Accusations against Benedict like Anti-Semitism -- REALLY? What a pile of utter manure for Benedict's personal preacher to equate the criticism of Benedict in the sex abuse scandal to the "collective violence" suffered by the Jews. Yet again this Vatican never ceases to use an opportunity to enrage the Jewish people. That statement is repugnant and an INSULT to Jews in all centuries who had to REALLY suffer the onslaughts of anti-Semitism for ALL the untruths against Jews that Christianity both Catholic and NON Catholic had to offer. Ultimately it became a necessary precondition for the slaughter of Jews under fascism.

THIS pope, like some others, blindly looked the other way to protect NOT their flock's children who were molested by some priests but to protect the Church itself. Oh yes, just like antiSemitism MY posterior. In HIS case the slings and arrows hurled at him are TRUE. He owes yet ANOTHER apology to Jews everywhere. Wonder if we will get it. Don't hold your breath!

The Church turns a deaf ear: The New Your Times article on the Wisconsin deaf children abuse case is beyond belief. If you haven't already read it do so at the link http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36063186/ns/us_news-the_new_york_times/. It will curl your hair. Not only did the abused 200 boys -- maybe more -- and parents of them report it they reported it to MANY of the church hierarchy who did NOTHING but cover it up including the Pope. It reinforces my previous blog entitled The Abomination -- The Pope in the Cross-hairs. I include THAT link below

You may ask why do I care. It is the hypocrisy I care about coming from an institution that is supposed to be about anything but. Moreover, the sins of this institution against my people, the Jewish people, are, over a period of two thousand years more often than not despicable. Worse they lead ultimately to the Holocaust. The Holocaust could not have existed without Christian anti-Semitism and Pope Pius XII did little from the pulpit to stop it although Benedict wants to make him now a saint.

Beyond that a church and a Pope so utterly in the midst of horrific pedophilia has the gall and the nerve to be responsible in part for California Proposition 8 which denied ADULT homosexuals who merely loved each other and many of whom were NOT Catholic the right to be like everyone else and marry. That my blood boils is an understatement and I believe it is my responsibility as a human being to speak vociferously about this brutal case of hypocrisy. I could not live with myself if I did not.

http://natalierosen.blogspot.com/2010/03/abomination-pope-in-crosshairs-writer.html

Frum the Right: I am sure most of you have heard about the firing of David Frum from the American Enterprise Institute a formerly respectful conservative think tank and an intellectual arm of the Republican Party. What happened to Frum is nothing less than chilling and it shows, I submit, WHY it is so important NOT to lose sight of the November elections to make sure the Democratic Party, the party of diversity of thought and free speech, prevails in Congress.

I am a life-long Democrat BUT I know a respectable conservative voice when I hear it and David Frum is such. I certainly I do not agree with many if not most of David Frum's ideas BUT he is bright and he is a good man. The tea baggers, I believe, in the form of Limbaugh-like clones cut off his legs by having AEI fire him directly after he articulated the error of Sen. Jim DeMint's Waterloo comment against the President. Of course, they trumped up other falsehoods and rationales to offer reasons why they did fire him and If you are interested in what happened to David Frum I offer his own explanation at: http://www.frumforum.com/so-what-happened#comments.

I do not think I am saying this frivolously: the tea bag movement and its usurpation of power within the Republican Party resembles the beginning of a fascist-like right wing nationalist movement. It is mind numbing and violent. It seems clear that ONE disagreement, one march to a different drummer in that lock step and you are OUT. Limbaugh and those like him have more clout than an individual like David Frum who is smart and has contributed much over years to AEI and its cause. The powers that be in the tea bag movement will ask -- NO they will DEMAND -- one utters nothing which questions their ideology. One cannot tell them things they do not want to know or hear but things that may be, nevertheless, true.

The Democratic Party relishes diversity and its accompanying ideas. The Democratic party does not stifle speech and DEMAND one take only one position. As much as I am opposed to the anti-choice position of Representative Bart Stupak I am GLAD in other ways he can still remain a Democrat and welcome him. He brings with him more members devoted to other tenets the Democratic Party holds dear.

The Republican Party has become SO mean spirited, SO pathological in its behavior and speech and SO unwilling to court a chorus of voices who can actually get elected. I submit RACE is a HUGE factor in the vitriol as well as our economic hard times which force that racism, always subliminally there, to the surface. It has happened before in other frightening historical eras in other countries. The Republican Party I hope is sealing its own fate by becoming a party of utter extremists who will not tolerate ANY other views but the extremist ones of the tea bag party movement. The American people are NOT extremists and I hope the this movement will lead the major force of the Republican Party to its doom.

Therefore, if we take seriously free speech we MUST keep Congress in Democratic hands next November and work hard for it to do so all around the country. I plan on supporting Democrats in other states in hope that we can ensure Democratic victories in November. I ask you do that as well.

Violence on the Right: The article by Paul Krugman today in the NYT is EXCELLENT (link below). No, we do not have rationality of thought ruling most especially the airwaves and the computer media. The appearance of anonymity allows in some cases the speaker and writer to think he/she can say almost anything and get away with it. I continue to wonder if it has always been this way and if American politics was infused from the beginning with a kind of lawless OK Corral, Wyatt Earp, Old West mentality. I think that is the case, at least, in part. OK Corral and Wyatt Earp, though, stayed part of historical lore. No one REALLY knows, to this day, the truth behind it and certainly the whole nation at that time did not know instantly about it. Our age gives instant verifiable vulgarity which EVERYONE can read, see and hear from Kansas to Pakistan in a nanosecond. There is a big difference between an age in which communication was primitive to the sophisticated media of visual experience and sound today. The kind of lethal weaponry we posses in this era, too, was not seen even in the Old West.

In my opinion, the most vituperative epithets are being hurled by the right wing against the party in power occupied at the helm by a black man. I do not remember the left wing, supremely critical of George Bush, resorting to the threat of secession and revolution despite George Bush leading a nation into a war based on lies with the attendant killing of over 4000 of its finest youth and the decimating a foreign nation for nothing.

In my opinion, there is a basic humanity within American leftist thought in which the violent ends justifies the means philosophy is iterated by only a very few. The right has as its essence an anger and mean-spirited violence which does NOT have a basic humanitarian ideology at its core. The only message from the right, to me, is hate MOST especially if the opposition is composed of many who are not white.

The extremist right wing is the most dangerous of political movements I have seen in my lifetime. It spawned the Oklahoma bombing, NUMEROUS so called lone wolf killings and anti-government actions stretching over decades. With guns as its love and its militias as its force, I believe, we have reason to fear many on the right including their institutional leaders who cheer them on.

However, I believe the right should be careful. They should not think their opposition will be nonreactive if assaulted most ESPECIALLY if, God forbid, anything were to happen to its leadership. As Japan said about America in 1941, America it is a sleeping giant. For now the giant on the left sleeps but it can be awoken at a moment's notice. The incendiary rhetoric and violence of both political wings should STOP and stop now before that giant awakens and the ramifications of that become much more serious for our nation and everyone who lives in it!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/opinion/26krugman.html

A Letter of Thanks and the Passover Principle: A GOOD day has come. Passover, a holiday celebrating the joys of freedom, will soon be upon those who are Jewish and celebrate it. Even if one is secular, like I am, one can still appreciate its significance and be thankful for the momentous accident of birth to have been born free and thankful to have lived through such incredible historical and social change.

I thank our President for his sterling efforts in securing this momentous health care win. It was not all we wanted but it is a HUGE start. I think he with the other Democratic greats of the Congress will be responsible for the saving of many lives. A mere thank you is not good enough.

We need to now know and the Brown election teaches we can NEVER take our power for granted. We must always be vigilant. I am hoping that the sages of entertainment news predicting a Republican win in Congress in November are monumentally wrong. I think they may be overstating with their right wing vituperative malevolence their coming successes as the Democrats now have the opportunity to concentrate on banking regulation and most importantly on creating more jobs to take the economy out of the ditch into which the Republicans drove us!

I thank the President, Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reed for their wonderful efforts, hard work and brilliant leadership. I have hope again. We must go forward. YES WE DID, YES WE CAN, AND YES WE WILL AGAIN!!

God bless you all and God bless our country which allows us all to breathe free!!

The Abomination -- The Pope in the Crosshairs: A March 25, New York Times editorial says, among other things indicting the Catholic Church for the most recent European pedophile monstrosity, that "The Pope’s expression of “shame and remorse” for the Irish scandal is not to be doubted." Really? Well, I do doubt it. Are you kidding me? The Pope WEAKLY criticizes the legion of sex abuse in Ireland but says nothing about the horrific abuse actions in his own country, Germany, not to mention pedophile sex actions perpetrated on 200 DEAF young boys in Wisconsin and pedophile actions committed by priests around the entire continent of Europe! This is unconscionable and if the Pope were a regular citizen of any country he may face arrest and jail for aiding and abetting a KNOWN pedophile, transferring him to other parishes where even the psychiatrist who treated him said he would be dangerous to place among children and could commit these heinous acts again and did!

The hypocrisy of this Pope and the Church in general is mind numbingly staggering. Sure, voice at the pulpit against gay marriage between two adults who love each other but PROTECT your Catholic children against predatory priests NOT SO MUCH even when it is among the Vienna Boys Choir! This Pope Benedict is up to his eyeballs in trouble within his own Church. The buck stopped with him as an Arch Bishop in Germany, Cardinal Ratinzger head under John Paul II of the so called Doctrine of Faith (you know the entity that formerly brought us The Inquisition) and now as Pope, he passed it failing to punish the priests involved. Where have we heard this story before?

