The Church turns a deaf ear: The New Your Times article on the Wisconsin deaf children abuse case is beyond belief. If you haven't already read it do so at the link http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36063186/ns/us_news-the_new_york_times/. It will curl your hair. Not only did the abused 200 boys -- maybe more -- and parents of them report it they reported it to MANY of the church hierarchy who did NOTHING but cover it up including the Pope. It reinforces my previous blog entitled The Abomination -- The Pope in the Cross-hairs. I include THAT link below

You may ask why do I care. It is the hypocrisy I care about coming from an institution that is supposed to be about anything but. Moreover, the sins of this institution against my people, the Jewish people, are, over a period of two thousand years more often than not despicable. Worse they lead ultimately to the Holocaust. The Holocaust could not have existed without Christian anti-Semitism and Pope Pius XII did little from the pulpit to stop it although Benedict wants to make him now a saint.

Beyond that a church and a Pope so utterly in the midst of horrific pedophilia has the gall and the nerve to be responsible in part for California Proposition 8 which denied ADULT homosexuals who merely loved each other and many of whom were NOT Catholic the right to be like everyone else and marry. That my blood boils is an understatement and I believe it is my responsibility as a human being to speak vociferously about this brutal case of hypocrisy. I could not live with myself if I did not.

http://natalierosen.blogspot.com/2010/03/abomination-pope-in-crosshairs-writer.html

Frum the Right: I am sure most of you have heard about the firing of David Frum from the American Enterprise Institute a formerly respectful conservative think tank and an intellectual arm of the Republican Party. What happened to Frum is nothing less than chilling and it shows, I submit, WHY it is so important NOT to lose sight of the November elections to make sure the Democratic Party, the party of diversity of thought and free speech, prevails in Congress.

I am a life-long Democrat BUT I know a respectable conservative voice when I hear it and David Frum is such. I certainly I do not agree with many if not most of David Frum's ideas BUT he is bright and he is a good man. The tea baggers, I believe, in the form of Limbaugh-like clones cut off his legs by having AEI fire him directly after he articulated the error of Sen. Jim DeMint's Waterloo comment against the President. Of course, they trumped up other falsehoods and rationales to offer reasons why they did fire him and If you are interested in what happened to David Frum I offer his own explanation at: http://www.frumforum.com/so-what-happened#comments.

I do not think I am saying this frivolously: the tea bag movement and its usurpation of power within the Republican Party resembles the beginning of a fascist-like right wing nationalist movement. It is mind numbing and violent. It seems clear that ONE disagreement, one march to a different drummer in that lock step and you are OUT. Limbaugh and those like him have more clout than an individual like David Frum who is smart and has contributed much over years to AEI and its cause. The powers that be in the tea bag movement will ask -- NO they will DEMAND -- one utters nothing which questions their ideology. One cannot tell them things they do not want to know or hear but things that may be, nevertheless, true.

The Democratic Party relishes diversity and its accompanying ideas. The Democratic party does not stifle speech and DEMAND one take only one position. As much as I am opposed to the anti-choice position of Representative Bart Stupak I am GLAD in other ways he can still remain a Democrat and welcome him. He brings with him more members devoted to other tenets the Democratic Party holds dear.

The Republican Party has become SO mean spirited, SO pathological in its behavior and speech and SO unwilling to court a chorus of voices who can actually get elected. I submit RACE is a HUGE factor in the vitriol as well as our economic hard times which force that racism, always subliminally there, to the surface. It has happened before in other frightening historical eras in other countries. The Republican Party I hope is sealing its own fate by becoming a party of utter extremists who will not tolerate ANY other views but the extremist ones of the tea bag party movement. The American people are NOT extremists and I hope the this movement will lead the major force of the Republican Party to its doom.

Therefore, if we take seriously free speech we MUST keep Congress in Democratic hands next November and work hard for it to do so all around the country. I plan on supporting Democrats in other states in hope that we can ensure Democratic victories in November. I ask you do that as well.

