The Dixicrat Blues: "Politico" reports: "Democratic South Finally Falls" (link below).
This loss of Dixie for the Democrats is really nothing new. There is a strain of anti-intellectualism and anti anything academic that is and has always been popular in the rural south. It has been evolving as such for a long time most especially since 1965 as President Johnson predicted his Civil Rights legislation would lose the south for Democrats and, ultimately, it did exactly that. The Republican takeover has today progressed to the state legislatures of the south as well. Even state politics in the south has become federalized.
If that means that Democrats gain votes among more intelligent, more literate, more progressive, more equitable human beings, and more academic truth-tellers than I say it is OKAY by me. Take a slicer to the south and, oh yes, by the way if they do NOT want health care then good, let them not buy into it so there will be more for us Yankees. I will NOT be singing the Dixiecrat Blues anytime soon.
Someday (MAYBE) the poor whites in the south will wake up and realize the Republican party is what it has been for a long time -- the party of big corporations, big pharma, and BIG BIG Wall Street. If poor southern whites can identify with that group good luck to them. I have always said about the middle classes and below that the REPUBLICAN PARTY IS NOT ABOUT THEM! But gaa head vote for the party that represents the wealthiest top 2% of the population and then see what death panels for granny really mean. In true laissez faire "Gone with the Wind" fashion: Frankly my dear I don't give a damn!
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/45627.html
Monday, November 29, 2010
Wikileaks a reassessment: As more becomes evident my opinion changes. The leak, albeit no surprise to those of us who follow policy, is quite possibly NOT a good thing. Is the government a lumbering hulk?. Is this country impossible to govern and too big for one man no matter how gifted? Why does this even occur? Why does the US Government not have the best security money can buy to ensure this NEVER can happen? The question also becomes who does this help? Too many questions and all has not even been released yet.
How many Private Mannings (the leaker to Wilileaks) are there? More to come as I revisit my thoughts.
How many Private Mannings (the leaker to Wilileaks) are there? More to come as I revisit my thoughts.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Wicked Leaks -- Defending the Right: The news of the day is the release again by Wikileaks of thousands of pages of State Department documents. There is a hurricane of commentary on the blogs both pro, con and in between. The NYTimes is taking a particular hit as it was one of the first to obtain the documents from Wikileaks and decided to release them. I added, of course, one more opinion. It was written in haste.
The New York Times is a news organization. It is OBLIGATED to report news it deems of consequence. Many were SO critical of the Times during the run up to the Iraq War as it was accused of being a lap dog for Bush administration policy. Well, now they open up the floodgates to perhaps YEARS of rotten US policy so they are damned if they do and damned if they don't.
My sincere belief is that the root of US problems internationally post WWII has been so dangerous because its policy has been SO toxic and made to prop up the worst of the worst dictatorships in the name of freedom. FREEDOM? Really? It's NOT about freedom. There was NOTHING about freedom with respect to US policy and Iraq. Men and women die NOT for freedom but for economic, political and industrial hegemony in the world.
Having said that I believe the US does nothing different from what policy has been for centuries. The problem is the consequence of bad policy now comes back to bite us in the posterior because we are SO huge and our military is spread all over the world. In history the US and other nations could get away with an invasion or two and it would NOT be on the radar screen of anyone except those who bore the brunt of it -- certainly NOT Americans. We live in a different age and it is a different world. We obviously are not the only ones to have the means to obliterate the world but it appears we act as if we do.
Personally, I would NEVER give to those who want to do the US harm the ammunition to use to do that. The US, though, needs to examine HOW it makes policy, what policy it makes and who bears the brunt of the wrecking crew. The US should NEVER be in a position where it must defend its covert actions because of illegal tactics. In the age of the Internet it is NOT business as usual. Obama talked about CHANGE....well I would LOVE to see that change. It should include a return to the values that allowed us to defeat HUGE German/Japanese armies because we had right on our side and the might to defeat hideous monsters.
Our culture is WORTH saving, WORTH preserving and WORTH defending because the alternative that religious fanatics want to impose on us is UNACCEPTABLE and often so is our foreign policy. Wikileaks may in the end be a good thing IF the US scrupulously examines the etiology of its foreign policy and uses its might ONLY when it must. Our might TRULY must defend the right!
The New York Times is a news organization. It is OBLIGATED to report news it deems of consequence. Many were SO critical of the Times during the run up to the Iraq War as it was accused of being a lap dog for Bush administration policy. Well, now they open up the floodgates to perhaps YEARS of rotten US policy so they are damned if they do and damned if they don't.
My sincere belief is that the root of US problems internationally post WWII has been so dangerous because its policy has been SO toxic and made to prop up the worst of the worst dictatorships in the name of freedom. FREEDOM? Really? It's NOT about freedom. There was NOTHING about freedom with respect to US policy and Iraq. Men and women die NOT for freedom but for economic, political and industrial hegemony in the world.
Having said that I believe the US does nothing different from what policy has been for centuries. The problem is the consequence of bad policy now comes back to bite us in the posterior because we are SO huge and our military is spread all over the world. In history the US and other nations could get away with an invasion or two and it would NOT be on the radar screen of anyone except those who bore the brunt of it -- certainly NOT Americans. We live in a different age and it is a different world. We obviously are not the only ones to have the means to obliterate the world but it appears we act as if we do.
Personally, I would NEVER give to those who want to do the US harm the ammunition to use to do that. The US, though, needs to examine HOW it makes policy, what policy it makes and who bears the brunt of the wrecking crew. The US should NEVER be in a position where it must defend its covert actions because of illegal tactics. In the age of the Internet it is NOT business as usual. Obama talked about CHANGE....well I would LOVE to see that change. It should include a return to the values that allowed us to defeat HUGE German/Japanese armies because we had right on our side and the might to defeat hideous monsters.
Our culture is WORTH saving, WORTH preserving and WORTH defending because the alternative that religious fanatics want to impose on us is UNACCEPTABLE and often so is our foreign policy. Wikileaks may in the end be a good thing IF the US scrupulously examines the etiology of its foreign policy and uses its might ONLY when it must. Our might TRULY must defend the right!
Saturday, November 27, 2010
New News: I recently became acquainted with and joined an excellent left-of-center news site entitled “The Real News.” It is funded by public contribution and not supported by commercial or governmental money. THAT means a lot. Most of the news we ingest should NOT be for public consumption but, truthfully, it is the ONLY news accessible to many. CBS, ABC, CNN, MSNBC and even PBS depend on commercial and governmental sources of funding. Consequently, we do not get the whole unvarnished truth. “The Real News” offers a difference. I list it on the link below. You can peruse it and see what it has to offer. I decided to join and by joining I contribute toward receiving news that is not sugar coated syrup made to help the distasteful medicine go down more palatably. I also had the option of getting a DVD of my choice. I chose “The National Security State” which is narrated by several national security experts as well as historical novelist Gore Vidal. Both the late Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky have their own DVDs from which to choose.
I also link another article from “The Real News” entitled “US Intelligence Thwarted Attack on Iran” by Ray McGovern, a 27 year agent with the Central Intelligence Agency. It is not only a political critique of the Bush presidency and his allegedly self written book, “Decision Points,” McGovern also provides other links to psychological analysis of the former “commander-in-chief.” It is, to say the least, fascinating. I wrote the following blog in response to it:
How much can the little guy really have an impact on American politics? Americans, sadly, are known for their disinterest in activism. Even when irate interest is stoked it is often lost in a short time, perhaps, through one election cycle.
Worse, however, than even that, the grass roots protest for which people like the late Howard Zinn and others on the left advocated is, in reality, now decidedly right wing. It does NOT see government as having the ability to help. The populist Tea Baggers are an ANTI government, anti tax, ultra nationalist group. This is NOT, I believe, what Zinn had in mind. The Tea Baggers at times share the left’s fury about government propping up big corporations at tax payer expense but our similarity of views ends there. The remedies for the desperate state of our nation are altogether different.
I believe the left side of the political spectrum has its limitations. There simply are NOT enough of us rabidly committed to make policy stick. Worse, we are thought of as unpatriotic. We, therefore, lose a LARGE chunk of the culture wars to right wing extremists. We are the ideological opposite on social issues policy which fuels so much of the fervor on the religious right. There does not seem to be enough emotional juice attached to the left to preserve its power ESPECIALLY when leadership has been, as Ray McGovern says, invertebrate.
We face a HUGE conundrum. Can we work with those on the right who hate corporate control of everything political as we on the left do? I suspect we cannot because there is too much of a social and ideological chasm that separates us. How can the left, then, sustain power? We must sustain our base as we did in 2008 and STAY committed to what we believe. We MUST advocate fiercely for people of color, Hispanic people, the poor, blue collar workers, the immigrant, the middle class, those of different sexual orientations and to save a woman's right to choose. We must harness the power of moderates and progressives of all social classes who KNOW that government is the PARTIAL solution NOT the ETERNAL problem.
Either 1 or 2% percent of the population gets ALL the goodies or we REALIZE the American Dream should be more equitably distributed. It is our choice. Sitting home and staying quiet are NOT acceptable. New news organizations that receive no government or corporate funding SHOULD be the wave of the future to avoid the tsunami of lies that has been the ever-present past!
http://www.therealnews.com/t2/component/content/article/57-ray-mcgovern/495-us-intelligence-thwarted-attack-on-iran
http://www.therealnews.com/t2/
I also link another article from “The Real News” entitled “US Intelligence Thwarted Attack on Iran” by Ray McGovern, a 27 year agent with the Central Intelligence Agency. It is not only a political critique of the Bush presidency and his allegedly self written book, “Decision Points,” McGovern also provides other links to psychological analysis of the former “commander-in-chief.” It is, to say the least, fascinating. I wrote the following blog in response to it:
How much can the little guy really have an impact on American politics? Americans, sadly, are known for their disinterest in activism. Even when irate interest is stoked it is often lost in a short time, perhaps, through one election cycle.
Worse, however, than even that, the grass roots protest for which people like the late Howard Zinn and others on the left advocated is, in reality, now decidedly right wing. It does NOT see government as having the ability to help. The populist Tea Baggers are an ANTI government, anti tax, ultra nationalist group. This is NOT, I believe, what Zinn had in mind. The Tea Baggers at times share the left’s fury about government propping up big corporations at tax payer expense but our similarity of views ends there. The remedies for the desperate state of our nation are altogether different.
I believe the left side of the political spectrum has its limitations. There simply are NOT enough of us rabidly committed to make policy stick. Worse, we are thought of as unpatriotic. We, therefore, lose a LARGE chunk of the culture wars to right wing extremists. We are the ideological opposite on social issues policy which fuels so much of the fervor on the religious right. There does not seem to be enough emotional juice attached to the left to preserve its power ESPECIALLY when leadership has been, as Ray McGovern says, invertebrate.