Institutions are about power and money and they are about protecting it at all costs even when that cost means that young boys will have to suffer torments that will affect them disastrously for the rest of their lives at the hands of priests they trusted and the abominable illegalities those priests perpetrated upon them. SHAMEFUL is too weak a word for what this pope and the entire church itself is guilty.

That this hypocrisy of shouting the sin of homosexuality from every pulpit and then committing the most egregiously illegal sexual sins against mostly male CHILDREN by priests without a hint of conscience is an abomination that cannot be doubted. The pedophilia in the Catholic Church is NAUSEATING and systemic. The cover up by its officials of it and the back turning of some of its laity is UNFORGIVABLE. If there is a God I only HOPE He cannot forgive it either!

Faded Brown: Well, I can see my small shred of initial hope in Senator Brown despite his Republican association was short lived as he tries to set up his reelection by saying Rachel Maddow, the progressive host of the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC will be his opposition in the 2012 senatorial election. Rachel Maddow revealed the total untruth of that. One wonders, though, why the good senator picked her as the threat supreme. In truth she is BRILLIANT. Few can hold a candle to her intellect and that includes most definitely Senator Brown. Thankfully, she is not running. We need her on the airwaves to expose the Republican Party's infinite capacity for telling downright lies to put their toxic agenda across -- an agenda which nearly bankrupted our country because of greed gone wild, banks unregulated and killed its youth in wars based on unequivocal lies.

As I have said at least a million times: America, the Republican party is NOT I repeat NOT about most of you. It is about the top 2% wealthiest of this nation. The fact that they should share a small amount more of health care is nothing but infinitely fair. Mr. Brown to say you are a man of the people, while you say you will vote against reconciliation which gives people hope, is a lie. So far you are everything I thought you would be feeding the American people the big Republican lie that you are about them. You are what I initially thought -- a BIG mistake and that the people of Massachusetts were duped into thinking YOU would do anything for them.

David Brooks in the March 23, 2010 "New York Times" tries to explain why he became alienated from the Democratic Party. He says "The essence of America is energy — the vibrancy of the market, the mobility of the people and the disruptive creativity of the entrepreneurs ..."

I say the David Brooks of the world do not see the reality when it hits them in the face and forget almost instantly when those entrepreneurial forces with their Ayn Randian laissez faire economic essence are almost singularly responsible many times over for the death of a nation and its people. These grand entrepreneurs, the Gatsbys of our culture, run with the train of greed until the train goes off the tracks and they are left emotionally, monetarily and spiritually bankrupt. They leave those around them in utter devastation and chaos but call upon the people they nearly destroy to clean up the mess.

The average Joe's of this country, the ones who make it mechanically work, are catapulted into the abyss by the rancid actions of the unregulated marketplace and in times past there was no safety net to catch them. Many died. FDR changed that, thank God, and since then there is a semblance of economic life preservers instituted by Democrats which stop an economy and most of its people from entering the dust bin of history.

Still, these adventure capitalists persist duping the American public into thinking they are for them and America, some of it, continues to buy their snake oil. I have said many times the Republican Party, the party of sink or swim policy, is NOT about us. They are for their individualist Gordon Geckko greedy selves. No matter how rich they get it is never enough and they will do ANYTHING an economic anarchy allows them to do no matter how many they crush. In 2008, without ALL the help from government and all the FDIC security, its too big to fail CEO’s STILL nearly drove the world into an economic Armageddon because those regulations were disastrously loosened by men of greed only to offer near repeat of the 1929 collapse.

Now we have health care so that not just the Donald Trumps or the Bill Gates of the world can certainly get the best of the best health care to ensure THEIR lives go on with no fear that illness will bankrupt them but also us, the little guy, on whose backs they depend for their economic security, to live.

Thank God for the Democratic Party, David, they have saved our posteriors AND YOURS!!

I condensed my previous blog and added some thoughts into one I sent to the Metro West News:

The Cancer Curse: Why some of us have the ability to empathize with the poor, the sick, and with those who have had to endure such virulent racism from some of our body politic and others cannot I do not know. Why are we so different politically from each other?

I am ardently for the passing of this historic health care legislation and surprisingly if it takes a strong anti-abortion part of the bill to pass I am for that too despite the fact I am, of course, pro-choice. This bill is too important. It is not perfect but it hopefully will improve over time IF it passes. The insurance companies with their tyrannical for profit hold on whether we live or die cannot be allowed to continue with business as usual. They must be held accountable. They have done this to themselves by their policies which hung an albatross of contemptible actions and death around our necks.

Why can some of us empathize with those who need care and others can do nothing but hurl unconscionable racist epithets catapulting this nation back into another century in which we fought a bloody war to create a more just nation. Why, too, is health care linked to this despicable racist spewing against a gentlemen supreme like Representative James Clyburn and Representative John Lewis? It was sickening to watch. It makes me wonder what really is the etiology of our profound political differences. Is it cultural or is it systemically in one's DNA?

The racial epithets the health care protesters sling show them to be exactly what most are: racist bullies who if they had their way would take us back to the 1850's except then they would be calling for secession. They are the embodiment of the grave sin of a nation. Those who would utter such things are sick, perverted and disgusting know nothings. They prove it time and again. Spitting on a man like Representative Clyburn is unconscionable. They could not shine this dignified man's shoes. They are NOT protesting health care but are using it as an excuse to protest a black man who is president. These people who express such racial hatred are the curse of our nation. Their views are a sickness within our body politic and a systemic cancer we need cut out before it kills us and fast!

A Curious Curiosity -- WBZ, a local television network, asked viewers to write what they are curious about. I wrote the following:

I am curious as to why some of us have the ability to empathize with the poor, the sick, and with those who have had to endure such virulent racism from some of our body politic. Why are we so different politically from each other?

I am ardently for the passing of this historic health care legislation. It is not perfect but it hopefully will improve over time. The insurance companies with their tyrannical for profit hold on whether we live or die cannot be allowed to continue with business as usual. They must be held accountable. They have done this to themselves by their policies which hung an albatross of despicable actions around our necks.

Why can some of us empathize with those who need care and others can do nothing but hurl unconscionable racist epithets catapulting this nation back into another century in which we fought a bloody war to create a more just nation. Why, too, is health care linked to this despicable racist spewing?

It makes me wonder what really is the etiology of our profound political differences? Is it cultural or is it systemically in our DNA?

BINGO: CBO: This health care bill will cut the deficit by $1.2 TRILLION over the next ten years. BINGO.... It's a WINNER and so is Obama!!! He is a WINNER today. Yes I was critical BUT my goodness one whole year listening to such obnoxious opposition and Scott Brown in Teddy's seat to boot. How much can one little progressive take? Hard DIFFICULT work, determination, COURAGE, amazing, kudos when they are due and they are due NOW!!!!! I didn't believe it because I did not want to be disappointed yet again!!! I am ON BOARD!! Our McDonald's country wants everything yesterday. I am included. We MUST learn big things take time!! Of course it's not passed yet so when he signs it maybe on Sunday I will celebrate. I'm almost there. This is a good day for our country ... so far!

An Allergic Reaction to Thought: This week as stated on the Journal web page, Bill Moyers talked with John Sexton, President of NYU, for a wide-ranging conversation about religion, the role of higher education in a globalizing world, and the troubling disintegration of civil discourse in today's society. Sexton suggested that America increasingly exhibits what he calls an "allergy to thought" and that universities are the key to restoring nuance to public discourse" I responded to it on the site. See link below:

It is a tragedy in our culture today that the complexity of life is reduced to 10 second sound bites. It is as if our McDonald’s dietary habits reflect the fast food mentality of our intellectual life. Much contributes to this and a discussion, which I am sure Dr. Sexton would agree, must include great complexity. There is not time to do that here. I can say, though, that Dr. Sexton’s thoughts were fascinating. I could have listened to him for hours and would have loved the opportunity to ask him my own, hopefully, thoughtful questions as well.

I keep trying to think if I allow for complexity of thought and an exchange of ideas even when those ideas are diametrically opposed to my own. I think I have tried. I have also fallen short. I in essence, at 61 years old, have given up. I am a progressive Democrat who lived through the late 1960’s. I formulated my basic philosophy at that time and although I wavered throughout the years, I have basically remained left of center. I believe, my position and other progressive attitudes on the issues of the day are SO important and so unequivocally correct that I cannot often even listen to the opposition. Worse, I consider them my enemy. How can I be a progressive, thoughtful person and consider right wing Republicans actually an enemy? I am sickened by this. I am, without a doubt, sure they think of me as their enemy too. It is sad.

I think it terrible that I have gone from a person more than willing to debate to a person of cemented positions and often a cemented heart. Why? Why can I not be like Dr. Sexton? The issues of our day are so personal and so threatening to me that I simply cannot compromise them. I do not know if it is the election of Barack Obama, a gifted man of thought and compromise, which was the reason for my solidification of thought because of the utter disgusting racist spewing so constantly thrown from the other side at a man of good will. How can I compromise with this utter idiocy? Both sides are hardened and the reflection of what we see is a Congress immovable in thought and unwilling more often than not to compromise either. If the right is so unequivocally mean, hateful and violent why should I give their points of view credence? Why should I not defend MYSELF against what I perceive is their insanity and threat to me?

