A Dignified Death

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The link here is to the Boston Sunday Globe article "Dying Wishes" which is about a little discussed topic of death with dignity.  In addition to explaining what Death with Dignity means it offers the reader the ability to vote yea or nay to this procedure if it were put to a vote. Very few want to discuss this but I believe in speaking truth and looking reality in the face.

I vote a resounding yes to death with dignity or assisted suicide for TERMINALLY ILL patients.  Both from tortured personal experience and the experience of many friends and relatives it is UNBELIEVABLE how horrendous it is for the patient to endure debilitating and freedom depriving terminal illness and how easy it is for others to deny themselves that freedom of choice.  Moreover, by doing so they deny it to everyone else as well.  It is an understatement to say a terminal illness is a horror of the greatest magnitude to endure and that it should be up to the person suffering it to make the ultimate decision for him or herself either by a health care proxy or, if possible, by oneself to either endure the suffering or end it.  One's body is one's own.  The suffering major religions require a human being to endure is  unconscionable.  I would even aver that religion is in the business of suffering and it is in its own vested and monetary interest to encourage one to endure unspeakable pain because then one goes to it for relief. I do not believe anyone can make that life or death decision for me but me.

I never want to give my hard earned bucks to a disgusting nursing home. The nursing home business is a multi-million buck scam as is the cancer pharmaceuticals business.  The drug companies do not want cures for cancer by funding stem cell research, DNA research or environmental contributors to the cancer albatross around everyone's neck to once and for all end that multifaceted malodorous malady.  Slashing, burning or poisoning is the still, after decades, the treatment de jour for cancer.  The so called "war on cancer" is over thirty years old and there is, as in other wars our nation fights, no end in site. The so called "walk for the cure" of Komens does not want a cure they want people to give money to Komens for Komens.  It's a big business and it translates in to BILLIONS for the cancer industry while it sucks dry those who are unlucky enough to get the disease or have a close family member that does. Even if they can buy some time if treatment is available they are often not rich enough to treat it effectively and insurance companies, naturally, will not pay for much of it and most especially will not pay for experimental treatment.

If our culture euthanizes beloved pets because it is the humane thing to do is it no less so for a human being?  I will vote yes for a death with dignity bill if it appears on the Massachusetts ballot in November!  You can accept this difficult decision or reject it as you choose but leave that choice up to me.

http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/articles/2012/04/29/death_with_dignity_act/

My Namesake on Meet the Press

My namesake Hillary Rosen and Rachel Maddow were on Meet the Press this morning.  Both are blessings to progressives everywhere.  Rachel in particular was her usual perfect defending our cause against two Republican heavy weights, Vice Chair of the House Republican Conference Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), and Republican strategist Alex Castellanos.  

Rachel was wonderful, passionate and absolutely 100% correct.  I thought she and Hillary Rosen knocked it out of the park and the Republicans on their behinds.  I was particularly thrilled Rosen had the opportunity to better explain her views which were originally, I believe, misinterpreted.  She was NOT against Ann Romney or stay-at-home mothers.  Who could be?  BUT those in the 1% cannot in ANY way be compared to those in the 99%. How middle class mothers and poor mothers juggle a job and children is infinitely different.  Ann Romney probably has NO idea what a head of lettuce or even a gallon of gasoline costs.  Why should she?  She doesn't HAVE to.  Her husband’s Republican policy reflects just that point when he wants to take away the earned income tax credit but cut taxes for the top 1%.  Fairness is not in the Republican vocabulary.

Rachel is right when she said state legislatures that turned Republican in the 2010 election catastrophe show EXACTLY what happens when Republicans rule -- high unemployment, the emasculation of unions, no health care and no jobs.  Who are Republicans kidding?

Republicans indicting Democrats as the dividers is a joke.  Republicans are the ones who will NOT compromise, Republicans are the ones who are virulently anti choice, anti birth control and thereby anti women.   Republicans are the ones to introduce religious beliefs which should be separate and apart from the big government Republicans CLAIM they loathe so much. I don't say it, Rachel doesn't say it, Hillary doesn't say it but the CONSTITUTION says it and Republicans are blind to that too.

