As the U.S evacuate its staff from Afghanistan, and as the usual gibberish is being spewed by Faux News and it's warmonger allies, let's remember that it was the Cheney-Bush administration that invaded Afghanistan. #Afghanistan#BushCheney#bushgang
Let's also remember that it was Cheney-Bush and their administration that made up the claim of weapons of mass destruction so that they could invade Iraq. If there were any really dangerous weapons in Iraq, they would have been weapons the U.S sold Iraq to fight Iran. #bush#oil
Let's also remember that it was President Obama who captured Osama Bin Laden, in Pakistan, a country that we had given a great deal of aid, in weapons and access for imports to the U.S. #oilwars#BushCheney#imperialism
Finally, let's go back to 1979 when Iran captured a lot of hostages, making President Carter look bad. That was back in the 1970s and 1980s when Iran was our enemy and Iraq was our friend. Let's also remember how those hostages were released when Reagan was elected. #Iran#oil
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In September of 2001, I was 38 and fortunate enough to be living in Madison, WI. I am not an expert, and certainly know less than those who actually fought in Afganistán and Iraq. But there were those of us who protested both wars from the beginning.
In late September I was in Washington, DC for a meeting about global debt relief, and some people there were from New York. They were visibly shaken and had lost family members. When I protested the war in Afghanistan, I did so knowing that the attack on 9/11 was horrific.
But putting Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld in charge of ongoing wars against "terrorism" seemed like a very bad idea. The authoritarianism appeared almost immediately - the idea that you could not criticize the government, the surveillance, NSA, and "Homeland" "Security".
I remember the flight from Kampala, Uganda to JFK in New York City in August of 1969. My father wasn't on the flight with us because he had already gone back to the U.S., but my sister couldn't travel yet because she was a baby.
It was fairly uneventful - I still remember that I left some coloring pens on the plane. My father and uncle met us st the airport and as they tell it, there was no traffic at all in New York City at 3:00 a.m. 2/
Later, my grandmother would tell me that I had helped shepherd the smaller children through the airport - but I think that was creating the myth that I was so well suited towards the parenting I would do when my mother died. 3/
Some of you may have access to my notes on the Farm Bill which I created for my upper division class on Farming and Agriculture. I have them backed up on flash drives in my apartment, on my old laptop (really old, needs to be recycled), and my newish laptop (bought 2014).
I might have uploaded the Farm Bill notes to a course website, and by then, Google was backing up all our computer interactions.
If you have somehow gained access to any and all of my class notes, powerpoints, and teaching materials, especially my Statistics courses, I ask that you credit me for the powerpoints and course materials. Creating them took a lot of work. Not citing me is like wage theft.
Finally, and I am going to say this as tactfully as possible, I get tired of urban people moving farmers and rural life. I did not grow up on a farm, but I studied agricultural trade for my dissertation. Farming is difficult, uncertain work. But farmers provide our food.
The last film I saw in a movie theater was Interstellar. I had a really hard time with the movie, because crop failure is *not* inevitable. But it is really depressing that we can send people to the moon and maybe Mars, but we can't organize against Monsanto.
I went to see the movie with my brothers and my family, and we went to the Cheesecake Factory (which some of you may know - you're quite good, I had no idea until 2016 that I was being spyed on). Anyway, my brothers and I discussed the movie.
@unicorn_uterus I didn't know of the people at the 2017 city caucuses in my ward. I had never seen them at events organized by my neighborhood organization, and I had been attending my neighborhood organization meetings since Jan of 2014. They were really young and white.
@unicorn_uterus I might go to Loring Park Pride Event. That has been around for over 40 years, and a former mayor, Mayor Rybek, is gay and did a lot for gay rights in the city. I want to get the opinions of people who have been here for ten years or more.
@unicorn_uterus There has been a lot of focus on the murder of George Floyd and racist police in the city, and that is a really good thing. But there are also a lot of questionable apartment developments happening.
There is also a stone cold truth that Minneapolis and Minnesota are sexist and misogynistic. Four years ago, this city could have voted for Betsey Hodges (married to an African American man) or Nekima Levy-Pounds (African-American lawyer). 1/
But somebody or some group organized an anybody but Betsey campaign, and another group launched a serious campaign for a man who had been convicted of child abuse within the theater world. Minneapolis chose Jacob Frey, who actually could have been a lot worse. 2/
I attended local caucuses in my ward in 2017 and 2018, and I was profoundly underwhelmed. I don't really know the people in my neighborhood anymore. What I saw at the 2017 caucus was a bunch of young, white people who seemed to have only just moved to the neighborhood. 3/