We face a HUGE conundrum. Can we work with those on the right who hate corporate control of everything political as we on the left do? I suspect we cannot because there is too much of a social and ideological chasm that separates us. How can the left, then, sustain power? We must sustain our base as we did in 2008 and STAY committed to what we believe. We MUST advocate fiercely for people of color, Hispanic people, the poor, blue collar workers, the immigrant, the middle class, those of different sexual orientations and to save a woman's right to choose. We must harness the power of moderates and progressives of all social classes who KNOW that government is the PARTIAL solution NOT the ETERNAL problem.
Either 1 or 2% percent of the population gets ALL the goodies or we REALIZE the American Dream should be more equitably distributed. It is our choice. Sitting home and staying quiet are NOT acceptable. New news organizations that receive no government or corporate funding SHOULD be the wave of the future to avoid the tsunami of lies that has been the ever-present past!
http://www.therealnews.com/t2/component/content/article/57-ray-mcgovern/495-us-intelligence-thwarted-attack-on-iran
http://www.therealnews.com/t2/
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Something is Rotten in Denmark: I cannot even describe how despondent, vanquished and utterly furious I am about the confluence of electoral events. What has transpired is my worst nightmare. Where do I begin? In January these utter monsters will be taking back the House not just by a slim margin but by a HUMONGOUS margin, indeed, the largest electoral turnover ever. It is more than my mind can absorb because not only did the coin flip it disappeared from sight.
Where do I put the blame? I place it, generally, in TWO categories. The first is an American public that is utterly CLUELESS to political policy. Most had NO idea for whom they voted. They just knew they had to “throw the Democratic bums out.” Main Street may as well have committed suicide. It is not bad enough that they voted for Republicans, the party of HUGE corporate power, but they voted in the fanatical extreme Republicans who are ideologically immovable, uncompromising, extreme and socially backward. In Horatio Algerian laissez faire fashion they want you to sink or swim, live or die on your own. Life is SO hard isn't it? -- Tough. The public generally voted against its OWN interests. A study which was released recently said a majority of this woefully uninformed public did not even know the Republicans had taken over control of Congress! How do people in this country remain so ignorant? A better question is WHY are they so ignorant? Mencken's quote "You will never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public," rings true. It is STUNNING.
Another aspect to this Republican House takeover is racism OF COURSE. White older voters will do ANYTHING to defeat the black Barack Obama. The white giant has awoken from its 2008 slumber. Over the holidays the Republicans even refused to extend unemployment benefits while the corporations rake in TRILLIONS from the necessary bailouts under Obama AND Bush. With few jobs and unemployment remaining high white America can take the black man Obama down by Republicans giving him NOTHING that he wants thereby sealing his fate to lose in 2012. Not understanding what is at stake, the American public bounce from Democrat to Republican like they are picking a hamburger over a hot dog. The treasonous Republicans even refuse to ratify a sound nuclear treaty with Russia which includes not only cutting civilization obliterating nuclear weaponry but also would give us the ability to monitor Russia’s loose nukes as well. This could save lives and prevent the unthinkable -- nukes in the hands of a terrorist network. But it is a treaty signed by the black man Obama so something that was pushed during the Reagan years is rejected now unilaterally by an almost all white party!
The SECOND part of the blame rests with the president himself. I should have realized he was not who he said he was when he invited Rick Warren, the Evangelist and homophobe, to his inauguration. It was a metaphor. Our president is like a Jewish prisoner during the Holocaust at a camp trying to seek mercy from the merciless who would show NO mercy even if one gave them gold. He has been trying to kiss the behinds of people who want to throw dirt in his face and take him down. I do not know WHY he feels he wants to be a Republican or bipartisan with people who do not want him in their club. He left Main Street to die thinking that the corporate swine will love him and create jobs because of the trillions he allowed them to keep fraudulently earning. His Wall Street cabinet hypocrites prop up their cronies and then that same Wall Street withholds money from the masses because the lack of jobs and housing foreclosures will sink the president. They will use the dissatisfaction of the population to defeat Obama making sure the awakened white know-nothings vote Republican in 2012. The Wall Street crowd savoring their Citizens United Supreme Court victory and dripping with unlimited corporate cash for Republicans COULD sew up their power in the House, the Senate and the presidency in perpetuity with weak opposition as far as the eye can see. The president hung around with the Wall Street cronies of his treasury cabinet who had a plan for eternal control of Republican corporate power but both HE and WE are NOT included.
Moreover, the president did not mount a HUGE campaign over the summer promoting his health care package. When the Tea Bag insanity took hold he did not vociferously argue against it. He left his fellow Democrats to hang out to dry in anarchistic town hall events promulgated and funded by the Chamber of Commerce, the Koch Brothers, the likes of Karl Rove and Dick Armey. The election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts was the canary in the coal mine. If Massachusetts, a bluest of blue state, went red for a senator then there is SOMETHING rotten in Denmark. The late George Carlin got it right! “We are DUPED,” he said (with more profanity than I would use) “Don't expect anything from government because you won't get it. The game is rigged,” he declared. “It's a club and guess what? YOU ain’t in it.”
Where do I put the blame? I place it, generally, in TWO categories. The first is an American public that is utterly CLUELESS to political policy. Most had NO idea for whom they voted. They just knew they had to “throw the Democratic bums out.” Main Street may as well have committed suicide. It is not bad enough that they voted for Republicans, the party of HUGE corporate power, but they voted in the fanatical extreme Republicans who are ideologically immovable, uncompromising, extreme and socially backward. In Horatio Algerian laissez faire fashion they want you to sink or swim, live or die on your own. Life is SO hard isn't it? -- Tough. The public generally voted against its OWN interests. A study which was released recently said a majority of this woefully uninformed public did not even know the Republicans had taken over control of Congress! How do people in this country remain so ignorant? A better question is WHY are they so ignorant? Mencken's quote "You will never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public," rings true. It is STUNNING.
Another aspect to this Republican House takeover is racism OF COURSE. White older voters will do ANYTHING to defeat the black Barack Obama. The white giant has awoken from its 2008 slumber. Over the holidays the Republicans even refused to extend unemployment benefits while the corporations rake in TRILLIONS from the necessary bailouts under Obama AND Bush. With few jobs and unemployment remaining high white America can take the black man Obama down by Republicans giving him NOTHING that he wants thereby sealing his fate to lose in 2012. Not understanding what is at stake, the American public bounce from Democrat to Republican like they are picking a hamburger over a hot dog. The treasonous Republicans even refuse to ratify a sound nuclear treaty with Russia which includes not only cutting civilization obliterating nuclear weaponry but also would give us the ability to monitor Russia’s loose nukes as well. This could save lives and prevent the unthinkable -- nukes in the hands of a terrorist network. But it is a treaty signed by the black man Obama so something that was pushed during the Reagan years is rejected now unilaterally by an almost all white party!
The SECOND part of the blame rests with the president himself. I should have realized he was not who he said he was when he invited Rick Warren, the Evangelist and homophobe, to his inauguration. It was a metaphor. Our president is like a Jewish prisoner during the Holocaust at a camp trying to seek mercy from the merciless who would show NO mercy even if one gave them gold. He has been trying to kiss the behinds of people who want to throw dirt in his face and take him down. I do not know WHY he feels he wants to be a Republican or bipartisan with people who do not want him in their club. He left Main Street to die thinking that the corporate swine will love him and create jobs because of the trillions he allowed them to keep fraudulently earning. His Wall Street cabinet hypocrites prop up their cronies and then that same Wall Street withholds money from the masses because the lack of jobs and housing foreclosures will sink the president. They will use the dissatisfaction of the population to defeat Obama making sure the awakened white know-nothings vote Republican in 2012. The Wall Street crowd savoring their Citizens United Supreme Court victory and dripping with unlimited corporate cash for Republicans COULD sew up their power in the House, the Senate and the presidency in perpetuity with weak opposition as far as the eye can see. The president hung around with the Wall Street cronies of his treasury cabinet who had a plan for eternal control of Republican corporate power but both HE and WE are NOT included.
Moreover, the president did not mount a HUGE campaign over the summer promoting his health care package. When the Tea Bag insanity took hold he did not vociferously argue against it. He left his fellow Democrats to hang out to dry in anarchistic town hall events promulgated and funded by the Chamber of Commerce, the Koch Brothers, the likes of Karl Rove and Dick Armey. The election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts was the canary in the coal mine. If Massachusetts, a bluest of blue state, went red for a senator then there is SOMETHING rotten in Denmark. The late George Carlin got it right! “We are DUPED,” he said (with more profanity than I would use) “Don't expect anything from government because you won't get it. The game is rigged,” he declared. “It's a club and guess what? YOU ain’t in it.”
Monday, November 22, 2010
Yes, I know it's Thanksgiving preparation time but ... This is an article written by Dan Froomkin (link below.) It is so thorough and so well done that I am compelled to share it. It is entitled "The Two Most Essential, Abhorrent, Intolerable Lies of George W. Bush’s Memoir" surrounding his plagiarized book "Decision Points" that Bush is running all over country trying to sell. London told him he better not come to Europe lest he get arrested for war crimes!
If you ever wanted to acquire well supported evidence for the Bush lies surrounding Iraq, this is it. Okay, sure it might take a little bit to read it but my goodness, if as he says "More than 4,400 members of the U.S. armed forces have perished, with nearly 32,000 wounded in action, and somewhere in the ballpark of 500,000 more suffering from brain injuries, mental health problems, hearing damage and disease. Iraqi civilian deaths are estimated to number at least 100,000 and more than a million Iraqis have been displaced from their homes" is not reason enough then I do not know what is. These decisions must NEVER be allowed to happen again in this country IF we have any country left after the Bush annihilation presidency and now the takeover of the House by the wingnut-worse-than-Bush Republicans!
2012 may see the Republican take over the Senate and the presidency. Is it possible for something so reactionary to happen in the most powerful advanced nation on earth? In the film "Judgment at Nuremberg" one of the defendants in the German hierarchy who was charged with war crimes during the Nazi period asked his fellow inmate if it was possible that the culturally advanced German people could construct such a massive killing machine in such a technologically precise and sophisticated manner. The answer he was given: It's possible.
In the words of Edmund Burke "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/22/the-two-most-esssential-a_n_786219.html
If you ever wanted to acquire well supported evidence for the Bush lies surrounding Iraq, this is it. Okay, sure it might take a little bit to read it but my goodness, if as he says "More than 4,400 members of the U.S. armed forces have perished, with nearly 32,000 wounded in action, and somewhere in the ballpark of 500,000 more suffering from brain injuries, mental health problems, hearing damage and disease. Iraqi civilian deaths are estimated to number at least 100,000 and more than a million Iraqis have been displaced from their homes" is not reason enough then I do not know what is. These decisions must NEVER be allowed to happen again in this country IF we have any country left after the Bush annihilation presidency and now the takeover of the House by the wingnut-worse-than-Bush Republicans!