My enemy believes NOT in science but in myth. It believes there should be a mixing of church with state, does not allow for choice with respect to abortion, and would love to discriminate against homosexuals whom they believe have chosen who they are and therefore are not worthy of equality. It believes, too, in war, even peremptory war, forgets the civil libertarian Bill of Rights from which this country was honed and it loves its guns. They love taking this country to wars of revenge even when based on lies and even when based upon nothing, do not care about wars which our country has waged AFTER World War II which have killed thousands, displaced millions and destabilized the political climate of worst parts of planet earth. Moreover, they think global warming is a hoax and probably will even when New York City is under water. Their views are hardened in the irrationalities of religious superstition, uncompromising and extreme supernatural beliefs and a desire to impose those beliefs upon everyone else. They most certainly do not believe in government protecting human health. As I see it they are a threat to life on this planet. Their beliefs are so utterly repulsive to me that I cannot even listen nor stand to debate the non debatable. Evolution is fact, global warming is fact, religion upon which they want to base national policy is more myth than fact and goes against the most sacred of our Constitutional creeds, the separation clause. How can I compromise with that which is uncompromisable? (Yes, I crafted a new word.)

Dr. Sexton’s lofty thoughts in the classroom make for sweet talk and make him, indeed, a likable man. I am sure he had to be such to arrive at the position he attained. In the final analysis, though, I think that decisions must be made, choices must be arrived at and the prolonging of debate of certain issues causes the destruction of human life and, indeed, compromises ALL life on planet earth.


I am not happy with who I have become but I refuse to compromise with those who eschew most lofty intellectual thought, think reason is not for them, calls the left effete intellectual snobs and causes Susan Jacoby – a one-time interviewee of Bill Moyers – to write a book entitled “The Age of American Unreason.” I cannot entertain the thoughts of those who carry grotesque, insulting, racist pictures of our president as both Hitler and Stalin as if one person could be both polar opposites. I cannot compromise with those who occupy the extreme right wing of the political spectrum in which there is a litmus test now for membership in the Republican Party. Perhaps if it returned to the party of Rockefeller or Ford I could.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2010/03/do_americans_suffer_from_an_al.html:

Beyond My Endurance (A review of the film Precious.) I gave this film a very good numerical vote on IMDb and yet I left before it ended. The film is phenomenally powerful and there are no words to iterate its superb acting quality and yet it was, to me, SO upsetting that I could not continue to watch after the first hour. I may rent it again to watch the final scenes. I could not psychologically endure not only the extreme violence to the 16 year old morbidly obese girl, Precious, by her own seemingly demon-possessed mother and others around her, but I could not take the violence to the young girl's soul. I was shaking inside, I was angry, I was scared, and most of all I was sad that this life is often -- much TOO often -- a reality for so many.

I, simply, as a human being who has valued academics so enthusiastically all of my life could not endure a scenario which I am loath to admit exists. It was hard for me not only to relate to a woman who by age sixteen could read ONLY the letter "A" and who could barely speak a complete sentence, but it was hard for me to auditorily understand the linguistics, so often inordinately profane, of it as well. I can never remember a time in my life when I could not read, when I did not appreciate academics, when I did not wish to be more academically superior than I am. I had to step out of myself -- WAY out -- to try to understand the the lowest depths of depravity to which her environment sank and shudder as to the enduring effects in had on her.

I will certainly never understand how human beings perpetrate such unspeakable cruelty. Before seeing "Precious" I had viewed 14 episodes of "The Wire" about the drug ghetto culture in the city of Baltimore. The milieu in "The Wire" seemed like the Hamptons in comparison to household of Precious. This film was infinitely difficult for me to watch. I literally had a panic attack in the middle as it frightened me to my core and I had to walk out.

We cannot, though, feel self righteous as many who read this probably have never experienced this kind of brutality but, in truth, it exists everywhere in different forms. It is perpetrated not only by a single family and environment but exists on the battle fields world wide as well. It literally stops the heart and forces so much of our humanity to fade into the nothingness of the death we inflict upon each other all too often.

The final question to me is what can WE do? What is the solution to the grinding poverty, illegal drug saturated and violent world in which we live? Whether it is the slums of Mumbai reflected in the film "Slum Dog Millionaire," the drug mayhem in the city of Baltimore shown in HBO series "The Wire," the bestiality of war in the world at large or the abominable cruelty Precious singularly suffered, it leaves me wanting to throw up my hands and think these problems, for me at my age, are out of my control.

I will not say not to see this film. I will say see it but beware it is overwhelming to the senses of anyone who has a shred of decency and compassion left. I wish the next generation and all the succeeding generations good luck in ameliorating these intractable problems. They surely are going to need it.

The Settlement Sin: I am a Jew and an ARDENT and loving supporter of the Jewish State of Israel. This is the first time I have come out publicly against Israeli policy. However, continuing to build settlements despite the visit to Israel of the US Vice President Biden who represents a policy opposed to building East Jerusalem settlements I feel was simply STUPID and insulting. The Israelis KNOW what they are doing and KNEW that deliberately flouting the US position had a method to its madness. It was NOT just an inadvertent act. Message to US: We will do what we want when we want despite what anyone thinks EVEN the United States, Israel’s main source of support. I believe it was done for spite and to convey a message even if it means going against the US position. NOT a smart thing to do in the end.

Perhaps, it was also a sign that Israel will do what it wants EVEN if it means striking Iran's nuclear sites and it does NOT need US permission to do it. Really? Do you really think Israel can go it alone without US support? BAD thought and WRONG! The US is the life blood for our Jewish state. Those in Israel who are determined to NOT have a peace process could seal a disastrous fate. YOU are hurting our people.

The behavior of the Netanyahu government was a slap in the face to the vice-president and the United States. I believe a profound apology from Netanyahu to the vice-president is in order and the housing in East Jerusalem should cease until an agreement can be achieved. I will never turn my back on the State of Israel and my people. I love the Jewish state more than I can convey. At the same time I can CALL IT OUT when I think its policy is in error and bad taste! As a relative of mine has often said and to which I agree "if the Israelis (and Palestinians too) want peace they are going to have to love their children MORE than they hate their opposition" and certainly more than Israel or anyone should care about housing. The time is now to forge an agreement while we have a US administration with some intellect and sense of fair play and who is also committed to the maintenance of the Jewish state. Don't blow it!

No Time to Waste -- IMPORTANT please read: -- Please support the president's health care plan. I have emailed and called consistently the powers that be to pass it. So I ask you -- no I plead with you -- if you have not already done so, contact your members of Congress and the people you know. We cannot have the best be the enemy of the good. This bill IS a start. It can and WILL get better over time most likely for us and most importantly for your children if you have them, grandchildren if you have THEM and ALL of your family and friends.

Can you imagine, especially now, our lives without Social Security? Republicans then, too, in 1935 wanted to block it and some still even today want to get rid of it. That is almost laughable if it were not so serious and cannot and will not happen because it is one of the most important social safety nets ever devised in this country especially now with a compromised economy.

Now, in our time, we need to progress into the 21st century and do what EVERY other western civilized nation on earth does and that is provide health care (preferably with a public option but even without it) for our people. THIS is a START as Social Security was a start under FDR and Medicare under LBJ which was honed over time.

Without Social Security and Medicare many of us and many of whom we know might be on the street or dead. PLEASE, this is not the best bill, of course, BUT it's a beginning for now. PLEASE email or write your Senators and Representatives in Congress AND send this to ALL you know. Pass it around with the article linked below about the President's trips around the country this week to campaign for this important legislation. He KNOWS what he is talking about.

It's YOUR country, it's YOUR future, it's YOUR children, your children's children and your extended family's future. The is the LAST best chance probably for decades that we will have to ensure it! Forward this to anyone you think will be receptive and even to those you think you may not be. Click on the appropriate story "Knock on Doors Talk to your Neighbors" [LINK BELOW]. It is that IMPORTANT for us and the survival of our nation. Please do this at this time of spring renewal and do it quickly. There is no time to waste.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

Do the Hustle: I am hooked [thanks to my cousin!] on David Simon's series "The Wire" about crime life in the ghetto in Baltimore : BRILLIANT series on HBO maybe one of the best. It has such application to what America is about in pertinent part and what the government is doing and why people are furious as they SHOULD be. Small piece of "brilliant' analysis not well written. I include brackets for explanation of the character but I suggest you watch the HBO series as they are replaying it now or buy the DVD. Well worth it. But you have to stick with it and listen closely. I will compose a better blog soon.

When McNulty [the hero white detective in the Wire] asks the dealer why they killed "Snot" [ghetto nickname for a con game thief] he says because he is stealing the money So Detective McNulty says well if he was stealing the money why did you let him play the game? The dealer says says "this is America."

Now THIS is poignant. This IS America. Do I get it especially when you read Ariana Hufftington today or Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone on the poisonous banks. A MUST read:

If I were a professor and having my students watch "The Wire" I would ask them to compare and contrast the Second great depression or as the press likes to call it the Great Recession SOON to be depression as the beat goes on. Congressional and Executive life relates to the Wire but in MUCH more upscale and legal way which makes it INFINITELY worse because it screws WE the people ALL of us. They do the same things: the government lines its pockets with filthy lobbyist money from the banks or the insurance industry for health care or big Pharma. It doesn't matter it can be defense contractor lobbyists too. The congressmen and nearly every politician including the executive pocket their rotten bucks give banks, etc. OUR BUCKS, the lobbyists get what they want, the politicians what THEY want and WE the people get screwed with no job, no money and no health care. We die and people ARE dying.

