NO WE CANNOT: A case which is being revisited by the Supreme Court and which will, if decided for the corporation, have a huge influence on our lives and not, in my opinion, for the better. As Bill Moyers on his site says: "The case, Citizens United v. The Federal Election Commission has grown from a limited question about [the showing of] a political documentary [funded by an anti Hillary Clinton corporation] to a broad challenge to the government's right to restrict corporations from spending money to support or oppose political candidates." This is about putting the free speech of a corporation on par with the First Amendment free speech of a person.

The person in this country, historically, has had to suffer at the hands of the omnipotent corporations because, as individuals, a singular person does NOT have the resources available to him with which to fund opposition. The issue of corporate person-hood has waxed and waned over time. Today we know our representatives in Washington are smothered by corporation PAC money in every sphere from health care to oil. Corporations have undue influence on our bodies and, often, our lives. Now they want to usurp one of a person’s few remaining reserved elements of political power – the free speech of the First Amendment-- as a rationale and excuse to control the whole Washington enchilada.

Mr. Abrams and the ACLU (an entity I usually adore), are arguing before the Supreme Court the corporate side of the equation that this is a free speech First Amendment issue and that the corporation’s free speech should be equal to that of a person. It is, I submit, NOT a person and should NOT be subject to the same free speech rights. Elena Kagan, the Solicitor General of the United States is arguing that point.

What ordinary human being can compete with the money that the corporation has at its disposal? The corporation behind the film against the candidacy of Hillary Clinton took Mr. Abrams and the ACLU for all they were worth to find yet another way to legally insinuate itself into Washington politics. A decision for the corporation will free up the corporation to do and say anything it pleases with as much cash as it can muster.

I believe, this is NOT what our Founders meant by free speech. They meant that right to be reserved for real, live, breathing people to espouse anything anywhere no matter how odious. They did not mean for the corporation with its billions of loot to have the right to do the same and easily override the individual’s impact on policy.

The corporation should NOT be considered a human being. It has no feelings, it has no sense of fair play, it cannot get sick and it cannot die BUT we can. The corporation if the Supreme Court decides in its favor will have unlimited capital to advance its agenda.

This important case is about FAIRNESS. It is not fair to make MY opinion any less valuable than another’s. By endowing the CORPORATION with person-hood with respect to the free speech issue, the Supreme Court will put it on the same footing as everyone else. The corporation is NOT like everyone else. This case is about nothing less than the undue influence of MONEY in politics which is what the corporation has at its disposal to influence who occupies the seats of federal power. How can an individual compete with that? If the Supreme Court rules FOR the corporation in this case, the president's new mantra may as well become NO WE CANNOT no matter WHAT we do!

This opinion was prompted by an email I received from the Wiesenthal Center about an article which they saw in alJezeera Magazine entitled "Jane Fonda Joins Boycott of Toronto Film Festival over Homage to Israel" See link below.

Jane Fonda and the Left's Error -- Its Case Against Israel: An article appeared in alJezeera Magazine entitled Jane Fonda Joins Boycott of Toronto Film Festival over Homage to Israel. The article states in pertinent part “… a letter [sent by Fonda and other artists] aimed at festival officials claims that Tel Aviv was built on violence, ignoring the suffering of thousands of former residents and descendants.” Fonda, therefore, joined a growing list of artists boycotting the festival.

Of course, no one mentions that the Jewish State emerged out of the 1948 UN mandate made because of Europe’s problem of left over suffering Jewish refugees of the Holocaust with its attendant wholesale slaughter of the six million. Nor does it mention that Jews had, for millennia, been a part of that land. Jane Fonda has gone back to being a jerk, as she joins this bleating segment of the herd without, yet again, thinking through her actions. Further, the Jewish artists who come out against Israel are shooting themselves in their own foot.

Some on the left and I part ways when it comes to Israel. I cannot, hard as I may try, understand how they would want to defend those who want to destroy the tiny state by force or by a ONE-state solution which also threatens the Jewish state AND by extension the Jewish people period. It is unacceptable.

A comparison of cultures makes crystal clear that the tyranny existing in the Arab world is staggering. Women are whipped, beaten and sometimes killed for the most minor "offenses." They are flogged because they wear pants, threatened or tortured if they go to school. They are stoned, sometimes to death, if God forbid they sleep with someone before marriage or with another other than their husband or even if they deny their husband sex. Homosexuals are killed or tortured in many of those lands in the most bestial ways. The atrocities abound as they do in Gaza itself and even between their own people. Women are treated horrifically in nearly every Arab country and Persian one as well. I cannot be blind to what my eyes see. Israel for all of its faults (and it is not without them) is an infinitely freer state. It fights to survive every single day as Jews have done throughout centuries.

Moreover, I hear nary a sound from segments of the left against the plethora of attacks committed by Islamic fundamentalists collectively against hundreds of thousands of innocents. We must bring REALITY back to planet earth and state what really IS as your eyes see it while not abandoning the many other humane and principled issues about which the left is concerned.

Israel is more advanced, freer and more democratic than any state in that mentally unhinged neck of the woods! I am not afraid to criticize Israel at times when it is not perfect but I do not know of a perfect place on earth. Do you?


See link below sent by the Wiesenthal Center: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/articles/34/Jane_Fonda_Joins_Boycott_of_Toronto_Film_Festival_.html

The genius of genius Glen Greenwald of Salon.com is my idea of a GREAT GREAT intelligent journalist and man. Read this column (link below) it is EXACTLY how I feel. Wonderful right on the money piece about why we MUST change our policy. Our tax dollar now is conducting war after war after war since after WWII and it won't work and we have killed THOUSANDS and paid TRILLIONS for nothing. Quagmires abound. We have become a belligerent state and the politics of our country shows. It is ANYTHING but it surely is NOT humanitarian. Just watch the recent town meeting where teabag nutjobs screamed at a woman in a wheelchair who needs health care.

There are some mean, hurtful, crazies out there and people who love to kill. Yes, they love war. Of course they love it as long as some OTHER guy's kid fights it. They love the flags, the marching bands and the macho hoopla but fight the war? Not so much. The policy makers don't fight and most others do not either. Only a small percentage wage our technologically crushing wars on a LOT of innocent civilians. Our public is deaf and blind to the havoc it plays. And then they wonder just why so many are down on the US. It's frightening. I thought our country was better than that! Click on or cut and paste into your browser the link below. Glen Greenwald gives a daily opinion on Salon.com.



http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/

I am writing this to various Congressmen who are, as of now, against a public option.

Dear Senator: I am writing you now after Senator Kennedy’s death to appeal to what, I think, is our common ground. When I was a young woman at Boston University in 1968, I heard Senator Kennedy speak. He told an audience of young people who sported often very long hair that some would have to cut their hair if they were going to credibly reach out to persuade the American public. I think that experience then defined Senator Kennedy for me. He was about the art of compromise so that adversaries could be persuaded. Some in the audience booed at his suggestion. Much later, as a mature adult, I saw exactly what he meant. It is in that spirit of understanding that I appeal to you now.

Our Constitution is our guide to fair play. It is our compass to show us the way to govern. It has been, though, at times, opaque and has forced our nation to make choices as to the role of government. When should go vernment act and when should it not have been our history’s conundrum.

In the politics of this era those sides have become divided as the Democratic and Republican parties retreat to their separate corners. Many, of course, think that government should play a very limited role in the life of the governed. Others, at critical times in our history, have seen government as the vehicle, the only vehicle, capable of addressing often life and death issues of a nation. In this time of combined health care and economic crises government must act to provide the life jacket for a suffering people.

There is no doubt that the concerns of reducing our federal deficit and enormous debt are of consequence. Our country, however, is obviously different than the Founders envisioned. A country of over 300 million people demands government oversight. Class distinctions are widening significantly and cannot be left to just simply work themselves out. Se nator Kennedy believed that providing health care reform with a strong public option would help, among other things, provide our country a systemic as well as an economic lifeboat which ultimately would help bring the soaring deficit down . He believed that by providing life-saving health care for all we could help save our nation from further economic catastrophe in the process.

I urge Republicans and Democrats alike who are against health care reform with a strong public option to rethink your position and join with your colleagues who support it to pass the kind of health care reform that Teddy Kennedy worked so very hard for nearly all of his life in the Senate to do. As former colleagues and friends of Senator Kennedy I fervently ask you to support his version of health care reform so that, finally, on this issue at this time we can join together and find some common ground to provide for the general welfare and the common defense of our nation as our Constitution instructs.

The Lion's Roar is Silenced: I cannot remember a time when MY life and our nation's political life was not filled with and touched by Kennedys. Memories flood my mind of Jack, Bobby and Ted teaming with life, running around playing touch football in Hyannisport. Those were the best of times.

We know what the worst of times bestowed upon them but Teddy had the good fortune to live much longer than his brothers. We the people of Massachusetts, the nation and, indeed, the world have been the beneficiaries of that.

I stand in amazement at a man who suffered so much but was an example for all of us when we experience the vicissitudes of life to simply persevere and go on. I will miss him as I miss his brothers still. I am so grateful that he was on the side of the poor and the dispossessed. I continue to hope that a health care public option bill for which he so long and so tirelessly worked to extend medical care to all Americans will have his name on it.

I thank this lion of the Senate and so many in the Kennedy family for what they have given and continue to give to our nation. I extend my heartfelt condolences to them all!

