30 Years of Failed U.S. Middle East Policy

The following is a Bill Moyers's interview of Andrew Bachevitz, Professor of History at Boston University, graduate of West Point and Vietnam War veteran. Writer of the "Limits of Power" and "Washington Rules -- America's Path to Permanent War." This interview is well worth your time to understand the issues of Syria given by a man who lost his son in Iraq.

here or http://therealnews.com/t2/component/hwdvideoshare/viewvideo/76813

Hegemonic Maintenance

Yet, again Mr. Charles Blow, a NYT editorialist in his opinion "Remembering All the Children" link here or below presents a very cogent and well written opinion remembering all the children killed each day all over the world including in our own country. I could not agree more. Moreover, I would go one place further and say that our 12 year wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and drone strikes in numbers of other Middle East countries kill many times over those who suffered the dastardly 9/11 attack. This country has killed thousands many of whom are women and children while creating millions of refugees and the US has successfully destabilized this tinderbox so we could what? Save it? Bombs do not discriminate. Collateral damage is everywhere. What could possibly go wrong with yet another shock and awe bombing this time in Syria? Further, I ask Mr. Blow to reflect on American foreign policy in general post WWII. War and unnecessary slaughter is a part of the American sinew.

Beyond that who can really say with 100% surety that the chem. attacks were at the hands of Assad as I have read rebels albeit crudely are provided with chem weapons of their own.
The sanctimonious reaction of this nation in view of its utterly bombastic history is hypocrisy of the the worst order. It is testament to the fact that not only is history written by the winners the press is complicit in the regurgitation of a mythical US that has never existed since the beginning of its history nor does it exist today. Our nation is nearly always in a state of perpetual war, constant and unabating just waiting for the next fig leaf of our humanitarian rationales and lies to strike our killing blows yet again in hegemonic maintenance.

World War III this time anyone? Say NO to the Syrian attack and YES to improving this nation's devastating problems. Say yes to the defeat and utter electoral annihilation of the Republican Tea Bag movement without which this nation would be well on its way to recovery since Republicans brought us to the economic abyss.












http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/07/opinion/blow-remembering-all-the-children.html?hp

Worry--An Address to the Nation

A question is now posed: Should the president address the nation to explain his position advocacy for the targeted bombing of Syria?

I am not sure if a formal address to the nation from the oval will help the president advocate for yet another bombing which he thinks is so necessary.  However, I think if the president has a shred of hope for the authorization he is seeking it is something he will have to do.  I have been an Obama supporter during his campaign before his first win in 2008.  After the 2008 win I thought then I had died and gone to heaven. I never felt so joyous and so hopeful about things political in this nation since that time.

The president since then has been besieged with racist hate and critiques so piercing I do not know how he manages to get through each day.  Perhaps, in his heart he knows there are the many who love and elected him.  I never thought that the Republicans with their utterly racist and hate-filled faction of Tea Baggers would ever wield the successfully obstructionist toxic power that they do.  Hate is a powerful emotion maybe even stronger than love and it is that which has fueled the impossible situation in which the president has found himself since the 2010 mid-terms when he failed that summer to push and explain his health care bill.  Without the rancid 2010 election turning things political for him on their head with the Republican takeover of the obstructionist House he would be in a much more powerful position now, the nation would not be facing yet another debt ceiling crisis that is so world threatening.  Many other issues such as immigration, the economy with jobs, infrastructure repair, would have begun and even climate change would have been addressed.  Alas, it was not to be.

I was, however, shocked at his request of a Syria strike.  There have been things the president has done that I had to look the other way but this policy advocacy of the targeted bombing of Syria’s chemical weapons took me by surprise.  No one, not God himself if he appeared on earth, could rectify the massive war chaos of that region.  Why the president would want to immerse this war weary, broke-from-war nation in yet another maybe the worst of all the Middle East civil wars I have no idea. Why he thinks we would not be stuck yet again in a worse dilemma than the 12 years prior Middle East wars have presented I do not know either.  Moreover, I do not know why he would want to risk his ability to get any other thing done with a Congress full of Republican haters who want nothing more than to see him fail even if it will mean failure of the nation.

I feel for you, Mr. President, I really do. I am a white Jewish woman who has loved you through it all. This is the first time I publicly post that your position on Syria cannot and I hope will not happen. What will happen AFTER that vote in this cauldron of insanity called the Middle East and this cauldron of chaos called Congress I do not know.  I hoped for the reversal of this toxic trend and for the Democrats to retake the House.  I stagger to think what will happen if the haters suppress the vote in 2014 and subsequently win.  I worry for us all.

My Prediction

This ratchet up bombing Syria which will kill people to prevent chemical weapons from killing people is lunacy. As Larry O'Donnell said last evening what is the difference if 100,000 people die by conventional means being blown into pieces or by chemical weapons.