Rarely does Rachel Maddow say anything in error and if does she apologizes and corrects it immediately.  That is infinitely more than Republicans do unless their arm is twisted into an unnatural position!

My channel in the evening is stuck on MSNBC!

If you are interested in Meet the Press and did not see it Sunday, April 29 I link it below.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/

Frontline "Money, Power and Wall Street (Part One)."

If you have not seen it I enclose here the link to the PBS Frontline program aired yesterday, April 25, 2012 entitled "Money, Power and Wall Street (Part One)."  It is wonderful.  In case our economic near collapse in 2007 is not inscribed permanently in your synaptic cerebral connections and you have forgotten many of the reasons for it, or if the subject is downright mind numbing, shattering, and boring I link the segment to it below as well.   Frontline reduces the explanation of highly complex economic realities to a very understandable narrative.  It is, as usual, entertaining as well.

If you have time to view it I highly suggest you do lest we all forget why our country is so far into the economic hole that we are and who the real sowers of this utter catastrophe and near world economic collapse were.  The fault lay NOT with President Obama but those who obstruct policies he would enact which offer the faster cure for this lethal malady.  You will be able to see how far he has had to crawl into the mostly Republican (but not all) sewer to rescue and resuscitate this nation and how difficult a process it is. 

Put the blame where it should be NOT on the 99% but on the 1% wealthiest of this nation.  Do NOT elect Willard Mitt Romney yet another member in good standing of the 1% who did not give a damn about you, about me, and about the nation they claim to love so much!

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/view/

You Have Got to Be Kidding Me!

The editorial by Jeff Jacoby in the Sunday April 22, 2012 Boston Sunday Globe entitled “Obama a unifying force? Hardly” raised my ire.  I wrote a response to it.  “Conservative” that Jeff Jacoby allegedly is indicting the president for being the reason for the nation’s division and that he unlike his charismatic speeches in Grant Park or during the 2004 Democratic convention proved him to be the opposite –  a divider of the nation he promised to unite.  He even compared him to Richard Nixon who vowed he would "bring us together" and did anything but.  You may see why I saw three shades of deep red!  I stated the following to him.  His article that demanded a response is here if you care and can stand to read it and linked below as well.

You know, Jeff, I haven't read your editorials in quite some time because frankly I thought you were not worth enough to raise my blood pressure to Plutonian heights.  So why did I read your utterly heart attack inducing article, "Obama a unifying force? Hardly"?  I have no idea.  I know I came to the end wanting to scream YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!   

What planet to you live on, Jeff?   You are proclaiming to your readers it's Obama fault for not uniting us?  After ALL the compromising that man has tried to do you have the unmitigated gall to say that?  After the pretzel the president has turned himself into to TRY to negotiate with and placate Republicans who ultimately would give him NOTHING you can utter such a lie?  After Republicans insulted him on numerous occasions and even courted world economic collapse rather than raise a debt ceiling something universally done by all former presidents you can say such things?

The president WANTED to live out what he said in his Grant Park Speech and the myriad of speeches he has given advocating unification of the body politic but sickening Republican Tea Bag politics racist, uncompromising and extreme would not give this black man an inch.  God forbid what he wanted to do would work and show them up for the charlatans most in the Republican Party are.

This well meaning man will reign supreme over the race baiters, the Wall Street banksters and those who would not give him credit for even killing bin Laden.  You say things are that are not, you say things are black when they are white, you dismember history’s truth, and have no memory of what actually in reality occurred.

The fault for the irretrievably divided broken down Washington politics dear Brutus is NOT in the president but in the Republican Party for which you seem to advocate.  McConnell admitted the Republican Party's ONLY goal was to tear Obama down.  The president could ask for the cherry blossoms to bloom longer and your Republican Party would say some non sequitur like see I told you he was a Muslim, see I told you he was not born here, see I told you he is a socialist, a Nazi, a Communist. The political spectrum ignorance of people in the Republican Party is astounding.

The president can merely say he could have a son who looked like Trayvon and oh my god how racist that is they proclaim. Or gee maybe the Cambridge police reacted too hastily when they handcuffed Professor Gates at his own home.  Guess what?  THEY DID act too hastily but President Obama being the conciliator he is scheduled a beer summit to reach out to both sides for which he was naturally criticized for that as well.  The man cannot even cross a street without receiving criticism from the racist right who cannot STAND a black man and his black family inhabiting the heretofore oh so historically consistent very White House.