I wrote this on the New York Times blog after reading Frank Rich, its genius columnist's, editorial "The Guns of August" about the president's courting of those who are trying to, truthfully, kill him (Link at the bottom). President Obama tries to reach out to those Republican members of Congress who actually make excuses for the crazies who turn out with loaded guns where the president is speaking!! Rich lays part of the blame at the feet of Obama himself who bewilderingly makes nice to those who would love nothing more than to destroy him ... LITERALLY!


http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/opinion/23rich.html#bozoanchor

The Horizon of Hope is Drifting: I am staggered and incredulous by what I read every day. I do not understand if the real Barack Obama was submerged until he reached the presidency and morphed into a different being, the one he really was or if this is a brilliant strategy carved by a phenomenally adept administration and that in the long run he will not disappoint those of us in his base who worked either by writing or on foot SO hard for him. We are not privy to the behind-the-scenes machinations and even the best journalist has no access to everything.

I still have hope. I have written many times at pinnacles of Obama's success how dazzled I was that the tide had seemingly turned. Night seemed to be turning into day. The tide, though, has gone out and I do not see it coming back any time soon. I'm depressed and I am sad. Maybe hope on the horizon but so far I don't see it.

I am sure the president is reading the New York Times especially vacationing in Martha's Vineyard while it is having a tropical storm. This is an apt metaphor.

If he sees these comments and he reads mine I say to him: Mr. President, remember us, your base, the ones who LOVED you? Like Kate Winslet said when the Titanic was sinking and her lover was floating away in the icy sea -- COME BACK, COME BACK, COME BACK!!

Tevya's Response to Roman Catholic Leaders: Tevya of Fiddler on the Roof fame has been rolling around in his brain the latest mind numbing statement out of the Holy See and the response from major Jewish groups and rabbis:

On the one hand Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport Connecticut says "While the Catholic church does not proselytize the Jewish people, neither does she fail to witness to them her faith in Christ, nor to welcome them to share in that same faith whenever appropriate."

Tevya says: "On the other hand -- There is no other hand!! NO NO NO NO NO!"

Pope Benedict, what part of that response do you not understand?

Seeing CCFILE: I have, at times, listened to and watched CCFILE online to give its view a fair hearing. While I thought CCFILE made some believable points, I generally thought it often absurd, sometimes disgusting and generally an embarrassment. Its lack of articulate excellence is most pronounced. It is imbued with propaganda for the extreme right's point of view IRRESPECTIVE of their claim that they are "only about illegal immigration." I believe, they are NOT ONLY about ILLEGAL immigration. The tenor underneath the rhetoric is a deep-seated anger against those who may oppose their political points and to the immigrant community in this town from especially Brazil (legal or illegal) for the mere sin of simply being, most especially, here. I believe those that run CCFILE harbor a threatening hostility toward those whom they perceive to be the other but would never, of course, admit to that directly.

Who is not against illegal immigration? Most are against it and some views they espouse, as said, have credence but THAT show is more than about simply illegal immigration. The racism and other messages of hate not admitted as such on the show are clear for ANYONE who wants to really hear them.

I listened to a so called historian, interspersed on one show, lecture about his view of the history of US immigration. He explained that in his view the history of immigration was about letting into this nation those from countries other than Western Europe who posed an attendant danger by subverting the heretofore American Anglo (white Christian implied) way of life. He interjected, too, an oft articulated view by many in the anti-immigration movement, an anti-Semitism which sees the Jew, too, of course, as just another part of the many forms of the other who have invaded the American culture emasculating its Anglo roots and tradition, subverting our Founders’ original intent.

I thought it humorous, too, that the mouthpieces of a show that rails against immigrants who do not speak proper English were, in fact, guilty of gross grammatical error and poor English sentence structure themselves. At least new immigrants illegal or otherwise have an excuse. Since the narrators of the programs are self professed “true Americans” what is THEIR excuse? As Christ is alleged to have said “Judge not lest you be judged … why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Matthew 7.15

CCFILE is about illegal immigration yes BUT it is also about the halt, exclusion and even erasure of the influence of the other from, as they see it, the "American way of life." It is, I believe, this etiological essence that makes me cringe. All one must do is listen to the episodic content to hear what CCFILE has to say. Its message is often bombastic and confrontational. That, I believe, is the REAL threat plaguing our nation today.

This article in The Nation by Jeremy Scahill, link below, is chilling. Another article appears in the NYTimes today regarding the CIA paid connection to Blackwater linked below as well. If you do not want to read this please at least scroll down to the Department of Defense war statistics.

Erik Prince of the Blackwater fame is the president of the mercenary army the Bush administration hired to supplement US forces in Iraq and allowed to run wild. Blackwater has been a law unto itself accountable to no one. He is the closest thing to a true American fascist (I do not use that term lightly) I have seen who is actually employed by our government in Iraq especially under Bush. How much he operates now I do not know but it would not shock me to find his nefarious fingerprints in many places. He is a Christian crusader and because of a civil suit filed by Iraqis in the US Court in Virginia is being investigated for NUMEROUS murders of innocents in Iraq and is alleged to have committed possible murders of his own men who were potential whistle blowers. He allegedly has threatened many in his own organization with death and it is alleged had others murdered as depositions which are currently being taken under oath indicate as The Nation artic le below illuminates. We do not know if a grand jury has been convened to investigate these alleged dastardly activities as secrecy laws pertaining to grand jury investigations prevail. In addition, as the article states, he is known to use a variety of money laundering techniques skimming funds off for himself eluding criminal prosecution. The tide MAY be changing emphasis on may.

One HOPES that he will get a post haste criminal prosecution. His crimes truly are reminiscent of fascistic international exploits of the Nazi variety except his crusade is against innocent Muslims in Iraq and really against Muslims no matter who they are everywhere. His hatred of and threat to those who oppose him even in his own organization are legendary. Blackwater's actions do NOT add to US interests internationally and that is an understatement, in fact, they contribute negatively to our already quite tainted image. I have seen him interviewed and he is the mind numbing prototype of a Knights Templar Christian crusader. What makes him truly frightening is he has access to a plethora of weaponry and even illegal weaponry such as grenades and explosives that detonate AFTER they are projected into the person. See Jeremy Scahill's book Blackwater:The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army for more information on this truly horrific entity that the Bush administration used with gusto and is an organization I have read which perhaps is STILL shockingly operating in Iraq and elsewhere.

All Christians, Jews, Muslims and non believers alike should be disgusted. Erik Prince is still a free man loaded for bear and he still wants to Christianize the entire world! Urge news organizations and especially news commentators to report on these issues, write the Congress, the President and the Justice Department or anyone you think to encourage bringing this man to justice for the crimes he is alleged to have committed and meet out the punishment he, in my opinion, so justly deserves!

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090817/scahill
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32484932/ns/politics-the_new_york_times/


See DOD (Department of Defense) statistics of a war in which the nation Iraq the United States invaded did NOTHING absolutely NOTHING to us to warrant it.

WAS IRAQ WORTH ALL THIS? Stats from DOD Derived from web site: http://antiwar.com/casualties/

See: http://antiwar.com/casualties/

I think most may agree with me. The Iraq War was NOT worth it and now the total number of lives it cost far exceeds the 9/11 deaths. This is an immoral, illegal horror show and those in power who began it unlawfully based on lies should be held accountable.

The fact that many of us in the beginning (including, I am sad to say, me) supported it because I believed the administration knew more than I. Most of our Congress voted to fund it (including Democrats) is a fact to be ashamed of for the rest of our lives AND it is the reason that in the future before a leader takes a country and serves up its young and its finest to be slaughtered there better be a DAMN good highly INVESTIGATED reason why we should do so! The MORAL of the story which I SHOULD have learned long ago: Never believe power. ALWAYS question it!

Evidence of a miracle?: I was in rational SHOCK as I read the August 15, 2009 Boston Globe Letter to the Editor of Judi Scherban entitled "Evidence of a Miracle." She espouses actual proof of the truth of Eucharistic adoration of the blood and body of Christ. What is this proof? Alleged by her a "miracle occurred in the year 700 in Lanciano, Italy when a priest plagued with doubt witnessed, before his congregation, the bread change into human flesh and the wine into human blood." Moreover, she says, this blood (type AB) and human flesh (muscular heart tissue)was subject to scientific analysis around 1971." So this blood Type AB and fresh human muscular heart tissue defied the laws of molecular biology and did not decay after 1277 years? I wonder, too, just who this priest was who had his vision. Perhaps he was merely schizophrenic? Perhaps, too, it was also determined that proteins were like those found in "fresh blood" because someone in 1971 tested a fresh sample? Does anyone question the events surrounding this preposterous so called "proof"?

Her belief she says is proven without question but question I do. This is yet again evidence of the dogmatic, unquestioning and blind acceptance of postulations of faith that keeps people ignorant. I hypothesize it will be the downfall of man who was given a natural cerebral synaptic brain so he can question, reason, and determine by scientific inquiry what the truth really is. Made up stories shot full of holes abound in all religions but this one, I must say, is a doosey!

Health Care Histrionics: Recently an editorial at the Metro West News decried the health care protesters as ones who are taking a page out of the left wing rants, sit ins and obstructionist tactics of the anti Vietnam War and civil rights struggle of the late 60's. I was among those who sympathized with the late 60's left wing demonstrators although I never was present at an office sit in and certainly I was NOT violent. Still, I empathized. So I rethought those days and wondered about the difference between the right obstructing at the health care forums and the left obstructing at an office sit-in of that era. I came to the conclusion that the philosophical issues of the left WERE different -- MUCH different -- BUT the ability to shut down debate whether from the right OR the left (although I am much more sympathetic to the left's cause) is still the same. It's unproductive and it gets one nowhere.