Weapons were made illegal by the world community after 1917. WHY? NOT NOT for humanitarian reasons but because in trench warfare which WWI was gas blows back and hits your own. THIS IS NOT a humanitarian issue. It is a military industrial complex issue with BIG defense industry bucks on the line.

Prediction: It will pass the Senate and lose in the House. This is a bad calculation and fraught with overwhelming risk. This is about lobbyists and it is about money. This Fiddler on the Roof risk would if passed NOT end well. Period end of story.

NB: First time I have publicly broken with the president because the other side Republicans are SO heinous, evil, racist and sickening!

A Fig Leaf -- Truth or Consequences

The potential bombing of yet another Middle Eastern state, Syria, as "punishment" for Syria's alleged use of the chemical weapon Sarin on its own people is so serious and potentially so catastrophic for the region, the west and for the US that I must at least pose some questions that need to be asked and answers should be demanded of those in power. Write your congresspersons to find out the truth:

1. Is it absolutely true that Assad is the ONLY one who could have perpetrated such a chemical attack on his own people including children since Syria is flooded with dozens of different groups fighting for different reasons? Could any of them have possessed any capacity to launch a chemical attack?

2. What is the end game? What will happen if US bombs are sent to get at Assad's stockpiles, IF we even know where all of them are, and they retaliate or they simply soak up the attack?

3. What other groups will go into the fog of war chaos in Syria as there are an abundance of competing groups there now including Al Qaeda, Hezbollah and others and will those groups be a threat to the interests of the US, the west, Israel or Palestinians around Israel and, indeed to the entire region?

4. Has the US or any of its allies used any chemical weapons at any time on its own enemies creating collateral damage including depleted uranium, white phosphorus, and napalm? Has it at any time used the conventional weaponry of cluster bombs killing many innocents?

5. The most important question of all raised I am told was iterated by a respected journalist is who will monetarily benefit? Could this strike have anything to do with the toppling of Assad because of the natural gas and oil reserves that are found in Syria and the reasons the Russians are allied with it?

6. Lastly how much will this cost a US nation whose infrastructure is crumbling, whose forests are burning, whose towns are flooding, whose towns/cities have felt nature's wrath of manmade global climate change, whose cities are going bankrupt and votes suppressed corrupted by the gerrymandering of state power by a plethora of mostly Republican unethical Cretans?

100,000 deaths and 2 million refugees are already the result of the brutal Syrian civil war. To attack Syria again even to get at chemicals may do more harm than good.

These are important questions to ask before one drop of blood is shed or one penny more is spent for a Trojan horse admittedly horrifying fig leaf - the gassing of innocents. We must know the absolute truth because the consequences are so grave if we do not!

Ask the Questions--Blow Back

I am the most ardent of Dems. and work for ALL Democrats.

I want to know 150% correctly and with the DETAILS of positive proof that Syria's Assad is the one or those close to him who ordered the Sarin attack. I want to know that we are NOT repeating Iraq and that there IS proof unlike Powell's UN lies -- PROOF ... DETAILED PROOF. 

My fear is that this nation will be helping rebels who MAY I say MAY have sent the chem bombs as there is some evidence they had them supplied by other nation(s). The rebels are composed of Al Qaeda and god know how many other rancid groups who would with 100% surety do harm to this nation and send deadly weapons into their hands. THAT is what I want to know -- DETAILS. Declassify the darn so called classified PROOF. If there is PROOF why should it be classified? I WANT TO KNOW WHO IN NEAR PERFECT CERTAINTY IS EXPLODING THESE WEAPONS.

A note on Sarin and other deadly gasses --- weapons like that were banned after WWI. Why? NOT NOT for humanitarian reasons. There is NO humanity in war. It was because those chemical gasses BLOW BACK onto even the troops using them. Wind blows them back. Same with nuclear. For those Cretans that say we should nuke em. NUKE EM?? and what happens when radiation blows back and spreads everywhere even to our own people.THERE IS NO WINNING WITH CHEMICAL OR RADIOLOGICAL WMD war BECAUSE IT DOES NOT ONLY KILL ONE'S ENEMY IT KILLS the ones using them. 

How darn important is this latest windfall for the military industrial complex crowd? A friend of mine said his military stock soared!!

Howard Zinn: Whenever governments want to commit you to war ask two questions: WHY and WHO BENEFITS and PROFITS!

GOOD QUESTIONS -- ASK THEM!!

My Exploding Head--Syria in the Crosshairs

The president, whom I have loved and fervently supported, I believe is in error, while the world waits on edge until he decides, to solo strike Syria.  Iran, in a rare clear message admitted the Middle East is a tinderbox ready to blow sky high if a western nation dare strike in this region yet again. Iraq's ghost never dies.  A strike, especially a solo strike, should be out of the question. How can the president, this president, who as a senator so roundly criticized the bombing of Iraq, decide not only to use the Bush doctrine of unilateral war against a nation which did nothing to us but he will, if the reporting is correct, do this alone without consult if necessary?
 