The reason Richard Nixon could not bring us together was he was corrupt, did NOT bring Vietnam to an end but rather invaded Cambodia AND he WAS a CROOK.   You and your party are excrementally putrefied because of the cockeyed way you view your country, utterly distort history, lie, and, in fact, most especially because of Republican’s racist core.

It is people like you who will be held accountable if the life of this president is threatened. He has received more threats than any president in US history and it’s NOT from Democrats.  Imagine if Rev. Wright said the same things as the sick malcontent Ted Nugent the hard rock know nothing Romney supporter.  It is he and so called “conservatives” like you who are the DESPICABLE dividers.  It is most certainly NOT the president.  Hopefully, in November we will see that you have reaped the discord and division you and your fellow Republicans have sown.  The defeat of your lies and your historical inaccuracies cannot come quickly enough for me.

http://bostonglobe.com/opinion/2012/04/21/obama-unifying-force-hardly-obama-unifying-force-hardly/tkxrTNhW1bJocwIBqlX8YP/story.html

Another Letter to the Hispanic Community

Mitt Romney knows and was caught off guard saying that if he does not capture the Hispanic vote they will lose and he is correct they will.  We MUST emphasize to the Hispanic community that those Republicans saying they are for them are certainly not. This is the same man who said on tape Arizona's "Paper's Please" anti civil liberties anti immigrant policy in Arizona is a model for the nation and is what he would do if elected president.  He is NOT kidding.  Now he's trying to figure out a way to persuade Hispanics that he was merely referring to computer job look up (e-verify) of citizenship.  DO NOT be duped as I feel certain you will not be. 

Romney, as he is SO adept at doing, will flip flop and turn himself into a salamander to make his ideology of the day (because it changes EVERY day) into that which he thinks will get him elected.  Once in office he will NEVER be the immigrant's friend, will NEVER support the Hispanic community but will do the opposite. 

The president in a second term and IF the obstructionist Congress is thrown out, I am confident WILL try to enact infinitely more immigrant friendly policies, will craft sensible immigration law and NOT leave Hispanics out of the American Dream.  He cannot, however, do this alone.  He needs our help and he needs our vote. 

Republicans, if they gain power, will capture and/or even kill undocumented workers en masse.   As I said in an earlier email the Republican Party advocates for border vigilantism.  Moreover, they gerrymander districts as well as enact voter ID suppression laws to diminish the impact of the minority vote because they KNOW that vote is usually cast for Democrats.

Therefore, I ask you, no I plead with you, NOT to fall for the Republican Trojan Horse.  Mitt Romney and Republicans are NOT for the elderly, not for the disabled, NOT for the poor, NOT for health care and NOT for you. Do NOT be FOOLED--No se deje enganar. The Republican Party is NOT about you.  They merely want you to THINK they are.  

Flip Flopper in Chief

Click here to see how much Willard Mitt Romney has flipped his positions.  He has COMPLETELY changed his views on every single issue of import in the modern era.  Click where it says "here" on link to see his positions in 1994 when he was running against Ted Kennedy and now when he needs the wingnut religious fanatics and the Tea Party to win the Republican nomination this chameleon morphs into something unrecognizable. Or you can click on the link below.

AMAZING!

http://www.republicansforobama.org/node/10060

Meet the Chicken Hawks

VERY interesting link.  You would be AMAZED (or maybe you wouldn't) how many of those Republicans who sound the drum beat of war, love war, support war AS LONG AS THEY do not serve.  Click here (or on the link below) if you want to see who has served and who has not.  I think I am correct when I say more -- many more -- Republicans hid from the draft, got deferments or did not serve while they did and still do their damnedest to make sure other less powerful people's children fight and die on the battlefield.  It is scandalous to say the least.

