Memorializing Memorial Day: There is no question that the only thing that stands between us and a tyranny of some sort is our service men and women. We sleep safely because we know some of the most sophisticated weaponry and well trained humans manning that weaponry exist and are on guard in our country. We are also blessed by geography with friendly nations to our north and to our south with a few small exceptions which have not mattered very much.

History though is written by the winners. I need only direct your attention to the following excellent editorial link in the Boston Globe entitled "The Ghosts of Forgotten Battles" by Howard Mansfield:

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/05/31/the_ghosts_of_forgotten_battles/

It is an editorial on a little (VERY LITTLE) known war in 1676 called King Phillips War occurring in the very western part of Massachusetts in a town now called Turner’s Falls. It is not a very well known war or a very pretty war probably because it was about the ambushing and slaughter by the English of hundreds of Wampanoc Indians who had gathered to fish. Their only sin was that they existed. It was the first hint of the slaughter to come and ultimate occupation by the English of land that had been home to an Indian population for thousands of years.

Yes, history is written by the winners and for a clearer understanding of that fact and of the sometimes inglorious part of US history I suggest reading the late Howard Zinn’s book “A People’s History of the United States.” The soldier, though, does not make policy in our country. He/she stands ready to snap to attention at the call of a civilian Commander-in-Chief. It is because the ones who call on the soldiers to wage wars in this country are civilian authorities that we honor those who fight despite the most domestically contentious and divisive wars.

On the one hand we hate war and on the other hand we glorify war. I believe there is NOTHING glorious about it and that we should make damn well sure we elect a person to our highest office who does not cavalierly sound the clarion call. There is too much at stake as more and more nations secure nuclear weaponry. Our country grows weary and destitute from ad infinitum trillion dollar wars with no end in sight. They make some in our land very very very rich and they make graveyards like Arlington very very very full!

A Letter to the Times-Picayune: The Times-Picayune is one of the major Louisiana newspapers. I decided to take my Asian friend's advice and to not lose confidence although I still will not send out ad infinitum opinion until the leak is capped. To me nothing is as important as that for now! I said the following:

This is just a note from someone in Massachusetts whose heart has gone out to our national Louisiana brethren. So many one encounters during the day here speak of our and your Louisiana national tragedy.

I was an ardent Obama supporter. The president is right the buck stops with him. He is also correct by saying his one mistake was to trust BP. His mantra, I thought, was "trust but verify,"

We can all play Monday morning quarterback but when a corporation comes to you saying we want to deep water drill down to a length which has never been done before it would jet propel me to make darn well sure, through MY OWN EPA EXPERTS, that the drilling was not only safe but that a back up well by law (such as Canada has) MUST be in place before it is done. ALL safety precautions that could have been done SHOULD have been done before it was even given a permit to drill. An ON-SIGHT supervisor UNCONNECTED to BP, Trans Ocean and Halliburton should have been not asked but ordered to be there. I believe that by Executive Order the president could have demanded that BP would do what was demanded of them. The result to BP, et al would be perhaps loss of a few hundred million while that corporation would rake in ultimately BILLIONS.

I am sickened by this so much I cannot even write which is I what I do to keep semi-sane. I am too stunned. I made an exception to the Times- Picayune because I want you to know that there are so many throughout the nation who care but who also feel powerless to stop the seeming unstoppable. Your destiny is our destiny. We are ALL in this together -- one nation indivisible.

God bless all of you!

Someone wrote me in Chinese the following:

He who loses money, loses much; loses a friend, loses more; loses confidence, loses all.

I could not have said anything better myself. Very true. It's hard though within the times in which we live not to lose faith. Wonderful words of wisdom!

A Letter To My Loyal Friends: Some may cheer. I am taking a moratorium on blogging and writing. I'll tell you why. I am SO upset over the oil spill and I am sickened to such a degree writing about anything is impossible. I cannot even watch the pelicans and the poor birds with their oil soaked wings trying to fly or watch the animals' little legs stuck in disgusting goo gasping for breath not to mention to think about the fate of those poor people there whose lives are destroyed. First the events around Katrina and now this have fallen upon a devastated region largely because of human error and corrupt politics. Two administrations have failed those desperate people -- our national brethren. I cry but there is nothing I can do. There is nothing more I can say about it.

Ordinarily I would be blogging and writing furiously just to feel like I am doing something and registering my opinion especially with North Korea threatening war having bombed the S. Korean ship IF they, in fact, bombed it. I don't trust any government to tell us the truth. Between that fear and the humongous spill which I think they will NOT cap until August, the tanking world economy, the eternal wars our country fights and the way I feel about this administration in which I had SO much enthusiasm and no longer do, there is no point any more to writing about these things unless or until the leak is capped, things are back to semi-normal and I can have some hope return.

Throw in the possibility of an attack on this country and one's own personal issues it becomes impossible for me to write about all the emotional onslaughts. There comes a time when one must save what semblance of one's sanity one has left. Because those in power share beds with those who have all the money to buy the power like common prostitutes in a red light district slum, the stakes are now TOO huge, MUCH huger than they ever have been. Corruption is no different from other eras BUT it is unique in this era because the catastrophic fate one state can visit upon another is so profound. It is the way it has been since recorded history BUT the times are different. They are life and death times for this beautiful planet with us in it and we are living it not just studying about it from texts.

So, I am cutting back writing for awhile until some semblance of hope returns whenever that will be. I don't want to inflict on anyone my continual sadness about the course of events which turns into intense anger at things over which I have no control. The fate of humankind and the life of the planet lies in the balance. This is, as Doris Kearns Goodwin titles her book about another era, “no ordinary time,” no ordinary time indeed!

