LEAVE IT TO PEEVER

Days of Healing

– Bumper sticker of the week: Make Love, not War (See Driver for Details).

– Today’s corporate broadcast media is the last place you want to go to get the "news." The same applies to election polls. They are all designed to measure the status quo. They don’t bother asking the poor, the young, the disenfranchised. They don’t call cell phones, which many people use now. If they called these people, Bush would be losing by 15%. If these people vote, which is a big "if," he will lose by over one million votes. At that number, not even the Supreme Court will be able to save him. Not without a fight.

– Days of Healing: I’m thinking of buying the church down the street from me and opening a center for the recovery of right-wing Christians. I’m thinking of calling it Days of Healing. We’ll use a variation of AA’s 12 Steps:

1. Admitting you were wrong about the world and the way you viewed it.

2. Handing your life and recovery over to someone with an IQ over 50. This will require you to make new friends.

3. Come to an understanding that there are many paths to God’s door, not just Christianity.

4. Make a list of all the persons you have hurt regarding your right-wing ideology and ask for their forgiveness. This will be hard, particularly if you have children.

5. Admit that guns are not worthy of worship; that government should help the poor, not the wealthy; that a person should be elected who gets the most votes; that war should be a last resort, not a first priority.

6. Practice compassion, charity without conditions, kindness, tolerance, diversity, understanding, forgiveness, compromise, and negotiation. It’s best to confront things that you’re not good at.

7. Admit that women should have more control over their bodies than Congress.

8. Admit that all of us should have more control over our lives than Congress.

9. Humbly ask God to forgive you for misusing Christianity and the Bible.

10. Come to understand that religion and politics don’t mix.

11. Having seen the error of your ways, give away everything that you own to the poor as repentance for your misguided life.

12. Once you are over the right-wing nonsense that was instilled in you by your parents, it is your job to help your friends overcome this affliction. Live life to its fullest and be happy. You’ll be amazed at the results. You might just smile.

– GREEDA questions:

1. With 1.5 million square feet of commercial space available in Galesburg, why would we need more?

2. Why are the GREEDA people listed as the leads for the commercial space that WE own? Why not a trained real estate agent?

3. Why is the taxpayer-owned warehouse for sale? Who gets the money? Why not be giving some space to people for a year or two to help them start a business?

4. Why no expectations on the partakers of TIF districts and enterprise zones?

5. Why does Johnson Building Systems do all the buildings? Thank God they don’t build widgets, we’d be ass deep in them. (Thanks to Greg for your help).

– Speaking of jokes: The Justice Department, under the right-wing eye of John Ashcroft, has bungled just about every terrorist case they have pursued:

• Detroit: Three African men arrested just days after 9/11. Convicted. This month a federal judge threw out the convictions and dismissed the cases. Justice Department had withheld evidence.

• Spanish bombing: Justice Department detained a Muslim lawyer who lives in Portland in connection with the March 11 bombing in Madrid. They found a fingerprint. He was held 14 days. Sorry, wrong finger. Case dismissed.

• Muslim chaplain arrested: A Muslim chaplain working in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was arrested for spying. He was held in solitary confinement for 76 days. Government was talking about the death penalty. Case dismissed, no evidence.

– It seems to me the justice system in this country is 90% joke, 10% effective, and 100% outdated.