I Am Pissed.

Seriously? No public option? Over the course of writing my blog I have become more and more dissatisfied with the American legislative process, and this is a prime example of why I am so dissatisfied. Congress decided on a health care reform bill that did not include a public option. I wrote my first blog this year about health care reform, and I find it sad and ironic that my last blog this year will be a reiteration of the first. I guess that goes to show the speed and efficiency of our U.S. Congress.

To put it simply, we need a public option. That’s it. Not even just a public option, but true universal, socialized healthcare. 60% of Americans agree with me, but, unfortunately, 0% of health insurance companies agree with me. And, unfortunately, 60% of Americans don’t have $400,000,000 to donate to congressmen, but 100% of insurance companies do. This goes back to another blog I wrote about publically funded races and corruption in Washington, but I digress. Actually, maybe I don’t. I think I’m going to use this blog to vent a little anger and wrap up everything I’ve said in my other blogs. Politicians are corrupt. I think that just about sums it up.

I know. I’m being a little too harsh, but I really wanted a public health care system. I wanted real change, “change I could believe in.” I feel like a kid who asked Santa for a bike and got a pair of socks instead. No. It’s worse than that. The bill requires all citizens to buy heath insurance, even the working poor. This is a travesty. It is just an example of the blatant corruption in congress, and I’m beginning to loath our legislative process. We need real change, not just campaign promises.

Bust the Fillibuster

Filibusters kinda suck. A filibuster is when a minority party stalls legislation in the Senate by debating ceaselessly. This leads to an annoying, counter-productive waiting game that wastes time and money. Although the filibuster can be used to give a voice to a minority party, it has become too widely used and has become an obstruction to democracy rather than a tool to progress democracy.

The filibuster has recently become the tool of a vindictive, grudge-holding minority GOP who simply tries to block any piece of legislation that comes to the Senate. In the 1960s, only 8% of major bills were filibustered. Today, around 80% of major bills are filibustered. This has led to a lack of meaningful progress within Congress and has merely prevented anything useful from happening and has led to, according to the Daily Kos Poll, an abysmal approval rating of just 12% for republicans in Congress. Clearly, the filibuster no longer serves its purpose of being a weapon for the underrepresented in Congress.

What can we do about it? There re lots of ways to preserve the filibuster and the power it provides while allowing progress in the Senate. One option is to limit the number of filibusters allowed. This would bring the filibuster back to its original purpose of allowing the blockage of bills deemed essentially important to the minority party while destroying the function of the filibuster as a tool of simple obstruction. Another option is to allow multiple bills to be o the floor at one time. This would let the minority party block necessary bills while still letting other bills be voted on, ending the logjam and backup created by filibusters. A final option is to change rules of cloture in a novel way. Under current rules of cloture, a filibuster can be broken with 60 votes against it. I propose that there should be allowed one vote for cloture per week. The first week, cloture would require 60 votes, but the second week would require 57, the third week 54 and so on. This would preserve filibuster to a point but still eventually lead to progress within Congress. I think at least one of these should be implemented in an effort to have some meaningful legislation happen for once in congress.

Bring on the Nukes!

What is wrong with nuclear power?! Many environmentalists are strongly against nuclear power because there is a belief that every nuclear power plant is bound to go Three Mile Island on our asses and we’ll all either die or turn into mutant freaks. But this doesn’t make any sense. There have only ever been two meltdowns in history, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. And this is among 436 active nuclear power plants in 31 countries, who have been producing power for the combined equivalent of about 14,000 years. Those are pretty good odds.

I consider myself a left-wing nut job and an environmental activist, and as such I am compelled to support nuclear power. Nuclear reactions themselves don’t produce CO2. In fact, the reaction that produces the electricity emits no greenhouse gasses whatsoever. The only waste is the spent fuel rods, which can be disposed of safely. This is the best argument I can think of for nuclear power. It is not as clean as wind or solar, but it pumps out a lot more electricity. However, it is much cleaner than coal or gas yet produces comparable amounts of energy. Nuclear power is safe and clean.

As an environmentalist, I support nuclear energy. While it has its flaws and an ideal world would be powered solely by wind and solar energy, nuclear power is practical and it is a much better alternative than our current dependence on atrociously dirty coal and gas plants. Like I said, nuclear is surprisingly safe and clean, and I think we need to demand a switch.

I'd Kill for a Job in this Economy!

The recession must be getting really bad. For the first time in over 35 years, the U.S. Army met all of its enlistment goals, despite the near certainty of recruits seeing combat in one of the two wars we’re fighting at the moment. This hasn’t happened since 1973, just after Congress ended the draft. Recently, Army recruiting has been slow and the army has consistently fallen well below its recruiting goals, but this year the military saw 168,900 new recruits, or 103% of their goal.

This drastic influx of recruits was caused by one thing: the recession. In today’s awful job market, struggling young men and women naturally turned to the armed services, enticed by guaranteed work an around $14,000 in bonuses. This is a pretty sweet deal for someone who has been laid off, maybe supporting a family. It might even be sweet enough to risk losing your life or your sanity to war.

I find this to be somewhat depressing. People are being forced into military service because they cannot support themselves any other way in today’s economy. I think it’s sad that people have to risk their lives in an unpopular war just to feed their families. This influx was not caused by the wars “justness” or popularity or by national pride. It was caused by necessity and poverty. Oh well. During the Great Depression FDR created works programs like the CCC to provide employment for struggling citizens. I guess the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are our equivalent of a New Deal.

A New Dirty Air Bill

Today I saw an interesting article in the New York Times. This article detailed the story of a new movement in the Bay Area against a new clean air bill. Ya, AGAINST a new air bill. That didn’t seem right. One of the most liberal parts of the country is fighting what seems to be a very liberal bill. Something isn’t right here.