2012 may see the Republican take over the Senate and the presidency. Is it possible for something so reactionary to happen in the most powerful advanced nation on earth? In the film "Judgment at Nuremberg" one of the defendants in the German hierarchy who was charged with war crimes during the Nazi period asked his fellow inmate if it was possible that the culturally advanced German people could construct such a massive killing machine in such a technologically precise and sophisticated manner. The answer he was given: It's possible.
In the words of Edmund Burke "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/22/the-two-most-esssential-a_n_786219.html
Palin the Pathetic: A Review of Palin's Alaska
Here's my review:
I watch NOTHING Palin -- zip, zero, nada -- nor do I watch her family of hypocrites on anything. She is a NOTHING and knows NOTHING. The thought of her being given credence by a media that is bought by the corporate money makers and its Wall Street shareholders makes me want to VOMIT. She is ONLY news NOT because she knows anything -- what she knows could fill a thimble -- but because she looks good. It says everything about our nation's infatuation with superficial sensationalism. It is, INDEED, pathetic. When her looks fade, AND THEY WILL, the media will drop her like rock!
I am NOT a Republican that is obvious BUT if one wanted to concentrate on cerebrally worthy presidential candidates among the Republicans one could spotlight Romney, Huckabee, and Pawlenty (for whom I would NEVER, of course, vote). They are, though, at least intellectually and experientially worthy of the office. Palin is HYPE and that is all she is. She does NOT care if she gets the presidency. She cares that she has reaped MILLIONS from John McCain's IDIOTIC choice for a one-heartbeat-away-from-the presidency VP nominee. McCain is DESPICABLE. He would sell his mother's eyeballs for a vote. He is an UNSCRUPULOUS politico times infinity. A "maverick" he is NOT!
I would NEVER in principle contribute to Palin's bank account. No one who professes to LOVE this country would EVER promote this unqualified idiotic DUNCE to a position which could and probably would get us all killed. SHAME ON YOU media and shame on me for this taking up 5 minutes of my time to write about this divisive, hateful and unconscionable jerk. I will NOT do that again!
Here's my review:
I watch NOTHING Palin -- zip, zero, nada -- nor do I watch her family of hypocrites on anything. She is a NOTHING and knows NOTHING. The thought of her being given credence by a media that is bought by the corporate money makers and its Wall Street shareholders makes me want to VOMIT. She is ONLY news NOT because she knows anything -- what she knows could fill a thimble -- but because she looks good. It says everything about our nation's infatuation with superficial sensationalism. It is, INDEED, pathetic. When her looks fade, AND THEY WILL, the media will drop her like rock!
I am NOT a Republican that is obvious BUT if one wanted to concentrate on cerebrally worthy presidential candidates among the Republicans one could spotlight Romney, Huckabee, and Pawlenty (for whom I would NEVER, of course, vote). They are, though, at least intellectually and experientially worthy of the office. Palin is HYPE and that is all she is. She does NOT care if she gets the presidency. She cares that she has reaped MILLIONS from John McCain's IDIOTIC choice for a one-heartbeat-away-from-the presidency VP nominee. McCain is DESPICABLE. He would sell his mother's eyeballs for a vote. He is an UNSCRUPULOUS politico times infinity. A "maverick" he is NOT!
I would NEVER in principle contribute to Palin's bank account. No one who professes to LOVE this country would EVER promote this unqualified idiotic DUNCE to a position which could and probably would get us all killed. SHAME ON YOU media and shame on me for this taking up 5 minutes of my time to write about this divisive, hateful and unconscionable jerk. I will NOT do that again!
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Highly Recommended: Narrated by Matt Damon "Inside Job" is, I can attest, an excellent documentary. I took Bill Moyer's advice and ran (well not exactly) to the West Newton Theater today to view it. It gives a peripheral glimpse at the etiology of the 2008 economic tsunami. It is well worth viewing. Yes, take your blood pressure meds beforehand if you feel as I do, angered, saddened and frustrated at the pure evil and greed that was unleashed by the few upon the unknowing and innocent global many. The heroes and the villains are clear as the makers of the documentary use their vocal weapon of choice to indict EVEN the most prestigious economics professors at the most renown colleges and universities. Yes, they are in on the scam too and even advocate for its principles so that the bomb keeps ticking. The titans of Wall Street have captured many Congresses and presidents in a system of pay-to-play politics heretofore unknown in the western world. It stuns even the most seasoned skeptic of the American political process which sanctions the top 2% in wealth reaping UNJUST rewards with the American taxpayer funding their yachts, homes, Lamborghinis and BMW's. There was and is, indeed, NO trickle down to us but a trickle UP to the rich to get richer without making a single product.
I believe a reckoning day is approaching at least I HOPE it is. I will not be happy until the likes of Blankfein and his Goldman Sachs cronies, along with Richard Fuld of Lehman, Jamie Dimon of J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, Morgan Stanley Chairman John Mack and many others at the top are indicted for their alleged monstrous offenses. Curiously, it is the ones at the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum who may be spilling the beans. This could be poetic justice at its best as the songbirds could be as base as the prostitutes and cocaine dealers who may add to the chorus of pin the blame on the elephants in the room who simply loved the game of risk even bedding down call girls and paying off cocaine dealers to add to their slimy ways. It was damn the torpedoes full steam ahead no matter whom one may crush in order to reap the ill-gotten gains. The little people never matter BUT they may matter now.
I will believe justice when I see it though. One should see this documentary before the fur begins to fly so one can sit back and enjoy the squirm. Naturally, these titans of greed will be lawyered-up so I am a BIT pessimistic. Still, there is a lot to tell and I think even if they get off with a trivial fine it will be worthwhile to see them sweat as MILLIONS in this country face unemployment, foreclosures and medical catastrophes with a Congress that remains deaf to their suffering. This may be the only justice the victims of a HUGE Ponzi scheme receive. In any event, sit back, watch the film and enjoy!
I believe a reckoning day is approaching at least I HOPE it is. I will not be happy until the likes of Blankfein and his Goldman Sachs cronies, along with Richard Fuld of Lehman, Jamie Dimon of J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, Morgan Stanley Chairman John Mack and many others at the top are indicted for their alleged monstrous offenses. Curiously, it is the ones at the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum who may be spilling the beans. This could be poetic justice at its best as the songbirds could be as base as the prostitutes and cocaine dealers who may add to the chorus of pin the blame on the elephants in the room who simply loved the game of risk even bedding down call girls and paying off cocaine dealers to add to their slimy ways. It was damn the torpedoes full steam ahead no matter whom one may crush in order to reap the ill-gotten gains. The little people never matter BUT they may matter now.
I will believe justice when I see it though. One should see this documentary before the fur begins to fly so one can sit back and enjoy the squirm. Naturally, these titans of greed will be lawyered-up so I am a BIT pessimistic. Still, there is a lot to tell and I think even if they get off with a trivial fine it will be worthwhile to see them sweat as MILLIONS in this country face unemployment, foreclosures and medical catastrophes with a Congress that remains deaf to their suffering. This may be the only justice the victims of a HUGE Ponzi scheme receive. In any event, sit back, watch the film and enjoy!
Friday, November 19, 2010
Trumped up Traitors: Every single day of my life, I get up in the a.m., try to pull myself together and dare to read the news. Do I dare click on Huffington Post? Do I dare click on MSNBC? OR do I dare to read sanity, the New York Times. Krugman has been my guru. Still to read even him today is depressing (See link below for his editorial.) The ENTIRE state of EVERYTHING is DEPRESSING.
We are a nation catapulting toward depression because the ones who have labeled themselves the true patriots -- the Republican party -- want to see this Democratic president fail. Of course, we all know the color of our president's skin matters not to these middle aged red state whites. Oh sure, my posterior it does not. It is the one single factor that these NON patriots use to lynch a darn good, smart, brilliant man who wants desperately to do what he can to save his country from the abyss.
Where were these white patriots when Bush was sending this nation over the proverbial cliff and waging a trumped up war? How quickly the patriots forget. Armed with a zeal never seen since, I believe, pre-civil war, these so called patriots are salivating for the failure of our president EVEN THOUGH IF HE FAILS WE FAIL. They are NOT the patriots they falsely claim they are. They are TRAITORS!
http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/opinion/19krugman.html#preview
We are a nation catapulting toward depression because the ones who have labeled themselves the true patriots -- the Republican party -- want to see this Democratic president fail. Of course, we all know the color of our president's skin matters not to these middle aged red state whites. Oh sure, my posterior it does not. It is the one single factor that these NON patriots use to lynch a darn good, smart, brilliant man who wants desperately to do what he can to save his country from the abyss.
Where were these white patriots when Bush was sending this nation over the proverbial cliff and waging a trumped up war? How quickly the patriots forget. Armed with a zeal never seen since, I believe, pre-civil war, these so called patriots are salivating for the failure of our president EVEN THOUGH IF HE FAILS WE FAIL. They are NOT the patriots they falsely claim they are. They are TRAITORS!
http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/opinion/19krugman.html#preview
Monday, November 15, 2010
CLUB FED:
To be read after taking your MEDS!
You and I have been ROYALLY had. A wonderful friend sent me the link to a lecture given by my guru Bill Moyers at Boston University. I place the link to it below. It says SO much and summarizes the giant economic pickle we are in. In addition, he suggests people "run not walk" to a fabulous documentary which I believe has not shown up on our shores ... YET. It is entitled "Inside Job." I link that below as well.
As usual if you cannot click on these links merely highlight them, then cut and paste into your browser at the top. I can assure you if you enjoy knowing the ENTIRE truth and not the sugar coated syrup you get from regular and even cable news then links such as the ones below will provide you with just that. You can take it. I know you can. We have just taken the greatest economic mishap ride with the exception of PERHAPS the Great Depression and it STILL is not over. In the long run, if we live to see it, it may be worse than the 1929 crash as America CONTINUES to elect the same people who threw this country and the globe over a cliff except they are doing MORE of it. Republicans AND Democrats are in Club Fed but guess what? MOST IF NOT ALL OF US AREN'T!
Then below that I link Matt Taibbi the WONDERFUL reporter and exposure of economic criminality from Rolling Stone. I urge you to click on the Utube in the article that explains Quantitative Easing. Never heard of Quantitative Easing, not to worry MOST haven't including yours truly until I looked into it. Basically it means the Fed PRINTING MONEY and buying bonds from guess who? NOT YOU OR ME but yes, Goldman Sachs. SURPRISE!! Yeah the guys in the Obama Administration. Whoa, funny huh? Did I hear the word oligarchy anyone? The Utube will explain it in VERY VERY simple terms and you may laugh if it were not so ruinous and you don't cry.