As Rachel Maddow is one the GREATEST news commentators on television today, Frank Rich is one of the GREATEST writers and editorialists of all time. In his editorial "Randslide" (Link below) in the Sunday Times the last sentence is one of brilliance. He says:

"If the Democrats can’t muster their own compelling response to the populist rage out there, “Randslide” may reside in our political vocabulary long after “Arlen Specter” is leaving “Jeopardy” contestants stumped."

I have said it often -- Mr. President and Rahm Emanuel: You CANNOT take your base for granted. You MUST give us something to cheer about. So far, I am less than thrilled. No, it's not in my best interest to sit the 2012 election out but, significantly for me, I just may do so for the first time in my life.

I am sad and disgruntled at the Obama leadership or lack of it. Get your act together, Mr. President, fire those who drag you down, do NOT run to the middle and give your base to the left something to sing about or in fact, like Jimmy Carter before you, you will be a ONE term president indeed!

http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/opinion/23rich.html#preview

George Wallace Lives: Yet again Joe Conason gets it EXACTLY correct in his Salon.com article "The roots of Rand Paul's civil rights resentment." Link: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joe_conason/2010/05/21/racial/index.html

It is oftentimes not the right wing ideological candidate that is the frightening aspect but it is the nature and the essence of those on the right to whom they appeal for votes. I was around during the George Wallace campaign in 1968. It was a frightening spectacle as the man who said segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever thought he had a shot at the presidency. Later he said he regretted his racist politics. But the die was cast and its offspring are seen even to this day most vividly in the tea party movement.

The PHENOMENALLY frightening thing is that the Republican party, a mainstream party, has now adopted this perversion of American politics and appeals to the basest part of the American psyche. Why is this happening?

The easy answer is that electing a black president shocked the extreme right into action. Now it is even more threatening to an aspect of American pre-Civil War history that everyone thought was dead. It's not. It lives.

The Founders brought to this land certain FABULOUS ideals of the Enlightenment. Unfortunately they also brought the vile institution of slavery with them. Like its cousin antisemitism, racism against blacks never truly dies. The embers flicker waiting for the right social circumstances to set them ablaze.

A world-wide recession, staggering unemployment, unbridled national debt, a planet drifting into climatic chaos, a catastrophic polluting of our oceans, the perceived existential threat of radical Islam and oil the prime mover of international politics, the stage is set, the players are organizing and we who elected Barack Obama and Barack Obama himself BETTER take notice. Barack Obama must forcefully emerge as the great leader for whom I THOUGHT I voted. Strong and effective White House leadership is the ONLY way, as I see it, to neutralize this threat.

Yet again, blacks, Jews and humanitarians of all colors and religious or non-religious beliefs MUST walk hand in hand. Each of our interests should be, as it always was, united as one. We cannot rest because those who wish us ill do not sleep. They are a defective part of our nation's DNA. Like a cancer it never dies and without vigilance, unity and effective leadership it will kill.

Rand Paul is an IDIOT. Just VENTING! Why doesn't Rand Paul and his family move down there to Venice Louisiana where the oil has come ashore and take DEEP breaths since he thinks BP is SO great and wants them to be left alone! Better still buy a house and live there. See how long before some kind of cancer develops in his WHOLE family-- JERK! Maybe when it hits home he would change his mind. Sanctimonious jerk.

The Continuing Saga:

The president needs to FIRE Secretary Salazar and make a clean sweep of the Department of the Interior. Secretary of the Interior Salazar’s testimony before Congress, like the Three Musketeers before him -- BP, Trans-Ocean and Halliburton -- was anemic. The administration needs to clean out from top to bottom this corrupt, ineffective but VITAL government regulatory agency. After the Katrina debacle by the Bush administration it SHOULD have been high on the agenda of the Obama administration.

Moreover, the president should state the TRUTH and state it emphatically eviscerating the companies who made the monstrous Gulf leak occur so it does not look like he too is in bed making love to the oil magnate snakes who are NOT his friends. In reality they would rather sink his presidency than support or continue it.

Some of the EXCELLENT things he and Democrats have done can be undone by this worse-than-Katrina catastrophe. A potentially excellent legacy is at stake IF the administration fails to get the upper hand on the spill containment and clean-up immediately. The Republicans could be getting a gift they do not deserve and DeMint’s Waterloo comment will take on new meaning.

The president’s second term, I believe, is at risk because of this devastating event. Moreover, the November elections, if Republicans win significant victories, will tie his hands to do anything else on his agenda if the public perceives that he is at fault for the ugly spill. Mr. President, I HOPE most of the electorate lays the blame at big oil BP, Trans-Ocean, and Halliburton’s feet but the Harry Truman sign still prevails "The Buck Stops Here” and, Mr. President, it stops with you.

Glen Greenwald the reasoned thinker -- most times -- Elena Kagan's Closet

Please see http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/ , an article about closeted people who are seeking powerful public position as relates to Elena Kagan's alleged homosexuality by some.

Glen Greenwald offers sagacious arguments with crystal clear reasoned thought.

Until this very minute I, as a gay rights supporter, always said it's none of anyone's business what a person does in the privacy of his or her bedroom. Those questions are out of order and simply meant for salacious gossip by right wingnut opposition so it can try to destroy a Court nominee. Glen Greenwald thinks otherwise. The key to his thinking is that homosexuality (and heterosexuality) are NOT about sex and that it should be mandatory for a candidate to reveal whether homosexual or heterosexual what their marital/partner status is and who her partner or spouse may be. It gave me pause for thought about the issue.

Glen is absolutely CORRECT we are NOT asking about Elena Kagan's sex life and yes, if one were heterosexual and seeking the same position one quite rightfully would have to allow for public investigative intrusion of not only the applicant's background but also his/her spouse or partner's background as well. Partners and spouses matter hugely when one is seeking an EXTREMELY powerful and socially impacting government position. He reasons that the questions about Elena Kagan's sexuality are NOT salacious peering into the nitty gritty of the type of sex Elena Kagan might have IF she were homosexual. He avers that her sexuality is more much more than meets the prurient eye as it would be if the candidate were heterosexual. No one asked Barak Obama what kind of sex he and Michelle enjoy but rather accept his marital status as just that a status! This is a reasonable argument.