I believe the confrontational tactics of the left in the 60's was responsible for the election of Richard Nixon and a slew of right wing presidents that meant the ultimate ruination of our country. Further, it solidifies our divide as the anti bellum pre Civil War cause did. I believe, too, and said so last evening to a political ally, that the right is sewing their own demise. They may LOOK powerful as the demonstrators in the 1960's did but real power will allude them. This country is NOT extreme left or extreme right and the demographics are changing. Elections are won by winning over moderates and moderates do NOT like the health care histrionics they see on the 6:30 p.m. news. They like rational debate. That wins the day. The so called tea baggers will lose their cause for themselves.

I should not be so revelatory because, of course, I WANT them to lose. So I rephrase what I just said. Keep going, tea bags, its fun to watch you tactically hang yourself as THIS time the opposition will not be silent either. The president has tried for six months to reach out much to our liberal chagrin but his hand keeps getting slapped every single time. The definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. One thing THIS president is NOT is stupid so I am hoping he soon will learn. His base like I and millions of others count. So tea baggers keep doing what your doing, it plays right into our left wing hands!

Question Asked: The president is having forums even today and throughout August. MSNBC has a place to ask a question on the recovery. This is what I asked. It probably will not be asked of him but if I do say so myself I think it is a good one and it does not hurt to try. Even though they probably will not pose it if you happen to catch it on any station please let me know.


I am thrilled by your election. Having said that I worry about our economy. I worry because it seems you have put at the helm of our recovery efforts many of those people who were instrumental in actually causing the economic disaster you inherited. I worry that those people who were at the Wall Street pinnacles of power when the bubble burst are entrusted with our recovery. Indeed, Wall Street continues to reap enormous profits and bonuses from TARP even while most Americans on Main Street suffer. What efforts have you made to ensure that the economic policies which Mr. Geither, Mr. Summers or their mentors espoused creating the endless bubble and bursting bubble scenario we now face, will never happen again?

Happy Birthday, Mr. President: Happy birthday, President Barack Obama, indeed! Although I criticize policy from time to time I am thrilled Barack Obama is our president. I have to pinch myself every time I hear the words Mr. President and know they are talking about Barack Obama and not Bush. Bush’s nightmare is often embedded in my synapses like a recurring nightmare. I have to keep telling myself over and over again Barack Obama is president Barack Obama is president. My next nightmare would be Bush’s return in another form. THIS time Democrats EVERYWHERE must ensure, as Jews do about the Holocaust, NEVER AGAIN, NEVER AGAIN, NEVER AGAIN.

This country could not recover from the insanity of another Republican presidency. We must uncover their lies and continuing efforts to subvert democratic ideals by phony Republican bought-and-paid-for efforts to numb and control the public mind. We must stop their manipulation of town hall discussion forums and their multi-million dollar campaign to usurp the corporate media. We must contribute to Democratic causes and oppose through our own strong voices their attempts to subvert justice and promote immorality. Finally, we must ensure another Bush-like presidency with a Republican-elected Congress cost NO more in blood and treasure. Control of the American seats of power by the inundation of extremist right wing politics and its attendant Constitutional subversion must NEVER happen again. I remain ALWAYS vigilant!

Miracle in North Korea: I do not know how anyone on planet earth cannot think the release of the two journalists from a twelve-year prison sentence at hard labor is anything but great. Here is a nation with a nuclear arsenal threatening that region even threatening our west coast and former Ambassador Bolton from the Bush administration thinks it was a bad idea to negotiate with terrorists? When would he like to negotiate with a nuclear power when it has launched its first attack? If it were HIS daughter would he feel differently? I suspect so.

Bill Clinton negotiating the prisoners' release is a wonderful thing and I believe there is an opportunity opening up to talk with an enemy no matter how obnoxious the smell. The fact is lives could be saved. Sometimes nations like people simply want to be acknowledged. Let's acknowledge them. War with a nuclear armed nation is NOT an option.

Anti-Choice Hypocrisy: In Jeff Jacoby's July 26, 2009 Op ed "Abortion and the echo of eugenics," he ridiculously compares various respected progressives who have been at the forefront of the right to privacy, birth control and choice issues by equating them with racist Hitlerian types in various historical eugenics movements.

Conservatives become morally outraged at the abortion of the “unborn” because the mother may not want her child born into a life of grinding poverty or because the child, if taken to term, might be relegated to life-long grave mental or physical disability. When asked for the state or nation to provide full term human beings with social benefits they care not so much as they rant and rave against liberal social policies which try to ensure programs are adequately funded to help full term human beings who may have those very same problems. Conservatives have no problem vociferously and arduously working against social programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security or single payer health care which have created or could create programs for the elderly, sick, poor and handicapped but are morally incensed at those who may consider for health, economic and other serious reasons the termination of a fetus to be necessary.

Miracle in Metro West: A columnist (Rick Holmes) in my local newspaper had a most interesting editorial about the bell which stood atop where John Brown’s insurrection against slavery began at Harpers Ferry. I never knew the Herculean efforts it took to get it to a place in the north near where I reside. It stands there today. There has been an effort launched to try to get the bell taken back to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia under the auspices of the federal government. I worry about that and said so. The link to HIS story is below my response to it.

Thanks, Rick, for a GREAT story! I must admit to my ignorance about the location of the bell. I had no idea it sat in Marlborough, MA. I will visit that site soon. Rick, you make good points and I usually agree with you on most everything. I keep asking myself why I am reticent about returning the bell. I reflect on that.

I suppose if it will truly be under the supervision of the federal National Park Service what harm would come to it. I fear, though, an extremist secessionist or someone of that ilk doing something destructive to the bell. The blood that was shed surrounding the issue of slavery is staggering. Remnants of the entrenched racism are surely alive nearly 150 years later, despite a part African American president, as the country is divided, to a large degree, on race and cultural lines which run deep. The effort it took to transport the bell here is astounding and it preserves in minds the moral crusade of John Brown against the so called 'peculiar institution' which he paid for with his life. The bell is a symbol of initiation of that struggle.

John Brown was a religious zealot and yet so rabidly anti-slavery. Isn't it amazing how times have changed? One questions, or at least I do, whether the religious fundamentalist ideologues of our time would take the issue of slavery as their own if it existed. It’s a hypothetical I know but personally I doubt it. The Republican party loves to say they are the party of Lincoln but their constituency bears, I fear, LITTLE resemblance to it. I still maximally fear right wing extremism and I believe it has an angry violence to it that would simply love and easily could destroy that bell most especially in the south.

I like the fact that the north helped defeat the so called 'peculiar institution' although not all northerners certainly took the moral high ground and Lincoln's effort was not so much against slavery itself, although he did not like it, as it was keeping the union together.

I see your point though, Rick. I am sure if it is under supervision of the federal government no harm would come to it. I hate, though, to see the torturous efforts of those who thought enough about that bell to get it here and I am thrilled it resides, at least for now, in Metro West!

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/opinion/x767444681/Holmes-Let-history-ring

Glen Greewald of Salon.com is, in my opinion, a master journalist and critic. He discussed today the death of Walter Cronkite whom I think he believes really was a great journalist because he reported truth to power. Greenwald says Cronkite was unlike the "journalists" of our time, including the late Tim Russert, whom he believes are bought, sold and owned by the corporation. A point to ponder and to which I concur Greenwald quotes Lewis Lapham long time Harpers editor:



"What we now know as the “news media” serve at the pleasure of the corporate sponsor, their purpose is not to tell truth to the powerful but to transmit lies to the powerless."

If you want to read more of his essay click on:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/

What you can do about war crimes: What a horrendous injustice to make the lower worker bees pay for the most immoral, illegal and disgusting policies of the high command under Bush. That would be like making only the average German who did what he was told by Nazi policy pay for the price of Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler, Goering, Hess, Mengele, Eichmann, and the rest of the hierarchy and of concentration camp officials and ministers who ORDERED the policy and letting those who MADE the policy go free. There were HUNDREDS or even THOUSANDS of those in the Nazi hierarchy. Many got off as we know but they did, through Nuremberg, make many of the highest pay with their lives and through prison sentences for even judges who presided over sham courts.

President Obama's policy is such a horrible policy and NO justice will ever prevail if he continues with it. I KNOW it MUST go against his instincts but he is NOT strong enough to resist the military and those who owed their allegiance to Bush. He kept TOO many from team Bush and tried this bi partisan attempt which does NOT work. Lindy England and her boyfriend can you imagine are the ONLY ones to be in prison so far for torture in an ILLEGAL war based on lies, torture and EVEN, as we know now, policies meant to assassinate leaders in other countries without informing Congress. Either we believe in our Constitution even when it is the most difficult for us or we do not.

The following are war criminals and should be tried as such: Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Addington, Yoo, Bybee, Rove, Libby (the ONLY one convicted of anything but he should be in jail), even Atty. Gen. Mukasey who let the criminals continue without prosecution, even Webb who continues to employ Bush policy under Obama as Secretary of Defense. And there are many others who worked on the torture memos, ordered and employed torture or directed their underlings to do so. There are the generals like Hayden, Odierno who some have said has sadistic impulses and who President Obama still employees, General Stanley McChrystal military’s top specialist in “dirty war” tactics and others who are in the Obama admin, sanctioned and/or implemented torture.

ALL those at the top in Nuremberg fashion should be held accountable and IF the president does not order the US out of Iraq totally then HE becomes an accomplice and is NOT what we signed up for. The Iraq War was sold to us and we were dupes as so many believed what Bush, et al said including me. They lied. NEVER again will I ever believe what the American war machine tells us. They lie and have since WWII as ALL the wars after that time have been a SICK joke except not to those families whose soldiers and civilians abroad are lying in caskets for absolutely nothing.