Violence on the Right: The article by Paul Krugman today in the NYT is EXCELLENT (link below). No, we do not have rationality of thought ruling most especially the airwaves and the computer media. The appearance of anonymity allows in some cases the speaker and writer to think he/she can say almost anything and get away with it. I continue to wonder if it has always been this way and if American politics was infused from the beginning with a kind of lawless OK Corral, Wyatt Earp, Old West mentality. I think that is the case, at least, in part. OK Corral and Wyatt Earp, though, stayed part of historical lore. No one REALLY knows, to this day, the truth behind it and certainly the whole nation at that time did not know instantly about it. Our age gives instant verifiable vulgarity which EVERYONE can read, see and hear from Kansas to Pakistan in a nanosecond. There is a big difference between an age in which communication was primitive to the sophisticated media of visual experience and sound today. The kind of lethal weaponry we posses in this era, too, was not seen even in the Old West.

In my opinion, the most vituperative epithets are being hurled by the right wing against the party in power occupied at the helm by a black man. I do not remember the left wing, supremely critical of George Bush, resorting to the threat of secession and revolution despite George Bush leading a nation into a war based on lies with the attendant killing of over 4000 of its finest youth and the decimating a foreign nation for nothing.

In my opinion, there is a basic humanity within American leftist thought in which the violent ends justifies the means philosophy is iterated by only a very few. The right has as its essence an anger and mean-spirited violence which does NOT have a basic humanitarian ideology at its core. The only message from the right, to me, is hate MOST especially if the opposition is composed of many who are not white.

The extremist right wing is the most dangerous of political movements I have seen in my lifetime. It spawned the Oklahoma bombing, NUMEROUS so called lone wolf killings and anti-government actions stretching over decades. With guns as its love and its militias as its force, I believe, we have reason to fear many on the right including their institutional leaders who cheer them on.

However, I believe the right should be careful. They should not think their opposition will be nonreactive if assaulted most ESPECIALLY if, God forbid, anything were to happen to its leadership. As Japan said about America in 1941, America it is a sleeping giant. For now the giant on the left sleeps but it can be awoken at a moment's notice. The incendiary rhetoric and violence of both political wings should STOP and stop now before that giant awakens and the ramifications of that become much more serious for our nation and everyone who lives in it!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/opinion/26krugman.html

A Letter of Thanks and the Passover Principle: A GOOD day has come. Passover, a holiday celebrating the joys of freedom, will soon be upon those who are Jewish and celebrate it. Even if one is secular, like I am, one can still appreciate its significance and be thankful for the momentous accident of birth to have been born free and thankful to have lived through such incredible historical and social change.

I thank our President for his sterling efforts in securing this momentous health care win. It was not all we wanted but it is a HUGE start. I think he with the other Democratic greats of the Congress will be responsible for the saving of many lives. A mere thank you is not good enough.

We need to now know and the Brown election teaches we can NEVER take our power for granted. We must always be vigilant. I am hoping that the sages of entertainment news predicting a Republican win in Congress in November are monumentally wrong. I think they may be overstating with their right wing vituperative malevolence their coming successes as the Democrats now have the opportunity to concentrate on banking regulation and most importantly on creating more jobs to take the economy out of the ditch into which the Republicans drove us!

I thank the President, Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reed for their wonderful efforts, hard work and brilliant leadership. I have hope again. We must go forward. YES WE DID, YES WE CAN, AND YES WE WILL AGAIN!!

God bless you all and God bless our country which allows us all to breathe free!!

The Abomination -- The Pope in the Crosshairs: A March 25, New York Times editorial says, among other things indicting the Catholic Church for the most recent European pedophile monstrosity, that "The Pope’s expression of “shame and remorse” for the Irish scandal is not to be doubted." Really? Well, I do doubt it. Are you kidding me? The Pope WEAKLY criticizes the legion of sex abuse in Ireland but says nothing about the horrific abuse actions in his own country, Germany, not to mention pedophile sex actions perpetrated on 200 DEAF young boys in Wisconsin and pedophile actions committed by priests around the entire continent of Europe! This is unconscionable and if the Pope were a regular citizen of any country he may face arrest and jail for aiding and abetting a KNOWN pedophile, transferring him to other parishes where even the psychiatrist who treated him said he would be dangerous to place among children and could commit these heinous acts again and did!