However, the argument against Glen Greenwald's position is this: T'were that we lived in a nation and at a time when OTHERS could not thwart a nomination because of the self revelation of homosexuality. We do not. We live in the time we do. Reality dictates if she self admits her sexual orientation IF she is homosexual she would be sowing the seeds of her defeat. We must play the ball where it lies.

We have, indeed, made progress understanding gender orientation BUT we are not there yet which is why I suspect she will deny it IF in fact it is a fact and why her supporters will deny it too and go to great lengths to say this topic is not appropriate for discussion.

Glen, do you really think IF Elena Kagan is lesbian and she matter-of-factly said so that this would not sink her nomination EVEN in our semi-enlightened age? I suspect it would which is why I defend those who defend her by saying her sexuality is none of anyone's damn business.

The truth is in our age even those of us who advocate for equal rights for homosexuals know that in certain segments of our society the admission of that could sink advancement so we pragmatically do what we must to help our cause even if it means keeping our orientation secret.

One could make the argument that if this is true than one should reject the position. I say no. Do what it takes to get on the court. After that one can do what one wants and impact our culture for the better even more.

Unfortunately, we still live in a culture which many cannot even accept a black president much less an admitted homosexual on the court. Maybe just maybe in 20 years the disclosure will be a non-issue.

A DAMNABLE THING: Take a look at headlines of the oil spill. I direct your attention to: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/. ; Click on the pictures below the headline IF you can stomach them.

The oil spill in Louisiana is a horror as if a nuclear blast hit us. Shame on us, shame on our leaders and SHAME on the part of the American public who would rather go marching off to Starbucks than CARE about what our LOUSY government(s) plural Republican AND Democrat alike are doing and have done while covering up vile behavior with the American flag. Yes, a teaspoon of sugar certainly does make the medicine go down. We reap what we sow. Unfortunately the medicine our stupid leaders have pushed down our throat kills! It will kill us and it will allow through our vulnerability access for others to get us too. Our leaders who accept filthy oil big business and other big business money and then talk platitudes to calm a know nothing public down is a DAMNABLE thing!

We are a DOOMED nation because of the IDIOTS who do not believe science and who put down intellect like the Sarah Palinesque MORONS who would rather believe myth and superstitious tripe than TRUTH. We are also doomed because of HORRIBLE international and national economic policies which thrust a nation into EXPENSIVE wars and things it could NOT afford over decades, corrupted Wall Street so we do NOT have the money now to even fix our roads and because our Congress AND presidency are bought, sold and hog tied to corporate interests which know NO morality. As my mother used to say you've made your bed NOW LIE IN IT!!!

Noam Chomsky and the democratic state: While I disagree with much of Noam Chomsky's criticism of Israel, I thought denying him the opportunity to speak hurt Israel more than it hurt Chomsky. I think it was a bit, well, stupid to deny him free speech rights.

I THOUGHT Israel was a democracy. Now it surely will give Chomsky fodder with which to criticize the Jewish state. I can hear it now: See, I told you Israel was not a democracy.

It's too bad. I hate hearing the criticism of Israel and I do not for the life of me know why someone as smart as Chomsky and many on the political left would go to bat for terrorist states which bear much more similarity to the tyranny Chomsky and others say they hate. Now Israel gives its critics ammunition, as if they needed more, to hurl the slings and arrows of outrageous accusations which make those accusations all the more believable.

Israel did itself NO favor by denying Chomsky the opportunity to air his views. What happened to "I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it." It seems Israel now gives credence to those who criticize it when by allowing Chomsky the opportunity to speak would have sounded a clarion call for democracy by the ordinarily free democratic state of Israel it says it is.

A Letter to Rachel Maddow, Keith Olberman, Chris Matthews and Ed Schultz:

Rachel, Keith, Chris and Ed: You all did an excellent job last night. I watched the primary election returns as long as I was able. This a.m. I got the news that especially Blanche Lincoln, the bone in the progressive Democrats' throat and one who is tied hook, line and sinker to corporate interests is on the ropes but she is not down YET. WE MUST get Bill Halter elected in Arkansas through national contributions. I am sending a contribution to Halter's cause and asking all my friends to send their friends this link to do so as well.

http://billhalter.com/

We did NOT fare badly AT ALL last evening. The win of Joe Sestak in PA is THRILLING as are other special election wins. If you remember the NY 23rd and Scozzafava the Republican handing the election to Owens the Democrat in a very Republican district shows Republicans are split. Democrats have the power. Brown here in Mass. was a mistake as Dems ran an AWFUL campaign.

What this ALSO means, too, I think, is that the president -- a disappointment to progressives on TOO many issues -- MUST take note of his base. WE ARE IMPORTANT as the public is sickened at the Wall Street mess and HIS Treasury's ties to Goldman Sachs. We are sicked, too, by ignoring proper procedure with respect to drill baby drill for OIL off our pristine coasts. The president struck out with the oil leak BIG time as Interior Secretary Salazar and that WHOLE Department remained the same as it was after Bush -- do nothings and in bed LITERALLY with big oil. Obama dropped the ball when ESPECIALLY after Katrina HE BLEW IT by not doing a complete makeover of that important department and THIS is the result -- an oil leak SO bad that it just may come to a beach up our coast soon. It is nothing less than catastrophic.

I do NOT want a Republican in anything most ESPECIALLY the presidency. Our president is our only game in town but HE must know his success is tied to the progressive movement and he should be who HE SAID he was. BP, Trans Ocean, Halliburton and the rest looked ANEMIC during their ridiculous spectacle testifying about the leak before Congress last week. Oil company damages should NOT be capped by Republicans or conservative Democrats. The corporatists need to know their corrupt monstrous actions have consequences.

