ON WISCONSIN!! _ BIG Democratic wins in the Iowa recall. Koch Brother money meant nothing. Thank you, thank you, thank you and ON WISCONSIN. While you are at it recall Walker too. Dems win big plus two Republicans who lean their way on collective bargaining in Wisconsin making Walker's job eradicating program exist on very shaky ground. This shows Republicans that they CANNOT and WILL not prevail. Their policies are BANKRUPT, they are reactionary and regressive. They want to take America back to the 19th century and WE as DEMS WILL NOT let them do this -- not in Wisconsin and NOT anywhere.
I think the president too is getting his mojo back! Republicans are OBSTRUCTIONIST, often racist and regressive. What happened in Wisconsin means something for that state and for our nation.
Work to keep our president in office, change the House from red to blue and keep the Senate. It is only then that this nation will climb out of its economic quicksand. The policies of Herbert Hoover FAILED. We cannot and should not reject the FDR legacy. If you think that might be a good idea to reject FDR THINK about how you would do IF you did not have Social Security and Medicare. These are vital policies necessary for the protection of life. They are the military of our nation's health and well being. Keep it that way. Re-elect Barack Obama and give him a Congress that will not obstruct everything. If he gets that then I think you will see a nation roar back with opportunity and not sink into stagnation.
Thanks Wisconsin, now let's take back America and make it Democratic blue across the board!
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Thursday, August 11, 2011
What Happened to Barack Obama: This is one of the GREATEST editorials of the tragedy of the Barack Obama presidency I have ever read. I composed an email to its author Drew Westin, Professor of Psychology at Emory University. I post a link to his superb article below.
I wrote: Dear Professor Westin: I just finished reading your NYT editorial entitled "What Happened to Barack Obama?"
You have written, in my opinion, one of the GREATEST editorials of the tragedy of the Barack Obama presidency I have ever read. It is MUST reading and ESPECIALLY should be read by the man it is about himself! Indeed, what DID happen to Barack Obama?
Your article is BRILLIANT and sadly for those of us who loved him so much and worked so hard to elect him his presidency is proving to be a Shakespearean tragedy. I am hoping sometimes beyond hope that the Republican Party and its candidates are SO bad, the American public smarter than it is said they are, and the problems SO significant for the middle/working class and the poor that this country dare not elect another Republican at the peril of losing its soul to the ash bin of history.
Every word you said is true despite the small error of numbers regarding immigration. That matters not. What does matter is the ad infinitum signs of foreclosure which I see in the once vibrant town where I have lived for 63 years.
The seasons still pass, the trees still rustle with the knowledge somehow written on their DNA that fall and then winter approach. I yearn for the American spring and for the time that our country can re-capture what the trees do as a matter of course in their transition from winter to spring's renewal.
As Rabbi Hillel said: "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And when I am for myself, what am 'I'? And if not now, when?" Indeed when will our nation's spring ever return to its renewal and will our president hasten its onset? Who will be for me if not him?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/opinion/sunday/what-happened-to-obamas-passion.html?scp=1&sq=What%20happened%20to%20Barack%20Obama&st=cs
I wrote: Dear Professor Westin: I just finished reading your NYT editorial entitled "What Happened to Barack Obama?"
You have written, in my opinion, one of the GREATEST editorials of the tragedy of the Barack Obama presidency I have ever read. It is MUST reading and ESPECIALLY should be read by the man it is about himself! Indeed, what DID happen to Barack Obama?
Your article is BRILLIANT and sadly for those of us who loved him so much and worked so hard to elect him his presidency is proving to be a Shakespearean tragedy. I am hoping sometimes beyond hope that the Republican Party and its candidates are SO bad, the American public smarter than it is said they are, and the problems SO significant for the middle/working class and the poor that this country dare not elect another Republican at the peril of losing its soul to the ash bin of history.
Every word you said is true despite the small error of numbers regarding immigration. That matters not. What does matter is the ad infinitum signs of foreclosure which I see in the once vibrant town where I have lived for 63 years.
The seasons still pass, the trees still rustle with the knowledge somehow written on their DNA that fall and then winter approach. I yearn for the American spring and for the time that our country can re-capture what the trees do as a matter of course in their transition from winter to spring's renewal.
As Rabbi Hillel said: "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And when I am for myself, what am 'I'? And if not now, when?" Indeed when will our nation's spring ever return to its renewal and will our president hasten its onset? Who will be for me if not him?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/opinion/sunday/what-happened-to-obamas-passion.html?scp=1&sq=What%20happened%20to%20Barack%20Obama&st=cs
The Making of a Toasted English Muffin and the Greatest Madness: While I do think that some of the London violence is copycat and that some perpetrate it solely for ability to steal, I believe generally human beings are prodded to violence by a deep sense of social outrage and anomie. It is anger about things they cannot control and it is about a life that sees no hope. I understand this anger and share much of it about this country as well. I feel immense fury when I realize those responsible for the Greatest Recession in 2007 have received NO punishment and people on Main Street have received no justice. They see everything for which they have worked with diligence, dwindle.
I experience even more fury when I helped elect a president I loved who has not yet projected the vitriol promised against the forces of Wall Street and their Congressional lackeys he vowed to stop. They continue still to perpetrate this global economic monster NOT for the middle class but for the top 2% of wealth. What is happening now GLOBALLY is related to that. The youth who riot, do not understand the interconnectedness of it all.
The fraudulent scam that Wall Street and The City (London’s Wall Street) pulled in the early 2000’s while government stuffed its pockets with Wall Street gold, struck at the global heart. The people of the European failed economic states prompting the anger in riots can, in pertinent part, thank a system of greed-gone-wild with the help of a gentlemen’s agreement with power. They transmitted this mendacious viral contagion to the innocent while the guilty walk away with trillions of middle class money.
Were they creating jobs with the loot they received from us? No, they were buying yachts! Wealth, we should have learned, does NOT trickle down to us but trickles up to them. We pay and they play. The riots one sees in London have spread elsewhere and I believe will continue unless we force those to pay who rightfully should. Riots, I believe fearfully, are coming to a country near you UNLESS we stop those who turned a blind eye to Wall Street fraud, punish the guilty and put people back to work.
All of Congress, all of Parliament, all of Wall Street and all of The City eat like gluttons while the rest of humanity starves.
Wake up! Wall Street, The City, its Parliament and Washington stooges are NOT your friends. Through your vote and your voice get rid of the Machiavellian immoral scum who defrauded the middle class. Then regulate and punish those who are guilty of this fraud. Make power work for you and not for the top 2% whose money, corruption, greed and graft created the toasted English muffin and, I believe, the Greatest economic Madness man has ever known.
I experience even more fury when I helped elect a president I loved who has not yet projected the vitriol promised against the forces of Wall Street and their Congressional lackeys he vowed to stop. They continue still to perpetrate this global economic monster NOT for the middle class but for the top 2% of wealth. What is happening now GLOBALLY is related to that. The youth who riot, do not understand the interconnectedness of it all.
The fraudulent scam that Wall Street and The City (London’s Wall Street) pulled in the early 2000’s while government stuffed its pockets with Wall Street gold, struck at the global heart. The people of the European failed economic states prompting the anger in riots can, in pertinent part, thank a system of greed-gone-wild with the help of a gentlemen’s agreement with power. They transmitted this mendacious viral contagion to the innocent while the guilty walk away with trillions of middle class money.
Were they creating jobs with the loot they received from us? No, they were buying yachts! Wealth, we should have learned, does NOT trickle down to us but trickles up to them. We pay and they play. The riots one sees in London have spread elsewhere and I believe will continue unless we force those to pay who rightfully should. Riots, I believe fearfully, are coming to a country near you UNLESS we stop those who turned a blind eye to Wall Street fraud, punish the guilty and put people back to work.
All of Congress, all of Parliament, all of Wall Street and all of The City eat like gluttons while the rest of humanity starves.
Wake up! Wall Street, The City, its Parliament and Washington stooges are NOT your friends. Through your vote and your voice get rid of the Machiavellian immoral scum who defrauded the middle class. Then regulate and punish those who are guilty of this fraud. Make power work for you and not for the top 2% whose money, corruption, greed and graft created the toasted English muffin and, I believe, the Greatest economic Madness man has ever known.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
If the Shoe Fits: I take issue with Jeff Jacoby’s August 10, 2011 op ed “The spurned neighbor’s vendetta.” (See link below) I do not know Mr. Walsh or anything about the composition of 68 Beacon Street. I would love to know the reason that the Board of the 68 Beacon Street condo gave to Mr. Walsh that precipitated the rejection of his application for residence. Providing a detailed reason for rejection of said applicant seems fair. Let us admit for a moment that it just may have been a bit of old Yankee money discrimination sticking it to the "other." I ask Mr. Jacoby to substitute the very typically Jewish sounding name like mine, for example, Rosen instead of Walsh.
My father in the early 1950’s had a wallpaper store in Framingham. He wanted to open up another in Lexington. According to the family lore as soon as they met him, saw his face – a very Ashkenazi look -- and found out his name was Rosen and not Martin as our Framingham store was named, they all of a sudden said there was no room in the inn. They did not say it was because he was Jewish, of course, but after all the centuries of anti-Semitism who did they think they were kidding? I suppose that would be okay with Jeff Jacoby and maybe it was a simple case of the I don’t like you for no particular reason so just get over it rationale. I doubt if it were Jeff that he would feel that way. When the hurtful shoe is on the other guy’s foot it simply does not hurt as much. When it is on your own foot it hurts like heck.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2011/08/10/the_spurned_neighbors_vendetta/
Monday, August 08, 2011
The Elephant in the Room: The bad news on the economy AND the S&P's ridiculous rating is they should talk we should be rating them as a HUGE factor in the 2007 near blow up of the stock market and world economy for rating phony stocks of their own clients Triple A. Who are they kidding? They are darn lucky Eric Holder did not kick their posterior into a cell next to Madoff. ... YET!
