Written "off the cuff."
The
purpose of my email is critical analysis. Why I tune in every morning,
afternoon and evening to Channel 7 local news I am not sure I know except that I
like your weather forecasters and am too lazy to change my DVD. There
is another reason too in that it is nearly impossible now to find a
local progressive news station. In my view they are ALL either biased
to the right or they are filled with candy coated comments and inane
blather. So I persevere with you.
The story about the president's foreign policy entitled "Damage Control"
in and of itself connotes bias. The president, as usual, was trying to
state the truth something which was alien to the former know nothing
rancid foreign policy of Bush who could not ever do that or even know
HOW to do it. More local and even national stupid comments have been
uttered about the color of the suit he was wearing than about policy
itself. Who cares what the color of the suit he was wearing was?
With respect to policy: This man is dealing with a world imploding.
Why? Because George W. Bush decided to destabilize the Middle East and
blow Iraq up over NOTHING but false "evidence" and lies. Where were
you when that jerk SHOULD have been impeached for taking a nation to war
under false pretenses killing hundreds of thousands and creating a
millions in exile?
Further, and worst of all, Iraq, where there was NO Al Qaeda since
Hussein loathed them, there now is and even worse than that is the
anarchy of ISIS! So George W. Bush, the know nothing president and his
immoral cronies are responsible for the Middle East mayhem today! Our
president has been handed a kettle of dead fish and a basket full of
worms. How would YOU deal with such horrific conflicts? These
conflicts are there because George Bush destabilized Iraq and put them there and now our
adversaries world wide and even our friends perceive us as war weary and
spent.
In nature the scavengers and hawks hover when they see an opportunity
and Putin, ISIS, and Al Qaeda see it in us. They merely had to wear us
down. This is the rancid state that our president was handed. Add to
that a Republican-induced global recession near depression and I would
say to you and ALL the media to cut our president some slack. He does
not want to go in with guns blazing, firing wildly as John the never met
a war I didn't like McCain would. Our president is thoughtful and
carefully crafts policy. Oh my a new concept. Why don't you put that
in your newscasts? And oh yes, wasn't it under Obama that bin Laden was
killed and so many other enemies of the US were neutered as well even
IF they were American citizens. And did not THIS president dig us out
of a deep recession -- amazing given the virulent disgusting Republican
opposition he received throughout his besieged presidency.
The US media keeps the electorate dumb and historically blind.
You should think twice about your critical commentary of our president
who won TWO terms handily beating his Republican opponents thank God.
If not for him we would be fighting eternal war and still may have to
since George W. Bush the man who NEVER should have been president took
the world on a journey from which there may be no return. Pitiful!
This is a running commentary on contemporary social, political and religious issues. From the Introduction of James Comey's book "A Higher Loyalty -- Truth, Lies and Leadership" "Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary" Reinhold Niebuhr
Sunday, August 31, 2014
Saturday, August 30, 2014
Primordial Uzi
In the state of Arizona it is legal for a nine year old to shoot a gun. And so it is no surprise when a nine year old girl getting instruction on an Uzi machine gun killed her instructor by accident when she could not control the strength of this formidable weapon of war. (See news report and video minus the actual death below.) She was "learning" to shoot and now must carry the burden of this horrific death at her hands as long as she lives.
The Uzi machine gun was designed and redesigned to streamlined perfection over decades by the IDF (the Israeli Defense Forces.) It is a lethal rapid fire killing machine and its design has been copied the world over for it use in war. Yes, I said "IN WAR" and NOT for use by a nine year old girl "for fun" at a shooting range. A young girl or boy does not have the mental maturity to handle this weapon no matter how smart she or he may be at nine years old nor does any child of that age have the muscular development necessary to be able to handle the hard quick-fire movement of this gun as it is pressed into the service for which it was designed.
This story is not only about the unnecessary death of an instructor by nine year old girl using an Uzi machine gun who was simply "having fun" learning to fire it and employ her Second Amendment right at a shooting range. I am sure our Founding Fathers meant the Second Amendment for that purpose -- NOT. It really is about that part of the nation's wild west mentality that spawns a violence so deadly that in time it could take this nation down.
People of good will, rational and humane politics must NOT let this happen. We must mount a campaign against the NRA and its pathological Cretans who think everyone should carry a gun even if they want to carry it into church, a school, a restaurant, a bar or really anywhere even on a children's playground. What could possibly go wrong?
What on this earth is wrong with this nation? How did violence wrap itself in its umbilical cord and give birth to a violent monster whose body can be seen everywhere -- in books, in magazines, in film, in movies, on television and computer games. Its DNA has seeped into the marrow of this nation's bones and courses through its body like the cancer it is. We have honed a gargantuan savage.