The rationale of humanitarian principles for war is nearly always a Trojan Horse to militarily involve. It works because the American people are sold nationalistic poppycock untrue and realistically ridiculous rationales for its entry into war.  Our enemies never hated us for our freedom.  They hated us because as a western nation we have interfered for decades in the Islamic world and they resent it.   Has all of US post WWII foreign policy been simply misplaced idealism or rather misplaced and ruinous Machiavellian empire building?  I suspect it is the latter.

Powers in our age spend blood and oodles of cash because invasions of these Middle Eastern nation states are  about the balance of power in that region, money, oil and it may be, in this case, to make sure those chemical weapons used by someone in Syria (not sure who) stop at Syria's door and are never used especially to attack the west. We worry about that.

All I ask is that the president tell the darn truth and stop throwing mythologies around that our sensibilities are so hurt when we see Syria gassing its own people. Saddam Hussein, of Iraq fame lest one forget, did the same thing.  The US said and did nothing because Hussein at the time was fighting Iran, our enemy. Further, Syria has recently gassed its own people 14 other times with albeit a lesser amount of carnage.  Double moreover, it is alleged that the US used white phosphorous, a brutal chemical weapon, in Faluja, Iraq and absolutely used Napalm and Agent Orange in Vietnam. So come on here let's use our brain. We or any nation state rarely kill for humanitarian reasons.  We kill for reasons of money, power, and hegemonic advantage limiting our enemies' influence and aggrandizing our own.  It is for those reasons that we send our young blood and enormous treasure around the planet.  That is what empire builders do after all but is this impending strike on Syria worth it?

Mr. President, I love you BUT what are the real reasons for solo bombing Syria? What is your purpose or fear? I truly believe this president is deadly serious about protecting this country from another 9/11 attack or worse on his watch.  In view of that if the reason to bomb Syria is to degrade its chemical weaponry to protect the west from it and at the same time diminish Iranian power then tell us the truth.  I can take the truth.  It's the lies and hypocrisy that make my head explode.

Wounded Syrians find sanctuary in Israeli hospital

As the conflict in Syria continues, the number of injured Syrians reaching Israel to receive treatment is rising. The Syrian regime  is a longtime Israeli enemy, and its citizens are banned from travel to Israel. Meanwhile Israelis citizens, worried about a possible chemical attack, are lining up at gas mask distribution centers.  NBC's Geraint Vincent reports.  

By Geraint Vincent, Correspondent, NBC News

NAHARIYA, Israel - In northern Israel, wounded Syrians are finding a strange sanctuary.  Just a few miles from the Golan Heights, doctors have treated more than 70 patients from Israel’s arch-enemy Syria so far this summer.
They are all very badly hurt, with gunshot wounds and blast injuries, and receiving life-saving treatment, doctors say.

"Most of them arrive unconscious," said Masad Barhoum, clinical director at Western Galilee Medical Center. "When they wake up and find that they are in Israel they are anxious and afraid.  We don't ask them any questions, we just do what we can to make them feel comfortable."
Doctors and nurses do their work behind blast walls and air-tight doors, and they try not to let politics, or war, get in their way.

"When you see a child who's burned and crying for her mother," Barhoum said.  "What is she guilty of?  We help whoever comes through the door.”  

Slideshow: Syria uprising

A look back at the conflict that has overtaken the country.

At least 100,000 people have been killed in the two-and-a-half-year conflict, and every day hundreds struggle with injuries, according to aid workers. Doctors at the center say their Syrian patients are brought to the border with Israel because much-needed medical facilities no longer exist in their war-ravaged homeland.  It's a last resort.

Syria and Israel are old foes.  For people to throw themselves and their loved ones on the mercy of the Israeli border guards is a sure a sign of how desperate they are.  Seeking help across the border may prompt harsh consequences when patients and their families go home.

Many of the wounded are fighters, but some are children.

“I brought my girl here because she was hit by a sniper's bullet," said a weeping woman as she tended her 13-year-old.  "The hospital in my town was destroyed.  They have saved her here, but now I am afraid to go back.  We will be marked."

The Israeli army delivers the wounded to the hospital, in between preparations for a possible attack from Syria or Hezbollah, Lebanese allies of President Bashar Assad.

If the United States and its allies choose to strike over allegations Syria used chemical weapons on civilians, Assad might retaliate against Israel, America's greatest ally in the region.  Israeli intelligence doesn't think that is very likely at this stage, but the missile defense batteries along Israel's northern borders have been reinforced.

