COMMENTARY by NATALIE M. ROSEN

2012-02-15T18:27:00.013-05:00

The Not-So-Gay Marriage of Church and State: I was sent the post below by Juan Cole, a professor of history at the University of Michigan. He quoted a piece written by a guest columnist, Anouar Majid, for Professor Cole's blog “Informed Comment.”

Mr. Majid’s writing is entitled Greek Lessons for the Arab Spring. I agree with it in total. In our own alleged democracy there is an all-too-frightening history of powerful religious fundamentalist phenomena which is worrisome and distressing. I always knew, from my own political awakening many years ago, that a nationalist toxicity intertwined with populist religiosity existed but until this time I did not realize the extent of its madness.

The wedding of religion and state is much too close for comfort. The two entities are mutually oppositional and our Founders, men of the Enlightenment, knew it. Mr. Majid concentrating on the so called Arab spring, I believe, thinks so too. It made for interesting reading about the history of the Arab world little known in the west. He states as follows:

Greek Lessons for the Arab Spring

As the Arab Spring enters its second year and the whiff of democratic possibilities hovers in the air of many an Arab nation, a question that continues to be left unanswered is whether an Islamist worldview and democracy can truly co-exist in this climate of heightened expectations.

Revolts in Tunisia, Egypt, and Tunisia, as well as reforms in Morocco, with their insistence on Islamic solutions, have brought to the fore the twin but clashing heritages of the Arab world. Most of this world is part of the Mediterranean, but it is, by the same token, light years away from what the Romans once called their mare nostrum–our sea. The birth of Islam in the seventh century placed an insurmountable wedge between the northern and southern shores of this ancient basin and propelled both sides toward very different historical trajectories. The Romans learned from the ancient Greeks and laid down the cultural foundations of what we nowadays call the West; the Muslims, with the exception of a brief period when they built on Greek science and adopted parts of Greek philosophy, sought refuge in theology. Christian Europe did that, too, but the re-introduction of Greek thought (thanks, partly, to the Moorish philosopher Averroes) loosened the grasp of the Church and Europe was able to rediscover the legacies of ancient Greece and Rome.

Muslims have yet to do that. Most never study the ancient world and have a very foggy idea (at best) about the contributions of ancient Greece and republican Rome to political theory. Muslim religious scholars reject the entire pre-Islamic period as one of ignorance, while progressive intellectuals dismiss any reference to Greece and Rome as a Eurocentric plot, one that smacks of modern colonialism. Instead of claiming Greece and Rome as part of their Mediterranean legacy, they have surrendered such cultural rights to Germans and Americans, who are thousands of miles away from Athens. Greeks had no problem crediting Egyptians and Phoenicians with much of what they discovered, but contemporary Islamists are too sensitive about authenticity issues to do the same. The pathologies of this kind of thinking cannot be exaggerated. A terrorist organization that bombs churches in Nigeria is named Boko Haram, which, according to the New York Times, translates as “Western education is forbidden” or is a “sacrilege.”

Muslims need to overcome this mental barrier and not be fooled, once again, into renouncing the rich heritage of the ancient Greeks and Romans. It was the Greeks who first created democracy and explained the reasons for doing so; they also coined much of the terminology we use today. Even though the Romans invaded Greece, they learned from them and built the republic that inspired America’s Founding Fathers. The latter were deeply immersed in this ancient history; they read Roman authors and quoted them in conversations, essays and letters. One can’t imagine the American Republic without the Founding Fathers’ knowledge of Greece and Rome.

Yet the call for democracy in the Arab world today is unfolding without any education in Greek and Roman political histories. This is why I am not sure about the outcome of the Arab revolts and the rise of Islamic parties. Democracy and republicanism arose in pagan, polytheistic cultures, ones whose people could live with many gods; they came to an end with the domination of Christianity. Similarly, the American Revolution was the culmination of the 18th-century Enlightenment, when religion was being questioned by philosophers and tested by scientists.

Ancient Greece and Rome, much like 18th-century America and modern Europe, have understood that democracy and religion cannot mix in public affairs. Islam doesn’t make such distinctions and neither do many Muslims calling for democracy today. If you believe that God’s truth is final and nonnegotiable, you will have a hard time listening to others with different beliefs.

My sense is that Muslims and Arabs crave social justice but would care less about democracy, properly understood. Yet, without a culture of religious pluralism and cultural diversity, the life of the mind, which is the prerequisite for progress, cannot reach its full potential. And Muslims need development as badly as they need social justice. This is yet another reason why Arab and Muslim nations need to overhaul their curricula and rediscover, much as medieval Europeans did, the long-lost traditions of ancient Greece and Rome.
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Anouar Majid is the author, most recently, of Islam and America: Building a Future Without Prejudice (Rowman & Littlefield, 2012). He is director of the Center for Global Humanities at the University of New England.

2012-02-13T09:46:00.004-05:00

Crackpots and Cowards -- The Conservative Liberal Chasm: The following is, in my opinion, one of the most excellently written pieces I have read on the conservative/liberals divide which exists in this country today. It was written by Kurt Stone (not related to I.F. Stone) who is a rabbi, writer, lecturer, political activist, professor, actor, and medical ethicist. He was educated at the University of California, the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University and the Hebrew Union College, Stone holds a B.A. in American Political History, a Master of Hebrew Letters, and a Doctor of Divinity.

The main thrust of his article and contained in his quote is: "The conceptual stupidities of conservatism are more than matched by the strategic stupidities of liberalism. In short the conservative whole is simply not that bright. But if the conservative populous is not that bright then liberals who never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity are, in fact, often cowards.

Mr. Stone sends me his weekly opinions. You can view his website and other opinions of his by clicking on the link http://www.kurtfstone.typepad.com/

He sent the following piece:

An Essay With Something For Everyone to Dislike

If, God forbid, America ever becomes a second-rate nation, it will undoubtedly be because the cupidinous morons on the right have been aided and abetted by the weak-kneed cowards on the left. You read me correctly: the conservatives are morons; the liberals are cowards. The former is scientifically verifiable; the latter, anecdotally conjectural.

Last month, Gordon Hodson, a widely respected Professor of Psychology at Brock University in Ontario (Canada) published a long-awaited study in the journal Psychological Science. Entitled Bright Minds and Dark Attitudes, Professor Hodson's controversial study compared childhood intelligence with political views in adulthood across more than 15,000 people. Hodson and his colleagues came to the conclusion that " . . . lower general intelligence in childhood predicts greater racism in adulthood, and [that] this effect was largely mediated via conservative ideology." In other words, as summarized by the Daily Mail's Rob Waugh, "Right-wingers tend to be less intelligent than left-wingers, and people with low childhood intelligence tend to grow up to have racist and anti-gay views . . . . Conservative politics work almost as a 'gateway' into prejudice against others . . . . People with low intelligence gravitate towards right-wing views because they make them feel safe."

This by no means is meant to suggest that all conservatives are stupid. Goodness knows, it certainly takes clever people to convince a fearful segment of the American public of such patent inanities as:

· Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

· Those who claim that climate change is man-made are elitist members of an eco-fascist-communist-anarchist conspiracy.

· A tax break for the 1% is the only hope for the 99%.

· Any regulation that claims to prevent big banks and corporations from exploiting us, is in reality, an assault on working man and woman.

· The federal deficit results largely from the greed of the poor.

· The President of the United States is waging a war on religion.

Writing about the new conservatives in the online journal Truthout, former longtime GOP congressional staffer Mike Longren noted, "To be sure, the [Republican] party, like any political party on earth, has always had its share of crackpots . . . . But the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital center today: Steve King, Michele Bachman . . . Virginia Foxx, Louie Gohmert, Allen West. The Congressional directory now reads like a casebook of lunacy."

Not to be outdone, former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum (who coined the phrase "Axis of Evil") wrote in a recent New York article:

Backed by their own wing of the book-publishing industry and supported by think tanks that increasingly function as public-relations agencies, conservatives have built a whole alternative knowledge system, with its own facts, its own history, its own laws of economics. Outside this alternative reality, the United States is a country dominated by a strong Christian religiosity. Within it, Christians are a persecuted minority. Outside the system, President Obama, whatever his policy errors, is a figure of imposing intellect and dignity. Within the system, he’s a pitiful nothing, unable to speak without a teleprompter, an affirmative-action phony doomed to inevitable defeat. Outside the system, social scientists worry that the U.S. is hardening into one of the most rigid class societies in the Western world, in which the children of the poor have less chance of escape than in France, Germany, or even England. Inside the system, the U.S. remains (to borrow the words of Senator Marco Rubio) the only place in the world where it doesn’t matter who your parents were or where you came from.

Creating and selling (if not fully believing) this right-wing reality takes a lot of craftiness, if not downright intelligence; it also takes a trainload of cash and a cadre of folks who have no problem taking advantage of millions upon millions of what Lofgren calls "low-information voters." What the likes of the Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson, Foster Friese and the other right-wing billionaires (among those possessing the trainloads of cash) have discovered is that there is no pool too shallow in which millions cannot and will not drown.

But beyond the creating, the funding and the selling of this "alternate knowledge," there is the cowardice and downright complaisance of America's liberals and progressives. As Thomas Frank notes in his latest book, Pity the Billionaire much of the blame rests with liberals and progressives, who suffer from what he calls "terminal niceness." As the Guardian's George Monbiot describes it, the Democrats, ". . . fail to produce a coherent analysis of what has gone wrong and why, or . . . make an uncluttered case for social justice [and] regulation." Instead, he argues, they "triangulate and accommodate, hesitate and prevaricate."

Indeed, the conceptual stupidities of conservatism are more than matched by the strategic stupidities of liberalism. If ever the American political system is to right itself, the Right will have to stop feeding caustic misinformation to a haunted, fearful, low-information public, and the Left will have to overcome its reticence and shout STOP!

Enough of this even-handedness! Let us end with one last quote . . . from John Stewart Mill:

“Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.”

I could not have said it any better than he!

2012-02-10T19:35:00.004-05:00

A Letter to Daniel Goldhagen: Dear Professor Goldhagen: I came across several Utubes of your conversations with Mr. Heffner about your brilliant book "Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust." I had the distinct pleasure around 1996 to listen to you lecture at Facing History in Brookline. Ever since that evening I have been smitten with your articulate expression and analysis of not only German history during the Holocaust period but also how it relates to our contemporary experience as well. I did buy your first book and at some point when I finish my stack of reading I would love to read your work A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and Its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair as well as current writings on contemporary antisemitism.

I am 63 years old, born in 1948 in a suburb of Boston. Since my first introduction to the Holocaust by my parent's discussion of it and how it related to our experience as American Jews to the first documentary I saw at age 10 on the Nazi death camps with all the infamous pictures of the mountains of skeletons, piles of shoes, spectacles and other gruesome Holocaust detail not a day goes by that I am not thinking in some way about the experience of the Jewish people -- the six million. When the weather is hot, when the weather is cold, when springtime arrives ultimately followed in time by the chill of fall I think about the Jews of Europe. I think about the camps and how they survived the harsh elements with no food, no water, living and dying in unspeakable conditions. I think about my grandparents who immigrated to America at the turn of the 20th century. They came from Kiev and Minsk. The shtetls where they were born, of course, were cleansed of Jews. Had they stayed there I would not be writing this email.

As the years pass, as human beings are inclined memories fade, generations pass and those skeletons long since turn to dust and are gone with the wind. I am glad and hope that you keep our people's memory alive never ceasing to talk of the onslaughts we faced, how we endured and indeed prospered so that never again truly means never again and Jewish memory of our tragic history and perseverance under great assault goes on. It is not only a lesson for our time it is a lesson for the ages. When we have long passed the ever present phenomenon and questions of man's inhumanity to man, his ethics, morality and the power of the state over him will remain. The questions of what is good, right and permissible are eternal and will never die.

Thank you for writing some of the most insightful, complete, and eminently articulate books of our time. You are a joy to all who have the pleasure of hearing and reading your words and to those who yearn for a more just world.

2012-02-10T17:26:00.001-05:00

I heard this fellow speak at "Facing History" in Brookline. He wrote and spoke on his book: "Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust".

Great discussion on PBS by a brilliant young Harvard scholar, Daniel Goldhagen, of the Holocaust period and after. This is Part I. There are two more dialogues "More about Hitler's Willing Executioners and then Part II. Fascinating discussion with one of the most articulate scholars I have ever had the pleasure to hear.

Here is the link: http://video.pbs.org/video/1512022073

2012-02-10T13:18:00.002-05:00

The Trojan Horse: It is OBVIOUS that the Republican Party of extremist obstructionism is bringing up the issue of contraception they dragged out of the cobwebs with their sole intent on ramming President Obama out of office. This was their goal from day one of his election. Obviously, now that the economy is somewhat better the president has defused their one big tool in their toolbox so they drag out the social issues when Republicans have nothing else to use as ammunition to forge the assault and win the day. The issue of contraception will NOT work either as about 99% of women avail themselves of it, a large majority of whom are Catholics. The president, though, wanted to head them off at the pass. If the Republicans remain intractable (which they probably will) it is THEIR bad not the president’s. Over the past several months Republicans have looked worse than bad they appear concussive and near death.

Sometimes I have disagreed with the president for not being progressive enough BUT not on this one and not on anything else either. I am as I have always been front and center in favor of his reelection. I loved the president in 2008 and I love him now. Probably I always will! Win, Mr. President, in 2012 you SO deserve it and so do we.

2012-02-07T18:48:00.002-05:00

Cancer and the CEO's: A friend of mine sent me these sites below. One is a trailer of a documentary coming out soon called "Pink Ribbon, Inc." There is always a story behind the story!

"Just another point of view about the Komen organization. First of all, I stopped buying into the "pink ribbon" mindset a long time ago. I had learned years ago that the big cancer organizations (Am. Cancer Society, etc.) had on their boards people who were CEOs of major chemical and pharmaceutical companies, and the main purpose for the cancer orgs was to keep the public from investigating into the truth of what CAUSES cancer: chemical pollution, the environment, toxins that we put into and on our bodies, etc. The Internet is filled with articles that talk about these conflicts of interest. Here are a couple of links, but I'm sure there are many others:

http://www.preventcancer.com/losing/acs/wealthiest_links.htm
http://www.whale.to/cancer/breast6.html

So, as far as Komen and the pink-ribbon culture, they also NEVER, EVER mention prevention, only "The Cure." Cancer is a tremendous industry, lining the pockets of many. There's a new documentary that's just been released in Canada on this subject. Here's a link to its trailer, if you'd like to check it out:

http://news.moviefone.com/2012/02/03/pink-ribbons-breast-cancer-movie_n_1252824.html?ref=moviefone

I remember a few years ago talking to a breast cancer survivor who complained that "breast cancer isn't pink, it isn't cute, it isn't fun. It's scary and it's ugly, and I HATE, HATE, HATE how they have twisted this into a multimillion dollar industry." (Or something like that.)

There ARE organizations that are trying to educate about cancer prevention (one of them is mentioned in the link above, but again, there are many others). Screening has nothing to do with prevention. "Prevention" can wipe out an industry. Not that we will see that in our lifetime, of course. But I, for one, have had enough of pink ribbons; walk, run and jump for the cure; and seeing ads trying to lure people into feeling good about spending money on food and products that actually cause cancer."

2012-02-07T10:42:00.004-05:00

PLANNED SUBVERSION FOILED: Headlines will soon read Handle VP at Komens who began the lie about and tried to defund Planned Parenthood resigns. VICTORY!! Unfortunately this may have done permanent damage to Komens who now is seen in an adversarial light. Their bad and to the good of Planned Parenthood who gets the spill over in funding!

Still a few kudos to Komens BUT it NEVER EVER should have become an issue! Too many women who need cancer screenings and a cure lose if that is the case. It is about women NOT lies perpetrated by wingnuts about abortion. Abortion as Santorum out and out lied does NOT cause cancer but plenty of other things may.

Susan Komens died and the Walk for the Cure began. I hope Komens now does not suffer from this egregious and utterly STUPID action of the Komen's Vice President Karen Handle who infiltrated a group and with her Republican cronies tried to subvert the good works of Planned Parenthood. Handle is a traitor to the cause of women's health. Good riddance and don't forget to close the door, Karen, on your way out!

2012-02-05T12:28:00.001-05:00

Religious Poison and the Middle East: I am for peace and do not give a rat's petuti how it is done. I want the killing to stop and for sixty years those in power have utterly failed to do this. I want Jewish blood to stop flowing and I want Arab blood and the blood of children to stop as well. Alas, religious wingnutism is alive and well on both fronts and most especially in this country.

Organized religion is the pariah of mankind and will do NOTHING but get us all killed so that each group can march up to their respective sky god's domicile and do exactly what? The mythologies of man will be the destruction of him. The core to which religion presciently appeals is a universal fear of illness, aging and ultimately death. Religious power is smart as it takes man's greatest fears and sells religions' art to make a bundle of bucks even if it means killing millions in the process.

Christopher Hitches title of his book was on the mark. "Why God is Not Great -- How Religion Poisons Everything." From where I sit it surely does exactly that!

2012-02-05T12:19:00.000-05:00

The Warning: If you want to see a return to the Bush-on-steroids era that brought us the Great Recession, illegal and immoral war, if you want to see the banksters of Wall Street allowed to steal more of your money through deception and fraud go unpunished, if you want to see people get kicked out of their medical insurance for a pre-existing condition of a hangnail, if you want to see housing foreclosures by the ton, if you want to see government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich then Romney the empty suit, flip-flopper-in chief is your 1% guy. But if you want to elect a president that has his heart with the 99% then re-elect the president.

Our president has faced an avalanche of Republican opposition. The things he HAS done have been most often amazingly good. The Supreme Court on the next president's watch will either reaffirm government by the superpacs or form a more equitable union. No one is perfect least of all ANY Republican. In a second term WITH a more supportive Congress our president Obama can and WILL do better!

All one must do is view those whom the Republican Party depends upon for their support. For each Republican candidate there is the support of mainly whites. If you do not see the racism of that party then look to those who are behind the Republican candidates when they give their win (or loss) speeches. It is a sea of white. That is not by chance it is by design. That is whom they WANT to appeal. It has been their "southern strategy" since 1968 and they are organized as we were in 2008. We MUST be again in 2012.

The return of the American archaic states' rights philosophy of the Civil War era in the south is CAMOUFLAGE for what they really mean and that is to shut out and prevent persons of color and other minorities from attaining power by depriving them of the vote. They are a return to the Jim Crow era of literacy tests and poll taxes. They ARE the party of white even though they sometimes trot out one or two persons of color to make it seem as if they are equitable. They are NOT. They are NOT the party of Lincoln. The Democratic Party since FDR has become the more equitable, ethical and diverse party. It is a party which truly represents this country in the 21st century.

GET your Democratic and Independent posteriors to the voting booth in November and re-elect someone whose philosophical principles are for most of YOU! Re-elect the president by encouraging and helping ALL whom you know to sign up, register to vote, and go to the polls to vote Democratic across the board next fall. Nothing short of all our lives depends upon it.

2012-02-03T14:00:00.002-05:00

Well, praise the Lord!! Maybe my opinion plastered on Facebook and everywhere else paid off! I had a lot of company however.

See the NYT link below entitled:

"Cancer Group Backs Down on Cutting Off Planned Parenthood"

Smart decision, Komens. I cannot help feel that progressive voices that cry out in anger at this insane right wingnut religious fundamentalist junk that has been heaved at women for decades CAN pay off. This cannot and MUST not be the end. We must renew our women's rights voices again before Roe v. Wade is a memory and women begin to die from back alley abortions -- poor women that is. The rich always manage to protect themselves.

If one does not want an abortion by all means do NOT have one but keep your hands OFF my body. Remember these wingnuts are still in the minority. Most women even IF they would never or have never had an abortion themselves would protect a woman's right to choose her own fate!

Victory never tasted so sweet -- today at least!

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/03/cancer-group-backs-down-on-cutting-off-planned-parenthood/?hp#comments

2012-02-03T09:24:00.012-05:00

Blogging for the Cure: An issue surrounding the Susan Komen’s Foundation, an entity geared to the ever-so-laudable goal of finding a cure for breast cancer, is burning up the airwaves and the blogosphere because the Komen’s Foundation made the egregious decision to remove its $2,000,000 grant from the much revered and infinitely helpful Planned Parenthood. The outcry of this unconscionable act is stunning. The reason given for Komen’s pulling its grant is that Planned Parenthood is being “investigated” by a Republican dominated House committee. We all know this is a right wing Republican political subversive tactic against Planned Parenthood with no rationale but to legally impose an ideological right wing extremist agenda on the nation. Local Planned Parenthoods have been inundated by state and local red state officials making impossible demands to serve this end. The red-state agenda has been gunning (sometimes literally) for Planned Parenthood for a very long time.

The Komen’s Foundation surreptitiously infiltrated at its hierarchical top a right wing extremist Republican ideologue who decided if Planned Parenthood could not be taken down in the passage of the Obama Administration’s health care legislation then it would taken down by a CIA-like maneuver insinuating its insanity through power at top.

Abortion and even contraception now has become the cause célèbre that our nation’s albatrosses on the right have heaped upon the rest of us who want those decisions to fall under an implied right to privacy. They have been relentlessly pursuing over decades the overturn of the SCOTUS Roe v. Wade decision by any means necessary even if it means the murder of doctors who provide vital reproductive care in a sterile, clean and safe professional environments where the patient can feel privacy protected and secure.

Planned Parenthood’s total abortion service is a mere 3% of their entire care. Yes, doctors at Planned Parenthood provide safe and legal abortions even IF it is only 3% of what they do. The procedural majority of Planned Parenthood is concerned with cancer screening and many other medical procedures needed by women (and men) for their reproductive health. The money pulled by Komen’s will affect that majority.

The right wingnut religious extremists will stop at nothing to spread their poisonous doctrine. They would return us to glorious yesteryear of back alley illegal unsafe abortions when women were butchered by quack abortionists, bled to death or became infertile from an illegal, unsterilized and unsafe abortion costing thousands. It is time for the pro choice movement take back the issue of women’s reproductive freedom as the religious Republican extremist right whittles away a woman’s right to control own her own body.

Since when have fetuses in the measure of a few weeks into pregnancy been called an “unborn child?” This term gives personhood to an entity without the mother’s body and out-of-utero would cease to exist BUT I do not care what anyone’s views on abortion are. If you do not like or want to have an abortion DON’T but leave other women’s bodies to themselves.

I am blogging for a cure to narrow minded, stupid, insensitive, idiotic religious fanaticism which cares NOTHING for the life of a full term human being but allegedly cares more about the life of a fetus. I cannot agree and I do not HAVE to agree with wingnuts who will be responsible for the death of women – many poor -- if they cannot affordably get the array of Planned Parenthood services they need.

A personal note: I was born in 1948. I had a sister that was born five years before me. She lived less than ten days because of significant birth defects. My father, at that time, had scheduled one of the premier surgeons at Boston Children’s Hospital to repair the facial and intestinal deformities but her birth weight tumbled and she died.

In pertinent part my mother, emotionally fragile, was devastated. I asked my father where the baby was buried. He did not know because he said the baby was so young that by Jewish law no Jewish funeral was necessary, no Jewish rites for the dead observed and no shiva (a memorial week of visitation) was held. He said that the orthodox rabbi had told him then that the child was not, in Jewish tradition, imbued with a sense of “personhood” until after a 30 day period of life. This he said saved the mother the torment that would come with observing the Jewish extended death ritual by relieving her of the burden which she was not mentally and physically able to endure. Views may differ now but that is what he was told then.

I relate this story to emphasize the difference Jewish law was from Catholic or fundamentalist Christian law. The mother’s life in Jewish law is usually paramount. Is Jewish law any better than Christian law? NO it is simply different as are the myriad of views, religious and non-religious concerning the incendiary issue of when personhood and life begins.

Ironically, Susan G. Komen the namesake of the Komen’s breast cancer foundation was Jewish. Those who are Jewish, as I am, know that most Jews consider the mother’s life to be paramount if the fetus’s life endangers the life of the mother. Not all religions think the same and not all people think the same about this issue. Traditions and beliefs differ.

Do what you want with your own body and if you do not want an abortion do not have one but leave that personal choice and the attendant medical choices women need for reproductive and other health issues to the woman, her physician and, if she has a belief in one, her god.

I advocate the public post haste switch monetary and volunteer support from the Susan Komen’s Foundation to Planned Parenthood. You will not regret your choice!

2012-02-01T09:22:00.005-05:00

The Elephant in the Room: A Romney presidency representing the 1% richest is unacceptable. We must sound the alarm to every city and town in this country fighting to re-elect the president. The president's base and independents alike must vote for him. There is no other alternative. I think and I hope his base as well as a plethora of Independents understand where this destructive economic Great Recession came from and that they will NOT put into power another shinier version of Team Bush who ran the economy into the ground with his trumped up wars, tax cuts for the rich and Wall Street anarchistic unregulated mania.

We must also fight voter suppression, a tactic that is a throw back to the old Jim Crow post Civil War era. This is what the Republican Party is about. It is about reactionary regression. It is about interposition and nullification that hearkens back to a brutal antebellum south. We must not return this country to a shameful era.

Romney will appeal Obama's health care change -- as if he alone could do that -- ? The health care legislation was not everything I wanted because of vicious Congressional obstructionism but at least insurance companies will be forced to pay for your children longer and most importantly they can not ditch you for a preexisting condition. It contained other very good measures. This is what rancid Republicans want to repeal. With a Republican presidency all our lives are at risk as, despite the lies, they WILL go after Social Security and Medicare too IF we give them the chance by electing them!

Romney will say and do anything to win as we can see through his past statements on tape. The president's base and independents alike MUST come out to support him as if it were 2008 times 10 because it is! If you noticed, as I did, that both Romney and Gingrich supporters were nearly ALL white. There was a sea of white faces behind the Republican candidates. Our diverse Democratic base cannot let a Romney presidency happen and split us apart even more then we already are.

The racist Tea Bag bunch is loaded for bear and we must be too. We must win this hunt without question and stronger than anyone ever thought we could. Tea Baggers may not accept a black man and his family in the White House but thank God most of this country are not Tea Baggers. Racism, indeed, is the big Republican elephant in the room. No one can convince me otherwise and those policies that are attendant to the Republican Party are NOT about most of you.

2012-01-31T15:26:00.007-05:00

Irretrievably Split: The town of East Haven, CT is involved in allegations and a federal investigation against the police department and its chief for discrimination against Latinos. When the Republican Mayor Maturo was asked what he was going to do he made an idiotic, insane, condescending racist comment "I'm going to go home and eat tacos!" What kind of a rotten disparaging Marie Antoinettean comment is that?