Beyond that thank Tea Baggers and their frightened to death of them Republican lackeys who HANDED a 500 point loss in the market twice because of their utter near TREASONOUS holding our country hostage tying spending cuts to the debt ceiling. THIS is NOT Obama's fault, this is Republican's fault .. a party who would NOT compromise with Obama if Obama were Nelson Mandela. Their movement is SOLELY about removing Obama from office and nothing else. They do what they do NOT for the love of country but for the hatred of its president.
I do not have to say what the elephant in the room is (pardon the pun) everyone KNOWS including I am sure the president what it is. Welcome to the vestiges of the Civil War which CLEARLY are not behind us even until this DAY!
Think about that shameful fact when you even THINK about voting a Republican into office for anything not even dog catcher. They are NOT about you America. They are about the top 2%. Never forget that fact.
Beyond that thank Tea Baggers and their frightened to death of them Republican lackeys who HANDED a 500 point loss in the market twice because of their utter near TREASONOUS holding our country hostage tying spending cuts to the debt ceiling. THIS is NOT Obama's fault, this is Republican's fault .. a party who would NOT compromise with Obama if Obama were Nelson Mandela. Their movement is SOLELY about removing Obama from office and nothing else. They do what they do NOT for the love of country but for the hatred of its president.
I do not have to say what the elephant in the room is (pardon the pun) everyone KNOWS including I am sure the president what it is. Welcome to the vestiges of the Civil War which CLEARLY are not behind us even until this DAY!
Think about that shameful fact when you even THINK about voting a Republican into office for anything not even dog catcher. They are NOT about you America. They are about the top 2%. Never forget that fact.
Sunday, August 07, 2011
The Looming Economic Catastrophe. Think about it. I am: Okay, I hate math and am not an economic expert BUT I have an opinion on macro economics -- big surprise! Experts like Greenspan, Paulson, Geither, Summers, Blankfein, BOA and other Wall Street henchmen obviously have miscalculated and some have committed outright fraud for decades and THAT is an understatement so one non expert just MIGHT make some sense! This is off the top of my head based on expert opinion I personally value. It’s not in my usually excellent prose – I humbly state.
For every economic opinion there is an equal and opposite opinion -- economic thought or any thought is like that because it is NOT science. It is some guess work, some opinion based on SOME knowledge but it's often wrong. There comes a time when you just viscerally choose to believe what you do because it feels correct.
The S & P downgrade I believe is just the beginning. We can survive the S&P ratings hypocrite down grade but a downgrade from the other two rating agencies (Moodys and Fitch) spells disaster. Oh, and by the way just as an aside London is in flames today. Doesn’t matter why, people are angry period.
My thoughts were expressed by Christina Romer who was expert economic commentary on Bill Maher. She was BRILLIANT and easy to understand. Naturally, she has left Washington in the Obama administration to go back to teaching. You might wonder who would want to give up fabulous Washington to go back to being a professor at Berkley? I jest. I believe, viscerally, EXACTLY what she says and I believe Krugman too. I KNOW I KNOW others hate him but I do not. I think he is right on the money pardon the pun and has been right more than wrong since the beginning of the 2007 Great Recession which Chapter 2 is just beginning. I can hardly wait until the end – I jest again.
Romer opines this could have been easy to extricate ourselves RATIONALLY out of the mud. YES YES for all you inebriated and psychotically-preoccupied-with-the-deficit humans YES, spending has to be cut BUT it did NOT have to be cut in such draconian fashion now when the economy is limping and soon maybe to be on life support. Cutting means LOOSING jobs. We cannot afford to lose jobs. We need to GAIN jobs. A combination balanced approach is needed.
We NEED REVENUE as Robert Reisch expert of the Clinton balanced budget administration days is saying until his face turns blue. When a family is financially in debt they yes need to reduce spending BUT they need a job to ADD REVENUE to their income. THAT’s how one gets a balanced budget. In the mix when the family is solvent and has food on the table a cut of spending is needed but they cannot do it with no job i.e. revenue. They can starve with little food but they cannot keep alive with no job and no food. A SUBSTANTIAL INFUSION OF REVENUE would work. You do NOT just cut and cut and cut and cut and then you have only a shirt on standing in the breeze with no home and no pants, no food and your skinny posterior sticking out.
Revenue (that is government’s job to collect) is needed and SHOULD have been part of this debt ceiling NO crisis crisis by asking these unbelievably MEGGA corporations with their staggering tax loopholes for the loopy AND paying NO taxes like GE and banksters sitting on TRILLIONS along with many other billionaire corps paying zero would go a LONG way to making this country solvent. THEY WON'T even FEEL a hike. It would be like a billionaire buying an expensive car, it costs a lot but if you are a billionaire WHO CARES you don't feel it.
A nation is SUPPOSED to protect its people. God knows this nation believes in that militarily but entitlements to protect people from starvation, illness, and loss of homes not so much – they are expendable. An economic collapse of this nation will not be good for ANYONE'S health including the corporations and banksters. IF, and I say a FEARFUL IF, Congress goes after everything and the masses have nothing even Tea Baggey lovelies will be more hopping mad BUT they need to blame who SHOULD be blamed and its not the government's over spending although that has skyrocketed much from eternal war for a LONG time and we lived with it. Put the blame on Mame where it belongs i.e. blame WALL STREET for this ENTIRE mess selling bundles of junk mortgages as securities and getting their S&P lackeys to rate it triple A when it should have been rated poop, getting insurance if their bundles failed and DUPING everyone else while they made OODLES of cash from the government bailout, AIG insurance (credit default swaps) and worse are sitting on trillions of it trickling down to their own bloated gut waiting to explode again.
Did Wall Street have to be bailed out for its bad behavior as the brilliant George Bush went against his grain (I mean his thought if he had any and not his alcohol of choice) to do? I believe YES, of course. The whole house of cards too big to fail banks would have collapsed.
What we need – Romer, Krugman, Robert Reish and others infinitely savvier than I say -- is a BIGGER stimulus to create more jobs. GET THIS: THE FIRST STIMULUS WORKED UNLIKE THE TEA BAGGER LYING Palin "film maker" ON BILL MAHER’S SHOW SAID THAT IT WAS A FLOP. REPUBLICANS AND FOX NEWS LIE ALL THE TIME. THE FIRST STIMULUS WAS NOT A FLOP IT WORKED AND IT CREATED JOBS. BUT WE NEEDED A BIGGER ONE AND WE NEED A SECOND ONE NOW AS KRUGMAN and ROMER STATE and as I thought years ago not to toot my own horn but why not pat myself on the back as it seldom gets done by anyone else!
The banksters are SITTING on 2 TRILLION in cash! SOMEONE -- Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, the Clintons —(Hillary and Bill) -- SOMEONE BIG TELL them to volunteer to chip in. I often thought if I had big money I would DONATE it to our country or put a fair tax code into law. If the US does better, you corporate greedy jerks, we ALL do better including them. Get these jobs BACK HERE OUT of China, Asia and elsewhere which provides cheap labor with no benefits or force a tax on companies that ship jobs overseas. And get these greed infused money stuffed jerks to cough up more and make other government cuts prudent but AFTER or even WITH collection of revenues. We need REVENUES. It needs to be a balanced approach. It CANNOT be just cuts as tan man Republican weak Speaker gloater Boehner gleefully said he got 98% of what he wanted. I wonder if he wants his job or maybe he wants a permanent vacation to drown himself at his local pub with packages of Winston cancer sticks cigarettes he, by the way, used to pass out to Congress to be a good guy doncha know. He MAY get his wish. He is a FAILURE as is MCCONNELL. These excuses for humans are not just failures they are murderous failures. Murderous to the working and middle classes or what is left of them.
Do NOT NOT NOT leave the middle/working classes with NOTHING, no life preserver, no parachute NOTHING or they will SURELY die in great numbers and it could be YOU and it could be ME. You can count on it. Granny is DEAD if Republicans and some blue dog and other Dems who support this insanity do what I think they want to do -- take it all -- Medicare, Soc. Sec. and Medicaid. They are gunning for it since FDR and LBJ i.e. a LONG time and if you put Republicans in they will get it and we will get ours -- a plot in your favorite cemetery.
Can you IMAGINE just IMAGINE what would happen to you if you had placed your entire earnings and all your retirement in Wall Street with NO Social Sec. and No Medicare and the Las Vegas Wall Street gambling casino tanking as it is doing? THINK about it. Your life may depend on it!! Call your congressman, the White House, your senators, email, write the good ole way a letter, smoke signal or take to the streets in non violent protest. Tell them to TAX CORPORATIONS and leave Social Security and Medicare solvent. Tell them to keep the social safety nets as the life preservers they have always been!
For every economic opinion there is an equal and opposite opinion -- economic thought or any thought is like that because it is NOT science. It is some guess work, some opinion based on SOME knowledge but it's often wrong. There comes a time when you just viscerally choose to believe what you do because it feels correct.
The S & P downgrade I believe is just the beginning. We can survive the S&P ratings hypocrite down grade but a downgrade from the other two rating agencies (Moodys and Fitch) spells disaster. Oh, and by the way just as an aside London is in flames today. Doesn’t matter why, people are angry period.
My thoughts were expressed by Christina Romer who was expert economic commentary on Bill Maher. She was BRILLIANT and easy to understand. Naturally, she has left Washington in the Obama administration to go back to teaching. You might wonder who would want to give up fabulous Washington to go back to being a professor at Berkley? I jest. I believe, viscerally, EXACTLY what she says and I believe Krugman too. I KNOW I KNOW others hate him but I do not. I think he is right on the money pardon the pun and has been right more than wrong since the beginning of the 2007 Great Recession which Chapter 2 is just beginning. I can hardly wait until the end – I jest again.
