Legalize it!

Another quick note for those who may be reading:

Barney Frank and some other people from our congress have introduced a bill that would substantially change the “war on drugs” as we know it.

You know, MaryJane will make you insane.  Well, if the bill passes (which unfortunately is unlikely) federal law would be amended to remove criminal penalties for up to 100 grams of MaryJane.  I think that’s about 3 ounces or so.

No longer would college students have to worry about losing their financial aide for a little bit of whacky weed.

Please, if you have a heart, a brain, and a mind for civil liberties — call your representatives in congress and tell them about the bill and ask them to sign on and pass the thing.

20 Million people have been arrested for non-violent Marijuana offenses (I believe since Nixon declared the “war on drugs”)

Over a Trillion dollars has been spent.

We could feed a lot of children, educate a lot of people, make the world a better place — if we stop wasting money on wars against our own people.

How many millions of Americans can we lock up, for what they choose to put in their own bodies, and still call the USA a democracy?

Check out this link to an article about a press conference on the proposed legislation (similar to what Carter tried to pass in the 1970s) on the NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) web site.

By the way, if you go to the NORML blog — you’ll find an article about a beautiful young college student who was murdered because she was coersed  by police to work with an informant, in exchange for getting off of (their threat of) several years for simple possession. 

This has got to stop people.  It’s not about smoking Marijuana – it’s about saving our nation from irrational policy, that is hurting us more than any plant ever could!

DBC

Could this be the one?

We placed an offer on another house yesterday.  It needs a lot of work.  It has almost 2 acres, and is in Litchfield, which is quite far north from most of our friends — but I’ve always liked that part of Connecticut and so has Michael.

We hope to hear something soon about the offer.  But I’m not optimistic, knowing what a horrific process buying a home can be – especially on a limited budget.

You see, we didn’t buy into that whole NINJA loan scheme.  We are trying to live within (or below) our means.

Ideally, we’d like a home with some land, a little privacy, but not too far from civilization.  We’d like room for everything on the first floor, but wouldn’t mind a 2nd  for storage.

This house has all of that.  What it doesn’t have is a decent kitchen, a sink or shower knobs in the bathroom, an easy access driveway, finished wood floors, paint, and a lot of other technical things I suspect….may be wrong.  It does have a new roof, vinyl siding, and an area where a nice, easy approach driveway could be paved.

There is plenty of room to add a carport and/or screened in porch, and plenty of storage space on the 2nd floor (it is a cape).

We bid 30,000 less than asking price, which was generous in my mind, even though it is an inexpensive house for the area.

Problem is, for the sellers, nothing is selling, ESPECIALLY in outlying towns that are well out of commuting distance from NYC.

We’ll see if they say yes.  If they say no, oh, well, we’ll just have to wait longer.

Every indication is that the housing prices should continue to fall, substantially — and people holding their houses over the winter will certainly be crying in the spring.

As Michael sat on the lawn, I realized, for some crazy reason, he liked the place.  That’s why we put the offer in. 

We’ll see. 

Wish me luck.

DBC

Glass half empty; or glass half full?

I’ve been thinking the past few days…

Our nation is in quite a pickle.  Despite Republican rhetoric that “the economy isn’t in recession” by the looks of Route 1 in many Connecticut towns, it is in a deep recession.  More and more storefronts are empty, which is a condition I don’t remember since I was in high school, well over a decade ago.

Locally in Connecticut, Gov. Rell vetoed a minimum wage bill recently, which sent a poor message to…. well…the working poor.  Next time you think someone spit into your soda at the local fastfood drive-through, think about what they get paid!

The war rages on, and it seems that while the public wants it to end, the politicians just don’t get it.  The Democrats do have a way to STOP THE WAR.  They can defund it.  But they haven’t done so.

I do have faith in Mr. Obama, should he be elected.  I believe he sincerely desires change, and as a person of color, I can’t believe that he doesn’t have a different perspective, as many of his peers have been disenfranschized by our nation.

So, we have the economy in the tank, with mortgages defaulting at an alarming rate, causing bank failures, families in the street, and yet housing prices haven’t decreased below the level they were at when Bush took office.  Hopefully soon they will.  But it shows that this nation is in a state of limbo.  It is kind of like when you are on a roller coaster, at the top, and looking down, about to be released on the downward slide of the century. 

Hopefully, our economy isn’t that bad.

But if this war continues, and if the wars at home, such as the war against the poor continue, the economy will worsen beyond what my generation has ever known.