Elections matter and if one does not care what those with money and inordinate clout do they will take over the reins of power and the direction of your life. It is your life, it is your children's lives, it is our nation's life that is at stake if the forces of NRA fascistic-like right wing extremist power win.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust perhaps we may war ourselves into extinction, take the earth as we know it with us and creation will have to begin anew emerging again out of the primordial ooze from whence it came.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11058025/Nine-year-old-girl-accidentally-kills-gun-instructor-with-Uzi-fatal-shot-not-shown.html
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
You Can't Understand ISIS If You Don't Know the History of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia
Fascinating
link that gives a very good understanding of the etiology and history
of ISIS. If one wants to understand its appeal one should read the link
below so that we count ourselves as one of the more informed and not
the plethora of ignorant in our nation.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alastair-crooke/isis-wahhabism-saudi-arabia_b_5717157.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alastair-crooke/isis-wahhabism-saudi-arabia_b_5717157.html
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
11 SHOTS AGAINST BROWN ON TAPE
SHOTS ON TAPE:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/26/michael-brown-audio_n_5714287.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/26/michael-brown-audio_n_5714287.html
Monday, August 25, 2014
The Song of Racism--Wikipedia--16th Street Baptist Church Bombing:
"In the early morning of Sunday, September 15, 1963, Bobby Frank Cherry, Thomas Blanton,[1] Herman Frank Cash, and Robert Chambliss, members of United Klans of America, a Ku Klux Klan group, planted a box of dynamite with a time delay under the steps of the church, near the basement.[2] At about 10:22 a.m., twenty-six children were walking into the basement assembly room to prepare for the sermon entitled “The Love That Forgives,” when the bomb exploded.[3][4] Four girls, Addie Mae Collins (age 14), Denise McNair (age 11), Carole Robertson (age 14), and Cynthia Wesley (age 14), were killed in the attack,[5] and 22 additional people were injured, one of whom was Addie Mae Collins' younger sister, Sarah.[6] The explosion blew a hole in the church's rear wall, destroyed the back steps and all but one stained-glass window, which showed Christ leading a group of little children.[7]
Civil rights activists blamed George Wallace, the Governor of Alabama, for the killings. Birmingham was a violent city and was nicknamed “Bombingham”, because the city had experienced more than 50 bombings in black institutions and homes since World War I.[8] Only a week before the bombing Wallace had told The New York Times that to stop integration Alabama needed a "few first-class funerals
https://en.wikipedia.org/.../16th_Street_Baptist_Church...
I am Trayvon Martin and I am Michael Brown
When Trayvon Martin was killed I called "Make
it Plain" progressive talk hosted by Mark Thompson, the African American
talk show host, and iterated as caller after caller did that "I am Trayvon
Martin." I did this because I truly believed and still do the slaying of
Trayvon was unjust, affected all of us and that the acquittal of Zimmerman, a
violent man, that followed was and remains one of the most enraging verdicts in
our long national nightmare of racial injustice.
Again we are faced with a very similar circumstance
-- an African American man was gunned down, in my opinion, unjustly this time
not by a vigilante-police-wanna-be thug but by a constitutionally legal white
police officer. Constitutional police
officers are imbued with power by the state the rest of us do not have. There can be no doubt their job is a
difficult one but they signed up for it.
It is, therefore, especially incumbent upon police to use lethal force
as a last resort when other means are available to arrest an unarmed man. Yes, the decisions must be made quickly. I understand that but I believe Michael Brown
was an unarmed man running away from an officer whom Mr. Brown knew possessed a
firearm that could and we know did ultimately kill him.
Reality speaks: we are a nation divided by race and
a nation divided by class. The divisions
are stark and they are written indelibly on the tapestry that is the American
soul. If one is honest, and I do believe
I am, one cannot deny the racist reflection one sees in the American
mirror. Racism has been here when the
first slave ship transported in chains and against one's will the first African
American and pressed him into involuntary servitude. Racism has been here since the Missouri
Compromise, it has been here since the Kansas-Nebraska Act, it has been here
since the Dred Scott decision and it
has been here during many racist slave-holding presidents of these United
States. It has been here through the Jim
Crow laws of segregated drinking fountains, schools, movie theaters and more. It has been here since the abrogation of the black vote through literacy tests and
grandfather’s clauses of Reconstruction and by other means of minority voter suppression today. And it has been here through the cross
burnings of the KKK.