Romer opines this could have been easy to extricate ourselves RATIONALLY out of the mud. YES YES for all you inebriated and psychotically-preoccupied-with-the-deficit humans YES, spending has to be cut BUT it did NOT have to be cut in such draconian fashion now when the economy is limping and soon maybe to be on life support. Cutting means LOOSING jobs. We cannot afford to lose jobs. We need to GAIN jobs. A combination balanced approach is needed.
We NEED REVENUE as Robert Reisch expert of the Clinton balanced budget administration days is saying until his face turns blue. When a family is financially in debt they yes need to reduce spending BUT they need a job to ADD REVENUE to their income. THAT’s how one gets a balanced budget. In the mix when the family is solvent and has food on the table a cut of spending is needed but they cannot do it with no job i.e. revenue. They can starve with little food but they cannot keep alive with no job and no food. A SUBSTANTIAL INFUSION OF REVENUE would work. You do NOT just cut and cut and cut and cut and then you have only a shirt on standing in the breeze with no home and no pants, no food and your skinny posterior sticking out.
Revenue (that is government’s job to collect) is needed and SHOULD have been part of this debt ceiling NO crisis crisis by asking these unbelievably MEGGA corporations with their staggering tax loopholes for the loopy AND paying NO taxes like GE and banksters sitting on TRILLIONS along with many other billionaire corps paying zero would go a LONG way to making this country solvent. THEY WON'T even FEEL a hike. It would be like a billionaire buying an expensive car, it costs a lot but if you are a billionaire WHO CARES you don't feel it.
A nation is SUPPOSED to protect its people. God knows this nation believes in that militarily but entitlements to protect people from starvation, illness, and loss of homes not so much – they are expendable. An economic collapse of this nation will not be good for ANYONE'S health including the corporations and banksters. IF, and I say a FEARFUL IF, Congress goes after everything and the masses have nothing even Tea Baggey lovelies will be more hopping mad BUT they need to blame who SHOULD be blamed and its not the government's over spending although that has skyrocketed much from eternal war for a LONG time and we lived with it. Put the blame on Mame where it belongs i.e. blame WALL STREET for this ENTIRE mess selling bundles of junk mortgages as securities and getting their S&P lackeys to rate it triple A when it should have been rated poop, getting insurance if their bundles failed and DUPING everyone else while they made OODLES of cash from the government bailout, AIG insurance (credit default swaps) and worse are sitting on trillions of it trickling down to their own bloated gut waiting to explode again.
Did Wall Street have to be bailed out for its bad behavior as the brilliant George Bush went against his grain (I mean his thought if he had any and not his alcohol of choice) to do? I believe YES, of course. The whole house of cards too big to fail banks would have collapsed.
What we need – Romer, Krugman, Robert Reish and others infinitely savvier than I say -- is a BIGGER stimulus to create more jobs. GET THIS: THE FIRST STIMULUS WORKED UNLIKE THE TEA BAGGER LYING Palin "film maker" ON BILL MAHER’S SHOW SAID THAT IT WAS A FLOP. REPUBLICANS AND FOX NEWS LIE ALL THE TIME. THE FIRST STIMULUS WAS NOT A FLOP IT WORKED AND IT CREATED JOBS. BUT WE NEEDED A BIGGER ONE AND WE NEED A SECOND ONE NOW AS KRUGMAN and ROMER STATE and as I thought years ago not to toot my own horn but why not pat myself on the back as it seldom gets done by anyone else!
The banksters are SITTING on 2 TRILLION in cash! SOMEONE -- Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, the Clintons —(Hillary and Bill) -- SOMEONE BIG TELL them to volunteer to chip in. I often thought if I had big money I would DONATE it to our country or put a fair tax code into law. If the US does better, you corporate greedy jerks, we ALL do better including them. Get these jobs BACK HERE OUT of China, Asia and elsewhere which provides cheap labor with no benefits or force a tax on companies that ship jobs overseas. And get these greed infused money stuffed jerks to cough up more and make other government cuts prudent but AFTER or even WITH collection of revenues. We need REVENUES. It needs to be a balanced approach. It CANNOT be just cuts as tan man Republican weak Speaker gloater Boehner gleefully said he got 98% of what he wanted. I wonder if he wants his job or maybe he wants a permanent vacation to drown himself at his local pub with packages of Winston cancer sticks cigarettes he, by the way, used to pass out to Congress to be a good guy doncha know. He MAY get his wish. He is a FAILURE as is MCCONNELL. These excuses for humans are not just failures they are murderous failures. Murderous to the working and middle classes or what is left of them.
Do NOT NOT NOT leave the middle/working classes with NOTHING, no life preserver, no parachute NOTHING or they will SURELY die in great numbers and it could be YOU and it could be ME. You can count on it. Granny is DEAD if Republicans and some blue dog and other Dems who support this insanity do what I think they want to do -- take it all -- Medicare, Soc. Sec. and Medicaid. They are gunning for it since FDR and LBJ i.e. a LONG time and if you put Republicans in they will get it and we will get ours -- a plot in your favorite cemetery.
Can you IMAGINE just IMAGINE what would happen to you if you had placed your entire earnings and all your retirement in Wall Street with NO Social Sec. and No Medicare and the Las Vegas Wall Street gambling casino tanking as it is doing? THINK about it. Your life may depend on it!! Call your congressman, the White House, your senators, email, write the good ole way a letter, smoke signal or take to the streets in non violent protest. Tell them to TAX CORPORATIONS and leave Social Security and Medicare solvent. Tell them to keep the social safety nets as the life preservers they have always been!
Friday, August 05, 2011
The Scam: I have a very leftist relative whose name is Stephen Lendman, He is a graduate of Wharton School of Business. In his later years he has devoted himself to writing, speaking AND is a talk show host as well. I do not agree with everything he says BUT what he says and the way he says
it about our economy in view of our simply devastating times gives me pause for thought. Is what he says true in this interview? It certainly seems so
but is it cabalistically engineered by both parties? I just do not know.
Given what is happening I cannot totally discount his views but have a very hard time thinking all Democrats generally are no different than Republicans. I'd like to think and have based my philosophy on the fact that Democrats are different. BUT are they? Given the horrendous influence of finance lobbyists, our penchant for eternal war, the Citizens United decision for the corporate flood gates opening up Congress's re-election coffers and the impending possible loss of entitlements over years my relative makes points to ponder. I just do not know what to do about them if what he says is true.
If you are interested as I am in your country, its fate, yours and your children IF you have them, in history and things political listen to the entire interview on Press TV. You will not be disappointed.
http://www.presstv.com/detail/191877.html
it about our economy in view of our simply devastating times gives me pause for thought. Is what he says true in this interview? It certainly seems so
but is it cabalistically engineered by both parties? I just do not know.
Given what is happening I cannot totally discount his views but have a very hard time thinking all Democrats generally are no different than Republicans. I'd like to think and have based my philosophy on the fact that Democrats are different. BUT are they? Given the horrendous influence of finance lobbyists, our penchant for eternal war, the Citizens United decision for the corporate flood gates opening up Congress's re-election coffers and the impending possible loss of entitlements over years my relative makes points to ponder. I just do not know what to do about them if what he says is true.
If you are interested as I am in your country, its fate, yours and your children IF you have them, in history and things political listen to the entire interview on Press TV. You will not be disappointed.
http://www.presstv.com/detail/191877.html
Thursday, August 04, 2011
Stocks Down 4% in Global Sell Off--Shakespeare said it best: In my humble opinion Americans have one place to put the blame: on themselves. This is what happens when you put into office divided government.With all due respect to the president divided government IS dysfunctional government.
Economic experts like Paul Krugman and others have been saying from day one of the Great Recession that the only way out is stimulus and BIG stimulus at that. When the president had the majorities in both houses his stimulus bill while good was NOT enough. His health care bill fell short of a strong public option both of which facts kept us in this mess that Republicans mostly created with their mantra of laissez faire.
A solid stimulus would have worked then jobs would be created, people pay taxes and deficit reduction ensues. Republicans pure and simply are WRONG! One needs spending not cuts to treat recession.
But no. Krugman was NOT a part of Barack Obama's administration but Goldman Sachs surely was. The very ones that killed us ..no murdered us were put in charge.Through ALL the horrific unethical most probable illegalities NO ONE but NO ONE takes a seat next to Madoff in jail where they belong.
Having said that Wall Street sits on BILLIONS upon BILLIONS of bucks maybe 2 TRILLION while Main Street dies. Worse what happens the American public in their infinite wisdom see fit to form a Tea Party so Republicans can play them like the seemingly populist puppets they are EXCEPT that Republicans are using them to stuff the insatiable pockets of Wall Street greed.Joe the Plumber THINKS the Tea Party/Republicans are about him. They are NOT.It's about the Republican party USING them for all that they are worth to unseat Obama.
So this is who Obama must compromise with - the uncompromising at all costs and by any means necessary to unseat our first black president. What a coup. Congrats, America. You just bought yourself double dip recession as Paul Krugman said if not Depression along with a side dish of job loss and misery! Shakespeare said it best Julius Caesar (I, ii, 140-141) "The fault dear Brutus is not in the stars it is in ourselves."
Economic experts like Paul Krugman and others have been saying from day one of the Great Recession that the only way out is stimulus and BIG stimulus at that. When the president had the majorities in both houses his stimulus bill while good was NOT enough. His health care bill fell short of a strong public option both of which facts kept us in this mess that Republicans mostly created with their mantra of laissez faire.