As citizens of Damascus try to prepare themselves for a possible military strike, they are stocking up on supplies at grocery stores and pharmacies. Wall Street Journal correspondent Sam Dagher reports.

In Tel Aviv, people look north and see a dictator who appears to be capable of anything, who might be feeling backed into a corner and could lash out.  And given the nature of the atrocity Assad is accused of committing, people wait in line for gas masks at the post office.  The prospect of being attacked with poison gas is a fearful one anywhere, but for a people haunted by the Holocaust there is a special determination to survive, and respond.

If Israel does come under attack of any kind, it will not simply weather the storm.  Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has warned that his country will “respond forcefully.”

Israel's defense forces are on high alert.  Its air force pilots are on very short notice to move -- they now have to be in their cockpits within seconds of the call, rather than minutes.

An Israeli attack on Syria would likely be large scale, and Assad's allies in Lebanon and Iran would feel bound to respond.  This would be one path by which a “punishment action” by the Western powers might quickly turn into a regional conflict.  In the White House, it's the nightmare scenario.

I responded quickly:

This makes me proud to be a Jew. I LOVE my people and know in my heart and deep in my soul that the Jewish people are good, incredible survivors and most act like human beings should to one another. I am NOT religious but a secular Jew and never ever not even once have I been shunned by a member of a different Jewish sect. That in and of itself is miraculous and says something. There is room in Judaism for all of us whether we believe or not.

I know because I have seen it through many different eyes that Israel treats everyone who comes for medical aid. NO questions asked they just do it. Why? Because it's the right thing to do. You treat the stranger as you would want to be treated. Forgetting the gd political situation on a human level I know my people and the fact that they treat desperate Syrians for medical problems that otherwise would kill them does not surprise me. I say OPEN YOUR EYES and look. Do I love all policy NO and neither do I love all policy in the US BUT we do the best we can with the cards we are dealt.

Thank you my people for tending to the wounded Syrians. One wonders how much press that will get. Instead the media focus on some bad thing that happens between these so called "enemies," They are NOT MY enemy. They are fellow human beings who desperately need help to merely live!

Stand Against Hate--Kudos to the Chief of Police in Sabaattus, Maine

A town-office wannabe David Marsters of Sabbatus, Maine posted a hate-filled threat to the president on Facbook.  He took down the opinion and was appropriately investigated by the Secret Service .  I will not repeat what he said in this forum as it is disgusting and vile.  This man is no child.  He is a senior adult.  The story was carried on NECN and you can Google it to see the nature of his ugly Facebook entry.  I emailed the Chief of Police Ward of Sabbatus, ME a kudo for standing up against hate!

Kudos to the Chief of Police in Sabbatus, Maine for standing up to yet another message of hate, and destructive violence levied at our oft-besieged president whom so many love.  David Marsters or any man who could write such racist and hate-filled opinion on Facebook is not only unethical but rude disrespecting the high office of the nation's presidency. First Amendment passionate critical analysis of policies of all our commanders-in-chief, even a resounding reelected one, is to be encouraged but a message saturated with ugly racist hate infused with a call to violence is not what, I believe, our framers had in mind when they created our simple document of Constitutional magnificence.

It is altogether fitting and proper that David Marsters be soundly defeated in any election he may seek. He and those like him are a stain and blight upon our country no matter how First Amendment protected they may be.  Marsters and extremists like he should be eschewed by men and women of good will everywhere. 

Placing his opinion on Facebook can be seen by millions in an instant and reported on the news which it was even IF Mr. Marsters ultimately took the post down. What one writes especially if laced with racial invective and violence can be taken by some mentally unbalanced person as something they want to, God forbid, do.

Let's hope the people of Sabattus, Maine never allow Mr. Marsters to win or see the inside of public office ever!  Thanks to Chief Ward again for a very effective and articulate response which I viewed on NECN news this morning. Our nation surely could use more fair-minded people like he.

WHY WE MUST ELECT DEMOCRATS ALL ACROSS THE NATION.  WE MUST STOP THE INCESSANT RACIST INVECTIVE.  A VOTE SUPPRESSED ANYWHERE IS A THREAT TO THE VOTE EVERYWHERE!!

Think Again--the Wind and the Whirlwind

What is to possibly ensue in Syria gave me a migraine today.  In my opinion WWII was the last moral war.  The rest conducted by the US have been policy blunders of the worst order made mostly by those who send other people's kids to war but avoid service risking their own lives as they risk the lives of countless others. As Howard Zinn said: THINK think as to who profits by a war and why it is being conducted. Zinn was the most impactful historian on me because he spoke the profundity of truth to power.

We have killed hundreds of thousands in the Middle East between Iraq, Afghanistan and periodic strikes on numbers of other countries over decades. Truly does anyone anymore think that they hate us for our freedom? They hate us for our very bad policy decisions. I do not know what happened to this nation post WWII but those who took the reins of power especially the neo cons did great evil to this nation. They managed and continue to make some people and corporations very very rich but NOT those within the American middle class.  It gets the middle and lower classes killed, maimed, bankrupt and psychologically traumatized.