Oh yes, where was our CLASSLESS candidate Romney during the Vietnam War?  Mitt Romney Spent the Vietnam War in a French Palace!  Click here (or on the link below) for that web site.


http://liberalslikechrist.org/about/chickenhawks.html

http://www.nationalmemo.com/strange-true-mitt-romney-spent-vietnam-war-french-palace/

Contemplating the Alternative

Make NO mistake about it electing racist Know Nothing religious extremist irrational science deniers will mean a country will be reduced to near third world status where the rights of women, minorities, the disabled and the poor are reactionarily eviscerated.  It will mean the steady decline and obliteration of the environment.  It will mean a right wing extremist Supreme Court the likes of which our country has not seen since the 1857 Justice Taney Dred Scott Supreme Court decision ruling the black man was property and not a person.  This time the court will overturn a woman’s right to choose.  It will keep corporations as people and will ensure the oligarchy that exists today will remain in place for God knows how many generations.  It will mean the 99% will not overcome the economic forces of the richest 1% evil that smother them by keeping a larger and larger piece of the economic pie through nefarious, illegal and immoral means while the majority eat cake, develop diseases we cannot afford with no health care to treat them and no one TO care.  Only death will await.

This is the most important election I have ever witnessed in my decades of witnessing many.  Defeat of the president is NOT an option.  The Republican opposition MUST be defeated by all means necessary for you, for me, for your children and for their children!  There is, indeed, too much at stake to even contemplate the alternative.

Dastardly Speech: The violent, ugly, and filthy comments of the disgusting hard rocker right wing extremist, Ted Nugent, were WORSE than anything that was said by Rev. Wright in his sermon for which the right wing screamed critical of then candidate Obama. Wright's speech was mild in comparison to the THREATENING vitriolic speech of Nugent, a man Mr. Romney gleefully accepted as a supporter and, indeed, went to him for support.

At least the president, good human being that he is, addressed Wright's unacceptable comments, gave a speech about it and eschewed the vitriol of it.  Mitt Romney sends a message of so called "civility" through an emissary.  He did not even have the COURAGE not to mention courtesy to disavow what that violent, profane and repellent Nugent had to say.

I am happy that the Secret Service is investigating Nugent.  They should but that a presidential contender with gravitas and class merely had an aid craft a mild note is UNFORGIVABLE and insulting to the country itself including the presidency that represents it.   One should think twice before supporting this candidate-for-president, Mitt Romney.  He is an unprincipled man based on how Mitt Romney handled this potentially criminal threat directed at the president of the United States by someone Romney not only accepted but his sons waxed effusive in accepting the scurrilous Nugent endorsement.

Romney is an EMBARRASSMENT to this country he says he loves.  He would not know a principled thought if it stood directly in front of him.  He says ONLY that which is politically expedient and changes his views more often than a chameleon sheds its skin.  SHAME ON HIM for not personally and strongly rejecting Nugent's dastardly threatening comments.  It shows one who the significantly better candidate is; one who hides under the table in the face of a challenging event or one who addresses it head on like the intellectually and principally superior person President Obama is.

Mitt Romney, if anything God forbid happens to our president YOU and your Republican Party of mean, racist intrinsic evil WILL be held accountable at least by the God you profess to believe in so much!

The UNRELATABLE ANN ROMNEY

A stream of conscious: The Hillary Rosen controversy was the NO controversy controversy. Why didn't Hillary Rosen speak UP for herself?   Ann Romney knows about sacrifice like Lloyd Blankfein's wife knows about sacrifice -- NOT. Ann Romney did not have to sleep in motel rooms because her house was foreclosed on by a bankster. Ann Romeny could pick and choose ANYTHING she wanted. She was not a single mother she was the MULTI hundreds of million dollar wife of a 1% er. She knows NOTHING about sacrifice. She could have had 20 children and she could not be compared to an economically disadvantaged woman with two.

The economically disadvantaged jobless woman and family have issues with the rearing of children Ann Romney could NOT even think about. Moreover, Ann Romney did not HAVE to work. Economically disadvantaged women even WITH a husband need TWO ... let me say that again for these RepublicRAT know nothings ... TWO jobs to put food on the table.

When did Ann unrelatable Romney ever fear she could not feed her family? When you are a haus frau married to a 1% er you economically worry about NOTHING.