A solid stimulus would have worked then jobs would be created, people pay taxes and deficit reduction ensues. Republicans pure and simply are WRONG! One needs spending not cuts to treat recession.
But no. Krugman was NOT a part of Barack Obama's administration but Goldman Sachs surely was. The very ones that killed us ..no murdered us were put in charge.Through ALL the horrific unethical most probable illegalities NO ONE but NO ONE takes a seat next to Madoff in jail where they belong.
Having said that Wall Street sits on BILLIONS upon BILLIONS of bucks maybe 2 TRILLION while Main Street dies. Worse what happens the American public in their infinite wisdom see fit to form a Tea Party so Republicans can play them like the seemingly populist puppets they are EXCEPT that Republicans are using them to stuff the insatiable pockets of Wall Street greed.Joe the Plumber THINKS the Tea Party/Republicans are about him. They are NOT.It's about the Republican party USING them for all that they are worth to unseat Obama.
So this is who Obama must compromise with - the uncompromising at all costs and by any means necessary to unseat our first black president. What a coup. Congrats, America. You just bought yourself double dip recession as Paul Krugman said if not Depression along with a side dish of job loss and misery! Shakespeare said it best Julius Caesar (I, ii, 140-141) "The fault dear Brutus is not in the stars it is in ourselves."
A BIG HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Mr. President. My wish and gift for you would be, of course, your re-election.
In addition, my heart breaks when you receive such cruel and insensitive nasty comments of those who oppose your policy. My biggest most heart-felt wish is that even if some do not agree with you they respect you and the office of presidency.
I am hoping and, yes, sometimes praying, that you have an easy-as-possible campaign. I know that is a futile prayer because the campaign itself even in relatively good times requires great stamina and fortitude against all the slings and arrows sent your way. At least I can hope.
Beyond that I hope that the hard work I know you do bears fruit. It is not easy dealing with human beings who often do not have a SHRED of empathy or an element of compassion. How can one possess those qualities when one's policy is directed ONLY to the rich getting richer, the poor poorer and dedicated by any means necessary to defeating you? Take solace in the fact that most of your base I think will remain loyal. I know I surely will.
I think too your opposition has been more hateful, even more oppositionally entrenched than even that which FDR experienced. It reminds me more of the discord during the Lincoln presidency the damaging Civil War so bitterly ensured. Its outcome, of course, was not assured but President Lincoln persevered through the most grueling and hateful opposition.
A note of caution which I am sure you know. FDR was taking the nation OUT of the Great Depression through government programs like the WPA. Statistics and history show things improved until he reversed course in 1937 and began to try to reduce the deficit by cutting spending. It did not work as the country slid sadly back into recession until WWII and the government spending required for it extricated the nation from the Great Depression’s strangulating grip. I would surely rather it not require more war to get us out of the mire of the Great Recession. I ask you reiterate the point OFTEN that in a recession reducing spending and NOT cutting it is the most effective way of creating the jobs so many in such difficult times need. Statistics, which do not lie, prove it.
The main purpose of my email this time, though, is not to give political opinion but to which you the HAPPIEST OF BIRTHDAYS AND THAT YOUR BIRTHDAY WISHES COME TRUE. I have read one already has and that it was the successful raise of the debt ceiling. If all of your wishes come true I have no doubt will be good for not only you but the country as well.
In addition, my heart breaks when you receive such cruel and insensitive nasty comments of those who oppose your policy. My biggest most heart-felt wish is that even if some do not agree with you they respect you and the office of presidency.
I am hoping and, yes, sometimes praying, that you have an easy-as-possible campaign. I know that is a futile prayer because the campaign itself even in relatively good times requires great stamina and fortitude against all the slings and arrows sent your way. At least I can hope.
Beyond that I hope that the hard work I know you do bears fruit. It is not easy dealing with human beings who often do not have a SHRED of empathy or an element of compassion. How can one possess those qualities when one's policy is directed ONLY to the rich getting richer, the poor poorer and dedicated by any means necessary to defeating you? Take solace in the fact that most of your base I think will remain loyal. I know I surely will.
I think too your opposition has been more hateful, even more oppositionally entrenched than even that which FDR experienced. It reminds me more of the discord during the Lincoln presidency the damaging Civil War so bitterly ensured. Its outcome, of course, was not assured but President Lincoln persevered through the most grueling and hateful opposition.
A note of caution which I am sure you know. FDR was taking the nation OUT of the Great Depression through government programs like the WPA. Statistics and history show things improved until he reversed course in 1937 and began to try to reduce the deficit by cutting spending. It did not work as the country slid sadly back into recession until WWII and the government spending required for it extricated the nation from the Great Depression’s strangulating grip. I would surely rather it not require more war to get us out of the mire of the Great Recession. I ask you reiterate the point OFTEN that in a recession reducing spending and NOT cutting it is the most effective way of creating the jobs so many in such difficult times need. Statistics, which do not lie, prove it.
The main purpose of my email this time, though, is not to give political opinion but to which you the HAPPIEST OF BIRTHDAYS AND THAT YOUR BIRTHDAY WISHES COME TRUE. I have read one already has and that it was the successful raise of the debt ceiling. If all of your wishes come true I have no doubt will be good for not only you but the country as well.
Wednesday, August 03, 2011
The Clarion Call: Suffice it to say I have gone from such happiness, hope and joy in 1968 because I thought MY generation and my politics influenced by the notable progressives of that time were going to change, in humanitarian fashion, everything and remake a more peaceful humane world. I was convinced in my naive youthful mind it was going to finally be better . In some ways it has gotten much better but now one would almost never know it. This is the worst time I have ever experienced in my historical memory. My father and mother always, of course, talked about the Depression era and World War II as if it was just another time that everyone got through because they had faith in our country and their (and my) hero FDR. Even though they were Jews and knew what was happening to their people in Europe they were never afraid as they iterated to me so many times because the protective rock this country was they knew would protect them.
Would those Republican Tea Baggers who have ice water in their veins have done and put through what they have put this president through if he were white? I think not. I think when race is the issue there is a poison so deep and such a fundamentally malignant cancer which still even nearly 150 years AFTER the Civil War eats away at this country's body politic. It has made this so called cradle of liberty a shameful hypocrisy in the eyes of the world.
Ben Afleck's movie The Town which these sick bastards used to inspire their Congressional Republican members said it all. The Town was a viciously violent film as you probably know. When Afleck comes to his friend and says in such a controlled emotionally charged and violent fashion "We're going to hurt someone. I need your help. I can’t tell you what it is. You can never ask me about it later” said it all. These wingnuts KNOW they are going to hurt so many people in their country but they do not care. They KNOW what they are doing. They tied the debt ceiling to the eviscerating spending cuts of our nation's economic life blood because they KNOW draconian spending cuts will NOT create jobs, will ruin the nascent economic recovery initiated by this president to cure the illness and near death experience the previous Republican administration made. These Republican actions will hurt the Democratic base, kill labor and create a recession if not a depression and finally even kill the most vulnerable sick and elderly among us because and the Republican Majority Leader McConnell has said the Republicans' main goal is to effectively unseat this president.
I am convinced that so many Republican racist comments shown in the news, by Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Ed Shultz and others have proven it is the black president and the country’s historically racist core that these Republican snakes are using to capture it all -- the House, the Senate, the Presidency, our Social Security, our Medicare/Medicaid and our economy. It WILL hurt EVEN the Tea Baggers who carry their water because most of them occupy the middle and blue collar rung of our economic strata too. When the Republicans are through they will have nothing left of this nation except to stuff VAST amounts of other people's money into a few pockets which their insatiable greed desires. This is with whom our president must govern. Other social issues are lighter fluid which have been an accelerant used to ignite this explosive fire and hold a nation captive.
Yes, I can criticize the president for being naive as to with whom he thought he would compromise and for alienating some of his faithful base BUT the hateful things these Republicans have done now loudly and clearly comes to represent the Republican vehicle of choice to unseat our first black president and secede from ALL the hard-fought civil liberties and economic security human beings have gained over centuries.
We must be the fuel that lights OUR own progressive and Democratic fire. This is OUR clarion call. We must during the next year harness our own anger, capture our own fervor, and promote our own enthusiastic progressive ideals whether through minority encouragement, gay rights enthusiasm, women's choice to control their own bodies and the HUGE impact of the labor movement -- moderates and progressives alike -- so that we bring ALL those who journeyed to the polls with glee in 2008 make that same journey enthusiastically again and show up to vote in great numbers for the president’s 2012 reelection. This is MANDATORY, this is LIFE SAVING, and this is VALUE PRESERVING if we want the good part, the humane part, the empathetic part of our nation we all love to prevail.
Would those Republican Tea Baggers who have ice water in their veins have done and put through what they have put this president through if he were white? I think not. I think when race is the issue there is a poison so deep and such a fundamentally malignant cancer which still even nearly 150 years AFTER the Civil War eats away at this country's body politic. It has made this so called cradle of liberty a shameful hypocrisy in the eyes of the world.
Ben Afleck's movie The Town which these sick bastards used to inspire their Congressional Republican members said it all. The Town was a viciously violent film as you probably know. When Afleck comes to his friend and says in such a controlled emotionally charged and violent fashion "We're going to hurt someone. I need your help. I can’t tell you what it is. You can never ask me about it later” said it all. These wingnuts KNOW they are going to hurt so many people in their country but they do not care. They KNOW what they are doing. They tied the debt ceiling to the eviscerating spending cuts of our nation's economic life blood because they KNOW draconian spending cuts will NOT create jobs, will ruin the nascent economic recovery initiated by this president to cure the illness and near death experience the previous Republican administration made. These Republican actions will hurt the Democratic base, kill labor and create a recession if not a depression and finally even kill the most vulnerable sick and elderly among us because and the Republican Majority Leader McConnell has said the Republicans' main goal is to effectively unseat this president.