"The Wire" is about that but no one cares in the ghetto about people who get killed. No one. The big wigs in City Hall in the Wire all care ONLY about their jobs . They care nothing about the humanity that gets devastated on the street. Why? Because their poor and their life is cheap no one cares. But guess what? No one cares about us either except a very few clean humane politicians. They are few and far between as are the Detective McNultys the hero of the Wire.

Who is talking about we the people who are getting raped by Wall Street in combo with the lobbyists who feed the politicians who let them do whatever they want? Read Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone. Google Rolling Stone and see what a lovely a deal the pimp lobbyists will be getting for their whore companies who get big time money out of our government with no regulation and no bid contracts and we the Johns get screwed (pardon the crudity but this is exactly an appropriate metaphor). THIS IS WHY WE ARE FURIOUS. It's ALL a racket whether it's in the streets of Baltimore or Congress it's ALL the same. THIS truly is America!! And I thought the president would change all of that. I can see just how much. Read Ariana Huffinton today on Huffington Post. (Post below.) Then read Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone. Here are the two links. If you can't get it Google Huffington Post today and Google Rolling Stone the Wall Street Bailout Hustle. I thought America was better than this. It can be. You just have to care.

Read it and weep!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/reform-dj-vu-democrats-fo_b_481288.html
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/32255149/wall_streets_bailout_hustle/?dbk

Take your Pick: Honest to god (so to speak) IF I were a believing person -- which I am NOT -- but let us just say for a moment I WERE a believing person and a Christian to boot subscribing to the New Testament Book of Revelation, I can see where those believers would tout the events especially since 9/11 as the beginning of the End Times.

When one thinks present time about the climate changes, the melting of the ice caps, the floods, the fires, the earthquakes, tsunamis, droughts and generally EXTREME bizarre weather phenomena, hurricanes galore, tornadoes and snow where there was heretofore little, it does seem like something is out of whack. Those things alone could bankrupt a nation state. Oh yes, that reminds me, dare I forget the plunging economy which still presents huge unemployment and loss of savings with no health care for many. Worse, when one thinks the banks are doing the EXACT same things with little regulation and experts have said another 2008 crash is nearly a certainty; salt and pepper in a clash of civilizations with a nuclear war hammer held above man’s head and, oh yes, the possibility of a pandemic flu, I can see where Bible toters would think to get ready for Jesus who will be coming on a cloud to take the believers up to heaven.

If one were not a Christian who would never subscribe to a belief in Jesus even assuming one believed in god, one might see those events in rational, scientific terms and not in myth. One might say 3/4 of these extreme events are man made. I believe global warming is in large part man made through man’s progression toward and embrace of industrialization, its attendant emission of gas choking carbon dioxide both to man, animals, to our fragile atmosphere and ultimately to the balance of nature itself. I believe carbon should be capped. I believe filthy oil and energy should be changed to CLEAN energy. I believe the extreme weather events come from a temperature increase which accounts for global warming and that its upset of the balance of nature is man made.

I SURELY believe the economic catastrophes are man made and believe the US is the epicenter of that. I believe war, too, is, of course, man made waged in an age where war NEVER will be won. I believe the economic collapse of 2008 and future ones should be placed squarely in human laps of an unregulated Wall Street gone wild holding hands with their government money-soaked enablers.

So, one can sit back and just let er rip to wait for Jesus to come down on a cloud to take believers to heaven and send non-believers to hell OR one might use one's cerebral intelligence evolution bestowed upon us, which accounts for man's great survival despite the harshness of nature, to, in combination with government and the private sector, solve these problems, save the planet and us as inhabitants thereof. Take your pick. It's up to you. I know what I would choose!

Bipartisanship shmaipartisanship -- Glen Greenwald gets it correct yet again: I would just like to know if Glen Greenwald gets anything wrong [see link below]. To me at least it appears he does not. I would add a few things about this plea for bipartisanship on bended knee by Democrats seeking it from Republicans.

As usual bipartisanship works ONLY in one direction. The Republicans are absolutely INTRACTABLE and loath to the idea of bipartisanship lest their base have cardiac arrests thinking that one of their own actually compromised with a Democrat, liberal, progressive, socialist, Communist, Nazi.

Not so on the opposite side of the isle for the very points Glen mentioned. Democrats do not give a second thought to alienating THEIR base as Rahm Emanuel smugly says Obama should not worry about the Democratic base.

So Republicans worry about their own base to avoid being sent home but Democrats do not have to worry about their base so they keep voting yes to things Republicans want like war funding, civil liberties encroachment and soon to be a so called "bipartisan" consumer protection agency. All of a sudden President Obama says well we can craft "bipartisan" consumer protection within another institutional entity to save money when it is ever so CLEAR having it in one agency devoted to consumer protection is what is needed to avoid another catastrophe as stated by the preeminent Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel on banks and the TARP bailout, Elizabeth Warren.

So bipartisan shmaipartisan when it only works for one side it's called Democratic spinelessness to STAND FOR SOMETHING as they shake in their pants.

I say to Rahm Emanuel, DON'T always count on your base to come through. I'M one of your base and I just MAY sit the next election cycle out.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/

Brown's Balancing Act: I agree with Scott Lehigh (Boston Globe February 23, 2010 editorial "How is Brown doing?" Link below), the reviews of Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown's performance, so far -- he's been in the Senate only one month -- are mixed. In addition to getting his facts straight, Senator Brown will have to dance a precarious policy dance. If he leans a little to much to one side he gets slammed by those on the other side; lean too much on the other side and he gets slammed again by the opposite side. He must bob and weave from one side to the next while staying smack dab in the ever-so-narrow middle like the Fiddler on the Roof. It can be done but it will take incredible balancing act to do it.

Good luck to Senator Brown, being in such a polarized Senate, like Tevya's fiddler, he walks a tightrope. Lean too much one way or the other and he will fall off the roof! It is a sad commentary of our time that one needs an ideological litmus test to gain entrance into the exclusive Republican Party club.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/02/24/how_is_brown_doing/

Points to Ponder: I saw “Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers,” a documentary narrated by an older Daniel Ellsberg which I recommend for those who not only love documentaries about the Vietnam era but who also love to think about the challenging moral questions presented. They are questions which confront our politics to this day. Maybe they are even questions with which mankind has had to grapple since man could conceptualize right.

What does it mean to be a moral person? What does it mean to be a patriotic person? What does it mean to question one’s government in the face of its perceived immorality? Does one have the moral obligation to do so despite the risk? Did Nuremberg stand for anything? Is this country an exception to universally accepted behavior during war time? Are the government’s lies as expressed in the Pentagon Papers about the justification of the Vietnam War, first published in the New York Times, the same as the alleged lies perpetrated to justify the Iraq War or do the events of 9/11 change our moral compass? How important are the dictates of the international balance of power when it is part of the justification of foreign policy?

Does our government require the individual to accept its foreign policy without the questioning of one’s own personal dictates of conscience especially when one is employed by the government? What is freedom of speech and does it apply when a country wages war? Are our government and our nation the moral yardstick by which the world should measure itself or are we, really, in our own mind’s eye, the exception to the rules by which moral men and nation states should live?

These are important questions for one to ask and these are the questions which have plagued me from the moment I first became politically aware as a child of 9 viewing the documentary footage of the Camps of Europe Eisenhower and others liberated in May, 1945. Those actions of a supposedly “civilized” German nation state shaped my political philosophy to the present day. In light of that as I matured it became monumentally important for me to answer the questions of what constitutes moral right? Who is morally right and who is not?

Subsequently, the Vietnam invasion, its attendant Mei Lai massacre, the invasion of Cambodia, the Iraq War with its accompanying atrocities at Abu Grahib, to the present day bombing of civilians in Afghanistan, suspension of civil liberties including the admitted use of torture by the former Vice-President of the United States make me stop to ask those important questions. I need answers.

Would I follow an order which I believed to be immoral? I truly do not know. I hope, though, the answer to that question would be no. No, I would not do simply anything because my government told me to do it nor would, I hope, I commit acts outside the internationally set legal boundaries of wartime behavior. Our Founders KNEW the frailties to which power was heir. They KNEW what government possessing that power was capable of doing but they could never have known the ENORMITY of that power and our capacity to destroy the earth with us in it many times over.

How do we differ from our perceived enemies or, perhaps, we truly do not differ once the facts are exposed to the light. Do our own people really care if international law was broken? 2 MILLION Vietnamese died, 58,000 American soldiers died, the earth of Vietnam was covered with Agent Orange a defoliant and burned. As stated in Wikipedia, “According to the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 4.8 million Vietnamese people were exposed to Agent Orange, a cancer causing defoliant resulting in 400,000 deaths and disabilities, and 500,000 children born with birth defects.” Congress, because of intense popular protest, finally, would not fund the Vietnam War any longer. It spanned four presidencies.

Is history always written by the winners? What do I owe my brother and if I am not my brother’s keeper who is? Points to ponder.

Sentient Beings: The HBO film "Temple Grandin" about Prof. Grandin's autistic life was truly amazing. One who is different in other ways can relate. I thought it profound, emotionally moving and it reminded me of the Russell Crowe film "A Beautiful Mind." It makes one, I think, appreciate how difficult it is for one who does not conform to the "normal" world to be taken seriously and treated humanely. It is a tribute to Prof. Grandin that she rose above her limitations and, actually took advantage of the gifts her difference bestowed. It led her to design humane ways to treat cattle destined for slaughter.

I, personally, am uncomfortable eating animal flesh to live and try to be as vegetarian as possible. I eat no red meat although a few times I will allow myself chicken and fish. I have become increasingly, in my adult years, cognizant of the sentient beings we send to slaughter. As a matter of fact it was the slaughter scenes in the film that I could not watch.