I am going to tell you this: You may ask why has the political conversation become SO incendiary, so rancid and so uncivil. I think I can tell you why whether it is in East Haven or Washington against our president. Whites are scared. They are scared to the depths of their genetic code that their power and their majority are slipping away. And guess what? THEY ARE! Deal with it. If white racists mostly in the Republican Party do not get a grip and change the essence of their party geared for implosion they will in one generation be extinct as the minorities of today become the majorities of tomorrow.

The Democratic Party and its basic values, although at times guilty of similar economic disparities, generally speaking, is an infinitely more inclusive party with a much fairer equally fervent political base.

Republicans, get a handle on what is happening in your party. The talk is divisive, it is incendiary and explosive even among your own. Reagan's commandment goes unheeded: "Never speak ill of a fellow Republican." Personally, I could not care less that the Republican Party is probably irredeemably split down the middle geared for implosion. In one more generation or even less the Republican Party will be irrelevant and none to soon for me!

2012-01-30T22:34:00.002-05:00

A Vote for All of Us: A fellow Democrat sent me an email today stating that he cast his vote for Barack Obama along with a host of other Democrats for various electoral offices in the Democratic primary to be held in March. I sent him an email in return. It read:

Kudos to you. You cast a vote for ALL of us who are not part of the greedy 1%. You cast a vote so that millions of us and generations that come after us will have a shot at the American Dream allowing us to breathe free. Now use your voice and I will use mine to shout loud and clear that a vote for any Republican is a vote to keep us and our voices down. We vote Democratic because of ALL the other ideals for which the Democratic party stands.

We all must go, throughout the land and proclaim as our president did we are ONE nation. We are not all black, we are not all white, we are not all Christian, we are not all Jewish or Muslim nor are we all straight but we are made up of a tapestry of humanity that deserves a fair shot. Republicans will not do that for us. They will simply keep us dumbed down and in our place allowing Wall Street to get away with literally murder once again. We must NOT let them. With a Democratic House and Senate and the re-election of our president more change for the 99% WILL come to America. I KNOW it will.

Let us go united to every city and town, and speak out against injustice, speak out against the voter ID requirement, speak out about voter suppression,speak out about egregious economic inequality engineered by Wall Street with the help of their Capitol friends and speak out against war. Yet again we are called as the great Martin Luther King pronounced the clarion call to us in my time:

We will speed the day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles,Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing... Free at last, free at last,thank God Almighty, I'm free at last.

2012-01-29T00:15:00.001-05:00

A Matter of the Utmost Importance: I believe it is never too early to remind people to register to vote. Your vote is the ONLY thing you and we have to grab the power and wrest it from the control of the top 2% wealthiest. As we can see in the Republican primaries the amount of money necessary to compete is beyond obscene it is the most destructive evil our supposedly democratic system has injected by the rancid vote of five unconscionable conservatives on the Supreme Court that inflicted the dastardly Citizens United decision upon this land proclaiming corporations as people. That is NOT what our founders had in mind and if you think it is horrible now you have not seen anything until another Republican is in office. Most of your power will be neutered and the top 1% crony capitalist system will prevail. It will and is now mainly an oligarchy where control of your lives is vested in the ultra wealthy and they do NOT care about you!

I write this so you will know NOT to even think about staying home next November. That would be unacceptable. Reality speaks and the reality is we have a two party system. You may WANT a multiparty system but for the next election at least that is NOT what we have. The choice is crystal clear. Democrats EVERYWHERE not only here in Mass but in EVERY state in the nation must be rounded up and herded into the election booth to vote for President Obama to re-elect him. This is more than imperative it is life sustaining.

If you care about Social Security being saved, Medicare to save the lives of the disabled and elderly, and Medicaid to help the poor, unemployment benefits, a rectification of the weak economy caused by Republicans then voting for a Democratic president is a MUST DO. Beyond that and if you do not care about anything else OR you are angry for what was done or not done by the president then think on this: In the next four years most probably TWO Supreme Court justices will be chosen by a president and perhaps even three will be chosen. The vital questions of the day from marriage to women's control of their own bodies to privacy to most importantly HUMONGOUS money in politics will be decided by the Court. All life sustaining polices will be at risk. The air you breath, the water you drink, the food you eat, the global warming of the planet and science itself is at risk BUT if President Obama is elected none of that will be at risk and he will get to choose the justices of the Supreme Court where it may be possible to overturn the disgustingly malevolent Citizen's United decision.

The Court has created a monster in the land and one that wants to swallow whole all the money and power and keep it in Republican often racist Tea Bagger hands and out of YOUR hands. DO NOT ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN. If one looks at the sea of white faces at the Republican rally it tells you something. It tells you that that rancid party wants to return to another century with restrictive voting rights, restrictive rights against women, a Nativist mentality of the 19th century and an aggressive foreign policy that could get you and your children killed. DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN. IF we can turn the House blue again, keep the senate and keep President Obama in the oval office you will have made a decision to protect your life and those who come after you. DO NOT FALTER AND DO NOT FAIL to vote and to vote Democratic. By the way tell ALL your relatives and friends here and everywhere to do so as well. My deceased relative to her dying day believed in our president and that he would win in a landslide. I want to see that it happens for her memory and for us and the generations that come after us. But it cannot happen unless you vote and think upon the MANY MANY reasons the President should receive your vote.

He has not done it all as NO president ever has but he HAS done a lot. Beyond that all of that federal judges' positions will be filled by him. So much is riding on your Democratic vote there is no time here to enumerate everything. So we must rely on each other and have the president's back. Tell him you are with him by the number of your votes cast and he will listen. The second term IF he gets congressional support we will see the kind of change we as progressives expect. He will not fail us so let us not fail him.

2012-01-28T19:30:00.001-05:00

"A Cry from the Heart": The writing below was sent to me by a Middle East scholar with whom I sometimes correspond. He is well known for his support of much of the Palestinian cause. He sends me a daily opinion called "Informed Comment." Often he and I do not agree but his scholarship is well beyond the scope of mine. Sometimes I must defer to his views or remain silent as they are based on much more than my capacity to, with veracity, disagree.

He sent to me one of the most beautiful writings I have ever had the pleasure to read. It appeared in the French newspaper Le Monde on January 19, 2012. I would entitle it as the sender did "A Cry from the Heart." Read it and cheer for a Tunisian Jew, a supporter of the Arab spring but haunted by the brutal ever-present chant in Jewish historical memory of "Death to the Jew" uttered yet again this time by a band of Tunisians greeting at the airport a Palestinian leader from Hamas.

No matter which side of the plethora of Middle Eastern issues you fall this brilliant piece written by Hélé Béji captivates in poetic form, the Jewish crucible, the Jewish heart and Jewish history. It is why, in my opinion, the Jew remains skeptical of renewal and rebirth in the Arab world. It is why Never Again, the chant in response to the Holocaust, must never die. The article is attached below.

Hélé Béji, a prominent woman writer from an old notable family in Tunis, was outraged by an incident in early January when a small crowd of religious extremists at the airport in Tunis to greet a visiting Hamas leader chanted “Death to the Jews.” She published this cry of the heart in Le Monde on January 19, and kindly consented for it to be translated and appear at Informed Comment in English.

Tunisians do not betray the ideals of your revolution!
by Hélé Béji, writer.

Tunisians, you rose up against tyranny and injustice with true hearts: you were righteousness. You have illumined the world of the flame of your dignity: you were humanity. You made your streets ring with cries of generosity: you were fraternity. You have rekindled the sense of valor of the next generation: you were goodness itself. You have won the esteem of all by your panache: you were pride. You smiled with your million different faces: you were tolerance.

But recently at Tunisia’s Carthage International Airport, you were not fair, or fraternal, or worthy, not great, neither good nor human. By pounding your raised fists and shouting “Death to Jews!”—or worse, “Killing the Jews is a duty”– you offered the spectacle of a crazed phalanx that plunges us into stupor and affliction. Not only have you failed in your endeavor, but you have insulted the Palestinian cause, in deploying slogans as mordant as those used by their enemies. You have betrayed the message of your faith.

What? Within the space of a few months? Your peaceful nature turned fanatic? Within a few months you have changed your character? In the world of feelings, it is only a few seconds. Within seconds, the infectious bite of human wickedness turned you toward low fellowship of racist impulses. Suddenly, your friendly faces took on a gloomy mien. Your bright eyes were draped in black. You are few in number?

A tiny minority, they tell me? Maybe, but I do not want to know, I do not care. You have made possible the unbearable, by voicing the very idea of the mass murder of the Jews of Tunis. This is enough to degrade us all. You have begun to distil a dark poison in the credulous soul of a good-natured and kind people.

I do not recognize you, Tunisians, I do not recognize you. You have frozen in my veins that admiration to which you had given birth, you have spoiled the taste in my mouth of our land of birth, you have rendered me indifferent to its light, you have ruined the image of your heroism, you smothered the music of our nation that had played in my heart. Are you the same, Tunisians? Are you the ones who shouted in chorus: “Muslims, Jews, Christians, we are all Tunisians”?

Between this and that other, joyous crowd, what resemblance? Who are you, lovers of humanity or fundamentalists? Which of these portraits is most accurate? Which one will win? You made the first romantic revolution of the twenty-first century, with the inimitable skill of thwarting violence by playful and tolerant means, you are not Tunisians for nothing. And now you’re trying to glorify violence by obscure undertakings, with the torment of which you have already well acquainted.

Victorious victims

You have caused a regime to fall, guided by an inspiration higher than ethnicity, identity, religion, or tribe. You placed yourselves above chauvinism and prejudice. Your liberty was delivered from narrow identity. Or rather, that was your identity, getting rid of the last vestiges of decolonization. You did not make your revolution against Western culture, against imperialism, against Zionism, against the infidels, against the Jews. No. You revolted against yourselves.

And now what are you doing? Behind the wall of fear that you broke, you erect ferocious sentinels, who chant odious slogans. Have you entered into a reign of dignity, only to make it so undignified? Have you embraced equality, only to better snuff it out? Have you ascended to freedom only to track it down now with a pack? Despotism, formerly concentrated in one person, has now left the head of the body politic to course through all the nerves of that body, giving it frightful shocks. The damage was limited today, but it ramifies through the branches of our being, it is the responsibility of all.

One of two things. Either: you bestow on your minorities rights just as sacred as your own, and you forbid yourselves to inflict on them the sort of exile you suffered. Then you would show that your dreams have not in vain raised the hopes of those who, throughout the world, recognized in you their conscience. Or: your reason is abandoned for the idolatry of racism, sexism and xenophobia, and you ruin your morality with infractions of a sort committed by the crudest members of society, in a primitive cacophony.

I know that victorious victims may one day go over to the executioners. This is the reproach you launch at the Israelis. But you, do not be blinded by the rage of historical revenge. Remain at the heights of the Enlightenment of your revolution. Does not endorse the guilty who are chasing innocents to degrade and persecute. Do not drive the revolution backwards, nor consign your minorities to hell. You who have known the secret police, do not be self-described agents of Heaven armed with the swords of inquisition and punishment to terrify your brothers. Journalists, academics, women, French speakers, the Jews … that’s a lot of people that you blame, denounce, assault, beat, molest. It is too much.

Remember that it only took one pariah, who was among the walking dead, for all Tunisians to be reborn. Now it only takes one Tunisian Jew to be insulted for us all to be insulted, without exception. The offense is collective, the answer is unanimous: “We are all Tunisian Jews.”

Hélé Béji is also the author of “We, the decolonized” (Arlea, 2008) and “Islamic Pride: behind the veil” (Gallimard, 2011)
Article published in the 1/19/12 edition of Le Monde.

2012-01-26T09:10:00.009-05:00

In Memoriam: The blog I sent about my much loved relative who much loved the President reinforces how important it is to vote for him. She was, indeed, the most fervent supporter of our president I have ever known. The only one who supports our president more I think is his wife.

I am posting this because the person who loved President Obama so much is testament to how good the president really is despite the criticisms levied sometimes even from the base. I wrote it not only for the values it expressed but to reiterate that which some of us in our desire to get things done ignore. My relative, friend and fellow blogger, Bonnie, never did. She remained steadfast loyal to our president until the end of her life which life a vicious cancer took in five months.

I believe it is a truth ALL of us should heed to make sure no Republican toxicity and brutality yet again invades our land. If you want to and can support this campaign I enclose a link to re-elect President Obama. http://www.barackobama.com/obama-for-america-2012-campaign?source=OM2012_LB_G_Obama2012-search_bo-reelect_d1c&gclid=CIKOxojy7a0CFULe4AodFnok7A

Feel free to send this to anyone you choose to catapult everyone to the polls November, 2012 to re-elect the president and while you're at it I enclose a link to the Democratic Party to imperatively turn the House of Representatives blue again! http://www.democrats.org/?nosplash=true

2012-01-24T09:32:00.004-05:00

Reflections on the Loss of a Family Member and a Friend--My Ode to HER Immortality: On Saturday, a family member and friend in my life died well before her time. Her name was Bonnie. I am finding it difficult concentrating on things political when the person whom I knew and who loved politics as much as I is not here. She was responsible for much of my analysis as nearly every day we volleyed the various opinions we shared on our respective blogs. She was a strong personality and an equally strong supporter of our president. It was that which brought us even closer within her decades-long marriage to my cousin. I considered her not only related to me by marriage but also a friend by her nature as well. We were very much alike in our strong ethical and humanitarian views as well as in our personality strength. It almost seemed at times as if we were a DNA genomic match.

I have not been able to write since her death because nothing seems that important to me at the moment. I think, though, she would want me to keep writing as I have, getting published at times, becoming a guest on a talk show and posting on my blog. I hope I will continue to do that despite my bereavement. Even when I think there is nothing more about which I want to write yet again some synaptic connections appear. They are today thoughts about her and the realities we all face or will at one time or another.

It brings up to me the many usual feelings of how short life is and how no one knows the way or the hour. It emphasizes that which we often hear – if you love someone tell them now. If you dislike someone forgive them and yes, if possible, turn the other cheek. The regret I have now is that, perhaps, I did not tell her enough that I loved her, that I did not tell her enough how much her views meant to me, that I did not tell her enough how talented she was and, perhaps, I even did not apologize enough when we disagreed.

Perhaps I did not do enough of all of those things so I will do them now publicly and eternally for my blog. I say to her spiritual essence: I love you, Bonnie. I will never forget your thoughts, I will never forget your loyalty to our president, I will never forget your ethical values of honesty, loyalty, passion of purpose and most of all caring about the generations who follow whether your own or those of our nation.

I will miss you, Bonnie, more than I can say and will think about you every day. Your voice will be sitting on my shoulder when I write as you say write but write carefully and ditch the CAPS. I will try to implement much that you have said as a testament and as an honor to your wonderful legacy. It is my ode to your immortality and, perhaps, to my own as well. You have taught me much and as difficult as it will be to write on my tear-stained keyboard I will. I will do it always with you in mind!

All my love,
Nat

2012-01-20T08:44:00.004-05:00

Discrimination of Gays in Israel?: I offer the link below my relative sent to me which is in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. It is about discrimination of homosexuals in Israel. This is what reinforces my point always that is it is not a specific religion that runs roughshod over this time gay people wanting to eliminate or deprive "the other" in general of their rights and even their life but it is the fundamentalist varieties of religious belief which are the toxic poison.

The positive thing about Israel in this instance is at least they can print a story like this and not be taken down ... yet ... and at least there are more than a few in Israel who deplore and are against this type of discrimination. STILL, it is worrisome that these orthodox groups and extremists are gaining power in Israel.

If so, as much as I love Israel, I will be against those groups and the Israeli policy they engender as forcefully as I am against any other Christian or Islamic fundamentalist belief -- really ALL religious orthodoxies which are cruel, inhuman, just plain irrational and whose adherents are often psychologically pathological if not insane!

As the subtitle of Christopher Hitchen's book says -- "How Religion Poisons Everything!" Never truer words uttered. Orthodox religious fanaticism will kill us all.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/shameful-discrimination-in-israel-1.408256

2012-01-19T09:55:00.021-05:00

Republican Paintball: Romney, Gingrich and all in the Republican presidential primary circus sure are slinging the mud. It is almost what I envision Paintball to be like. It will not kill you but when it hits the spot it makes one feel vulnerable.

The problem with Republicans is that the essence of the Republican Party means that they are utterly in bed with corporate behemoths. The meaningless platitudes they spout fall FAR short of what they practice in their own life. Romney is an example of that getting his money as a corporate raider first venture then vulture capitalist, trimming companies and firing, he says, he simply loves to do. He says he loves to fire insurance companies but I bet that love spills over to people as well. After all he believes corporations are people too. Well, if so then many have had their ears lowered by Willard Mitt Romney. Moreover, he has set up off shore accounts and has been doing, in his illustrious career, the very things from which our economy suffers. Worse still, he does not want to release his taxes. I submit he does not want to release them for a reason. I suspect his tax submission will be Paintball shot with tax loopholes to reveal that the income tax he pays is minimal for the wealth he has acquired and worse far below that which most in the country pay. In sum, the 1% do NOT pay their fair share.

On the other side of the Republican mantra are ethical moral – mostly sexual – values to which few are capable of adhering. However, when it is one of the reasons that separates one party from the other and you do not conform, as many times Gingrich clearly has not, the hammer is lowered and rightfully so. One is Paintball vulnerable yet again.

Republican values are economically middle class dismembering, often unethical and Great Recession inducing. Its social values are humanly impossible to strictly follow. Thus, the Republican Party candidates are mud slinging each other because the Republican Party's platform allows for SO much mud to be slung! Who will win the Paintball game? That is yet to be determined. One thing for sure is that all the Republican candidates will come out looking like one big mess!

2012-01-18T09:24:00.006-05:00

Torquemada Torture – the Selection of a President: The American selection of a president is water boarding torture. It goes on and on and on much too long. I am so sickened by it often I turn news about it off even when my favorites like Olbermann, Maddow whom I love, Ed Schultz, Cenk Uygur, and even Ratigan are on. Yes, I tape and watch them all. No wonder my brain, from this Republican clown show circus, is in revolt. I feel like two symbols are being smashed between my ears.

Skip this insane two year torture-on-the-rack extended primary and cut to the chase. Hold primaries on two weekend days to satisfy religious prohibitions (Saturday and Sunday) for all the states.

Too bad if the candidates, before the primaries, must go to the states to campaign in a short time period. They chose to run in the grist mill. The presidential campaign begins TWO YEARS before the election and is torture by Torquemada. Romney is the Republican nominee. Ron Paul, who has a very big following, should get OUT of Republican Party land and run on a third party. Paul may have more chance than one might think.

Romney, although the primary winner, is hated by much of the base and is winning because there are five candidates who are glued to the podium and it appears he is the only one who can beat the president (I doubt he will) because most of the country hates the flip-flopper-in-chief Romney too. A third party Paul candidacy could matter.

Moreover, why should one small Iowa caucus give anyone the influence advantage? Shorten this torture mill primary selection process, vote collectively on two weekend days and maybe someone’s sanity could be saved -- mine!

2012-01-16T09:01:00.001-05:00

The Globes: The Golden's were enjoyable. I was a bit disappointed for "The Help." I thought it would get best pic. I did love the Descendants but not as much as The Help. Viola Davis always goes up against difficult competition. She is among the best. Happy for The Help's supporting actress Octavia Spencer who played the character Minny. Meryl Streep is a legend and I will see "Iron Lady" as quickly as possible.

Gervais without the bathroom humor and sex jokes is very entertaining. I say bring him back next year! Oh yes, I am not one to care about fashion BUT the women's gowns were CLASSY and utterly GORGEOUS! Some looked like they were poured into them. UGH I can wish for that in my next life!

2012-01-16T07:22:00.010-05:00

AMEN: The evocative headline in the news today -- "Towering legend, flawed man? King's image evolving. Some fear civil rights leader's legacy is lost on many."-- Surprise MLK was a human being. This is the media's way of inflating a story (linked below) that Dr. King smoked, drank and used a swear word or two so it can push its headlines to sensationalist proportions, like a drug lord pushes drugs. Guess why. Answer: Money. Now, that is a shocker!

It won't work. Dr. King's work is done and he has left the shoulders of a giant upon which generations have stood and future generations will stand to take advantage of the wonderful things he said and freedoms we acquired by the legacy he left.

I love Dr. King for creating a movement not only for the African American but for ALL people -- the disabled, the poor, the suffering masses and the unlucky who get kicked to the wayside by a nation that promises otherwise and by a world which STILL has much to learn. He gave us a foundation for good and pointed out the evil among us. He led a people to Olympian Heights, a mountain few thought they could climb. For that, the justice that prevailed because of him and to Dr. King's spirit I say an emphatic AMEN.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46005503/

2012-01-15T23:28:00.000-05:00

The Ship of Fools: As the link below indicates Jon Huntsman, the Republican moderate presidential candidate, is quitting the race. He was by far the most intelligent, most qualified and best candidate running for the presidency on the Republican side . But when has that ever been a prerequisite for the Republican nomination for the highest most powerful and, indeed, most dangerous, office in the world? Answer: Never.

Knowing this truth it was the smartest thing for Huntsman to do. It would be a waste of his time not to mention money to continue in a race where Stephen Colbert, the political comic, had higher ratings than he. Huntsman is running in a party that is not deserving of his intelligence, his experience and his wisdom. The field of Republican candidates is pitiful and God pity this nation if they in their infinite wisdom choose to elect anyone from this ship of fools.

Mr. Huntsman, whatever monies you have left from this campaign I suggest you donate to those who have no houses, no food, no clothing and will because of the Wall Street made economic cesspool never get an education and sometimes not even survive.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/huntsman-says-hes-quitting-g-o-p-race/?comments#permid=17

2012-01-15T13:16:00.000-05:00

Colbert for President and Romney the Ripper: Scroll down and listen. Shows you how much money can buy! Great Utube by Stephen Colbert, candidate for president -- why does this remind me of Pat Paulson?

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/01/15/colbert-super-pac-attack-romney-is-a-serial-killer/

2012-01-15T09:26:00.001-05:00

Divine Intervention: I said a prayer for Tom Brady before the game. I guess god was a New England Patriot yesterday. We in New England never were Doubting Thomas's for a minute!!

Awesome is too weak a word for the Patriots victory over the Broncos. The Pat's defense was bone CRUSHING and except for the one measly pass interception by the Broncos, Tebow would have been held to single digits. I have NEVER seen such a phenomenally solid game from New England in my life. It was one of the most exciting I have ever witnessed. The ENTIRE New England team was Tyrannosaurus Rex. They took the Denver team and had them for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Brady was near perfection.

I am happy for the win but ordinarily I would not care as much if the event did not become more than just a simple game. Tebow is a wonderful person and does laudable things with his life outside the gridiron. I compliment him for that but the political refuse of religious wingnutism follow him and was an element of the pregame insanity. Last week's Bronco win in sudden death overtime was nearly divine for them, Tebow and his fans but offered no "proof" a sky god is using Tebow for his second son. Explanations exist in science. All rational signs point to the fact that if there is a god who created it all he is NOT involved in the day-to-day activities of man most especially in a meaningless football game or really in anything else.

Beyond sports, if a god were involved in man's day-to-day-activities and so many prayers were said for the sick, the dying, the war ravaged people in war torn nations, the hungry and the dispossessed all over the earth an amelioration of those horrific conditions or at least some of them would have happened and there would be repeatable evidence using the scientific method that prayers when said are answered. Earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, Titanic catastrophes would not occur or if they did, at the very least, innocent human beings would not be devastated.

Things happen for verifiable reasons. Science compounded by the psychology of men in a football game gives better rationales for outcomes than does anything else. I repeat my own credo: we are all subject to Newtonesque laws of science for everything and science offers a better explanation for the physical realities of life. Belief is simply belief it is NOT science. Six billion humans inhabiting this planet will have six billion answers to the eternal questions that plague us and which give a foundation for religious often fanatical belief. It allows the fanatical believer to do anything no matter how cruel to impose one belief over another even if they have to kill humanity to do it.

The right wingnut organization Focus on the Family, which loves to deny human rights to innocent others with their alleged Biblical "proof," paid for what probably was a multi-million dollar ad promoting Christianity during this game. Now that is something of which I am sure Jesus would have approved -- NOT!

That is why this game held such enthusiasm. It became a battle between science deniers verses science worshipers. The latter would describe people like ME!

2012-01-12T12:47:00.003-05:00

GREAT video and very well done. Romney, hey if you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen where you cooked up your own negative ads to slam Gingrich. Romney, the flip flopper slime former governor of Mass. whom I loathed because he was an EMPTY suit and still is.

Watch this incredible video!

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/01/12/watch-when-mitt-romney-came-to-town/?utm_source=Raw+Story+Daily+Update&utm_campaign=66b02af165-1_12_111_12_2012&utm_medium=email

2012-01-12T10:46:00.012-05:00

A Glass Half Full: One of my friends whom I consider a very intelligent man in addition to being one of the nicest sent a very positive email to me about one of my opinions. We share many of the same values but I am sure few of his opinions are as pessimistic as mine. Really, you say? No kidding. In my defense there are reasons for everything. I digress.

In response to one of my diatribes perhaps the one loathing Bain Romney -- or as another friend humorously calls him Mitten or Ron Mitney and whom I call Willard, his first name, -- sorry I digress again with a bit of humor, my friend sent a more positive note. Whatever opinion of mine it was that prompted his response, truthfully, my words are often not happy ones. Admittedly they are words of anger, pessimism and are a cynic's view of our nation.

I would like to quote what he said below to present a different view from the bridge. He is quite right if one takes a broader look at US history one can see the positive changes that have occurred despite great opposition mounted to defeat them. The late Howard Zinn, my favorite historian, used to say to me that change comes from the bottom up and that it is created by millions of people who push for that change sometimes risking their own lives advocating for it.

The always-wise Zinn said it does not matter who is IN the White House but who is in FRONT of it that counts. It is up to us, to hold our leaders accountable and secure those rights our Constitutional contract, I believe, can be interpreted to say, we rightfully deserve. It is the beauty of our American system that has honed a way, over centuries of conflict, to do so. We must utilize maximally our Constitutionally guaranteed rights of free speech and free press and never give up.

In keeping with that thought I offer a more positive view that my friend quite correctly stated. He said:

I share your frustration with the nation, but am reminded of Martin Luther King's comment: "The arc of history is long, but it tends toward justice."

There is still plenty of craziness out there, and we can't let down our guard, but slowly we're making progress. We have finally elected a black man president, and after his second term, maybe a woman; Don't ask don't tell has been repealed and LGBT people are accepted enough to show up in TV shows without causing riots; the Arab Spring is a tinderbox, but could also spread the flame of democracy; occupy is finally challenging tea party; the economy still needs help, but it's not in free fall, in spite of Republicans' efforts to derail everything the president has tried; so there is hope.

