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

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.

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."

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!

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!

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.

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

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!

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.

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!

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.

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.

"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.

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

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

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

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!

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!

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!

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/