Not ONLY are Cheney and his henchmen guilty of war crimes I believe as numbers of others do and have for MONTHS that the anthrax attacks were ordered by Cheney and that it was a secret CIA operation to sell the Iraq war now including most recently the revelation that they were employing assassination squads without informing Congress. It is why the anthrax attacks were swept under the rug so quickly and the so called sole implementer of that probably either was killed or committed suicide because of it. As Ron Suskind's book says the Bush Administration pushed ABC News and others to link the anthrax attacks to Saddam Hussein. At the VERY LEAST an investigation by Atty. Gen. Holder into this should ensue. I DON'T FORGET these things. This is why I want ESPECIALLY Bush, Cheney, Addington, Yoo, Rumsfeld and others including George Tenet to face trial and punishment (but Tenet gets not punishment but gets a medal of honor!). HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of American, Iraqi and others have been killed, more maimed for life and a Middle East with nuclear weaponry is in shambles because of this reckless policy! NOT to mention the fact that that administration was WARNED about the 9/11 attack and did NOTHING! They put OUR lives at risk.

These things are TOO important to be let off the hook. This can and MUST NEVER happen again!



See what you can do: http://www.codepinkalert.org/

An Inextricable Link: PBS Frontline asked me to take a survey on a particular episode. In doing that, as I perused the Frontline web site, I came across an old episode shown in 1985 called "Memory of the Camps" narrated by Trevor Howard. Yes, I have seen this or parts of it before but I decided to watch it again. Every single time I view it I see WHY Jews are so obsessed with the Holocaust and WHY we hold it SO imperative that it never happen to us again.

Committing horrors upon others is no answer either but as some understand the Palestinian plight I see the Jewish plight because I have a connection to it. Not only do I have a connection to it but it has also formed my politics since day one. If you cut and paste into your browser or click on the link below, if you can bear it, you again will refresh memory of the greatest perpetration of slaughter in the thousands of years of human history. Nothing so horrifically and so completely like it has been done to an entire group of innocent people. Yes, I know, the Holocaust decimated other groups as well. STILL, there is NO getting away from the fact of its deliberate attempt to eliminate, in particular, the Jew. It nearly succeeded no matter how many, because of their ignorance or their antisemitism, choose to deny it. It happened, it happened to most ESPECIALLY the Jewish people and it happened in relatively recent history.

When I hear those demonstrating against Israel and for the Palestinian cause and chanting "Jews, you belong in the camps" or "Jews, go to the ovens" or "Hitler didn't do enough" I understand why the Jewish heart is so rabidly attached to the Jewish state as again and again ALL over the world there are calls to exterminate us to finish the Hitlerian job. Israel and the Holocaust are inextricably linked most probably for all time UNLESS or UNTIL a force stronger than Israel, perish the thought, decides otherwise.

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

Intelligent Design?: The Boston Globe July 15, 2009 op-ed article by Stephen Meyer "Jefferson support for intelligent design" offers the earth's complexity as proof of an "intelligent design" creator behind it and uses Jefferson, one of our Founding Fathers, as supporting that argument. This is meaningless as to the truth of "intelligent design" itself.

Attaching a Founding Father's opinion to an "intelligent design" concept is usually code for placing the truth of a god-created universe at the center of science. Jefferson may have been a wise and prescient man who created one of our most breathtaking and enduring democratic documents but he was man of the 18th century and his understanding of science was limited to the age in which he lived. A belief in an undefined intelligent design creator of the universe by Jefferson or anyone else, for that matter, does not prove that there is one. The only thing science knows is what it knows and can prove. Science can prove the existence of a universe, the existence of DNA, the atom, the existence of bacteria etc. and man can rejoice in their awesomeness and discovery but what so called intelligent entity began or is behind it all is for now and maybe forever unknowable.

A Letter to Howard Zinn: I wrote this email to Howard Zinn, a very prominent left wing former professor of history at Boston University. I met him at Boston University when I went there in the late 1960's. He and a few other professors overtook my political soul. He was the most influential professor I had and honed my beliefs for a lifetime. I had a chance encounter at a local restaurant when I was with my cousin eating lunch. I said the following:

Dear Professor Zinn. I could not believe when you walked past me and my cousin facing you said you won't believe who that was. Since I had my back toward you I did not see your face but could tell from your stature and the back EXACTLY who it was. I must say that I was thrilled to finally see you in person after so many years since BU. Since I have a disability it is not always possible for me to go to where you might be speaking so finally meeting you was delightful and made MY day!

At the risk of redundancy and hoping you do not get tired of hearing how important you were to students and in my life, you along with some historical events have shaped my philosophy and many political views. I have wavered now and then but not so very much. Some have criticized me for thinking TOO much about politics. I once had a friend say to me "politics, politics that's all you think about is politics!" I had to admit she was correct as I try, even to this day, to figure out what the truth really is. I still cannot quite do it. Certain things, though, I do know. So many unnecessary wars and horrendous killing have been this nation's policies for far too long pouring lives and treasure like water through a sieve.

Wars which did NOT need to be fought and so many people killed all over the world who did not need to die have been part of our nation's recent legacy. A very good friend of mine from my home town who also went to BU was killed in Vietnam shot down in a helicopter. Who remembers him now? Few. I do, though. I don't forget. He had joined ROTC at BU to get money for college and if he had not enlisted in ROTC he may have avoided the draft lottery and been alive today with children and even grandchildren. His fiance married another. With him the family line died out as his sister (my best friend) died early of cancer. They were a wonderful family whom I loved. I never forgot that day when we received the news of Donny's death. I visited the family, of course, and his mother sported a gold star. I thought a gold star -- a gold star THAT'S what they give you for a son? Insanity as former Defense Secretary Robert MacNamara, the Vietnam policy advocate and one who admitted the folly and lies of Vietnam, lived well into his 90's. Where is the justice?

After that and after hearing so many anti-war speeches by you and others of that era my political foundation was set. So I owe you all these years for imbuing me with a sense of questioning government policy always and not buying into all the claptrap of national propaganda which is very strong and very intoxicating. I do that for both wings of the spectrum but most especially, of course, for the rancid right as I call it.

You gave me so much and I appreciate it so much. After seeing you, I left with a general sense of love which cost me so little. It certainly cost less than the tuition of BU -- at that time -- which was $3,000 bucks including the cost of residence. I got a bargain!

I wish you well, thank you, and will continue to watch and listen to your speeches, often via UTUBE, whenever I can.

I sent the opinion below to the Department of Justice and urge you who feel the same to do so at the email address below. Former Vice President Richard Cheney and former President Bush have committed war crimes. They have committed crimes against humanity as well as illegalities in most especially failing to advise Congress of probably the most egregious CIA torture and other policies ever conducted in the name of we the people of the United States. This must not go unaddressed. Future administrations, Democrat and Republican alike must know that the policies and behaviors they enact WILL be scrutinized and that they are not the last word on power. The Constitution and we the people are.

Bush/Cheney et al are NOT above the law and the latest scandal is most probably the tip of a very deep and very illegal iceberg of policies which took a people to war based on lies, killed and maimed hundreds of thousands and sent others into permanent exile, tortured innocent people and denied many the ability to achieve justice through the suspension of habeas corpus and other 4th Amendment rights due to ANY human being not JUST US citizens and most especially in war.

They played with war in an area of the world which is a tinderbox of nations some of which harbor nuclear weapons or soon will. They failed to bring the REAL perpetrators of 9/11 to justice and they failed to protect the nation as witnessed by 9/11 occurring on THEIR watch after they were warned.

Middle Eastern memories are long and our safety as a nation is at risk. Mr. Holder needs to hold everyone who committed probably the most horrendous crimes of a democratic nation accountable. Write your senator, congressman/woman, the president and the Department of Justice for Mr. Holder to appoint a special prosecutor who will investigate, prosecute and if guilty, ultimately make those who perpetrated such heinous crimes pay the penalty for the worst and the most corrupt administration in US history.


-----Original Message-----

To: AskDOJ@usdoj.gov
Sent: Sun, Jul 12, 2009 7:53 pm
Subject: HOLD THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION ACCOUNTABLE

An opinion for Attorney General Holder:

Either the Founding Fathers wrote a Constitution with separation of powers or they did not. If they did, which I think they did, and that document no longer applies then it would be nice for the people to know the mechanics of their government has changed and the executive branch is an entity in and of itself responsible to, in essence, no one. I suspect you do not think that is the case and that the former Bush administration officials must face the music they made and answer for illegalities and horrific policies they perpetrated which meant the taking of human life on a mass scale illegally and without cause.

Bush/Cheney, et al really spit in the face of Congress rendering it powerless. That is not QUITE what I think our founders had in mind. The Bush/Cheney conduct with respect to the conduct of the war in Iraq and deliberately keeping CIA procedures from Congress not only is unethical it is ILLEGAL and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

The executive above all entities in government must be able to have its singular power checked. The legislative branch is a body of many with built in checks and the judiciary likewise but the executive stands alone with awesome power invested in one man or woman. Either we are a government of the people and our representatives, including and most especially the executive, are responsible to us or we are not.

Please read the accompanying opinion by Glen Greenwald from Salon.com


http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/

I was sent the link below which is an editorial which appeared in the NYT. It does not have the vituperative quality of a Maureen Dowd but it does a good job on this latest Senator Ensign affair and "C" Street aka "Prayer House" and its band of merry men in the naturally Republican party and their influence and the revenge of Ensign's number's husband Hampton.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/11/opinion/11collins.html

Excuse MY off the cuff writing. Not my usual thoughtful prose but it's early and I need to start my day and get somewhere so consequently ....

Click on Rachel Maddow show last night too. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ ; "Washington's Secret Religious Power Sect".