The hypocrisy of this Pope and the Church in general is mind numbingly staggering. Sure, voice at the pulpit against gay marriage between two adults who love each other but PROTECT your Catholic children against predatory priests NOT SO MUCH even when it is among the Vienna Boys Choir! This Pope Benedict is up to his eyeballs in trouble within his own Church. The buck stopped with him as an Arch Bishop in Germany, Cardinal Ratinzger head under John Paul II of the so called Doctrine of Faith (you know the entity that formerly brought us The Inquisition) and now as Pope, he passed it failing to punish the priests involved. Where have we heard this story before?

Institutions are about power and money and they are about protecting it at all costs even when that cost means that young boys will have to suffer torments that will affect them disastrously for the rest of their lives at the hands of priests they trusted and the abominable illegalities those priests perpetrated upon them. SHAMEFUL is too weak a word for what this pope and the entire church itself is guilty.

That this hypocrisy of shouting the sin of homosexuality from every pulpit and then committing the most egregiously illegal sexual sins against mostly male CHILDREN by priests without a hint of conscience is an abomination that cannot be doubted. The pedophilia in the Catholic Church is NAUSEATING and systemic. The cover up by its officials of it and the back turning of some of its laity is UNFORGIVABLE. If there is a God I only HOPE He cannot forgive it either!

Faded Brown: Well, I can see my small shred of initial hope in Senator Brown despite his Republican association was short lived as he tries to set up his reelection by saying Rachel Maddow, the progressive host of the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC will be his opposition in the 2012 senatorial election. Rachel Maddow revealed the total untruth of that. One wonders, though, why the good senator picked her as the threat supreme. In truth she is BRILLIANT. Few can hold a candle to her intellect and that includes most definitely Senator Brown. Thankfully, she is not running. We need her on the airwaves to expose the Republican Party's infinite capacity for telling downright lies to put their toxic agenda across -- an agenda which nearly bankrupted our country because of greed gone wild, banks unregulated and killed its youth in wars based on unequivocal lies.

As I have said at least a million times: America, the Republican party is NOT I repeat NOT about most of you. It is about the top 2% wealthiest of this nation. The fact that they should share a small amount more of health care is nothing but infinitely fair. Mr. Brown to say you are a man of the people, while you say you will vote against reconciliation which gives people hope, is a lie. So far you are everything I thought you would be feeding the American people the big Republican lie that you are about them. You are what I initially thought -- a BIG mistake and that the people of Massachusetts were duped into thinking YOU would do anything for them.

David Brooks in the March 23, 2010 "New York Times" tries to explain why he became alienated from the Democratic Party. He says "The essence of America is energy — the vibrancy of the market, the mobility of the people and the disruptive creativity of the entrepreneurs ..."

I say the David Brooks of the world do not see the reality when it hits them in the face and forget almost instantly when those entrepreneurial forces with their Ayn Randian laissez faire economic essence are almost singularly responsible many times over for the death of a nation and its people. These grand entrepreneurs, the Gatsbys of our culture, run with the train of greed until the train goes off the tracks and they are left emotionally, monetarily and spiritually bankrupt. They leave those around them in utter devastation and chaos but call upon the people they nearly destroy to clean up the mess.

The average Joe's of this country, the ones who make it mechanically work, are catapulted into the abyss by the rancid actions of the unregulated marketplace and in times past there was no safety net to catch them. Many died. FDR changed that, thank God, and since then there is a semblance of economic life preservers instituted by Democrats which stop an economy and most of its people from entering the dust bin of history.

Still, these adventure capitalists persist duping the American public into thinking they are for them and America, some of it, continues to buy their snake oil. I have said many times the Republican Party, the party of sink or swim policy, is NOT about us. They are for their individualist Gordon Geckko greedy selves. No matter how rich they get it is never enough and they will do ANYTHING an economic anarchy allows them to do no matter how many they crush. In 2008, without ALL the help from government and all the FDIC security, its too big to fail CEO’s STILL nearly drove the world into an economic Armageddon because those regulations were disastrously loosened by men of greed only to offer near repeat of the 1929 collapse.

Now we have health care so that not just the Donald Trumps or the Bill Gates of the world can certainly get the best of the best health care to ensure THEIR lives go on with no fear that illness will bankrupt them but also us, the little guy, on whose backs they depend for their economic security, to live.