I know there IS hope and that it springs eternal. Thank you, my friend, for forcing me to see a glass half full and by that making it a better day!

2012-01-09T09:16:00.005-05:00

Field of the American Dream: Again, Paul Krugman writes an insightful NYT article “America’s Unlevel Field” (linked below) and is correct as usual. At the end of the editorial he says: … [Romney and the Republicans] “seem to prefer a society in which your station in life is largely determined by that of your parents — and in which the children of the very rich get to inherit their estates tax-free. Teddy Roosevelt would not have approved.”

It makes a sad me even sadder as I view the US problems as nearly insurmountable and cemented in division. I try to look at the nation’s historical long-view which has often dictated success against the odds. If I were an abolitionist in 1860, which given my values now I surely would have been, I would be despondent that a humanity in our free nation was brought against its will under horrific conditions, stripped of their person hood to labor under the lash and without compensation. Ultimately a war (lost in its beginning) needed to be waged to reverse this evil. I might have given up but justice prevailed.

If I were the Jew that I am in 1941 I would have felt despair that my country, not prepared for war, opened up wars on two fronts first with a militarized honorary Aryan Japan and second with a mighty German war machine dedicated specifically to my elimination. Justice against the odds prevailed yet again.

No matter how dark things look now, no matter the odds of reactionary politics saturated with racist animus I continue to place my faith in the president against Lincolnian odds facing a Republican Congress, dripping with the words of interposition and nullification referenced by Dr. Martin Luther King in 1963, this time potentially reversing decades of civil rights progress and compounding the threat of another economic collapse where the 1% wealthiest control it all. Even worse there is the specter of a clear existential nuclear threat if our foolish nation dares attack again a tinder box Middle East.

America , where is your sanity and where is our field of dreams? The American Dream must not become the American nightmare. This nation must come to grips with its ugly truths, its reactionary politics, its economic frauds, its tepid social safety nets or lack of them and this latest nuclear threat, ultimately, to its very life.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/09/opinion/krugman-americas-unlevel-field.html?_r=1&ref=global-home#commentsContainer

2012-01-08T13:37:00.004-05:00

Romney, the “Bain” of Our Existence: In case you did not get the pun “Bain” was the name of the company Romney, the allegedly expert businessman, ran – Bain Capital. That corporation was in the business of trimming assets of companies facing bankruptcy, buying them, selling the entrails and DESTROYING jobs. Romney became filthy 250 million dollar rich because of it. Romney does not want to release his tax records every other candidate for president has released. Why you ask. Because, as part of the top 1% he probably loop-holed his way out of paying taxes that the middle class has to pay.

The Republican so called "debates" are a joke and an embarrassment. The press has nothing to offer the voters but softball inane questions to the candidates making sure they do not deliver a question the complexity of which would be beyond the candidates' ability to answer. The Republican Party has nothing to offer but racist obstructionism and do nothing politics.

If this country is so unequivocally insane to elect any of these stupendous know nothing Republicans as president then there is no hope. I either need to pull the covers over my head for years or do something more drastic like moving to the North Pole. The thought of four or more years of Republican rule sickens my stomach after suffering through nearly 30 years of Republican acid rain. We cannot endure more never-ending war nor can we survive the 1% billionaires controlling ALL the wealth creating an even bigger bubble to run the country into an even bigger ditch than they did during the first decade of the new millennium.

President Obama did not do everything I wanted but he is infinitely more intellectually astute and, I would argue, more effective handling the cats of Congress in view of the Mount Everest of Republican obstructionism he had to climb.

I am hoping America is wiser than to let the insane of the coo coos nest asylum control the country and run it over another cliff. We have been bleeding since the bursting of the Bush bubble and a Democratic tourniquet had to be applied. It has stopped some of the flow but not all of it. Republicans have a proscription to line their pockets with billionaire bubble bucks and return us to a double dip Greater Recession. Do you REALLY want to go through that economic avalanche yet again? And do you REALLY want your sons and daughters to fight yet another huge Middle East country with nuclear bombs in tow? Go head elect Republicans and have a party but it may be the last party you and your children ever have.

2012-01-06T09:41:00.002-05:00

The Epiphany: I sent a letter to a professor who is very pro Palestinian. I reflected on my views about Israel perhaps because I was asked by a friend to attend a Feb. 29 meeting about church/state separation at a mosque. I agreed and I thought about why I am so stuck in my views about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. I thought about my feelings and why my blood runs cold when I think about that issue. I turn my back on most criticism of the Jewish state. I really had to do some soul searching because I am often at odds with the left part of the political spectrum a place where I reside but a place which is particularly harsh on the Jewish state. Again, I ask why. I came up with the following explanation why I have felt the way I have and wondering if I can make a change. I said the following:

I had an epiphany today. I am as I always say a left of center progressive. I am also Jewish. My entire political life and the forming of my belief system as left of center revolved around two major issues: (1) the Holocaust and the rise of Nazism (2) the antiwar years of the late 1960's. My beliefs have wavered a bit over the years but not that much. I want to consider myself a humanitarian and I want to support those things which ensure most especially Constitutional civil liberties. Sitting on the left side of the spectrum those things are, of course, compatible.

My first encounter with Nazism was as a child maybe age 10 or 11 when I saw a newsreel in the movies which were popular at the time shown before the main film. I saw footage for the first time of Jewish people from all walks of life, men, women and children being rounded up, shot or herded into the cattle cars and shipped off to the camps. The newsreel showed me a picture of the camps which was needless to say ghoulish and excruciatingly painful to watch. Then it showed the gas chambers with the Zyklon B and then it, of course, showed the mounds of bodies the Allies encountered when they liberated the camps. I became nauseated and threw up.

My uncle was in the US Army in Europe when he liberated a camp and had the photos to prove it. There is NO event in human history let alone in Jewish history which is parallel to the Holocaust in terms of its inhumanity and brutality. The six million is an unfathomable number. Recently I saw a film "Sarah's Key" based on a book the discussion of which I led at a temple group where even in France -- modern France at that time rounded up Jews in the Vel d' Hiv a little known part of French history because they do not WANT to remember it.

The Holocaust and its aftermath was the single most centrifugal event that solidified my later political beliefs. It has continued to be a surprise to me that the left leaning groups I agree with for the most part are extraordinarily anti-Israel with a huge bit of anti-Semitism mixed in for good measure. It is why I turn a cold shoulder to most all anti-Israel sentiment and why I never did wax supportive of the Palestinian cause. I simply could NOT betray the State of Israel formed by so many after the event that rocked the foundation of the Jewish world.

Why can I not come to the support of those Palestinians who feel so aggrieved and who as they say have been allegedly brutalized by Israelis? That answer is I cannot ADMIT that Israelis would perpetrate inhumane acts purposefully on innocent people. I did not WANT to believe it because for Jews to do that means that the lessons of the Holocaust are not learned and we MUST learn them so it never happens again. I have always held Israel to a higher standard because of this singular event which NO ONE in history has experienced on such a massive and historically continuing and stunning scale.

I have dear Jewish friends, the nicest people, whose daughter (Jewish) married a Palestinian man. He is a darling man but I would simply avoid discussion of the Palestinian situation which usually does not come up anyway. On Feb. 29 (yes it's a leap year) they asked me to attend a local mosque which I have been up until now adverse to do.

For the first time I have decided it is time to visit the mosque no matter what my strong feelings of support are about Israel. It is TIME for NO MORE violence. It is TIME for us to act in a humane fashion. If not now when? We must as Jews be the best human beings we can be even when it is most difficult to be so. The essence, as I see it, is even within Christian teaching -- Matthew 5 says ... "whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. And give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away." One does not have to be Christian to believe in these thoughts. One needs to be empathetically human to understand them.

I still am a Jew and I still support the State of Israel BUT that does not mean I am impervious to suffering. No, to the contrary, BECAUSE of the Holocaust one must ameliorate suffering wherever it exists.

If I could write a book perhaps the title would be: "Enemies No More -- a Way for Jews and Palestinians to Unite!" How much would I love a cessation of hostilities between our two peoples to happen in the New Year? Answer: -- I would give anything. Acting in a more humane and understanding manner on both sides would save Jewish lives, it would save Palestinian lives and perhaps it would even save the world entire as it lurches closer and closer to an apocalypse.

2012-01-05T07:25:00.011-05:00

A Hole to Hide In: Not well written but CORRECT: Iraq civil war beginning and a US war policy of IDIOTIC proportions I posted this on the MSNBC News site.

MSNBC HEADLINES: "Iraq Bombings: Wave Of Explosions In Shiite Area Of Baghdad Kill At Least 27, Wound Dozens" -- linked below "A wave of explosions struck two Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 27 people and intensifying fears that insurgents are stepping up attacks after the U.S. troop withdrawal that was completed last month..." striking fears of civil war."

And here's why:

This is just a TERRIBLE thing...simply awful. Think about this you misguided death wielding Republicans. We were there FOR NINE...count them NINE years with over 5,000 of our men and women DEAD, thousands wounded, hundreds of thousands Iraqi dead and wounded, and exiled all over the gd place, we destabilized the Middle East but good and here's some worse things to get through your thick heads: Sadam Hussein was a Sunni -- Georgy the Idiot Bush did not even KNOW what Sunni was and the difference and ancient hatred between Sunnis and Shiia. Hussein and the Sunnis were a minority who held power HATED Iran...fought a decade long war with them and kept them in check. NOW LOOK WHAT WE HAVE...just LOOK it's mind BLOWING...Sunnis, the minority under Hussein because of our invasion to get rid of him were obliterated and Shiia took over and are in power with Malaki and NOW they are allies with Iran. IRAN was handed the keys to the kingdom is the power broker there with a nuke-filled Pakistan and Iran is threatening to block world oil by blockading the Strait of Hormuz an act of war.

It was hard enough to get TRILLIONS of bucks for the military and supplies over to fight these wars and Afghanistan is still going. How on god's earth does ANYONE think IF Iran does this or worse that we are going to haul our posteriors over to that HUGE country twice the size of Iraq with difficult terrain and NOW more militarily sophisticated with a spent army. HOW? This is the neo Con IDIOTS revamping of the Middle East? This is what they thought would be so ducky....We could NOT stay in Iraq for another twenty years without going bankrupt nor would the Malaki government guarantee immunity to us so Obama HAD to pull out and Bush stated a pull out by now.

We are in BIG trouble there as Pakistan is angry and blocked supplies getting in to Afghanistan. We cannot be without supplies TO wage war and the Republican STUPIDS want to just bomb Iran?..Guess what you utter stupendous morons ... THERE ARE CONSEQUENCES when you drop bombs on people's heads! Furthermore Israel is at absolute risk without US military ability. We are a DONE empire because of our moronic military excursions from Vietnam to Iraq, et al.

I am NOT a Ron Paul supporter because I cannot stand his other positions BUT on foreign policy he is DEAD (pardon the pun) ON CORRECT.

This is what happens when you have INSANE unstatesmen-like leadership. You get death, destruction on an epic scale and a BIG threat if not to us directly to our economy and WWIII if we bomb Iran. How does a draft sound now? Not so good I bet. The American people are SO united -- NOT. A draft would go just swimmingly. Where is a hole I can hide!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45881411/

2012-01-04T12:13:00.001-05:00

Defying Republicans, Obama to Name Cordray as Consumer Agency Chief -- GOOD!! The president with the appointment of Cordray as Consumer Agency Chief (link below) and with any other important policy he deems necessary to the protection of the Republic should do whatever is possible BY ANY MEANS necessary to thwart this mean, vituperative, caustic, racist Tea Party malevolence in the House and Congress that a few Americans in their infinite wisdom saw clear to elect. They are NOT representative of the country as a whole and November, 2012 will show exactly that. The president WILL be re-elected with MASSIVE amounts of people voting for him (maybe even more than 2008) who see the Republican SHAM for what it is.

This president, under the worst racist House imaginable, with the exception of the pre-Civil War era, has managed to get through under the most difficult circumstances legislation which will benefit the entire nation. Even when the Democrats held it all they STILL even then had Democrats in name only obstructionist bought low-life like Lieberman, Nelson, Landrieu and many others who impeded him from creating what he truly desired and what would have help the country. ANYONE on planet earth who thinks that the Republican Party will do one thing for them is sadly mistaken if not delusional.

The Democratic Party should be LASER focused on (1) re-electing this president who has suffered immensely from a virulent obstructionist Congress (2) turn the HOUSE PROGRESSIVE BLUE (3) KEEP the Senate in Democratic hands and win a few more to solidify it. Then the president in his second term will show the true face of his genius!!

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/04/defying-republicans-obama-to-name-cordray-as-consumer-agency-chief/?emc=na

2012-01-04T08:39:00.001-05:00

A NO vote to Romney: Romney wins by ONLY FOUR votes -- FOUR-- the biggest win is Obama.

The Democratic Party has a LOT to save and MUST turn the Congress blue and get rid of Romney the complete chameleon, and empty suit! These lack of empathy Republicans will gut Social Security and Medicare. People WILL die. Republicans are the true death panels.

Republicans are AGGRESSIVE in foreign policy that means war with Iran and spend more money we do not have. Nor did we "win" in Iraq nor in Afghanistan either. Our army is spent and a draft to fight Iran will ultimately be a must to move an army across vicious terrain with some nations still not allowing American supplies to pass. This would cost billions if not trillions. Do you want your children to fight in World War III with NUKES on the line? If it's bad for Israel now just wait. It will be the end of that nation with America SO weakened by perpetual war and a populous that WILL be in revolt!

If the American people do not see how flawed this party is and how much worse than the Democratic party they are then they get what they deserve. If you want
your children to not make it then vote Republican. They are a rancidly divided party and their ideas are thought by those who do not think, cannot think or who simply do not care about anyone except themselves. If Republicans win there will probably be World War III and nuclear war...yes, I said it ... think about it before you think about casting votes for right wing extremist fundamentalist Republicans.

They are extremist insane.

2012-01-03T13:59:00.006-05:00

Eye on Iowa: A University professor, Stephen Bloom, wrote an article for the Atlantic link below, about Iowa, a place he has lived in for twenty years. Brian Williams talked about the unflattering-to-Iowa piece because it has stirred up a hornet's nest of protest from some Iowans and because of it the professor had to go into hiding over the holidays. One of the paragraphs that Williams quoted from the article was the object of much Iowa vitriol. It said:

But relatively few rural Iowans are employed in the business of wind energy. The bulk of jobs here are low-income ones most Iowans don't want. Many have simply packed up and left the state (which helps keep the unemployment rate statewide low). Those who stay in rural Iowa are often the elderly waiting to die, those too timid (or lacking in educated) to peer around the bend for better opportunities, an assortment of waste-toids and meth addicts with pale skin and rotted teeth, or those who quixotically believe, like Little Orphan Annie, that "The sun'll come out tomorrow.

I followed with a blog of my own on the Atlantic site:

I am a Massachusetts Bostonian from my toes to my hair. Some say I am a northeast snob because I rate people not by money but by their academic status, where they attended college and most of all how they write and the grammar they choose to string two sentences together.

I took a trip across country many years ago which included passing through Iowa. The trip was in February and there was no snow on the ground. I remember my first impression was that I was astounded as to how many tractor and feed stores I saw and how flat the ground was. I did not see a tree within sight. I asked the driver if people really lived here as it seemed so empty, gray and lonely. He rejected that assessment and told me how rich the land was and how it was some of the best farmland in the world.

Professor Bloom's assessment, though, rings true. I did not stay overnight in Iowa nor did I chat with many but I rode away from that state missing Massachusetts to my core. Upon return to my great state, I as my grandfather did when he came to America, wanted to kiss every rocky road and tree-lined highway in the state. I could not wait for the beautiful foliage of spring to be followed by even more glorious color in fall. Iowa may be a decent place to visit but I would not want to live there. I love my state, its diversity and its liberalness. I could not imagine living anywhere else! :-)

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/12/observations-from-20-years-of-iowa-life/249401/1/

2012-01-03T09:44:00.006-05:00

A Letter to Occupy Wall Street:

I am a left of center progressive and have supported the Occupy Wall Street movement as best I able given my personal circumstances. I love this movement and think it is beyond necessary; it is vital. Forming our mantra as the 99% against the 1% is brilliant. It is something to which people can relate and understand so keep saying it.

Having said that I am old enough to remember the 1968 Democratic convention which ensured the Republican Richard the lawbreaker Nixon the presidency as the electorate saw televised violence perpetrated by radicals on the left at that particular convention which the protesters stupidly, in my opinion, chose to attack. It alienated much of the electorate and drew many into the Republican Party with the selected title of the "Moral Majority." A law and order right wing movement was born and has reshaped party politics for generations. It lives today in the extremist politics of the religious right at the Republican base and brings along with it in side-car tow other very dangerous and racist right wing groups.

I ask you -- no I implore you -- to pass the word to Occupy movements all over the nation not to make the same mistakes that were made in the summer of 1968. Do not give the opposition propaganda to paint false pictures of who we are and what Occupy is about.

This time we have many of those who once were not on our side standing with us because they too have been crushed by the Wall Street banksters and fraudsters. Court union support! Unions can have immense power and those who comprise them are the ones whom Republican state governors like the malevolent Walker, Kasich, Scott, LePage and others, managed to alienate with their poisonous wolf-in-sheep's-clothing politics. Moreover, the egregious things that were done by the banksters on Wall Street have been ruinous to the blue collar masses as they have to most everyone. The Unions are our allies and it is for them and the rest of the 99% we work. Walk in solidarity with them.

There must not be any violence at the Democratic convention or the Republican Convention in the summer. Reality dictates that it is from these two parties that the presidential race will be taken. Whatever our president has done with which progressives find fault it must not be for one second thought that Romney (the apparent Republican nominee to be) or any Republican would be a good thing. The Republican extremist Party is the opposite of a good thing and they vowed before our president did one thing to unseat him. Do not hand the election to these hucksters of malfeasance. Be careful of people from the other side who may incite you to violence. Republicans lie all the time and will stop at nothing to plant treason among you as history has shown. Be smart use the tactics of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. It will serve us much better.

A Republican, if elected, will select two or maybe more justices for the Supreme Court. Additional so called "conservatives" on this right wing tipped court will make things infinitely worse.

Spread the word absolutely no violence at the Democratic convention and no violence at the Republican convention. You do not want to give our opposition any ammunition they can use against us and win power they should not rightly have.

Happy New Year to you all and thank you very much for what you do!

2012-01-02T09:27:00.013-05:00

A stream of consciousness plea:

I am a left of center progressive and have supported the Occupy movement as best I can from where I am. I love this movement and think it was so necessary. Forming it as the 99% against the 1% is brilliant. It is a mantra people can understand. Keep pushing it.

Having said that I am old enough to remember the 1968 Democratic convention which got the Republican Richard the lawbreaker Nixon elected due to the violence the country saw. It alienated much of the electorate and drew them into the Republican Party as the "Moral Majority" and a law and order right wing movement was born. It lives today as the radical religious fundamentalists at the base of the Republican Party. There are, of course, some differences in that the politics of that era were generally about the Vietnam War and black civil rights. Much of white America loathed it and loathed what they saw as a lack of patriotism on the left. It is why even today we on the left get painted with that false unpatriotic brush.

I ask you -- no I implore you -- to pass the word around to whomever are with you and Occupy movements all over the country do not make the same mistakes as we did in the late 60's. Do not give the opposition propaganda to paint false pictures of what we are. This time we have many of those who were the moral majority on our side because they too have been crushed by the Wall Street banksters and fraudsters. Court union support! It is from where immense power comes and those who comprise it are the ones whom state governors like the malevolent Walker, Kasich, Scott, LePage and others managed to alienate with their poisonous wool- in-sheep's-clothing politics. This is the opposition's big mistake. The egregious things they did on Wall Street are ruinous to the huge blue collar masses. The Unions are your friends and it is for them and the rest of the 99% that we work. Reach your hand out to unions and walk in solidarity with them.

There must not be any violence especially at the Democratic convention in the summer. Reality dictates that it is from these two parties that the presidential race will be taken. Whatever our president has done with which progressives find fault it must not be for one second thought that Romney (the apparent Republican nominee to be) will be a good thing. He's the opposite of a good thing. Do not hand the election to him and the Republican Party. Much of that party is filled with right wing racist extremists. He, if elected, will pick two or maybe more Supreme Court. appointments. More so called "conservatives" on this rancidly tipped court will end this country as we have known it. Do not be violent to ensure that happens. And be careful of people from the other side who may incite you to violence. Republicans lie all the time and will stop at nothing to plant treason among you as many have shown. Be smart use the tactics of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. It will get you and us so much more.

Spread the word ... No absolutely no violence at the Democratic convention and no violence at the Republican convention either. You do not want to give our opposition any ammunition they can use against us.

Happy New Year to you all and thank you much for what you do!

2012-01-01T16:25:00.002-05:00

Suggested Viewing -- I AM: I'll bet you are wondering as I did what is I Am. “I Am” was shown on Oprah’s OWN network this afternoon. It is a documentary by Tom Shadyak former extraordinarily successful comedy writer for the comedic greats such as Jim Carey, Eddie Murphy and Robin Williams. Shadyak’s life was reversed in a nanosecond by a bicycle accident which left him with a severe concussion, fractures and many difficult long-lasting post-concussive aftereffects.

I suspect one could think about the title "I Am" as I did metaphorically. Moses, as the tale is told, confronted God from a burning bush on the mountain of Sinai in the age old from-slavery-to freedom story in the Old Testament book of Exodus. He asked God when he came upon Him "Who shall I tell the people you are and who has sent me?" A voice told him: "Tell them I Am that I Am, tell them I Am has sent you." The film relates to the awe inspiring interconnectedness of all humanity and humanity’s affect on our universe. He uses science to reinforce some of his uncovered truths. This film is a search for that which connects us all which has profound effects on every other living thing and even on the universe itself.

He ultimately asks the questions most of us ask in our lifetime trying to discover the meaning of it all and why so much seemingly has gone so wrong. He went on his own world-wide journey asking those questions of some great sages and also asks them what we can do to fix it.

The conversations he had with a variety of people such as the late Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Desmond Tutu, scientists and many others had a profound impact on even a curmudgeonly skeptic like me. I hope if you view it, it will do the same for you. Perhaps, we can even talk about it some day.

I post the link to it below.

http://iamthedoc.com/

2012-01-01T10:31:00.002-05:00

Twitter, Twitter Little NON Star: I strongly agree with Joan Venocchi's Sunday, January 1, 2012 Boston Globe editorial "Twitter, Twitter, on the wall" (linked below.) I tried to get into Twitter several times to understand its concept and its rules. When contemplating an issue I typed over the 140 character limit by about 10,000 characters I knew it was at the top of my list of those things reflecting our culture that drive me berserk.

McDonald's has been, until now, my symbolic prototype for the nation's addiction to instant gratification and a mirror-reflecting example of much that I believe is wrong in our land. Twitter, perhaps, now is taking its place at the apex of my list as the number one detestable computerized example of exactly who we are and how repugnant it is. Twitter is utterly devoid of substance on issues that often need encyclopedic discussion. America, in particular, has no time for that with its attention span lasting at best 10 minutes, its historical memory lasting maybe 20, and its need to watch Kim Kardashian's wedding (or is it divorce) above listening to Yo Yo Ma at Symphony Hall.

How did so many of us get so vapid, vacuous and, well, just plain dumb? When one's life is devoted to not just saying but needing to say "Justin Beber's hair was out of whack and so is mine" instead of reading and discussing in depth the relevance of Dickens's "Hard Times" or Tolstoy's "War and Peace, or the content of Ron Suskind's book "Confidence Men" then I feel blessed that I missed entering this earth in, as Dickens's Tale of Two Cities might contend, the worst of all possible times -- the era of stupid!

http://www.bostonglobe.com/staff/vennochi

2011-12-30T09:37:00.010-05:00

A Man for All Seasons: I enclose the link here to an article which is an Op Ed from the UK's "Guardian" written by Glenn Greenwald. It is entitled: "Vote Obama – if you want a centrist Republican for US president"

"Vote Obama – if you want a centrist Republican for US president.
Because Barack Obama has adopted so many core Republican beliefs, the US opposition [Republican] race is a shambles"

It gives one pause for thought and I do not mind saying a degree of regret and oodles of increasing surprise. STILL the Republican field, as Greenwald notes, has had to tack so far to the right that they fall off a cliff because there is hardly a thing, from a Republican perspective, about Obama's governing style that they can criticize. The Republican race because of that has become happily Theater of the Absurd and a laughable cirque du soleil.

One should not dismiss, I think, the accomplishments that Obama has had with respect to the Ledbetter Law, Don't Ask Don't Tell repeal, certain aspects of the health care law, middle class tax cuts, extending unemployment and inserting many other necessary regulations into law. These are, from a Democratic perspective, praiseworthy.

Most importantly the 5 to 4 fractured-down-the-middle right wing extremist Supreme Court could become sane again as Obama would have, in his second term, the ability to select more justices for this all important branch tipping the balance, happily for me, to the left. He probably will have at least two appointments in his second term and, perhaps, more. Hopefully, then, it would mean eradicating, destroying and blowing up the deadly Citizens United malodorous decision which made corporations people and placed money -- BIG BIG money - at the center of our political "choice."

For those reasons alone President Obama is, in my opinion, the only man for our electoral season!

2011-12-28T08:42:00.009-05:00

Fundamentalist Farce -- this time in Israel: These are my quickly formulated thoughts about the Israeli woman who wanted to sit in the front of the bus and was spat upon by an Israeli ultra orthodox sect and the prospect of the ultra orthodox in Israel gaining power. I wrote Haaretz (Israeli newspaper) and know I am not alone among the secular of Israel AND most importantly many if not most Jews in the US who support the Jewish state. I stated the following:

I am a Jewish American and a strong supporter of Israel even though I am left of center. I stand alone often in my views and written opinions about Israel on that part of the political spectrum. My most important view is church/state separation and the issue I care most about is religious extremism world wide. I can tell you my support IF the ultra orthodox extremists of Israel go the way of world-wide Islamic fundamentalists the Jewish state WILL lose my support and that of many others in the US and elsewhere.

Israel for some is on difficult ground regarding what some think about its actions surrounding the Palestinian situation. So far my main love for Israel is the fact (a) it is a Jewish state for ALL Jews and (b) it is generally secular in the mainstream of its religious and political practice with a small minority of irrational religious fanatics.