Lower socio economic women have to worry about EVERYTHING related to survival: Food, clothing, shelter and MOST importantly HEALTH CARE. I bet Ann Romeny, who is said to have MS, did not worry ONE second as to how she could medically afford treatment.

Hillary Rosen, STAND UP FOR YOURSELF AND DO NOT GIVE IN TO THESE REPUBLICAN HYPOCRITES and Mr. President, I love you BUT why grovel at Republican's feet. They simply kick you in the face anyway. APPEAL TO THE HILLARY ROSEN'S and people like me YOUR BASE who have your back and ARE at your feet!

Bending Toward Justice

When the special prosecutor in the Trayvon Martin homicide case, Angela B. Corey, brought second degree murder charges against George Zimmerman I felt as I did when Barack Obama won the presidency.  I felt proud to be an American.  Ms. Corey’s press conference announcing her decision and George Zimmerman’s turning himself in to face these charges was almost miraculous.  Ms. Corey is an honorable special prosecutor who by the strength of her words, it appears, is dedicated to the justice all those who wept for Trayvon desired.  Even Mr. Zimmerman's new defense attorney extended his condolences to the Martin family.  It was civilized man at his best.   

In Trayvon’s memory we turn another corner yet again in the nation's Herculean struggle against racism and its fight for human justice. It is a never ending fight as one generation passes the baton of legal jurisprudence to another safeguarding Lady Liberty's flame.

Well over two hundred years ago a group of 18^th century men steeped in Europe’s Enlightenment crafted a document -- the Constitution of the United States -- that has withstood the test of time. It is resilient, it is flexible and it is brilliant.  It is clear, though, the charging of Mr. Zimmerman for the killing of an unarmed black teen would not have taken place had there not been a volcanic push from the bottom up. 

We are in a new age.  No longer will a historically besieged people not stand THEIR ground and allow others to run roughshod over their fundamental Constitutional rights.  When I think of the years -- hundreds of them -- it took for the black man in this nation to disembark the slave ship and cross over the bridge to freedom, I wax incredulous.  The bridge needs constant repair.   The bridge over this river of tears was forged by many.  It was forged by Frederick Douglas, John Brown, Harriet Tubman, Abraham Lincoln, William Lloyd Garrison and a Civil War that killed more human beings, often brother against brother, than any war in the history of this country’s plethora of human conflict.

It was forged by Emmett Till, a young black man slaughtered brutally by vicious racists for the crime of merely flirting with a white woman.  It was forged by Malcom X who said “I am non violent BUT I am not nonviolent with people who are violent to me.”  He instilled a sense of pride and power in a people who had little of either.  And, of course, by Dr. Martin Luther King who said that this nation delivered a promissory note returned and marked insufficient funds; that this nation will live out the promise of its creed and honor that note where its people of color were concerned. 

The Watts section of Los Angeles burned, Bedford Stuyvesant section in New York burned, Detroit burned, Chicago burned and the post Civil War struggle for the rights of African Americans continued.  Human beings with other human beings said NO.  The black sanitation workers of Tennessee said NO, Rosa Parks said NO to the back of the bus.  They said NO to segregation at lunch counters, in schools, in bathrooms, in swimming pools, at water fountains and a thousand other different venues of every day life.  I AM A MAN their signs read because so many whites treated them as if they were something less. 

There is a long road to travel before the Zimmerman case has ended but whatever the outcome the history of Trayvon Martin’s death is inscribed indelibly onto the American historical heart. It hangs as a picture of the American historical landscape as does the hanged civil rights workers, Goodman, Cheney and Schwerner for as long as this country lives. 

The president has a rug in his oval office which reads: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." According to the September 4, 2010 Jamie Stiehm Washington Post article “... those words belong to a long-gone Bostonian champion of social progress. His roots in the republic ran so deep that his grandfather commanded the Minutemen at the Battle of Lexington. For the record, Theodore Parker antebellum American reformers, lyrically gifted abolitionist, Unitarian minister and Transcendentalist thinker who foresaw the end of slavery, though he did not live to see emancipation. He died at age 49 in 1860, on the eve of the Civil War.”

Indeed, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice in this nation once again.  It feels good to be an American today!