So to summarize -- I guarantee it's FUN reading...truly...I think:
Moyers lecture at BU:
http://www.truth-out.org/bill-moyers-money-fights-hard-and-it-fights-dirty64766
Trailer of Moyers suggested documentary viewing "Inside Job"
http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/article/trailer-for-charles-fergusons-inside-job
Matt Taibbi Rolling Stone economic genius --Quantitative Easing--WELL WORTH IT and FUNNY too if it were not so serious!!
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/matt-taibbi/blogs/TaibbiData_May2010/233953/83512
Matt Taibbi the foreclosure UNETHICAL PREPOSTEROUS MESS
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/matt-taibbi
To be read after taking your MEDS!
You and I have been ROYALLY had. A wonderful friend sent me the link to a lecture given by my guru Bill Moyers at Boston University. I place the link to it below. It says SO much and summarizes the giant economic pickle we are in. In addition, he suggests people "run not walk" to a fabulous documentary which I believe has not shown up on our shores ... YET. It is entitled "Inside Job." I link that below as well.
As usual if you cannot click on these links merely highlight them, then cut and paste into your browser at the top. I can assure you if you enjoy knowing the ENTIRE truth and not the sugar coated syrup you get from regular and even cable news then links such as the ones below will provide you with just that. You can take it. I know you can. We have just taken the greatest economic mishap ride with the exception of PERHAPS the Great Depression and it STILL is not over. In the long run, if we live to see it, it may be worse than the 1929 crash as America CONTINUES to elect the same people who threw this country and the globe over a cliff except they are doing MORE of it. Republicans AND Democrats are in Club Fed but guess what? MOST IF NOT ALL OF US AREN'T!
Then below that I link Matt Taibbi the WONDERFUL reporter and exposure of economic criminality from Rolling Stone. I urge you to click on the Utube in the article that explains Quantitative Easing. Never heard of Quantitative Easing, not to worry MOST haven't including yours truly until I looked into it. Basically it means the Fed PRINTING MONEY and buying bonds from guess who? NOT YOU OR ME but yes, Goldman Sachs. SURPRISE!! Yeah the guys in the Obama Administration. Whoa, funny huh? Did I hear the word oligarchy anyone? The Utube will explain it in VERY VERY simple terms and you may laugh if it were not so ruinous and you don't cry.
So to summarize -- I guarantee it's FUN reading...truly...I think:
Moyers lecture at BU:
http://www.truth-out.org/bill-moyers-money-fights-hard-and-it-fights-dirty64766
Trailer of Moyers suggested documentary viewing "Inside Job"
http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/article/trailer-for-charles-fergusons-inside-job
Matt Taibbi Rolling Stone economic genius --Quantitative Easing--WELL WORTH IT and FUNNY too if it were not so serious!!
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/matt-taibbi/blogs/TaibbiData_May2010/233953/83512
Matt Taibbi the foreclosure UNETHICAL PREPOSTEROUS MESS
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/matt-taibbi
Friday, November 12, 2010
The Sorrow of Soros -- Glen Beck owes an apology: Mr. Beck: I do not know what beast has invaded your brain but it is incredible for me to believe a man to be so corrupted and sick that he ends up on a major cable network inciting so many to violence while making millions from them for profit. Maybe I am naive. My conclusion is that you, with an assist from the dripping-with-cash Fox Network, know EXACTLY what you are doing. The scripts written by you and for you are a deliberate attempt to foment division and discord in this nation and IF violence erupts so be it; it will encourage your minions to listen even more to your vitriolic madness.
Your dialogues, at times, are comical to me. Most times I cannot listen to your polluted rants. The latest one about George Soros is abominable. In some perverted way you have contrived that George Soros is the master puppeteer whose "evil" liberal politics is PROVEN in that he sent his own people to the Nazi ovens during the Hiterian era. Your words are so over the top they drip into the psychopathology realm. Could it be that your past drinking has corrupted your cerebral cells to such an extent that it allows you to spew such lies? Worse, those on the right who do not carefully examine thought, investigate and THINK about what someone says hear the words Soros the Jew and a financial takeover which confirm, in an odd Shylockian way, their own virulent anti-Semitic inclinations about Jews as the ultimate manipulator -- the REAL man behind the curtain -- pulling the strings. Your sentiments are poisonous.
You claim to be a man who LOVES this country. That is decidedly doubtful. What you love is your bank account. You have found a way to take advantage of the proclivity of some, perhaps even many, in this nation who lean extremist right and to capitalize on that by spreading consummate lies to the non-discerning many. It is difficult to imagine in our culture, no matter how much the media has perverted it, a man who reaches the pinnacle of success but does not care that his rhetoric is, in an extraordinarily large part, contributing to his nation's hostile even violent climate and the possible takeover by right wing extremist elements that this angry unreasonable verbiage encourages.
What you say besmirching a mench (a GOOD human being) like George Soros is a sin. You maligned the Jew George Soros as the controller and manipulator of all things to accommodate those in your base who feel that about Jews anyway.
Michelle Goldberg of the Daily Beast explains the truth and the sorrow of Soros behind the right wing myth: "... when Soros was 14 in Nazi-occupied Hungary, his father bribed an agriculture official to pretend that the boy was his Christian godson. Soros once had to accompany his protector to inventory a confiscated Jewish estate. Asked by 60 Minutes if he felt guilty about it, he said no, because he wasn't at fault. The slander that he was a Nazi collaborator has proliferated on the right ever since."
Your rant against Mr. Soros is UNCONSCIONABLE. It is ironic that you throw around the word Nazi like confetti on New Year's eve but the true fascistic-like appeal is on your own side of the political spectrum. Consider this quote from Mein Kamp, Hitler’s written manifesto, to which you so often love to refer: "For a lie [to be] so colossal that no one would believe that someone could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously that they would get the majority to believe the preposterous assertion" is the goal of a perfect propagandist. That, Mr. Beck, would be YOU!
To quote Mark 8:36 a New Testament text you SAY you adore “What profit a man if he gain the whole world but lose his soul”? You owe Mr. Soros and ALL Jews a COLOSSAL apology. For once in your sorry life with all your millions, Glen Beck, be a MENCH and give one!
Your dialogues, at times, are comical to me. Most times I cannot listen to your polluted rants. The latest one about George Soros is abominable. In some perverted way you have contrived that George Soros is the master puppeteer whose "evil" liberal politics is PROVEN in that he sent his own people to the Nazi ovens during the Hiterian era. Your words are so over the top they drip into the psychopathology realm. Could it be that your past drinking has corrupted your cerebral cells to such an extent that it allows you to spew such lies? Worse, those on the right who do not carefully examine thought, investigate and THINK about what someone says hear the words Soros the Jew and a financial takeover which confirm, in an odd Shylockian way, their own virulent anti-Semitic inclinations about Jews as the ultimate manipulator -- the REAL man behind the curtain -- pulling the strings. Your sentiments are poisonous.
You claim to be a man who LOVES this country. That is decidedly doubtful. What you love is your bank account. You have found a way to take advantage of the proclivity of some, perhaps even many, in this nation who lean extremist right and to capitalize on that by spreading consummate lies to the non-discerning many. It is difficult to imagine in our culture, no matter how much the media has perverted it, a man who reaches the pinnacle of success but does not care that his rhetoric is, in an extraordinarily large part, contributing to his nation's hostile even violent climate and the possible takeover by right wing extremist elements that this angry unreasonable verbiage encourages.
What you say besmirching a mench (a GOOD human being) like George Soros is a sin. You maligned the Jew George Soros as the controller and manipulator of all things to accommodate those in your base who feel that about Jews anyway.
Michelle Goldberg of the Daily Beast explains the truth and the sorrow of Soros behind the right wing myth: "... when Soros was 14 in Nazi-occupied Hungary, his father bribed an agriculture official to pretend that the boy was his Christian godson. Soros once had to accompany his protector to inventory a confiscated Jewish estate. Asked by 60 Minutes if he felt guilty about it, he said no, because he wasn't at fault. The slander that he was a Nazi collaborator has proliferated on the right ever since."
Your rant against Mr. Soros is UNCONSCIONABLE. It is ironic that you throw around the word Nazi like confetti on New Year's eve but the true fascistic-like appeal is on your own side of the political spectrum. Consider this quote from Mein Kamp, Hitler’s written manifesto, to which you so often love to refer: "For a lie [to be] so colossal that no one would believe that someone could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously that they would get the majority to believe the preposterous assertion" is the goal of a perfect propagandist. That, Mr. Beck, would be YOU!
To quote Mark 8:36 a New Testament text you SAY you adore “What profit a man if he gain the whole world but lose his soul”? You owe Mr. Soros and ALL Jews a COLOSSAL apology. For once in your sorry life with all your millions, Glen Beck, be a MENCH and give one!
Thursday, November 11, 2010
A Must Read: I saw an author, Russ Baker, interviewed. He has written the book is called "Family of Secrets." I CANNOT put it down. I downloaded it to my Kindle. It is an analysis which was ten years in the making of George W. Bush. This author presents him like no other author I have read who has written about George Bush that fully explains the enigma, the complexity of the man and his background which formed one of the worst presidencies if not THE worst presidency in US history. If you think you don't want to know anymore about this unqualified man who allowed 911 to happen, invaded Iraq, a country which had done NO harm to us, tortured and catapulted this nation into the greatest recession it has ever known then please THINK again. This author seems to have documented all there is available to know. He has complied 500 texts on both George W. and his father H.W. which the author says he had to read and research to understand the father and thereby understand the son.
It is a page turner. You can download it to a Kindle if you have one or get it through Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble. If you have any interest in our country's history at the dawn of the 21st century and want to know the many many things that have been heretofore enigmatic about the Bush failed presidency this book provides substance. Moreover, it gives a little taste as to why EVEN Obama is not living up to his campaign rhetoric. I haven't gotten to that part yet but I can assure you I cannot wait.
It is a page turner. You can download it to a Kindle if you have one or get it through Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble. If you have any interest in our country's history at the dawn of the 21st century and want to know the many many things that have been heretofore enigmatic about the Bush failed presidency this book provides substance. Moreover, it gives a little taste as to why EVEN Obama is not living up to his campaign rhetoric. I haven't gotten to that part yet but I can assure you I cannot wait.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Why? If you want to understand and get the BEST progressive analysis of what happened in the November 2 Republican House takeover listen to the interview of Glen Greenwald by Progressive.org. Greenwald writes for Salon.com and has also appeared numerous times on MSNBC and other venues analyzing contemporary politics from a civil libertarian perspective. According to his biographical data on Salon he "was previously a constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York. He is the author of two New York Times Bestselling books: "How Would a Patriot Act?" (May, 2006), a critique of the Bush administration's use of executive power, and "A Tragic Legacy" (June, 2007), which examines the Bush legacy. My most recent book, "Great American Hypocrites", examines the manipulative electoral tactics used by the GOP and propagated by the establishment press, and was released in April, 2008, by Random House/Crown." He is one of my all time favorite political commentators. Although I do not agree with everything he postulates, I agree with him 99.999% of the time.