If these religious fundamentalist fanatics gain power and Israel goes the way of Islamic fundamentalism and even Christian fundamentalism I will be through supporting Israel. I will withdraw my support of Israel if the religiously fanatic gain power when my main argument for Israel is that it is a secular, democratic, and an advanced state. I as a Jew am so proud of what Israel has accomplished in the face of annihilation from its enemies that surround it and because of the our unique existentially threatening history during the Holocaust.

Think twice though, my Israeli brethren, of letting backward reactionaries rule. Be smart and reject the power of ultra orthodox religious adherents and reject them en masse.

2011-12-27T16:15:00.002-05:00

The Face of Evil -- A Walk in Bradley Manning's Shoes: [A letter to the Metro West News] The photograph and the report by Time Magazine of an Afghanistan woman's mutilated face at the hands of the Taliban for the "sin" of adultery is so chilling and so mind boggling it defies my anemic ability to describe this bestial behavior perpetrated by them.

In light of this photograph, the depths of its depravity, the Islamic suicide blasts all over the world killing thousands perhaps hundreds of thousands of innocents, I say this is the way of our world in this era. This is the culture the nation must protect itself against as there are those who want to do nothing more than to take us down. This is not an illusion. How long would vocal critics of the nation, as I have been many times, survive in any Islamic country on planet earth given one's critical political views? Answer: Not long. Yes, we have been changed by 9/11. I am not happy about it but there are realities one cannot deny. It occurred period end of sentence. Assessment of good and evil nations is one of degree because man does not know perfection. There is no perfect nation on earth.

Bradley Manning revealed classified documents about this country and its allies. There were so many documents released it is with little certainty that we know if in fact damage was done despite some dubious claims that there was not. At the expense of whom would these hundreds of thousands released documents be?

From which country would those who are placing Manning in hero status wish to report? There must be something good about a country that allows a commentator to speak or write critically without being jailed. Could you or I be jailed for what we write? I suppose we could. Do I think we will be? No, I do not but I know for sure if I lived in Iran (or any Islamic nation) my life would be worthless and not only because I am a Jew. The left is at times blind to Islamic tyranny and easy to assign blame without critical analysis if it has the US and Israel's imprimatur attached to it.

Manning probably is being made an example by the US government. Bradley Manning was hoping to give the adversaries of this nation fuel to add to the rage that already runs deep in the veins of the Middle East. Where would Bradley Manning like to live given the fact that his sexuality is an issue? Would he like to live in Iran where they hang homosexuals or perhaps Saudi Arabia where life imprisonment or death would await? Would he like to live anywhere else in the Middle East where there is no place a homosexual can hide (with the exception of guess where? Right, if you guessed Israel!) He wants to help indict an adversary which would not permit him to take a breath. He must be either deranged or significantly stupid.

If Bradley Manning must be made an example to the rest of the country of what the country will do if it is betrayed then so be it. We are talking about preventing an entity Al Qaeda and friends of Al Qaeda from obtaining a nuclear device which they would run not walk through the nearest entrance and deliver to a place near you. This does not mean I support blindly everything the nation does. Clearly, I do not BUT no one forced Manning to
join the military. It was his choice. When one signs an oath -- a voluntary oath at that -- one does not betray it especially if the adversary on the field of battle is steroidal tyranny times 10.

I am not afraid to write, to phone, to blog or to say anything critical about my country and have done so numerous times. It is because of that fact that I believe our nation is worth saving and why if I walked in Bradley Manning's shoes I never ever would have betrayed it.

2011-12-24T12:14:00.003-05:00

Palsied Paul: If anyone thinks Ron Paul is the Messiah reincarnated for the early twenty-first century, I advise you to think again. While this article from the Atlantic (link below) written by Conor Friedersdorf entitled: "Grappling with Ron Paul's Racist Newsletters" is rather lengthy and its conclusion is not exactly one to which I agree, it is a MUST read for those who are flirting with supporting this, in my opinion, dangerous Libertarian politico. All that glitters is not ... well you know the rest.

Ron Paul is, in my opinion, the fox dressed up in the sheep's clothes. Apologies for the cliches but if you read the post you will know what I mean. Even if one ignores the possible racist Paul, if elected, Paul would reduce government, if he even could, to the size of a Grover Norquist postage stamp eliminating all the ever-so-important regulatory institutions which, in fact, work well and are necessary to the nation's survival.

If you are thinking of voting for Ron Paul should he appear on the ballot, I advise re-thinking this inadvisable action which would give this mentally palsied man your vote!

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/12/grappling-with-ron-pauls-racist-newsletters/250206/

2011-12-22T08:28:00.003-05:00

Against All Odds: This is a stream of consciousness forgive the lack of prudent sentence construction but I am FIRED UP and ready to go!

I smell blood in the water. I am beginning to think the president will win and big. (DARE I hope)
Rachel had a clip of another Romney flip flop so EGREGIOUS that I'm beginning to let myself think an "O" win might be significantly there. I, yes, am praying for it. (Here is the clip Romney flip flop so horribly on Iraq in 2008 and 2011!) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/22/mitt-romney-iraq-war-position_n_1164384.html

Maybe there is a god. The sicko RepbuGlicRATS have boxed themselves into a corner by the rejection of the payroll tax cut their OWN mantra. It shows they are ONLY interested in unseating our first black president. I am CONVINCED beyond a shadow of a doubt they used that remnant of white racism that is part of our country's horrific inheritance to attain power and turn our country back to the late 19th century or worse. But that racism is waning as the country turns THANKFULLY less white and more mixed. The Republicans used it to get themselves elected to power maybe for the last time. That Tea Bag movement is nearly all white and I think maybe dying (maybe). The blacks who are Republicans like Cain, West, Steele, Keys, are aberrations and tokens. These Republican swine strain credulity and would NEVER ever let a black man into the presidency from the Republican Party.

What they have done to our president has been unconscionable! Republicans have been the meanest, racist pieces of humanity that ever existed in our country since before the Civil War. These are genetic malformations and Mitch McConnel spouting his insulting words that his main goal was to see the president unseated is nearly treasonous and will be played over and over again during the campaign. Yes, and if he had to see the country drown no problem he will. These humans have NO empathy, no heart and not one cell in their bodies that has some humanity -- and tan man Boehner proves it as he cannot handle his position. The guy who handed out cigarettes once on the house floor maybe is putting his own nails in his own coffin by not understanding how to wield power. He cannot contain his cats, they are running wild. Rachel Maddow showed him to be the incompetent he is. If you did not see her program last night Google it.

My fervent prayer is that those jerks lose and lose big. Forgive the passion and god forgive my hate but I loathe them more than words can say for what they have put our president through. They have been BRUTAL beyond words. He TRIED to do good, he tried but that 2010 election of those stupids of stupids tea idiots to take over the House made his life hell. He encountered an opposition rivaled only by our country in 1854.

My heart breaks for our president because I do not think in his heart he is a center right person. What could he do? They are incorrigible and obstructionist to the extreme. The fatal error was not pouncing on them in the summer of the town hall Tea Bag anarchy in 2010 with the full bully pulpit of the presidency. They ran Miller of Alaska out, they ran Christine idiot O'Donnell out and they got the NY 26 a formerly Repub district blue and don't forget Engel that no brain fool out. Wisconsin will recall that jerk Walker, and already recalled many Republicans. They put back the pro worker mural in Maine and there are more instances of Dem strength in 2011 with a renewal of unions on our side. Thank god for Harry Reed too!!

So I think they might get their rotten asses whipped but I am afraid to say it so I'm not sure BUT I know we MUST MUST work to re-elect the president with all the strength that we have and had in 2008. We need MORE strength than even then. Our country is at stake. DO NOT let the Republicans sink our country as that is what they will do. Bush was living proof of that! The Supreme Court too is at stake with conceivably THREE more justices to ultimately be nominated. Either they can swing the court back and nullify their formerly unconscionable Citizens United decision putting HUGE money into politics, making corporations people or they can get even worse than that, nullifying health care, nullifying rights for gays, nullifying right for women, other minorities and eradicating Roe v. Wade. It nearly already is. Money in our political system is its death knell. If Romney wins all the gains we have worked so hard over decades to get will be gone and our country will be lost. Even Social Security and Medicare is at stake! Utube George Carlin's "American Dream" and although a bit of pepper in his language he got it EXACTLY right.

Every one of us should be sporting Obama stickers AND do NOT FORGET ELIZABETH WARREN TOO! She will be the greatest senator in the history of the senate IF she wins. Brown, the aberration, is running scared. BRING TEDDY'S SEAT BACK to Dems where it belongs. I take shelter in the substance of what Massachusetts is and has always been. Let's keep it that way.

We have HUGE HUGE fights to win. DO NOT GIVE UP, DO NOT FALTER AND DO NOT FAIL! Forget what you may think the president compromised on and see him as a besieged person trying to do a Herculean task and the best he could with huge opposition and against all odds.

2011-12-19T09:34:00.002-05:00

Insanity and the Death of Kim Jong Il: Kim Jong Il, the narcissistically neurotic “Dear Leader” tyrant of North Korea, died yesterday. It would be nice if N. Korea could have a N. Korean spring. I doubt very much that will happen or that things will significantly change if the tyrant Kim Jung Il "groomed" a successor son, Kim Jung Un, to be his clone. Still, one can wish a ray of hope shines through to that sadly beleaguered and hungry nation. No one will know the true metamorphosis of this event for quite some time.

It is interesting that few Communist states have survived under the so called cult of personality. When one thinks of the Soviet Union under Stalin and a line of others, or China under Mao Zedong, states which were supposedly of utmost threat to US freedom, one sees barely a remnant of those states existing in Communist form today. Castro's Cuba may ultimately, after his death, go the way of China. The Eastern Communist block exists no longer and even Vietnam, where 50,000 US dead bled on its soil, is on a capitalist track. Why? Because Communism as an economic philosophy is unworkable. It stifles competition, impedes progress and slaughters or politically imprisons its own people.

So why did the US round up so many so called "Communists" in its own witch hunts of yesteryear anyway? What was so frightening that this country had to spend billions/trillions in treasure and tens of thousands in gallons of blood fighting this "menace" which was in truth no menace at all. It was an excuse, as extremist Islam is now, to ramp up a US military/industrial Goliath that is capable of striking preemptively at will and has.

I submit the few Communist states remaining and now certain Islamic extremists states have more to fear from the US than we do from them. 9/11 never would have happened had one George W. Bush taken his Presidential Daily Briefing seriously which warned him bin Laden ready to attack the US. In true cerebral brilliance his response: “Thanks, now you've covered your posterior” and then decided to go on vacation.

How many more US soldiers will volunteer to be used to fight phony wars for trumped up rationales? Let's hope from all of this, including the utter failures in Iraq, we have learned a bitter lesson. Perilously, though, the American historical memory is exceedingly short and it people's knowledge of history sorely lacking. Some day, in the not too distant future, an American president will dupe its people again into the Bush-like six gun mentality of preemptive war shooting first, asking questions later convincing us that certain nations are an imminent threat and we must invade. The nation then will follow blindly like sheep to the slaughter and repeat the same mistakes over and over again. Albert Einstein (according to Snopes.com) is often credited with the maxim, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

2011-12-16T08:25:00.002-05:00

In Memoriam to Christopher Hitchens. I am very saddened by Hitchens's death. I LOVED this man. I loved his brilliance, his acerbic wit and his willingness to look at the issues of life without mythological beings explaining what science knew not to be true. He fought for the dissemination of truth through his writings, speeches, and appearances. He was a true intellectual, a giant academic and I will miss him VERY much!!

If you do not know who he is I suggest you Google his name, find out what he wrote and read it with an open mind. Whether you believe what he said is the truth does not matter. At least he will give you endless hours of great reading and profound thoughts to contemplate.

2011-12-15T10:42:00.009-05:00

Sum Total Deadly: I am a Glenn Greenwald fan. Occasionally, though, I differ with him by degrees not yards. I offer my opinion on his latest blog: "Exploiting the Anti-Semitism Smear now Backfiring" appearing in Salon.com (www.salon.com/2011/12/1 /exploiting_the_anti_semitic_smear_now_backfiring/singleton/#comments) in which he talks about the usurpation and even the elimination of critical Israeli policy analysis on the left by Neocon and pro Israeli factions on the right. He concludes, too, generally, that a discussion of Israeli policy is often shut down by even the most liberal news commentators. I am stunned by that accusation because these political commentators most critical of Israeli policy support nation states and political groups which are the most significantly religious, undemocratic, politically censoring and death wielding entities on planet earth.

Curiously enough the left (of which I am a part), whose philosophy has always been supportive of the oppressed and was, to its credit, vociferous during the perilous Nazi period stridently condemning the German war machine and its battle to finally eliminate the Jew not just from the land but from life itself, finds itself supportive of anti-democratic groups with fascist-like religious agendas simply because those groups are anti-Zionist or economically disadvantaged.

SOME, if not most, on the left, now are SO hypercritical of Israel and its policies that it falls, in my opinion, into the shadow of the old European Antisemitism. While some writers (including me) are critical of SOME Israeli polices most on the academic left now spawn an antisemitism (which they ardently deny) by claiming they are not anti Jew but merely anti Zionist or anti Israeli policy. That I submit is a Trojan Horse. The virulent criticism of Israel and antiZionist thought often gives those, particularly in the Arab world, the kerosene they need to flame the fires of the old Christian antiSemitism but this time it is in a new venue. The "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" a Russian phony document written in the early 20th century, which those whose brainchild for the Final Solution of Europe's Jews ULTIMATELY embraced, was an intrinsic ingredient to its plethora of rationale for death of the six million. The Protocols like the composer Wagner before it were favorites among the Nazi elite and Hitler himself. "The Protocols" can be found as a best seller in bookstores everywhere in the Middle East.

While Christian Antisemitism now seems to have become nearly fossil extinct its spawn in the Arab world flourishes. It is like a relay race where the baton of Jew hatred is passed to a new generation that exists all over the Islamic world. The old Jew cabalistic conspiratorial canards which meant death to the Jew in the Europe are now used prolifically ALL over the Middle East. It is as if today the Jew is time-machine transported to that ugly period. It is sometimes difficult to tell the difference between then and now.

If one can wrap one's mind around the SIX MILLION number NO WONDER Jews are just a little bit edgy about living through that kind of malevolent hatred yet again. The thought of living in a world then that existentially slaughtered nearly 2/3rds of the Jews of Europe makes a rational brain convulse.

Martin Luther King so eloquently in 1967 said what happens when one looks beneath an anti-Zionist one finds an Antisemite (link below). Perhaps, that is why many in the mainstream media are careful when criticizing Israel. Looming in the crevices of their most knowledgeable minds are images of Dachau and Auschwitz incapable of synaptic erasure but wanting that memory expunged. It's memory, though, is indelible and the Jew is forever sadly attached to its legacy and the Antisemitic legacy of 2000 years of historical review.

I maintain Israel is used as a punching bag for the same tired Antisemitism of old Europe except now it is in a different place. It meant existential death to the Jew then and it means existential death to the Jew now. It merely morphs into a different milieu but its equation is the same and its sum total just as deadly.

http://www.cdn-friends-icej.ca/antiholo/ml_king.html

2011-12-14T09:29:00.027-05:00

Tyranny in America: I have written on my inability to come to a definite conclusion about the now pending National Defense Authorization Act giving the president HUGE powers to detain indefinitely ANYONE based on the president's say so alone who is suspected of terrorist activities -- that means -- you, me, my 92 year old aunt -- ANYONE can be snagged and thrown in jail indefinitely with NO ONE, NOBODY, NADA able to come to one's defense. It will soon be on the president's desk for him to veto or sign.

In view of the recent story carried by MSNBC News today "Immigration Crackdown also Snares American citizens under the Secure Citizen's Act" -- linked at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45665156/ns/us_news-the_new_york_times/ this becomes ESPECIALLY troubling. These acts have Orwellian names because they ARE Orwellian when they are used to snag INNOCENTS UNJUSTLY to protect and exacerbate power. They are ESPECIALLY egregious if they trap innocents and US citizens simply because they LOOK Mexican, Hispanic or Muslim. It is EXACTLY about which our nation is NOT supposed to be and it is exactly the case in states like Arizona, Alabama and others which have enacted some of the most stringent anti-immigrant legislation. The case for the misuse of the law targeting specific types is infinite.

It is the height of hypocrisy and injustice that the criminals who took down Wall Street, the middle class's 401Ks, pension funds and sank the world wide economy get away with a type of murder but the federal government is going after the powerless often who are innocent. Why? BECAUSE THEY CAN. It is the same reason this nation used YOUR money and mine to invade and kill hundreds of thousands (including 5,000 Americans wounding thousands of others) in Iraq, a country which did NOTHING to us. What have we become? Glenn Greenwald, a civil liberties attorney and writer, posts many opinions about these vital issues on Salon.com. He can be read at http://www.salon.com/writer/glenn_greenwald/

Those who know me understand I try to look at issues from both sides and KNOW as I have said many times this is no ordinary time because the life and death stakes are so high. BUT when the state detains for days or indefinitely the innocent based on APPEARANCE or minor infractions alone and the right hand of the federal government does not know what the left hand of the state is doing offering no Fourth and Sixth Amendment Constitutional protections even to its own citizens, it makes my head explode.

Pastor Martin Niemoller, a German theologian who experienced 1930's Germany first hand, is said to have written his famous words about that period:

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

I enclose the following article for you to critically view these issues. I do not know if I agree with all of it but the issues it presents are important for you, they are important for me and they are important for ALL the generations that come after us if you want a country dedicated to the Constitutional protections of the rule of law to prevail.

Legislating Tyranny in America - by Stephen Lendman.

Obama won't prosecute CIA torturers, Wall Street crooks, other corporate criminals, lawless war profiteers, or other venal high-level civilian or government officials.

Instead, expect him to sign into law (or at least tacitly approve) indefinite military detentions of US citizens allegedly associated with terrorist groups, with or without corroborating evidence.

Post-9/11, US freedoms and other democratic values dramatically eroded. Enactment of police state provisions in the FY 2012 National Defense Authorization Act comes closer to ending them entirely.

On December 5, the ACLU headlined, "Indefinite Detention, Endless Worldwide War and the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)," saying:

Enactment of this measure will authorize "the military to pick up and imprison people, including US citizens, without charging them or putting them on trial."

Secretly with no hearings, both Houses are rushing to complete a "joint version" before leaving for Christmas break. "Fundamental American values and freedoms are on the line." Given the stakes, they're perilously hanging by a thread.

On December 13, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) urged Obama to veto NDAA in its present form. Otherwise, he'll "be responsible for signing into law one of the greatest expansions of executive power in our nation's history, allowing the government to lock up citizens and non-citizens without the right to fair trials."

Indefinite detentions violate core democratic freedoms, including fundamental Bill of Rights ones already gravely eroded.

On November 27, 1941, Franklin Roosevelt issued Proclamation 2524, declaring December 15 Bill of Rights Day to commemorate its 150th 1791 ratification.

At the time, he hailed "America('s) charter of personal liberty and human dignity," including "freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and the free right to petition the Government for redress of grievances."

Although American freedom then was far less than he claimed, today it hangs by a thread and may pass entirely any time for any reason.

In response to global imperial wars, corporate favoritism, unbridled private sector criminality, and political corruption at the highest levels, causing economic crisis conditions at home, thousands began protesting nationwide for social justice.

In response, militarized police confront them violently as NDAA heads for enactment to stop anyone from challenging US hegemony and corporate power by throwing them indefinitely in military dungeons to rot.

Equity and justice are fast eroding entirely to advance America's imperium. On May 26, the House passed HR 1540, 322 - 96. Doing so took a giant step toward abolishing freedom entirely.

On December 1, the Senate's S. 1867 followed suit, 93 to 7. Both versions assure no one anywhere is now safe, including law-abiding US citizens.

Enactment means anyone anywhere, including US citizens, may be indefinitely held without charge or trial, based solely on suspicions, baseless allegations or none at all.

No reasonable proof is required, just suspicions that those detained pose threats. Under subsection (b)(1), indefinite detentions can follow mere membership (past or present) or support for suspect organizations.

Presidents will have unchecked authority to arrest, interrogate and indefinitely detain law-abiding citizens if accused of potentially posing a threat.

Constitutional, statute and international laws won't apply. Presidential diktats will replace them.

US military personnel will be authorized to arrest and indefinitely detain anyone globally, including US citizens. No one anywhere will be safe.

Due process, civil protections, and judicial fairness will be null and void. Presidents could order anyone arrested and imprisoned for life without charge or trial. Abuse of power will replace rule of law protections. It can happen in days.

Ahead of their holiday break, leaders from both Houses are meeting secretly to resolve final language differences before sending NDAA to Obama to sign.

Promising a veto, he lied. He broke every major promise made. This one's no exception at a time he can go either way, given enough congressional votes to override him.

Moreover, Senate bill sponsor Carl Levin said administration officials, in fact, lobbied against language excluding US citizens from indefinite military detentions without trials or due process. According to Levin:

"The language which precluded the application of Section 1031 to American citizens was in the bill that we originally approved....and the administration asked us to remove (it) which says that US citizens and lawful residents would not be subject to this section."

"It was the administration that asked us to remove the very language which we had in the bill which passed the committee. (W)e removed it at the request of the administration....It was the administration which asked us to remove the very language, the absence of which is now objected to."

In other words, Obama wants US citizens indefinitely detained in military prisons whether or not charged. He fully supports police state repression. Only his disingenuous rhetoric says otherwise.

Earlier by Executive Order, he authorized indefinite detentions with or without military commission trials for persons designated national security threats. Intended specifically for Guantanamo detainees, it could be stretched to include anyone.

In addition, he authorized CIA operatives and Special Forces death squads to kill targeted US citizens abroad. As a result, they may be hunted down and murdered in cold blood for any reason or none at all.

Outspoken Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, a US citizen living in Yemen at the time, was killed for opposing Washington's imperium, not alleged or committed crimes. His murder comes perilously close to replicating assassinations at home, whether covertly or openly.

In fact, administration lawyers called US citizens legitimate targets if deemed national security threats, with or without corroborating evidence. As a result, indeed no one's safe, whether or not NDAA passes in its current form.

According to CIA counsel Stephen Preston and Pentagon lawyer Jeh Johnson, US citizens at war with America have no immunity. Executive branch officials, not courts, will decide guilt or innocence issues.

In other words, anyone voicing opposition to America's imperium risks being targeted for arrest, detention or assassination.

With regard to Obama's NDAA position, his White House November 17 Statement of Administration Policy said:

"The Administration supports Senate passage of (NDAA) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2012."

"Section 1031 attempts to expressly codify the detention authority that exists under the Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40) (the "AUMF"). The authorities granted by the AUMF, including the detention authority, are essential to our ability to protect the American people from the threat posed by al-Qaida and its associated forces...."

"Because the authorities codified in this section already exist, the Administration does not believe codification is necessary and poses some risk....While the current language minimizes many of those risks, future legislative action must ensure (against) unintended consequences that could compromise our ability to protect the American people."

Senate bill S. 1867, Section 1031, affirms the "authority of the armed forces of the United States to detain covered persons," including US citizens.

Section 1032 requires suspects held in military custody, outside constitutionally mandated civil protections, without habeas rights, due process, and other judicial procedures.

Obama may object to legislative language, not its intent. As a result perhaps, wiggle room wording changes may assuage his concerns, while leaving sweeping indefinite military detention authorization unchanged.

In other words, presidents henceforth may order anyone indefinitely detained in military prisons uncharged, including US citizens.

A Final Comment

Even before 9/11, Washington began militarizing police forces nationwide. Sophisticated weapons and training are provided, including military robots, M-16 assault rifles, helicopters, armored vehicles, grenade launchers, and other weapons previously used only by military forces.

In 1997, the so-called 1033 Program (formerly the 1208 Program) let the Defense Secretary "transfer, without charge, excess US Department of Defense (DoD) personal property (supplies and equipment) to state and local law enforcement agencies (LEAs)."

As a result, they've been supplied with land, air and sea vehicles, weapons, computer equipment, body armor, fingerprint equipment, night vision equipment, radios and televisions, first aid equipment, tents, sleeping bags, photographic equipment, and more.

In 2011 alone, about $500 million in military related hardware was supplied. Next year's amounts are expected to increase fourfold. Doing so coincides with OWS crackdowns.

More than ever, America is being militarized to quash popular social justice protests at a time equity and justice are fast disappearing. Moreover, military forces may intervene if local cops need help.

Post-9/11, police state terrorism was institutionalized. It's being hardened more than ever to crush dissent.

Constitutional, statute, and international law protections no longer apply. Planned tyranny will replace them, leaving no one safe anywhere henceforth.

2011-12-11T10:21:00.006-05:00

Dr. Jekyll, Animal Farm, and No Ordinary Time: I used the titles of the works of classical authors Robert Lewis Stevenson, George Orwell and contemporary historian Doris Kearns Goodwin because their works offer, in content, much of what I thought about the latest civil liberties elimination bill.

Glenn Greenwald embedded video within his opinion “The Real Definition of Terrorism” (See link below). Senator Carl Levin’s comments on the Senate floor offers proof that the president will sign NDAA 1031 Citizen Imprisonment Law in a few days. It also offers proof, according to Greenwald, that “Carl Levin claimed as part of the debate over the detention bill he sponsored with John McCain that it was the Obama White House that demanded removal of language that would have exempted U.S. citizens from military detention without charges”

At first glance I was overwhelmed that a president whom I ardently supported, worked for, wrote endless opinion in support of, and in whom I completely believed, may be the Mr. Hyde of the infamous Dr. Jekyll. It is hard if not impossible to accept and yet, this bill indicates our President, a Harvard Constitutional Law professor, could be just that.

The bill he is about to sign would strip ALL of us of our civil libertarian rights most especially under the Fourth and Sixth Amendments by giving the president UNLIMITED executive power to detain for an unlimited time, without trial, and now even execute a person on the president’s say so alone even IF that person is an American citizen and even IF that person is on US soil. It would eradicate The Fourth and Sixth Amendments to the US Constitution as we know it. This bill is eerily Orwellian in its conception.

Our Fourth and Sixth Constitutional Amendments in order state:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.

This soon-to-be latest grievous usurpation of power given by Congress to our president tosses to the wind our Constitutional Bill of Rights mandates. This would be in any other ordinary time a clear infringement and a destruction of the pillars upon which our form of government stands. I agree it would be – in any other ordinary time. But what if this is NO ordinary time?

With the benefit of hindsight we are able to see what our nuclear age looks like. We are able to see this since an actual nuclear bomb was exploded by the US and used on Hiroshima/Nagasaki Japan to end World War II. The US is the only nation to have ever used this device on human beings and their environment in the theater of war. We can see clearly now what the word nuclear means by its evidence.