A Price Above Rubies (Proverbs 31:10)  -- A Gem: Every time I see an article about Elizabeth Warren (link here ) I am going to say the same thing. IF the people of Massachusetts do not elect her they will be missing out on one of the GREATEST minds, ethical humans, a candidate of IMMENSE ability especially in economics that could not only be good for our state but great for the nation as well. She is a DIAMOND and we simply cannot pass this utterly excellent woman up. 

PLEASE, people of Mass. listen to her speak, listen to her discuss issues. Go wherever she is and listen to her wisdom anyone would be convinced that she is LIGHT YEARS more excellent than Brown and really more superior to even the best in the Senate and there are a few -- JUST A FEW -- but she could be added to them. Please IF you can, contribute to her campaign. Take advantage of this fabulous opportunity to elect someone SO great to represent Massachusetts. 

You MUST realize how lucky Massachusetts is to have her. Once again she is a price above rubies. Elect this gem while you can!

 

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/10/massachusetts-senate-poll_n_1416174.html

Damned if I Know: Sorry for the title's light profanity but I was just reviewing some past articles of Matt Taibbi the brilliant, creative writer for Rolling Stone who makes the explanation of the economic catastrophe of 2007 actually entertaining to read. 

This is a wonderful February 16, 2011 article entitled "Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?"  Truthfully, it's fun, read it and either weep, be enraged or both.  Whatever you choose you should choose never to forget who REALLY landed us in this kettle of soup.  You can click here or on the link below!

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-isnt-wall-street-in-jail-20110216

I post the link to his articles which appear in Rolling Stone so that unlike most Americans your memory and my aging one are not short about the single most damaging historical rip off this country or the world has ever seen, in my opinion, worse than the Great Depression.  At least in the Great Depression of 1929 remedies were legislated to prevent another catastrophe only to be reversed 70 years later by a Congress in love with greed and Ayn Rand -- Alan Greenspan's secret love.  I wonder what Andrea Mitchell sees in that guy anyway.  I doubt she wed him for his looks!  Did I make that looksist comment?  I did.  Apologies but he reminds me of a Basset Hound.  I digress.

Our current economic kettle of rancid fish the "bipartisan" "American Jobs Act" about which Taibbi writes here is just another segment of the saga that goes on and on and on and on.  Most who read my posts and I who write them may not be around to see the utter catastrophe this brings on but your children, if you have them, probably will.  Ah, the good ole USof A what the hell happened to it?  Damned if I know.  I keep trying to figure it out. 

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/why-obamas-jobs-act-couldnt-suck-worse-20120409

"Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?" -- By Matt Taibbi -- February 16, 2011

Companies like AIG, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley. Most of these firms were directly involved in elaborate fraud and theft. Lehman Brothers hid billions in loans from its investors. Bank of America lied about billions in bonuses. Goldman Sachs failed to tell clients how it put together the born-to-lose toxic mortgage deals it was selling. What's more, many of these companies had corporate chieftains whose actions cost investors billions — from AIG derivatives chief Joe Cassano, who assured investors they would not lose even "one dollar" just months before his unit imploded, to the $263 million in compensation that former Lehman chief Dick "The Gorilla" Fuld conveniently failed to disclose. Yet not one of them has faced time behind bars."

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-isnt-wall-street-in-jail-20110216#ixzz1rf5Jl411

Tulsa, Trayvon and Me -- I AM elated local authorities along with the FBI and the US Marshall’s office caught two suspects in the random shooting, killing and wounding of five African Americans as they walked on a street in Tulsa, Oklahoma. On the heels of the Trayvon Martin murder, handled SO incompetently by Florida officials, this latest act of mayhem if not handled promptly could result in more violence and rioting of people who are fed up being the main component of this nation’s indelible stain. I NEVER advocate for violence but who in their right mind could not understand a historically besieged people’s fury when they are the recipients of racist violence which knows no end?

Unlike the people they killed who will never see justice, the perpetrators of these heinous acts will get their day in court. Trayvon Martin’s murderer SHOULD get the same day in court and while they are at it in Florida repeal or amend significantly the damn “stand your ground law.”