Hammer away at the aforementioned points and lets make SURE we do not lose the momentum. I am happy this a.m. BUT I am
vigilant and will always verify that the ones whom we elect as Democrats, in fact, do the PEOPLE'S business and NOT the business of the corporate banks, insurance, pharma and ESPECIALLY big oil. We need alternative sources of CLEAN energy RAMPED up and dirty energy corporate structure of oil exposed for the charlatans and snake oil salesmen they are. Truly they peddle death.

Our country, our very lives and our form of government is at stake.

Press hard for Halter (Sestak too in PA) and ALL progressives to make sure the Blanche Lincolns get what they so APTLY deserve -- DEFEAT in November and in Arkansas a WIN for Halter, in PA a win for Sestak and a win for other progressives around the nation against Republicans.

Conservadems MUST KNOW that they have to be what Democrats SHOULD be, a speaker for the people who built this country with their hands in war, in peace, in the unions, in small business, in large businesses located HERE in this country and NOT in tax shelters off our coast. Wall Street's promises are ILLUSION as all gambling is! Yes, I want our country back -- the humane, progressive, smart, diverse one of 300,000,000 people. With that many we ought to get leaders of intelligent excellence!

BILL HALTER for Senate: It looks right now like Blanche Lincoln will be forced into a run off against the progressive candidate Bill Halter in Arkansas. Per Arkansas election law, Lincoln needs to meet a 50 percent-plus-one-vote threshold Tuesday to avoid a run-off on June 8. Halter is EXCELLENT and deserves national support so he can kick Lincoln out and get that seat for progressives. It is ALL of our concern who consider ourselves progressive and who want to make sure the president is HELD to his promises. He cannot do so if he is fought at every turn by conservadems and Republicans. That health care insanity did NOT have to happen if we had the right Dems in power. We had initially a sixty vote majority. There should have been NO question and there would not have had it not been for some DINO's (Democrats in name only). We would have gotten a public option easily! Obama MUST do what he promised and I think he will IF there is a mandate.

Therefore we MUST support campaigns like Bill Halter.

So far this is a good day for Dems. Murtha's seat was retained and BEST OF ALL Specter is TROUGH in PA senate and hopefully Sestak will take the Senate seat in the fall. Sestak is brilliant and would be terrific and maybe even has an bigger future.

I will contribute more to Bill Halter's campaign tomorrow when the runoff is official. It's late now and I must call it a day but I am pulling for Bill Halter BIG TIME!!!!

I think progressives WILL come to him -- hopefully in large numbers and send a TRUE progressive to Washington. We must show that we are NOT kidding that Obama's base people like I mean business. We are NOT to be taken for granted. It will
take grass roots work but I think we can pull this one off. Blanche Lincoln was a DISGRACE to the Democratic party. She was bought, sold and owned by big insurance, big pharma and probably big oil.

Progressives are young (even though I am not so young) but I believe we are the wave of the future and that progressives will cast a HUGE shadow on right wing extremist teabaggers. This is what I hope. Please help if you can IF Halter is forced into a run off against Lincoln. I attach his campaign web page below. Think about a contribution no matter how much if the runoff proceeds! Please feel free to forward this to all of your friends.

http://billhalter.com/contact

Letter to the White House: I can forgive.

Tip of the hat to the administration when it's due! Glad Jonathan Katz was fired!!! I feel MUCH better and will post it to my blog. This is why I gave to your campaign and why I loved you.

Feeling a bit better now let's get the leak under control.

A Letter to Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann: Rachel, Keith: get a load of this article if you haven't already on Huffington. How many times can this president put a stake in our hearts? First the oil leak which is bad enough and which he was AWOL on as he took 1/2 of the Bush administration's incompetent employees into his administration and now this virulent homosexual hater Jonathan Katz is on his science team to deal with the leak. It makes one sick to one's stomach.

Not only is Obama NOT what I thought he would be he is almost NOTHING I thought he would be. I am going from love to loath inside of one year. I should have KNOWN from the start when he had Rick Warren at his inaugural this guy was pulling the wool over somebody's eyes. This is as if he had on his team someone who was racist against blacks and used pseudo science to prove blacks were inferior. This guy Jonathan Katz is AWFUL simply awful. Surely you can have this exposed on your show tonight. I am stricken with grief that this president has failed in so many ways ESPECIALLY now with the leak. NO ONE but NO ONE can talk about Bush's Katrina now. Obama's oil leak is INFINITELY worse. I LOVED Obama and wrote endlessly that I did.

My element of trust has been broken and it has been for awhile but now it REALLY is. He is NOT what I bargained for and to whom I thought I gave my hard earned money. I am sad. VERY sad. Here is the link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/17/jonathan-katz-member-of-s_n_579206.html

I hate to say this but Pat Buchanan is an anti-Semite (See Newsweek's Gabe Pressman article "Pat Buchanan's On the Rampage Against Jews -- Again" http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37196037.) I am letting various media know that if they have him on I will NOT watch. One evening on Rachel Maddow's show Buchanan was particularly vitriolic against whom I cannot remember. I suspect it was either blacks or Jews naturally -- who else? Rachel Maddow, it seemed, got rather steamed at him and showed me again how wonderful she truly is. She used to say he was her friend but I doubted he was. Kudos to her for not having him on, that I have seen, since then but then again to Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann, too, I give kudos every time I watch which is every night. I do not know what I would do without them.

I am not anti-free speech as Pat Buchanan, of course, may say anything he wants but I do NOT have to listen to him and I won't. To think a couple of years ago I emailed him directly applauding him for being so smart is astounding to me now. I said I wished he were in the left corner instead of the right. I never heard anything in response but maybe my surname being quite Jewish was responsible for his not addressing my email or maybe he is just too damn busy to make time for us peons. We are ONLY the ones who keep his bank account humming. Why should he bother with us?