So, what to do?  Register every single young person you know, to vote.  Period.  The younger the voter, in my mind, the more likely they will vote for change.  Old people?  Ask them what they think of Medicare Part D (the Bush prescription drug charade)  If they don’t like it, ask them to vote too.

Know someone about to lose their home?  Tell them why, in detail, and hand them a voter registration card! 

All of this said, and having had the (dis?)pleasure of living abroad, I can tell you that the American spirit, while broken, is not totally lost.  I believe that with a little time and a lot of healing, and a move towards peace based government – we can regain our prestige in the world, not at gunpoint, but through scientific innovation and love of our fellow men and women of all races and nations.

Many years ago, before I was born, they invented a phrase “make love, not war”.  Perhaps we should reconsider the idea, in more than one way!

David B. Cappiello

My cousin Tommy….?#!@?%?$%?$?%

Unemployed.  But not counted.

My cousin Tommy is a very bright young man – almost 22.  He lives in his bedroom, like 24/7.  Well, almost.  He plays video games, on sega genesis…no, that’s not it, Atari, no… um, well, he won’t say what it’s called.  It took me 25 minutes to remember that is called X-box live.

(I haven’t played video games that went beyond SuperNintendo, and quite frankly I rather liked the Atari 2600)

Tommy has never worked, yet inside him lies this genious, just waiting to burst out into the world, and create something, be something, something grand. 

Because he’s never worked, he’s not counted as “unemployed” in the Bush world.  No, he’s just not counted.  This is one of the many fallacies of the Bush – era, in which we have a horrible economy, but skew the numbers, and claim everything is just fine.

Meanwhile, people, including some that Tommy knows, are struggling.  The middle class is dying.  And O’Reilly, Bush and all the gangster big-government, pro-corporate downsizing, outsourcing Republicans are laughing.

I heard O’Reilly, “The Factor” — the propaganda in the background.

He (Tom) told me it was the best news show in the world, laughing, with what I pictured to be a sickly grin on his face.  He told me I was the one buying into a liberal world of lies.  A world in which we don’t buy into constant war and fear and racism and cruelty.

He lives in a pretend world – but yet, at times, one could admire his world.    It’s so easy to hide in a room, and play video games, at least until life pulls the plug….which will happen one day soon for him.

He has lived the past 8 years, come of age actually, during an era of fear — propagated with so-called news networks, like FoxNews – which spin everything, until the viewer becomes dizzy and neo-conned.

During that time, the people who support Tommy have gone through crisis, as have most of us, as the housing bubble burst, and credit tightened, war raged on, people died, others cried.

Most of the so-called Republicans, who supported Bush are nowhere to be found in these parts.  Tommy doesn’t realize this.  Because he hasn’t left his room, for the real world outside.

Tommy is a late bloomer, as far as a career.  Whether or not he will ultimately drop the Bush-whacked, pro war mantra, only time will tell.  But I do think that one day he will have a career….he could possibly become a writer, or even a journalist, maybe a lawyer.

But when he embraces outside life — and he will — it will be much harder for him to succeed, because Bush and company have stolen from the middle class and broken the spirit of our nation (let alone the dead bodies piling up in Iraq etc)  Bush lied to us and Tommy doesn’t realize it yet.  He’s one of a small class of people who still, yes, still, believe the neo-conservative bulls_it.

The sad thing is that you and I and Tommy will pay for it.  Reduced government services, yet, greatly increased taxes, to fund war debt, and worse.

I do believe that one day, Tom will be tired of X-box, emerge from his room, and build some sort of empire.  That is, when he realizes that he’s smarter, better, more intelligent than the junk and those who spin it, on the Fox News channel.

Until then…. he’ll be very angry I mentioned him in my blog.   Because he doesn’t think he’s important enough.  To me, he is.

David B. Cappiello

Housing Crisis, oil shock, sticker shock, global depression?

I feel depressed….I wish I had a crystal ball and a magic wand, so I could look into the future and change anything I didn’t like.
It seems like our nation is headed over the cliff financially. Paying bills today, and realizing that even though we could afford to pay the massive electric bill, the rising cable bill, the huge food bill, the huge gasoline bill — that other’s couldn’t…..

Something is wrong, and I fear that whomever wins the election, we are still in for several years of bumpy rides.

Meanwhile, on a house in Orange, we were told “no to your offer and no counter-offer” — this after the listing agent called our agent practically begging us to make an offer. All for a crappy little ranch with bathroom tiles five feet up the walls (pink and green) not just in the bathroom, but in the kitchen and hallways! A furnace from the 1950s (despite their claim it was brand new!) a well with a pressure tank rusting away — and only 1000 square feet. Are they kidding?