The 1% get rich, keep the populous dumbed down by control of the media and feed us nationalistic propaganda as a rationale for service in war. This newest war adventure will cost us dearly. It is hugely risky.  What happened to the deficit and the debt Tea Bag Republicans and others say they care about so much?  Who will pay for this and what will it cost?
My mantra: Question everything. 

The risks of a strike on Syria are enormous and this time we must be correct.  I suspect another war will be impossible to win.  It will be long lasting, cost more billions and spread war even more with no end in sight but the president is the one with experts at his side.  I say to him think twice and then think again before you unleash the wind and reap the whirlwind!

Freedom Today, Freedom Tomorrow and Freedom Forever -- The March on Washington 2013

The dream continues, the dream never dies and efforts of those who in the past were the purveyors of interposition and nullification are trying NOW with the help of the vicious five on the Supreme Court to nullify those hard fought for rights yet again. Black people and minorities of all kinds CONTINUE to have to monitor RELIGIOUSLY the rancid deeds of those white racists welcomed with open arms into the Republican Party which yet again wants to impose a segregated land taking away most especially the hard fought for right to vote.

The right to vote is the ONLY means persons of little means and little power can have to acquire a piece of the American Dream and those within a Republican Party gone insane are trying to deny them that. We did NOT let the racists win in 1865, we did NOT let them win in 1965, today in 2013 and in the future in 2014 WE WILL NOT LET THEM WIN BECAUSE EVERYONE .... EVERYONE WILL SIGN UP TO VOTE NO MATTER THE OBSTACLES AND VOTE TO CRUSH THOSE OUT OF OFFICE WHO WOULD STEAL POWER FROM THE POWERLESS AND STEAL JUSTICE FROM THOSE SEEKING JUSTICE. THE VICIOUS RACISTS DID NOT WIN YESTERDAY, THEY DO NOT WIN TODAY AND THEY WILL NOT WIN TOMORROW! 

As the great Ted Kennedy said at his brother Robert’s funeral I can say about the march on Washington today: “The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.”

This is why 2014 is so important--ALERT!

This may be redundant but it MUST be said.  The re-assumption of power by the Democrats in the nation's House MUST be achieved.  There is NO way that this rancid Republican House majority placed in power in 2010 littered with the refuse of Tea Bags will allow our president to do a thing without an overthrow by vote of Republicans in 2014.  Republicans want our president, resoundingly elected in 2012, to fail and do not care if the country fails with it as the Citizens United moneybags that support Republicans want ultimate power.

Republicans are coming for it all -- everything -- Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and of course want to nullify Obamacare. It would mean the bankruptcy of millions AND THE DEATH OF THEM AS WELL.   WE CANNOT LET THEM DO THAT, WE CANNOT EVEN THINK ABOUT THAT POSSIBILITY.  Democrats ALSO MUST KEEP THE SENATE.

2014 is a bell weather year.  I believe it will mean the difference between the life and death of this nation.  The 1% DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOU, HELL THEY DO NOT EVEN CARE ABOUT THEIR OWN TEA BAGGERS who do not know they are being used by big money that even Tea Baggers do not have. Republicans want to send this nation into debt default as well and turn the world into chaos -- NOT KIDDING!

Beyond that an MSNBC sensationalist headline today read: "Coburn Raises Possibility of Impeachment at Town Hall."  This is the ultimate gall and monumental hypocrisy that Republicans can even THINK that against a president that did everything to compromise with them.  It was 100% justified to impeach know nothing president George W. Bush before him getting the nation into a phony war destabilizing and ruining the Middle East as we can see the horror on the evening news every night.  He was responsible for the unjust maiming, killing and exiling hundreds of thousands! If Bush did not get impeachmed then no one should.  Hence that headline prompted not even anger at this point but RAGE in me which accounts for the fervency of this email

It is for the aforementioned reasons that you must support Democrats EVERYWHERE, VOTER SUPPRESSION LAWS MUST BE CHALLENGED EVERYWHERE AND THE VOTE NO MATTER WHAT OF MINORITIES, WOMEN, STUDENTS AND THE ELDERLY MUST BE COUNTED.  WE MUST DO ALL THINGS NECESSARY TO VOTE THAT ARE TRUMPED UP BY REPUBLICAN STATE LEGISLATURES ACROSS THE NATION REQUIRED TO VOTE MEANT TO SUPPRESS MINORITY VOTES -- DEMOCRAT VOTES. 