Thank God for the Democratic Party, David, they have saved our posteriors AND YOURS!!

I condensed my previous blog and added some thoughts into one I sent to the Metro West News:

The Cancer Curse: Why some of us have the ability to empathize with the poor, the sick, and with those who have had to endure such virulent racism from some of our body politic and others cannot I do not know. Why are we so different politically from each other?

I am ardently for the passing of this historic health care legislation and surprisingly if it takes a strong anti-abortion part of the bill to pass I am for that too despite the fact I am, of course, pro-choice. This bill is too important. It is not perfect but it hopefully will improve over time IF it passes. The insurance companies with their tyrannical for profit hold on whether we live or die cannot be allowed to continue with business as usual. They must be held accountable. They have done this to themselves by their policies which hung an albatross of contemptible actions and death around our necks.

Why can some of us empathize with those who need care and others can do nothing but hurl unconscionable racist epithets catapulting this nation back into another century in which we fought a bloody war to create a more just nation. Why, too, is health care linked to this despicable racist spewing against a gentlemen supreme like Representative James Clyburn and Representative John Lewis? It was sickening to watch. It makes me wonder what really is the etiology of our profound political differences. Is it cultural or is it systemically in one's DNA?

The racial epithets the health care protesters sling show them to be exactly what most are: racist bullies who if they had their way would take us back to the 1850's except then they would be calling for secession. They are the embodiment of the grave sin of a nation. Those who would utter such things are sick, perverted and disgusting know nothings. They prove it time and again. Spitting on a man like Representative Clyburn is unconscionable. They could not shine this dignified man's shoes. They are NOT protesting health care but are using it as an excuse to protest a black man who is president. These people who express such racial hatred are the curse of our nation. Their views are a sickness within our body politic and a systemic cancer we need cut out before it kills us and fast!

A Curious Curiosity -- WBZ, a local television network, asked viewers to write what they are curious about. I wrote the following:

I am curious as to why some of us have the ability to empathize with the poor, the sick, and with those who have had to endure such virulent racism from some of our body politic. Why are we so different politically from each other?

I am ardently for the passing of this historic health care legislation. It is not perfect but it hopefully will improve over time. The insurance companies with their tyrannical for profit hold on whether we live or die cannot be allowed to continue with business as usual. They must be held accountable. They have done this to themselves by their policies which hung an albatross of despicable actions around our necks.

Why can some of us empathize with those who need care and others can do nothing but hurl unconscionable racist epithets catapulting this nation back into another century in which we fought a bloody war to create a more just nation. Why, too, is health care linked to this despicable racist spewing?

It makes me wonder what really is the etiology of our profound political differences? Is it cultural or is it systemically in our DNA?

BINGO: CBO: This health care bill will cut the deficit by $1.2 TRILLION over the next ten years. BINGO.... It's a WINNER and so is Obama!!! He is a WINNER today. Yes I was critical BUT my goodness one whole year listening to such obnoxious opposition and Scott Brown in Teddy's seat to boot. How much can one little progressive take? Hard DIFFICULT work, determination, COURAGE, amazing, kudos when they are due and they are due NOW!!!!! I didn't believe it because I did not want to be disappointed yet again!!! I am ON BOARD!! Our McDonald's country wants everything yesterday. I am included. We MUST learn big things take time!! Of course it's not passed yet so when he signs it maybe on Sunday I will celebrate. I'm almost there. This is a good day for our country ... so far!

An Allergic Reaction to Thought: This week as stated on the Journal web page, Bill Moyers talked with John Sexton, President of NYU, for a wide-ranging conversation about religion, the role of higher education in a globalizing world, and the troubling disintegration of civil discourse in today's society. Sexton suggested that America increasingly exhibits what he calls an "allergy to thought" and that universities are the key to restoring nuance to public discourse" I responded to it on the site. See link below:

It is a tragedy in our culture today that the complexity of life is reduced to 10 second sound bites. It is as if our McDonald’s dietary habits reflect the fast food mentality of our intellectual life. Much contributes to this and a discussion, which I am sure Dr. Sexton would agree, must include great complexity. There is not time to do that here. I can say, though, that Dr. Sexton’s thoughts were fascinating. I could have listened to him for hours and would have loved the opportunity to ask him my own, hopefully, thoughtful questions as well.