The link to his interview is the following:
http://www.progressive.org/radio/greenw10.html
The link to his interview is the following:
http://www.progressive.org/radio/greenw10.html
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
Bush’s Book: IF a Democrat made decisions which were murderous to his own people based on lies, IF he took an ENTIRE nation to war based on lies, IF he took the "coalition of the willing" to war based on lies, IF a Democratic president was guilty of the murder of thousands of innocents based on lies and destabilized the entire Middle East handing power to the alleged arch enemy Iran, IF a Democratic president did those things not only would he have been impeached he would have been tried and convicted of war crimes.
LOOK at what that man did! Look at the horror and the RUINED lives of our soldiers who volunteered for this dastardly war because most did not understand the truth. Many are wounded in body and spirit and many are dead. I ask FOR WHAT did they die -- for a lie? Bush says in his interview with Matt Lauer to push Bush’s book that we were NOT attacked on his watch? OH really, Mr. Bush, REALLY? Lauer, does NOT hold Bush’s feet to the fire. Why am I NOT surprised? I thought 9/11 WAS an attack on BUSH’s watch. Bush was warned by the presidential daily briefing about an impending terrorist attack within the US and he did NOTHING. Moreover, it was NOT true that everyone thought Hussein had WMD. MANY in the academic and professional foreign policy spheres doubted it. Bush/Cheney planned and calculated this move that they wanted to perfect even before 9/11. 9/11 provided the EXCUSE to commit a policy SO toxic, SO cruel, SO INHUMANE and SO unwise it RUINED the lives of millions, put the world at risk and it STAINED the reputation of our nation abroad.
I aver we are NOT at LESS risk of another attack but MORE because the hornets in the nest are furious in a fiery part of the world. The blood STILL runs in the streets of Baghdad every day.
Further, wars are expensive. War makes the very few very rich but it impoverishes the many. We will be in Iraq because an entrenched military/industrial complex wants eternal war for profit. It has cost trillions and is still costing this taxpaying nation BILLIONS each day in perpetuity!
We are getting out of Iraq? I DON’T think so not with THIS president who is sometimes a mirror image of the predecessor he VOWED he would not be. This president promised systemic change. He PROMISED he would be different. The president breaks his promises day in and day out on a plethora of policy. The conservatives should LOVE him. He is in a state of denial about those who hate him and want to see him BROKEN -- broken of position and broken of spirit. He WILL get both.
I LOATH that I was deceived, I loath that this president is NOT what I thought he would be, and I LOATH the disappointment. We DESPERATELY need a third party to hold a politician to his promises. The president is NOT holding himself to his own promises and alienates his base day by day. The red hot charismatic campaigner has turned into dull glacial ice.
Republicans and tea baggers LOVE it but Obama's base DOES NOT! I feel like I have been the victim of a BATE AND SWITCH selling. He is NOT the candidate I and millions of others bought. If he does NOT grow a spine, he WILL, in fact, be a one term president. If the ENTIRE Democratic Party does not grow a spine the Republicans will take BOTH houses of Congress back, perhaps, PERMANENTLY.
If Bush was "the decider" Obama is "the compromiser." Republicans, UNCOMPROMISING and EXTREME, are uncorking the champagne now. The president is playing RIGHT into the opposition's hands. Does he KNOW this or is this a plot agreed to by Democrats? I am NOT a conspiratorialist but either he or the Democratic Party has agreed to keep corporatists happy OR they both are absolutely DEAF to the criticism of the Democratic base and the Independent middle. I hope it's the latter but I wish it were neither.
LOOK at what that man did! Look at the horror and the RUINED lives of our soldiers who volunteered for this dastardly war because most did not understand the truth. Many are wounded in body and spirit and many are dead. I ask FOR WHAT did they die -- for a lie? Bush says in his interview with Matt Lauer to push Bush’s book that we were NOT attacked on his watch? OH really, Mr. Bush, REALLY? Lauer, does NOT hold Bush’s feet to the fire. Why am I NOT surprised? I thought 9/11 WAS an attack on BUSH’s watch. Bush was warned by the presidential daily briefing about an impending terrorist attack within the US and he did NOTHING. Moreover, it was NOT true that everyone thought Hussein had WMD. MANY in the academic and professional foreign policy spheres doubted it. Bush/Cheney planned and calculated this move that they wanted to perfect even before 9/11. 9/11 provided the EXCUSE to commit a policy SO toxic, SO cruel, SO INHUMANE and SO unwise it RUINED the lives of millions, put the world at risk and it STAINED the reputation of our nation abroad.
I aver we are NOT at LESS risk of another attack but MORE because the hornets in the nest are furious in a fiery part of the world. The blood STILL runs in the streets of Baghdad every day.
Further, wars are expensive. War makes the very few very rich but it impoverishes the many. We will be in Iraq because an entrenched military/industrial complex wants eternal war for profit. It has cost trillions and is still costing this taxpaying nation BILLIONS each day in perpetuity!
We are getting out of Iraq? I DON’T think so not with THIS president who is sometimes a mirror image of the predecessor he VOWED he would not be. This president promised systemic change. He PROMISED he would be different. The president breaks his promises day in and day out on a plethora of policy. The conservatives should LOVE him. He is in a state of denial about those who hate him and want to see him BROKEN -- broken of position and broken of spirit. He WILL get both.
I LOATH that I was deceived, I loath that this president is NOT what I thought he would be, and I LOATH the disappointment. We DESPERATELY need a third party to hold a politician to his promises. The president is NOT holding himself to his own promises and alienates his base day by day. The red hot charismatic campaigner has turned into dull glacial ice.
Republicans and tea baggers LOVE it but Obama's base DOES NOT! I feel like I have been the victim of a BATE AND SWITCH selling. He is NOT the candidate I and millions of others bought. If he does NOT grow a spine, he WILL, in fact, be a one term president. If the ENTIRE Democratic Party does not grow a spine the Republicans will take BOTH houses of Congress back, perhaps, PERMANENTLY.
If Bush was "the decider" Obama is "the compromiser." Republicans, UNCOMPROMISING and EXTREME, are uncorking the champagne now. The president is playing RIGHT into the opposition's hands. Does he KNOW this or is this a plot agreed to by Democrats? I am NOT a conspiratorialist but either he or the Democratic Party has agreed to keep corporatists happy OR they both are absolutely DEAF to the criticism of the Democratic base and the Independent middle. I hope it's the latter but I wish it were neither.
Monday, November 08, 2010
THIS IS WELL WORTH READING Click on the link to the title underlined or cut and paste the title into your browser.
> Subject: The K.F. Stone Weekly: "When Lunatics Take Over the Asylum"
>
A CORRECTED BIO of the author. Apologies, I had a few things about the author incorrect:
1. He worked in the Senate, the House and for Gov. Jerry Brown;
2. The "Boca" campus he teaches at is Florida Atlantic University. He also teaches at the latter's Jupiter campus and at Florida International University as well;
3. He has had a chavurah -- a synagogue "without walls" for the past decade. It meets in Coral Springs Florida for services, hagim (festivals), Torah study and Hebrew school, which is done out of his home.
"When Lunatics Take Over the Asylum," deals with last week's election and posits that it was neither as frightful as some fear nor as blessed as others believe.
> www.kurtfstone.typepad.com (Blog]
> www.kurtfstone.com [Website]
> Subject: The K.F. Stone Weekly: "When Lunatics Take Over the Asylum"
>
A CORRECTED BIO of the author. Apologies, I had a few things about the author incorrect:
1. He worked in the Senate, the House and for Gov. Jerry Brown;
2. The "Boca" campus he teaches at is Florida Atlantic University. He also teaches at the latter's Jupiter campus and at Florida International University as well;
3. He has had a chavurah -- a synagogue "without walls" for the past decade. It meets in Coral Springs Florida for services, hagim (festivals), Torah study and Hebrew school, which is done out of his home.
"When Lunatics Take Over the Asylum," deals with last week's election and posits that it was neither as frightful as some fear nor as blessed as others believe.
> www.kurtfstone.typepad.com (Blog]
> www.kurtfstone.com [Website]
Sunday, November 07, 2010
I feel bad about my neck and my cheeks, and my hands and and and
This was in response to an editorial about the wonderful writer, producer and director, Nora Ephron, who was interviewed by Salon.com. Salon says "Nora Ephron gets serious about sagging necks and wrinkles and talks about aging in her new book "I Feel Bad about my Neck." She talks about aging and does not wax sappy.
What IS so great about aging? Damned if I know. Cher said one of the most honest things I ever heard from a star. Most stars when asked that question about aging on aging supercilious talk shows say something like oh really I don't mind getting old because well it gives you so much more perspective, it enlightens you, it makes you wise, it beats the alternative etc. etc. etc. Or worse some say I'm glad I have cancer it taught me how to live! REALLY? REALLY? I do NOT want to get cancer to teach me a THING. Cher once said in plain English "aging stinks" and I quite agree. Sure death beats the alternative but we will get the alternative for much longer than we are alive.
The most profound comment I have heard about death recently is that someone equated it with being on the Titanic. YES I said I feel EXACTLY the same way. The iceberg is ahead no matter how many Dr. Oz shows you watch, no matter how well you eat, no matter how many vitamins you take or no matter how much you exercise ... death will still get you in the end.
I HATE the idea of aging. I HATE my body betraying me. I feel I am the same person in thought but my organs, brain, heart and lungs, bones etc. say NO you are not! I wish there were a face lift for the heart or the brain or the liver. The thought of illness terrifies me almost more than death itself.
The only difference between any of us and a man on death row is that he will be dead sooner. BUT we will ALL be there whether we like it or not. The iceberg is ahead and there is not a damn thing you can do about it.
Personally, I do not believe in a hereafter nor in any kind of a supernatural being so the best advice I can give people like I is smell the flowers while you can. I wish when I was younger I realized the brevity of it all. If I had I would have started learning everything there is to learn sooner instead of playing kick ball in my elementary school playground.
I cannot believe there will be a time when I won't know what happens or who is president or that there will be a time when I do not know people, most especially those who share my life and the things that were so much a part of my life. Seeing those I love die is almost worse than contemplating my OWN death ... it IS worse than contemplating my own death.