It is true, as Prof. Grandlin says, nature is, indeed, cruel but humans with our singular intellect can choose a different course. I believe our health would SIGNIFICANTLY improve if human beings rejected animal protein and chose other nutritional methods to obtain it. This country in particular, unfortunately, has an extreme affinity for meat. I believe one is what one eats and the incidence of the epidemic of diabetes, unhealthful eating and lack of exercise, in general, accounts for, in part, our national health care crisis.

I salute Prof. Grandin's attempt at making the slaughter process as humane as possible. The ultimate humanity for me would be if our nation swore off meat altogether. I am not unmindful of the fact that will probably never happen.

It was an excellent and emotional film as I thought it welded two concepts of treating humanity -- all humanity -- and the animals with which we share this planet as humanely as possible while accentuating the things one CAN do as opposed to the things one cannot. I highly recommend this movie.

The Anarchy of Anger: Joseph Stack blew HIS stack, burned down his house with his wife and child in it. He then took a plane and crashed it into a Houston building which housed the IRS, an emblem of government. This is a political statement to be sure. What is the statement he was trying to make? His note wafts in anger sometimes to the right and sometimes to the left in its fury. He is angry about his tax disputes which, by his perception, cost him thousands. He is angry at alleged “taxation without representation.” He is angry at the loss of his 401K and he is angry at the intractability of the health care industry and the stagnation of political debate. He is angry at insurance companies and the banks walking home with pockets stuffed full of bonuses gleaned from taxpayer money allowed seemingly by an uncaring and inscrutable Congress.

While there is an irrational anger in Mr. Stack’s unforgivable actions to be sure, his thoughts written in his note are not emblematic of madness. I think his political statement is reflective of the anger in the country as a whole. It comes, as his note reflects, from the left and it comes from the right. The so called Tea Bag Party movement is a hodgepodge of fury coming from, seemingly, everywhere. Progressive anger and intractability, too, keeps the Congress paralyzed as do Blue Dog Democrats who seemingly do not give an inch. What is it all about? Who are these angry groups? For that matter who WAS Mr. Stack? No one can really be sure because anger often knows no logical expression. Even Mr. Stack admitted his note of suicidal and homicidal justification was rambling. The depth of his anger, though, was crystal clear.

It is sometimes understandable to be angry even furious at moments of seemingly senseless irrational political reality. History has seen this many times. Leaders rise and they fall. Empires hundreds of years standing supposedly invincible succumb to events beyond anyone’s control. Countries live and countries die. The reasons for their death are innumerable and often disputative. Hopes rise and hopes fall with each successive regime and leadership. If one takes a panoramic view of the historicity of events it leaves one, I think, dumbfounded and unable to understand why we cannot all just get along. One fact, I think, is clear. It is very easier to be red hot angry than it is to govern a country – especially one of over 300 million – and make it work (a fact a relative of mine made me think about when I got angry at events.) Perhaps, Mr. Stack should have tried to do just that before the anarchy of his anger took innocent life, a home and a building down with him.

Come out of the woods -- Tiger's Woods's Apology: I thought Tiger Woods's apology was well done. In the end this is about HIS life, HIS wife and HIS children. Someone said on another blog site if Tiger has let YOU down, you really need to rethink YOUR life. I agree.

Personally, I do NOT care one whit if he slept with one woman, a hundred women or a thousand. It makes NO difference in MY life whatsoever. Whether Congress passes a public option, however, is HUGELY important to MY life and all those I know. These are the matters that count.

A golfer's sexual behavior makes absolutely NO difference to me. I will not become wiser, stronger or certainly more financially secure by the things that happen to Tiger Woods. In the end he may make even more money because of this which matters NOT in my life either except that I wish I were born with that kind of talent and had the blessings that that talent bestows.

I say, he who has not sinned cast the first stone as the press and many others self righteously grab on to this story for the money it can make them.

Good luck to Tiger and good luck to ALL of us who live in one of the most divided of nations since the Civil War! That fact is more important to me than any sexual salaciousness a sports figure may have committed. Scandals come and go and America's memory short. It will be forgotten in due time. The effects of a stagnated, angry and irretrievably divided nation, however, will be more profound to all of us for generations to come.

This was in response to the Joan Vennochi February 11, 2009 editorial: Teblow ad 1, detractors 0

Tebow 0, detractors 0: I was one of the one's who lamented the politicizing of the Superbowl by the Tebow commercial. I felt it was a game for god's sake, it's supposed to be fun and why CBS wanted to inflame the pro choice and anti-abortion sides, like we do not have enough polarization to last us through eternity if we make it that far, I will never know!

However, I did what I vowed I would not I gave it a chance and viewed it. I viewed the entire Superbowl as well which was a wonderful experience. I deemed ALL the ads no big deal. The Tebow ad was minimalist and I gave CBS kudos in the end. Yes it celebrated life which both sides do even us pro choice advocates like the idea of life and exalt the mature woman's life who is most impacted by a pregnancy. The claim of sexist by NOW and other feminist venues, in my opinion, is ridiculous. It is as tired as the anti-choice mantra. I watched the ad with Betty White and Abe Vigoda which I thought was hilarious. I laughed for many minutes after it. Some ads were good and some were not so good, some funny and some not. Humor is in the eyes and ears of the beholder and listener. In the end it falls into the who cares category anyway.

I disagree with Vennochi only in her end paragraph where she states: " No supporter of Roe v. Wade can escape the truth. With one choice you could end up with a strapping son; with another choice you don't." I would amend that a bit and say no supporter of Roe v. Wade can escape the truth. With one choice you could end up with a strapping son, with another choice you could end up with a genetically deformed or intellectually compromised child for the rest of its and your life; with yet another choice you don't"!

The mistake the so called "Focus on the Family" makes is that they do not tell you each incident of pregnancy is different and some pregnant women are caught in a web of dangers which could result in a horrifically compromised fetus incurring huge costs -- often NOT picked up by insurance companies -- for life and even could result in the death of the mother. Safe, legal abortions avoid any of those sometimes tragic consequences of pregnancy and no one but the mother has to endure those consequences. It is just not that simple.

The Key: I have just finished a book entitled “Sarah’s Key” by Tatiana de Rosney. I am usually not a reader of fiction. I like non-fiction with a historical or political theme. This is historical fiction, however, so it fit my taste. The book riveted me from the beginning to end.

It is not exquisitely written as is some classical writing but it is interestingly written capturing my focus from the first pages. The novel has as its historical underpinning fascist Vichy, France during the Nazi occupation in 1942 and shows the willing complicity of some if not most of the French populous surrounding the fate of French Jewry during the Holocaust. Forgotten by some are the historical roots of anti-Semitism in France, as reflected in the famous 19th century Dreyfus affair and depicted in the film J’ Accuse. The basis of anti-Semitism in France, not always admitted and hard to face by some, runs deep and allowed for their willing participation in the 20th century mass slaughter of Jews.

The novel centers on a little known event in France called the Vel d' Hiv or the July 16, 1942 roundup of Jews by the French themselves per order of Marshall Petan under the auspices of Nazi occupation. It provided for the deportation of France's Jewish population to transit camps and ultimately to the killing machinery in the camps of Auschwitz. In this particular roundup 13,152 Jews were arrested, 5,802 were women, 4,051 were children and the rest were men. In reality all were murdered. They were separated men from the women and women from their children, stripped, heads shaved, belongings confiscated to meet their fate ultimately in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. One can only imagine what they felt and if one had happened to survive how permanent the trauma would have been.

In this fictional account, the ten year old child, Sarah, escaped and was saved by a few French people who did not have the heart to contribute to the suffering of a child. Jews sometimes use the term righteous Gentiles, an appellation reserved for those who hid Jews often at great risk to themselves sometimes even raising the Jewish child as their own.

Sarah had, during the, Vel d' Hiv roundup hidden her younger brother in a secret cupboard of her home, locked him in with a key which she kept in her pocket in hopes that would keep him safe from the French police who pounded at the door of their home forcing them to leave. The novel centers on her daring escape from the transit camp, a way station to Auschwitz to return to her home in Paris so she could, in her child’s mind, let her brother, whom she loved, out. The novel explores the feelings of an innocent child who cannot understand why the people she loved and knew would be doing this to her. Anti-Semitism was not even discussed in her own family in its attempt to retain her innocence and not expose her to its devastating psychological effects.

It is about, too, the occupants of her former home and their zeal to save her and a journalist's attempt to uncover the story by wading through much denial, obfuscation and refusal to face facts. The writer not only investigates this horrific story but finds she is connected to it through a series of discoveries.

It is riveting and is interspersed with data of the child Sarah and of the journalist who is writing the story about the Vel d' Hiv as the novel’s short chapter by chapter rendition going back and forth from past to present. It reflected some of the many facets of the Holocaust first through the eyes of those who experienced this historical monstrosity and those who perpetrated it but most importantly from the perspective of the brave few whose moral compass compelled them to act against it despite putting themselves and their family in grave danger. It also explores how some who were born significantly after the Holocaust and who are not necessarily Jewish, still have the moral compunction to remember and never forget it.

The novel gives rise to the eternal questions of why some simply go along and even advocate for man’s inhumanity but others see its moral bestiality, are consumed by it and act in ways to negate it.

The human animal is indeed a curious one as the Holocaust provides analysis of man’s complexity and the eternal human moral dilemmas he faces. One is forced, I think to ask oneself honestly, how would you have acted, how much would you risk and most importantly why.