I keep trying to think if I allow for complexity of thought and an exchange of ideas even when those ideas are diametrically opposed to my own. I think I have tried. I have also fallen short. I in essence, at 61 years old, have given up. I am a progressive Democrat who lived through the late 1960’s. I formulated my basic philosophy at that time and although I wavered throughout the years, I have basically remained left of center. I believe, my position and other progressive attitudes on the issues of the day are SO important and so unequivocally correct that I cannot often even listen to the opposition. Worse, I consider them my enemy. How can I be a progressive, thoughtful person and consider right wing Republicans actually an enemy? I am sickened by this. I am, without a doubt, sure they think of me as their enemy too. It is sad.

I think it terrible that I have gone from a person more than willing to debate to a person of cemented positions and often a cemented heart. Why? Why can I not be like Dr. Sexton? The issues of our day are so personal and so threatening to me that I simply cannot compromise them. I do not know if it is the election of Barack Obama, a gifted man of thought and compromise, which was the reason for my solidification of thought because of the utter disgusting racist spewing so constantly thrown from the other side at a man of good will. How can I compromise with this utter idiocy? Both sides are hardened and the reflection of what we see is a Congress immovable in thought and unwilling more often than not to compromise either. If the right is so unequivocally mean, hateful and violent why should I give their points of view credence? Why should I not defend MYSELF against what I perceive is their insanity and threat to me?

My enemy believes NOT in science but in myth. It believes there should be a mixing of church with state, does not allow for choice with respect to abortion, and would love to discriminate against homosexuals whom they believe have chosen who they are and therefore are not worthy of equality. It believes, too, in war, even peremptory war, forgets the civil libertarian Bill of Rights from which this country was honed and it loves its guns. They love taking this country to wars of revenge even when based on lies and even when based upon nothing, do not care about wars which our country has waged AFTER World War II which have killed thousands, displaced millions and destabilized the political climate of worst parts of planet earth. Moreover, they think global warming is a hoax and probably will even when New York City is under water. Their views are hardened in the irrationalities of religious superstition, uncompromising and extreme supernatural beliefs and a desire to impose those beliefs upon everyone else. They most certainly do not believe in government protecting human health. As I see it they are a threat to life on this planet. Their beliefs are so utterly repulsive to me that I cannot even listen nor stand to debate the non debatable. Evolution is fact, global warming is fact, religion upon which they want to base national policy is more myth than fact and goes against the most sacred of our Constitutional creeds, the separation clause. How can I compromise with that which is uncompromisable? (Yes, I crafted a new word.)

Dr. Sexton’s lofty thoughts in the classroom make for sweet talk and make him, indeed, a likable man. I am sure he had to be such to arrive at the position he attained. In the final analysis, though, I think that decisions must be made, choices must be arrived at and the prolonging of debate of certain issues causes the destruction of human life and, indeed, compromises ALL life on planet earth.


I am not happy with who I have become but I refuse to compromise with those who eschew most lofty intellectual thought, think reason is not for them, calls the left effete intellectual snobs and causes Susan Jacoby – a one-time interviewee of Bill Moyers – to write a book entitled “The Age of American Unreason.” I cannot entertain the thoughts of those who carry grotesque, insulting, racist pictures of our president as both Hitler and Stalin as if one person could be both polar opposites. I cannot compromise with those who occupy the extreme right wing of the political spectrum in which there is a litmus test now for membership in the Republican Party. Perhaps if it returned to the party of Rockefeller or Ford I could.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2010/03/do_americans_suffer_from_an_al.html:

Beyond My Endurance (A review of the film Precious.) I gave this film a very good numerical vote on IMDb and yet I left before it ended. The film is phenomenally powerful and there are no words to iterate its superb acting quality and yet it was, to me, SO upsetting that I could not continue to watch after the first hour. I may rent it again to watch the final scenes. I could not psychologically endure not only the extreme violence to the 16 year old morbidly obese girl, Precious, by her own seemingly demon-possessed mother and others around her, but I could not take the violence to the young girl's soul. I was shaking inside, I was angry, I was scared, and most of all I was sad that this life is often -- much TOO often -- a reality for so many.