AGAIN WE MUST BEAT THEM AT THEIR OWN GAME.  VOTER SUPPRESSION MUSTBACKFIRE ON REPUBLICANS. SIGN EVERYONE WE CAN UP TO VOTE IN STATES THAT ARE AT RISK FOR SUPPRESSION AND ALLOW THE COURT CHALLENGES TO TAKE PLACE.  IF GOD FORBID FAIRNESS OF THE COURTS IS NOT WITH US THEN THE SIGN UP IN COMPLIANCE WITH THEIR OWN DRACONIAN LAWS TO VOTE WILL TAKE PLACE ANYWAY. SIGN DEMOCRATS, MINORITIES, WOMEN AND STUDENTS UP TO VOTE!

Tell this or send this to ALL you know who MUST know what is at stake in other states.  Democrats MUST gain power majorities in the House and keep their majorities in the Senate in Congressional elections of 2014!!! IT IS THAT SIMPLE.

Onward

Ellsberg's Folly

The Huff Post headline reads “ELLSBERG WARNS: 'BEGINNINGS OF POLICE STATE'” link here or below.

Although my left of center friends and I agree on most issues, we do not agree on the NSA spying one. I thank Daniel Ellsberg for the warning but Mr. Ellsberg I believe is dead wrong now — emphasis on dead. Daniel Ellsberg may think risking his life and many other lives by vomiting US state secrets for his principals is worth it but I do not. 

I, post 9/11, do not want US classified documents released to the world for other nations to do what? Find out all kinds of classified information that could lead to my family, my friends or me doused by chemical, biological or, worst of all, radiological weaponry spread in a nanosecond by religious and political fanatics if they get their hands on any of it. I am sorry Mr. Ellsberg thinks this country is in the beginnings of a police state but I do not. I STILL feel free.

Larry O'Donnell had a wonderful segment last evening about a brave man who was to speak about Private Manning on RT TV which is Russian TV based in Washington. Instead he diatribed AGAINST Russia’s policy toward gays. RT TV was sucker punched and of course terminated the interview. You can view this segment online at “The Last Word” or tonight Larry will have on the man who dawned rainbow suspenders on the broadcast before the Russian-employed interviewers knew what was happening.

RT TV interviews mainly those who hold anti-American sentiment and features left of center commentary like Thom Hartmann and others who have gone on RT TV to regurgitate always anti-American opinion. Of course there is nothing wrong with that because there is plenty to wax critical concerning US policy but RT-TV is a political arm of the Russian government which would not let any of them speak against Russian policy. We know what a bastion of democracy Russia is – NOT. 

Some on the left absolutely REFUSE to see or to criticize what a REAL totalitarian police state looks like in countries such as Russia, Syria, Iran and other Middle Eastern fascist or religious fascist states. So far Thom Hartmann still talks, so far Ellsberg is not in jail, so far there is a plethora of US critical opinion and no one gets a 3:00 a.m. knock on the door, is jailed or does not live to tell their tale. All those critical of US policy live to broadcast another day. Yes, some like Greenwald's partner as a warning shot by the Brits (and maybe the US) gets detained too long but then released. This, I suspect backfired. They are both alive and well and I am sure seeking revenge.

Be an equal opportunity employer, Mr. Ellsberg, THEN and only then will those critical of US policy have credence. See how well Glenn Greenwald, Snowden, Assange or those who spill US state secrets would fare if they lived in Russia, Iran and other true police states. If they could get a state job in those countries and release the same type of information in those states how long do you think they would live? Answer: Not long. 

If God forbid one day these so called journalists wake up to a holocaust in the US because someone released a dirty bomb or worse then maybe they will appreciate what was, over centuries, built, however imperfect, in this land and may feel just a wee bit bad that they helped in pertinent part to tear it down!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/22/daniel-ellsberg-bradley-manning_n_3793199.html#comments

A Letter to Rachel Maddow

Rachel, your reporting on Fukishima when it happened was beyond excellent and reported in a way everyone could understand.

Now, again, I believe you MUST give Fukishima another expert look and give us a scrutinizing update. Governments lie. That we KNOW and in this instance this lie not can but WILL affect us all as oceans spread this life threatening radioactive filth.

I urge you strongly to report on this again and tell the nation and the world the truth! You are our hero in our house and always send you our supportive views! I link the site on the latest Fukishima update here and below.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/21/fukushima-nuclear-crisis_n_3788796.html?ref=topbar

Under the Dump -- "Under the Dome" -- a Review

I usually appreciate Stephen King for his profundities even if it is

through his very macabre dark imagination. Not having read the book,

"Under the Dome" it is, in my opinion, the worst of his adaptations --

"Misery" with Kathy Bates being the best. 