Since I do not have children the only thing I will leave to the world is my writing and my reputation. I am hoping that some day in 2180 (IF civilization makes it that far) someone who is studying this era will see my writings. I hope, too, that I have transmitted to others the thirst I have for learning and academic achievement. That's it. Beyond that I TRY to be as decent a person as I am able. I know I fall short but I try. If someone some day soon after my death realizes that or cries for me, well, I am hoping for that but truly I will never know.
I cannot believe Carl Sagan is dead or Stephen Jay Gould is dead or Paul Newman and Bea Arthur are dead or hundreds of other famous people I knew of are gone. THAT bothers me. Those who have contributed in incredible ways to the advancement of man should NEVER die and yet they do and so will I.
This was in response to an editorial about the wonderful writer, producer and director, Nora Ephron, who was interviewed by Salon.com. Salon says "Nora Ephron gets serious about sagging necks and wrinkles and talks about aging in her new book "I Feel Bad about my Neck." She talks about aging and does not wax sappy.
What IS so great about aging? Damned if I know. Cher said one of the most honest things I ever heard from a star. Most stars when asked that question about aging on aging supercilious talk shows say something like oh really I don't mind getting old because well it gives you so much more perspective, it enlightens you, it makes you wise, it beats the alternative etc. etc. etc. Or worse some say I'm glad I have cancer it taught me how to live! REALLY? REALLY? I do NOT want to get cancer to teach me a THING. Cher once said in plain English "aging stinks" and I quite agree. Sure death beats the alternative but we will get the alternative for much longer than we are alive.
The most profound comment I have heard about death recently is that someone equated it with being on the Titanic. YES I said I feel EXACTLY the same way. The iceberg is ahead no matter how many Dr. Oz shows you watch, no matter how well you eat, no matter how many vitamins you take or no matter how much you exercise ... death will still get you in the end.
I HATE the idea of aging. I HATE my body betraying me. I feel I am the same person in thought but my organs, brain, heart and lungs, bones etc. say NO you are not! I wish there were a face lift for the heart or the brain or the liver. The thought of illness terrifies me almost more than death itself.
The only difference between any of us and a man on death row is that he will be dead sooner. BUT we will ALL be there whether we like it or not. The iceberg is ahead and there is not a damn thing you can do about it.
Personally, I do not believe in a hereafter nor in any kind of a supernatural being so the best advice I can give people like I is smell the flowers while you can. I wish when I was younger I realized the brevity of it all. If I had I would have started learning everything there is to learn sooner instead of playing kick ball in my elementary school playground.
I cannot believe there will be a time when I won't know what happens or who is president or that there will be a time when I do not know people, most especially those who share my life and the things that were so much a part of my life. Seeing those I love die is almost worse than contemplating my OWN death ... it IS worse than contemplating my own death.
Since I do not have children the only thing I will leave to the world is my writing and my reputation. I am hoping that some day in 2180 (IF civilization makes it that far) someone who is studying this era will see my writings. I hope, too, that I have transmitted to others the thirst I have for learning and academic achievement. That's it. Beyond that I TRY to be as decent a person as I am able. I know I fall short but I try. If someone some day soon after my death realizes that or cries for me, well, I am hoping for that but truly I will never know.
I cannot believe Carl Sagan is dead or Stephen Jay Gould is dead or Paul Newman and Bea Arthur are dead or hundreds of other famous people I knew of are gone. THAT bothers me. Those who have contributed in incredible ways to the advancement of man should NEVER die and yet they do and so will I.
The Survivalist Cockroach: There are two news stories one state and one federal (links below). One article has to do with Texas, the deepest red of the southern states and to me one of the most fearful because of its size and population, which wants to refuse to distribute Medicaid funds. The other article in the NYT is about Republicans in the newly empowered very red House wanting to dismantle "Obamacare" piece by piece. It is not so much the now I am worried about but it is the later. This is, in my opinion, the absolute worst time on the American political scene I have EVER experienced. Even during WWII, a dangerous era to be sure, there was, for the most part, a relatively united humane USA -- at least in doctrine -- accompanied by strong solid leadership.
The rancid RepublicRATS now feel empowered because of their House and even state legislatures big win. I have read that some wingnuts who were elected to the House cannot even read or barely so. It would not surprise me if this were true. Our country has elected the UNREASONED or a good chunk of it. I NEVER on planet earth would have thought I would say that if you told me this when I was 21 I would have moved PERMANENTLY to Canada. Now it is too late. If I had done that I would be, of course, worried about my neighbor to the south which now is slowly going insane.
Lindsey Graham, a rather powerful senator from South Carolina, yesterday called for a military strike on Iran. Does he REALLY think this country which has not prosecuted a war successfully, with the exception of WWII, could now take on three wars (or four if you consider Pakistan) with a volunteer overstretched army in the tinderbox Middle East and against Iran yet a huge nation that really DOES have a patriotic nationalist fervor unlike Iraq and Pakistan? If Iran acquired nukes maybe it would protect the world now from the cerebral synaptic disconnect of the US. Who EVER thought I would say that? I'm being facetious BUT when there is a truly fascistic extremist right in power in, at least for now, one branch of the federal government of the most powerful nation on earth compounded with a shaky global economy the entire world is at risk. Fate forbid red state whack-jobs here gain even MORE power.
These religious fanatics want Armageddon, see it in their binoculars and will sit around in New Testament Revelation form waiting for Jesus to come out of a cloud and save the believers. Keep voting in tea bagger wingnuts and other Republicans you just may get that WITHOUT the Jesus part of course! I hope we have ALL bought cemetery plots. Hey, with what they want to do we do not even need that! The cockroaches, nature's premier evolutionary survivalists, will inherit the earth. I think they will clean up the mess and do a MUCH better job than us.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40053289/ns/politics-the_new_york_times/
The rancid RepublicRATS now feel empowered because of their House and even state legislatures big win. I have read that some wingnuts who were elected to the House cannot even read or barely so. It would not surprise me if this were true. Our country has elected the UNREASONED or a good chunk of it. I NEVER on planet earth would have thought I would say that if you told me this when I was 21 I would have moved PERMANENTLY to Canada. Now it is too late. If I had done that I would be, of course, worried about my neighbor to the south which now is slowly going insane.
Lindsey Graham, a rather powerful senator from South Carolina, yesterday called for a military strike on Iran. Does he REALLY think this country which has not prosecuted a war successfully, with the exception of WWII, could now take on three wars (or four if you consider Pakistan) with a volunteer overstretched army in the tinderbox Middle East and against Iran yet a huge nation that really DOES have a patriotic nationalist fervor unlike Iraq and Pakistan? If Iran acquired nukes maybe it would protect the world now from the cerebral synaptic disconnect of the US. Who EVER thought I would say that? I'm being facetious BUT when there is a truly fascistic extremist right in power in, at least for now, one branch of the federal government of the most powerful nation on earth compounded with a shaky global economy the entire world is at risk. Fate forbid red state whack-jobs here gain even MORE power.
These religious fanatics want Armageddon, see it in their binoculars and will sit around in New Testament Revelation form waiting for Jesus to come out of a cloud and save the believers. Keep voting in tea bagger wingnuts and other Republicans you just may get that WITHOUT the Jesus part of course! I hope we have ALL bought cemetery plots. Hey, with what they want to do we do not even need that! The cockroaches, nature's premier evolutionary survivalists, will inherit the earth. I think they will clean up the mess and do a MUCH better job than us.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40053289/ns/politics-the_new_york_times/
Saturday, November 06, 2010
LOVE: Click on this link. This woman is 106 years old soon to be 107. She is a lesson to all of us. The power of love and the power of music....incredible. She is the oldest living Holocaust survivor and there is not one ounce of hate in her. She is a survivor of Theresienstadt because she could play music. She plays her music still all day long. It is such a wow video. It is maybe the most poignant thing I have ever seen! I urge you to listen to all of it. It's only 12 minutes long but boy does humanity need to hear her song!
http://www.youtube.com/user/AliceTheFilm
http://www.youtube.com/user/AliceTheFilm
Friday, November 05, 2010
Count Me in on Countdown: I could not disagree more with the The Boston Globe's November 5, 2010 editorial "Cable News: the Worst Segment in the News" criticizing cable news network's political programming (Link Below). For me it becomes a restoration of my sanity to listen to Keith Olbermann, and other MSNBC commentators with their their guests. They provide refreshing, informed and often brilliant commentary to critique toxic conservative politics most especially Fox News in the form of O'Reilly, Hannity, Beck and others polluting the airwaves often with bold face lies.
Fox News is a huge empire and will not go away anytime soon. The MSNBC line up is necessary opposition to the Fox insanity which, in my opinion, will drive this country into the ground. My day consists of either taping or listening to Dylan Ratigan, The Ed Show, Hardball's Chris Matthews, most especially Keith Olberman, the brilliant Rachel Maddow and now, the latest addition, the political expert Lawrence O'Donnell. I look forward to the day when MSNBC adds Cenk Uygur an inspiring voice for the left, and the wonderful civil liberties expert Glen Greenwald to its list of commentators. We need ALL of them now more than ever!
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2010/11/05/cable_news_the_worst_segment_in_the_world/
Fox News is a huge empire and will not go away anytime soon. The MSNBC line up is necessary opposition to the Fox insanity which, in my opinion, will drive this country into the ground. My day consists of either taping or listening to Dylan Ratigan, The Ed Show, Hardball's Chris Matthews, most especially Keith Olberman, the brilliant Rachel Maddow and now, the latest addition, the political expert Lawrence O'Donnell. I look forward to the day when MSNBC adds Cenk Uygur an inspiring voice for the left, and the wonderful civil liberties expert Glen Greenwald to its list of commentators. We need ALL of them now more than ever!
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2010/11/05/cable_news_the_worst_segment_in_the_world/
Thursday, November 04, 2010
The Truth, the Whole Truth: Excellent article in the NYT link below. "How Obama Saved Capitalism" by Timothy Egan. It is WELL worth reading.
I could not have said it better myself! ;-)
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/how-obama-saved-capitalism-and-lost-the-midterms/?src=me&ref=homepage
I could not have said it better myself! ;-)
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/how-obama-saved-capitalism-and-lost-the-midterms/?src=me&ref=homepage
The Truth, the Whole Truth: Excellent article in the NYT link below. "How Obama Saved Capitalism" by Timothy Egan. It is WELL worth reading.