The unparalled destruction from those nuclear blasts had, in history, never been seen by man. It reached far into the future causing not only the physical destruction of land, buildings and the death of 250,000 people but also included the perpetration of hideous birth defects and cancer for future generations of Japanese who were first exposed.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki shows the extent of damage the explosion of a nuclear device (size small by all accounts) can do. Hiroshima is a mirror for mankind to see what happens when our nuclear age moves out of the text book into reality.

May we say our enemy, the so called terrorists whoever they may be, would IF they could explode, at the very least, a dirty bomb on this nation? We know for certain as Al Qaeda has said that IF they could get their hands on such a device they would NOT hesitate to use it. Some Islamic clergy have given their religious permission slip for such an action. One could argue US egregious actions have prompted such permission but that does not matter now. What matters now is that it exists.

I suggest our Founders wrote our Constitution in quite an ORDINARY time. That is they wrote it when warfare was quite different. We as a nation could bathe in the luxury of Constitutional principle because the consequences of that age were by comparison to present time not dire. No one then, could know what the development of nuclear weaponry was or what it would mean for the survival of not only a country but for the survival of man on this planet.

Glenn and others (including me) academically argue comfortably in the security of an auditorium, classroom or home the notion that our country is stepping on its sacred document. We do not consider that this is no ordinary time. It is not the time in which our Founders lived, nor is it even the time in which our 20th century World War I president, Woodrow Wilson, lived.

What if our so called enemies whether here or abroad obtain a nuclear device with the intent of using it on us? What would YOU do? What lengths would YOU go to prevent this? Are the heretofore sacrosanct edits of our Fourth and Sixth Amendments worth the utter destruction of this nation of 300 million plus and its generations to come?

These are notions I believe we must consider as Pakistan becomes more and more an enemy and less a friend. Pakistan has nuclear weapons. This world could not be known to our Founders and not known for generations which came after them but now it is very well known to us. What are we willing to do and what are we willing to give up to protect this nation from an enemy who knows no boundaries? What are we willing to do to protect our nation from the perils of our age and MOST importantly is it really necessary to alter if not destroy our constitutional principles to do so?

http://www.salon.com/writer/glenn_greenwald/

2011-12-08T14:35:00.001-05:00

Why they hate us: If you ever want to know why they hate us, read this. It surely is NOT for our "freedom!"

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n24/mohammed-elgorani/diary?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=3324&hq_e=el&hq_m=1354499&hq_l=6&hq_v=e9a2fbf93a

2011-12-07T07:42:00.001-05:00

OCCUPY WINTER: Michael Moore (his email below) is a precious asset. He tells us that Occupy Wall Street is here to stay in many venues. The harsh winter that the extremist, fanatical, uncaring and brutal right wing NUTS created by their stupid inattention to the FACT of science, climate change,will be a MINOR inconvenience. Do what you can as I will. Please forward this to anyone you like and please know Occupy Wall Street is on your side even IF you are part of the 1%. EVERYONE is a 99%er because this Great Recession the creation, made, bought and sold is the child of Wall Street and it affects EVERYONE even them but they are too greedy to notice it. Without a middle class a society becomes stagnant like a third world nation and without the American Dream which has slowly slipped away a brain drain here will be going to nations that have promise. DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN.

Support Occupy Wall Street as best you can by Occupying Everywhere which is what we and the Occupy movement are doing. They cannot stop us, they cannot kill an idea, and they cannot kill our spirit.

Let's look forward to winter and USE it to show how utterly we are committed to the cause.

Best,

Natalie

MIKE'S LETTER:

The Winter of Our Occupation ...a proposal from Michael Moore

Tuesday, December 6th, 2011

Friends,

And now it is winter. Wall Street rejoices, hoping that the change of seasons will mean a change in our spirit, our commitment to stop them.

They couldn't be more wrong. Have they not heard of Washington and the troops at Valley Forge? The Great Flint Sit-Down Strike in the winter of 1936-37? The Michigan Wolverines crushing Ohio State in the 1950 Blizzard Bowl? When it comes to winter, it is the time historically when the people persevere and the forces of evil make their retreat!

We are not even 12 weeks old, yet Occupy Wall Street has grown so fast, so big, none of us can keep up with the hundreds of towns who have joined the movement, or the thousands of actions -- some of them just simple ones in neighborhoods, schools and organizations -- that have happened. The national conversation has been irreversibly changed. Now everyone is talking about how the 1% are getting away with all the money while the 99% struggle to make ends meet. People are no longer paralyzed by despair or apathy. Most know that now is the time to reclaim our country from the bankers, the lobbyists -- and their gofers: the members of the United States Congress and the 50 state legislatures.

And they're crazy if they think that a little climate chaos (otherwise known as winter in the 21st century) that they've helped to bring about is going to stop us.

I would like to propose to my Occupying sisters and brothers that there are many ways to keep Occupy Wall Street going through the winter months. There is perhaps no better time to move the movement indoors for a few months -- and watch it grow even bigger! (For those who have the stamina to maintain the outdoor occupations, by all means, keep it up -- and the rest of us will do our best to help you and keep you warm!)

The winter gives us an amazing opportunity to expand our actions against the captains of capitalism who have occupied our homes with their fraudulent mortgage system which has tossed millions of families out onto the curb; a cruel health care system that has told 50 million Americans "if you can't afford a doctor, go F yourself"; a student loan system that sends 22-year-olds into an immediate "debtors' prison" of working lousy jobs for which they didn't go to school but now have to take because they're in hock for tens of thousands of dollars for the next two decades; and a jobs market that keeps 25 million Americans un- or under-employed -- and much of the rest of the workers forced to accept wage cuts, health care reductions and zero job security.

But we in the Occupy Movement reject this version of the "American Dream." Instead, I suggest we shift our focus for this winter to the following actions:
OCCUPY THE WINTER

A proposal to the General Assembly of Occupy Wall Street from Michael Moore

1. Occupy Our Homes. Sorry, banks, a roof over one's head is a human right, and you will no longer occupy our homes through foreclosure and eviction because well, you see, they are our homes, not yours. You may hold the mortgage; you don't hold the right to throw us or our neighbors out into the cold. With almost one in three home mortgages currently in foreclosure, nearing foreclosure or "underwater," the Occupy Movement must form local "Occupy Strike Forces" to create human shields when the banks come to throw people out of their homes. If the foreclosure has already happened, then we must help families move back into their foreclosed homes -- literally (see this clip from my last film to watch how a home re-occupation is accomplished). Beginning today, Take Back the Land, plus many other citizens' organizations nationwide, are kicking off Occupy Our Homes. Numerous actions throughout the day today have already resulted in many families physically taking back their homes. This will continue every day until the banks are forced to stop their fraudulent practices, until homeowners are allowed to change their mortgage so that it reflects the true value of their homes, and until those who can no longer afford a mortgage are allowed to stay in their homes and pay rent. I beseech the news media to cover these actions -- they are happening everywhere. Evictions, though rarely covered (you need a Kardashian in your home as you're being evicted to qualify for news coverage) are not a new story (see this scene I filmed in 1988). Also, please remember the words of Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur of Toledo (in 'Capitalism: A Love Story'): Do not leave your homes if the bank forecloses on you! Let them take you to court and then YOU ask the judge to make them produce a copy of your mortgage. They can't. It was chopped up a hundred different ways, bundled with a hundred other mortgages, and sold off to the Chinese. If they can't produce the mortgage, they can't evict you.

2. Occupy Your College. In nearly every other democracy on the planet, students go to college for free or almost free. Why do those countries do that? Because they know that for their society to advance, they must have an educated population. Without that, productivity, innovation and an informed electorate is stunted and everyone suffers as a result. Here's how we do it in the U.S.A.: make education one of our lowest priorities, graduate students who know little about the world or their own government or the economy, and then force them into crushing debt before they even have their first job. That way has really worked well for us, hasn't it? It's made us the world leader in … in … well, ok, we're like 27th or 34th in everything now (except war). This has to end. Students should spend this winter doing what they are already doing on dozens of campuses -- holding sit-ins, occupying the student loan office, nonviolently disrupting the university regents meetings, and pitching their tents on the administration's lawn. Young people -- we, the '60s generation, promised to create a better world for you. We got halfway there -- now you have to complete the job. Do not stop until these wars are ended, the Pentagon budget is cut in half, and the rich are forced to pay their taxes. And demand that that money go to your education. We'll be there with you on all of this! And when we get this fixed and you graduate, instead of being $40,000 in debt, go see the friggin' world, or tinker around in your garage a la the two Steves, or start a band. Enjoy life, discover, explore, experiment, find your way. Anything but the assistant manager at Taco Bell.

3. Occupy Your Job. Let's spend the winter organizing workplaces into unions. OR, if you already have a union, demand that your leaders get off their ass and get aggressive like our grandparents did. For chrissakes, surely you know we would not have a middle class if it weren't for the strikes of the 1930s-1950s?! In three weeks we will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the workers in my hometown of Flint, Michigan taking over and occupying the General Motors factories for 44 days in the dead of winter. Their actions ignited a labor movement that lifted tens of millions out of poverty and into the middle class. It's time to do it again. (According to the Census Bureau and the New York Times, 100 million Americans either live in or near poverty. Disgraceful. Greed has destroyed the core fabric of our communities. Enough!) Here are two good unions to get your fellow workers to sign up and join: UE and SEIU. The CWA are also good. Here's how to get a quick primer in organizing your place of employment (don't forget to be careful while you do this!). If your company is threatening to close down and move the jobs elsewhere, then it's time to occupy the workplace (again, you can get a lesson in how to successfully occupy your factory from my movie).

4. Occupy Your Bank. This is an easy one. Just leave them. Move your checking and your credit card to a nonprofit credit union. It's safe and the decisions made there aren't based on greed. And if a bank tries to evict your neighbor, Occupy the local branch with 20 other people and call the press. Post it on the internet.

5. Occupy the Insurance Man. It's time to not only stand up for the 50 million without health insurance but to also issue a single, simple demand: The elimination of for-profit, privately-controlled health insurance companies. It is nothing short of barbaric to allow businesses to make a profit off people when they get sick. We don't allow anyone to make a profit when we need the fire department or the police. Until recently we would never allow a company to make a profit by operating in a public school. The same should be true for when you need to see a doctor or stay in the hospital. So I say it's long overdue for us to go and Occupy Humana, United Health, Cigna and even the supposed "nonprofit" Blue Crosses. An action on their lawns, in their lobbies, or at the for-profit hospitals -- this is what is needed.

So -- there are my ideas for the five places we can Occupy this winter. Help the foreclosed-upon to Occupy their homes. Occupy your college campus, especially the student loan office and the regents meetings. Occupy your job by getting everyone to sign a union card -- or by refusing to let the CEO ship your job overseas. Occupy your Chase or Citi or Bank of America branch by closing your account and moving it to a credit union. And Occupy the insurance company offices, the pharmaceutical companies' headquarters and the for-profit hospitals until the White House and Congress pass the true single-payer universal health care bill they failed to pass in 2010.

My friends, the rich are running scared right now. You need no further proof of this than to read this story from last week. The Republicans' top strategist met privately with them and told them that they had better change their tune or they were going to be crushed by the Occupy Wall Street movement. They didn't have to change their greedy actions, he assured them -- just the way they talk and PR the situation. He told them never to use the word "capitalism" -- it has now been made a dirty word by the Occupy movement, he said. Only say "economic freedom" from now on, he cautioned. And don't criticize the movement -- because the majority of Americans either agree with it or are feeling the same way. Just tell the Occupiers and the distressed Americans: "I get it." Seriously.

Yes, in just 12 short weeks we have killed their most sacred word -- Capitalism -- and we have them on the run, on the defensive. They should be. Millions are coming after them and our only goal is to remove them from power and replace them with a fair system that is controlled by the 99%. The 1% have been able to get both political parties to do their bidding. Why should only 1% of the population get to have two parties -- and the rest of us have none? That, too, is going to change. In my next letter, I will suggest what we can do to Occupy the Electoral Process. But first we must start with those who pull the strings of the puppets in the Congress. That's why it's called Occupy Wall Street. Always better to deal with man in charge, don't you think?

Let's Occupy the Winter! An #OWS Winter will certainly lead to a very hopeful American Spring.

Yours,

Michael Moore
MMFlint@MichaelMoore.com
@MMFlint
MichaelMoore.com

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2011-12-05T08:09:00.015-05:00

Another Letter to my Japanese Friend--Fukishima Revisited: To My Good Friend: I just saw this on the Associated Press (on Huffington Post) (Linked below). It reiterates and reinforces all that I have written about Fukishima and the corporate controlled news which now even in the US reports nothing on it until they must and governments both here and in Japan cover-up the continuing bad news. It is my feeling the public MUST be kept informed even if it seems we can do not much. Our voices, though, have some power as Occupy Wall Street here has shown during this man-made economic Great Recession, despite the corporate controlled negative news coverage. OWS has been a force for great good.

It is so important for others to keep aware of this nuclear madness so that (1) they can take necessary precautions such as washing food well and dawning protective gear where necessary and (2) so that NO more nuclear energy plants are built..NONE, NADA, EVER. They are NOT safe especially in a climate changed world and especially at sites near faults or oceans. Nothing nuclear is fail-safe.

My sources tell me foods here on the west coast are showing signs of radiation contamination. Yet NOTHING is said by the media or the president. I personally cannot confirm that BUT one particular source called the Fukishima blast and melt down correctly exactly when it first happened. He has said it was leaking then and suffered a major China Syndrome-like meltdown. Moreover, he has said radiation has been detected here.

The TEPCO plant leaked CESIUM, one of the most toxic substances known to man. TEPCO is shameful as is our own government and media in the US for not continually focusing a revelatory light on this catastrophe.

Stay safe and well.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/05/fukushima-daiichi-nuclear-power-plant-leaks_n_1128868.html

2011-12-03T19:32:00.001-05:00

Razing Cain: Yes, the spelling of razing is correct as the pestilence that was Herman Cain's feeble run for the highest office in our land was RAZED ... i.e. destroyed. Praise the lord! What must others watching American "presidential" politics think of this nation? The Republican slate is a carnival of candidates that makes the word stupid seem benign. It is shameful. I am embarrassed that this is the BEST the so called loyal opposition can do. They are so disastrously moronic.

This group puts forward opinions which will appeal to the small but vociferous radical right wing religious extremist base because they know they must if they want nomination. What a system this is that puts NOT the MOST qualified up for a vote but the most UNQUALIFIED trying to seek the most powerful position in the world with his finger on a button that could obliterate all of us in a nanosecond.

It is true we have had others who were LOW on the academic scale but this slate puts even them to shame. Shame on the Republican Party for calculating the best way to get Romney elected is to put stupids around him, shame on the candidates who hold such erroneous and deadly beliefs -- those who deny the undeniable of climate change or evolution.

These issues are not up for grabs they are FACT. Simply because they go against an academically challenged segment of our illustrious country does NOT make those things any less true and NOT up for debate. The earth is NOT flat and the sun does NOT revolve around it. Just because you would like to make the earth flat or the center of our galaxy does not make it TRUE.

Wake up America these candidates are HAZARDOUS to your health!

2011-12-02T18:42:00.001-05:00

Power Governments Cannot Suppress -- Howard Zinn Back to the Future There is no one who had a more fundamental impact on my own politics than Professor of History at Boston University, the late Howard Zinn. I perused FORATV for my own edification and came upon a 2007 lecture at Brandeis University three years before his death and one year before Barack Obama won the presidency.

His words STILL resonate with me today. His words are uncannily prophetic, infinitely humane and no less true today then they were when he uttered them. What he says sings to me and compels me as they did in 1968 to take the positions I do. I provide the link below for you to learn as the title of his popular book "A People's History of the United States." It is the history of our country looked at from a different perspective with a critical eye of government, its policies and its consequences. He was a profundity to me unlike any other. I miss him so even until this day.

Occupy Wall Street is a look back to a time that was not different from our day in 1968 and it is a look to the future of our nation as well. I am sure Howard Zinn would approve of it and reiterate what he so often did that power comes NOT by who is in the White House but who stands in front of it that counts.

http://fora.tv/2007/01/28/A_Power_Governments_Cannot_Suppress#quickreply

2011-12-01T18:46:00.003-05:00

The Case for Evolution: This (link below) is a brilliant lecture by the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. He is a scholar, an author and a professor at Oxford. His newest book is "The Greatest Show on Earth" and his book written in 2006 is entitled "The God Delusion." Here is his lecture at the Berkley Arts and Letters.

Evolution, he says, is FACT -- undoubted, endlessly provable FACT. It cannot be debated, he says, and is so with more surety than even the historical fact of the Holocaust.

I think this lecture is worth listening to and it will allow you, as I already have, to come to the conclusion that there is NO doubt and cannot even be debated, that evolution is fact ... not theory ... not supposition ... FACT. If you have any doubt about that I urge you to listen.

http://fora.tv/2009/10/07/Richard_Dawkins_The_Greatest_Show_on_Earth#fullprogram

2011-12-01T09:58:00.001-05:00

Extremism in the Face of Liberty is a Great Vice: Barry Goldwater's acceptance statement during the 1964 Republican presidential nomination "Extremism in the face of liberty is no vice; Tolerance in the face of tyranny is no virtue" sank him.

Egypt voted yesterday in its first democratic election. One of the most compelling Egyptian statements was spoken in the interview of a taxi driver in Cairo about his opinion on the Muslim Brotherhood, for whom he voted, winning big. “They look to God,” the tax driver said “They must be just.”

I am dismayed by this statement but I am not shocked by it. It is what one gets when many if not most of those who vote are illiterate; so illiterate that pictures had to be drawn on ballots so they could more easily vote. The essence of those cultures easily elect those who in reality are the least democratic among us, tolerate no dissension of belief, view things in black or white and act accordingly violent when anyone transgresses or violates their prevailing belief. When the uneducated vote in our times they often vote for religious leadership. The patent absurdity of the notion “They look to God,” because “They must be just” is obvious to those of us who are critical of power, critical of religion and critical of dogma no matter who says it.

One need only look to our own country which sports some of the most religiously extreme candidates in the world from the Christian extremist right. It does not matter whether it is Islamic, Christian or Orthodox Judaic religiosity. When people from these groups win man as a whole looses. The ability to exchange a diversity of opinion even if that opinion eschews religious mythological belief becomes impossible. The essence of what it means to be a free speech democracy is severely compromised if not lost. Cultures who do this remain stuck and even regress into reactionary nationalist politics. They are uncompromising, extreme and, often, extremely violent.

There is nothing better than an educated populous that attains a balanced understanding of world history and the events that follow. A nation based on a religious litmus test is a nation which cannot and will not advance. It is only through secular leadership that man can develop his natural and genetically ordained ability to think, create, and scientifically grow using the intellectual gifts all of man is fortunate to possess.

In sum: those in the west who wish for "democracy" in the Middle East ought to be careful. You may get what you wish for and often it is not whom you want!

2011-11-26T15:42:00.001-05:00

Algorithms in the Theater of War: The link below is about the headline in “McClatchy News”: “Pakistan blocks U.S. troop supplies after NATO kills 24 near Afghan border”

The US, of course, will continue to deny it and use as the excuse that US troops were fired upon. What is the truth? We cannot know if we are not in the theater of war. What I do know is the US will continue to deploy troops long after troops are needed and where the US goes, it stays, let's face it, for decades or, perhaps, never leaves. One need only to look at Europe and Japan after WWII. We are still there as occupiers perhaps once removed. Will we EVER be totally out of Iraq? Answer: NO. Bin Laden is dead. Will the US pack up from Afghanistan and monitor its actions from afar? Answer: NO.

The US can control a LOT BUT what it cannot control is other variables it cannot calculate into its algorithms of war. Iraq is proof of that. Our neoconservative jackasses thought the invasion of Iraq would be a war to pay for itself, over in matters of weeks and that the Iraqis would greet our soldiers with sweets and flowers. The sweets and flowers never came but civil war did erupting after the mother of all shock-and-awe invasions based on lies flatlined. Not only did the Iraqis not greet us with sweets and flowers they established Shiite control hand-holding with the Shiite mullahs of Iran giving Iran much greater power than it had when they were at war with Sunni Muslim Sadam Hussein’s Iraq from 1980 – 1988. Hussein was even supplied arms by the US.

Moreover, the US could not control the outcome of its Iraq War disaster or a million widowed Iraqi women. It could not control the millions who were refugees into a destabilized Syria with no money and no work many forced into prostitution. If women refugees die from disease or if Syrian security forces jail or kill them it is simply the collateral damage of war. These are expendable people; people who do NOT count.

Moreover, and MOST importantly, pertinent to the headline above, the US cannot control the stability of nations its own Iraq War destabilized, including and most important of all, the nuclear-armed Pakistan. I quote from the December 2011 issue of the Atlantic Magazine:

A country [Pakistan] that is home to the harshest variants of Muslim fundamentalism, and to the headquarters of the organizations that espouse extremist ideologies, including Al Qaeda, the Haqqani network, and Lashkar-e-Tayiba, nuclear bombs capable of destroying entire cities are transported in delivery vans on congested and dangerous roads. And Pakistani and American sources say that since the raid on Abbottabad [in May this year to kill Osama bin Laden], the Pakistanis have provoked anxiety inside the Pentagon by increasing the pace of these movements. In other words, the Pakistani government is willing to make its nuclear weapons more vulnerable to theft by jihadis simply [in a bid] to hide them from the United States, the country that funds much of its military budget".

The actions of the United States of America matter. If the US and its satellite NATO continue to dot the Arab landscape with boots and bombs then we will continue to read alarming bylines stating that Pakistan closed its border to Afghanistan so US troops cannot get supplies.

The US was the nation that pushed for the Nuremberg trials which demanded the individual, when necessary, oppose illegal, unconscionable, inhumane acts of governments even in the theater of war. It did not say with the exception of the US.

I do not want, of course, to sacrifice my own nation or its security but its security is enhanced when the world looks to the US as the penultimate moral compass. Our moral compass has been broken for years and in need of significant repair. It needs a change in direction. If we do not change our direction we become a nation of hypocrites sowing the seeds of our own destruction.

In the Internet age the world watches, the world waits and it listens. America controls a lot but it does NOT control it all!

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/11/26/131396/nato-forces-kill-at-least-24-in.html#ixzz1epvJS3Mn

2011-11-26T11:01:00.001-05:00

MEDICARE: As much as I might disagree with my relative on certain issues I have to admit he gets his predictions right a LARGE percentage of the time. He is a Wharton School of Business graduate, has had much business experience, and has appeared on NUMEROUS radio, TV, the Progressive News Hour and KNOWS what he is talking about.

His latest article the following is chilling. If you do not think YOUR medical care is on the chopping block unless you have incomes like Bill Gates then you are wrong. This is why it is IMPERATIVE to overturn the Tea Bag and a Republican led Congress while keeping the presidency progressively Democratic as well.

In short they want those who cannot work, who cannot afford insurance to die. Yes, it sounds histrionic i.e. excessive but I can assure you it is NOT. George Carlin was quite correct in his American Dream Utube. Look it up.

Read this opinion for your own health and welfare and that of your children and act accordingly. The title of the opinion and the link to his blog is below. If you think it cannot happen to you you are wrong. It CAN and it WILL.

Bipartisan Deal to Slash Medicare and Medicaid - by Stephen Lendman

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/

2011-11-24T12:20:00.002-05:00

Thanksgiving Day Thoughts: There are so many issues in our country and the world with which we must grapple. Thanksgiving, I think, gives us pause to stop and reflect upon those things in life that should gain prominence and separate for us what is significantly important from what is not. I think of Thanksgiving as our national day of meditation that should calm us, force us to reflect, be with those we love and lead us to rationally think about what we do and the consequences of how we do it.

In this Internet age information, true or otherwise, is sent in the second of an eye’s blink. One can say one heard a giraffe reading “War and Peace” and someone somewhere would believe it true. Facts in our culture are often taken as fiction and fiction is believed to be fact.

From the whirling dervish of Sandusky, the alleged Penn State pedophile, to the explosions in the Middle East, economic upheaval that is much of Europe and the barbed vitriolic division at home is enough to drive a sane man into the snake pit of insanity. How can we right these most egregious wrongs? I am as guilty as those I criticize for allowing my passion for critical analysis to appear as angry in tone as it is razor sharp in message. For that I apologize.

What is wrong with man that he cannot control his appetites for money, his lust for power and the anarchy of his sexuality? Those facts of life, necessary to cultural advancement if unchained lose their rationales for being and propel man to his inevitable destruction. Greed is necessary to help us create new things, money is a necessary tool of man’s economic advancement and sexuality, of course, is necessary to continue the species. And yet we use these necessary things to excess, hurting those we claim to love and even killing those with whom we may disagree.

There are those in human history who come at opportune times to show us a better path. They gain notoriety for what they say but as man is wont to do he perverts the goodness of their words honing them into a destructive force. I am not Christian. I have, though, loved the many elements of Christianity’s teaching. It is a humane compass. Jesus is supposed to have said “He who has not sinned cast the first stone.” Jesus is supposed to have said “Why worry about a speck in your friend's eye when you have a log in your own? Jesus is supposed to have said “I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” Jesus is supposed to have said "But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also."

I will never be a member of any organized religion or even accept other elements of faith but the purity of the words of Christ handed down through the ages, albeit difficult to follow, give a roadmap directing us how to treat the other who occupies the same planet as we. Thanksgiving for me is the Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement without the fast) of our nation because it teaches us to appreciate what we have, apologize for the caustic things we do or say, change the things we can and vow to do better next year. Happy Thanksgiving.

2011-11-22T08:27:00.000-05:00

If you do nothing else please click on the link--guaranteed to inspire!-- something positive from ME? yes!: Guaranteed to amaze and inspire even a curmudgeon like ME! ;-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg0_ITG01bs

2011-11-22T07:30:00.006-05:00

The Greatest Good--a Thanksgiving Hope: We all need meaning in this life and life has certainly thrown many curves my way but despite my sometimes curmudgeon-like attitude and, perhaps, often because of it, I try to improve the lemonade and make a sweeter drink.

I attempt to use my writing skills to convey humanitarian political and philosophical sentiment and promulgate humane principles that advocate the greatest good for the greatest number. (See the interesting link below on Jeremy Bentham -- a Utilitarian and 18th century influence of modern political thought. He was way ahead of his time!) I am hoping some of my ideas are read, considered or even used as a yardstick for future generations who may study this era to understand what some thought. I am hoping my written opinions will be seen advocating ideas which try to live up to our Constitutional creed that brilliant men wrote in a flicker of history and inscribed on the hearts of our nation and the world. They created a path for man to choose discourse, debate and compromise instead of war.