I, simply, as a human being who has valued academics so enthusiastically all of my life could not endure a scenario which I am loath to admit exists. It was hard for me not only to relate to a woman who by age sixteen could read ONLY the letter "A" and who could barely speak a complete sentence, but it was hard for me to auditorily understand the linguistics, so often inordinately profane, of it as well. I can never remember a time in my life when I could not read, when I did not appreciate academics, when I did not wish to be more academically superior than I am. I had to step out of myself -- WAY out -- to try to understand the the lowest depths of depravity to which her environment sank and shudder as to the enduring effects in had on her.

I will certainly never understand how human beings perpetrate such unspeakable cruelty. Before seeing "Precious" I had viewed 14 episodes of "The Wire" about the drug ghetto culture in the city of Baltimore. The milieu in "The Wire" seemed like the Hamptons in comparison to household of Precious. This film was infinitely difficult for me to watch. I literally had a panic attack in the middle as it frightened me to my core and I had to walk out.

We cannot, though, feel self righteous as many who read this probably have never experienced this kind of brutality but, in truth, it exists everywhere in different forms. It is perpetrated not only by a single family and environment but exists on the battle fields world wide as well. It literally stops the heart and forces so much of our humanity to fade into the nothingness of the death we inflict upon each other all too often.

The final question to me is what can WE do? What is the solution to the grinding poverty, illegal drug saturated and violent world in which we live? Whether it is the slums of Mumbai reflected in the film "Slum Dog Millionaire," the drug mayhem in the city of Baltimore shown in HBO series "The Wire," the bestiality of war in the world at large or the abominable cruelty Precious singularly suffered, it leaves me wanting to throw up my hands and think these problems, for me at my age, are out of my control.

I will not say not to see this film. I will say see it but beware it is overwhelming to the senses of anyone who has a shred of decency and compassion left. I wish the next generation and all the succeeding generations good luck in ameliorating these intractable problems. They surely are going to need it.

The Settlement Sin: I am a Jew and an ARDENT and loving supporter of the Jewish State of Israel. This is the first time I have come out publicly against Israeli policy. However, continuing to build settlements despite the visit to Israel of the US Vice President Biden who represents a policy opposed to building East Jerusalem settlements I feel was simply STUPID and insulting. The Israelis KNOW what they are doing and KNEW that deliberately flouting the US position had a method to its madness. It was NOT just an inadvertent act. Message to US: We will do what we want when we want despite what anyone thinks EVEN the United States, Israel’s main source of support. I believe it was done for spite and to convey a message even if it means going against the US position. NOT a smart thing to do in the end.

Perhaps, it was also a sign that Israel will do what it wants EVEN if it means striking Iran's nuclear sites and it does NOT need US permission to do it. Really? Do you really think Israel can go it alone without US support? BAD thought and WRONG! The US is the life blood for our Jewish state. Those in Israel who are determined to NOT have a peace process could seal a disastrous fate. YOU are hurting our people.

The behavior of the Netanyahu government was a slap in the face to the vice-president and the United States. I believe a profound apology from Netanyahu to the vice-president is in order and the housing in East Jerusalem should cease until an agreement can be achieved. I will never turn my back on the State of Israel and my people. I love the Jewish state more than I can convey. At the same time I can CALL IT OUT when I think its policy is in error and bad taste! As a relative of mine has often said and to which I agree "if the Israelis (and Palestinians too) want peace they are going to have to love their children MORE than they hate their opposition" and certainly more than Israel or anyone should care about housing. The time is now to forge an agreement while we have a US administration with some intellect and sense of fair play and who is also committed to the maintenance of the Jewish state. Don't blow it!

No Time to Waste -- IMPORTANT please read: -- Please support the president's health care plan. I have emailed and called consistently the powers that be to pass it. So I ask you -- no I plead with you -- if you have not already done so, contact your members of Congress and the people you know. We cannot have the best be the enemy of the good. This bill IS a start. It can and WILL get better over time most likely for us and most importantly for your children if you have them, grandchildren if you have THEM and ALL of your family and friends.

