The Left Coast of Iowa

http://www.backwardsbush.com/

John Edwards will be in Sioux City on May 25 for a fundraiser for the Woodbury County Democrats.

This event just keeps getting better: Before Edwards speaks, you can hear brief remarks from our major candidates for Governor of Iowa, and U.S. Congress.

Tickets are $20 in advance, or $30 at the door. Tickets are also available for a private reception before the main event. You can buy your E-tickets at our website online before May 25 with a major credit card. When you buy online, your name will go on the list at the door of "prepaid" ticket holders. Click Here for details.

Memorial Day an opportunity to remember

Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on May 5, 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic and was first observed on 30 May 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery.

This is what General Logan wrote:

“The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.”

Most of the South refused to celebrate Memorial Day until after WWI and even then, several Southern states held ceremonies on separate days.

It is said that after that war the battlefields in France were covered in poppies, so that they looked blood red. Scientists now think that all the iron from the actual blood and decomposed bodies of fallen soldiers actually effected the soil there in such away as to drastically increase the yield of the natural poppy population.

The phenomenon led poet John McCrae to write his famous poem in1915:

“In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.”

This moved a woman named Moina Michael so much, that she wrote her own poem:

“We cherish too, the Poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led,
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies.”

She’s the one who came up with the idea of wearing red poppies on Memorial day to honor those who died serving their nation during war. Not only did she wear one, but she sold poppies to her friends and co-workers with the money going to benefit servicemen in need.

In the 1920’s, the Franco-American Children's League sold poppies nationally to benefit war orphans of France and Belgium. The League disbanded a year later and it’s organizers asked the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) for help. They’ve been selling poppies to help support the families of service personnel and veterans ever since then.

To help re-educate and remind Americans of the true meaning of Memorial Day, the "National Moment of Remembrance" resolution was passed in Dec 2000. President Clinton declared:

“As Memorial Day approaches, it is time to pause and consider the true meaning of this holiday. Memorial Day represents one day of national awareness and reverence, honoring those Americans who died while defending our Nation and its values. While we should honor these heroes every day for the profound contribution they have made to securing our Nation's freedom, we should honor them especially on Memorial Day.

In this time of unprecedented success and prosperity throughout our land, I ask that all Americans come together to recognize how fortunate we are to live in freedom and to observe a universal ‘National Moment of Remembrance’ on each Memorial Day. This memorial observance represents a simple and unifying way to commemorate our history and honor the struggle to protect our freedoms.

Accordingly, I hereby direct all executive departments and agencies, in consultation with the White House Program for the National Moment of Remembrance (Program), to promote a 'National Moment of Remembrance' to occur at 3 p.m. (local time) on each Memorial Day.”

No matter how we feel about the War in Iraq or the threat of war in Iran, we can all send our prayers out for the families of our men and women currently serving in the armed forces. And if only at 3 o’clock in the afternoon this Monday, we should take a moment to remember and give thanks for the men and women who have given their lives in return for the rights and privileges we all enjoy as Americans. And if you have a chance, buy a poppy.

In the late 1990's I was asked to write a play about the history of the Women's Sufferage movement as it was connected to Iowa.
The play is titled...."Take Your Places, Ladies!" and is written around 4 generations of women in one family as Great-Granny tells the story of she & her mother marching and taking their places in history.
It seems that some people think writing on women in history is feminist, and so I now have the honor of being chastised for being a feminist. Isn't that interesting?

When did history get to be so distorted? Steve King makes fun of Sen.
Joseph McCarty and others make fun of the 74-year long effort to get women the right to vote. Is there any difference?

And on Mother's Day I take delight in all the work that women have done, the 74-long years of work to get the right to vote and all the advances in this work brought about by women. But of course, I also take delight in all the advances brought about by men, too!

Join me in simply making more history.....Vote for me June 6th...or via absentee ballot.

With thanks,
Joyce Schulte

Mr. George W. Bush, Commander in Chief: If you and Mr. Cheney, Mr. Rumsfeld and Ms. Rice are waging a "war" on terrorism in Iraq, how can we leave there before all the terrorists are either killed or have surrendered (i.e., won the war the old fashion way), and what would we call it if we did leave? Retreat? Mission accomplished, again? The greatest military ever misled? Iraq, our international Katrina? Rectifying a mistake? Fiscal accountability? Waking up from a presidential nightmare? End to a Texas village idiot’s adventure? A belated Mother's, Father’s, and Patriot‘s Day gift? Please Mr. Bush, use those grate (sic) verbal skills of yours to enlighten us, or is your definition of victory another of your secrets from the American people?

HOPE, NOT FEAR
By Bob Chambers

Unfortunately for the citizens of Iowa’s fifth district, my opponent for our Congressional seat, the incumbent Steve King, is on a very selfish, ego driven mission to make a name for himself, continuously espousing his ideology in the most outrageous attention-getting way possible whenever there is a camera or a microphone or a reporter anywhere near him.