I am convinced that so many Republican racist comments shown in the news, by Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Ed Shultz and others have proven it is the black president and the country’s historically racist core that these Republican snakes are using to capture it all -- the House, the Senate, the Presidency, our Social Security, our Medicare/Medicaid and our economy. It WILL hurt EVEN the Tea Baggers who carry their water because most of them occupy the middle and blue collar rung of our economic strata too. When the Republicans are through they will have nothing left of this nation except to stuff VAST amounts of other people's money into a few pockets which their insatiable greed desires. This is with whom our president must govern. Other social issues are lighter fluid which have been an accelerant used to ignite this explosive fire and hold a nation captive.
Yes, I can criticize the president for being naive as to with whom he thought he would compromise and for alienating some of his faithful base BUT the hateful things these Republicans have done now loudly and clearly comes to represent the Republican vehicle of choice to unseat our first black president and secede from ALL the hard-fought civil liberties and economic security human beings have gained over centuries.
We must be the fuel that lights OUR own progressive and Democratic fire. This is OUR clarion call. We must during the next year harness our own anger, capture our own fervor, and promote our own enthusiastic progressive ideals whether through minority encouragement, gay rights enthusiasm, women's choice to control their own bodies and the HUGE impact of the labor movement -- moderates and progressives alike -- so that we bring ALL those who journeyed to the polls with glee in 2008 make that same journey enthusiastically again and show up to vote in great numbers for the president’s 2012 reelection. This is MANDATORY, this is LIFE SAVING, and this is VALUE PRESERVING if we want the good part, the humane part, the empathetic part of our nation we all love to prevail.
Tuesday, August 02, 2011
The Compliment: I received two wonderful comments -- so far -- on the Dickens's email below. I responded to one which mentioned JFK's famous inaugural "Ask Not" speech:
Thank you, Susan, for your kind words. I do not always get kind words but they surely are appreciated when I do. I believe JFK in his "Ask not" speech was calling the country, most specifically its young, to service. He was asking those who could to help those who could not. I also think FDR before him set a new rationale for government action WHEN its action is required to save the whole. It was the permission slip which the nation had never known, certainly at the time of Dickens’s visit, but extending to the 20th century as well.
FDR through his leadership gave the government the right and, indeed the obligation, to help when the many suffer extensive egregious wrongs by the few catapulting everyone into the death knell of Depression. Those wrongs were, in fact, righted by that great man whom I never knew but loved through the study of the history of that era and through my parents – despite their Republican leanings -- adoration of him. He did not shrink from his enemies he welcomed them, he did not try to compromise with the uncompromising, did not try to work with the unworkable but knew he needed to try something different that did work.
I worry that the our nation’s preoccupation with spending cuts and reducing government to an Ayn Randian postage stamp will be forged on the backs of those who can least afford it and that those who vote for these misguided and duped corporate lackeys will step on their own toes by falling prey to the sinister forces of race and to its camouflaged sound bites of small government and spending cuts.
I DEARLY hope that this debt ceiling manufactured problem which could have brought our country and the world to its knees, has been resolved. I even more prayerfully hope that the hard-fought-for benefits of the New Deal years that placed government front and center to solve the most dire economic threats and in doing so produced Social Security and its offspring Medicare will not ultimately face extinction. I do not want to see it succumb to those small minded egocentrists and over stuffed forces of Wall Street greed and the minions who serve them. This is a serious time of struggle and suffering. It should, I believe, provoke a clarion call to continue to help the least of these our brethren so that they do not perish from this earth.
Thank you, Susan, for your kind words. I do not always get kind words but they surely are appreciated when I do. I believe JFK in his "Ask not" speech was calling the country, most specifically its young, to service. He was asking those who could to help those who could not. I also think FDR before him set a new rationale for government action WHEN its action is required to save the whole. It was the permission slip which the nation had never known, certainly at the time of Dickens’s visit, but extending to the 20th century as well.
FDR through his leadership gave the government the right and, indeed the obligation, to help when the many suffer extensive egregious wrongs by the few catapulting everyone into the death knell of Depression. Those wrongs were, in fact, righted by that great man whom I never knew but loved through the study of the history of that era and through my parents – despite their Republican leanings -- adoration of him. He did not shrink from his enemies he welcomed them, he did not try to compromise with the uncompromising, did not try to work with the unworkable but knew he needed to try something different that did work.
I worry that the our nation’s preoccupation with spending cuts and reducing government to an Ayn Randian postage stamp will be forged on the backs of those who can least afford it and that those who vote for these misguided and duped corporate lackeys will step on their own toes by falling prey to the sinister forces of race and to its camouflaged sound bites of small government and spending cuts.
I DEARLY hope that this debt ceiling manufactured problem which could have brought our country and the world to its knees, has been resolved. I even more prayerfully hope that the hard-fought-for benefits of the New Deal years that placed government front and center to solve the most dire economic threats and in doing so produced Social Security and its offspring Medicare will not ultimately face extinction. I do not want to see it succumb to those small minded egocentrists and over stuffed forces of Wall Street greed and the minions who serve them. This is a serious time of struggle and suffering. It should, I believe, provoke a clarion call to continue to help the least of these our brethren so that they do not perish from this earth.
An Apology: I apologize for the plethora of email regarding the latest most egregious Congressional debt ceiling vote compromising everything we elected our leaders to be in 2008. Please Google Keith Olberman's Special Comment on Current TV if you have not heard it already on the new cable network of Current TV. I provide the link below which Current TV has just posted to make it easier for you to do so. It is so important that I yet again write this email to you and provide you the link to hear it. (Do not be deterred by the one minute ad before the comment.) It is WELL worth waiting to hear this gem of auditory excellence!
I agree with 100% of everything he had to say but Keith says it so much more eloquently and passionately than I ever could. He made reference to the protests of the late 1960's of which I am so closely aligned if not in body then certainly in spirit. I yearn for those days when humanitarian ideals meant something and people took to the streets in non-violent protest to show it. It really did seem that our nation was being born anew -- for the better at least for that brief but inspiring-to-me moment. He talks about so much more than even that.
The link to Keith's Special Comment is posted below. If you cannot click on it then Google Current TV. I urge you to contact your cable provider if yours does not offer Current and ask them to make available the Current Channel. If you have it find the channel. FIOS channel for Current TV is 192. Current TV is new and unfolding in its content and owned in part by the brilliant Al Gore. Be patient but tune in often to see what it has to offer. It is getting better every day and soon I HOPE will upgrade its broadcast to compete with the glitz of other mainstream channels. It still is very good but getting better all the time and Keith alone is worth the price of admission.
I can ASSURE you it is infinitely better than the other go-along-to-get-along commentary one hears everywhere else. Please listen, savor and enjoy!
http://current.com/shows/countdown/videos/special-comment-the-four-great-hypocrisies-of-the-debt-deal
I agree with 100% of everything he had to say but Keith says it so much more eloquently and passionately than I ever could. He made reference to the protests of the late 1960's of which I am so closely aligned if not in body then certainly in spirit. I yearn for those days when humanitarian ideals meant something and people took to the streets in non-violent protest to show it. It really did seem that our nation was being born anew -- for the better at least for that brief but inspiring-to-me moment. He talks about so much more than even that.
The link to Keith's Special Comment is posted below. If you cannot click on it then Google Current TV. I urge you to contact your cable provider if yours does not offer Current and ask them to make available the Current Channel. If you have it find the channel. FIOS channel for Current TV is 192. Current TV is new and unfolding in its content and owned in part by the brilliant Al Gore. Be patient but tune in often to see what it has to offer. It is getting better every day and soon I HOPE will upgrade its broadcast to compete with the glitz of other mainstream channels. It still is very good but getting better all the time and Keith alone is worth the price of admission.
I can ASSURE you it is infinitely better than the other go-along-to-get-along commentary one hears everywhere else. Please listen, savor and enjoy!
http://current.com/shows/countdown/videos/special-comment-the-four-great-hypocrisies-of-the-debt-deal
Monday, August 01, 2011
The Repetition of History:
I used to belong to a Dickens's reading group and still get their enjoyable emails. I received the following email from them:
to which I replied:
It is sad because we in this country keep repeating history over and over and over again as witnessed by the content of the email above. Someday which I surely hope and pray not THIS day our nation, our empire will fall in one nasty lumbering heap because, in my opinion, many if not most people in this country see this nation as an "I" and NOT a "We" nation. They do not understand it is not big government that creates recessions but big government which pulls the nation stuck in the grimy ideological muck back from recession/depression.
The Knownothing Tea Baggers say big government is the enemy. I say it is the solution and when the private sector fails which it unceasingly does -- even in Dicken's day, government needs to be there to provide the life preserver against economic catastrophe. That is what FDR's New Deal was all about -- government coming to the rescue of an economy gone wild by the omnipresent human characteristic of greed gone mad.
One article I read recently said it well describing American political thought (I forget the author): "Joe the Plumber THINKS he is one clogged toilet away from living in the Hamptons like a CEO from Goldman Sachs." He is wrong. The CEO of Goldman Sachs lives in an exclusive club and it is NOT about Joe the Plumber. The corporate stranglehold on this nation committing it to an oligarchy is sowing the seeds of its own demise. It has happened many times in this nation's history but now may be the worst. As the late George Carlin said in one of his Utubes entitled "The American Dream" -- "It's the American Dream alright because you have to be asleep to believe it!" I wonder what Dickens would think.
I used to belong to a Dickens's reading group and still get their enjoyable emails. I received the following email from them:
Dickens and America's Defaulting, Nation and State "According to media reports (which has now become the accepted and conventional belief), this will be the first time the USA has ever defaulted on its debt obligations. But as highly respected financial reporter Nicholas Kristof reported in 1998, that is not the case"
´They were the world's richest and shrewdest investors, and they rode a wave of globalization to buy bonds in a promising developing country. When that country defaulted, they were livid. The year was 1842 and the
country was the United States.'