The Not so Stupid Super Bowl. There is anti-intellectualism in football and its crowd. This IS an anti-intellectual nation but that is a huge generality, of course. Football does ooze machoness, god, family and country complete with the Air Force spectacle, of all things, wasting taxpayer money by flying over the Bowl which seems ridiculous. What is this an international war? The Bowl is often garish, glitzy and gaudy. STILL, having said that I love football and I LOVED last night's particular game.

Why do I love football? I cannot BELIEVE the physical agility, strength and talent of those men. I marvel at nature's construct of the human body and how much punishment it can take IF it is young, male and in the prime of youth. But it is even more than that. The intellect behind the strategy, minutiae and the announcing of it is complex. I am amazed at people who know and understand it all. It is difficult, when the game is over, to recount all the individual plays, who did what well and who missed. I know the basics and sometimes what to expect on each play. There are surprises that will live forever, too, like coach Sean Peyton's prep and the execution of a rare onside kick, the first in Super Bowl history NOT in the fourth quarter, that turned the game around for the Saints. It was GREAT fun.

Moreover, I LOVED the commercial of Betty White in her 80's where she got creamed playing football with young big men in the mud until she ate a Snickers bar which gave her energy. Tears of laughter rolled down my eyes for a LONG time. It was just plain hilarious!

One more thing, it was a victory for the downtrodden city of New Orleans and for all those who have suffered beyond measure in that city. It was symbolic of and a metaphor for a city coming back. It was a testament to the resilience of those people who are an example of the nature of the country itself. This was a Cinderella game where the last finished first. Americans (including me) LOVED that. Americans are, at our heart, I believe, a goodhearted positive people. Moreover, the Saints are made up of decent men especially the quarterback Brees who gives of himself to charity all the time and Scott Fujita who is a humanitarian in his political views. All reasons, I think, to support the Saints.

So what, I cried at America the Beautiful sung exquisitely by the black woman Queen Latifa and the national anthem sung beautifully by the white woman Carrie Underwood. It was an amalgamation of black and white. Our country has, indeed, come a long way.

Even the anti-choice ad didn't bother me. It was small, it was quick and there were OTHER ads selling other things which, I thought, had some homosexual overtones. So kudos to CBS the thing I was the most critical of didn't amount to a hill of beans. I am an unabashed liberal and feminist but I allow myself to enjoy the staggering feats in football. I would LOVE to be so strong!

Huffington Post had a blog entitled "Share Your Story" which asked people to write about how they discuss politics so, naturally, I obliged. It may be posted or not.

I am 61 years old. I became political when I attended the so called "Berkley of the East," Boston University in the late 60's. It was a turbulent era and I loved it. I listened and hung on every radical word of the most leftist professors, had all night bull sessions with fellow classmates and talked politics non-stop. I thought we were ushering in a new era with peace, love and flowers in the air always; when there would be no more war and wealth would be more evenly distributed. I truly thought men would always have long hair and most would walk around the world bare foot. The change I thought would be permanent. It wasn't but I never, since that transforming time, stopped thinking or talking about politics as I tried to figure out who was right, who was wrong and what the difference between left and right was anyway. I am still thinking about it. I loved that time and consider it the best time of my life by far.

I changed, of course, grew older, grayer, and suffered losses of parents, family and close friends. I never did become the radical I thought I always would be as moderation overcame my youth with age.

Because of that time though, I became freer, more in tune with my environment, am more health conscious and environmental friendly. I also managed to find a person who unconditionally loves me. Through it all I toughed life out despite its disappointments and because of the disability of polio, an anachronism now, that took its toll as I aged. I worked hard in the legal field until I could not work any longer as my will said yes but my body negated it. I worked not because I loved it because but because I had to. So when I retired I began to do what I always wanted to do and that is write political and social opinion. That is what I do 24/7 or just about.

I still discuss it with those who will suffer through it and I write opinion and blog continuously. The professors at BU like the deceased Howard Zinn gave me the desire to experience another day because of the window onto the political and historical world that they opened. The computer gave me the vehicle to write about it.

I cannot believe there will come a time when I do not exist and will never know how much of it turns out. I cannot believe that my era someday will be the ancient history that the Romans and Greeks were to me. It is hard to conceptualize one's end and because I never had children the only legacy, if I want to call it that, will be the things I write if someday, perhaps, some historian studying this era comes across in some dusty corner the many opinions I have written. Well, I can hope anyway. Otherwise, for me, what is life all about?

My Depth of Despair and My Heights of Anger -- I am emotionally spent. After the health care debacle and the Coakley election, all the hard work so many of us put in week after week, day after day, hour after hour, creating emails, letters, articles to papers, telephone calls, conversations and anything else one could do only to see our causes fail. I am SO dismayed and so sad about our president's lack of effective leadership and how to USE the power of the presidency and shape Congress I am thinking about stepping on my own toes and backing away from the political fray. The president INEFFECTIVELY in an attempt to return the balance of power to a Congress which does not know what to do with it handed power over to them with little direction. Congress has conflicting interests beholden to big pharma, big insurance or their own states, gets little done on the big issues of our time: bank regulation, jobs, and health care. Both parties, as Bill Moyers said, are equal opportunity employers of big corporate lobbyists and money. The lobbyists are gracious and will give to any party. It is beyond insane that in the middle of a near Depression and when health care and jobs for Main Street are in the mix to help get us out of this quagmire, to decide one is going to return power to an entity, Congress, that is spinning around blindfolded not knowing what to do next even begging for White House leadership.

This is NOT Harvard Law Review and it's not 1789 with a country of only thirteen colonies. It is 2010 with country population of over 300,000,000 on the heals of a near Depression with lives and generations hanging in the balance. If health care and a solid jobs bill die, my heart is dead for this president. I will not invest the time, money and emotional effort to support him. I have to see a change in him returning to what I thought he was in the first place especially on the big ticket items. I feel like a jilted lover. I am upset, furious, demoralized and just plain sad how a Democratic Party could squander the total control it had of Congress AND the presidency with a mandate from the people for change. This WAS my dream come true. The dream is turning into a nightmare because, I believe, the president has NOT led effectively. He speaks loftily with or without a teleprompter but he does NOT lead. He apparently does not know how or is relying on poor advice from his minions which turn its back on the desperate needs of the people. Maybe, too, big pharma and big insurance are simply even bigger than he.

Whatever the reason, he is the leader of our party. Yes, he has done some things that are laudable BUT on the big things he has fallen woefully short. How the Democratic Party did not see the handwriting on the wall with the Coakley election until it was MUCH too late, I will never know. The National Democratic Party and the president as its leader FAILED to keep Ted Kennedy's seat. I STILL cannot believe it. Teddy Kennedy would not believe it either that a party and a president could fail SO dismally when power was at their feet -- and still is -- waiting for them to grab it. It is a damnable thing to those of us who care about human rights and humanitarian principles. I thought Barack Obama was on our side. Often, I do not, so far, see that he is.

I just read on Huffington that Obama admitted health care may not pass. I am FURIOUS. I am FURIOUS because I invested so much time in this guy and I was WRONG about him. You know. I LOATH him now because his modus operandi is USELESS for the 21st century. This is not 1789. I am glad he is for the separation of powers OH SURE I AM NOT. That moronic over thought idiocy will mean people will die with no health care and I lay it at HIS feet. And the Republicans a huge MINORITY gloat with a HUGE DEMOCRATIC MAJORITY which we will NEVER have again. He did NOT and does not know how to work congress...he is INEXPERIENCED and does not know how to do it. What a shame. Yes, other peripheral things he got but it is NOT enough. On the BIG things he is a FAILURE and he was MUCH too late to rescue Coakley or better still have gotten a better candidate. Brown changed everything and Teddy is rolling around in his grave. What a TRAVESTY for Democrats. For the first time in my life of voting 40 years I will vote 2012 out of spite Republican even IF I have to step on my own toes to do it. Unless the Dems put up another candidate for 2012...I consider him a NON entity. ALL those hours and hours I spent either working for him or writing or sending emails by the hundreds.. He is ALL flowery talk and lousy leadership. My thoughts are stream of conscious. Speaker Pelosi is the ONLY one who knows how to use power and do it effectively. This criticism is NOT about her. It is about the president and other toxic members of the Congress.

NO one knows how much I hate Republicans BUT I am going to step on my own toes and work AGAINST Obama. I LOVED this guy and I am disappointed beyond repair unless something passes on health care. HE IS IMPOTENT...his method of using power is IDIOTIC This is NOT Harvard Law Review AND this is NOT 1789....THIS IS A COUNTRY THAT NEEDS GUIDANCE it needs a STRONG executive. I wasn't so much against Bush's ideas of a strong executive as I was against HIS POLICIES but Obama's policies I am for. HE WILL NOT NOT NOT get my vote in 2012. I will work against him that is how angry I am. I am a Democrat's Democrat but with all the hype and positive talking heads leading us into NOTHING I am FURIOUS..I don't care if the Republicans put up Attila the Hun...I am going to work HARD against Obama because of this health care MADNESS...how many wasted absolutely WASTED hours!!!!!!!!!!He stinks and many in Congress ESPECIALLY the Senate stinks. I will work against Obama because he has shown NO leadership for the 21st century on the BIG issues. This is NOT the 18th century!!!!!!!!!!!!

