I know that for a man to say he hates football, he risks being labeled a pansy, a communist or worse, but the truth is that the game makes me tired all over. My wife is a rabid Pittsburgh Steelers fan and we have struck a deal that we don't watch any football except the Steelers, and that it how we have peace in our house.

The city of Tampa, which is hosting the super bowl this year, has already started a despicable round up of call girls in a cheap effort to "clean up" their city before the big game. This link will take you to the mug shots of some of the ladies rounded up: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2009/0128091tampa1.html
The amount of hypocrisy it takes for a city to "put on a good face for the game" makes me ill.

For starters, the city is picking on women who are already clearly among it's most vulnerable. Sex workers have no medical insurance, and who could need it more than they do? If you look hard at the pictures, you will see that some of the ladies have been physically abused, others need medical care, and at least some are drug addicted. In short, these women, who are our mothers, sisters and daughters, need protection, not self-righteous grand standing from public officials.

Where are the pictures of the whoremongers who keep these women in business? Why aren't their ugly faces held up for public ridicule? The city of Tampa should be ashamed of itself. It is way past time to legalize prostitution, and start taking care of our most vulnerable citizens, whether we approve of them or not. I look forward to a time when our society will judge itself based on how we treat the powerless among us. Mythologizing football players is tired and pointless, and besides, they have lawyers, unlike those girls.

The Palestinian people in Gaza need Hamas like they need a hole in the head. Hamas hides among civilians and provokes Israel at every possible turn. Truly Hamas shares some of the blame for civilian casualties. If you pull the tail of a rabid dog, you can expect to get the rabies.

Still, thinking people should ask themselves, why Israel is using such disproportionate force? Why are they bombing hospitals and schools? Why are so many of the dead and wounded women and children? Why are they bombing UN convoys? Why are they only giving civilians 3 hours a day to get food and water? Why are they not allowing journalists into Gaza?

I think the journalism question is a pretty easy one. No sane civilian could look at Gaza and not have immediate sympathy for the people who live there. There are plenty of pictures of the carnage but for the most part you have to go to Al Jezeera to see them, and that is a problem. The American press is derelict in its duty. Just reading casualty figures isn’t reporting. Repeating the press statements of the IDF isn’t reporting. This is as bad as the reporting out of Iraq during the insurgency. Apparently Americans don’t want the full picture of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Since there is no way George Bush will ever criticize or pressure Israel, that job will fall to the Obama administration. My country has lost the totality of its moral authority in the world. I can only hope the new administration wants some of it back.

Fuckin Ayn Rand and her petty Objectivism still has this country in a choke hold. Bush doesn’t even know what Objectivism is, but it corollaries with selfishness so perfectly that he doesn’t need to know. If you believe in one you believe in the other.

Objectivism is a perfect springboard for fascism or any totalitarianism. All it requires is that government not check excess in concentration of money or power. In the power vacuum that exists when regulation and over site are removed, money attracts money and power is concentrated beyond good and right. The poor are used for labor and canon fodder. Institutions begin to exist only to enrich the overlords or reinforce themselves. The notion of the commonwealth becomes antiquated and super-capitalism is dogma.

Once you make selfishness and greed the largest part of patriotism, it becomes impossible to argue against war, and poverty can be the status quo. In this world, tax breaks for the wealthy start to make sense. Of course absolute advantages are necessary. Comparative advantages are so 20th century. From that rational, who cares if 10% of the population is out of work? Who cares if living wages disappear? Who cares if the environment is degraded and who cares if most of the world hates us? The thing I will never understand is that poor people who read this will get very angry at me.

Foreign Policy

Close Guantanamo.
This is so easy and it’s the right thing to do.
Renounce torture
Close all black prisons
Exit Iraq & Afghanistan
Iraq is like America’s abortion and the sooner it is behind us the better.
Renounce war as a foreign policy tool
Give up cluster weapons, they are WMDs
Stop using napalm because it is a chemical weapon
Stop using depleted Uranium weapons, they leave radiological waste
Stop pressing to use glycol phosphate, another chemical weapon
End the drug war because it is a war against people
De-fund defence until we have parity with China

At Home
Foreclosure relief because not doing it is immoral
Stop cheating veterans – no class
Re-regulate banking and finance, duh!!
Jobs and reinvestment in infrastructure
Invest in alternative energy
Create green Jobs
Rejoin Kyoto
Increase mileage standards for cars driven in the US.
Fire all managers and partisans in the justice department
End the war on drugs

We want freedom of speech
But we all talkin' at the same time
We say we want peace
But nobody wants to change their own mind, no they don't

So it goes on and on and on and on and on
For a thousand years, a thousand years I say
And it goes on and on and on and on and on
What language are your tears, are your tears

Everybody wants to live the life of kings and queens
But nobody wants to stay and plow the fields
Everybody wants to tell their neighbors how to live
But nobody wants to listen to how they feel

And it goes on and on and on and on and on
For a thousand years, a thousand years I say
And it goes on and on and on and on and on
What language are your tears, are your tears

But what I got to say right now
Is love enough yeah, love enough yeah, love enough,
Or can you love some more
Is the love enough yeah, love enough yeah, love enough
Or can you love some more
Is your love enough yeah, your love enough yeah, is your love enough
Or can you love some more
Is your love enough yeah, your love enough yeah, is your love enough
or tell me can you love some more

It goes on and on and on and on and on
For a thousand years I say
And it goes on and on and on and on
What language are your tears, are your tears

What mother nature gives
Mankind refuse to let live
Taking the universe in their own hands
Oh lets stop short-circuiting the positive
Charging the negative
Causing the most unusual circumstances
Everyday we rise like ember to life we fight again
Hoping that hearts will receive our love total(?)
Blessed words we speak again
of the words to do (?) my friend
for us to live in here garden of eden

So tell me is your love enough, yeah, your love enough, yeah, is your love enough, or can you love some more
is your love enough, yeah, your love enough, yeah, is your love enough, or tell me, tell me, tell me, what's it...

What language to laugh in
What language to cry in
What language to dance in, make romance in
What language to make love in, or pray to the above in

What language are you fears
What language are you tear

Michael Franti