- Nicholas Kristof, in the September 20, 1998 issue of New York
Times International
And, coincidentally, for five days that same year, planted directly
across the street from the symbol of the nation's failed financial strength (The Second Bank of the United States in Philadelphia) was Charles Dickens.”
to which I replied:
It is sad because we in this country keep repeating history over and over and over again as witnessed by the content of the email above. Someday which I surely hope and pray not THIS day our nation, our empire will fall in one nasty lumbering heap because, in my opinion, many if not most people in this country see this nation as an "I" and NOT a "We" nation. They do not understand it is not big government that creates recessions but big government which pulls the nation stuck in the grimy ideological muck back from recession/depression.
The Knownothing Tea Baggers say big government is the enemy. I say it is the solution and when the private sector fails which it unceasingly does -- even in Dicken's day, government needs to be there to provide the life preserver against economic catastrophe. That is what FDR's New Deal was all about -- government coming to the rescue of an economy gone wild by the omnipresent human characteristic of greed gone mad.
One article I read recently said it well describing American political thought (I forget the author): "Joe the Plumber THINKS he is one clogged toilet away from living in the Hamptons like a CEO from Goldman Sachs." He is wrong. The CEO of Goldman Sachs lives in an exclusive club and it is NOT about Joe the Plumber. The corporate stranglehold on this nation committing it to an oligarchy is sowing the seeds of its own demise. It has happened many times in this nation's history but now may be the worst. As the late George Carlin said in one of his Utubes entitled "The American Dream" -- "It's the American Dream alright because you have to be asleep to believe it!" I wonder what Dickens would think.
This Day of Infamy: Remember this day of infamy, liberal, progressives, moderates and other humane peoples of all political stripes as a day in which the hostage holding terrorist Tea Baggers put a gun to America's head. In our civilized land (at least for the moment) we settle things in a civilized way -- non violently and by our vote.
Remember, as I surely will, to settle the score and in 2012 relegate the Tea Bag Knownothings to the ash heap of history. Our nation is dying a slow and painful death and that is exactly what the Tea Baggers truly want -- a white nationalist oligarchy to call their very own. The oligarchs, though, do NOT want the Tea Baggers for their own. They want to use them as water carriers to make the very very rich even richer. The Tea Baggers WILL be voted OUT of office but they cannot be voted out of office soon enough for me! Tomorrow is, indeed, another day and I cannot wait for it!
Remember, as I surely will, to settle the score and in 2012 relegate the Tea Bag Knownothings to the ash heap of history. Our nation is dying a slow and painful death and that is exactly what the Tea Baggers truly want -- a white nationalist oligarchy to call their very own. The oligarchs, though, do NOT want the Tea Baggers for their own. They want to use them as water carriers to make the very very rich even richer. The Tea Baggers WILL be voted OUT of office but they cannot be voted out of office soon enough for me! Tomorrow is, indeed, another day and I cannot wait for it!
Holding Your Nose and Taking the Bitter Pill: The debt ceiling deal stinks and we as progressives are holding our collective noses to accept it BUT what else could the president have done: refuse to compromise and the nation would go into default? Default would do ENORMOUS damage to EVERYONE not just the left but everyone on every side of the political spectrum.
This SHOULD pass and even when it is done it is not a done deal. Things can be argued, will be argued in the coming months and in the 2012 election but right NOW this nation cannot default on its debts no matter what the political philosophy. I am a liberal Democrat in extremis BUT even I realize that a default could mean that our elderly, our disabled, our military and others would not receive Social Security checks and other governmental payments. It could mean for many that they WILL not eat, they will not take their medication and the security of their families would be pushed over a cliff. Some would simply shut themselves in whatever is left of their homes and prepare to die. It is that simple. The president KNOWS it and that is why his compromise and bitter pill default eliminating medicine will pass and should.
The time was during the 2010 mid term elections to NOT vote for Tea Party Republicans or ANY facsimile thereof. They step on their own toes and take up the cause of the top 2% wealthy wanting to eliminate programs their own families need to survive. It is IDIOCY and why then I became so depressed about it. I KNEW why I was depressed. Yes, spending cuts need to be made and they have zeroed into a problem BUT it should not be done on the backs of those who can afford it least. As negative as this deal might be it is not over yet even WHEN the bill is passed as I think it should because default is NOT an option. That is what you WILL have if it is not passed.
I think the president knew he must hold his nose and do this so that this worst of all situations -- default -- does not happen. Elections matter. If the clock could be turned back I believe the 60 or so Tea Party Republicans would NOT have been elected. But they were. So deal with that horror and pass the default eliminating bill. Then argue like heck to form it in a more equitable fashion and MOST of all return the Congress to Democratic hands in 2012 while at all costs preserving the Obama presidency.
This SHOULD pass and even when it is done it is not a done deal. Things can be argued, will be argued in the coming months and in the 2012 election but right NOW this nation cannot default on its debts no matter what the political philosophy. I am a liberal Democrat in extremis BUT even I realize that a default could mean that our elderly, our disabled, our military and others would not receive Social Security checks and other governmental payments. It could mean for many that they WILL not eat, they will not take their medication and the security of their families would be pushed over a cliff. Some would simply shut themselves in whatever is left of their homes and prepare to die. It is that simple. The president KNOWS it and that is why his compromise and bitter pill default eliminating medicine will pass and should.
The time was during the 2010 mid term elections to NOT vote for Tea Party Republicans or ANY facsimile thereof. They step on their own toes and take up the cause of the top 2% wealthy wanting to eliminate programs their own families need to survive. It is IDIOCY and why then I became so depressed about it. I KNEW why I was depressed. Yes, spending cuts need to be made and they have zeroed into a problem BUT it should not be done on the backs of those who can afford it least. As negative as this deal might be it is not over yet even WHEN the bill is passed as I think it should because default is NOT an option. That is what you WILL have if it is not passed.
I think the president knew he must hold his nose and do this so that this worst of all situations -- default -- does not happen. Elections matter. If the clock could be turned back I believe the 60 or so Tea Party Republicans would NOT have been elected. But they were. So deal with that horror and pass the default eliminating bill. Then argue like heck to form it in a more equitable fashion and MOST of all return the Congress to Democratic hands in 2012 while at all costs preserving the Obama presidency.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Evidence Suggests GOP Hacked, Stole 2004 Election Read more see link: If you are prone to high BP perhaps this article (link below) is not for you. It surely does NOT surprise me in the least. The idiot Bush stole 2000 and I KNEW that Ken Blackwell piece of trash played computer hacking dirty in Ohio which I KNEW went for Kerry and not the shrub. Thus 2004 was stolen as well. There was NO question in my mind then or now. Worse they will do it again because they have rigged Republican local districts through gerrymandering and demanded photo ID to vote all over the country which is unconstitutional flouting the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It works against minority voters which make up a HUGE part of the Obama base. Moreover, I have no doubt there will be outright fraud in at least Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin and perhaps in states like Florida in 2012 UNLESS the Democratic National Committee steps up to the plate and makes damn sure this does not happen.
I always thought 2004 was stolen by Rove, et al for the moron Bush. Who could doubt it? The question is WHY did Democrats not speak up especially when the guy who was involved in the fraud was going to testify about all of it was curiously killed in a plane crash. Someone needs to hold these vicious lawbreakers accountable and bend the horizon of history toward justice. Who will step up to the plate to do it and if not now when?
http://www.benzinga.com/news/11/07/1789905/forget-anonymous-evidence-suggests-gop-hacked-stole-2004-election
I always thought 2004 was stolen by Rove, et al for the moron Bush. Who could doubt it? The question is WHY did Democrats not speak up especially when the guy who was involved in the fraud was going to testify about all of it was curiously killed in a plane crash. Someone needs to hold these vicious lawbreakers accountable and bend the horizon of history toward justice. Who will step up to the plate to do it and if not now when?
http://www.benzinga.com/news/11/07/1789905/forget-anonymous-evidence-suggests-gop-hacked-stole-2004-election
The Nation’s Destruction – the Power of Magical Thinking: All the logic and rational argument promulgated against the Republican leadership about the manufactured crisis of raising the debt ceiling does not matter because the Republican leadership is shaking in its self-created Tea Bag infected boots. The Knownothing Tea Bag so called movement is made up of a minority of Republicans (many racist) in the country that wants the president to fail and wants to take down the nation with him. Many see this as a once-in-a-life-time chance to foment national and world-wide discord (Oslo is, indeed, ominous) as the means by which they will usher in their Christianist -- mainly white power -- state. Rational argument, no matter how well intentioned and infinitely correct, the opposition of madness will never by persuasion back down. It would not matter if Democrats offered 14 trillion in cuts with no revenue, this small group of Republicans representing the religiously intolerant and ignorant will, using Republican leadership as their mouth piece, consistently say no. They have hijacked the rest of the Republican Party who, I believe, would negotiate a compromise at the very least.
The president in his heart, I think, understands that those who will not vote to raise the the debt ceiling (which Reagan raised 17 times), in truth, want really to subvert the president and Democratic senatorial leadership and thereby watch the country implode. Many Tea Baggers hope the resultant chaos of this deadly never-waged-before game of financial chicken will take this country and the world down with it. They have not seen, until now, this ripe moment of intertwined world discord to confront the secular world they have always loathed. Their magical fantasy world will, they think, usher in the second coming of Jesus who will save the believers only and leave the rest of us to take up residence in hell. I suspect the hell to which they wish to relegate us is the here and now on earth.