I will not listen to anti-Semitic comments from anyone. Jewish history has been too damaged and the six million are never out of my mind for even a day. He besmirches their memory to me when he waxes anti Semitic, denies the Holocaust or thinks it was trivial to US interests. Never again is not just a slogan to me. It means something -- not now, not tomorrow, not ever again will THIS Jew listen to those who wish that Hitler succeeded and think, too, that the US interests would have been better served during that fateful time had it been Germany's ally instead of its enemy. If Buchanan were a Jew he would be singing a different song. The fact that he cannot place his own feet in someone else's shoes shows me how sour, off key and despicable his song truly is.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

DESPICABLE: I am so upset over the oil spill I cannot even look at it or write much about it today. I am stilled into a neurotic mute over this obscenity. I continue to believe our president, given that this drill was SO huge, had an obligation to insist appropriate permits were delivered and significant oversight by the Department of the Interior and MMS (Minerals Management Service) was given. The spill is SO immense the buck has to stop somewhere and it stops, as Harry Truman said, at the president's desk.

The president is right the spectacle of the big three JERKS -- BP, Trans-Ocean, and Halliburton, responsible for the spill was UNACCEPTABLE but I maintain that even more than that his lack of supervision of this unique drill was unacceptable as well. Everyone must take their lumps for this one INCLUDING and maybe most especially the president because of the the drill's immense and unique never-been-done-before aspect.

I urge you to write to the White House to tell him of your dismay and to vote a resounding NO to off shore oil filthy drilling. Yes, I still support him. He is the only game in town and Republicans are more poisonous than even the spill but I don't have to like what I see to know his lack of attention to this matter is WORSE than Waterloo. It is despicable!

To marry or not that is the state's rights question:

Jeff Jacoby is, as most of you probably know, an arch conservative editorialist for the Globe. Mostly we disagree on just about everything. Occasionally, especially on immigration issues, we agree. He is curiously humane, at least to me, on that issue. I email him when we agree and I email him when I adamantly disagree. Today was a disagreement day as he wrote an anti gay marriage editorial entitled “Who decides what ‘marriage’ means.” (Op Ed May 12, 2009 Boston Globe) I enclose the link of that article below. He maintains a states rights approach to that issue. I fundamentally disagree and wrote to him the following:

No sooner could I not believe there were actually humanitarian issues on which I agreed with you, you sanctimoniously and smugly write about an issue that is sure to incur my wrath: gay marriage. You write about it as if it were simply a martial arts class subject to state consideration. You say a state can choose to classify it any way they want but other states do not have to. So now you equate HUMAN rights with martial arts classification rights.

I am going to OPPOSE vociferously what even some black people, often indoctrinated by the church, say and that is that homosexuals cannot be equated with them. I beg to differ. Homosexuals CAN be equated with them and to the discrimination blacks have felt for centuries. I have had profound experience to know that when a child expresses the fact that he or she KNEW her or his affectional preference at age THREE there is something more to homosexuality than a mere adult choice. As gays have said so often who would CHOOSE it knowing in many cases society will either condemn it, reluctantly acknowledge it or EVEN KILL you because of it. I do not postulate it is a choice I ADAMANTLY KNOW IT IS NOT. It is an ascribed status probably made so by genetic determination. It cannot and SHOULD not be changed.

No one would EVER in our culture prohibit nor would a state be allowed to reject a marriage of two people one male and one female with Downs Syndrome. It is perfectly legal for the state to marry both or for one who has Downs to marry another who does NOT even THOUGH it may be genetically ill advised and disadvantageous to society to allow it. Yet their relationship is deemed worthy of marriage. So is, I might add, an elderly couple who, clearly, will NEVER procreate.

I maintain because homosexuality PROBABLY has a genetic determination -- and EVEN if it did NOT -- it is NOT the state's obligation to define what marriage is or isn't with respect to the sexuality of two people who love each other and deny to them the relationship solidification that marriage can bestow. We are NOT talking about commerce, we are talking about HUMAN BEINGS who usually from day one know EXACTLY to whom they are attracted. What business is it of yours OR the state to tell an adult anyone whom they can love and with whom to spend a life? Answer: IT'S NONE of your business and it's NONE of the state's business either. Neither you nor the amorphous blob of the state has to suffer the consequences of a lonely life.

I have to laugh at so called "conservative" state's rights enthusiasts. They are ALL for states rights EXCEPT when they are not when it comes to the rights THEY like which they want federalized such as business rights, religious rights, anti-gay marriage rights or property rights. Then its perfectly right to them for the federal government to step in to tell everyone else which rights they will protect. It becomes perfectly fine for the court to use federal law to protect rights of those who make money, own a corporation or property but not right of the federal government to tell a state you are abridging the rights that civil law should bestow to all by singling out one group the discrimination against whom is sanctioned by the state.

Finally, after nearly 300 years this country decided that the answer to discrimination against blacks in the voting booth was illegal and for a president to decide it was immoral to ask a black man to risk his life and sometimes die for his country in a segregated armed services. The full integration within our culture INCLUDING laws against black and white marriage was NOT I repeat NOT something that could be up for a vote. If in 1957 or 1962 one put integration or black and white marriage up for a public vote it would have been voted down easily. The court, however, said otherwise and should have. Why? Because society advances, grows and understands more about tolerance and, in the instant case, human sexuality. These are human beings and they have the right to control their personal existence and happiness free of governmental prohibition. The tea baggers should know this as they want government out of everything but, of course, not for gays.

Rights cannot and should not be denied because gay people serve in the military, because gay people pay plenty of taxes, and because we KNOW many have died for our country and conclude that DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) is an unjust law. More than that, however, is that the state -- ALL states -- have no right to discriminate against homosexuals because it is UNFAIR and INHUMANE for one group to commit this injustice against another and for the state to sanction it!

