Saturday, December 16, 2006

Wondering what to get me for Christmas?

I'm not a soldier in the 'War on Christmas.' But, I'm not going to pretend it's not coming up. And I feel no need to treat Hannukah and Kwanzaa with equal billing. 'Happy Holidays' and its ilk are ways to use corporate and public money to celebrate Christmas while trying to stay seemly -- I'm totally for that. I just don't understand why individuals say 'Happy Holidays.' But, for you non-Christians, does hearing 'Merry Christmas' make you feel oppressed? Is 'Happy Holidays' better?

Is it still a digression if you lead with it? This post is really about CorpWatch. You know I think Bunnatine Greenhouse and Stuart Bowen are two of the real heroes of Iraq. If the occupation is about funneling money to Bechtel, CH2M Hill, Halliburton, SAIC and their ilk, then we lose as long as that goes on. It's fine to talk about all the disasters we create there and in Afghanistan, but the reason why we did it persists.

I saw this today in Talking Points Memo (it's from The Nation):
[In] New Orleans ... [f]ederal dollars are flowing to corporate bailouts and disaster profiteers, not to affected citizens, revealed an August analysis by CorpWatch, a San Francisco-based organization that previously investigated profiteering in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And now I'm all hot on CorpWatch. And I'm going to go get me a deck for WTO Loteria.

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