It did and does not always work with ease as we can see. It often takes time; sometimes generations and we become impatient. The Constitution is though, I believe, our road map to a better life. The nation has gone through many trials in its journey but even in the harshest period the road was cleared and the path made better; improvements made and prepared by one generation for the next.

I hope we persevere through this difficult economic and violent period. I have thought often about Ted Kennedy's words he spoke in eulogy of his assassinated brother Senator Robert Kennedy delivered on June 8th, 1968. He described his brother as a man "who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it." And so that sentiment which I heard so many years ago has become imprinted on my heart to advocate for politics which can best create the greatest good for the greatest number.

I can think of no better legacy to leave nor better thoughts to impart. It is through that dialogue the maladies of today’s night can evaporate into tomorrow's morning mist and it is my hope the generations which follow will do better than those they leave behind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bentham

2011-11-21T08:53:00.002-05:00

Who are the 1%? If you want to know who the 1% are and against whom the 99% are protesting click on the link below. Not only does it name names but it tells you exactly what they are worth and what they perpetrated to arrive at this dubious distinction as the worst. It is from Brave New Foundation a group the puts out documentaries telling the truth of often egregious events. This group wanted people to vote on who they thought were the most significant ones responsible for the dire economic state of not only the US but the world.

It is a most interesting cast of characters AND you can be a part of the vote. Democracy in action!

If you cannot click on the link cut and paste it into your browser

http://whoarethe1percent.com/

2011-11-20T22:58:00.007-05:00

Captivating Performance—J. Edgar: Saw the film J. Edgar and loved it. I think Leonardo DiCaprio is becoming one of this country's premier actors. He can play just about anyone and playing J. Edgar was no exception. I was in particular riveted to his performance and consider it Academy Award worthy. In addition, Judy Dench’s performance as Hoover’s domineering over-protective rather cruel mother was her usual great.

I gave it an eight star out of ten review on the IMDB site. I love various eras in post WWI US history, knew many of the issues presented in the film, knew about Hoover's alleged homosexuality and his life-long relationship with Clyde Tolson. We will never know, I suspect, if that relationship was consummated but the affection both clearly had for one another was obvious. Contrary to what interviews of the director, Eastwood, suggest I think the film does NOT elude to Hoover's homosexuality it shouts it and that the love of his life was Clyde Tolson. It is crystal clear from various scenes and emotional moments between Hoover and Tolson and because a straight man usually would not subvert his desire not only for sex but for having a family life ESPECIALLY if one were in a high position of power like Hoover was. In addition, the two men were never out of each other's company whether it was lunch every day or after hours. Moreover, and even more telling Hoover left nearly his entire estate to Tolson and finally they were buried close to each other in the same cemetery. If it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck it’s a duck! His relationship vis a vie the film I think made it CRYSTAL clear where Mr. Hoover's inclinations lay.

In essence the film depicts Hoover as an Oedipally neurotic hypocrite. He went after other people's suspected immoralities but kept his own proclivities secret. It is because of his homosexuality AND also because he wanted to keep his job that, I believe, he created his secret file. According to the film that file was shredded by his loyal secretary Ms. Gandy when Hoover died. An article in the Washington Post says all of his secret files can be read. Why the discrepancy I do not know.

Was the film perfect? Probably not but I came away from it feeling about Hoover what I felt the many years since the protests against the Vietnam War and that was that he was a paranoid anti-Communist seeing one in every closet, was a tortured man, tyrannical in nature and prone to valuing the supremacy of the state over the civil liberties of the individual destroying lives in the process. His lust for power and his temper were brutal and his idiosyncrasies obvious. I admit to his creation of a superior national police agency, the FBI but I loathed him in life and 40 years after his death and viewing the film I still do!

I recommend it for those who love the history of that period, love seeing excellent acting and for those who find Hoover's tyranny -- J. Edgar that is – entirely fascinating.

2011-11-20T08:30:00.001-05:00

Monitor the Vote: Huffington Post has an excellent link which is entitled and says:

"What are the campaigns doing where you live?"

It further states:

"The 2012 races are already out in full force in many early primary states. We want to hear about the campaign ads, robocalls, mailers and signs you're seeing in your community. Tell us about it here or send us information via email at offthebus@huffingtonpost.com."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/20/mitt-romney-defends-aides-purchasing-hard-drives_n_1103585.html

I sent them and the Democratic Party the following:

I think this is an excellent thing to do.

It is VITAL as the Republicans have utterly NO scruples and will stop at nothing no matter how unethical, fraudulent and
possibly illegal to try to deprive those who would vote Democratic of doing so. They even gerrymander districts to get it out of Democratic hands. They MUST be scrupulously monitored in every single state by those of that state who want to see fair elections while trying to get the most who can vote TO vote especially in minority, Hispanic, and young voters of all ethnic groups who often vote Democratic. When the time comes Democrats need to have a legion of volunteers to help people get to the polls especially the elderly, the disabled or those who may not have transportation who usually ARE or vote Democratic as well.

We should have armies of professionals including lawyers who know the law in each state. If any crap that Republicans are known to do like telling voters the election is on a different day or that they must have certain identification documents they do not need is found to be suspicious or unethical an immediate PUBLIC inquiry should be illuminated and begun.

Further, our people should be advised of people like James O'Keefe who nefariously brought down the Democratic voting registration group ACORN unjustifiably. We should NOT have capitulated on that one. O'Keefe's photo and others who may be his assistants should be WELL known to Democrats so that they do not get caught by him as he "investigates" Democrats and will show only selected bits of what he has done to make Democrats look as bad as possible.

I do not have to tell you Republicans are VICIOUS, mean and subversive to us. They are utterly Machiavellian and will use any means necessary and I do mean ANY means necessary to subvert and defeat Democrats. DO NOT LET THEM!!!

2011-11-19T13:21:00.006-05:00

A Manifesto to Undermine the Occupy Wall Street Movement: At Rachel Maddow’s suggestion we taped “Up With Chris Hayes” early this a.m. on MSNBC. In case ANYONE on planet earth had any doubt, the Goliaths are coming to slay the Davids of Occupy Wall Street. The memo acquired by MSNBC/Chris Hayes (linked below) exposes the law firm of banksters and lobbyists Clark, Lytle, Gedulig and Cranford offering their memo and a method to undermine the Occupy movement. I also provide an MSNBC link to the story itself.

Exposing the memo is one of the greatest media efforts to uncover the truth of just whose wealth is attempting to control the 99% and impart justice to its smarmy cabal which has perpetrated the greatest economic fraud on our nation. It illuminates the power of both Cable and the Internet to sometimes work for the collective good.

The memo exposes the lengths the big banks and those that represent them will go and the behavioral treachery they will manifest to destroy the people's movement of Occupy Wall Street. Clearly, the 1% are scared. We, of course, assume there are hundreds of memos like it using other firms to undermine Occupy Wall Street.

I urge my political allies to read it and send the link below to those whom you know will understand the importance of exposing this treacherous behavior and hopefully they will send it around to their friends and allies too.

I spare no one not even those on the left who do not meet my high standards. Rachel Maddow and her many colleagues at MSNBC including people like Melissa Harris Perry professor at Tulane University as well as the commentators like Keith Olbermann and soon Cenq Uygur at Current TV have NEVER disappointed me. Occupy Wall Street and the progressives at MSNBC and Current TV are in the process of saving lives and saving our country along with them as well.

They are ALL party of my daily routine.

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/CLGF-msnbc.pdf

http://openchannel.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/19/8884405-lobbying-firms-memo-spells-out-plan-to-undermine-occupy-wall-street

2011-11-16T07:21:00.030-05:00

The Sinking or Saving the Ship of State--America at a Crossroad: I awoke to read the following MSNBC headline: "Middle-class areas shrink as America divides into 'two-tiered society' of rich and poor." This is just plain sad. It makes me sick at heart. I remember another America down at difficult times but rising to meet the challenge. Will we do so again? The country is at a crossroad and had a choice after 2008 of living or dying during this Great Recession era with its passenger eternal war. In our nation's history during trying times of great peril -- the Revolutionary War, Civil War, The Great Depression and World War II -- it drew the lucky number. I thought by the election of Barack Obama in 2008 the country had drawn the lucky straw yet again. But, it seems this time, we did not.

The American people in their infinite wisdom -- with a little help from the seditious Koch Brothers billionaire money men -- created a Tea Bag monster party and from stupidity and/or racist ideology installed an intractable obstructionist Congress. It seeks to sink the country not save it. The Republican goal: to defeat this country's first black president by any means necessary. Consequently, what was needed could not get done. Moreover, my hope, Barack Obama, decided to place in the most important financial positions the very foxes that killed the chickens -- Geither, Summers and their cronies of Goldman Sachs, et al of Wall Street. Not only did they protect their buddies on Benedict Arnold Street but they saw easy prey in Obama himself and refused to do what he ordered -- Read Ron Suskind's book "Confidence Men" which reveals this utter failure of leadership and back room treachery betraying a naive president.

Since a Republican Romney or anyone else in that sorry mess of Republican presidential candidates will sink this country deeper into its quicksand and elevate the rich higher all of these god forbid potential presidents are UNACCEPTABLE. It will be, if any of these rancid Republicans are elected, the icing on a poisonous cake. PERHAPS and it is a BIG PERHAPS this president and this obstructionist Republican Congress know they will be kicked from here to kingdom come if something is not done to ameliorate the country's fatal disease. Perhaps there is finally a righting of the ship of state -- PERHAPS.

I say this with great fear and trepidation that it is not so. I hope I am correct that these egregious wrongs will be righted because IF I am not right all or certainly most of us in the 99% know our very lives are at stake -- especially so for the young! Empires come and empires go. Many stay for the, at first, happy ride but those of us who are unlucky will be on board for its fall and will get to experience a tragedy the likes of which we have never known.

2011-11-15T19:21:00.000-05:00

Recall the Vile governor Scott jerk Walker of Wisconsin Please donate if you can by clicking on the link below to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin to unseat the vile Scott Walker. Then get prepared to unseat Kasich of Ohio, Scott of Florida, Rick Snyder of Michigan and LePage of Maine. Send them a message they will NOT forget. The left is here and we can dwarf the fascist tea baggies. Do NOT let them win. Support Occupy Wall Streets everywhere by supporting the Democratic parties everywhere. They are not perfect but they are a damn site better than the disloyal opposition. We have just begun to fight!

http://www.wisdems.org/?no_splash=1

2011-11-15T11:07:00.000-05:00

Cough Cough: Jeff Jacoby never ceases to amaze me. Now he is advocating for the tobacco industry against graphic medical depictions of the effects of smoking on a box of cigarettes. In his November 13 editorial "We can Still Breath Deep on Free Speech" he yet again runs true to form. He thinks the harsh medical depictions on the box are just too much, go too far and are not needed in preventing smokers and others who are thinking of taking up the dastardly habit not to do so. I used to be a smoker as a teenager many years ago. My relative who is a pulmonary specialist later pleaded with me to accompany him on rounds to see the carnage that smoking tobacco creates.

If Jeff's Jacoby's daughter or son was thinking of taking up the habit and saw on a cigarette box the man with his chest cut open for treatment due to the effects of smoking wouldn't he be THRILLED that that grotesque picture of reality was something they saw and because of it avoided by decades their own suffering and early death caused by the effects of tobacco use? Those amazing rough pictures on the pack are TRUE and they SHOULD be seen. It is too bad some judge somewhere thought they went too far. If they prevent even one death I say they are worth it but we know the depictions would prevent many more than that and the tobacco companies stood to lose a lot of money if those pictures were allowed to remain. It is why they fought so hard against them.

I consider it a kind of free speech used by the state to do something good for the people. I guess Jeff cares only about the rights of corporations he thinks are people instead of the flesh and blood real human beings who are saved by any means necessary from buying the poison the tobacco corporations are
just dying (pardon the pun ) to sell!

2011-11-14T10:57:00.000-05:00

Occupy My Heart—A Letter to Occupy Boston: Yesterday, arduous as it was for me, we decided to see what Occupy Boston which braves the harsh elements was about. We brought lots of food, even made a ginger bread cake and packed a rather heavy bag (which I did not carry) and commuter railed it into Boston. It was difficult for me but because it was a joint effort many hands made lighter work. We were THRILLED we made the trek. I felt like the cloud of our depression about things political evaporated into the mist. I wrote a letter to Occupy Boston and OWS, of course, and post it now on my blog to convey my sentiments about this, in my opinion, wonderful movement.

To the OWS workers: I cannot convey how much we appreciate what so many all over the country are doing within the Occupy Wall Street movement to change this rancid, corrupt, sickening hand-holding between those who are entrusted by us with great executive and congressional power and those on Wall Street who buy them off at our expense. If Occupy is a success you will have saved the nation from a fascist-like tyranny that is the essence of the American rightwing and save the country also from the oligarchy of the present. We know some Democrats along with most Republicans are involved in this deception. I TRULY believe that you, collectively, are the FDR of our time coming just in the nick of time at this our hour of need. We are forever in your debt.

I also believe, too, that we must utilize the institutions which are in place to create the change our nation desperately needs. As much as we criticize our president, and I have done so on numerous occasions, he is who we have and has done much good. It would be MUCH better for our cause and our country if he served a second term than it would be if a Romney, Gingrich or god forbid a Perry wins first term. There could be two Supreme Court justices who may need replacement during an Obama second term and we know more Wall Street regulation must occur. We know it will NOT occur under a President Romney, Gingrich, Perry or unthinkably Cain.

I am old enough to remember and, indeed, took part in many anti-war demonstrations in the late sixties. The left was fed up with Johnson’s Vietnam and the country’s racial inequality so they took it out on LBJ’s Vice-President and 1968 presidential hopeful, Hubert Humphrey. The left made the Democratic convention in Chicago a shambles and violence was everywhere. It ensured that the better of the two candidates, the Democrat, Humphrey (who would have ended Vietnam,) lost. Instead the country elected Richard Nixon the corrupt. Change was made alright but understatedly NOT the change we desired or needed and many thousands more needlessly died overseas. It is my opinion that we who wish for systemic humanitarian change MUST work pragmatically with whom we now can to ensure NO Republican EVER gets near the oval office.

President Obama has been remiss at times and I have been vociferously critical of him when I needed to be BUT, in truth, many good things have been enacted under his leadership that never would have been enacted if a Republican McCain and the insipid Palin won. Under the President we repealed the noxious DADT, signed the Lily Ledbetter law for women’s rights and the president nominated and achieved the installation of two very good Supreme Court justices one of whom is the first Hispanic woman to sit on the nation's high court. That made history. Under this President we attained more solid legislation including some needed reform in health care and even, some reform on Wall Street (admittedly not yet enough.) A second Obama term I believe will be much more fruitful.

I ask and I hope that the Occupy movements all over the country do NOT take their righteous anger out on this President. He has had to endure the most obstructionist Congress in the nation's history with the exception of, perhaps, the Congress in the pre-Civil War era. The nation after that tumultuous time has not seen the kind of incorrigible division that exists today.

I HOPE progressives show up en masse in 2012 to re-elect the President BUT he must know that he must help create more of the changes he promised. He MUST take Wall Street out of the Oval Office and WE MOST importantly must take Wall Street OUT of the Congress by turning Congress progressive blue. Strict Wall Street regulatory legislation along with a functioning consumer protection bureau and a no nonsense SEC must be installed. He must LEAD to take corporate money, greed and a bought off Congress OUT of the electoral milieu. This cannot be done overnight.

We KNOW what the President should have done BUT that DOES NOT matter now and we know the good that he HAS done which does matter greatly. We must play the ball where it lies and we must NOT be caught sleeping on the sidelines allowing again the election of Know Nothings who created in 2010 a Republican impenetrable brick wall of obstruction and hate.

The 2011 mid-terms showed us that the giant left wing is STILL there and the movement of Occupy Wall Street proves it. We MUST show up to vote, carry the middle class with us in 2012 and NOT hand an election to Republicans who will destroy our country and its once proud American Dream. Yes, I believe there is a huge difference between the two parties. Democrats are not perfect but our two-party system is the system we have. We, I believe, must not give up on those who CAN and install those who WON’T while those who won’t take everything for the top 1% and leave nothing for the masses of us.

Thank you, Occupy Wall Street and Boston, for occupying my heart. Thank you for diminishing my sadness and for instilling hope once again. As George Bush the Incompetent said -- although he certainly did not mean it to refer to a group like Occupy Wall Street – We MUST NOT FALTER and we MUST not fail. I appropriate that quote for those who share OUR vision and hope that OUR vision is clearer and our hearts stronger than those who have no heart and consequently no vision at all.

2011-11-10T17:41:00.004-05:00

The Genius of Glenn Greenwald: Last year I had the distinct pleasure of listening to Glenn Greenwald speak at Harvard. It was, of course, an honor to be able to listen to someone so brilliant, so eloquent and so well versed in the concept of civil liberties which are central to our democracy and our way of life.

I enclose the link at the bottom for your listening pleasure and urge you if you have the time to do so. It was a lecture he gave and a question and answer session at Brown University in April, 2011.

Glenn's writings appear regularly at Salon.com and many of his talks, debates and discourse can be found on Utube. I found the Utube below to be particularly interesting and informative as to the nature and concept of civil liberties. We throw around that word very often and take pride in our nation which was founded on civil libertarian principles enumerated within our Constitution which bestows certain rights the people enjoy and certain prosecutorial prohibitions beyond which the government cannot go.

Glenn is a master of civil liberties and according to Salon is a former Constitutional and civil rights litigator and is the author of New York Times Bestselling books on the Bush and Obama administration’s executive power and foreign policy abuses. If you Google Amazon books and put his name in the search you can see the gems he has written and read samples of them.

I offer the link below as an introduction to one of the premier intellects, historians and civil liberties attorneys of our time. If you listen I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Kirz_vGQeI&NR=1

2011-11-10T08:10:00.013-05:00

The Gaffe Heard Round the World: Last evening’s Republican debate was the most hilarious “debate” I have ever heard or seen. Larry O’Donnell, the brilliant MSNBC political pundit, called Rick Perry’s gaffe one of the worst gaffes in the history of presidential debates. As I see it, it goes down with Nixon's sweaty lip except better.

This week has been a GIFT to Democrats. Between the Republican gaffe-filled so called “debates” and the 2011 Republican failures in the midterms, I HOPE once the Christmas party is over, the president can take advantage of the anemic Republican field and keep the momentum up.

If the Republican Party itself were not so mean and hypocritical rotten with the exception of perhaps John Huntsman and, yes, I suppose the flip-flopper-in-chief, Romney, I would not get joy in Perry’s mistake because, truthfully, it was uncomfortable to view. It could not happen, however, to a more cerebrally pathetic and unqualified candidate than Rick Perry.

Herman Cain could not have provided better ammunition to help prove the veracity of the sexual harassment accusers in this circus of sexual harassment by calling the former Speaker Nancy Pelosi “princess Pelosi.” That condescending insult to the preeminently qualified woman Speaker Pelosi put the icing on his exploding cake. I do hope more accusers come forward to buttress Ms. Bialek’s accusation but if they do not it does not matter. Cain is through.

Add to the insanity is Newt Gingrich’s horrible record with women having had numerous extra-marital affairs. Gingrich is a man who served his former wife divorce papers when she was hospitalized undergoing cancer treatment. Trying to squirm around the problems presented by Cain in this field of supposedly "family values" candidates is an unmitigated disaster. Jay Leno could not have written a more comedic script BUT admittedly what Gingrich did is not funny. It is tragic in this tragi-comedy of Shakespearean proportions!

There is a pathetic quality to the 2012 Republican slate. Add to that the disastrous showing of the Republicans in the midterm ballot initiatives and loss in state legislatures it proves the strength and organizational skills of Democrats with the help of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

The Republican Party has NOTHING and the one candidate they do have, Romney, must fit the round peg of his true beliefs (assuming anyone knows what they truly are) into the square hole prison the Know Nothing extremist Republican base has made.

I link the video of the Perry gaffe below so one can see the pathetic quality of the 2012 Republican slate. Add to that the disastrous showing of the Republicans in the midterm ballot initiatives and loss in state legislatures it proves the strength and organizational skills of Democrats with the help of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

FINALLY a smile was brought to my face. I HOPE we will be able to kiss the Tea Bag Party with is cruelty and often racist mantra good bye and none too soon, indeed. Enjoy! :-)

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

2011-11-10T00:33:00.003-05:00

The Three Shames: There are no words to describe the sickness of what took place at Penn State. The stupidity and the insanity of men who are responsible for the protection of students entrusted to their care witness or are told of this most egregious behavior of child rape and come to the conclusion that the institution with all its money, power and prestige is more important to save than saving the vulnerable minors they have a moral obligation to protect. This is an abomination.

The Catholic Church, too, when the hierarchy KNEW that young boys were being sexually molested by priests decided in their infinite wisdom to IGNORE the very children of their flock and came to the conclusion that the institution was more important to save than those innocents who depend upon that institution for their spiritual life. Instead of reporting the perpetrators to police they decided to protect their most egregious behavior by moving the perpetrator priests around to protect the wealth, power and prestige of the religious institution they served. It was and still is an abomination.

Herman Cain when faced with FOUR female accusers telling similar stories about his alleged assaults says that because he did not harass thousands those four allegations of the woman should be disregarded. He is an abomination.

The institutions and people MUST be taken to the watershed of public punishment and we as a country and as a people need to decide who we TRULY are. It is a disgrace for the entire world to see this nation based on such lofty ideals fall from that grace in so many ways too innumerable to count.

Our Founders who gave us a gift lie in their graves but we the living must live with who we have become. It is a sad day for our country which is SUPPOSED to be the shining city on the hill, an example of ethics and good government. Who are we?

Shame on you the lofty Joe Paterno for looking the other way when you KNEW children were raped and did nothing. Shame on the leadership of the Catholic Church for moving pedophile priests from district to district and state to state so they could perpetrate their sickness on so many other children and reward Cardinals that allowed that behavior to continue by giving them cushy jobs in Rome. Shame on YOU Herman Cain for NOT addressing the seriousness of the charges levied against you. Instead you had the unmitigated gall to disrespect the former speaker Nancy Pelosi and call her princess Pelosi. You sealed your fate with that comment. You, sir, cannot even walk in her shadow.

Shame on ALL of you who give institutions a pass before the very people, including so many children, you are entrusted to protect. You all truly are an abomination!

2011-11-09T11:46:00.002-05:00

Not Neutral on Net Neutrality: The corporate behemoths are ready to strike again. This time they want to control the flow of information on the Net. Do not let them. Net neutrality is vital to keep our Internet alive and FREE. They will if they get the Congressional votes be voting on whether to be able to charge a fee for certain things on the Internet. The
Internet is NOT theirs to bargain away. It is First Amendment BLACKMAIL. Hit the submit button below and then pass it on.

It is IMPERATIVE unless you want to receive slowed down Internet service If you do not pay. The nerve of them is beyond belief. Yet AGAIN the oligarchy wants to choke yet another forum off from our purview. DO NOT LET them...Tell your congressman to SUPPORT net neutrality.

Here is a link explaining the issue in neutral terms. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality_in_the_United_States

Then read the Credit Union email below explaining our side of the issue. Sign it and send and then forward to any you deem would support net neutrality or others who need convincing.

-----Original Message-----
From: Consumers Union

Sent: Wed, Nov 9, 2011 10:47 am
Subject: Net Neutrality

Consumers Union, Policy & Action from Consumer Reports
Dear Natalie,
Are you thinking about giving someone a nifty tablet computer for Christmas so they can watch movies anywhere? The streaming internet is an amazing experience.
But it could become a lot more expensive if the Senate pushes through a bill to end net neutrality. This bill will soon to come to a vote--as early as tomorrow.
Tell your Senator to support net neutrality and vote NO on the Congressional Review bill this week!

Net neutrality? What does that have to do with watching movies? Everything. Right now, anyone can deliver content to you because the internet itself does not impose any restrictions on your access.

So companies have to compete for your business based on the quality of their content, the ease of delivery, the service they provide. That's how it should be.
But passage of this bill will give the big cable and phone companies a different kind of internet, one where they can charge you more for access to a competitor's content.

Today's internet is a driver of real competition -- people invent better products and services, and you decide whether the price is right.
Help us keep it that way! Tell your Senator to vote NO!
Do you have friends who also want to preserve net neutrality? Please forward this message to them. We only have a couple of days to generate a huge wave of consumer opposition before this vote!

Sincerely,
Bob Williams
HearUsNow.org
A project of Consumers Union
1101 17th Street NW, Suite 500
Washington, DC 20036

2011-11-09T08:54:00.006-05:00

THE BELL WEATHER: Stream of Conscious written last evening before the final tally: The REJECTION of the rancid Governor Kacich's Ohio union stripping bill is won the day. Same day voting in Maine the Republican rancid Gov. LePage tried to negate is being reinstated. Other wins for Dems are happening EVEN in Mississippi. This may be a GOOD indication of how strong we TRULY are. Occupy Wall Street has given us our enthusiasm back.

This is shaping up to be a GOOD night to be a bell weather for 2012...WE MUST get out the message and turn the Congress progressive BLUE again so that the president can do what he has promised. I am CONVINCED that we would be out of the economic soup IF Republicans gave him a chance. They did NOT they are intractable and HOPEFULLY god I HOPE they have sowed the seeds of their own destruction.

Get that message out that the ill economy is NOT the President's fault. The economic fraud was conceived under Republicans and happened under Bush. Our president has TRIED his damnedest to get us out of the ditch but Republicans are intractable and venomous. They MUST be defeated next November and he elected. This is NOT going to be a cake walk for Republicans; FAR from it.

Get the word out that the economic doldrums it is NOT the president's fault but it is the Republicans fault for saying NO to everything despite the good it could do for the country. The tax cuts for the TOP 1% must be rescinded, troops for a war machine must come home, programs for the poor, the elderly the disabled must be kept in place and most importantly JOBS which the president wants for infrastructure WILL happen IF we get the Republican evil OUT of Congress--OUT of the House and keep the Senate blue!

You do NOT want a conservative Supreme Court for decades...that is the damage that these weasels do. Spread the word and most of all help do what you can to UNSEAT the rightwing lunatic extremist agenda for you, for your children and once and for all for everyone.

2011-11-09T07:29:00.002-05:00

The Waxed Lid: One of the women Cain allegedly harassed called him a "monster." I believe her. Keep going, Mr. Cain, PAHLEESE, we Democrats love it as it puts the spotlight on these cerebral nincompoops and truthfully makes the ENTIRE Republican field look disastrous. It does them no favors and anything that does them no favors does Democrats big favors. Add to that some stupendous wins for Dems on ballot issues (see link below) and some singular elections as well, this is the happiest I have been since 2008. I hope that happiness does not fade.