The STUPID Bowl -- the politics of religious extremism at the Super Bowl. On the issue of choice, I am pro choice. My position is if you do not want an abortion, fine, do not have one BUT allow this serious decision to be between the woman and her physician. Each circumstance is different and it should NOT reside with the government or be influenced for all people by a religious entity. These right wing groups are dedicated, even if it takes 100 years, to make abortion once again illegal, relegated to back alley abortions which were performed often in filthy conditions. Some want it illegal EVEN in the case of rape, incest, fetal deformity, intellectual deformity or if the mother's life is in danger. They will possibly have the corporate money to advocate for it. They can now even ADVERTISE for it which they are doing during this Sunday's Super Bowl. I have provided a link below which describes the ad.

What ever your views SURELY we can agree that a Super Bowl ad financed by an extremist right wing group like Focus on the Family devoted to the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the ruination of our interpreted right to privacy does not deserve air time during the Super Bowl, an event that is SUPPOSED to be fun. I suggest if it is allowed than a warning at the end of that should be required to say that a decision to bring a pregnancy to term, in some cases, may result in the death of the mother and the death or deformity of the fetus. Short of that an equal and opposite response by Planned Parenthood, NARAL (National Abortion Rights League), NOW (National Organization for Women) or others should be offered. As far as I know it is not.

I urge you to contact any of the numbers or web sites below to advocate for this position or find one of your choice. MOST ESPECIALLY let CBS know that if you watch the Super Bowl you will turn off that commercial and others during it OR that you will not watch the Super Bowl at all if the anti-choice Tebow commercial is aired unless disclaimers, disclosure or an opposition to it are allowed to be shown as well.

We cannot sit back and think the right wing will rest. It won't. I hasn't. Our rights on this issue have been chipped away one by one. Moreover, abortion providers have been killed. Whether a woman has an abortion or not should NOT be the prerogative of the public but should be between the woman and her doctor alone!


Online contact: CBS Contact: http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/feedback/fb_news_form.shtml?tag=ftr

CBS No.: 212 975 3247-- VOICE YOUR OPPOSITION

Planned Parenthood No.: 212-541-7800 -- Ask them to provide an opposing ad. They are a huge entity which surely must have the funds for at least one oppositional ad. They have very wealthy clientele in the likes of Norman Lear, Barbara Streisand, Stephen Speiberg and many others.

Planned Parenthood explanation and response to the Tebow commercial:


http://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/newsroom/local-press-releases/1310-lesson-tebow-family-story-respect-trust-women-make-important-medical-decisions-themselves-31405.htm?__utma=1.48141533.1265384460.1265384460.1265387410.2&__utmb=1.28.10.1265387410&__utmc=1&__utmx=-&__utmz=1.1265387410.2.2.utmcsr=google|utmccn=%28organic%29|utmcmd=organic|utmctr=Planned%20Parenthood&__utmv=-&__utmk=211296533

APOLOGIES: I just got an email from Scot Leigh of the Globe it WAS a spoof article. Whew. I feel better BUT I would not give ANYONE food for thought. It's too dangerous.

Scott Brown for President?? I am disappointed in Scot Lehigh. I thought better of him unless, of course, his editorial "Get ready for President Brown" in the February 3, 2009 Boston Globe is a spoof. If serious, that would be like my voting for Barack Obama because he was black. No, I voted for Barack Obama because I suspected that he was intellectually brilliant and infinitely more capable than anyone else the Republican party had to offer. He was and is driven by a sense of introspection and studious rigor about which President Obama's Republican opposition could only dream.

I suspect the enthusiasm for Scott Brown would be different if he looked like, for example, Henry Kissinger. His rugged good looks, brown suede jacket, truck and seemingly perfect family is, I believe, the kindling fuel that ratchets up the presidential timber tag. Presidential timber? What house nationally or even internationally has Scott Brown built? The answer is none but I am sure, sadly, people will be following this man for president not because we know he has the intellectual heft the presidency should require but because he looked great on the front page of Cosmo. How many books does Scott Brown read and what are they? What are his articulation abilities? Most importantly, what and how much does he know? We have no idea because he has not yet even taken his senate seat and Scot Lehigh, editorialist for the Boston Globe, is predicting Brown as president? Shame on you Scot Leigh I thought you were better than that.

Strategies: A bunch of thoughts in the order my mind thought of them on how we get our message out and the good messengers to support.

The President did SUCH a good job at his question period with Republicans. He is INFINITELY more capable than the cerebrally compromised Bush.

Does the American public see the OBVIOUS truth to that as Republicans and some Independents too think Fox News is the most trustworthy...OH SURE. That is infinite stupidity. No matter what the President does he will NEVER NEVER get Republican "bipartisan" help. They want to defeat him at all costs so they go with their tried and true as they insist Dems are tax and spend even though the deficit soared under the Bush because of his rotten tax cuts for the rich which curiously he was able to get Congress to agree using reconciliation and his totally horrendous, illegal, immoral and by many standards inhumane Iraq War. Wars cost HUGE amounts of money and the defense spending cannot be included in cost cutting. It's separate.

So what does anyone expect? A huge amount of the deficit could be eliminated if we curtailed our defense spending significantly. But the Republicans only want to cut so called "entitlement" programs that actually HELP PEOPLE and work. They want to privatize Social Security and Medicare .... in my posterior NO ONE will want that especially those who have paid into it. Can you imagine with the tanking of the economy brought on by another piece of work Reagan through policies of Bush even helped by Clinton (who I have great reservations about now) how seniors now would be affected if Social Sec. were gutted? Plus Bush took money to finance his war from Social Security and borrowed the rest from China. Their philosophy is really no government spending on anything but defense they really want to end all government spending on humans who need help that is what Republicans are REALLY about as an anti-tax "conservative" crusader Grover Norquist says.

Obama was handed a plate of you know what but the Republicans try to hang all the deficit on him with their tax and spend tired mantra. Salt and pepper in the OBVIOUS racism levied at the president and it's just a toxic situation. I have never seen such insulting and often racist disrespect for a president ... EVER.

STRATEGIES:

I think some GREAT strategies now are to call out Fox News and the Republicans for the liars they continuously are. That is the only way. Keep harping on it and harping on it. Call radio talk shows even conservative ones like XM Patriot and our liberal ones too like Sirius Talk Left or even Sirius Indy talk. I think A.M. radio has some rabid conservatives too although I don't know because I only listen to XM. Air America I think is going off ... not sure when. It's too bad as they have some good ones like Ron Reagan. Stephanie Miller is a very funny liberal commentator. I think The Young Turks with Cenk Yugar is on XM and online. Bill Press is wonderful as is Thom Hartman on XM, and there is PBS and PBS radio as of course is Bill Moyers a particular love of mine but it probably is playing to a selective audience. We want to reach the most people we can.

Blogs are another way to get your opinion out. Make it smart, not nasty if you can, and brevity is always good not that I personally follow those rules but they are good ones. Also try blogging or writing editorials (make them as well written and short as possible) as I have written many times on the Metro West News, the Globe, Times,Washington Post, McClatchy News, Newsweek and others. Metro West Daily News blog has a shortage of liberals. Many blog at the end of each article. I have done it so much that I stopped blogging in the MDN. It does get very tough to read comments against you so beware but the more of us out there the better, grow a thick skin if you can. Huffington Post too is great as is Salon.com ... another site I love is Democracy Now with Amy Goodman. Support for good liberal authors like Jane Mayer, Tom Ricks, Naomi Klein (The Shock Doctrine), JeremyScahill on Blackwater an expert, Michael Isikoff, NYT editorialists Paul Krugman, Frank Rich, Bob Herbert, Gene Robinson. Jeff Scharlet wrote "The Family" an expose on "C " Street religious fundamentalists and the Washington Congressmen. A Ugandan connection there too getting the kill/imprison the gays legislation in Uganda believe it or not. Support liberal publications like the Nation, Mother Jones, or internet Moveon.org. Glen Greenwald is BRILLIANT from Salon.com There are many others. Especially there are military guys out there who are wonderful. I can't think of their names at the moment but probably the Rachel Maddow site has them. Also some are involved in getting rid of the Don't Ask Don't Tell insanity like Dan Choi ... read them and support them if you can.

Some conservative stations if they screen calls and you are critical of them they won't let you on. So I say I just want to discuss such and such and don't sound angry and you might get on. Visibility is what the Democratic party and progressives need it for 2010 and 2012. I cannot BELIEVE that anyone with 1/2 a brain especially if they are middle class or blue collar would want to vote against their OWN economic interest and go back to a Republican party which is not about them, and fundamentalist religious wing nuts to boot and a party which nearly catapulted us into a severe Depression maybe worse than 1929 and possibly could have meant the end of this country as we have known it as a Depression that was avoided by the bailout could have been utterly disastrous. The potential for that was that huge. We do not realize how bad it really was and it was on Bush's watch. McCain sarcastically says BOB -- blame it on Bush .. well YES OF COURSE blame it on Bush who else? If the situation were reversed and it happened with Clinton can you imagine how they would play it and do?

Thank God for Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and even Chris Matthews on MSNBC 7:00 p.m., 8:00 pm. and 9:00 pm. respectively. Try to watch them frequently if you can and write in supportive comments. See the Internet for their email. Rachel's is rachel@msnbc.com.....Be SUPPORTIVE they are the ONLY ones who point out night after night the hypocrisy and are supremely entertaining and BRILLIANT ... especially Rachel...she is a ph.d and it shows. She is just the best as she has on even those who disagree and holds their feet to the fire!

Support our PROGRESSIVE Journalists and media. OOPS almost forgot Ed Schultz on XM at 3:00 p.m. AND MSNBC at 6:00 pm. Onward.