She did a WHOLE thing on this "C" Street INSANITY. These loathsome religious wacko idiots who use that tax free apartment they call in tax evasion style "Prayer House" in Washington and live together, paying lower rates, INCLUDING the rancid senator from Nevada, Ensign. This fascist NUT BAG organization is clearly the worst of the worst I have ever heard of in American politics with the exception of PERHAPS the Klan in the 20's. It is THAT bad because they are worms in positions of power and influence in the US senate and Congress and tie religion to state. It is outrageous and I can ONLY hope this uber jerk Ensign who can't keep his organ in his pants as neither can Sanford, justifies doing it and Ensign makes payoffs to his little number because he was persuaded by this group that they are "chosen by God" to be a member of the wealthy elite so whatever they do is okay.

It makes your head explode as it surely does mine since I loath religion in politics so entirely. These nut jobs think Hitler and even Mao were leaders because they were chosen and unquestioned by the populous who owed them undying allegiance except these jerks put a particularly American Christian empire spin on it and apply it to themselves as long as they have the big bucks and of course because they do they are chosen by god to do whatever they want. They simply pay everyone off whom they take advantage of and criminally pay off everyone to keep their mouths shut and who knows what else. They also have bases outside the US to spread their version of Christianity which makes it a rather international crime and one could argue even treasonous. This involves a NUMBER of US senators and those affiliated with them. it is, in my opinion, sick. The Ensign affair gets curiouser and curiouser and more rancid by the minute.

They persuaded Ensign to have Ensign's parents pay 96 thousand bucks to the girl he shtoooped. (as Rachel said and used that word to explain the dynamics) oh yes because they felt SOOO sorry for her...SURE. I call it payoff and hush money big time. Rachel Maddow did a FANTASTIC job and had on the author of a book written by a guy who lived with these morons. The book is called "Family" because these guys thought of themselves as a kind of mafia family in their power holding. Nice...now we have mafia families living in the Senate! Great. Just what we need.

This was written in response to an opinion by a local writer. The subject: Was the Iraq War worth it? He was, I thought, quite correct by saying no and stating why. I responded with a blog entry.


I could NOT have said it better. Lloyd Kaye is 150% correct. The presidency of George W. Bush, the worst in US history, did more to SIGNIFICANTLY hurt this country after 9/11 than any other president has perpetrated at any other time in our history. One wonders when our disastrous foreign adventures will ever stop. No, Lippy, the non-questioner supreme, it was NOT all about oil but it was PARTLY about oil. The other parts of the insane policy are endemic to US foreign policy which simply does not know when to quit, does not calculate risk, does not care about innocent lives -- OURS OR THEIRS, does not, with all the supposed prestigious institutions of learning, know how to read history and understand the culture of the nations it invades and give thought to policies which kill, maim and destroy. It does so using modern day blitzkrieg notions and overwhelming force. Why? Because it can.

Another part of the equation was, of course, George Bush's puerile mentality as he sat through too many western movies (when he wasn't drunk) which made him swagger and think if America or the president does it it must be right and HE, after all, was the president. He sure showed his daddy and Jeb what a man he truly was better than at any other time in his sorry life. He was going to seek revenge for 9/11, wage preemptive war on a people who did nothing to us and was STUPID enough to be convinced by NeoCons and Dick Cheney that he would remake the Middle East into a Jeffersonian democracy. They told him he would be remembered as liberator supreme. Instead he got a shoe thrown at him. We have paid the HEFTIEST price in blood and treasure. Worse, Arab memory is not short.

Our policies often take advantage of our geographical good fortune and run amok dropping bombs, napalm, and yes, even some gas on anyone who gets in the way of its manifest destiny, shining city on the hill and empire. Well, those bombs, bullets, defoliation, torture, displacement and other disastrous consequences of war like the killing of innocents may NOT be etched in our memory but they are etched in those we hit.

I HOPE the president is correct and the arc of history bends toward justice. So far I have seen little. I await a punishment visited upon those who perpetrated this horrendous folly, gargantuan mistake, lies and evil. The lives lost, the countries ruined, the export of Al Qaeda, the displacement of refugees, the civil war STILL being waged, Pakistani restiveness with its nuclear threat and the infusion of Iran with power it did not have before are simply SOME of the astounding consequences. The balance of power has been shaken. The crimes Bush/Cheney regime have perpetrated are crimes against humanity as grave and serious as any which have ever occurred. The path of history should be made right, the arc should bend toward justice and the guilty should be held accountable.

The Reality of Israel: In response to Mr. Scott Wolfe's July 6, 2009 Providence Journal letter to the editor "Time to break ties with Israeli oppressors," as a rather liberal Jew, I am continually staggered by the left's undying love for the Palestinian cause and its near universal crushing criticism of the State of Israel. Mr. Wolfe waxed effusive about our July 4th freedom from tyranny ridiculously comparing the Palestinian issue to that. Does Mr. Wolfe REALLY think that the Palestinian state would be free from its own tyranny? Does Mr. Wolfe really think that IF a Palestinian state becomes reality one will live in a blissful civil libertarian Eden? I think not. Presently, Mr. Wolfe should try protesting Hamas in Gaza. Israel is the only remotely democratic state in the Middle East. It is equipped with civil liberties, balances of power, an active protest movement, a large homosexual contingent and a medical system that is one of the most advanced and inclusive on planet earth. It medically treats all people equally including those who would seek to destroy the tiny Jewish state. Moreover, even though Israel is a Jewish state it is secular in nature. Any group in the US has the right to lobby. That Jews do so with groups like AIPAC and others is treated by some as unduly influential. It's not. It's normal. In my opinion, often, those accusations smack of anti-Semitism.

Israel every single day, against great odds, fights for its life. How perfect would this country be under those circumstances? Is Israel perfect? Of course not. I would like Mr. Wolfe to describe a Middle East country, or any country for that matter, which is.

To Tell the Truth: The July 5, 2009 Boston Sunday Globe op editorials "Trustworthy community" by Michael Felsen and "Leaders are extremist" by Dennis Hale and Charles Jacobs presented two opposing viewpoints about the opening of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center in Roxbury. The first editorial praises its opening claiming its all inclusive acceptance of many different religions, cultures and belief. The latter article is suspicious of its opening, claiming the center waves a "false flag of moderation" but in reality is associated with a variety of leaders it lists who have links to terrorism and the most extreme, non-inclusive, hate-filled often Wahhabi forms of Islam with viewpoints levied against Jews, Christians and special vituperative hostility reserved for homosexuals.

I am a suspicious Jew because the history of the Jewish people compels me to be so. However, I also am in favor of kumbaya moments of tolerance when people of all faiths and ethnicity join hands and accept each other. If Mr. Felsen is to be believed and the Islamic Society of Boston is the all inclusive welcoming institution it claims to be then the veracity of the statements indicting the Islamic Center made by Mr. Jacobs should be addressed specifically one by one, denied, rejected and refuted unequivocally. Then and only then can I know who is telling the truth.

This was posted on the Metro West Newspaper blog in response to a conscientious objector who was speaking in the area. He was a former Iraq War vet who is going around the country advocating for peace. He incurs the wrath of some. I responded.


It's the Foreign Policy Stupid: The issue, as I see it, is the substance of American foreign policy. There are problems in this arena and have been, in my opinion, since World War II perhaps originating even before that. There is no other industrialized first-world nation on earth which has accumulated the humongous military and industrial liaison which had gone unchecked as has the US. It is responsible for the involvement in ad infitum wars of quagmire as well as the propping up of unworthy regimes all over the world. Our geographical good fortune has allowed us the ability to simply drop bombs and not suffer retaliatory consequences as most of the nations we attack are too poor, too remote and do not have the ability to do that. While at times just wars are fought too many unjust ones have been waged. US foreign policy has been responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands if not millions, has ruined infrastructure in countries like Vietnam, Iraq and many others and has cost TRILLIONS. We do not realize, I believe, as Americans the damage we inflict and the cost of our wars in OUR blood, other's blood, OUR treasure not to mention the bad will it has encountered worldwide.

I believe we have, since World War II, been yearning for the adulation (QUITE RIGHTFULLY we deserved) it engendered but somewhere along way, probably due to the perceived threat of Communism and its ideal of overthrowing our economic system, we have been on the side of despots and interfered often unjustly in the internal affairs of nations in which we do not belong. Our policy has been one of self interest, yes, but more recently it has been to our detriment as other nations must sweep up from our onslaughts, are often angered, alienated and desire revenge.

I believe the kinds of war in which we engage do NOT work anymore and MUST be rethought. I believe they are devastating in their consequences at worst and at best are immoral. We are not dropping chocolate we are dropping bombs and we have absolutely NO understanding of just what that means as we sip our morning coffee in quiet geographical removal. It is NOT World War II, and I think the stakes are now much higher. It is not simply conventional war we must fear but it is nuclear annihilation as it eventually becomes IMPOSSIBLE to contain the threat of nuclear weapons accumulation by third world nations. Most of the American people have NO idea of the risk and the cost of that kind of confrontation. I submit if you asked most in the street what Nagasaki was or what it meant they would not know.

I believe our MOST recent engagements especially Iraq but many others too have had the the gravest consequences, have produced the most profound immorality, have shaken up a hornets nest of protest, have threatened the stability of the Middle East and have been a grave threat to our own country. Because of its consequences we cannot afford the devastated infrastructure repair, the health care of our people and the necessary educational needs necessary to keep this nation competitive in a global economic world. Our lives, I believe, are at stake because of the absolutely inept prosecution of bankrupt foreign adventures for decades which are NOT in our or anyone's best interest.

We need to RETHINK what it means to wage war, the price that is paid in blood, treasure and the morality it engenders . We need to be ever so careful, ever so prescient as to where we land American boots. Empires come and go. With over 700 bases all over the world, wars fought on so many lands we are, I believe, indeed an empire and empires must know that it is NOT only about their lives it is about the lives of those they encounter. The stakes are high and significant changes MUST be made or we face, I think, as a nation our greatest threat.

