lot more fun.

This wasn't about drones, or Brennan, it was about Rand Paul wanting the spotlight, period.

Mitt Romney: "It Sucks to Be Me"

seetreeme

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday March 03, 2013 · 10:56 AM PST

2013/03/03 · 10:56

Waa Waa Boo Boo

Wow, doesn't it suck to be Mitt Romney. All that money and privilege. And here is is crying to the media about how terrible it is, not being President. He misses the rollercoaster.

Would you like to try mine, Mittens?

You try feeding your family with the $110 a month I get on foodstamps. That's food for you, your spouse, and his four kids the two weekends a month they're with you. You'll learn really fast you don't buy food except when the kids are there.

You try paying your rent on the $126 a week you get from unemployment.

You try being 50 years old in worker retraining, busting your ass to learn a new profession because you got hurt on the job and can't do your old job anymore. And then when you're done, you try and get a fucking job.

You know, Mr. Romney, there are things you can do as NOT the president that will significantly help others in this country and the world. You could help fund education, work to keep libraries open, feed the friggin' poor. Go build houses with Jimmy Carter!

You, business guru, could help entrepreneurs and start ups and help get more green tech funded, help discover the next new awesome thing that might save the planet.

Bill Gates isn't president. he's trying to end Malaria in the world. Bono isn't president. He's working on world hunger (as is Jeff Bridges and alot of other people.)

But you'd rather whine about, boo hoo I'm not president and my life isn't exciting.

Well I'd rather have my poverty and hardship than your self-serving self-pity ANY day of the week.

Grow the fuck up.

b'by Ratzy!

seetreeme

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday February 11, 2013 · 8:15 AM PST

2013/02/11 · 08:15

Not my favorite Pope. A Poopy Pope in my Opinion. My question: is he now the Dowager Pope, the Pope Emeritus, or a Backseat Pope Driver? Where does he live? Will he be calling the new pope up to complain "you're doing it wrong"?

In all seriousness, I have really disliked Pope Benedict. I'm glad he has chosen to abdicate, and I will pray the the Catholic Church will take this opportunity to reflect on the actual needs of Holy Mother Church and elect a Pontiff with humility. I'd love to send every cardinal a copy of "Shoes of the Fisherman" to give them a clue. This is good news for the church, only if they can elect a man of vision and courage.

So mote it be.

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