It has been here, too, through the assassination of
the hope of Lincoln and through the assassination of the arc of justice, Martin
Luther King. It has been here since the Alabama bus boycott and Rosa Parks. It
has been here through the entering of the University of Mississippi by the first
black man, James Meredith. It has been
here through the vicious racists of Bull Connor, George Wallace, and the white
noxious hypocrite Mississippi Senator John Stennis who voted against rights for
African Americans while he fathered a black child. It has been here since the brutal slaying of
Emmett Till because he had the perceived temerity to look at a white woman, it
has been here through the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist church in Alabama
and the killing of four innocent young black girls Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia
Wesley, Carole Robertson and Denise McNair in it. It has been here since the slaying of three
civil rights workers -- Goodwin, Cheney and Schwerner, and it has been here
through the hundreds of hangings of black men memorialized in Billy Holiday's
lachrymose rendition of "Strange fruit hanging from the Poplar trees " (YouTube below.)
Why should white people and why should ALL people
care about the homicide of a boy, Michael Brown, whom most never knew? What does it mean to me, a white Jewish woman
if an unarmed Michael Brown was shot dead by a white police officer? It means something because we know the truth
and we who know the truth must tell it. Burt Lancaster in his role as a Nazi
jurist on trial at Nuremberg for war crimes in the great film "Judgment at
Nuremberg" in pertinent part said in his soliloquy:
What about those of us
who knew better, we who knew the words were lies and worse than lies? Why did
we sit silent? Why did we take part? Because we loved our country. ... What
difference does it make if a few racial minorities lose their rights?
And then one day, we
looked around and found that we were in an even more terrible danger. The
ritual begun in this courtroom swept over the land like a raging, roaring
disease. What was going to be a 'passing phase' had become the way of life.
Your Honor, I was content to sit silent during this trial. I was content to
tend my roses. I was even content to let counsel try to save my name. Until I realized that in order to save it, he
would have to raise the specter again. You have seen him [defense counsel] do it. He has done it
here in this courtroom. He has suggested that the Third Reich worked for the
benefit of people. He has suggested that we sterilized men for the welfare of
the country. He has suggested that perhaps the old Jew did sleep with the 16
year-old girl after all. Once more, it is being done for love of country. It is
not easy to tell the truth. But if there is to be any salvation for Germany, we
who know our guilt must admit it, whatever the pain and humiliation.
And so, I say that as it applies to this nation, to
us and yet again to admit the hard truths of my nation's sins with respect to its citizens of color. I do iterate yet again another name to add to Trayvon's "I
am Michael Brown" and it is in the interest of what is fair and what is
just that I do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Web007rzSOI
There can be NO doubt what we of good conscience must do. Yes, voting matters so GET OUT THE MINORITY VOTE EVERYWHERE AND ELECT DEMOCRATS EVERYWHERE INCLUDING IN STATE LEGISLATURES. TAKE BACK THE HOUSE, KEEP THE SENATE AND IN 2016 KEEP THE PRESIDENCY IN DEMOCRATIC HANDS. It is only then that we can receive the justice we so richly deserve! Ferguson was 67% black and that should be reflected in the police, in the schools and in all positions of power. The only way one can get that is through the vote and YOU must ensure that we get that vote!
There can be NO doubt what we of good conscience must do. Yes, voting matters so GET OUT THE MINORITY VOTE EVERYWHERE AND ELECT DEMOCRATS EVERYWHERE INCLUDING IN STATE LEGISLATURES. TAKE BACK THE HOUSE, KEEP THE SENATE AND IN 2016 KEEP THE PRESIDENCY IN DEMOCRATIC HANDS. It is only then that we can receive the justice we so richly deserve! Ferguson was 67% black and that should be reflected in the police, in the schools and in all positions of power. The only way one can get that is through the vote and YOU must ensure that we get that vote!
Sunday, August 24, 2014
Perceptibly Ignorant
There is no mysterious subliminal or sub conscious
explanation for those who step on their own toes and vote against their own interests. Their lack of the ability to critically think
is perceptibly evident; their ignorance clear for all the world to see.
Our nation is filled with know nothings and getting worse as
higher education becomes unaffordable and the education one receives in elementary and high
school, sometimes by equally ignorant staff, is often junk. Experience the torture of watching a Tea
Party or Republicon rally to see how serious the dearth of perceptual
understanding of – well – most everything from science to the use of expressively
correct English is. Moreover, an understating
of our nation’s history with a critical and questioning eye is nearly nonexistent.
I recently wrote an opinion on Dred Scott and its
application to the racial events in Ferguson, MO. A friend said he would be
willing to bet if one asked people as they walked by on a busy street if they
knew and understood the importance of the Dred
Scott decision or if they even heard of the name Dred Scott they would say
"NO."
The
ignorance of history and the contemporary events of the nation in which
our population lives and its electorate votes is staggering and that is
why so many vote against their own interests. They swallow the party
line because they know nothing and do not want to know anything else.
