Good Things That Happened in '05

"Stay the course, keep your sails taught and the wind to your back, head straight till morning".

With seemingly little to revel in this Saturday, other than that this heinous year is over, there are some things that happened that I feel need pointing out. Things that make me hopeful that we are not JUST a nation of consumers, though that can be all one sees. If that is all one sees, it's difficult not to fall into despair. If you fall into despair, if you succumb to paralysis and just go shopping, then the terrorists in the White House have won.

But there are still those who have not been lulled to sleep in the poppy fields of blind patriotism and consumption.

Hurricane Katrina ripped the face off the Federal Gov't with it's murderous winds and the cronyism of BushCo was laid bare for all to see. I believe this is where the tide turned in a big way. The covers of Time and Newsweek showed disturbing pictures of what looked like a third world country yet it was our own. The fact that this happened in our own back yard disturbed even the most complacent among us. People left to die on the roofs of their own houses while Michael Brown sat in a restraunt in Baton Rouge, while increasingly distressed emails from Gov. Blanco to FEMA went unread or responded to, all the rest of what we know about the response to the biggest "natural" disaster to hit the USA by the Feds was something even right wingers couldn't countenance.

The Federal response to Katrina and the resulting criticism from even the "faithful" emboldened a few who seemed to have had their vertebrae removed. The outcry and anger from those who always believed the gov't. Would take care of it's own citizens now could see the truth: BushCo not only doesn't give a shit about anybody but their pals but actually believes that government should not provide ANY social services at all, with the members of the Project for a New American Century like Grover Norquist saying that government should be whittled down til it can be "drowned in a bathtub".

It wasn't until after Katrina that the call for a timetable to exit Iraq became a public issue. Jack Murtha, a hawk (the only one who actually visits the wounded at Walter Reed Hospital), was the first, with Russ Feingold introducing HR 55 called "Homeward Bound" that calls for a timetable for exit. It's now a subject of intense debate, with it becoming clearer every day just what a mess we've made there and that Bush really has no exit strategy and probably doesn't intend to EVER leave Iraq.

Cindy Sheehan rankles the right with the credibility only a mother who has lost a son for oil profits can have. She is by far my biggest hero.

In 2005 Tom Delay was indicted for money laundering and had to step down as House Majority Leader. Of course until he is in Gitmo a lot of us won't be happy but it's a start.

In an historic blow to the Bush administration's five-year attempt to destroy the Kyoto Protocol, the climate summit in Montreal ended with even stronger measures to combat global warming. Here in the USA, nearly 200 cities are taking their own Kyoto-type actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The Senate ended the year with a spurt of defiance, refusing to permanently extend the expiring provisions of the Patriot Act, blocking the Republican maneuver to attach Arctic oil drilling to a defense spending bill, and passing John McCain's anti-torture amendment.

What seemed like an inexorable march to privatize Social Security was stopped (at least for now). There was never anything wrong with Social Security to begin with and the fearmongering by BushCo was only partly successful.

Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was stopped (for now). Senator Stevens who actually lives there went home with his tail between his legs after a lifetime of dreams of seeing oil rigs phallically ensconced in some of the most pristine land in America.

Edgar Ray Killen was arrested for killing 3 Civil Rights workers in Mississippi 40 years after the fact. Defiant as ever in his orange jump suit; it was a heartwarming image on the tube.

Despite a concerted offensive by a pricey PR firm to lift the president's sagging public support, George Bush's approval ratings are still below 50 percent.

Labor, community activists and women's groups have mounted a spirited campaign against the behemoth of behemoths, Wal-Mart. And a California jury awarded $172 million to thousands of employees at Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., who were denied such basic rights as lunch breaks, with 40 similar lawsuits pending in other states.

With the gasoline price gouging, , SUV sales have plummeted (Ford Explorer down 52%, Chevrolet Suburban down 46%), the sale of hybrids has doubled, and the US House of Representatives actually held a forum on the "peak oil theory", formerly considered the domain of the folks in the tin foil hats, the nutcases.

In a great win for farm workers, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers forced Taco Bell to raise the price for picking tomatoes (nearly doubling many workers' salaries), and now they're ready to take on McDonald's.

Thousands of letters of protest stopped the worst of the cuts to the Federal Food Stamp program.

Arnold Schwarzenegger got his steroidal ass kicked at the polls in California. I guess reality has to make some sense, unlike fiction.

Dow Chemical managed to get a ban on Dursban, a pesticide linked to brain damage and birth defects overturned by the EPA. Thousands of letters of protest and a targeted campaign got the ban reinstated.

Parents managed to get 37,000 kids off the list High Schools have to send to the Feds for military recruitment purposes.

Ken Lay is enjoying his last few days of freedom now that his buddy, Causey is singing like a canary in a plea deal to save his own ass. Causey knows where the bodies are buried and could drop a BIG dime on ole' Ken. Though corporate criminals bigger than Martha Stewart never seem to spend any time in the hoosegow, with statistics on white collar crime not even kept at the FBI, still it warms one's heart again to see that Ken Lay may at least go to his grave a disgraced (further) sociopath.

OH! and let's not forget South America! Jeez, almost forgot that that continent alone should restore our faith in humanity!

Hugo Chavez of Venezuela proved that an oil rich nation can provide health care, education and small business opportunities to it's own people while giving us here in the US an oil company we can actually like: CITGO. Chavez is even providing cheap heating oil to low income neighborhoods on the East Coast. What a guy. Will probably be assassinated soon by a CIA coup.

Bolivia just elected Evo Morales, an indigenous former llama and coca farmer who has railed against "free trade" and privatization.