I could not have said it better myself! ;-)
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/how-obama-saved-capitalism-and-lost-the-midterms/?src=me&ref=homepage
I could not have said it better myself! ;-)
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/how-obama-saved-capitalism-and-lost-the-midterms/?src=me&ref=homepage
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
Simple Solutions: I was saddened to see the president so cowed, so serious and seemingly almost defeated when he commented upon the election at his afternoon press conference. He should be anything but defeated. He accomplished much BUT it is IMPOSSIBLE to get one's message out when one tries to compromise with a party who is at the corporate pigs’ electoral feeding trough and do not want to share their bounty with you. The president’s policies HAVE worked. Repeal of health care should NOT be an option and neither should repeal of financial reform. What should be an option is a LESS seemingly aloof disconnected president and a RETURN to the positive president who gave that electrifying speech before the 2004 Democratic convention and whom we witnessed earn a STUNNING victory in 2008. Barack Obama did his BEST to compromise with a party yearning –sometimes literally -- for his lynching. The elephant (pardon the pun) in the room is a racist white majority that saw its power slip and decided to organize with BILLIONS of WHITE corporate bucks to get their vote out NO MATTER how unqualified the candidate was. Some of the Tea Bag Republican candidates who THANKFULLY lost were a gut-wrenching embarrassment and bordered on pathological personality disorder.
While it is true that the people have voted change for economic reasons it is NOT true that the Hoover Republican approach to government will be the highway to heaven. It will not. It will plunge this country further into the ditch and that has been proven time and time and time again through MANY economic travails in the history of this country. BIG corporations and the oligarchy they bring do NOT care about you. They care about showing a profit. That is ALL they care about. It is true in health care as it is true in making toaster ovens. I do NOT want to entrust my health to General Electric! I do not want either big corporate power controlling elections nor do I want it collecting huge bonuses made possible by taxpayer dollars. I believe the greatest impediment to our economic recovery was not the stimulus but not ENOUGH stimulus. The public anger was not so much about the corporate bailouts because they are being paid back with interest but it was the corporate BONUSES about which the average American was apoplectic.
I have ALWAYS thought FDR made the correct policy about face after the 1929 crash. It was a HUGE philosophical shift because Herbert Hoover KNEW something had to be done to help the American people but he did NOT know how to do it and he COULD NOT bring himself to involve government in the process. Involving government in recovery went against everything for which the country heretofore stood. “After all,” said President Coolidge “the chief business of the American people is business.” He and all those before and after him up until FDR were consummately wrong.
I have always thought NYT editorialist Paul Krugman showed the correct path OUT of our Great Recession. The Rand Pauls of the world are WRONG and it will be proven with the tears of those who think is right. He is NOT. Government needs to CREATE more jobs WHILE raising money on the backs of those who have BILLIONS and can afford it while cutting spending which gets us into never-ending foreign entanglements. Fair is fair and justice is justice. Man works better when we all work together and help each other out. Health care is NOT a privilege it is a RIGHT and those who have more SHOULD pay more. It really is that simple!
While it is true that the people have voted change for economic reasons it is NOT true that the Hoover Republican approach to government will be the highway to heaven. It will not. It will plunge this country further into the ditch and that has been proven time and time and time again through MANY economic travails in the history of this country. BIG corporations and the oligarchy they bring do NOT care about you. They care about showing a profit. That is ALL they care about. It is true in health care as it is true in making toaster ovens. I do NOT want to entrust my health to General Electric! I do not want either big corporate power controlling elections nor do I want it collecting huge bonuses made possible by taxpayer dollars. I believe the greatest impediment to our economic recovery was not the stimulus but not ENOUGH stimulus. The public anger was not so much about the corporate bailouts because they are being paid back with interest but it was the corporate BONUSES about which the average American was apoplectic.
I have ALWAYS thought FDR made the correct policy about face after the 1929 crash. It was a HUGE philosophical shift because Herbert Hoover KNEW something had to be done to help the American people but he did NOT know how to do it and he COULD NOT bring himself to involve government in the process. Involving government in recovery went against everything for which the country heretofore stood. “After all,” said President Coolidge “the chief business of the American people is business.” He and all those before and after him up until FDR were consummately wrong.
I have always thought NYT editorialist Paul Krugman showed the correct path OUT of our Great Recession. The Rand Pauls of the world are WRONG and it will be proven with the tears of those who think is right. He is NOT. Government needs to CREATE more jobs WHILE raising money on the backs of those who have BILLIONS and can afford it while cutting spending which gets us into never-ending foreign entanglements. Fair is fair and justice is justice. Man works better when we all work together and help each other out. Health care is NOT a privilege it is a RIGHT and those who have more SHOULD pay more. It really is that simple!
An Angry Rant: I got 4 hours sleep so here is my Stream of Conscious. THANK GOD Harry Reid won and he won soundly!!!
I woke up to THIS good news. I KNEW the House would go but that crud Angle if she won I was going to take the first flight to China and STAY there and watch manufacturing soar because the Chinese are the wave of the future and that country KNOWS how to run things ... except pollution but they will get that right too. This country is FILLED with those who do not know their posterior from the elbow. So the party of the big business rancidness is the one to try to push forward our economy?? I DON'T THINK so..the others who follow that pied piper swill MANY are ALSO racist and they just couldn't stand to see a black man in office. Well I got news for them, this country is demographically ultimately going brown and I a white woman cannot WAIT to see it. That will be the best thing that ever happened to this sad nation as that part of this nation with their bigotry takes it down to the toilet!!
The only way to get jobs is for government to spend to get them and put a TAX on those swine who are 2% richest and own 70% of the wealth JUST like Krugman said but this country is too ideologically DUMB to realize it! The ones, the Republicans, who took us to the economic free fall dance are the ones who are going to cure the country's economic ills??.... I THINK NOT! At LEAST my wonderful state Massachusetts stayed BLUE and for that I am thankful. Take THAT you tea bag morons!
The Senate and the presidency are still in Democratic hands .... for now. Good luck with STALEMATE and a stale, mean, nasty, Ayn Rand the emotionally challenged jerk with her philosophy. I see a crystal ball of DOOM as Republicans will do what they have always done...be the party of the top 2% who leaves us all in the dust! Good job Tea Baggers you will get what YOU deserve!
I woke up to THIS good news. I KNEW the House would go but that crud Angle if she won I was going to take the first flight to China and STAY there and watch manufacturing soar because the Chinese are the wave of the future and that country KNOWS how to run things ... except pollution but they will get that right too. This country is FILLED with those who do not know their posterior from the elbow. So the party of the big business rancidness is the one to try to push forward our economy?? I DON'T THINK so..the others who follow that pied piper swill MANY are ALSO racist and they just couldn't stand to see a black man in office. Well I got news for them, this country is demographically ultimately going brown and I a white woman cannot WAIT to see it. That will be the best thing that ever happened to this sad nation as that part of this nation with their bigotry takes it down to the toilet!!
The only way to get jobs is for government to spend to get them and put a TAX on those swine who are 2% richest and own 70% of the wealth JUST like Krugman said but this country is too ideologically DUMB to realize it! The ones, the Republicans, who took us to the economic free fall dance are the ones who are going to cure the country's economic ills??.... I THINK NOT! At LEAST my wonderful state Massachusetts stayed BLUE and for that I am thankful. Take THAT you tea bag morons!
The Senate and the presidency are still in Democratic hands .... for now. Good luck with STALEMATE and a stale, mean, nasty, Ayn Rand the emotionally challenged jerk with her philosophy. I see a crystal ball of DOOM as Republicans will do what they have always done...be the party of the top 2% who leaves us all in the dust! Good job Tea Baggers you will get what YOU deserve!
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Polling Place Patriots: I was a poll watcher for the Democratic party in my precinct. That means for several hours I kept track of a list of Democrats who had not voted. Others give the ones who did not vote a reminder call or a lift to the polls if needed. Being disabled it gave me a chance to simply sit at my polling place and do something useful! The sights and the interactions can be interesting. The polling place comprises some wealthier districts and some poorer ones.
I saw people walk up a HUGE flight of stairs who were elderly, infirm and significantly disabled. One woman who was both elderly AND had just come out of a hospital for heart surgery climbed up those stairs just to vote. Several people including a very nice police officer were there to help her as she struggled to breath. Another elderly white-haired man showed up bent over. His head came up to his belt buckle and he walked looking at the floor while he used a cane. He MADE IT THOUGH HE VOTED!! I don’t care for WHOM he voted it could even have been a Republican (well I hope not but it could have) the man VOTED. Kudos to him. Those were examples of the TRUE patriots who took their vote seriously enough to literally risk their lives to get to the polls. I was moved to tears. Next time when I feel sorry for myself I will think of these BRAVE patriots and realize there is a LOT for which to be thankful and those two people knew it because they used the only weapon they could to express their opinion — their vote.
Then I came home. I have about four Democratic signs on my lawn. Someone possibly who realized I would not be home — I have a sneaking suspicion who it was but cannot prove it — decided he (or she) would bend all of my signs. Naturally, I was furious and would not let that go so I walked over and tried to bend the signs back into place. One was difficult and being disabled I lost my balance and fell to the ground.
I was shaken naturally as I am not young and I have from childhood suffered from a malady that has left me with a severely compromised femur bone. I was very frightened. When I composed myself and thought about the two different experiences on election day I saw an opinion letter in the making.
One experience was saturated with a patriotic spirit that defines the very essence of who we are as a people and the other was committed by probably the most hate filled anything-but-patriot low life who thought that bending a few Democratic signs showed their power.
In reality it showed their weakness and their fear. It was the epitome of bullying at its primitive reptilian core. But the bullies only win if we let them. The next time anyone knows of a healthy able bodied person who is not voting tell them about the severely impaired elderly woman in my district who by shear determination voted and tell them about the white haired elderly man who was stooped over but with great difficulty voted nonetheless.
Patriots have given their lives so that we have the precious ability to vote and put signs on our lawn IF we choose. The vote can be taken away by the bully who must have felt so powerful twisting the little Democratic signs on the lawn of a disabled woman. I would bet HE would call himself a patriot. I call him a criminal and the police whom I called after I fell thought so too!
I saw people walk up a HUGE flight of stairs who were elderly, infirm and significantly disabled. One woman who was both elderly AND had just come out of a hospital for heart surgery climbed up those stairs just to vote. Several people including a very nice police officer were there to help her as she struggled to breath. Another elderly white-haired man showed up bent over. His head came up to his belt buckle and he walked looking at the floor while he used a cane. He MADE IT THOUGH HE VOTED!! I don’t care for WHOM he voted it could even have been a Republican (well I hope not but it could have) the man VOTED. Kudos to him. Those were examples of the TRUE patriots who took their vote seriously enough to literally risk their lives to get to the polls. I was moved to tears. Next time when I feel sorry for myself I will think of these BRAVE patriots and realize there is a LOT for which to be thankful and those two people knew it because they used the only weapon they could to express their opinion — their vote.
Then I came home. I have about four Democratic signs on my lawn. Someone possibly who realized I would not be home — I have a sneaking suspicion who it was but cannot prove it — decided he (or she) would bend all of my signs. Naturally, I was furious and would not let that go so I walked over and tried to bend the signs back into place. One was difficult and being disabled I lost my balance and fell to the ground.