Your wrong on this issue, Jeff. It may not happen in my lifetime that the FULL FAITH AND CREDIT CLAUSE (Article IV Section 1 of the US Constitution) will apply to gay marriage in every state but someday it may and should. I would LOVE to live to see the slings and arrows you on the rancid right hurl and which hurt, be taken away so that you cannot HURT anyone else any more!

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/05/12/who_decides_what_marriage_means/

Ignorance is NOT bliss

I ask no I PLEAD with you to read the following from Greenpeace AND Newsweek about the spill of the decade. The worst thing our country faces is not its DISASTROUS oil and other bad policies but its our IGNORANCE about them that WILL kill. I don't care WHAT you do but DO SOMETHING! Cntribute to the effort to stem this catastrophe, email, call, or smoke signal your state and especially FEDERAL Congress and our president who made the worst decision of his presidency to give a thumbs up to coastal drilling. Still we do NOT want Republicans as they are worse IF that is possible. It is. Dems can be bad but trust me Republicans are worse they are totally in bed with corporations and are proud of it. They are its true base. DO NOT BE IGNORANT of what these filthy corrupt corporations ESPECIALLY oil corporations like BP are doing to you, the ones you love and to your children and your children's children's environment. We can either live on this planet or we won't. GET INVOLVED and do NOT stay silent!!! Please read the paragraphs below it should take all of five minutes to do so. Then email anyone or everyone you know to get this message out or forward this email as you please. Google Greenpeace or the Sierra Club to find out the TRUE course of these horrific events. IGNORANCE is NOT bliss it is death. If you care about our natural environment which sustains you AND sustains your descendants you MUST care about this.

"Yesterday, Friday May 7, we met a few media crews in Biloxi Mississippi. We got on a boat with one of the crews and headed out into the waters of the Gulf. Rumor has it, and there are lots of rumors, this disaster of a spill is moving but the million dollar question is where is it moving and where/when will it hit the coast. They may be closing another area to fishing to the West of the mouth of the Mississippi so the oil must be going there? Pods of journalists are spread out along the shores looking for the picture they want. One journalist commented the lack of visible oil is good for the environment not good for pictures.

We did see oil (likely mixed with dispersant) quite a ways out from the port. According to maps we were at the edge of the "Zone of Uncertainty" to whether or not the oil would be going there. The lack of pictures of oil slicks coming ashore is missing the point and the spin from BP is good. "Dispersant," besides being toxic in and of it self and more so when it combines with the oil, is giving folks the impression the oil is dispersing and everything will be OK. They're not seeing the oil so maybe there's not a problem. [There IS a problem]! Problem is we've got estimates of over 200,000 gallons of oil per day sitting in the Gulf, dispersed or not. The oil is toxic, everyone agrees with that. The dispersant is toxic everyone agrees with that. Whether in long (un)impressive streaks across the surface or sinking to the bottom it's all toxic. And just because much of it is currently escaping the human eye does not mean it isn't there. One way or another the fish will eat it and the birds will eat them likely killing both.

Clean up measures continue. We're yet to see how this huge structure might work that BP is lowering over one of the two remaining spills still spewing oil into the Gulf. Everyone hopes it will work and that BP can do whatever it takes to stop the oil. Still the fact remains that even though we can't see all of what's happening out there, it is still happening out there. Rick Steiner has said many times over our time here that in the best case scenario with even the best efforts likely 90% of the oil still escapes, and he notes that 21 years after the Exxon Valdez Alaskans are still recovering from that spill.

Greenpeace is going to see what we can do to find out what BP doesn't seem to want us to know about the rest of the oil. Again we hope the measures BP takes to stop the spewing oil works. But the disaster has already taken place. The oil is already in the gulf. Economic and environmental damage has been done. Lives have been lost. The so called "Zone of Uncertainty" certainly can't escape the reality of the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Newsweek further reports as INCREDULOUS as it might be: "Just as Louisiana politicians are about to get an up-close-and-personal look at the BP oil spill (it is approaching the shores an hour's drive from Baton Rouge, the state capital), they are considering a bill to "kneecap" all university environmental-law clinics in the state, which have led the way in challenging the historically cozy relationship between state politicians and the petrochemical industry."

High Hopes: The NYT editorial by David Brooks "What it Takes" is SO interesting. (See link below). I found myself shaking my head "yes" as I read it. I am a product of the late 1960's and attended Boston University, the so called "Berkeley of the East," at that time. I keep wondering where all those activists are now. Where are the students and professors I knew then who imbued me with a sense of purpose and hope? It is as if they vanished into thin air. Future generations since that time have never been, it seemed to me, as committed to principle or as vociferous about it. They seemed to simply go along to get along.

Where is that generation that was supposedly going to change the world for the better, of course? I do not see the fervently principled youth today that I saw as a student during those turbulent times. Those years were my BEST years. They were the years I loved the most as I look back on my life. I wish hopelessly for a return. Why? Because we had values that meant something and we were NOT afraid to say or, yes, even to scream what they were.

Elena Kagan seems like she went along to get along BUT my visceral feeling is thus: I think Elena Kagan's values are much like the vocal students of my era although she KNEW that politics is a minefield. If she wanted to shoot for the top one utterance of one's point of view could mean certain defeat.

I am hoping Barack Obama, too, is cut from that same cloth. In the end when it is Obama's SECOND term should he get it and when Elena Kagan IS confirmed should she be, that both will show us the reflection of my generation's values which they have osmotically ingested. I suspect it is only when they both have nothing to lose that they will show their true colors to be that of the gallant liberals I think lie dormant within them. I may be hoping against hope but it is the ONLY hope I have.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/opinion/11brooks.html?hp

It's Kagan: Obama will nominate Solicitor General Elena Kagan, former Harvard Law president to the Sup Ct. I'm happy. For once. She has no paper trail, has written little but balked at ROTC on the Harvard Campus because of the military's Don't Ask Don't Tell policy. Clearly she opposes that. Okay, so basically from what I have read she is conservative with respect to strong executive power but perhaps liberal on other issues, hard to tell. I remember once thinking my idol FDR was an example of a strong executive. It was once a rather liberal position. Since Bush and 9/11 it has not been.