Can you imagine, especially now, our lives without Social Security? Republicans then, too, in 1935 wanted to block it and some still even today want to get rid of it. That is almost laughable if it were not so serious and cannot and will not happen because it is one of the most important social safety nets ever devised in this country especially now with a compromised economy.

Now, in our time, we need to progress into the 21st century and do what EVERY other western civilized nation on earth does and that is provide health care (preferably with a public option but even without it) for our people. THIS is a START as Social Security was a start under FDR and Medicare under LBJ which was honed over time.

Without Social Security and Medicare many of us and many of whom we know might be on the street or dead. PLEASE, this is not the best bill, of course, BUT it's a beginning for now. PLEASE email or write your Senators and Representatives in Congress AND send this to ALL you know. Pass it around with the article linked below about the President's trips around the country this week to campaign for this important legislation. He KNOWS what he is talking about.

It's YOUR country, it's YOUR future, it's YOUR children, your children's children and your extended family's future. The is the LAST best chance probably for decades that we will have to ensure it! Forward this to anyone you think will be receptive and even to those you think you may not be. Click on the appropriate story "Knock on Doors Talk to your Neighbors" [LINK BELOW]. It is that IMPORTANT for us and the survival of our nation. Please do this at this time of spring renewal and do it quickly. There is no time to waste.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

Do the Hustle: I am hooked [thanks to my cousin!] on David Simon's series "The Wire" about crime life in the ghetto in Baltimore : BRILLIANT series on HBO maybe one of the best. It has such application to what America is about in pertinent part and what the government is doing and why people are furious as they SHOULD be. Small piece of "brilliant' analysis not well written. I include brackets for explanation of the character but I suggest you watch the HBO series as they are replaying it now or buy the DVD. Well worth it. But you have to stick with it and listen closely. I will compose a better blog soon.

When McNulty [the hero white detective in the Wire] asks the dealer why they killed "Snot" [ghetto nickname for a con game thief] he says because he is stealing the money So Detective McNulty says well if he was stealing the money why did you let him play the game? The dealer says says "this is America."

Now THIS is poignant. This IS America. Do I get it especially when you read Ariana Hufftington today or Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone on the poisonous banks. A MUST read:

If I were a professor and having my students watch "The Wire" I would ask them to compare and contrast the Second great depression or as the press likes to call it the Great Recession SOON to be depression as the beat goes on. Congressional and Executive life relates to the Wire but in MUCH more upscale and legal way which makes it INFINITELY worse because it screws WE the people ALL of us. They do the same things: the government lines its pockets with filthy lobbyist money from the banks or the insurance industry for health care or big Pharma. It doesn't matter it can be defense contractor lobbyists too. The congressmen and nearly every politician including the executive pocket their rotten bucks give banks, etc. OUR BUCKS, the lobbyists get what they want, the politicians what THEY want and WE the people get screwed with no job, no money and no health care. We die and people ARE dying.

"The Wire" is about that but no one cares in the ghetto about people who get killed. No one. The big wigs in City Hall in the Wire all care ONLY about their jobs . They care nothing about the humanity that gets devastated on the street. Why? Because their poor and their life is cheap no one cares. But guess what? No one cares about us either except a very few clean humane politicians. They are few and far between as are the Detective McNultys the hero of the Wire.

Who is talking about we the people who are getting raped by Wall Street in combo with the lobbyists who feed the politicians who let them do whatever they want? Read Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone. Google Rolling Stone and see what a lovely a deal the pimp lobbyists will be getting for their whore companies who get big time money out of our government with no regulation and no bid contracts and we the Johns get screwed (pardon the crudity but this is exactly an appropriate metaphor). THIS IS WHY WE ARE FURIOUS. It's ALL a racket whether it's in the streets of Baltimore or Congress it's ALL the same. THIS truly is America!! And I thought the president would change all of that. I can see just how much. Read Ariana Huffinton today on Huffington Post. (Post below.) Then read Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone. Here are the two links. If you can't get it Google Huffington Post today and Google Rolling Stone the Wall Street Bailout Hustle. I thought America was better than this. It can be. You just have to care.

Read it and weep!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/reform-dj-vu-democrats-fo_b_481288.html
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/32255149/wall_streets_bailout_hustle/?dbk