Postscript: I heard Josh speak this morning and instead of keeping the money he received from the government as a soldier in Iraq he gave it to organizations he deemed worthy of his cause. He, as I gather, did NOT keep it.

As I said today at his speech, my viewpoint lies somewhere in the middle of WWII and modern times. I am a realist and I know not all men are saints. It is necessary to one's survival to have a defense. That does NOT mean, however, that one does not question the policy of government. If all men were like CO, Josh, what a better world it would be. The problem is they are not and it is the Solomon-like wisdom we need to determine when to use force and when not while knowing the immense pitfalls we encounter when we do.

The Defiant Dilemma: I have probably seen every Holocaust film known to man and last night I saw yet another by recommendation entitled "Defiance." Based on a true story, it is about a group of Jews in Beylorus who actually lived in the forest in 1941 for 2 years trying to evade capture by the Nazis and the Nazis often Polish and other helpers. It is thrilling, captivating, gut wrenching and the truth of it makes it all the more so. It has a bit of a positive end although you would NOT think so leading up to it, of course. Along with the "Boy in the Stripped Pajamas", and a taped History Channel entitled "The Nazi Scrapbook" (a documentary about a photo book found in a drawer and sent to the Holocaust Museum") are three of the most excellent films/documentary specifically about this subject I have seen.

The Holocaust is MY yardstick for all that I believe and it is the heart of my feeling about the Jewish people. It is MORE much more than about religious belief of which I have little but it is its moral, survival, ethical, political essence that grabs me. It pierces my heart like nothing else can. It is why I used to hold Israel to a higher standard because we are a people whose history has been saturated with sadness and onslaught. We have been plagued, hunted, tortured, crushed and slaughtered during the past 2000 years and ultimately the object of the greatest mass murder humanity has ever seen bar none. It has EVERYTHING to teach and yet it has NOTHING to teach as man does what he does again and again and again all over the world.

Every time I see another film about the Holocaust I wax staggered by the ENORMITY of it. My eyes do not want to believe what I see and I go to bed feeling guilty that I sleep warm, am fed well and have survived in comfort. I am chilled by the fact that had all my grandparents stayed where they were they could have been among those Jews who ran through the forest in spring, summer, winter and fall just to survive and IF they did not they would have been killed in concentration camps. It is a testament to man's yearning to survive and be free and it extends to all people everywhere. It is again when I dissect the politics that is Israel I can see WHY the Jewish heart is so brutal in determination never to let that happen again AND YET I cannot understand HOW in VIEW of what happened some can run roughshod over those sometimes innocent next door. THAT is my cerebral conundrum with which I cannot come to terms.

We all look at life through our own lens but the Jewish life is, in my opinion, like no other. Suffering is NOT limited to the Jew, certainly, but a Jewish life throughout the centuries could never find a home and could simply never just be. The Holocaust MUST be a ruler -- a moral prism -- by which everyone measures his capacity for good and evil and what behavior is permissible and what is not. It is MY eternal dilemma of conscience. I recommend this film if you haven't seen it because it gives life to the meaning of the ultimate catastrophe in ways which no other film I can remember has. It should have universal meaning for us all.

Fans with Rocks in their Heads: For some unknown reason, impossible to analyze by me, rock stars are, well, rock stars. They are accorded a degree of sometimes adulation reserved usually for a divinity. I cannot understand it. I never cried, fainted or went into a frenzy about any rock stars and do not understand why many do. They are singers and some dancers and yes good ones even great ones who changed the course of music and a few even the course of cultural history but rock stars are ALL they are. I am aghast at the constant coverage, analysis and concern about them. I do not know WHY rock stars get such screaming adoration. Can anyone give me a profound analysis?

The Shame of Sham: This is not my usual pristine written piece. Read the link below IF you are interested in the Michael Jackson saga written by a writer who lived with him since 2005. I claim not to be interested and there you have it the minute I see a story maybe worth reading I do. If this story is true, I may have been off the beaten track in terms of my indictment of him most especially about sex with children -- I say MIGHT be off the mark. Who can EVER truly know?

Allegedly, according to this piece, he had a rare disease which left his lungs unable to make a certain protein and hence left them unprotected and so the masks. He also had anorexia according to this and he ALSO NO surprise AT ALL was gay and had a couple of young men (NOT boys) he was in love with but this author says the accusations of child molestation were money driven by the accusers and probably false ALTHOUGH his penchant was for men of the younger variety but this author says not that young. Still admittedly just SLEEPING in a bed with kids was insane. He led a double life sham marriages and all.

When all is said and done if this is all to be believed and true (WHO KNOWS) it would seem IF Jackson in the first place was savvy enough to watch his finances and MOST especially watch the piranhas with whom he got involved in his career, MOST DEFINITELY NOT JUST even SLEEP with little boys which led to the accusations and his breakdown, he could be alive today and would not have had to agree to the 50 time tour at age 50 which he could not do. If my grandmother had wheels she'd be a streetcar.

MY HYPOTHESIS if this: If this link is to be believed MOST IMPORTANTLY IN THE FIRST PLACE IF he could have come out as homosexual maybe just maybe he would not have had to go through such charades and such a crazy life. He could have been honest about his homosexuality, not sneak around meeting people in the middle of the night and honest about whom he loved and also described his physical alleged genetic illnesses none of this would have happened. IF you have to hide ALL the time who you are great pathology ensues psychological pathology, physical pathology and even death by drugs or suicide. It is a near impossible task and for the famous it is torturous just ask or read about all those famous of yesteryear as to how they hid their sexuality -- NOT EASILY. What a moronic and stupid thing religion, and society does to those who are different ESPECIALLY where sex is concerned AS IF the larger society as a whole is so wise and successful at relationships and marriage they can teach ANYONE whom they can love. Just ask Mark Sanford who knows SO much about it.

Here is the story below from Huffington Post:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196009/Im-better-dead-Im-How-Michael-Jackson-predicted-death-months-ago.html

Bill Moyers asked viewers to check out the blog and write what they thought the American dream meant. So I took a stab and posted it on the PBS blog. If you want to do the same Google Bill Moyers and give your thoughts.


The American Dream – that oft used multifaceted phrase unique to these United States. What does it REALLY mean? I believe it has a common meaning and a unique meaning. It is as amorphous as the diversity of the nation and as concrete as the people who comprise the nation. It is unique and it is diverse. It has evolved as the nation has evolved and its foundation has stayed the same as the nation’s Founders intended.


The Founders, imperfect as they may have been, created through a rather simple document – a Constitution – which bestowed upon these United States the keys to the machinery of government which form a democratic way of life no other nation ancient or modern has ever duplicated. Their gift was the mixture that created the possibility of this American dream. It combined the balance of power (executive, legislative and judicial) in the operation of government with civil libertarian freedoms through which the dream could become manifest. In addition to all of that, the Founders advocated for a free market through which the governed could use to improve the quality of life. The country added one more necessary ingredient which was the near absence of the importance of social class in determining one’s destiny. The notion of class did not cement one to his economic fate as it did in the European experience. It is the combination, I believe, of our Constitutional republic with our basic civil libertarian freedoms amid a free market economy which makes the American dream work. It inspires hope that each generation COULD do better than the one which came before it.


The Constitution provides too, I believe, the necessary flexibility that allows for the possibility of intrinsic social change. It is the mixture of these basic pillars upon which the United States stands that makes it unique among nations and which makes so many want to risk their lives to come here. Nowhere, I believe, on earth is the concept of what it means to be a free person so embraced. We may differ as to policy but we, I think, are in agreement as to this.
The hope and the dream, of course, have never been completely fulfilled. To be sure, many groups have struggled and still do to obtain the nation’s promise. The magnificence of the country, though, is the fact that it can change over time and that it does not remain stagnant by policies driven by the realities of different eras. The country can change as the times and technology dictate and yet remain true to the basic tenets the Founders initially put forth. The arc of US history, I believe, bends towards justice and the possibility of justice, fair play and advancement continue to be its hope.

The Impermissible Becomes Permissible: There are some who have vociferously and with great anger accused me of not being the liberal I profess to be in some of the letters I have written. They accuse me of playing into the hands of the right wing without allowing me the ability to enunciate a defense. I need to be clear from the beginning. I will never be a right wing apologist. I have been over decades, am now and always will consider myself progressively left of center. That does not mean, however, I must march in lock step with every viewpoint my side of the isle advocates. I am a liberal but I am a liberal with decided boundaries.

The latest media frenzy concerning the adulation of Michael Jackson as well as the outside-of-marriage sexual liaisons of South Carolina Governor Sanford, Nevada Senator Ensign, and Florida Representative Vitter have things in common. I believe we have become a nation and, indeed, a world where the formerly impermissible is now permissible. It is even permissible among elected officials whose very party creed is adamantly opposed to such immoral behavior. It apparently matters little as these elected officials, in the face of the greatest hypocrisy, seem to keep their jobs and suffer little recrimination. I have seen those who have committed the most egregious moral behavior within a party that professes to have no tolerance for such bad behavior, keep their jobs and others make excuses for them while they boldly lie to their base seemingly with little consequence.

Moreover, the elevation of Michael Jackson to near sainthood illuminates the fact that this man who paid a 20 million dollar settlement to squash one of the most egregious offenses known to man, child molestation, even in death is allowed a pass on that. Not only is he given a pass, Congress gives him a respectful moment of silence. I saw many lugubriously weep for him and I even saw, to my incredulity, a flag raised to half staff for him. Why?