Monday, August 18, 2014
Ferguson Protests Erupt Near Grave of Ex-Slave Dred Scott, Whose Case Helped Fuel U.S. Civil War
Why history is relevant! Dred Scott, the former slave
vying for his freedom in 1846 in an 11 year legal struggle ending in
1857, was the recipient of the ugliest, most malevolent and worst
decision in the history of the United States Supreme Court, rises now
from his grave in our time in Ferguson, Missouri.
Chief Justice Taney of that era uttered to the nation the Court's infamous decision eventually culminating in the blood soaked deaths of 620,000 human beings in the American Civil War by ignominiously stating that:
This nation has committed a plethora of dastardly acts over centuries against its citizens of color. I am afraid now the entire nation reaps again what has been sowed. Are the proverbial chickens are coming home to roost? Perhaps, simply said, violence is an option for people who have no other options.
History matters and whom we elect surely does. It is why I consistently and without equivocation or reversal steadfastly believe the nation will live or it will die if we do not recognize the right of all to equality under the law. Voting rights is the oxygen of that equality and breathes life into our democratic way life.
Register to vote all persons of color, Hispanics, the young, the elderly, the disabled and all those who can vote and should. Overturn the Republican vicious and racist stranglehold of the U.S. House, keep the Democratic majority in the Senate and by all and many means necessary hold the White House in 2016. Forward this to anyone you choose.
I post the Utube of the relevance of the Dred Scott decision below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kubhN6dXvk&list=PL50BDB9BCCFAF09CA&index=6
Chief Justice Taney of that era uttered to the nation the Court's infamous decision eventually culminating in the blood soaked deaths of 620,000 human beings in the American Civil War by ignominiously stating that:
... the authors of the Constitution had viewed all blacks as "beings of an inferior order, and altogether
unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political
relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white
man was bound to respect."
This nation has committed a plethora of dastardly acts over centuries against its citizens of color. I am afraid now the entire nation reaps again what has been sowed. Are the proverbial chickens are coming home to roost? Perhaps, simply said, violence is an option for people who have no other options.
History matters and whom we elect surely does. It is why I consistently and without equivocation or reversal steadfastly believe the nation will live or it will die if we do not recognize the right of all to equality under the law. Voting rights is the oxygen of that equality and breathes life into our democratic way life.
Register to vote all persons of color, Hispanics, the young, the elderly, the disabled and all those who can vote and should. Overturn the Republican vicious and racist stranglehold of the U.S. House, keep the Democratic majority in the Senate and by all and many means necessary hold the White House in 2016. Forward this to anyone you choose.
I post the Utube of the relevance of the Dred Scott decision below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kubhN6dXvk&list=PL50BDB9BCCFAF09CA&index=6
Saturday, August 16, 2014
BLAME -- Ferguson, MO
The racial violence in Ferguson, Missouri is dismaying. It is dismaying, in part, because of what our illustrious Supreme Court five in error have said. They took a vital limb of the 1964 Civil Rights Act amputated and dismembered it. The Solomon-less-than-wise five incredulously said we are in a post racial society so the special vigilance of the 1964 Civil Rights Act is now irrelevant as the old issues of race simply do not apply. What they said and what they did is hilarious if it were not so serious and consequential. The Republican five on SCOTUS got it wrong but who of us is surprised?
Some -- mostly whites -- are saying that the robbery photo of Mr. Brown is important to see because, after all, character counts. They say the photo has an implication in the shooting and killing of the victim by police because it may serve to verify the officer's accusation that the victim violently accosted him. There may be some truth to that BUT however "evil" the stealing of a box of cigars is it does not speak to nor justify the killing of a man by police even if that man stole the box of cigars and then stood in the middle of a street. I aver history's evil is of larger consequence.
Persons of color in this nation have been treated unjustly for not only decades but centuries. The issue of the shooting and killing of Mr. Brown by a white policeman is seen by many persons of color as business as usual and just another stone on the mountain of discriminatory injustice whites have, historically and continually, even in our era, built against them.
Those people of Missouri that are on the other side of town, the white side, who say looting is unheard of on their side have never experienced decades of unequal justice that persons of color have known. They never have to worry if they go into a neighborhood that they might be killed simply because of the color of their skin. I need not enumerate the centuries of injustices perpetrated by whites against blacks to prove my point. The black discriminatory experience in this nation has been like no other and still is. The Supreme Court, yet again, was consummately wrong.
The essence of the issue as to why people become violent is because nothing else works. Whites say to vote but even the vote is made harder for persons of color by Republican whites. Voter suppression is legally approved racism across this allegedly "democratic" nation. What is left? Answer: Anger and lots of it because a selected group of people feel systemically left out of the arc of justice even after all these years of struggle and you know what? I do not blame them because the arc of justice is bending away from and not towards them all the time!