And I must offer my congratulations and say, mission accomplished sir. You have made a name for yourself. But at what price to your constituents?

Since you arrived in Washington 14,000 of our neighbors have moved out of the fifth district and 15,000 more have moved into poverty, every one of our counties has seen an increase in food stamp recipients, more of our family farms are disappearing every day, non-farm employment in our district has dropped at double the statewide average, bankruptcies have increased by over 30% and most of our counties have lost more businesses than they have gained.

While Nero fiddles, Rome burns.

A recent venomous rant penned by the incumbent under the guise of an op-ed commentary about the May 1 nationwide “Day Without Immigrants” rallies was published in the Des Moines Register on April 27. It will go down in history as a last sickening gasp of a dying breed in Washington: the self-serving fear-monger.

As the incumbent set out to demonize and slander a significant portion of our society, he cited a number of “statistics and facts”, designed to lead readers to the conclusion that there walks among us a clear and present danger which threatens to take our jobs, rape our wives and steal our children; a danger which we must rid ourselves of at any cost. The “statistics and facts” cited by the incumbent in his diatribe are lies, a feeble attempt at creating fear and anger among us, and whose darker purpose is division and control.

The truth is that there are no comprehensive statistics kept by any law enforcement agencies or states regarding crimes committed by people who are in our country illegally. However, the most comprehensive survey to date of national crime data concludes, "In the small number of studies providing empirical evidence, immigrants are generally less involved in crime than similarly situated groups, despite the wealth of prominent criminological theories that provide good reasons why this should not be the case."

Total crime and property crime in California are half what they were in 1980; violent crime has fallen more than a third. The state's Hispanic population during that time has increased 120 percent. Similarly, while Arizona's population grew 41.8 percent between 1993 and 2003, for instance, the rates for every major category of crime fell.

This doesn't mean immigrants from Mexico and Central America are saints -- it just means that they may not be the marauding horde Steve King and his minuteman army wants you to believe they are.

Princeton University sociologist Douglas S. Massey reports that 62 percent of illegal immigrants pay income taxes (via withholding) and 66 percent contribute to Social Security. Forbes magazine notes that Mexican illegals aren't clogging up the social-services system: only 5 percent receive food stamps or unemployment assistance; 10 percent send kids to public schools.

On the work front, Hispanic unemployment has tumbled to 5.5 percent, only slightly above the national average of 4.7 percent and considerably lower than the black unemployment rate of 9.3 percent. According to 2002 Census Bureau data, Hispanics are opening businesses at a rate three times faster than the national average. In addition, there were almost 1.6 million Hispanic-owned businesses generating $222 billion in revenue in 2002.

Rather than panicking, we all need to take a deep breath and attempt a little common sense to find our common ground. Virtually everyone correctly agrees that we need to secure our borders, deport criminals and slackers among the illegal-immigrant population, and revitalize the notion of citizenship by insisting that prospective citizens master the English language and the fundaments of American history and culture.

The Statue of Liberty symbolizes America's affection for the world's tired and poor, the "huddled masses yearning to breathe free." Before our fear-mongering Congressman King starts knocking down Lady Liberty and sets about erecting a wall in her place to "protect" America from the world, shouldn't he at least spend a little time trying to get his facts straight?

I think we all understand the reality that ideology does not put food on our tables or bring jobs back to our towns. Ideology is not action and it is past time to take action. It is time to believe in ourselves. It is time to think about the kind of world we want to leave for our grandchildren and their children, and to take steps to begin creating that world.

To accomplish this, I am proposing an approach which focuses on the truth, not lies; on hope, not fear; on respect, not bigotry; and on the prosperity of community, not the poverty of division. This will leave little room for the self-serving politics of fear-mongering and divisiveness which have haunted the halls of Congress for far too long. Our greatest future is ahead of us as we escape the prison of fear and lies, and breathe the free air of hope and truth.

Simply stated, Steve King must go.

Bob Chambers lives near Essex, Iowa. He is a candidate for Congress from Iowa’s 5^th District.

Yes, folks, it's true. It's even going to be fun.

The F.B.I. is starting a web site, reportcorruption.fbi.gov, through which people can send tips on corruption and corrupt public officials to be reviewed by agents at the bureau's headquarters.

Can it get any better than this? I suspect Steve King's horrors will trump anything the bestselling author Steve King could write.

This is by no means an insult to the "real" KING Steve (the writer, obviously), because I for one think he can spin a hellavu spine-tingling scary story. But, alas, I doubt he's ever met our 5th district congressman and got thrown by the spin this hack puts into every story.

Boys and girls, gather 'round the fire this cold November evening and listen to a tale of how a man who would be king made a trip to OZ so he could get a brain but got sucked up into a twister faster than he'd sold out and left western Iowans high and dry.

A king indeed.

F.B.I.'s Focus on Public Corruption Includes 2,000 Investigations - New York Times