The once impermissible becomes permissible as we on both sides have become inured to the most vulgar behaviors or as the great Steve Allen called it in his book we overlook and do not see the “vulgarians at our gate.” No one blinked an eye when during one of Michael Jackson’s dances he grabs his lower parts for the entire world, including young children, to see. Seemingly, not a word of condemnation was uttered. Nothing surprises us anymore. The once impermissible becomes permissible. It is so permissible that we see entire broadcasts devoted to a man whose behavior, with most especially male children, was dubious at best and illegal at worst. Well, it surprises me and when I think the emperor is not wearing any clothes even though the preponderance thinks he is, I say so. Some objectionable behaviors cross political boundaries and, worse, they tug at the glue that keeps the fabric of our nation together.

Michael Jackson -- Shame on Keith Olbermann To treat Michael Jackson as one would treat the death of a head of state is sickening. He was a rock star. THAT'S it. In addition, in my opinion, the doubts which lingered as to his implication in pedophilia make the elevation of his death absolutely preposterous. He admitted to sleeping with children and advocated its innocence. Did he touch them in bad places? Who knows. I am suspect. When a man in his mid forties sleeps with UNRELATED-to-him young boys whether any sexual touching occurred or not utterly OBVIATES the catapulting of Mr. Jackson to the gods of Mt. Olympus.

Was he talented? WITHOUT A DOUBT YES. Was it worthy of ALL NIGHT coverage on every station including until this morning and probably for days yet to come? UNEQUIVOCALLY NO. With worldwide events exploding and people's lives at stake I say shame on you Keith Olbermann. I expected better. Clearly, MSNBC felt they must compete with CNN, Fox and other sensationalist rags. It would have gleaned, I suspect, MSNBC more listeners, eventually, if he stuck to his usual format. It would have given us utter RELIEF!! I hope we are spared tonight as I look to both to him and Rachel Maddow every night for brilliant, informative as well as entertaining left-of-center opinion to help shape my own political beliefs. They both do what they do so well but last night was surely different from all others!

Sex in South Carolina: Governor Sanford and Republicans DESERVE to be pilloried for their sexual immoralities more than Democrats who commit the same indiscretions. The Democratic Party does NOT make the main thrust of its ideological argument about Christianizing the nation through its omnipresent proselytizing of acceptable adult sexual behavior. Republicans make its party platform about so called family values and the joys of heterosexual marriage. It advocates for sexual abstinence outside of marriage and, of course, delivers its omnipresent choral cacophony of homosexual condemnation. This is what makes Republicans the party of hypocrites. They claim as their mantle sanctimonious sexual morality but then are caught soliciting sex in a men’s room or from prostitutes or, in Governor Sanford's case, from a liaison in Argentina he could have met in an online chat. Republicans condemn others to the belief that hell awaits if they do not tow the Biblical line and then cross that line in every possible way often paying little political price.

They influence the psychology of a nation forcing many into a self loathing vortex when they are unable to meet the impossible standards the leadership imposes. Moreover, and, in my opinion, even worse, they create law which affects the lives of millions. Republicans must be held to a higher standard as the leadership itself often does not conform to the same tenets of behavior it expects of everyone else. The Governor Sanfords of the Republican Party and their attendant religious fundamentalist movements laugh all the way to the bank as they pull yet another piece of wool over a very gullible public’s eyes!

Sent this to various news media: The Brief Disgust of DOMA

Because of the dismay of many in the Democratic Party base about the content of the brief filed in support of DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act) by Obama's Justice Department, by executive order benefits are being extended to partners of homosexual federal employee's partners/spouses. It was an outreach to the President's supporters and, to his credit, he listened somewhat to his critics. That's good but not good enough. The verbiage in the DOMA brief was insulting and not worthy of an Obama Justice Department. The president knows, I am sure, what he must do. He MUST show us he knows the language of the DOMA brief was poor and that homosexual marriage issues are civil rights issues nearly identical to the ones Obama's parents faced in some states as black/white marriages, as insane as that seems today, were prohibited. Most have someone they know, a close friend or a family member whom they love who is gay. I know, they would not want them to suffer what previous generations did which propelled some to alcoholism, drug addiction, homelessness, depression, abuse and worse even suicide. What an unnecessary waste of life. Homosexuals pay taxes, serve, love and even die for our country. They deserve what everyone else takes for granted.

I want to hear the President repudiate the horrendous brief his Justice Department filed. If reports are to be believed, the president allegedly did not know its content. I would hope he would disclaim adherence to those obnoxious views in the brief and address most especially the outrageous ones which refer to incest and pedophilia. I cannot even dignify those horrific iterations with a discussion. President Obama needs to show he is on the side of his base and risks losing valuable support if he does not.

If the Justice Dept is to uphold the law so be it. That is what could have been said period without the other rancid irrelevancies. DOMA is the law and that's that. It is, up to the legislature or the courts to reverse this patently unfair unconstitutional legislation enacted over ten years ago. This administration should be at odds with much of its content and the President should say that. Indeed, it is up to the the legislature or the courts to reverse it.

Disgusting DOMA: Because of the dismay about the brief filed by Obama's Justice Department on DOMA benefits are being extended to partners of gay federal employees by executive order. It was like pulling teeth but he did listen a bit. That's good but not enough. I sent TONS of emails of dismay to the White House about DOMA and tons of irate blogs. Human Rights Campaign Fund was not going to a large funding benefit SURELY helped too. I even called the HRC Friday when I heard about that awful DOMA brief.

Here is what I emailed the president today and would love if you do the same on his contact page (Link below). It's not eloquent but to the point. I hope someone listens and a higher human power (or divine as I will take any help we can get) conveys my thoughts. Write to the White House about it using my concepts or better ones if you want. It helps and do it fast as he is speaking today about it. He MUST show us he knows our issues are civil rights issues and nearly identical to the ones Obama's parents faced in some states as black/white marriages were prohibited as insane as that seems today. Please support this issue vociferously and often. Also you can go to the Human Rights Campaign Fund link: http://www.hrc.org/contactus and tell them how you feel.

It helps if all of us play our part but in my opinion straight people who show support DECIDEDLY help. Most have someone they know, a close friend or a family member whom they love who is gay. You, I KNOW, would not want them to suffer what previous generations (mine included) did which propelled some to alcoholism, drug addiction, homelessness, depression, abuse and worse even suicide. What an unnecessary waste of life. Homosexuals pay taxes, serve, love and even die for our country. Gays deserve what everyone else takes for granted. So here is what I said:


Mr. President: THANK you. My faith in you is restored a bit. Granting gay partners/spouses of federal worker's benefits is a wonderful step and it shows me that you listen and I HOPE care a little about feelings, doing what is right and not always what is politically expedient.

In your speech today I am HOPING I will hear some repudiation of that horrendous brief filed in support of DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act). I guess if reports are to be believed you really did not know the content of the brief. I would hope you would disclaim adherence to those obnoxious views ESPECIALLY of perverted incest and pedophilia. I cannot even dignify those issues with a repudiation and I hope, too, some action uttering that dismay would be uttered to those who issued that abhorrent brief so that we do not associate you with those views.

If the Justice Dept is to uphold the law so be it and THAT is what could have been said without giving any justification of anything. DOMA is the law and that's that even though THIS administration is at odds with much of the content of DOMA it is up to the LEGISLATURE or the courts to reverse which you would favor. I would love something like that, Mr. President, to be said. Then my faith would be renewed. This is a good first step but not the ONLY step that needs to be taken. I KNOW you should probably not implement a reversal of gay issues such as Don't Ask Don't Tell first thing on your agenda. There are other more pressing issues but to explain the DOMA brief in the above way to the American people I think is prudent and, in fact, necessary. Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you for listening.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/

Murder at the Museum: The recent murder by a right wing anti-Semite at the Holocaust Museum in Washington is a mystery to me. Who would have thought after the murder of 6 million innocent humans that anything like that, as Elie Wiesel said at the Buchenwald concentration camp with President Obama, would again be perpetrated? Who would think this would still be part of human history?

For the Jew, the specter of Hitlerian hate never dies. It lives on not only among the rancid right wing fanatics but it lives on among leftist extremists as well. The Jew is hated from each side of the political spectrum equally and in every corner of the globe. Even in many South American states, synagogues must have guards on rooftops. They must remain nondescript with little visible acknowledgment of what, in reality, they are. If a Jew has money he must be unpretentious, careful not to show his wealth lest he be a target -- the rich Jew, the non-deserving-of-his-money Jew even if he worked so hard to get it.

I am convinced that the world's LONGEST hatred is its most UNIVERSAL hatred. I am convinced there is NONE other like it EVER in human history. It is and has always been so very hard for me to understand. I, a Jew, have none of the poisonous stereotypical attributes accorded to Jews. I am neither a Communist nor a Wall Street banker. I am certainly not among the rich, I am not a thief, a conniver and I am not plotting to undermine anyone. I have never been involved in a trade union nor a conspiracy to hurt multitudes. I have never known anyone who has. The only group with whom I have met consistently is a book club. The question becomes, as it always has been, why. Why is the Jew the most despised, put upon, rejected group, I think, on earth?

I KNOW my people and have lived among them all my life. I KNOW who I am and I KNOW the generality of who we are. I KNOW the goodness, the brilliance, the yearning for success, education and the caring about the powerless that lies deep in the Jewish heart. I KNOW Jews voted overwhelmingly for Obama despite fears to the contrary. I KNOW this and yet I do NOT know what we as a people have done for 5000 years of history to deserve our fate. Is the reason fundamentally the accusation of New Testament deicide or is it jealousy of Jewish success as my mother so often explained to her child what the rationale behind the accusation of "Christ Killer" was so many years ago? Why is Madoff so feared among my people as an indictment of ALL of us but Charles Ponzi was just a bad guy and had nothing to do with Italians? Why were indictments of the spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg a stain upon all Jews? Why were my parents afraid to talk about the issue? Why was not the spy Robert Hansen an indictment of all Danes, Polish or Germans and a shame upon them?