They should be begging us to come back to them.  But reality hasn’t set in — either that, or like many people, they are over-financed and can’t sell.  Not sure which.

The housing crisis and sticker shock on the price of …. well… everything, is sure to weaken US national security, as well as the middle class…..what’s left of it.

We’re still afloat….but we know of many people who aren’t.

I hope Obama gets elected…. but what a mess he’ll inherit, just in time for the bigots to blame it all on him (and the Democrats)

David

Hello world!

Welcome everyone!  It was only a matter of time before I started blogging on a personal basis.  Well, here I am…. expect to hear a lot from me on current events, politics, social issues, freedom of speech, privacy issues and more!

I am mostly a liberal boy, usually vote for the democrats or third party candidates.  But sometimes, on some issues, I take a sort of libertarian approach – and wish the government would shrink and states rights would be restored.

As an openly gay/bisexual person, I have faced my fair share of persecutions on occasions, some of this resulting from intrusive government civil liberties violations and some of it from plain old bigotry.  I have plenty of opinions on social issues, including gay rights, marriage, discrimination, and more.

On states rights, I question a government which has been (at least on the federal level) run by Republicans who are seldom challenged by their (castrati) Democratic opponents.  While Republicans claim to be for “less government” or “smaller government” they have allowed their party to be dominated by religious fundamentalists, who confuse religion with government and desire a theocracy, rather than a democracy.  Rather than “get government off our backs” they really just want unregulated big business for corporations, while at the same time spying on and regulating anyone who isn’t a right wing RELIGIOUS fundamentalist.

This has resulted in anti-gay ballott initiatives and worse yet, constitutional amendments in some states barring gay marriage – and even forbidding companies who had previously, voluntarily decided to provide same sex domestic partner health benefits, from doing so…..and the gay issue, so to speak, is being used as a political football, to distract the attention of the “average Joe” in middle America, as his jobs are shipped overseas, and her/his union rights are abolished.

Only about 10% of the workforce has a union, and at that, pro-big-business court decisions have stripped much of the bargaining power away from these unions – taking power away from the little people, and lowering wages and reducing benefits.

Jobs are shipped to foreign countries, where slave labor (or at least indentured servititude) is used, causing our middle class to shrink.

Draconian drug laws and anti-Marijuana reefer madness still prevails on a federal (and in most states) level, with politicians refusing the will of the majority of the people — to get out of people’s medicine cabinets.  These laws were invented (see propaganda films and ads from the 1930’s and later) specifically to incite racial tension, and have an excuse to easily jail racial minorities.

Millions of people are in jail, in the “land of the free” on non-violent petty drug charges.  We ridicule other countries on human rights violations, as we do the same or worse, on a massive scale.

Yet, reform never seems to happen on a tangible level.  Why?  Because big government Republicans and Democrats are too cowardly in the face of pharmaceutical lobbyists, religious fundamentalist-prohibitionists, and anti-freedom extremists!

In the past, when the courts (even on the federal level) struck down some of these laws, congress would enact harsher laws, and design them in ways to make it harder to strike them down in court — while at the same time, bullying the media into propagandizing one side of the story, and also pressuring the judiciary to act as a prosecutorial arm of the government, rather than independently deciding cases.

These drug laws were direct precursors to erroding the 1st and 4th amendments of the Constitution of the USA (in the Bill of Rights)

This led to our quiet acceptance of the USA Patriot Act after 9/11 — which made a giant leap into a police-state like government, where no one is quite sure what rights they have (none).

Freedom of Information requests to government agencies are often denied on “security” grounds, even though they have nothing to do with security. 

Citizens are frequently targeted, in secret, by warrantless wiretapping and spying.

Neighbors are turned against neighbors in secret informant/spy programs.

All of this supposedly to catch terrorists.  Yet, all of this is used against people like you and me, who are concerned about our freedoms, average citizens who read the newspapers, blog online, watch the news, develop healthy political opinions.

Where will it all lead?  Hopefully, soon, we’ll exit this era of 1950’s era paranoia, and revise these laws, and reverse the damage done to our constitution.

Hopefully.

I have a lot more to say about this and other issues.  Come back often.  I hope to update my personal blog at least once a week.

I hope that my blog won’t be just a list of complaints.  I want to brainstorm solutions.  Me, the average 30 something person.  I want answers, and talking, blogging, is a way to find them!

I leave you with the 1st and 4th amendments:

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

 

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Found at http://www.billofrights.org

and let’s not forget the frequently ignored 10th amendment:

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

We’ll talk more about this another time….!

 

~David