Ridding or cutting our hard-won-over-decades social safety nets of Soc. Sec., Medicare and Medicaid will kill – yes kill – many. Moreover, ultimately, if it those programs are put in the hands of Wall Street gamblers and their Ponzi schemes it will put the final seal on our nation’s coffin. One can see how well Wall Street worked for us in 2007 and the many booms and busts it provided before that. The preponderance of wealth now sits oligarchically in the hands of a few and those few co-opt the parties with unlimited cash.
The middle and working classes get the boot and are relegated to the lower tiers of our economic order. Those at the top 2% simply do not care. The middle class minions who support Republican leadership do not understand that they will relegate themselves to this hell as well since they are mostly a part of our middle and working classes. Still many rejoice in the discord as the more divided, psychologically furious and sick the nation becomes the better to usher in their Christianist fantasy Jesus land and truly marry church and state exactly what our founders did NOT want.
Most all families and those we love – including Tea Baggers' families – depend upon our country's social safety nets to live. They will, though, succumb with the rest of us who depend upon these programs. In the final analysis we are ALL human. The only ones who will NOT be affected by anything, of course, are the wealthy of Wall Street who have managed to make oodles of bucks through our crisis while the rest of the country stagnates in a quicksand of lost financial worth and economic failure. The wealthy always manage to escape their self-made hells but the rest of us will not have a map or GPS device to escape this route of social discord, fracture and anarchy.
We must harness our own minions, who make up the rational part of our national discourse, to summon our forces against the ignorant and we must not allow this sad misguided minority the prevalence and power of their magical thinking to take our intelligence, our rationality, our president and our country down with it.
The president in his heart, I think, understands that those who will not vote to raise the the debt ceiling (which Reagan raised 17 times), in truth, want really to subvert the president and Democratic senatorial leadership and thereby watch the country implode. Many Tea Baggers hope the resultant chaos of this deadly never-waged-before game of financial chicken will take this country and the world down with it. They have not seen, until now, this ripe moment of intertwined world discord to confront the secular world they have always loathed. Their magical fantasy world will, they think, usher in the second coming of Jesus who will save the believers only and leave the rest of us to take up residence in hell. I suspect the hell to which they wish to relegate us is the here and now on earth.
Ridding or cutting our hard-won-over-decades social safety nets of Soc. Sec., Medicare and Medicaid will kill – yes kill – many. Moreover, ultimately, if it those programs are put in the hands of Wall Street gamblers and their Ponzi schemes it will put the final seal on our nation’s coffin. One can see how well Wall Street worked for us in 2007 and the many booms and busts it provided before that. The preponderance of wealth now sits oligarchically in the hands of a few and those few co-opt the parties with unlimited cash.
The middle and working classes get the boot and are relegated to the lower tiers of our economic order. Those at the top 2% simply do not care. The middle class minions who support Republican leadership do not understand that they will relegate themselves to this hell as well since they are mostly a part of our middle and working classes. Still many rejoice in the discord as the more divided, psychologically furious and sick the nation becomes the better to usher in their Christianist fantasy Jesus land and truly marry church and state exactly what our founders did NOT want.
Most all families and those we love – including Tea Baggers' families – depend upon our country's social safety nets to live. They will, though, succumb with the rest of us who depend upon these programs. In the final analysis we are ALL human. The only ones who will NOT be affected by anything, of course, are the wealthy of Wall Street who have managed to make oodles of bucks through our crisis while the rest of the country stagnates in a quicksand of lost financial worth and economic failure. The wealthy always manage to escape their self-made hells but the rest of us will not have a map or GPS device to escape this route of social discord, fracture and anarchy.
We must harness our own minions, who make up the rational part of our national discourse, to summon our forces against the ignorant and we must not allow this sad misguided minority the prevalence and power of their magical thinking to take our intelligence, our rationality, our president and our country down with it.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
My opinion about the debt ceiling made the "Highlighted" section of the NYT blog: There is no question to me that Minority leader McConnell and Speaker Boehner with the Tea Party at their side are playing a game of chicken with the lives of the American people at risk. The president has given them the world -- nearly all of what they wanted -- and antagonized his base at the same time but Republicans will accept nothing. If the president gave no tax increase, decreased the debt by 14 trillion or more Republicans STILL would say no. They will say no to everything. It is crystal clear to those of us who examine issues, motivations and intent that the intent of the Republican party especially of Sen. McConnell is to bring the president down. He has said it. It is clear. When someone says something I believe them.
I am HOPING beyond hope that the American public can see the methods to this insane Republican madness. I think the president is counting on the fact that they will and that the middle rational part of the American public will not let him down. He is counting on them AND people like me who are members of his base. The base has some disgruntled members in it as he has tried to appease Republicans SO much but he is hoping and as is the case for me, we will support him nonetheless.
When the American people want to punish a president they sometimes step on their own feet. They did it electing Nixon for the Vietnam debacle and they SURELY did it electing Bush II for the Clinton sexual improprieties. In both cases it did not bode well for our country. Unseating Obama would not bode well either.
It is easy to criticize but much harder to form policy. I am hoping the American people see how easy it is for Republicans not to care about their lives. The only life they DO care about is their own and those top 2% wealthy who know which side they are on. Republicans are NOT about you, middle America, THAT you can take to the bank.
I am HOPING beyond hope that the American public can see the methods to this insane Republican madness. I think the president is counting on the fact that they will and that the middle rational part of the American public will not let him down. He is counting on them AND people like me who are members of his base. The base has some disgruntled members in it as he has tried to appease Republicans SO much but he is hoping and as is the case for me, we will support him nonetheless.
When the American people want to punish a president they sometimes step on their own feet. They did it electing Nixon for the Vietnam debacle and they SURELY did it electing Bush II for the Clinton sexual improprieties. In both cases it did not bode well for our country. Unseating Obama would not bode well either.
It is easy to criticize but much harder to form policy. I am hoping the American people see how easy it is for Republicans not to care about their lives. The only life they DO care about is their own and those top 2% wealthy who know which side they are on. Republicans are NOT about you, middle America, THAT you can take to the bank.
The following is a list: Here is a list of ALL the Tea Bag House members below. Those of you who generally share my political opinions write them essentially what I have written about the necessity of raising the debt ceiling for monies ALREADY spent so that the United States of America does NOT default on its bills for the first time in its history. This is literally a life and death issue for MOST Americans except, of course, the top 2% many of whom pay no taxes at all.
Feel free to copy, to paraphrase or write something of your own to the ones I have listed below telling them in no uncertain terms do you do NOT want anything based on giving up YOUR Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- all safety nets which protect ALL of us. AND most especially you want the DEBT CEILING RAISED.
We are in difficult times now but IF the debt ceiling is not raised you will NOT recognize the America you have known and loved your entire life. If you can write or call them now you may save a life. Your life and your descendants' lives depend upon it. My opinion on the debt ceiling is at the following link: http://natalierosen.blogspot.com/2011/07/hitting-ceiling-i-am-so-angry-i-cannot.html
The following are Tea Party House members who will do anything to take down our president which is really what this debate is about. Simply Google their name and you will get their House link. If you have trouble do it through Googling the United States House of Representatives. You can call or email your own thoughts or cut and paste mine into the representatives' sites. It is not only for me it is for you, your children and those you love too!
P.S. You can send the Republican House leadership a note as well: i.e. Speaker John Boehner (R) Ohio, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R) VA
Tea Bag House:
Sandy Adams (FL-24)
Robert Aderholt (AL-04)
Todd Akin (MO-02)
Rodney Alexander (LA-05)
Michele Bachmann (MN-06)
Roscoe Bartlett (MD-06)
Joe Barton (TX-06)
Rob Bishop (UT-01)
Gus Bilirakis (FL-09)
Paul Broun (GA-10)
Michael Burgess (TX-26)
Dan Burton (IN-05)
John Carter (TX-31)
Bill Cassidy (LA-06)
Howard Coble (NC-06)
Mike Coffman (CO-06)
Ander Crenshaw (FL-04)
John Culberson (TX-07)
Jeff Duncan (SC-03)
Stephen Lee Fincher (TN-08)
John Fleming (LA-04)
Trent Franks (AZ-02)
Phil Gingrey (GA-11)
Louie Gohmert (TX-01)
Vicky Hartzler (MO-04)
Wally Herger (CA-02)
Tim Huelskamp (KS-01)
Lynn Jenkins (KS-02)
Steve King (IA-05)
Doug Lamborn (CO-05)
Blaine Luetkemeyer (MO-09)
Kenny Marchant (TX-24)
Tom McClintock (CA-04)
David McKinley (WV-01)
Gary Miller (CA-42)
Mick Mulvaney (SC-05)
Randy Neugebauer (TX-19)
Rich Nugent (FL-05)
Steve Pearce (NM-02)
Mike Pence (IN-06)
Ted Poe (TX-02)
Tom Price (GA-06)
Denny Rehberg (MT-At large)
David Roe (TN-01)
Dennis Ross (FL-12)
Edward Royce (CA-40)
Steve Scalise (LA-01)
Pete Sessions (TX-32)
Adrian Smith (NE-03)
Lamar Smith (TX-21)
Cliff Stearns (FL-06)
Tim Walberg (MI-07)
Joe Walsh (IL-08)
Allen West (FL-22)
Lynn Westmoreland (GA-03)
Joe Wilson (SC-02)
Feel free to copy, to paraphrase or write something of your own to the ones I have listed below telling them in no uncertain terms do you do NOT want anything based on giving up YOUR Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- all safety nets which protect ALL of us. AND most especially you want the DEBT CEILING RAISED.