I was shaken naturally as I am not young and I have from childhood suffered from a malady that has left me with a severely compromised femur bone. I was very frightened. When I composed myself and thought about the two different experiences on election day I saw an opinion letter in the making.
One experience was saturated with a patriotic spirit that defines the very essence of who we are as a people and the other was committed by probably the most hate filled anything-but-patriot low life who thought that bending a few Democratic signs showed their power.
In reality it showed their weakness and their fear. It was the epitome of bullying at its primitive reptilian core. But the bullies only win if we let them. The next time anyone knows of a healthy able bodied person who is not voting tell them about the severely impaired elderly woman in my district who by shear determination voted and tell them about the white haired elderly man who was stooped over but with great difficulty voted nonetheless.
Patriots have given their lives so that we have the precious ability to vote and put signs on our lawn IF we choose. The vote can be taken away by the bully who must have felt so powerful twisting the little Democratic signs on the lawn of a disabled woman. I would bet HE would call himself a patriot. I call him a criminal and the police whom I called after I fell thought so too!
Monday, November 01, 2010
Dickens’s Day and the Jew: This is an email exchange I had with someone from a Dickens’s reading group to which I belonged. Someone brought up the Old Testament etiology of some of the Dickensian names such as Uriah Heep from “David Copperfield.” Another talked about the name of Ebenezer Scrooge from the very well known Dickens’s favorite “A Christmas Carol” I tied them both together and added the name Fagin from Dickens “Oliver Twist.” I discussed these names and associated it to the sometimes debated anti-Semitism of Dickens and even of Shakespeare.
Dickens's view that there is a difference between the Old and New Testament by giving his more scurrilous characters Old Testament names makes me wonder about accusations of anti Semitism that I have heard hurled at Dickens from time to time. Of course Fagin the Jew in Oliver Twist comes to mind as well.
He would not be the first British author to harbor the prevailing hatred of the Jew and manifest the characteristics which anti Semites have used for centuries in character development. Shakespeare's Shylock is remembered as well. The antiSemitism of Shakespeare has long been argued. Some say the character Shylock the Jew proves it and some say Shylock's own words exonerate Shakespeare from the accusation as he writes in the "Merchant of Venice" Act 3 Scene 1.
"I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands,organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same
food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases,
heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter
and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If
you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?
And if you wrong us, do we not revenge? If we are like you in the
rest, we will resemble you in that."
While antiSemitism in England was, perhaps, not as virulent as in other countries of the Jewish Diaspora it did nonetheless exist. Wiki states: "The Edict of Expulsion, given by Edward 1 in 1290, that expelled all Jews for 350 years" is proof of that. Curiously enough by the time Shakespeare wrote his character Shylock there were NO Jews in England. It proves one does not need Jews to have antiSemitism. Of course, Dickens would have probably consciously or unconsciously been subjected to the same stereotypical characteristics of scorn levied against the Jew.
Another interesting site I found with Google regarding the name Ebenezer: It stated:
"Ebenezer in Hebrew means "stone of help." Samuel took a great stone, named it Ebenezer or "Stone of Help," as a memorial of when the Lord helped Samuel and the rest of the Israelites against the Philistines. 1 Samuel 7:12 Or in other words symbolic of Christ, who is literally our Stone of help."
Yet again, Ebenezer, in Dickens's "A Christmas Carrol" must change if he is to realize life's true meaning. That is in and of itself characteristic of the prevailing ideological competition between the Old Testament showing a furious, punishing even greedy god and the New which offered a more advanced, true, benevolent, kind god through Christ who offers another way even to Ebenezer.
Clearly, from a Christian perspective one systematic belief system is more advanced and kindly than the other. Dickens' "A Christmas Carrol" indeed, I would submit, reflects just that. Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim and the entire Cratchit clan are made nearly angelic while we know pre-conversion evil Ebenezer has to earn his forgiveness by rejecting cold cruel miserly greed, attributes accorded to Jews by Christians for over two thousand years. Moreover, the true malevolence of Ebenezer can be seen when he says:
"If I could work my will, every idiot who goes about with “Merry Christmas!” on his lips would be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart."
Those are pretty strong words coming from the anti-conversion Ebenezer. It is only when he finds the true spirit of Christmas does he, in essence, defeat death and become human. I have NO doubt that Dickens would have absorbed the prevailing religious doctrine of his time which invariably made clear the true superiority of the New Testament over the Old. In the competition Christians win and Jews lose. Uriah, Ebenezer and Fagin are all names either relating to the Old Testament or names used by Dickens ascribing contemptible characteristics often attributed to Jews.
It is ironic, indeed, that the prevailing belief and threat that Judaism posed to Christianity could have been ultimately responsible for the horrendous mistreatment of Jews for over two thousand years existing to this day when synagogues even in this country must lock their doors and install security systems lest some anti Semite come and destroy its peaceful sanctuary. Anti-Semitism lived in Dickens's era as it lives today. It is the longest and most universal world-wide hatred whether in Dickens's time or our own.
Dickens's view that there is a difference between the Old and New Testament by giving his more scurrilous characters Old Testament names makes me wonder about accusations of anti Semitism that I have heard hurled at Dickens from time to time. Of course Fagin the Jew in Oliver Twist comes to mind as well.
He would not be the first British author to harbor the prevailing hatred of the Jew and manifest the characteristics which anti Semites have used for centuries in character development. Shakespeare's Shylock is remembered as well. The antiSemitism of Shakespeare has long been argued. Some say the character Shylock the Jew proves it and some say Shylock's own words exonerate Shakespeare from the accusation as he writes in the "Merchant of Venice" Act 3 Scene 1.
"I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands,organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same
food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases,
heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter
and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If
you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?
And if you wrong us, do we not revenge? If we are like you in the
rest, we will resemble you in that."
While antiSemitism in England was, perhaps, not as virulent as in other countries of the Jewish Diaspora it did nonetheless exist. Wiki states: "The Edict of Expulsion, given by Edward 1 in 1290, that expelled all Jews for 350 years" is proof of that. Curiously enough by the time Shakespeare wrote his character Shylock there were NO Jews in England. It proves one does not need Jews to have antiSemitism. Of course, Dickens would have probably consciously or unconsciously been subjected to the same stereotypical characteristics of scorn levied against the Jew.
Another interesting site I found with Google regarding the name Ebenezer: It stated:
"Ebenezer in Hebrew means "stone of help." Samuel took a great stone, named it Ebenezer or "Stone of Help," as a memorial of when the Lord helped Samuel and the rest of the Israelites against the Philistines. 1 Samuel 7:12 Or in other words symbolic of Christ, who is literally our Stone of help."
Yet again, Ebenezer, in Dickens's "A Christmas Carrol" must change if he is to realize life's true meaning. That is in and of itself characteristic of the prevailing ideological competition between the Old Testament showing a furious, punishing even greedy god and the New which offered a more advanced, true, benevolent, kind god through Christ who offers another way even to Ebenezer.
Clearly, from a Christian perspective one systematic belief system is more advanced and kindly than the other. Dickens' "A Christmas Carrol" indeed, I would submit, reflects just that. Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim and the entire Cratchit clan are made nearly angelic while we know pre-conversion evil Ebenezer has to earn his forgiveness by rejecting cold cruel miserly greed, attributes accorded to Jews by Christians for over two thousand years. Moreover, the true malevolence of Ebenezer can be seen when he says:
"If I could work my will, every idiot who goes about with “Merry Christmas!” on his lips would be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart."
Those are pretty strong words coming from the anti-conversion Ebenezer. It is only when he finds the true spirit of Christmas does he, in essence, defeat death and become human. I have NO doubt that Dickens would have absorbed the prevailing religious doctrine of his time which invariably made clear the true superiority of the New Testament over the Old. In the competition Christians win and Jews lose. Uriah, Ebenezer and Fagin are all names either relating to the Old Testament or names used by Dickens ascribing contemptible characteristics often attributed to Jews.
It is ironic, indeed, that the prevailing belief and threat that Judaism posed to Christianity could have been ultimately responsible for the horrendous mistreatment of Jews for over two thousand years existing to this day when synagogues even in this country must lock their doors and install security systems lest some anti Semite come and destroy its peaceful sanctuary. Anti-Semitism lived in Dickens's era as it lives today. It is the longest and most universal world-wide hatred whether in Dickens's time or our own.
ONE LAST THING to my Florida friends and others who have Florida family/friends. Alex Sink is a WONDERFUL candidate for governor. She is SO much better than the corrupt Medicare/Medicaid fraud Scott it is astounding how the media say they have them in a close race. THAT is hard to believe since Scott according to Politifact:
"Scott resigned as CEO in July 1997, less than four months after the inquiry became public and before the depth of the investigation became clear. Company executives said had Scott remained CEO, the entire chain could have been in jeopardy.
At issue, Scott says, is that he wanted to fight the federal government accusations. The corporate board of the publicly traded company wanted to settle.
And settle, Columbia/HCA did.
In December 2000, the U.S. Justice Department announced what it called the largest government fraud settlement in U.S. history when Columbia/HCA agreed to pay $840 million in criminal fines and civil damages and penalties.
Among the revelations from the 2000 settlement, which all apply to when Scott was CEO:
* Columbia billed Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal programs for tests that were not necessary or ordered by physicians;
* The company attached false diagnosis codes to patient records to increase reimbursement to the hospitals;
* The company illegally claimed non-reimbursable marketing and advertising costs as community education;
* Columbia billed the government for home health care visits for patients who did not qualify to receive them."
Scott wants to be governor? COME ON FLORIDIANS--VOTE Alex Sink Democrat for governor. She is a wonderful candidate!
"Scott resigned as CEO in July 1997, less than four months after the inquiry became public and before the depth of the investigation became clear. Company executives said had Scott remained CEO, the entire chain could have been in jeopardy.
At issue, Scott says, is that he wanted to fight the federal government accusations. The corporate board of the publicly traded company wanted to settle.
And settle, Columbia/HCA did.
In December 2000, the U.S. Justice Department announced what it called the largest government fraud settlement in U.S. history when Columbia/HCA agreed to pay $840 million in criminal fines and civil damages and penalties.
Among the revelations from the 2000 settlement, which all apply to when Scott was CEO:
* Columbia billed Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal programs for tests that were not necessary or ordered by physicians;
* The company attached false diagnosis codes to patient records to increase reimbursement to the hospitals;
* The company illegally claimed non-reimbursable marketing and advertising costs as community education;
* Columbia billed the government for home health care visits for patients who did not qualify to receive them."
Scott wants to be governor? COME ON FLORIDIANS--VOTE Alex Sink Democrat for governor. She is a wonderful candidate!
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