Cain is THROUGH and some GREAT victories yesterday for Dems came true BUT the fight goes on. The Koch Brothers of right wing billionaire fame put MILLIONS into defeating us but it did NOT work. We through unions and other strong left of center groups with money can play that big money Citizens United game too and hopefully will. Kacich, Walker, LePage and Republican malevolents like them have energized the once defunct union movement which I HOPE is revived and stays honest.

Giving what you can to organizations like Occupy Wall Street, AFL-CIO, and others groups dedicated to making sure these virulent, mean and intrinsically sick Republican right wing extremists do not take the oval office. Moreover, turn the House blue again and stop sending our country into an oligarchic tyranny dedicated to the interests of corporate behemoths against we the people -- the 99%. We need to unseat the nasty Tea Bag and other Republican elements that are radical and subversive to our country at best. One can find groups on the web, Facebook or Twitter to help our cause.

Moreover, today I hope the other four women will come out against Cain and put the sealed wax lid on this rancid pickle jar!

If you cannot give WRITE! Literally YOUR life and everyone else's IS at stake!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

2011-11-07T19:47:00.004-05:00

Lowering Cain: Today, if you have not already heard ad nauseam a woman present herself to the media making very credible statements about the sexual harassment she says she suffered literally at the hands of Mr. Cain, the Republican now top tier candidate for the presidency of the United States, I offer my thoughts about it.

This is SO disgusting on so many levels it is hard to count the ways. I am not a prude but I did squirm when she very believably described what Mr. Cain allegedly did sexually to her. I do not know how she had the courage to stand in front of a microphone and tell the immediate world the smarmy details which I would have a difficult time uttering to a trusted friend but she did. I believe her as I did the anonymous three others who have not yet come forward two of whom settled civil cases against Cain. I am even more astounded at the many men who think it just fine to say and do anything sexual that would satisfy their immediate desire. Are there not any inhibitions left? Do a woman’s feelings about something so personal not count? Might a man if he were so inclined ASK permission of a woman before doing something so sexually intimate?

What that woman before cameras said to the world says something about our country as to the drought and the paucity of candidates for the presidency ESPECIALLY on the Republican side of the isle. It is astounding. Is this is all that party has to offer to put up for the highest, most powerful, most prestigious office in the land? This is who could have his finger on a button that could end the human race as we know it? Herman Cain is a man whom one would want to show to the world who did NOT even know China has possessed nuclear weaponry for a very long time? It is astounding on those counts.

I am an equal opportunity employer though. When I woke up one morning and heard the first story of the day about the Monica Lewinsky blue dress proof positive implicating Clinton in a sex scandal in the White House I thought I would THROW UP. I voted for him TWICE! What have we become? What passes for credible candidates, what passes for journalism, what has happened that things once considered vulgarities are now spoken with ease? Is it ALWAYS about the money, the film rights, or the books that someone will write?

I am SICKENED at the level of discourse in this country. Something is very wrong; very most TERRIBLY wrong and instead of raising Herman Cain to the presidency he should be lowered from attaining it post haste!

2011-11-06T22:20:00.006-05:00

Walking Away: Boston Globe columnist Joan Wickersham's editorial (War Stories in Real Time) was never more on point then when I viewed "Sixty Minutes" last evening. I attach the link below if you did not happen to catch the segment. It was entitled "Operation Proper Exit" and speaks to her editorial loud and clear as to the divide between those who stay at home during war and those who fight the fight in its theater. The "Sixty Minutes" segment was such a moving and disturbing piece that someone who watched it with me had to walk out of the room before it ended.

I never walk away from seeing the reality of war and its atrocities both physical and emotional whether it is the crucible of D-Day, the ovens of Auschwitz, the obscenity of Hiroshima or the hell of Iraq. If I did not dare to see the unseeable I could not have formulated a left-of-center political philosophy and belief that war -- nearly all war -- in modernity is man's insanity at its worst to be avoided at all costs. We refuse to watch at our peril only to be immersed in the cesspools of that insanity again and again and again.

Here is the link if you did not view "Sixty Minutes" yesterday and you think you should.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7387332n&tag=contentMain;cbsCarousel

2011-11-06T09:33:00.003-05:00

As many of you may know my partner’s mother suffers from Alzheimer’s. Although it is tragic to all, including the families of those afflicted with this insufferable disease, I believe it is particularly tragic where her mother is concerned because she was the most intellectually astute and artistically creative person I knew. She composed her own puppet theater for children, she knew the arts, and she was a thinker of many things true to her Unitarian Universalist tradition.

I was shown a poem written thirty years ago by her the thoughts of which not only reflect the essence of who she was before this onslaught of tragedy but also is a poem to which most – even the Doubting Thomases among us – can relate, have contemplated and at one time or another shared . It is entitled:

Prayer

We seek Thee, Lord.

Through the darkness of doubt and confusion,
We reach out to Thee,
Longing to know that Thou art surely there.

We seek help in times of trouble,
Strength in our weakness
And a deeper sense of purpose for our lives.

O Mysterious Power at the heart and center
of this universe,
All around us and within,
Yet silent, invisible, inscrutable,
Teach us how to know Thee.

In the silence, speak to us through the voice
of the human spirit,
In our alone-ness, touch us through the communion
of shared lives,
In Our despair, bring hope with the promise
of new tomorrows,
In our doubt, reassure with the law and order of this, Thy world.

So may we feel anew the wonderful miracle
of life
Which recompenses struggle and makes all
successes joyful.
So may we glimpse through the darkness the
light of Thy true presence
And grow, day by day, in our knowledge of Thee.

We seek Thee, Lord,
And, in seeking, find.

To that I say Amen!

2011-11-05T08:59:00.002-04:00

The demise of an interesting and humorous man--thoughts on Andy Rooney: Andy Rooney of 60 Minutes fame died at the age of 92. I loved that man. I love 60 Minutes but truthfully I often watched just to get to the end where Andy Rooney topped it off like desert. He was 92 and it seems on the face of it he had a wonderful life and worked nearly until he died. Emily Rooney I believe his daughter is on WGBH Boston. What more could a man ask for and yet darned if I am irritated that he died. He was 92 why am I irritated? I don't know. I felt the same way when Jack LaLane the physical fitness exercise guru died at 96. His ideas were famous LONG before it was known he was correct on most everything he said in the 1950's when people smoked like the proverbial chimney.

His death was proof positive that no matter what anyone does we all will die. But I knew that OF COURSE. Still maybe there is that secret part of me that hopes it is not so especially if we do the right things, not smoke and eat vegetarian (which I nearly do) one can achieve the fountain of youth. Alas, we cannot. Say it ain't so.

Would I truly want to live forever? No, at least not with the physical ravages of age and the poverty that age can create BUT those who contribute so much to humanity become almost a part of our family. Yes, like all of us they do not live forever but I suppose I think they SHOULD!

RIP Mr. Rooney. You were an ever -so-interesting and enjoyable man!

2011-11-04T19:59:00.000-04:00

War Stories in Real Time: I loved Joan Wickersham's editorial "War Stories in Real Time" which appeared today in the Boston Globe (link below). It was creative, well written and spoke to the gut wrenching reality about war. No matter what technological advancement the culture enjoys connecting both the warrior at the front and the family at home, there still is a wall of separateness between loved ones who are immersed in the reality of brutal conflict and those who experience the quietude of day-to-day life at home.

Letters read during Ken Burns's PBS exquisite historical narration of "The Civil War" speak to the distance that separates loved ones in war not only in miles but in emotions. It is a heart wrenching reality whether it is in 1860, in the letters to war widows of 1917 World War I, World War II newsreels or 2011 computer technology connecting soldiers in Iraq/Afghanistan to home through Skype.

The sentence at the end of the editorial that sums up Ms. Wickersham's wonderful piece is perhaps the one I love the most. She says: "Technology may appear to erase distance, but the experience of war still creates distances that can never be erased." This poignant sentence surely is true for the Iraq War when our people at home were told by an opaque administration not to change their lives at home while soldiers had their lives irreparably changed forever over there.

I long for the day when the brutality of war is rejected as a dispute resolution tool. I long for the day when as the late 1960s' war protest song said: WAR, what is it good for? Absolutely nothin!

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2011/11/03/war-stories-real-time/ZkLxWkByFa3zkpfsAwyGuK/story.html

2011-11-04T08:50:00.000-04:00

The Beast of Child Brutality--The sin of the father: I will have some comments soon on the unconscionable belt-strap whipping and beating a young girl with cerebral palsy no less, suffered at the hands of her Texas judge brutal father. I saw the video [will post the 7 minutes of it below] and subsequently after viewing it became nauseated by his sin. The "storm" in the northeast knocked our power out for days and discombobulated our life. It has taken a long time to get back to normal but once I do I will write about this.

For any of you who have children or have them through an extended family who love them dearly and would not even THINK of disciplining a child in that violent way even if the child did NOT have cerebral palsy, for those of you who may have experienced such violence and unconscionable parental rage against your own being, and for those of you with no children who would have given up everything to have one, my opinion will be written with you in mind.

Hug the children in your life, love them and support the good in them. They will soon enough grow up to see what Thomas Hobbs the 16th/17th century philosopher saw that life is "nasty, brutish and short." Certainly even today, with the advancement of civilization, life is still similar and too short for despicable behavior like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLvQyAwl8do

2011-10-28T08:43:00.000-04:00

The Personal is Political: I am a Boston Red Sox fan to the end. I needed to clarify that lest anyone think anything else not that anyone would care. Having said that I will give you the rationale as to why I am even bothering to watch the Series this year in view of my beloved Red Sox -- well what shall I call it? -- EVAPORATION. It almost sent me to the psych ward! I jest and digress.

I am watching the series now because it is actually fun not to have too big a dog in the fight. It is simply enjoyable to concentrate on the fine points. Having said that there is a method to my madness for the team for whom I actually am rooting this time and that would be St. Louis!

I have three reasons why I am rooting for them. First, Texas means George Bush and I will not go into my angry, negative and Vesuvian eruptive thoughts I have about him. Second, Make that a ditto for Rick Perry except double the intensity. Third, the news opinionator Keith Olbermann picked St. Louis. If he says it I believe it. Since I love, adore, hang on every word he utters, think he is the best thing since the invention of the wheel and sliced bread I am HOPING he is correct.

Funny, the personal is political. I judge everyone and everything as to how much it leans politically left of center (not entirely but a lot). I cannot help it. I am a child of the late 1960's and marched to many a protest beat. I LOVED that era as it shaped all that I am. I even had to counteract my rock ribbed Republican father. However, even HE if he saw the rancid Republican field would vote Democratic and root for St. Louis too.

2011-10-28T08:41:00.001-04:00

Nader is Correct!: I am no fan of Ralph Nader because I believe he ensured a Bush 2000 win even though the Shrub did NOT really win. Republicans of course steal things...if it's money or power they will steal it. They steal power to get YOUR money.

Digressing again. Read Raph Nader's message below for this year 2011 and if you think as I you will see he is right on point!

The question confronting the Occupy Wall Street encampments and their offshoots

in scores of cities and towns around the country is quo vadis? Where is it
going?

This decentralized, leaderless civic initiative has attracted the persistent

attention of the mass media in the past five weeks. Television cameras from all

over the world are parked down at Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan, two blocks

from Wall Street.

But the mass media is a hungry beast. It needs to be fed regularly. Apart from

the daily pressures of making sure the encampments are clean, that food and

shelter are available, that relations with the police are quiet, that

provocateurs are identified; the campers must anticipate possible police

crackdowns, such as that which has just occurred in Oakland, and find ways to

rebound.

There are enough national polls showing broader support for the Occupy people

than for the Tea Party people. Additional communities are installing their own

Occupy sites right down to small towns like Niles, Michigan (pop. 12,000) and

Bethel, Alaska where Diane McEachern is occupying the tundra. But, there is

trouble ahead.

First, police departments in other cities will be observing the nature and

reaction of mass arrests in places like Denver, Chicago and Atlanta. The

plutocrats’ first response is always to push police power against the people.

The recidivist violations of the ruling class are rarely pursued, yet the

rumbles of the lower class are often stifled. With the onset of colder weather

and looming police pressure, the protestors need new venues for their

demonstrations

Activists need to vary their tactics. I suggest citizens surround the local

offices of their Senators and Representatives. The number of Americans fed up

with a gridlocked Congress, beset by craven or cowardly, both marinated in

corporate campaign cash, can motivate an endless pool of activists who want

their voices to be heard.

We know that the Occupy people want to keep their opposition on a general level

of informed outrage and not get to the specific policy level. Fine. The 535

people in Congress, who put their shoes on every day like we do, are quite

susceptible to a fast rising rumble from the people. They don’t need specifics.

They know all about the savagely avaricious corporate paymasters and their

swarming lobbyists on Capitol Hill wanting ever more varieties of goodies and

less corporate law enforcement. What they need to know is that you’ve got their

number and that people are fed up and on the move.

More members of Congress than one might expect, with their finger to the wind,

start readjusting their antennas when they sense voter agitation. It is just

that for years, there has been nary a breeze from that crucial source, while the

corporatists have had their party year after year with their governmental

toadies on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Make no mistake; support for the power shift espoused by the 99 percent movement

is now only a breeze but a windstorm is coming. The protesters are feeling their

way – demonstrating before big banks and closing out their accounts in favor of

smaller community banks. Protests in front of the Manhattan mansions of the

superrich from the big media and the big hedge funds also make sense.

Each new protest gives the protesters new insights. The protestors are learning

how to challenge controlling processes. They are assembling and using their

little libraries on site. They are learning the techniques of open, non-violent

civil disobedience and building personal stamina. They are learning not to be

provoked and thereby win the moral authority struggle which encourages more and

more people to join their ranks.

In the Arab Spring of Cairo, Egypt earlier this year, it was said that a million

people in Tahrir Square lost their fear of the dictatorship. It can be said that

in this “American Autumn,” some 150,000 people have discovered their power and

rejected apathy. They have come far in so little time because the soil for their

pushback is so fertile, nourished by the revulsion of millions of their

countrypersons moving toward standing up and showing up themselves.

This vanguard of larger protests to come is building on the personal stories of

desperate but failed attempts to find work; stories of heart-breaking inability

to pay for healthcare for themselves or their families’; stories of being

defrauded of their pensions, their tax dollars, their savings and their rights.

They demand accountability for the culprits who lied, stole and got away with it

destroying the economy. And they want Congress to never bailout the Wall Street

crooks, swindlers and speculators with taxpayer dollars.

Shining the light of the 99 percenters on the operations base of the corporate

supremacists and their Congressional minions in one location after another both

empowers and further informs those Americans who are seeing that showing up is

half of democracy.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Tell your friends to visit http://www.nader.org/ and sign up for Ralph Nader's

weekly column.

Just click on the link that says: Sign up for Ralph Nader's Column

or click on the following link:

http://nader.org/index.php?/categories/9-Sign-up-for-Ralph-Naders-Column

2011-10-27T10:23:00.013-04:00

The Disease, the Antibiotic, and the Cure—Occupy Wall Street’s Manifesto as I see it: Occupy Wall Street wants to know WHEN WILL the unconscionable dupes of the Tea Bag movement understand that the Republican Party is NOT about them? The Republican Party is about the top 1%. Most of us do not fall into that category. When will they realize that it was the massive DEREGULATION and insertions of too-big-to-count tax loopholes for the corporations (not the regulation of Wall Street) over decades that led to the too-big-to fail banks poisoning the body politic? When will the ignorant understand that it was the overturning of the Depression era Glass Steagall legislation and the insertion of the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, also known as the Financial Services “Modernization” Act of 1999 (look them up if you do not know what they are) merging the investment banks and savings banks that is an integral part of our too-big-to fail problem?

FINALLY, the occupation of Wall Street movements all around the nation and the world have begun and will NOT stop.

Basic things are needed: The true, real and not planted part of the Tea Bag movement must know that the Koch Brothers, Karl Rove, Dick Army, entities such as "Freedom" Works and those like them, decades before, created this mess. Today they want to sustain this system which works ONLY for the extraordinarily rich. We, the middle and working classes, must join forces to get those Republicans and Conservadems alike, who are perpetuating the problem, OUT. They will NOT solve our financial quagmire but will ADD to it as their kind has created it over time.

We must work within the existing structure of our political system. It is a GOOD system but it has been hijacked by big money, big banks and big corporate behemoths helped by a quid pro quo Congress who conspired to take the people's money. They dismembered we the people who bailed them out, they ate their bonuses for lunch while the rest of us now cannot walk and are starved.

We must use our existing structure within the functioning parts of the Democratic Party and MAKE THE CHANGE THAT WAS PROMISED. Nothing else will work and time is of the proverbial essence. This HUMONGOUS problem was honed over decades and therefore it can be rectified only by the institutions we have in place. Replace the Know Nothings with those who DO know something.

In the biological sciences one trusts what works. The antibiotic developed to cure certain infections works but believing in the power of magic does not. Trust EXPERTS such as Paul Krugman, Robert Reich and people of their ilk who understand well the disease and know the cure. They should become part of the non-violent Occupy Wall Street leadership. Read Matt Taibii's "Griftopia." Read Elizabeth Warren and other intellects who understand the plethora of problems and know what to do. Within the existing structure of a Democratic Party we must elect politicos who AGREE with them. We must show our president, who I believe is with us but has had intractable Republican opposition, that catering to Wall Street CANNOT and MUST NOT STAND!

There needs to be the following: a return to Glass Steagall, the SEC needs to monitor the banks to within an inch of their life, prosecution for those economic crimes against the republic, hopefully convictions and finally jail for those banksters and others behemoths who committed crimes against not only us but global humanity as well. Congressional legislation accompanied by presidential signature is the only thing that can cure our disease.

Moreover, and importantly, the corruption of money MUST be driven OUT of the political sector. The president needs one more Supreme Court justice to overturn the sickening malady of the Citizen's United decision handed down by the five conservatives on the Roberts Supreme Court. That decision introduced BUCKETS of corporate money into the political system lethally infecting all who drink the poison.

ALL these things and more -- as stated by the Krugmanesq experts -- must be done with all deliberate speed if our body politic is to survive!

2011-10-25T09:51:00.000-04:00

A Letter to Glenn Greewnald – a writer of profound excellence: The progressive scholar and civil libertarian lawyer, Glenn Greenwald, writes a daily column for Salon.com unless his demanding schedule dictates otherwise. Glenn wrote an October 22, 2011 article for Salon entitled “A Remaining Realm of American Excellence.” I think I have never read a more precise, insightful and well-written article explaining the present-day character of this nation. He has an ability to convey, in the written word, that which few possess and his critical analysis of contemporary events is, in my opinion, unparalleled. I post the following link to the article and urge you to read it if you are the least bit interested in the direction of our nation and the fate of the generations which will come after us. If you cannot click on the link simply Google Salon and click on Greenwald. It appears at: http://www.salon.com/2011/10/22/a_remaining_realm_of_american_excellence/singleton/

I also wrote a letter to him conveying my complimentary thoughts:

Glenn, if there is a more significant and well written article than "A Remaining Realm of American Excellence" I have for quite some time not read it. This was a brilliant piece and an exemplar of quality political insight. I, too, have some thoughts explaining American belligerence about which you write so eloquently.

I think in part our national character has been carved into the sinew of the American DNA for nearly four centuries. Our wild-west mentality of the American 19th century with the violence of our westward expansion is not far from its door. It crushed an indigenous Indian population and removed anyone else who got in its way.

A rationale for our collective violent reaction now is, as I see it, an emptiness of the American character obsessed with the latest reality or dumbed down morning television, radio and no news news shows. Many times in the discussion of things political especially of economics, the source of our torturous predicament, our national eyes glaze over and turn the channel to the next mindless American Idol show or to an unfair and completely biased news channel. Few understand much if anything historical let alone the etiology of our recent economic plunge, what is responsible for that plunge and how the catastrophes of war fit into the explanation of its landscape. I would be willing to bet most do not know that the economic collapse occurred in 2007 on George Bush's watch. Bush who? I think most think President Obama to be the single creator of our economic meltdown when, in fact, it took decades to create by philosophical charlatans who wanted everything for just a few while leaving little for the many while the many slept.

Moreover, and more pertinent to your article, the US has not been in the right where its foreign violent entanglements are concerned since WWII. WWII was such a magnanimous victory, so pure in its accomplishment and America so beloved for fighting a foe who knew no negotiation and who, if not destroyed, would have certainly destroyed whatever vestiges of humanity that existed in that time. America, yes, along with some allies literally saved the world. That is a hard act to follow but we certainly try.

The intoxication of the WWII victory led this nation to make permanent its ebullience by conducting never-ending permanent war. It is the only product this nation sells. Korea, Vietnam, certainly Iraq, and even most probably Afghanistan have been abysmal failures incurring much death to so many innocents and our own while it infuriated an explosive regional Middle East tinderbox. I believe somewhere in the American psyche there is guilt for a stain on the American conscience which, like Lady Macbeth’s damn spot, cannot be washed out. It has become now our fatal flaw. Add to this the utter humiliation of 9/11, the viewing of the falling Twin Towers, huge edifices of American money and power, and the loss of 3000 innocent lives America again feels like it has been kicked in her collective teeth while still looking for the moral victory and accolades of WWII that elude us. It tries to find that adulation for the post World War II incompetence of American foreign policy and it will now do so by any means necessary collateral damage be damned.

We have gone from a colossal winner to a huge loser on the international and national stage. The only act to follow in this our American tragedy is the successful killing for sport of dreamed-up adversarial replacements for Adolph Hitler. The nation as of late does not conquer the cancer of war but spreads its violence with its American footprint. Its footprint is, of course, nearly everywhere. It is sad commentary for the evil of empire building. I have never in my 6 decades of life seen the country with the most rapaciously rancid ethos that not only allows but, indeed, loves to get its insatiable pound of flesh in the Coliseum of endless war.

I spend my life wondering how we got this way. I am getting tired and truly want to hand the baton of regeneration over to you, our next progressive generation. Voices like yours are the only ones that give me hope. You are, truly, as one man said of you when I heard you speak at Harvard, a national treasure!

2011-10-21T15:15:00.001-04:00

Over There? President Obama announced today the extrication of all forces from Iraq by December. The one position I regret that I took after 9/11 and after observing the American political scene for decades is naively and with astounding stupidity I believed George Bush and his Iraq WMD phony claim convincing most (including me) that Sadam Hussein was an imminent threat. Some may even say today Sadam Hussein who? Tom Ricks, according to Foreign Policy Magazine is a Senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a bipartisan think tank, contributing editor to Foreign Policy Magazine, special military correspondent to the Washington Post and author quite correctly named his book about Iraq during the height of its fury "Fiasco." We can see now how apropos that title was. We can observe how destructive, how murderous, how deceitful, sending troops to wage a war based on lies against a country which did NOTHING to us was.

The US, under the dreadful leadership of George W. Bush, paid for this mistake in much lost blood and treasure conveniently ignored by Republicans today when assessing their perceived horror of the deficit. Clearly, George W. Bush was woefully unprepared for the presidency. At his order the US nearly singlehandedly destabilized an entire region, handed Iran the keys to the kingdom of power and broke a nation. Now we allegedly are leaving Iraq and see how difficult it is to do that. Colin Powell, Secretary of State under Bush, was quite correct when he said “if you break it you own it.” We shattered it without knowing what to do to fix it.

When American troops leave Iraq -- as the president today says they will by December -- and it does not explode into civil war it will be miraculous. How Iraq maintains a continuity of power with so many factions at each other’s throats I do not know. Can it meet the needs of its people or will it fracture into a million pieces destabilizing the region further with a nuclear Pakistan? I will breathe a sigh of relief if Iraq works with a semblance of normalcy and non violence. Until then, I need a tranquilizer to calm my fear! Never again will I believe a leader simply because he says it is so. As Ronald Reagan, a man I seldom quote, said: "Trust but verify." Next time I surely will and so should everyone else.

2011-10-21T09:32:00.006-04:00

Money can’t buy you love so the Beatles song said--the flaw of Steve Jobs: I am reading various pieces about Steve Jobs. A tell-all book about him, being released soon, makes visible his warts and all. Understatedly, his ego was IMMENSE. He was a self absorbed, often angry, caustic man many times cruel to those with whom he worked and certainly to those he competed against. Yes, genius can make that of men but that is no excuse to me. I can appreciate what is created by great minds but if one does not have compassion -- even to one’s competitors -- then to me the genius means nothing. I am SURELY glad I never worked for him nor competed AGAINST him. He was an explosion waiting to happen perhaps a creative psychopath. Umpteen BILLION was not enough money for him. He had to devote much of his energy fighting Google because Jobs alleged it copied his product. When someone copies me I consider that flattery but Jobs considered it war. If he had to he was going to devote his entire company fighting Google perhaps even decimating the jobs of his own employees (and Google's) to do so. He sounds like a brutish man.

As Tevya would say IF I were a rich man I would … give all my family five million, all my friends five million and then distribute the rest to humans crying out for help, for food, for shelter for a JOB both here and around the globe as Bill and Melinda Gates are doing. Jobs cannot walk in Gates's shadow. Steve Jobs turned from humane liberal to stone cold conservative wanting to give corporations a break with the elimination of regulations; he wanted to gut unions, teachers, and other public servants’ positions who make EVERYONE’S life livable even his own short one.

He could have given to the little kids who pan for gold in Africa; kids who die doing it because the work is so brutal. They wade into a mud containing immense amount of mercury and ultimately get poisoned by it. He could have set up humane conditions so people can work like human beings for which unions advocate instead of humanity working like barbaric animals. I care nothing about all his creative gadgets when the ethics of his leadership and the policy for which he ultimately advocated hurts people but helps people like he create billions more to buy not jobs but yachts. He neglected his own children because his massive ego was more concerned about a NON human company to make what more billions?

Steve (I know you cannot hear me) but you should have given most all your money away before your death to those who are so desperate. NO ONE needs billions of bucks to live the good life. I would create MORE jobs and do for our county what the president cannot because of an obstructionist Congress. I think the LSD the formerly liberal Steve Jobs claimed helped create his insight destroyed the compassion center of his brain! John Kennedy said: “We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.” Steve Jobs was, indeed, mortal. Alas, death, the great equalizer of man, got him too. It knows no money, no social class, no massive egos but comes to all of us in the end even to Steve Jobs. Too bad he was not known as simply a nice man but money cannot buy quality of character.

Instead of advocating for the non-human corporation turning himself into an uncompassionate conservative he should have dedicated his life to installing a Congress which really DOES care about humanity instead of being bought for the all mighty buck. He rudely kept the president waiting days for a meeting insisting the president call HIM disrespecting the high office of the presidency and our country.