Friday, August 15, 2014
The Fault
I
blogged the following in response to a news report entitled "Should
Obama Do More on Ferguson and Other Racial Issues?" Link below. Sorry
for the less than pristine prose. My anger got the best of me. Drat
that anger. The
article I blogged about is critical of the president on matters of
race! My
anger welled up and my head exploded.
Those who criticize our president should get OFF just GET OFF his back. This man gets opposition no matter WHAT he does. Do you think he knows we live in a racist nation? YOU BET HE DOES. So what should he do? Provoke a race war, just what the moron right wingnuts and NRA gun nuts are dying to have. Sure play into their rancid hands. Stand your ground laws are a state thing so what should he do get this venomous House to pass a law abandoning it in all 50 states? Right and I can climb Everest (I can't!) Republicans control state legislatures and governors' offices. Good luck trying to have control over them.
Those who criticize our president should get OFF just GET OFF his back. This man gets opposition no matter WHAT he does. Do you think he knows we live in a racist nation? YOU BET HE DOES. So what should he do? Provoke a race war, just what the moron right wingnuts and NRA gun nuts are dying to have. Sure play into their rancid hands. Stand your ground laws are a state thing so what should he do get this venomous House to pass a law abandoning it in all 50 states? Right and I can climb Everest (I can't!) Republicans control state legislatures and governors' offices. Good luck trying to have control over them.
How ANYONE on this planet can criticize this president for TRYING at
least TRYING to do what his heart has wanted from day one and that is be
a UNITER not a divider. It is IMPOSSIBLE with a white Republican racist
House that does NOT want to unite but wants to divide and take the president down.
It is a pre-Civil War era type obstructionist House, immoral and
rotten to its roots. How is a president going to overcome that? YOU
the voter did that to him and to the rest of us when you put in the ugly
white tea baggies to spew their venom and obstruct policy on every level. Our president can barely get an office appointment
through. And what did REPUBLICRATS want in 2010? To take away health care. Yes, health care so people can die without it because their Republicon heart
made of a rock does not care.
The fault dear Brutus is NOT in the stars or with our president but with YOU the voter who voted these poisonous snakes into office to stop the president at every corner because they simply do not like him and his skin color that comes with him. GET RepubliCONS OUT OF OFFICE in November BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY and then he will get something done for our nation in the process.
REGISTER DEMOCRATS, INDEPENDENTS AND ANYONE ELSE WHO WILL VOTE DEMOCRATIC IN NOVEMBER!
Thursday, August 14, 2014
The Gift - Robin Williams Honored On Broadway
Broadway yesterday dimmed its lights in tribute to this amazing man. The cast of Aladdin and its audience paid homage. (See link below.)
My challenge is accepting the loss of the cultural and the personal icons of my life. One by one they seem to leave me with the truth that my greatest challenge is the acceptance of the transitory mortal coil that wraps us all and the necessity, as Robin Williams if he could as other wise men have said, to love one another, be good to one another and treat one another as you would want to them to treat you.
In addition to Robin Williams's monumental talent his kindness to animals and humans alike was, I think, his greatest gift.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/13/robin-williams-broadway-aladdin-tribute_n_5677028.html
My challenge is accepting the loss of the cultural and the personal icons of my life. One by one they seem to leave me with the truth that my greatest challenge is the acceptance of the transitory mortal coil that wraps us all and the necessity, as Robin Williams if he could as other wise men have said, to love one another, be good to one another and treat one another as you would want to them to treat you.
In addition to Robin Williams's monumental talent his kindness to animals and humans alike was, I think, his greatest gift.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/13/robin-williams-broadway-aladdin-tribute_n_5677028.html
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Lauren Bacall -- A testament to perseverance
Her name was Betty Joan Perske. I thought, because of
the antiSemitism of the day this Jewish woman changed her name to Lauren
Bacall but no. While her first name Lauren may seem a bit anglicized
Bacall was not. It was her mother's maiden name dropping the name of
her father who left her mother and her at a very young age.
We lost two greats this week, one before his time (whatever that time was) and one of natural causes at 89. Lauren Bacall is a testament to perseverance losing the love of her life to cancer at a very young age. She persevered and married again even having another child.
Bacall worked well into her senior years significantly through an actress's looskist fear when the beauty of youth fades and the mirror of career death stares one in their face. Bacall, though, kept on going.
Williams and Bacall are testaments to two different reactions to the vicissitudes of life. We can give up when treatment does not work and end our suffering or we can persevere through it taking one more breath each day grateful that we won the lottery of life by simply being born.
Both were giants of American culture and I will miss them as I miss all who contribute and advance so much good in a world filled with so much observable anger, discord, violence and hate. They are a welcome calm, if just for a moment, through the storm of life.
We lost two greats this week, one before his time (whatever that time was) and one of natural causes at 89. Lauren Bacall is a testament to perseverance losing the love of her life to cancer at a very young age. She persevered and married again even having another child.