Bt as I read the article, it all became clear. The bill would make it expensive and difficult to build any new building in heavily urban areas. So it’s about money? Well, a little bit, but there is a legitimate environmental grievance against this bill. If development in urban areas is restricted, there will be more suburban development. More suburban development leads to more commuters driving polluting cars farther distances to work, which has a huge environmental impact.

This finally leads to the big problem: why can’t our legislation do anything right? This clean air bill was supposed to reduce CO2 and other greenhouse gasses and make our air cleaner. This is a novel and necessary motive, but it was executed terribly. A clean air bill that will lead to more cars on the road and, ultimately, more pollution? Come on now. Decreases in CO2 need to be implemented immediately and strictly, but half-hearted attempts and blunders will do absolutely nothing to help save our dying planet.

Meat: It's Not For Dinner

I just became a vegetarian. I had been considering vegetarianism for some time ever since my brother became a veggie last year. Over the past year, the case against meat has become more and more compelling in my eyes, and I just recently took the plunge. In a society so focused on meat, backed by a government that subsidizes meat, vegetarianism can at times be a struggle simply because the overwhelming prevalence of meat in our culture. However, I have found so many reasons not to eat meat, my decision to become an herbivore was fairly easy to make.

There are two major reasons for my vegetarianism: environmental and salubrious. Meat is astonishingly bad for the environment because of the resources and land needed to sustain it along with the greenhouse gasses produced throughout all aspects of its production and transportation. Take for instance the fact that producing eight ounces of beef requires 25,000 liters of water. Also, it takes far more fossil-fuel energy to produce and transport meat products than to deliver equivalent amounts of protein from plant sources. In the U.S., 56,000,000 acres of land produce hay for livestock. Only 4,000,000 acres support vegetables for human consumption. In Central America, 40% of all the rainforests have been cleared or burned down in the last 40 years, mostly for cattle pasture. These facts make a strong case against meat.

But, what really took it over the edge for me was my reaction to the film “Food Inc.,” which I strongly recommend. This film explored the modern meat industry and showed the horrible, unsanitary, hormone-riddled conditions of today’s mass production “farms.” Honestly, I don’t care that much about the inhumane treatment of these animals. It’s unsettling, but that prompts pity, not lifestyle change. What really sparked disgust were the unsanitary conditions of the pens and slaughter houses. Take cows, for instance. Cows in large factory farms spend their whole lives knee deep in their own feces, and they go to slaughter caked in manure. No matter how well these cows are washed, some of the manure inevitably winds up in the meat. Or what about chickens, who are pumped full of hormones so that they grow as fast and as large as possible, so fast and so large in fact that their bone structure cannot support their weight so they cannot take more than a few steps without collapsing. These images and explanations disgusted me, and coupled with my knowledge of the environmental impact prompted me to turn veggie.

But what about the arguments for meat? Ummmmm… it tastes good. That’s about it. It harms the environment. It is unhealthy. It is a leading cause of obesity, heart disease and e-coli. I’m a vegetarian and I’m proud of it.

The Best Government Money can Buy

Here’s how it all goes down in Congress: republicans are vindictive and corrupt and Democrats are spineless and corrupt. That’s it. Politicians care only about campaign contributions and reelection campaigns. Congressmen have merely become the pawns of big businesses, representing their owners while maintaining the façade of representing their constituents. We do, after all, have the best government money can buy.

The reason I am going on this tirade is I happened across a fabulous comic in the newspaper this Sunday. This comic centered around a thought provoking allegory for our political system. Say you are a UCLA football fan, but someone offered you $1000 to cheer for USC just once. Naturally, you’d do it, because you can always cheer for the Bruins next week plus you just got $1000 richer. This is a perfect allegory for our Congressional system. No matter how much a Senator wants a public option and no matter how much his constituents want a public option, if a health insurance company makes a million dollar contribution to your campaign, you’re gonna vote down a public option. It’s simple self-preservation. And what’s the true irony, if a Senator refuse the contribution and stand up for his own beliefs and his constituents’ beliefs (i.e. do the job he was elected to do), he would lose his reelection for lack of funding.

I think this is tragic. Our representative government barely represents us anymore. It is shifting to an oligarchy or even a plutocracy. Our Congressmen have been bought. They have betrayed us. I find great truth in a quote by Mark Twain: “To my mind Judas Iscariot was nothing but a low, mean, premature, Congressman.”

Mr. Sutley = Grinch

This week in a government building in Sonoma County, a man named Irv Sutley noticed an angel and a star among the holiday decorations in the building. Being an atheist, Sutley was deeply offended and demanded these religious symbols be taken down immediately. Neither angels nor stars belong to any single religion, but Sutley nevertheless demanded their removal, and they were soon removed.

I am a staunch proponent of separation of church and state, as well as a staunch atheist, but even I find Sutley’s reaction to the decorations severe and unfounded. Why does he care if there are a few Christian symbols put up by a Christian? Is it really so offensive? I’m an atheist too and I am not offended at all by any religious symbol, indeed I find religious art and symbols beautiful and interesting. I don’t care if someone expresses their faith, I even encourage this. Even in a public, governmental space, I cannot see why religious symbols should not be permissible unless they are overwhelming.

I think Sutley’s reaction was much too severe, and I disagree with him entirely. People like him reinforce the stereotype of atheists being repressive, angry, immoral curmudgeons. I abhor this stereotype because I see myself as an accepting, open-minded, moral atheist. I believe that one’s religion should barely affect one’s political decisions, especially the opinions of those in power, but I know this is unrealistic. I do, however, believe that one has the right to express and practice their religion however they please, even if it means putting up religious symbols or idols in public places. Thus, I strongly disagree with the rash, selfish actions of Mr. Sutley.