How come this genius did not realize that DECADES of Republican rule favoring the deregulated banks conservatives love so much decimated this economy? How come he did not realize what corporations and Wall Street did to hijack the pensions of its workers? How come Steve Jobs did not know what the financial, real estate sector and rating companies did to ruin our middle class, the poor and the American Dream? Who cares about Steve Jobs’s genius? In my opinion, he was a lousy human being.

2011-10-19T08:41:00.002-04:00

A Taboo Mix -- Religion and State: If there is a better editoralist than James Carroll I have not read one yet. Carroll is brilliant and his editorial this week in the Boston Globe: "Monotheism doesn't mean 'we're No. 1" (link below) is exactly correct. More, I believe, have been killed over the centuries (including the 2000 year etiology of the Holocaust) in the name of relgion than have been saved by it and the killing continues unabated.

I truly believe that organized religion is the source of divisive evil on earth from Jerusalem, to Europe, even, dare I say, to the stage of the Republican debate. The assault of its Republican verbal inanity does damage to one's ears.

The pièce de résistance last evening was Herman Cain's postulation that Jesus was killed by liberals. That in and of itself reflects the bone chilling absurdity of tying religion to the state. Many of our Founders knew that truth.

God help us, as nothing else, it seems, can!

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2011/10/17/monotheism_doesnt_mean_were_no_1/

2011-10-18T11:55:00.002-04:00

[I wrote too quickly when I found out Shalit was freed. I was simply thrilled he was after so many years in captivity. I realize how lopsided the trade was and in NO way want to bless anyone who would want the demise of the Israeli state so I amend my sentiment]

Can Jeff Jacoby support anything that is good and has the word peace attached to it? The release of the Israeli Soldier Gilad Shalit is a GOOD day.This is a GOOD day but Jacoby will say Israel gave up too much. I say RUBBISH! Israel has been giving up too much after sixty unrelenting years of constant violence and threat of violence with no peace in sight. Israel has had to turn inside out to guard its security.

Let's not make this day into anything but a GOOD day when an Israeli soldier five years in captivity is finally free. How I YEARN for and want so much for there to be peace and in some way for both sides to agree. I am a Jew and Israel is my ardent love BUT I want the killing to stop!

We have ONE small little life that fades in an INSTANT. Where is the genius that man can show and just give a little bit, bend a little and accept one human being for another? The tree boughs are many and the limbs can withstand much and still not break. The larger tree withstands even more so that the tree lives. Let us be like that. I wish and yes pray for that each see the other as human beings worthy to live another day!

It was a lopsided trade, indeed, as Israelis got one prisoner for hundreds of Palestinians. STILL I am tired of the endless going nowhere arguments on both sides and I am simply jubilant to see Gilad Shalit freed after such a LONG time in captivity. We have much to learn from each other. We could give so much one to the other. We need to TRY just TRY.

Shalom and thank you to all who made this GOOD day possible!

2011-10-17T14:42:00.013-04:00

A Utopian Dream: My relative posted another blog which I think has about as much chance of succeeding as I do finding my keys I dropped in the Provincetown ocean 30 years ago.

Yet, I keep going back to this blog to re-read it. I believe there is not one thing written there to which I would disagree. I think ALL of it is true. It's just that translating those truths into a nation based on its just content has about as much chance of succeeding as I do finding my keys dropped so many years ago. Man has simply not evolved into a Utopian dream at least not yet. Our nation has had a hard enough time fulfilling the American Dream!

When I was a child my neighbor's parents purchased him a bike. I wanted one too but I also wanted one better than his. It is human nature I think. We always want the most, the best, the costliest, and then we go on to the next item. We always want more than the other guy. It is called coveting and most of us do plenty of it. If that is a fundamental truth of human nature and has been for the 140,000 or so years someone resembling a human being evolved on this planet then what makes my relative think that everyone will do as he stipulates in his blog now? Have we advanced THAT far? I can fantasize about it though and think how wonderful it could be IF what he said came true. But it is not true and will not be true at least not in our lifetime.

Still for your reading enjoyment and thoughtful pondering I present my cousin's thoughts.

America's Multi-Headed Monster - by Stephen Lendman

It combines and represents:

* money power in private hands to make more of it at the public's expense;

* super-wealth and privilege;

* one-party rule - corrupted money party duopoly power; and

* major media managed news, not real information and analysis.

Angry street protesters nationwide must understand and focus on these above other issues. Achieving social justice depends on it.

Basic information on how America's been run from inception is also essential.

It was established as a government of men, not laws. Then and now, democracy was illusory, not real. Constitutional language about "We the people of the United States" was manipulative deception.

In fact, only white property owners mattered, a small minority. They alone were enfranchised. Others were entirely shut out. Women were considered appendages of their husbands and child bearers, nothing else. Blacks were commodities, not people.

In 1865 they were freed, in 1870 enfranchised. It hardly mattered until passage of the mid-1960s Civil and Voting Rights Acts. Even then and now they haven't worked as believed.

Religious prerequisites existed until 1810. Property owner enfranchisement lasted until 1850. Voters couldn't elect senators until 1913. Women couldn't vote until 1920.

Native Americans couldn't until enfranchised by the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act. Poll tax requirements existed until 1966. It hardly matters now with corporate-manipulated electronic machines voting, not citizens.

It's worse because voters have no choice. Duopoly power prevents it. The electoral process is kabuki theater. Major media and PR scoundrels manipulate the public mind.

Everything is pre-scripted and pre-packaged. Secrecy and back room deals substitute for a free, fair and open process. Candidates are pre-selected. Big money owns them.

Key outcomes are predetermined. Duopoly power serves the privileged. Voters get the best democracy money can buy. Horse race journalism and trivia substitute for addressing real issues fairly, fully, and accurately.

Voter disenfranchisement is rife. Peremptorily removing many from voter rolls is commonplace. Intimidation, illegal practices, and obstacles deter others.

Millions can't vote because of past criminal records, no matter how minor the offense. Millions more in America's gulag can't, including many wrongfully there.

In his book "Democracy for the Few," Michael Parenti said American-style democracy was created to "resist the pressure of popular tides (and protect) a rising bourgeoisie's (freedom to) invest, speculate, trade, and accumulate wealth."

John Jay, America's first Chief Supreme Court Justice said America should be run by and for "the people who own it." John Adams wanted it run by "the rich, the well born, and the able." It's been that way from inception. Privilege alone mattered, not popular interests.

Democracy for the few was established. Populism was nowhere in sight. Nothing changed from then to now. In spite of commonly believed myths, people don't govern directly or indirectly through representatives. People are governed by wealth and power, serving privileged interests only.

America's founders were that time's equivalent of a Wall Street crowd. They were property owners, bankers, merchants, lawyers and politicians. Bill of Rights freedoms were established for them alone.

Moreover, constitutional America isn't constrained by checks and balances. Then and now, sitting governments act without popular approval. In fact, they're entirely detached in a realm of their own.

Constitutional restraints are pure fantasy. Presidents and Congress do what they please. Washington is corporate occupied territory. Bankers sit stop the pecking order.

America's national resources are squandered. Labor is exploited, underpaid, and abused. Monopoly capitalism and democratic freedoms can't coexist. Americans can have whatever they want if they can pay for it.

Money power, privilege, corruption, greed and imperial arrogance substitute for equal rights and social justice.

Exorcising that cancer is job one. Returning money power to public hands is key to having a chance. The 1913 Federal Reserve Act let powerful bankers usurp America's money system in violation of the Constitution's Article I, Section 8, giving only Congress the power to "coin Money (and) regulate the Value thereof...."

Thereafter, they victimized working Americans by using money, credit and debt for private self-enrichment by bankrolling and colluding with Congress and administrations to implement laws favoring them.

As a result, decades of deregulation, outsourcing, economic financialization, and casino capitalism followed. Purchasing power eroded. Asset bubbles were created. So were record budget and national debt levels, as well as depression-sized unemployment manipulated lower to conceal the state of working America.

Dire conditions also include high levels of personal and business bankruptcies, millions of lost homes, record impoverishment affecting society's most vulnerable hung out to dry on their own, and America's greatest ever wealth gap.

Today's America is too broken and corrupted to fix. Nothing short of dismantling it and starting over can work, including a new Constitution put to a national referendum to vote up or down section by section.

That's direct participatory democracy, the real kind with referendum voting on major issues too important to leave solely to elected officials.

Most important is making banking a highly regulated public utility, nationalizing or abolishing the Fed. Wall Street's franchise must end. Giant banks must be broken up and nationalized, insolvent ones liquidated.

No more money power in private hands! No more government paying interest on its own money!

No more bailouts and other corporate handouts! No more privatizing profits and socializing losses! No more business as usual!

No more democracy for the few! No more duopoly power! No more government of, by and for super-wealth! No more imperial wars!

No more a nation not fit to live for everyone not privileged! No more police state laws!

No more cops serving as enforcers for crime bosses! No more tolerating their beating up on peaceful protesters!

No more media and PR scoundrels manipulating the public mind! No more managed news, infotainment and junk food news!

No more manufacturing consent! No more suppressing truths too ugly to reveal! No more state and corporate propaganda substituting for real news, information and analysis!

No more the way it's always been since inception! No more faking it! No more money in politics! No more corporate bosses and political Washington having it all their way!

No more popular interests entirely shut out! Social justice change demands clean-sweeping out everything and starting over!

It bears repeating. Money power must return to public hands. Political duopoly power must end, and media giants must be broken up and prohibited so fake news, information and analysis no longer is tolerated.

Americans deserve direct democratic government of, by and for everyone equally. So do others living everywhere.

Wishing won't make it so. Nor will it happen if dark forces succeed in infiltrating, manipulating, and subverting the way they always try to prevent social, economic and political change. Exposing, deterring, and expunging them when found is crucial.

Only unrestrained popular resistance for change works, doing whatever it takes for as long as it takes to get it.

There's no other way! There's no turning back! Go for it!

Quitting is not an option! There can't be to have any chance for success!

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

2011-10-17T09:11:00.009-04:00

A story in McClatchy today reported that Hispanics may be losing faith in Obama. (Linked below). I do NOT think so and said the following:

Hispanic Heresy? -- I think not: In the final analysis Hispanics as well as all minorities of color will observe the political landscape and reality. The Republican Party is not the LEAST about them. They are anti them as they are anti immigrant. The Republican party is honed from the Nativist party of the 19th century. Its goals are similar -- crush immigration and keep the US dominant white.

The issue of so called illegal immigration is a ruse they use like most of their advocacy to PRETEND that all they care about is keeping immigration legal. They don't. They want to STOP immigration most especially by people of color.

Hispanics and people of color, do NOT be fooled like so many members of the Tea Party were. The Republican Party is NOT about anyone EXCEPT the top 1%. Since Citizen's United, one of the worst SCOTUS decisions since Dred Scott and Plessy became law, the Republican Party has been signed, sealed and delivered by Koch Brothers and other billionaire/millionaire corporate money. Whether through subversion of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, vile attempts at the voting booth to stop minorities from voting Democratic or through their draconian anti immigration laws they do not give a rat's petuti about the middle class and those who are struggling. They are trying to keep this country as it has been hewed for nearly three decades. DO NOT let them. Obama is our ONLY choice!

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/10/17/127407/many-hispanic-voters-on-fence.html

2011-10-17T08:50:00.001-04:00

A Senator Supreme: Elizabeth Warren is, without a doubt, one of the most exciting candidates running for the US Senate from Massachusetts. She is a citizen's dream candidate -- honest, sincere, academically credentialed and astute. She is a person who, I believe, will work for the middle class instead of Wall Street’s top 1%. I hope a majority of Massachusetts citizens think as I do and that she will go on to easily win the general.

Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard professor, and the president’s appointment who began the Consumer Protection Bureau, is a once in a lifetime candidate. I never thought I would say that I think she can take the place of a Teddy Kennedy but I do say that and then some. She academically, intellectually and professionally dwarfs Scott Brown, the darling of Wall Street. She is above-all honest and will be the people's voice uncorrupted by Wall Street greed, lobbyist lackeys and Washington on the take . She has, from the beginning, been an advocate for the consumer and will vote to hold Wall Street and Washington accountable for their plethora of fraud, misdeeds and abundance of unethical behavior which resulted in our nation (and the world) being stuck deeply in an economic quicksand of the banksters, real estate fraudsters and rating companies’ creation.

I will happily vote for Elizabeth Warren in November, 2012 and know beyond a shadow of a doubt she will make not a good senator but a GREAT one. Good luck, Elizabeth, you sold me when I saw you on Bill Moyers. I was smitten!

2011-10-15T00:06:00.001-04:00

Occupy Wall Street Will NOT Falter: These bastard banksters need to be taken down. The law must take them down. I do not care how long it takes but these swine, these bloated greedy Wall Street gluttons need to have the scales of justice smash them and take them down! I HATE what they have done to the country and the president gets the VERY pigs into his administration as his Treasury secretary and his merry men who created this mess over years doing the "fixing."

This country is a place I do not recognize anymore. The hope and the dream are gone and the Wall Street swill have taken what is ours right from under our noses because we THOUGHT that dream was meant for us and the generations which come after us. They have taken this economy to the brink of destruction, swallowed 401Ks, pension plans, selling worthless crap bundling it into phony mortgage securities junk, selling it all over the world and insuring themselves in credit default swaps buying S&P to rate that crap triple AAA deceiving ALL who bought it. The reason for so many state government employees being laid off is laid at the Wall Street titans filthy feet. Wall Street is a gambling casino where the house NEVER loses. It is meant for only the top 1% to rape us in a con game with our hard earned money.

Moreover, they have sent wily nily our youngest and most able to fight in wars that meant nothing to us based on lies spending TRILLIONS. Those overlords who have ruled over us are a sham and about ONLY the top 1%. Their corporatist hands are dripping with the blood of so many innocents. But they will tell you they have no money for fire departments, no money for teachers, no money for building roads, bridges, infrastructure repair and all those things that make government work for the people and secure the people. What is going to happen to these sickos when the very ones they fire will not be there to protect THEM? They make me sick as they have made the American economy sick! We have a government bought, signed, sealed and delivered by the corporation; an oligarchy which is choking its own people. We have a body that is turning on itself and eating itself alive BUT the body is fighting back!

Occupy Wall Street is catching on like a fire and we can thank other people's uprisings and revolutions all over the world which pointed the way to exude unremitting pressure. Either they FIX this gd economy or face the public wrath. The demonstrators of Occupy Wall Street will never give up, will never falter and will NOT fail.

2011-10-14T09:50:00.010-04:00

Lest I be Considered Humorless: Yes, most of my opinions are serious and rather gloomy BUT have no fear I DO have a sense of humor!

In case you have not noticed the collection of Republicans vying for the presidency, arguably the most powerful position in the world, or just simply Republicans are nincompoops, idiots, morons and dumbed down Know Nothings. Let me give you some examples which represent that fact and are quite funny INDEED. Well, it had me laughing with incredulity anyway:

Rick Perry after the last debate was showering effervescent praise on our Founders who as he stated fought so hard for freedom in the 16th CENTURY. Okay so he was a mere 200 years off. What's a few years? After all our Founders WERE men of the Enlightenment preceded by the Renaissance weren't they? Considering the sands of time, I guess he was close.

Michele Bachmann TRIED to show how smart she was by using the word HEINOUS except it came out Hein-Y-ous. Heinyous, yes we get it, Michelle, I guess it’s not as bad as saying Concord, New Hampshire where she so assuredly thought the American Revolution began. This was BIG news for those of us living near Concord, MASSACHUSETTS. Eh, what's a few miles. Maybe geography AND history are not Michelle's strong suit. Who needs to know where the American Revolutionary War began when one was allegedly a tax attorney, small business woman and is a Congressional Rep?

The best screw up came when a Florida GOP Rep. Brad Drake said he wanted to bring back the electric chair and firing squads to execute criminals because lethal injection is just too darn humane. As Drake said “In the words of Humphrey Bogart, ‘Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.' I'm so tired of being humane ...".

You know Humphrey Bogart of "Gone with the Wind" fame; that famous quote a sixth grader might know was uttered by Clark Gable and after all he thought of that when someone at the "Waffle House" -- a restaurant like IHOP -- said that profundity.

So big deal, Clark Gable, Humphrey Bogart who cares? At least we have to be happy he didn't say Marilyn Monroe! GENIUSES all!

2011-10-14T08:49:00.003-04:00

Occupy Wall Street STILL Occupying Wall Street: Mayor Bloomberg stopped the removal by police of the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators shortly before it was supposed to begin today, Friday, October 14, averting a feared clash between the police and demonstrators who are protesting a fraudulent and corrupt Wall Street.

Smart move! Throwing police into an Occupy Wall Street crowd at 7:00 a.m. on a Friday morning when everyone is tuned into The Today Show is NOT a smart thing to do. It is a non violent crowd dedicated to peaceful civil disobedience. It is the ONLY kind of protest that we have seen historically to work ESPECIALLY in a 24/7 media, video cell phones and other recording devices which will capture the entire thing. It serves only to be an advocate for our cause.

FINALLY our sleeping giant has awoken will and is giving the Republican (and some Democrats too) obstructionist politically malevolent Congressional "representatives" a run for their money (forgive the pun).

This has shed light on the most rancid time I have ever experienced in my decades of watching the American political landscape. It is not a landscape it is a trash heap. Wall Street, the banks, Geithner, Summers and their ilk wielding the batons of power and ALL those who think they can get away with the fraudulent theft of millions of Main Street money while they live like kings with their bailout and bonuses of taxpayer money are having a RUDE awakening.

I think too our president who was put into the oval office by people like me sees now we CANNOT be taken for granted. I believe the sleeping giant is arising from his slumber -- I HOPE -- as Blankfein, Dimon, Goldman Sachs, City Bank, Merrill Lynch and the rest of those bloated gluttons infected with corporate gout feel a little chill running through their greedy bodies.

The Cretans of Wall Street MUST BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE, investigated, regulated to within an inch of their life, indicted, tried by a jury -- HOPEFULLY -- convicted and sent to jail while their posterity pays BILLIONS. This must NEVER EVER happen again or our capitalist system which I support and the nation I love with it will end up in the trash bin of history!

2011-10-12T10:44:00.001-04:00

KNOW THE TRUTH: Economist Robert Reich who was Clinton's Secretary of Labor destroys the GOP's seven biggest economic lies. Read and learn how the opposition tries to put one over on you by CONSTANTLY LYING!:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/10/12/economist-destroys-the-gops-seven-biggest-economic-lies/?utm_source=Raw+Story+Daily+Update&utm_campaign=9c8c237dd0-10_12_1110_12_2011&utm_medium=email

2011-10-11T13:30:00.000-04:00

How I'm stopping the Koch brothers' poisonous influence:

There's a town in Arkansas being poisoned to death by the Koch brothers factory. Residents of Crossett, Arkansas are collecting messages that they will hand deliver to the Koch brothers. Watch how the Koch brothers poison their community with pollution, then help fight back to save lives and write a message to the Koch brothers:

http://KochBrothersExposed.com

2011-10-09T09:24:00.001-04:00

The Help--A Movie Review: I very much enjoyed this film. Was it absolutely perfect? Probably not BUT I must disagree with Melissa Harris Perry Professor of political science at Tulane University who, on Rachel Maddow, said how much she loathed it. She gave as her rationale that it was not about the dreary drudged-filled life of a black maid exposing the essence of the black experience in the south. She thought it was all about white women and the aspiring white writer who comes from the white background of privilege but decides she wants to write and publish a story from the perspective of the black maid -- The Help.

I disagree with Ms. Perry which surprised me as most often I agree with her well thought out expert analysis. The story was NOT, in my opinion, centrifugally about the white writer but the writer was used as a vehicle to tell the story of the black experience in the south through the black maids among them Viola Davis as Abiline, her friend Minnie and others who made up, I thought, the preponderance of the film. It was about the black/white cultural ethos in the south.

The maid performances were nothing short of STELLAR. I LOVED them. Their white taskmasters gave excellent performances too as they showed well the empty meaninglessness and immorality of their lives. Those southern whites who profess Christianity so strongly should reflect on Christ's words: "What profit a man if he gain the whole world but lose his soul?" I felt both sorry for these shallow white women and hated them at the same time.

In my opinion, Viola Davis should get best performance of an actress NOT in a supporting role but in a MAIN role. Her role, as I see it, was the central character. I thought the white writer Skeeter (Bryce Dallas Howard) was simply the narrator through which the story could be told and the expositor of the cultural reality of black people and their white supremacist masters in the south during the early 1960's. Their experience with each other was, I believe, one step above slavery since the cultural mandates -- violence and death -- at the hands of the white power brokers enforcing this vile system still survived.

The film was heart wrenching and gripping. The danger the black person experienced in the south most especially, perhaps, in one of the worst southern states for its treatment of black people, Mississippi, was bone chilling. Yes, I know, all states have some racism but this type of racism in the early sixties in the south takes that loathsome fact to Olympian heights. What a trapped, awful, difficult and sad life the maids experienced. Even with all the difficulty, though, there was room in their hearts for laughter and humanity about the cruel fate bestowed upon them. I LOVED them.

I hated the white women, felt sorry for them and their utter STUPIDITY. As a white woman I felt ashamed that in this country something so heinous, so cruel and so embedded in the culture existed and to some extent still does. There was NO escape. My heart goes out to a people who have known unspeakable suffering in this country. I want a collective apology to entire group of people who still suffer humiliations NO ONE in this country should EVER have to suffer again. Representative John Lewis an African American House member, a cultured and wonderful gentleman, was spat upon on the steps of the Capitol by utter racists whose temperature rose when a black man entered the oval office. The half white part of Barack Obama to them matters not as just one drop of blackness in a person determines the threat of systemic violence heaped upon them.

It makes me see how brave the MLK's of the world were, how brave the Ralph Abernathy's were, how brave Representative John Lewis was and so many more heroes too numerous to mention here. Confederate flags, the rancid symbol of this de jure racist segregation, should be taken down from the top of every State House in the south as we live now, hopefully, to erase any vestiges of that ugly system and make a fairer world!

I highly recommend this film.

2011-10-08T22:05:00.002-04:00

The Right to Our Life, Civil Liberties Abridgment and the Ordered Killing of US Citizen Al-Alwaki: This is the kind of action that drives many liberals, civil libertarians and people that compose the president's base crazy. It would be as if the Republican candidate admitted he were an atheist. It is that important to those who care about what Constitutional due process is. They are the people who put candidate Obama into the presidency.

But there are some others like I, for example, who considers herself a member of Obama's base, decries some of his leadership abilities, truly cares about unlawful search and seizures, cruel and unusual punishment, and power operating without due process BUT in certain circumstances who sees particular instances where those civil libertarian guarantees must be breached.

I believe after 9/11 that we live in a different nation. When Benjamin Franklin said “those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety” he NEVER knew what an atom was, never knew the atom could be split, never knew about nuclear weaponry, and never knew about a dirty bomb. I believe a nation state has a right -- no a duty -- to defend itself and its populous from ever having to endure such a dastardly attack even IF it means breaching some Constitutional rights to apprehend a perpetrator.

We live in a NUCLEAR age. We live in an age where mayhem can be delivered upon a country after which that country truly could perish. Think about it. We in this nation most love, we who NEVER worried about going to a restaurant, to the movies, to a classroom must court the possibility now that an innocent task could turn into utter destruction. THAT is the truth we must live with in our time.

I do NOT fear my government under Obama and I do not fear my government even under a Republican. Perhaps I am naive but I believe in the endurance of this nation even under the most difficult and trying times we experience today. I believe in defending our lives and our way of life by any means necessary.

2011-10-07T12:47:00.000-04:00

A Play in Three Acts--Paul Krugman tells you what you need to know! For those of you who need to understand even more clearly and from an expert, NYT columnist Prof. Paul Krugman explains why Occupy Wall Street is happening, why it is good and in three easy acts what our financial crisis all about. He explains it as a "Play of Three Acts" in his October 6, New York Times Op Ed "Confronting the Malfactors" and states as follows:

So, in case you’ve forgotten, it was a play in three acts.

In the first act, bankers took advantage of deregulation to run wild (and pay themselves princely sums), inflating huge bubbles through reckless lending. In the second act, the bubbles burst — but bankers were bailed out by taxpayers, with remarkably few strings attached, even as ordinary workers continued to suffer the consequences of the bankers’ sins. And, in the third act, bankers showed their gratitude by turning on the people who had saved them, throwing their support — and the wealth they still possessed thanks to the bailouts — behind politicians who promised to keep their taxes low and dismantle the mild regulations erected in the aftermath of the crisis.

Given this history, how can you not applaud the protesters for finally taking a stand?

Now, it’s true that some of the protesters are oddly dressed or have silly-sounding slogans, which is inevitable given the open character of the events. But so what? I, at least, am a lot more offended by the sight of exquisitely tailored plutocrats, who owe their continued wealth to government guarantees, whining that President Obama has said mean things about them than I am by the sight of ragtag young people denouncing consumerism.

Bear in mind, too, that experience has made it painfully clear that men in suits not only don’t have any monopoly on wisdom, they have very little wisdom to offer. When talking heads on, say, CNBC mock the protesters as unserious, remember how many serious people assured us that there was no housing bubble, that Alan Greenspan was an oracle and that budget deficits would send interest rates soaring.

A better critique of the protests is the absence of specific policy demands. It would probably be helpful if protesters could agree on at least a few main policy changes they would like to see enacted. But we shouldn’t make too much of the lack of specifics. It’s clear what kinds of things the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators want, and it’s really the job of policy intellectuals and politicians to fill in the details.

Rich Yeselson, a veteran organizer and historian of social movements, has suggested that debt relief for working Americans become a central plank of the protests. I’ll second that, because such relief, in addition to serving economic justice, could do a lot to help the economy recover. I’d suggest that protesters also demand infrastructure investment — not more tax cuts — to help create jobs. Neither proposal is going to become law in the current political climate, but the whole point of the protests is to change that political climate.

And there are real political opportunities here. Not, of course, for today’s Republicans, who instinctively side with those Theodore Roosevelt-dubbed “malefactors of great wealth.” Mitt Romney, for example — who, by the way, probably pays less of his income in taxes than many middle-class Americans — was quick to condemn the protests as “class warfare.”

But Democrats are being given what amounts to a second chance. The Obama administration squandered a lot of potential good will early on by adopting banker-friendly policies that failed to deliver economic recovery even as bankers repaid the favor by turning on the president. Now, however, Mr. Obama’s party has a chance for a do-over. All it has to do is take these protests as seriously as they deserve to be taken.

And if the protests goad some politicians into doing what they should have been doing all along, Occupy Wall Street will have been a smashing success.