Bacall worked well into her senior years significantly through an actress's looskist fear when the beauty of youth fades and the mirror of career death stares one in their face. Bacall, though, kept on going.
Williams and Bacall are testaments to two different reactions to the vicissitudes of life. We can give up when treatment does not work and end our suffering or we can persevere through it taking one more breath each day grateful that we won the lottery of life by simply being born.
Both were giants of American culture and I will miss them as I miss all who contribute and advance so much good in a world filled with so much observable anger, discord, violence and hate. They are a welcome calm, if just for a moment, through the storm of life.
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Robin Williams -- A Tribute
Robin Williams resides in my own category of comedic brilliance among the
greats I have loved including George Carlin, Jonathan Winters, Sid
Caesar, Lucille Ball and the amazing Gilda Radner. Williams possessed, perhaps,
even a touch more than anyone else. He could do it all. His comedy like Mrs.
Doubtfire was side splitting hilarious but serious drama, too, was
included in his excellence. Good Will Hunting was an example of that excellence for
which he received an Academy Award.
When the artistic greats of our nation leave us either before their time or by natural causes I mourn their deaths. A piece of our American family, for me, dies with them. We, as a people, are more than war and more than ugly divided politics. These talents are a global gift. Great performers from the Bette Davises and Charlie Chaplins of another era to the Robin Williames of our own time provide another facet of our people known as much for our talented genius as for our military might.
They allow us to laugh at life and at ourselves while letting us forget, for a moment, the sad violent state of mankind. I will, indeed, miss him!
When the artistic greats of our nation leave us either before their time or by natural causes I mourn their deaths. A piece of our American family, for me, dies with them. We, as a people, are more than war and more than ugly divided politics. These talents are a global gift. Great performers from the Bette Davises and Charlie Chaplins of another era to the Robin Williames of our own time provide another facet of our people known as much for our talented genius as for our military might.
They allow us to laugh at life and at ourselves while letting us forget, for a moment, the sad violent state of mankind. I will, indeed, miss him!
Monday, August 11, 2014
Islamic State beheads, crucifies in push for Syria's east
Funny,
I can't recall ever hearing reports of the Israeli or American armies
beheading or crucifying Muslims or doing that to their own people!!
Scroll down to see link below:
http://news.msn.com/world/islamic-state-beheads-crucifies-in-push-for-syrias-east
Scroll down to see link below:
http://news.msn.com/world/islamic-state-beheads-crucifies-in-push-for-syrias-east
Friday, August 08, 2014
Out in Left Field
I am left of center but some on the left do not appear to
know, where the Islamic fundamentalist threat is concerned, what they are talking about. They cannot see the forest through the proverbial
trees. I would like them to live in an
Islamic fundamentalist state so they can experience the reality of true
tyranny.
Left of center journalists, scholars and commentators like
Noam Chomsky, Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill, Amy Goodman and many others with
whom I do, more often than not, agree are, in my opinion, on this issue,
absolutely blind to extremist fundamentalist doctrine. One need only read
the charter of Hamas in Gaza, the goals of which unequivocally call for the
elimination of the Jewish state and all of its Jews within, watch what
ISIS or ISIL do as they now take much territory in northern Iraq using US
weaponry stolen from the impotent corrupt Iraqi government Bush put into power,
and ISIL attempts at the shameful genocide of our friends the Kurds through starvation and
thirst.
Those journalists and others sympathetic to Hamas and other extremists are impervious to reality. They would not last two seconds in a
religiously fundamentalist nation state where there is not even the illusion of
a free press. ISIS and others like it
reduce humanity to an 8th century existence, beheading men who do not believe
as they do and subjugating women whom they value at best as second class citizens
and at worst less than dirt.
I am not duped by the word freedom or American
exceptionalism but now I do believe the only thing that stands between our
western way of life and the ISIS army of tyranny and death, who want to raise
the Sharia flag in Washington, is our exceptional military. ISIS and those
groups like it understand one thing -- force.
It is this nation's military might that gives Greenwald and
those like he, whose opinions are always critical of US policy but silent on
the vast killing machine that is Islamic fundamentalism, the freedom to say
what they want. Moreover, those involved
in Snowden's exposure of US classified material have made a gross calculation. Snowden will rot, at least for the next three
years, in Putin's tyranny that is Russia now!
Part of the left to which I am usually allied, I believe, is on this issue playing in left field without a glove.
They better hope that this nation can prevail against this vile menace
that threatens all of us and, make no mistake about it, may be coming to a theater near you.
Thursday, August 07, 2014
ISUS -- a Monstrous Tragedy
Iraq
is blowing up again as ISUS has captured large swaths of northern Iraq,
holding in Masada- ike fashion at the top of a mountain Christian Kurds
and others they do not relgiously like hostage denying them food and
water. They are dying of starvation and thirst.