Natalie

p.s. I am in mourning for my former professor, mentor and email correspondent Howard Zinn who recently died. I miss him every day! His book A People's History is excellent. He influenced my political philosophy like no other ever could. I just loved him. He was kind, inspiring and dedicated to a humane philosophy. I did not always agree with everything he said but his dedication to his basic principles of speaking truth, humanity and justice could not be doubted.

Glorious Bastards – a review of the film Inglourious Basterds: I am Jewish and I LOVED this film. I wasn't prepared to love it as I had heard about the violence which I often cannot endure but I did love the film. Why? I was born in 1948 after the greatest catastrophe, the Holocaust, was perpetrated on the Jewish people – my people. Thankfully, I never experienced it but year after year I absorbed the horror of it in film and by the word of mouth from parents and friends who knew about it or experienced themselves the evil that had befallen our people. I have viewed hundreds of hours of film footage of it, documentaries on it, bought and read books and anthologies about it, viewed TV drama devoting hours to it, viewed and participated in lengthy discussions and yet through all of that one burning question remains and it is not necessarily the word why. We can find thousands of rationales for the Holocaust but the question of what can we do about it remains illusive. As a naïve child I said to my parents but we won the war as if that were the happy ending of it. The answer always was an unsatisfying yes we won the war but … .

The trials at Nuremberg, the trial of Eichmann, the imprisonment and execution of some of Nazi hierarchy to be sure was some satisfaction but not the kind of satisfaction I desired for such unpardonable and unspeakable crimes. I had to face reality. There was no revenge huge enough and there was certainly nothing that could bring back the cerebrally unfathomable six million. What does six million mean? It is an utterly incomprehensible number made even worse because it is a number that COULD have included me. Only an accident of location and time of birth made me a learner about and not a victim of those events at that horrible time. Still, there is no revenge which is able to give purpose to the purposeless. That is a hard reality for a Jew who was born in America to swallow. Are not the good guys supposed to win? Do not the bad guys get sent to hell? The answer is a discouraging no the good guys do not always prevail and no, the bad guys probably do not end up in hell. Truly there is no good ending for this incredible story.

This film, though, albeit in fiction form, satisfied the desire for revenge for those dastardly deeds perpetrated within a historical minute slightly more than 65 years ago. The end of the film was the Dante’s inferno for the Nazi curse. It was glorious to watch as hell by Jewish hands was visited upon the entire Nazi hierarchy including Hitler himself in the confines of a beautiful theater as if the entire war was played out right then and there on film and I rejoiced. I felt like I took a bath in flames that cleansed the world and me of one of man’s most horrific crimes. It was as if God himself burned the screen, blew up the theater where Nazi big wigs sat and screamed to them this is Jewish revenge; this is Jewish punishment for what you have done. I loved it and wished it were true.

Alas, it is not true though as it is a work of fiction. So afterward I am bounced back to reality yet again and know there is nothing I can or will be able to ever do about it. I can as a Jew never exact my pound of flesh but I did, for over two hours, feel as if I had.

Boycott the Darkness: Recently a new film starring Mel Gibson called "The Edge of Darkness" has been or will be released in theaters. I ask that you boycott this film and ALL Mel Gibson films for that matter. This man is a Holocaust denier and blatant anti-Semite. I refer you to this link below in an article by Roger Friedman of Shobiz411.com that explains Gibson's anti-Semitism without my trying to compile a list of my grievances against him.

I refused to see the "Passion of the Christ" first because it was horrifically violent and second because a film emphasizing the death of Christ and the alleged Jewish involvement in it served only to inflame ancient absurd Christian anti-Semitic vitriol against the Jews and stoke the fires of potential violence in this age old insanity. He is not a friend either to the traditional Catholic church as he promotes his own brand of Catholicism.

Mel Gibson is vile and I ask you not to contribute to the success of anything he creates. The only way to hit him back is in his pocketbook and I ask you to consider never seeing anything Mel Gibson is in or creates.

Thanks.

http://showbiz411.blogs.thr.com/2010/01/27/mel-gibsons-father-goes-after-the-pope-and-catholic-church/

On Howard Zinn: There has been no one in my life since the historian Howard Zinn, left wing professor, at Boston University in the late 60's who had a more profound influence on me than he. I truly loved this man for over 40 years and remained in touch via email. I call that generation of the late 1960's the greatest generation as the values of peace it promulgated and the hope it engendered for me has gone unmatched.

Although he is gone, I will continue to re-listen to his lectures, re-read his book, and try to keep his spirit alive in my heart for the rest of my own life. I am saddened today but in my email from him just about three days ago when I felt so dispirited by the the election in Massachusetts as it seems yet again I am assaulted by the forces on the right standing on the precipice of regaining power (as if the last eight years were not enough), said that I should never lose hope, that I should always continue to remember that change comes not from the top down but from the bottom up. He said I should never give up my passion for justice and change. He lived that fight up even up until his death yesterday, January 27, and said there can be no change without hard work and that it is, as iterated in his recent documentary for the History Channel, the people who truly speak. I will always remember him.

SPOT ON! When I read, Frank Rich, NYT preeminent editorialist, write an op ed for the Sunday NY Times and says everything or near everything I have been complaining about the Obama administration for months, I am, if you will excuse my ego this one time, patting myself on the back. If Frank Rich has written brilliant columns, this was, in my opinion, one of his best. I can disagree with none of it because I have said most of it myself albeit not quite as elegantly.

I guess I do not "need my head examined" after all as I was accused by a relative of mine I did when I have been critical of Obama who for some walks on water. He does NOT for me. He has made, vis a vie the Scott Brown election, a GRIEVOUS if not fatal error and could if he does not change his modus operandi cost our country lives and fortune. Scott Brown is NOT a man of the people like the Republican mantra dupes people into believing and sometimes I wonder if Barack Obama is not as well. He needs to change course or, in fact, he will be a one term president. Sad, because his potential in November, 2008 was so overwhelmingly good.

I provide the link below for those who have not read it.! He is SPOT ON and the White House should take note and FAST!! Onward.


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/opinion/24Rich.html?hp

Ramblings: I have had little sleep. My cat keeps screaming at 3:00 a.m., my eye is bothering me, I have to have a glucose fasting test at 9:00 so I can't eat OR think, my partner's mother has Alzheimer's and is in the Metro West hospital because they can't control her in assisted living, Haiti is well Haiti, my president who I used to be in love with has deserted me and is in la la egotistical, deluded, naive and denial land, the democrats around him are shaking in their boots blaming "leftists" for their plight!! Nancy Pelosi was nearly incoherent when she made her lovely announcement about health care she barely could get the sentence out, the Supreme court handed down a decision that is nearly as bad as the all time bad one Dred Scott decision and makes this country nearly a permanent oligarchy, I am hoping the Democrats can come up with something to stave that off but seeing how they act on health care forget it, we are ruled by one minority party vote of Scott Brown and the Republicans (sounds like a rock group ... hey we can make some money off that Scott Brown and the Republicans.) Republicans are breaking out the champagne and are thrilled that their bank accounts will reach the stratosphere.

So no one talked about the fact if there will be more billionaires so just who is going to service them, build their buildings, do all the things blue collar and middle America does, who will have the factory jobs when the factories are overseas, who will teach their kids, who will get into universities, who would even want to come to this country now with it's glorious rags to riches gone, it's minorities protected gone, where your child will be worse off than you not better??? Where people just will be continuing to die without health care.

Well I'm in my usual suicide mode :-( only kidding ... as that great racist Scarlett O'Hara said in Gone with the Wind that fabulous 1938 Academy Award supreme racist film that Americans were then flocking to: "Tomorrow is another day." Yes, it is and we are going backward. Reactionaries anyone?

Sorry, it's 6:30 a.m. I have to be cynical and mad or I'll just sit and cry and then after my glucose test look for a whiskey bottle AND I don't even drink EVER and I don't smoke gave smoking up a LONG LONG LONG time ago, I am a health food addict, a fanatic about trying to move as much as I can even though it could kill me if I fall. Why am I doing this? Maybe I could write a satire and make LOTS of money and then go to Denmark!

Sorry, I'm a little off this a.m. :-\ Need to regroup... Read the below link of Glen Greenwald. It's perfect!

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/

A DECIDEDLY BAD DECISION: If any of us on the left ever thought Obama would be the end to our problems have SURELY gotten a rude awakening. Feast your eyes on the most disgusting opinion ever written by the Supreme Court since Dred Scott. Corporations now have clear sailing to spend as much as they want on political candidates. Now the nation is TRULY bought and paid for by the corporation. They even rolled back McCain/Feingold.

If we thought it could not get any worse, welcome to the United States of Oligarchy!! More conservative justices anyone?

We are unraveling and fast but the people elect Brown and think HE will be an independent Republican and will be for them. Oh sure. In which universe? We are plagued by corporate swindles that nearly brought down not only the US economy but world economy as well and NOW they can buy all US elections everywhere with ad infinitum amounts of cash. Sure, let's get some more deregulation of the always good-willed corporation. I say great. Let's see how fast we will be selling apples on street corners while the phenomenally wealthy sip mint juleps in the Caribbean! Finally, sometime maybe in some distant future this country will have learned its lesson. 1929, 2008 and a few other depressions in addition, were simply not enough for the never-to-be-underestimated masses.

Here is the decision if anyone can stomach to read it.

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/MSNBC/Sections/NEWS/A_Politics/scotus.pdf

p.s.: Here is Glen Greenwald's column for Salon.Com He is BRILLIANT and writes spot on opinion.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/