If I had lived in Europe at that fateful Holocaust time and if I were the same person I am today -- disabled, Jewish, female among other minorities I would have had a free ride to Auschwitz and, in reality, would have done nothing to anyone to deserve it. If I could live to be 200 the mystery of the murder at the museum would still remain a mystery to me.

Haunted by Heresy -- the Irish Catholic Church/Monotheistic Dilemma: James Carroll's editorial in The Boston Globe June 8, 2009 "Haunted by Irish rosary beads" (link below) about the extensive and endemic child abuse of specific institutions within the Irish Catholic Church astounds me. His article overcomes me with incredulity how a specifically religious institution devoted to comfort brings not comfort but unspeakable cruelty to the members it serves. I, however, do not sit in smug judgment of other religious institutions. In reality, in my opinion, abuse and the staggering hypocrisy which is its offspring surely has not been the domain of one church.

Violent abuses have existed for years among the powerful religious hierarchies. I believe the blame lies not within one faith but within all faiths and is particularly evident in the most orthodox of the monotheistic traditions. The abuse we have seen, may have experienced and about which we have read walks hand in hand with a belief system which is based on the severe repression of, most especially, man's sexual appetite and that which is biologically frozen in his DNA. It begs for expression. When it cannot be expressed or when men (and women too) are condemned for even thinking their sexual thoughts, it will, by any means necessary, gain expression sometimes in the most abhorrent and unacceptable ways. Fundamentalist Christianity, Orthodox Judaism, Islamic extremism and other ultra religious sects are not among the innocents here. Sex abuse is not only within the domain of the Catholic Church but exists wherever the rigidity of a faith asks its adherents to do that which they cannot possibly do. There is nothing healthy, God-like or good in the suppression of that which cannot possibly be suppressed.


http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/06/08/haunted_by_irish_rosary_beads/

A Part of Obama's Odyssey: The President's speech at Normandy commemorating the 65th anniversary of D-Day was the greatest speech I have ever heard and probably will hear if I live to be 110. He was just superb and brought tears to my eyes more than once. He is here for OUR moment for OUR time and we are TRULY TRULY blessed!

He gave more than inspiring words. He gave a masterpiece. I have no words to describe THOSE words except to say that I am so fortunate that in my time in my era that I was alive to see and hear what he said. He was simply wonderful!!

I will write something more tying the entire trip in but I have to compose my thoughts and maybe wait until he returns from his trip.

A Threat to the President: Okay so I'm angry today because I get up read the news and am hit in the face with a story that the president was threatened so my BP rises and I need to vent. If you do not like it I always say you don't have to read it or delete it. It is not the most pristine perfect piece I've written but it gets the point across!

The president was threatened yesterday by some genius (Daniel James Murray) who said so when he went to a bank in Utah and withdrew $13,000. He had at least EIGHT registered firearms. It is sickening. It is amazing how many certifiable NUT JOBS there are out there and how many who are on networks, radio and other media virulently egging these wackos on wishing the president would fail or worse.

I think Obama's trip has so far been miraculous. I am Jewish and I am saying that. If better feelings can begin between the Arab world and us then we and Israel too will be the benefactor. Obama is doing unbelievable things and all some of these IDIOTS on blogs and media can talk about is his birth certificate or how he is a socialist when Bush caused the death of thousands including MORE than on 9/11 and more of us. If Obama saves us another attack from an irate Muslim because he hated being imprisoned for nothing, tortured or his family killed or bombed for nothing then Obama is worth his weight in gold. HE IS BRILLIANT and doing things maybe NO other president since Franklin Roosevelt has done. The stakes are HIGH as high maybe as a World War BECAUSE nuclear is now in the equation.

If it turns out otherwise I will be surprised and will admit to my error but now I think he is doing what for so long many of us and the world have thirsted. We have YEARNED, begged and pleaded for someone smart. 137 days into his administration and he has done legions. His trip to Egypt was a resounding success by anyone's standards. Elections matter OBAMA WON. Let me say that again he WON and it wasn't even close.

I WANT THE SECRETE SERVICE to investigate round the clock to find this lunatic who threatened the president until that jerk is found and while they are at it they might look at some of blogs too. Yes, I am a free speech advocate but some are outrageous and threats to the president's life is where my free speech advocacy ends.

If God forbid a trillion quadrillion times something EVER happens OUR president you can kiss this country goodbye. How do you think the MILLIONS upon millions of people who love him here would feel or what they would do not to mention what would happen around the world as the adoration he has across the globe is legion. I did not see ANY Bush adoration ANYWHERE. Obama is a loved man.

As much as some in this country have brains in their posterior like mush and cannot bear that a white guy LOST an election there are a billion people across the globe to whom he is giving hope. IF he has the good fortune to survive four years AND be elected for four more our country just may have been saved by the skin of its teeth yet again.

Sometimes miracles happen but in this country somehow somewhere some brainless IDIOT will try to screw it up you can be sure of that! The stupid insipid right wing are utter venomous morons if they cannot see poison they spew and the deadly ramifications it has.

A hand to the Muslim World: I have not had a chance to review what the President said but as usual what I did hear he delivered magnificently. The path we have chosen for decades MUST change if we are to live in a safer world retaining the moral clarity which at a distant time in our history we possessed. Obama's speech changed things. I hope.

The Abortion of Our Rights and the Rise of Domestic Terrorism: This is a letter I wrote to Attorney General Holder


The right wing religious FANATIC who assassinated Dr. Tiller and the many other right wing extremists who are antiabortion, anti-immigrant and anti-homosexual zealots are absolutely terrifying. Dr. Tiller, as you know, HELPED women in desperate need of help and it was LEGAL. What is in the essence of a person who kills, in a church, a doctor who has the legal authority to do what he does?

Women seeking late term abortions, as has been said, do NOT just one day walk by an abortion clinic and think maybe I should have an abortion. They, more often than NOT, during late stages of pregnancy have significant life threatening, complicated or emotionally unacceptable circumstances. Rachel Maddow interviewed Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation who was devastated by the death of her friend Dr. Tiller and who knew about the whys of late term abortion. She gave examples such as one girl who was 10 or 11 years old IMPREGNATED BY HER FATHER! The fetus, if taken to term, would have been a child of rape and incest. The young girl did not know what to do and waited until the latter stages of her pregnancy to seek help; another had terminal cancer and found out late in her pregnancy and STILL another had a fetus which was DEAD in her womb. There are many more mothers who develop serious maladies and threats to their life OR their fetuses do and would be either condemned to a horrific death once outside the womb or condemned to life-long debilitating physical deformities if taken to term. One male member of a right wing extremist group, she said, thought that the woman with the dead fetus in her womb should carry that fetus to term. This is how OUT OF CONTROL, ill informed and how sick they are.

These people who threaten violence of abortion clinics, torment patients and threaten doctors SHOULD be dealt with as TERRORISTS. They have at times even justified the assassination of the president. THIS IS HOW DANGEROUS they are. The President MUST be protected at all cost. I worry about right wing domestic terrorism every day and worry about our president's safety because of them. The right wing is, with their sanctimonious religious fanaticism, a huge threat to our nation perhaps even the GREATEST threat of all. This, like its Islamic terrorist cousin, is Christianized terrorism and their lack of morality is, in my opinion, the same. It is a clear and very present danger to all of us. I ask you, the Attorney General, with HASTE to monitor ALL of these groups and religious zealots everywhere who are a dire terrorist threat to our people, our president and our nation. Infiltrate them as soon as possible and prevent another catastrophic event.

The right of women to seek an abortion is enshrined in law and should stay that way to protect lives of full term living breathing human beings who find themselves in trouble! When abortion was illegal, as you know, women were consigned to filthy, back alley, abortion shops where they developed life threatening often fatal infection. Some even became permanently sterile. We cannot, we MUST not allow this to happen again and we MUST not allow these few religious fanatics to fill our lives with terror. I know you take this as seriously as most of us do and hope you are working feverishly to stop the murder of doctors, the bombing of clinics and the injury and sometimes death of the people who assist them.

Justice Sotomayer and the Ricci decision--Affirmative Action in the Crosshairs:

Justice Sotomayer has been relentlessly attacked mostly by the right wing for her decision with respect to the Ricci case concerning the white fire fighters in New Haven. She decided on the affirmative action side and against them. She has been ridiculously called a racist as if white men for over two hundred years did not have power. I say there is no such thing as neutrality. We are ALL (justices included) tainted by who we are and it is through that lens with which we perceive the world. I am not a fan of affirmative action because I think it does minority groups an injustice too by allowing others to view their success due to the special consideration given to race.

Having said that our culture has had a special history with respect to race. The conundrum for our nation is that it professed one unique and, indeed glorious, set of ideals expressed in its Declaration of Independence and Constitution but did quite another in practice for over two hundred years with respect to the African American community. Without question our nation treated that group abysmally. History has consequences and, I believe, through various profound decisions in our courts, laws in our Congress and in the changing attitudes of our people we have tried mightily to adjust the playing field. The consequences of our history toward mainly one group because of their visually obvious different skin color have been profound and tragic for all of us. It is because of this horrific injustice, I believe, we still need to level that playing field. We experience, it is true, an occasional inequality to whites, the dominant group, because of it. Perhaps, however, this is the price the future generations of those who ran slave ships from Africa pay for the egregious sins of their forebears. We have reaped what we have sown and for that reason I still acquiesce to the payment for past wrongs and the present remedies affirmative action affords.