Do NOT blame the president for ISUS. Blame the idiot Bush for taking out Sadam Hussein the ONLY stabilizing force in that violent neck of the woods. He knew his people and what they were capable of and kept the rancid lid on. Now the genie is out of the bottle impossible to contain.
Hussein was a sworn enemy of Iran, HATED Al Qaeda, never ever would have let them in and NEVER would the poisonous ISUS be there either. This is the Bush and the Cheney war crime. It is their doing and NOW we are paying the price. Iraq was lost, 5000 plus Americans dead, 2 trillion bucks and counting squandered. The US NEVER could have stayed there forever spilling American blood and treasure in that god forsaken insane place.
Do NOT blame the president like I know McCain and Lindsay Graham will. Republicans have a SHORT memory. This is Bush and Cheney's fault, it is their war and it is blowing up in our faces all over the Middle East.
This is an utter tragedy that cannot be understated. I do not know how the president can get up each morning and face the onslaught both abroad and Republican treasonous obstructionists to anything Obama at home. Iraq has been a monstrous tragedy and ISUS can, thanks to the US a dozen years ago, see a caliphate all over the Middle East!
Yet ANOTHER reason in November, 2014 to keep RepubliCONS OUT of the Senate, Democrats retake the House and by any means necessary in 2016 keep the presidency in Democratic hands. SIGN UP EVERYONE DEMOCRATS CAN COUNT ON TO VOTE and I am NOT kidding!
Do NOT blame the president for ISUS. Blame the idiot Bush for taking out Sadam Hussein the ONLY stabilizing force in that violent neck of the woods. He knew his people and what they were capable of and kept the rancid lid on. Now the genie is out of the bottle impossible to contain.
Hussein was a sworn enemy of Iran, HATED Al Qaeda, never ever would have let them in and NEVER would the poisonous ISUS be there either. This is the Bush and the Cheney war crime. It is their doing and NOW we are paying the price. Iraq was lost, 5000 plus Americans dead, 2 trillion bucks and counting squandered. The US NEVER could have stayed there forever spilling American blood and treasure in that god forsaken insane place.
Do NOT blame the president like I know McCain and Lindsay Graham will. Republicans have a SHORT memory. This is Bush and Cheney's fault, it is their war and it is blowing up in our faces all over the Middle East.
This is an utter tragedy that cannot be understated. I do not know how the president can get up each morning and face the onslaught both abroad and Republican treasonous obstructionists to anything Obama at home. Iraq has been a monstrous tragedy and ISUS can, thanks to the US a dozen years ago, see a caliphate all over the Middle East!
Yet ANOTHER reason in November, 2014 to keep RepubliCONS OUT of the Senate, Democrats retake the House and by any means necessary in 2016 keep the presidency in Democratic hands. SIGN UP EVERYONE DEMOCRATS CAN COUNT ON TO VOTE and I am NOT kidding!
Dan Rather statement on Israel
Israel has to lose a war just once and it is finished; Hamas and Islamic fanatics everywhere can lose a war a thousand times and come back to fight another day!
I wholeheartedly agree!
I wholeheartedly agree!
Saturday, August 02, 2014
Because we can: The Hispanic Vote
I
am trying to find a myriad of Hispanic/Latino web sites in which to
forward my message. Republicans are hanging a noose around their necks
and I could not be more thrilled. A Democratic sweep in the November,
2014 elections IS not out of reach. It will be hard but we can do it.
Democrats need to take back the House, keep the Senate and set
themselves up for a permanent majority. Please read the following
quickly written email to those who have humanitarian interests at heart
and forward it to any and all groups especially Hispanic/Latino ones you
may know!
The Republicon talk after their 2012 election blowout was just that .... talk. They said they needed to reach out to wider demographics meaning mainly the Hispanic vote. Romney even said to his cronies that the Hispanic vote is 100% necessary to court if one wants to win an election and will be even more so as more and more Hispanics vote.
The vote Friday on immigration by Republicans shows their ugly stripes. It was sickening. They are cruel, especially cruel to children, mean spirited and yes many are very racist. Republicans are a white only club for the rich even though they appeal to poor Baggers they truly do not even have their interests at heart.
OUR JOB IS TO SIGN UP ALL DEMOCRATIC VOTERS PAYING SPECIAL ATTENTION TO THE HISPANIC VOTE. They are key to a Democratic victory in November. I smell blood in the water in that I think it is possible given Republicons horrendous actions on so many things, I do not have time to enumerate them all, that Democrats CAN take the House back, keep the Senate and secure the presidency. The policies of Democrats we know favor an infinitely more diverse population. We need to in every single state INCLUDING the southern states especially Texas, Arizona, and Florida to do everything we need to do no matter Republicon attempts at voter suppression to sign up the Hispanic and other minority votes.
