RKNet Blog... Thing

It’s rare that I decide to comment on political matters, or politics in general. I find the entire subject fraught with philosophical dead ends and sand pits. Politics deals with handling the issues of large numbers of people by trying to make decisions that effect the masses while pleasing as many of them as possible. In short, a Sysiphean task of mind-bogglingly awful proportions that no one will ever do “right” no matter how great or wise they may be.

At the end of the day “Republican” and “Democrat” are just words. Just ideologies of people whose decisions may effect systems that do directly effect our lives, but do not run our lives any more than we allow them to do so. It’s the beauteous terror of what is still more or less a free country that our success, or failure, is still mostly within our own hands, and the hands of those we trust most. If those hands you trust most are those belonging to strangers in the national government, you should be prepared at any time for disappointment.

That said, I am now and always will be a cruel advocate for self-sufficiency and not living beyond one’s means. This does not mean separatism, rigorous self-denial, working one’s self to death, etc are the best or only options. That kind of pessimism comes from the blissful, privileged innocence in which most of us were raised.

The short version of that is: Fuck the system, take care of you and yours and things will probably turn out ok.

Despite my recent splurge on a new phone, and my recent decision to maintain my technicolor hair professionally, there are many aspects of my life related to spending and saving money that I don’t share. Most of those things consist of ways I cut corners, entire categories of Things I Simply Don’t Do Because They Cost Too Much(tm), and my recent commitment to agressive debt reduction and budgeting.

All that said, here are some articles from a terrific blog about getting a freaking grip on the root of all evil.

• Are You Worried About Today’s Economy?
• Five Tactics for Pursuing Voluntary Simplicity
• The New Thrift and Seduction by Debt
• Unit Pricing: Get More Food For Less Money

And an idea that I am getting more excited about the more I think about it: Buying into a local farm for fresh produce, eggs, meat, and dairy all year. (Or at least all spring, summer and fall!)

Just look at all the options for the area!
Who wants to buy in with me, when I figure out what the hell a “share” at a farm adds up to?

In what can best be described as a very long pitch to get people to join a group called Question Authority on MondoGlobo, Phil Leggiere provides this timeline of the Bill of Rights during the Bush Administration.

It does cite sources all along the way, such as the NY Times, Slate, and US Today, so it can’t really be written off as so much unverifiable conspiracy theory. Still, this is a very long timeline, stretching in a rather poorly designed column from 2001 to this year.

There are gems like this:

June

In “Bong Hits for Jesus” case Supreme court rules that student free speech rights do not extend to promotion of drug use.

And more urgent-sounding items brought up such as:

May

National Security Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD-51) establishes a new post-disaster plan (with disaster defined as any incident, natural or man-made, resulting in extraordinary mass casualties, damage or disruption) which places the president in charge of all three branches of government. The directive overrides the National Emergencies Act which gives Congress power to determine the duration of a national emergency.

Note: For what it’s worth, both of those items are from this year.

It would be really nice if someone could arrange this in a more smooth, visual fashion, rather than a giant article. It is far easier to swallow large timelines of events when arranged as, well, a timeline.

Incidentally, after a little poking around, I discovered that RU Sirius is a member of Question Authority, and the group itself was created by user “MondoGlobo“, who in turn links to 10 Zen Monkeys. All that lead me to look back through Valleywag, where I discovered a brief blurb about MondoGlobo, 10 Zen Monkeys, and RU Sirius.

Given all that, it is difficult to say at this time if the agenda of Question Authority and this timeline is to generate more members for the group, or to generate attention to MondoGlobo itself.

Via the rumor mill and Snopes:
There has been a lot of buzz surrounding “2007 as the year we may lose Equal Rights Voting”. As per usual, Snopes has been kind enough to illustrate thatthis simply is not true.
The right to vote for all (males) regardless of color was secured with the Fifteenth Amendment to the US Constitution.
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amendment_15
And: http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Am15

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was established to allow for Federal enforcement of equal-rights voting within the individual States. This was renewed for 25 years by Congress and signed by President Bush last year, well in advance of the 2007 expiry date.

“The prohibition of voting rights discrimination on the basis of race, color, or previous condition of slavery was first codified by the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1870. Soon after the failure of Reconstruction, southern states found other means besides those enumerated in the Fifteenth Amendment to deny the vote to blacks, through violence, intimidation, via Jim Crow laws that included literacy tests, poll taxes, and also grandfather clauses that permitted otherwise disqualified voters whose grandfathers voted (thus allowing some white illiterates to vote), all with the aim and effect of re-imposing racially motivated restrictions on the voting process that prevented blacks from having political and economic power.”

— Source: Wikipedia article on The Voting Rights Act of 1965

Even though we live in some dark and troubled times of suspect legislation and shadowy government actions, the looming threat of equal-rights voting being allowed to expire is one monster-under-the-bed we can truly see as the pile of stuff (and nonsense) that it truly is.

Stay sharp, and stay educated, because knowledge is power.

I don’t usually pay attention to the Biodemocracy newsletter, but I was skimming it, and read this:

With the Bush Administration’s reduced funding for education, many school districts have been forced to seek other sources of income, including widespread installation of junk-food vending machines. School districts can make up to $100,000 per year under these contracts, but as a result of increased access to unhealthy foods, the childhood obesity and diabetes epidemics are on the increase. In response, two dozen states are now considering banning junk food vending machines in
schools. The National Soft Drink Association is contesting this ban, claiming that high levels of junk food consumption are okay, and placing the blame on schools for not teaching the kids to exercise more.

It’s funny ~and~ sad.