I Season Passed this series through my cable provider but yesterday

after watching six or so episodes I erased it from my list. It was to

me boring. I tired of the characters and the side plots, thought the

acting mediocre and have frankly seen much better. I kept saying alright

already what the heck is the Dome anyway and what's with the baby dome

as it perpetually made me want to finally find out what the heck it was

after watching many episodes with boring repetitive character side

plots complete with a young pretty woman (naturally) alone chained to a bed in a bomb shelter as water poured in. I kept wondering just where did that

woman do her human excretory functions chained to a bed with no

bathroom in sight. I think about these things as the situational

realism of these plots strained belief. Moreover, how this battered

woman survived I do not know as she is not only chained to a bed but

knocked out, hitting her head hard falling on a hard floor. She makes

real the concept of the battered woman!

"Under the Dome" in my opinion COULD have been good. I thought it was

going to be a "Lord of the Flies" type dystopia but alas it never reach

that intellectual depth so in an instant by the miracle of technology I

erased it from MY universe. A good concept I thought gone terribly

terribly boring, ridiculous and wrong! It should be renamed "Under the Dump."  I just found out there is

another season to this madness -- count me out!

NUTS—the Folly of Religious Myth

Again and again our Founding Fathers, men of the 18th century Enlightenment, reign supreme. The Separation Clause of the US Constitution is perhaps the most marvelous among many marvels of their constructive genius. Religion and democratic politics do NOT mix. Religion is an oxymoron to things democratically political because it severely punishes those who actually use their big brain to think and question the truth of its tenets. Using one's brain to question gives homo sapiens (man) the advantage over other species. Critiquing religion especially orthodoxies and fundamentalist faiths is necessary for positive growth and a must to overthrow those myths, superstitions and scientifically impossible-to-prove beliefs to advance the civilized world.

Nations that allow their people the freedom to question evolve to a higher technological state and will win the survival-of-the-fittest game. Those nations which are religious states in extremis devolve because of erroneous and untrue myth that obviates science and slows or even halts progressive change. Changing fanatical belief carries with it the death penalty. The science deniers are technologically and misogynistcally backwards. Often the masses are poverty stricken as religious leaders take the monetary contributions of their flock and live like kings.

Science rules and always has. If one could time machine backwards and study the so called "miracles" of various gods or demigods, one would find either those miracles never occurred or were figments of some very imaginative minds to placate those who must endure the hardships of life, its illnesses and, ultimately, for all of us, the surety of life's inevitable end.

If seemingly phenomenal events did happen one would probably discover rational reasons behind the occurrences. Nothing that exists can do so and go against scientific laws of the physical universe.

No matter how good those religious myths make us feel about life's onslaughts, it does not make those beliefs true.  Worse, differences in people's belief systems mean constant conflict and war about those beliefs which beliefs will remain forever unprovable. No one can win those wars. In other words, wars over religion will be eternal, hazardous to one’s health and just plain self-destructively NUTS!

In reparation for all my negativity I put this story here or below:  

Quinoa, mushrooms and coca: Bolivian says ancient Andean diet has kept him alive for 123 years

 I eat Quinoa three days a week and have mocha ice coffee several times a week made with real cocoa. Mushrooms I love but do not eat them constantly. We'll see. Pluses and minuses to life. I wish him well and would love to see his community care about and take care of him.

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/18/20076751-quinoa-mushrooms-and-coca-bolivian-says-ancient-andean-diet-has-kept-him-alive-for-123-years?threadId=3796451&commentId=78370519#c78370519

MEA CULPA

There are some who wax critical of me because they think my mind is always on things political. I will confess. My mind is on politics a lot. Mea culpa.  Guess why? BECAUSE IT AFFECTS EVERYONE'S LIFE. Try doing without Social Security, Medicare and see how it matters. Experience losing a child to war (God forbid) and see how it matters. See MAN MADE global climate change sink cities, burn up immense territory from severe drought, catastrophic floods of neighborhoods and towns, destruction through massive and constant tornadoes and hurricanes, see how nuclear power and fracing kills and see how policies about those things matter. Think of yourself with no job, no food, no money, nothing, Wall Street walking away with YOUR money and a slap on the wrist for the most egregious illegalities while those people of color and poverty who have committed minor crimes sit in jail and see how it matters.

YOU BET I'M POLITICAL. HOW CAN ONE NOT BE? Thoreau once said to Emerson when Emerson asked him what he was doing in there (meaning jail for civil disobedience political reasons) and he said to Emerson "Waldo, how can YOU not be?!" Howard Zinn once said he loved my political passion and I took him at his word so instead of giving up as I wanted to do so many times I kept fighting for things that are fair, humane and because they are morally the right thing to do. 

The right wing attacks with vitriol and the left often simply shrugs its shoulders then wonders just how George W. Bush, a nincompoop, got into the highest office in the land.  Then they scratch their head wondering how did John Roberts and worse Samuel Alito occupy the highest court in the land handing down the worst money driven politically corrupting machine and racist decisions in the history of the court.  