Republicans want to ditch the Dreamers and want to speed up deportations even unimaginably of 7 year olds. They do NOT want an immigration bill because they know they will be giving votes to Democrats. Well voting against one will take votes away from Republicans!
Republicon policies are mean, they are violent, they are morally wrong and indefensible. Send this to anyone you know who can sign especially Hispanics/Latinos up to vote en masse. Send this too to all those who need to sign up as a Democrat and if you know especially those out-of-state persons of color, get them OUT TO VOTE. They must know what they need to know to sign up and then do it. They need to get out on election day as was done in the 2012 election where many ... so many stood in line for hours because those Republican immoral bastards were trying like hell to take the vote of persons of color away.
So, pardon the passionate language, but our nation is at a crossroads. We can either have two more years of the same horrific obstructionist stagnant do nothing and know nothing politics while our infrastructure crumbles and climate change threatens the planet or we can have our nation back and allow it to be all it can be.
November, 2014 GET OUT THE VOTE. Hispanics, African Americans, women, the disabled, those in the military and the elderly the Democratic Party cares about them and because it cares about them it cares about the majority in this nation. Your life, my life and your children's lives depend upon a Democratic victory in November. DO it because we can!
Send this to anyone you choose!
ONWARD TO DEMOCRATIC VICTORIES!
The Republicon talk after their 2012 election blowout was just that .... talk. They said they needed to reach out to wider demographics meaning mainly the Hispanic vote. Romney even said to his cronies that the Hispanic vote is 100% necessary to court if one wants to win an election and will be even more so as more and more Hispanics vote.
The vote Friday on immigration by Republicans shows their ugly stripes. It was sickening. They are cruel, especially cruel to children, mean spirited and yes many are very racist. Republicans are a white only club for the rich even though they appeal to poor Baggers they truly do not even have their interests at heart.
OUR JOB IS TO SIGN UP ALL DEMOCRATIC VOTERS PAYING SPECIAL ATTENTION TO THE HISPANIC VOTE. They are key to a Democratic victory in November. I smell blood in the water in that I think it is possible given Republicons horrendous actions on so many things, I do not have time to enumerate them all, that Democrats CAN take the House back, keep the Senate and secure the presidency. The policies of Democrats we know favor an infinitely more diverse population. We need to in every single state INCLUDING the southern states especially Texas, Arizona, and Florida to do everything we need to do no matter Republicon attempts at voter suppression to sign up the Hispanic and other minority votes.
Republicans want to ditch the Dreamers and want to speed up deportations even unimaginably of 7 year olds. They do NOT want an immigration bill because they know they will be giving votes to Democrats. Well voting against one will take votes away from Republicans!
Republicon policies are mean, they are violent, they are morally wrong and indefensible. Send this to anyone you know who can sign especially Hispanics/Latinos up to vote en masse. Send this too to all those who need to sign up as a Democrat and if you know especially those out-of-state persons of color, get them OUT TO VOTE. They must know what they need to know to sign up and then do it. They need to get out on election day as was done in the 2012 election where many ... so many stood in line for hours because those Republican immoral bastards were trying like hell to take the vote of persons of color away.
So, pardon the passionate language, but our nation is at a crossroads. We can either have two more years of the same horrific obstructionist stagnant do nothing and know nothing politics while our infrastructure crumbles and climate change threatens the planet or we can have our nation back and allow it to be all it can be.
November, 2014 GET OUT THE VOTE. Hispanics, African Americans, women, the disabled, those in the military and the elderly the Democratic Party cares about them and because it cares about them it cares about the majority in this nation. Your life, my life and your children's lives depend upon a Democratic victory in November. DO it because we can!
Send this to anyone you choose!
ONWARD TO DEMOCRATIC VICTORIES!
Friday, August 01, 2014
Suggested Viewing
Excellent documentary from Frontline: "Losing Iraq." Why the Middle East including Israel is in utter turmoil and brutal war today. Watch it and weep for us because of the incompetent elected officials the US population puts into positions of great power.
Not ready for prime time players playing with thousands upon thousands of lives and it is NOT over yet. Coming I fear to a theater near you! Elections matter. REGISTER DEMOCRATS EVERYWHERE AND GET OUT THE DEMOCRATIC VOTE!!!! Pass this around to anyone you choose.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/losing-iraq/
Not ready for prime time players playing with thousands upon thousands of lives and it is NOT over yet. Coming I fear to a theater near you! Elections matter. REGISTER DEMOCRATS EVERYWHERE AND GET OUT THE DEMOCRATIC VOTE!!!! Pass this around to anyone you choose.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/losing-iraq/
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