One Tulsa news blogger said "there are always mitigating circumstances." Oh really? In this case it surely does not seem so. But I will not, like the victims’ killers would, rush to judgment. The blogger sounded like a neo-Nazi. Perhaps he is and perhaps he is not but what kind of a sadistic statement is that when two white men go around shooting numbers of black people at random, victims they did not know and who, as reported, were out for a walk. It is clear on which part of the political spectrum this right wingnut extremist lies when he makes a statement like that. Unfortunately too many in this nation feel the same as he or simply do not care. I care.

I only wish Trayvon Martin received the same care. Alas the infection and putrification of our nation which has not overthrown its Civil War past still poisons its sinew. How is it that our Founders, men of the Enlightenment and its birth of liberalism could live with the hypocrisy they created? A nation built on that liberalism seemed to forget or did not think that human beings dragged here against their will might one day rise up against the injustice viciously perpetrated against them. Our Founders sadly did not understand that the chains they placed around African American necks, the whip lashes they inflicted upon African American’s backs, the rapes they viciously perpetrated upon African American women would be revenged and that those chains would one day be thrown off, the whips stopped, the scars healed and a people would seek the full measure of the justice they so belatedly deserved.

And yet, there are still white apologists for a system so rancid it inflicts, even until this hour, mind numbing illness. Our nation is torn apart by the disease at its cancerous core eating away at the body politic which cannot live because of it. Tulsa and Trayvon have many things in common but if nothing else what they do not have in common is the Tulsa killings will NOT go unavenged like so many other black killing by whites historically have.

I believe Iowa has the death penalty for crimes such as this. I am usually against the death penalty BUT in this case IF found guilty I want that Shakespearean pound of flesh. Yes, I am angry. Any person of conscience SHOULD be angry when innocents’ lives are taken from them merely because of an accident of birth. A hate crime murder is worse than other murders because it threatens not merely the victims but ALL the members of the group to which the victim belonged. This country's war against people of color MUST and WILL stop as Malcolm X so rightly said “by any means necessary.”

The Tulsa victims, Trayvon's ghost and I want the long arc of the moral universe to bend toward the justice the Founders promised this nation. That promissory note about which, Dr. King so eloquently spoke, is STILL not satisfied and the moral arc of justice is not yet bending far enough for me.

Two Great Men: Interview by Bill Moyers of Andrew Bachevich, BU Prof. of History

I sent an email to Professor Andrew Bachevich, a well known professor of history at BU. He also is a retired career officer in the US Army, served in Vietnam and lost a son in Iraq. He knows from whence he speaks.

Dear Prof. Bachevich: Just a quick note because the night grows late but I wanted to tell you that I taped your appearance on the great Bill Moyers and watched it this evening. You were, of course, brilliant. Hard to believe that the president is touting Robert Kagan's book "The World America Made" and not yours, "The Short American Century a Post Mortem." Clearly hindsight is 20/20 but in that hindsight we surely can see the grievous error of our foreign policy ways.

This progressive who believed so fervently in the election of our president, has on her Kindle your earlier book "Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War." I will, after I finish that and few others including Rachel Maddow's "Drift" (absolutely superbly written), purchase "The Short American Century a Post Mortem."

I wonder if I can convince the man I thought would be another FDR to tilt his course a little more to the left? I still love our president, but I remain disappointed in his attempt to win over those who consistently when they hit him on one cheek hit him on the other also. He needs to know his base, people like me, want America's penchant for permanent war to come to a close. My years attending BU and knowing Howard Zinn gave me hope after Vietnam that it would happen. So far it does not appear to be the case. Maybe next year, if god willing, he wins again it will. I surely hope it does not take another century, which I will never see, to do so.

Excellent interview as usual. What else would I expect of two great men!

The Hispanic Vote 2012--No se deje engañar (Do NOT be fooled)--a letter to the Hispanic Community: It is no secret that Republicans are talking about capturing a good percentage of the Hispanic vote in the general 2012 presidential election. Some say if they do not secure at least 33% of the Hispanic vote they will lose in November against the president. Obviously, Republicans are working furiously in an effort to determine exactly how to do this. It is a difficult task when the party who claims it WANTS to secure the Hispanic vote promotes policies which clearly identify it AGAINST the Hispanic vote. One need only listen to what the Republican leadership and its base are saying.