Not sure if I'm against that except of course if we get another God forbid like George Bush or any other Republican for that matter. That's the problem.

Three women on the court as long as Ginsburg stays physically okay. She has had her problems that is for sure. This is why the presidency matters.

I'm still grumbling about the spill as my heart still breaks for our environment and the lost jobs of people there not to mention poor Louisiana.

But Would I rather have McCain and the idiot Palin? ABSOLUTELY NOT!

They are floating around another idea to cap it....I fall asleep praying. What me? Yep there are NO atheists in oil spills of this magnitude!

Obama's Fatal Flaw: Prediction: Barack Obama will be a one term president. As I have said before, the oil leak is a metaphor for Obama's Waterloo. It is simply outrageous. Why he gave thumbs up to off shore drilling to make Republicans love him and kiss him I will never know. This will have huge rippling effects and this president has SERIOUS flaws. He is NOT what I thought we were getting. I was willing to overlook all the other sorely inadequate policy such as his civil libertarian erosion and the people he chose for his administration to craft that policy but this spill breaks my camel’s back.

This oil spill is a metaphor for the president’s utterly incomprehensible leadership. His policies have been fraught with error and this spill shows it. He NEVER should have given a thumb up to off shore drilling ESPECIALLY at 3000 feet something that had not ever been done before. Before the drilling took place, if it took place, it SHOULD have been inspected by neutral parties including government who had NO monetary stake in the action. The rig itself SHOULD NOT have gone to a no-bid contractual entity and if it failed other fail safe options under government supervision should have been in place. BP had a bad record and it should have been exposed.

If Bush was an uncompromising idiot Obama, with his superior intellect, is EXTRAORDINARILY too deliberative and INFINITELY too compromising. This was not Harvard Law Review and he is blowing his chance AND FAST to enact lasting social change. At this moment in history his idea of bipartisanship would be LAUGHABLE if it were not so consequentially horrific. His idol should not have been Lincoln it SHOULD have been Franklin and even Theodore Roosevelt. FDR faced a Republican party that loathed him during the greatest economic catastrophe man had ever seen. He didn’t care. In fact, he welcomed the opposition and Obama should have done the same especially with a huge majority he enjoyed in Congress. Teddy Roosevelt, the Republican trust buster, with anti-trust legislation, broke up monopolies which had a stranglehold on the essence of capitalism and on the people that economic forum is supposed to serve.

Bob Bennett, decades long moderate Republican senator from Utah, is the canary in the coal mine. Utah just nixed him for a tea bag candidate. The moderate Republican is extinct. The American public soon will get what it deserves -- Republican control of Congress which will be Obama's real Waterloo. Will they be different? Oh sure. Just what the doctor ordered like the cancer they are. It will be more of the same but worse. Obama will be stymied at every attempt to substantive enactment of anything.

Corporate stranglehold on government is the problem. Oligarchy is the problem and our debt and deficit are the problems. Republican control of everything again ESPECIALLY by tea bag Republicans ultimately will mean that government will do nothing and allow the always responsible (I wax sarcastic) private sector to rule the day. There will be few government safety nets for the many problems our nation faces that ONLY government can provide.

Obama ruined health care by reneging on the public option. He gave a gift to the insurance cartels. Lyndon Johnson would, by any arm twisting necessary, have gotten it done, moreover, it should have been done AFTER our economic house was in order. In large part I hold Barack Obama accountable for Brown's win in Mass. He came in too little too late just like he did nothing when the tea baggers exploded over health care last summer. Where was his leadership then? He gave it to Congress who could not go up against the know nothings with guns. Our president then was not to be seen.

The FIRST duty of his presidency should have been to stop the economic bleeding on Wall Street AND Main Street, hire Krugmanesque or Elizabeth Warrenesque people in Treasury NOT Geithner, Summers and his cronies Rubin the Goldman Sachs rapists including Ben Bernanke Chairman of the Fed. The president can only be as excellent as the excellent people who surround him. Obama chose Bush light. He is NOT who I thought he was.

I am HUGELY disappointed in much of Barack Obama’s leadership. The HUGE cuts should be in defense spending as even Obama’s Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (a former Bush appointee) has said. We should be paring down much of our empire to direct our economy where it needs to go to meet the social needs of our people and not our belligerent needs. President Eisenhower's statement on the dangers of the military industrial complex was exactly correct. I am dismayed and discouraged that our president did not know this too. He seemed to know it all in the Senate but not as the Commander in Chief.

The call should go out to everyone in the US or ANYWHERE for MIT-like geniuses to try to get this horrendous oil gusher ruining our coast, our economy and our nation, under control. This is BIG TIME SERIOUS for ALL of us. It is NOT just Louisiana's problem. If you think it is think again. Just wait until the oil starts crawling slowly up the east coast. This is a Shakespearean tragedy of epic proportions and our president has a fatal flaw! He does not act. As Shakespeare so eloquently said “The play’s the thing!” Hamlet anyone?

Notes on a Journal: Last Friday was Bill Moyers's last show on PBS "The Journal." I have been an avid viewer taping that show every week. The understatement of the century for me is to say it was a great show. It was that and more. I learned so much playing cerebral ping pong, chewing on so much, and voraciously digesting all that it had to offer. Bill Moyers is one of the greats in television news commentary and journalism. If you have any money lying around doing nothing may I suggest a contribution to PBS? I sent the following thank you note to him, PBS and "The Journal" staff:

Since it is your last show I wanted to send you a quick thank you note describing my not so quick love affair with PBS, Bill Moyers and "The Journal." I have loved you nearly all of my life.