Yes, I think a LOT about politics because MOST people do not and will have themselves to blame if rightwingnut JERKS oligarchic and violent gain power and the powerless are left on their own to live or die -- mostly, if the right wingnuts have their way -- to die. YOU MUST STAND UP or you cannot complain about a thing.

Elections matter.  

It is PRECISELY why the Democratic Party MUST take back the House, keep the Senate and change all those state house red occupied states from red to blue. You can see how Republicans govern.  They will take us back as they have in many states all over the country to 1880 IF you let them.  DON'T.  You must VOTE at ALL costs no matter the obstruction.  For those in states where voter suppression is being attempted ask for help or help another.  Do NOT let those voter suppression immoral racist jerks steal your vote.   EVERYONE must help and the Democratic Party MUST provide leadership and money to those who are at risk for voter suppression.  Beat Republicrats at their own game.  VOTE NO MATTER WHAT and SHOW THAT THEIR EFFORTS AT VOTER SUPPRESSION WILL BACKFIRE ON THEM!

Forward this to anyone you choose.

The End of it All--Egypt, Fundamentalism, and You

Egypt now becomes the instructional mirror when religion -- any religion -- mixes with the state. It is a road map to conflict, death and perdition. Our Founding Fathers, I believe, knew and saw clearly history's toll of religion enmeshed with the state. They knew Europe's discord emanating from centuries of religious wars and the importance of the Constitution's separation clause to prevent that in the New World.

Religion fundamentalist and extreme will keep groups warring with each other and nation states warring against each other for decades even centuries as those in one religion think its religion owns the ultimate truth to the exclusion of all else. The issue, no matter where, is the merging of religion with the state and its guarantee to devolve that state into chaos.

The state must be free of the religious albatross keeping its jackboot of tyranny on a population's neck preventing it from the expansion of thought. The brain was meant to think and to use that thought to improve man's survival. Religion is responsible for keeping mankind and womankind down. Religious fundamentalist thought will be the rationale for the ultimate end of life itself as self-immolation becomes the norm seeking heaven's gate. Heaven's gate will not exist but the belief in it will unleash eternal war which ultimately will end it all.

Simple Complexity

I wrote a response to a blogger who commented on an MSNBC article entitled “Fan dies after plummeting 65 feet during Braves game at Turner Field” link here and below.  Some bloggers, as is their noxious habit, were inconceivably unfeeling, rude and crude discussing the fate of the unfortunate man.  Others, of course, were much more compassionate. It gave me pause to think on issues surrounding the fall and the human response to it:

Through the instantaneous and ubiquitous news media we are able to see in a nanosecond every nasty catastrophic piece of news. Train wrecks boost ratings. When networks report on disaster after disaster, shooting after shooting, and accident after accident it is, of course, all about money.  Media sells better with bad news than with good unless it shows two pandas rolling around like kids.

Some humans are uncaring, rude and crude but others are capable of great kindness and compassion.  The kindness and compassionate traits of man work toward survival of those that possess them.  The compassionate capability we in variation do possess is within the DNA of man's survival; translation: compassion works to keep us alive. Those who have it and possess the ability to work with others retain a superior capacity to survive the earth’s onslaughts.

Science is science -- physics is physics, chemistry is chemistry and biology is biology. The earth is governed by all of its laws.   Man’s survival, however, depends upon how man works with others to conquer a neutral planet's natural metamorphosis and the ability of him to overcome its forces that tend toward destruction. The planet has a natural ability to renew itself and man does too with an important addition.  Man must use his big brain to figure out how to overcome our planet's assaults since we are not endowed by nature with other physical attributes our animal cousins possess to accommodate earth’s physical offense.  We cannot run very fast, have no thick coat to protect from cold, no claws to climb trees or sharp teeth to kill.  What evolutionary advantage man does have is a big brain. It has created throughout man’s history the plethora of technical advances that ensure his survival better than any other mammal on earth.

Whatever happened to the man who fell IS a tragedy upon which we can contemplate, commiserate and even build an edifice to ensure it not happen again.  The height from which the man fell and the physical composition of his biological body dictated that he would not be capable of overcoming the earth’s gravitational force that sent him crashing onto a hard cement surface. Man’s bones, skull, brains and other organs succumbed to the laws of science which interrupted permanently the continuance of his life.

The laws of science -- biology, chemistry, and physics command the existence of life.  Man’s ability to offer compassion, sympathy and understanding assist in man’s own ability to survive.  Humans help another in trouble because it is advantageous for all of us to help.  Survival of the fittest is a truth.  Compassion, understanding and empathy are part of that truth and assist in no small way toward the evolutionary survival of man.  It is as simple and complex as that.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/12/19995616-fan-dies-after-plummeting-65-feet-during-braves-game-at-turner-field#comments