Why you should care about David Kato

David Kato, a gay rights activist in Uganda was murdered this past week.  This came after the names of known homosexuals in Uganda were published in the newspaper with the full backing of the Ugandan government.  You see, Ugandans believe homosexuals will steal their children and turn them into gay people, so they want all the gay people in Uganda killed.


This push to kill gay people in Uganda has come to a head after a visit to the government of Uganda from a group from here in the US claiming to be "experts" on how to deal with homosexuals.  One of the members of this group is a man by the name of Scott Lively.  


I had the displeasure of dealing with Scott Lively back in 1992 when he and a group called the Oregon Citizens Alliance got a statewide ballot measure placed before the voters in Oregon attempting to amend the constitution thusly:

All governments in Oregon may not use their monies or properties to promote, encourage or facilitate homosexuality, pedophilia, sadism or masochism. All levels of government, including public education systems, must assist in setting a standard for Oregon's youth which recognizes that these behaviors are abnormal, wrong, unnatural and perverse and they are to be discouraged and avoided.

To include homosexuality with pedophiles, and during the campaign they even linked gays to beastiality - was beyond the pale.  To say it was a very contentious campaign was putting it mildly as there were threats against openly gay individuals and supporters during the fight against this amendment.  It was defeated but the effects lingered, and the Oregon Citizens Alliance took their fight to individual cities within the state and won in places like Springfield and Canby.  Eventually the state legislature overruled these local measures and the opposition eventually formed the basis for much of what currently ensures gays the rights they have in Oregon and the development of the group Basic Rights Oregon.

I tell you all of this, because Scott Lively is no more an expert on homosexuals than I am an expert in news broadcasting.  (I am NOT)   For him to now take his hate -filled agenda outside the borders of the US, where he can not be monitored for his hate-crimes, is sickening in my opinion.  Especially when this man purports to be a so-called christian man. 

It is apparent to me that this person- Scott Lively and the people who subscribe to his rhetoric, are fomenting hate for anyone who is not like them.  You might be next...

time for Revolution .... at the ballot box

“People in debt become hopeless and hopeless people don’t vote. They always say that that everyone should vote but I think that if the poor in Britain or the United States turned out and voted for people that represented their interests there would be a real democratic revolution.” - Tony Benn

Let's talk Debt.

http://cedarcomm.com/~stevelm1/USDebt.png

How about a challenge.

Right now, the House of Representatives is weighted heavily to the Republi/Tea Party.  This group is railing against the debt that the country is dealing with and rightfully so.  The problem though is that the solutions being bandied about by this group, are tired and ineffectual non-solutions that were tried during the Reagan years and proven to be disastrous.  Trickle-down, voo-doo economics will not, can not, solve the problems this country is facing today.


Yes, there are duplicative efforts at play in Washington.  Can the work in Washington be streamlined?  Possibly.  It will take the effort of people outside of the Washington influence to come in and audit every faction within the machinations of the government. To say it would be a herculean effort is to put it mildly.  It would take some of the best and brightest minds.  I propose we solicit this as part of a Graduate study program for Economics, Accounting, Public Health, and other major areas of study.  Chose students from every public University in the country and challenge them to find the waste in our government.  Challenge them to create better ways to manage the bureaucracy without increasing the costs to the general public.  In return for their efforts, their graduate degree is paid for.  I can guarantee you that the money found by those students, will well be worth the cost of their graduate degrees.

Citizens United?!?!?!?

One year ago President Obama in his State of the Union address made mention of what he felt was a grievous error on the side of the Supreme Court in their Citizens United Ruling.  Justice Alito took issue with Obama's stance muttering "not true" under his breath when the President spoke of how the ruling would essentially open elections up to the highest corporate bidder and remove the true electorate (you) from the process.  


I have attached a graph, courtesy of Opensecrets.org, of the top contributors and the political parties to which they donated in the last election cycle.  You decide.


Top Overall Donors - Repub /Dem 


Top Overall Donors - where the money came from