When PBS first came to Boston I must have been all of ten years old. It did not compare then to watching the Lone Ranger, Leave it to Beaver or Father Knows Best. As I grew older, though, until this very day at 61 not only have I continued to love PBS and watch it, it is the one of the few channels that I give my life's precious time TO watch nearly every day.

When my mother passed away I thought I would never be able to take a breath without her. That is how I am feeling now. Bill, you are an irreplaceable man. I will miss you more than my feeble words can convey. I thank you and your staff SO much for the humanity, compassion, insight and to your many guests, too, who reached out to me every week and from whom I learned so much.

You are a priceless gem and I am thrilled to have lived in the ascribed era I had no part in choosing. I thank you, too, for nurturing my knowledge, understanding, and interest in the people and events of this earth we all occupy for much too short a time.

Thank you again!!

Breach of Tort: This is NOT the change I bought into. Each day I grow angrier and angrier at the president for making this DISASTROUS decision to oil drill off the Gulf Coast or any coast. The lapses we expected under the Bush administration and which were routine are the VERY opposite Obama said his policies would be. He said in HIS administration there would be NO negligent implementation of policy by those whom he would put in charge of government institutions whose job it is to enforce regulation to protect the nation against disaster. The disaster that has happened in the Gulf is beyond adequate expression. I am enraged and this story, if true, (link below) makes me weep all the more as the BP rig used in the Gulf drill seemingly was given a regulatory pass.

Some say I should just shut up as what do I want a Republican? NO of course NOT BUT I do NOT want Republican light either. I wanted and THOUGHT I was getting a progressive Democrat. For this and other policies I simply let slide, the president is in breach of tort. Unless he can reverse the severe damage to our waters, ecosystem and the many human livelihoods soon lost by this disgusting spill, he is in DEEP trouble in 2012. People like I am are his base and we want a new product. The president is in breach of tort. In many ways he is NOT the product we thought we were getting!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36956650/ns/us_news-washington_post/

Oil and water do not mix, neither does coal and neither does nuclear power: Please try to support Greenpeace, any other environmental group or any group involved in this horrific oil spill clean up. See link and email below.

It's possible I don't know if it's probable but I have read it is POSSIBLE the leak could be so huge it goes around the Florida coast and eventually up the eastern seaboard. I am hoping that is media hype because in that case WE would be directly affected as if we are not already. It all depends on just how much oil is at the bottom of that 3 miles down ocean floor and so far the weather
has made it impossible to see. It is now LIKE an upside down faucet GUSHING this disgusting crud.

There is NO such thing as, safe oil drilling, clean coal or CERTAINLY safe nuclear power. Nuclear power has nuclear waste. Now I ask you in a country of 300 MILLION people how much nuclear waste will there be the substance of which we CANNOT
get rid of? It is unfathomable. If you think this oil gusher is a disaster our minds cannot conceptualize a nuclear waste spill and the corporate "experts" will say oh don't worry we have the technology. YEAH RIGHT where have we heard that lame story before?

In Massachusetts, because of a water main rupture, people are going insane for water because 30 communities need to simply BOIL their water before drinking it. They are plundering the supermarkets getting all that oh so safe plastic bottled water with, of course, no toxins emanating from that plastic bottle. NOT MUCH! So how many of those people who killed themselves to get the plastic water will recycle their bottle? One can only IMAGINE the insanity that would take place with a nuclear power disaster. WAKE UP AMERICA we live in an oligarchy which is a fancy word for the union of HUGE corporations with government. Add papers please as in the lovely Arizona anti-immigrant law and the word becomes fascism.

Scroll down and see what Greenpeace has to offer and I urge you to support it and support our country by doing it!


http://fieldnotes.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/05/01/2291388.aspx

UNFORGIVABLE: I, as an Obama supporter and life long Democratic, am horrified to say, THIS HUMONGOUS oil gush is Obama's REAL Waterloo! (See link below) I must call it as I see it. Our president has disappointed me on a number of fronts. I was willing to overlook most of them. I overlooked even ones that overturned the bedrock of my own philosophy when Obama maintained Bush's lack of due process in continuing the Patriot Act and warrant-less wiretaps, even when he obliterated the public option on health care, even when he failed to directly respond to racist teabag shouting matches last summer, even when he put the Wall Street foxes in charge of the sick chickens, even when Attorney General Holder is instructed to continue to go after reporter James Risen when Obama promised to endorse the journalist shield, even when he said there is no difference between Wall Street and Main Street BUT THIS oil disaster I cannot forgive.

Placating Republicans by turning over on drill baby drill is UNFORGIVABLE. This spill may make Bush's Katrina debacle look like child's play. SOMEONE did not pay attention to the minutia of safety factors concerning this UNIQUE 3000 foot under-the-ocean drill. No one in the administration screamed at Obama the error of his ways so he could consider both sides of the off shore 3000 foot never done before deep drilling issue and all of its attendant risk?

Not only is this Obama's Waterloo it may be ours as well. Between Wall Street and Obama's unceasing placation of a toxic Republican agenda, the reversal of solid Democrat policy surrounding off shore drilling just may be the camel back-breaking straw I cannot endure. He is losing my support. The question is not only whom did we elect but who else could progressive Democrats in 2012 elect instead? Unless this spill can be contained, the damage stopped and the fault determined then I say to Rahm Emanuel who said the president's base does not matter, I AM the base and I MATTER!

What has he done to our country in his feeble attempt to play a mating dance with Republicans? Since we are on the dance card what will this do to all of us? Maybe the president should consider dancing with the ones who brought him to the dance in the first place!

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-fix-20100501,0,323202,full.story