I will not enumerate all the myriad of ways it says it will seek to, in actuality, diminish the Hispanic population in the US by advocating draconian anti-immigration practices in states such as Arizona with its "papers please" law signed by one of the most right wing extremist Republican governors in that state's history to Republicans in red states like Alabama and Mississippi which have attempted to create an immigration barrier and codify into law undocumented worker round-ups to keep small businesses from hiring them. Businesses in those states are suffering from those policies and some are in bankruptcy. Many Republicans want to ramp up efforts on the US borders to seize and kill, if necessary, those who are attempting to cross. They relegate human beings to less-than-human status. It is shameful. The Republican Party is the new Nativitist Party of this century. There are even efforts by right wingnuts to stop the teaching of Hispanic history in public schools. The list of anti-Hispanic policies by the Republican Party goes on and on. All one has to do is Google the facts.

Therefore, I ask you NOT to fall for the Trojan Horse of Republican politics that sounds so nice when its candidates tell you how much they love Hispanics and speak in Spanish for one purpose only and that is to secure the Hispanic vote. The Republican Party in reality does everything from border vigilantism to gerrymandering districts as well as enacting voter ID suppression laws to diminish the impact of the minority vote because they KNOW that vote is usually cast for Democrats.

As a last point and one which I hope you convey to the Hispanic community: DO NOT FALL for Republican attempts to place the Cuban-American Senator from Florida, Marco Rubio, as the Romney vice-presidential pick in order to lasso the Hispanic vote. This is a feeble attempt to take the Hispanic population as fools. Marco Rubio is NOT a Cuban refugee. He will no more be an advocate for Hispanic people than a white racist sheriff in a southwestern state, who wants to round up Latino people by any means necessary in an effort to deport them, is.

The Republican Party is NOT about Hispanic people. It is about white people trying to cement their power which they perceive is slipping away. Do NOT be FOOLED--No se deje enganar. The Republican Party is NOT about you or any who are among the 99%. They merely want you to THINK that they are to win power at your expense. Securing your vote for that purpose is too steep a price for any of us to pay.

The Olbermann Saga: For those of you who are interested in the fate of progressive commentator Keith Olbermann as I am I was just informed that Keith will be on David Letterman tonight and will perhaps explain his side of the story relating related to his firing. This story has transfixed me because I consider Keith Olbermann to be the king of commentary -- progressive commentary. When he was on MSNBC after Rachel Maddow they delivered, in my opinion, a one two knock out punch to the wingnut know-nothing extremists of Fox News and other so called "conservative" stations on the right.

When he left MSNBC under not the best of circumstances and took a major interest along with Al Gore and Joel Hyatt in forming the new progressive cable network Current TV channel 192 on FIOS, I was hopeful that this would provide him the latitude the other stations he was employed by over the years did not. Alas, it was not to be the case. My king of commentary was summarily fired last Friday by the co-owners Al Gore and Joel Hyatt. Very little was said except for a my-side-of-the-story statement by Al Gore on the Current web page. Keith has yet to say much except that Gore/Hyatt will have one whopper of a lawsuit headache for breach of contract in the ensuing months. I'm sure there will be counterclaims as well.

I have blogged as others have on the Current web page. Many of his supporters feel as dedicated to him and as sick about this situation as I. I am hoping he will explain his side of the story tonight on Letterman and hoping he will part of another progressive format shortly. I consider Keith one of the most important vehicles for presenting a fantastically charismatic, brilliant and significantly progressive viewpoint which is hard find in lamestream -- oops I mean mainstream -- corporate media today. I am hoping Keith will not be out of earshot long as I believe we need him now more than ever before.

Sarah Palin cohost of the Today Show: I just heard your advertisement for a ratings push to have Sarah Palin on co-hosting the Today Show next week. I am sending all I know an email and posting on my Facebook page and your Facebook page that I am canceling my regular series programming for the Today Show.

I think it is despicable to have a clearly right wingnut know nothing biased politico on the Today Show to co-host. I urge all those who agree with my political positions or even some of my political opinions to do the same and boycott the Today Show for at least a week.

If you want to have her on that is, of course, your right but the Today Show always taped every day in my house will be erased!