We are in difficult times now but IF the debt ceiling is not raised you will NOT recognize the America you have known and loved your entire life. If you can write or call them now you may save a life. Your life and your descendants' lives depend upon it. My opinion on the debt ceiling is at the following link: http://natalierosen.blogspot.com/2011/07/hitting-ceiling-i-am-so-angry-i-cannot.html
The following are Tea Party House members who will do anything to take down our president which is really what this debate is about. Simply Google their name and you will get their House link. If you have trouble do it through Googling the United States House of Representatives. You can call or email your own thoughts or cut and paste mine into the representatives' sites. It is not only for me it is for you, your children and those you love too!
P.S. You can send the Republican House leadership a note as well: i.e. Speaker John Boehner (R) Ohio, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R) VA
Tea Bag House:
Sandy Adams (FL-24)
Robert Aderholt (AL-04)
Todd Akin (MO-02)
Rodney Alexander (LA-05)
Michele Bachmann (MN-06)
Roscoe Bartlett (MD-06)
Joe Barton (TX-06)
Rob Bishop (UT-01)
Gus Bilirakis (FL-09)
Paul Broun (GA-10)
Michael Burgess (TX-26)
Dan Burton (IN-05)
John Carter (TX-31)
Bill Cassidy (LA-06)
Howard Coble (NC-06)
Mike Coffman (CO-06)
Ander Crenshaw (FL-04)
John Culberson (TX-07)
Jeff Duncan (SC-03)
Stephen Lee Fincher (TN-08)
John Fleming (LA-04)
Trent Franks (AZ-02)
Phil Gingrey (GA-11)
Louie Gohmert (TX-01)
Vicky Hartzler (MO-04)
Wally Herger (CA-02)
Tim Huelskamp (KS-01)
Lynn Jenkins (KS-02)
Steve King (IA-05)
Doug Lamborn (CO-05)
Blaine Luetkemeyer (MO-09)
Kenny Marchant (TX-24)
Tom McClintock (CA-04)
David McKinley (WV-01)
Gary Miller (CA-42)
Mick Mulvaney (SC-05)
Randy Neugebauer (TX-19)
Rich Nugent (FL-05)
Steve Pearce (NM-02)
Mike Pence (IN-06)
Ted Poe (TX-02)
Tom Price (GA-06)
Denny Rehberg (MT-At large)
David Roe (TN-01)
Dennis Ross (FL-12)
Edward Royce (CA-40)
Steve Scalise (LA-01)
Pete Sessions (TX-32)
Adrian Smith (NE-03)
Lamar Smith (TX-21)
Cliff Stearns (FL-06)
Tim Walberg (MI-07)
Joe Walsh (IL-08)
Allen West (FL-22)
Lynn Westmoreland (GA-03)
Joe Wilson (SC-02)
Monday, July 25, 2011
Hitting the Ceiling: I am SO angry I cannot even tune in to political discussion that I ordinarily love to do because Washington spews the same old broken record and my security is at stake. I am angry because I am scared. The only criticism of the president I had tonight was that he gave a forum to the Republican Party to spew its empty rhetoric yet again. Boehner said NOTHING absolutely NOTHING about revenue which SHOULD be the other half of the equation. Moreover, Boehner lied when he said what the House had proposed was bipartisan. It was NOT. Revenue like one's paycheck is derived because government does something for you. As much as the Tea Party mantra say it does not and wants to kill it they are incorrect. It does. It does a lot.
When a plane lands safely thank the FAA. When your food and air are not poisoned thank the EPA. When your Social Security helps you when you are old and your body cannot work any more thank the SSA. When Medicare pays your expensive hospital bill then thank the government for creating it. When one gets laid off a job and collects unemployment insurance thank the government for mandating it. If a medication is created or an epidemic averted than thank the NIH for helping to do that. Thank the government for doing so many enumerable other things that make our life just a little bit easier.
Middle America must realize Republicans are NOT about them. Republicans are about the top 2% of our population which should, as the president says, contribute more to reduce our deficit. The top 2% represented by their Republican henchmen want to have it all. They want bailouts and bonuses without contributing to the government that gave it to them; a government owned by the people. The president is right the debt ceiling MUST be raised. If we must reduce the deficit to raise the ceiling then we must do it with an evenhanded approach which includes revenue -- money taken in.
Again, I say it: America, the Republican Party with their Tea Party hijackers is NOT about you. The Republican Party represents 2% of the population which Republicans entrust with their own jobs. Republicans will accept nothing the president offers because they are using this serious game of chicken to see if they can defeat him but by defeating him they defeat us. As those in Wisconsin saw after they elected a ruinous Republican Governor Walker, his party was NOT about most of them. Now they have the difficult task to undo the evil he and his ilk have done.
Write your senator and representative and say to them you want a balanced approach to addressing the deficit by cutting spending and taking in extra revenue from those who can most afford it. Raising the debt ceiling is mandatory so this nation does NOT default on its past debts for the first time in its history. Raise the debt ceiling so you do not have to hit the ceiling when your nation defaults on the debts it already has incurred thereby tanking its own economy and even the economies of the world along with it! This is serious stuff. Treat it with the seriousness it deserves.
When a plane lands safely thank the FAA. When your food and air are not poisoned thank the EPA. When your Social Security helps you when you are old and your body cannot work any more thank the SSA. When Medicare pays your expensive hospital bill then thank the government for creating it. When one gets laid off a job and collects unemployment insurance thank the government for mandating it. If a medication is created or an epidemic averted than thank the NIH for helping to do that. Thank the government for doing so many enumerable other things that make our life just a little bit easier.
Middle America must realize Republicans are NOT about them. Republicans are about the top 2% of our population which should, as the president says, contribute more to reduce our deficit. The top 2% represented by their Republican henchmen want to have it all. They want bailouts and bonuses without contributing to the government that gave it to them; a government owned by the people. The president is right the debt ceiling MUST be raised. If we must reduce the deficit to raise the ceiling then we must do it with an evenhanded approach which includes revenue -- money taken in.
Again, I say it: America, the Republican Party with their Tea Party hijackers is NOT about you. The Republican Party represents 2% of the population which Republicans entrust with their own jobs. Republicans will accept nothing the president offers because they are using this serious game of chicken to see if they can defeat him but by defeating him they defeat us. As those in Wisconsin saw after they elected a ruinous Republican Governor Walker, his party was NOT about most of them. Now they have the difficult task to undo the evil he and his ilk have done.
Write your senator and representative and say to them you want a balanced approach to addressing the deficit by cutting spending and taking in extra revenue from those who can most afford it. Raising the debt ceiling is mandatory so this nation does NOT default on its past debts for the first time in its history. Raise the debt ceiling so you do not have to hit the ceiling when your nation defaults on the debts it already has incurred thereby tanking its own economy and even the economies of the world along with it! This is serious stuff. Treat it with the seriousness it deserves.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Making Rational the Irrational – the Norwegian Massacre: The carnage of the innocents lies screaming to me in the night. I ask why. Why does such bestial cruelty lie within man and yet man possess the ability to do the greatest good. It is man’s eternal conundrum. Why can one man commit the slaughter of innocents and other men risk their lives to help people dying of thirst? We have both of those qualities within us. We have the capacity for great thought, for questioning, for knowledge; the ability to acquire truth through science and yet crackpot thoughts of cranks drive the politics of our time and really any time of historical scope. Man must claw his way through eons of fantasy and mythology to see truth.
A scientific truth was found today that sees Neanderthal DNA in one to two percent of our species. Genetics tells us that all of mankind originated in Africa. We can see evolution in the different species at work all around us. Evolution is indisputable and science blows continual holes in social Darwinist thought – the idea that a single race of men is innately superior to others. Right wing fanatical belief is, I believe, one of the most dangerous political ideologies because it has as its fundamental thought the denial of these truths and gives men a permission slip to commit horrific violence to another and deny personhood to that other – whoever that other may be.
The ancient Biblical Genesis tells us Cain slew his brother Able it is true but another Biblical man said “What you do unto the least of these my brethren you do unto me.” The Norwegian took over 90 innocent lives of those who were barely past childhood. Those lives were NOT his to take for a right wing extremist philosophy all science says is false. The man who took those lives calls himself Christian? I doubt that very much and so would, I suspect, Jesus himself.
A scientific truth was found today that sees Neanderthal DNA in one to two percent of our species. Genetics tells us that all of mankind originated in Africa. We can see evolution in the different species at work all around us. Evolution is indisputable and science blows continual holes in social Darwinist thought – the idea that a single race of men is innately superior to others. Right wing fanatical belief is, I believe, one of the most dangerous political ideologies because it has as its fundamental thought the denial of these truths and gives men a permission slip to commit horrific violence to another and deny personhood to that other – whoever that other may be.
The ancient Biblical Genesis tells us Cain slew his brother Able it is true but another Biblical man said “What you do unto the least of these my brethren you do unto me.” The Norwegian took over 90 innocent lives of those who were barely past childhood. Those lives were NOT his to take for a right wing extremist philosophy all science says is false. The man who took those lives calls himself Christian? I doubt that very much and so would, I suspect, Jesus himself.
Spread the Word--Malicious Mendacity: Spread the word through every hamlet and village said best by Longfellow in the last stanza of his famous poem “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.”
The Republican mendacity, deceit and yes treason of our time must be fiercely fought as our Founders fought tyranny so long ago. A world in Republican Land would be a fascist oligarchic tyranny indeed and in their eyes the people be damned as they block time and again a presidential compromise made in good faith. Raising the debt ceiling means this country will rise or fall unless it is raised and Republicans know that, block the president's compromise at every turn and do not care.
I quote Longfellow’s last stanza:
“So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,—
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.”
This time let the defiance of Republican treason and tyranny be fought by we the people. Always fight, never surrender, never give in and to quote another patriot Patrick Henry: “If this be treason make the most of it.” Let us not waste this moment which reflects the perfidy of this malicious mendacious Republican American minority. This time let the defiance of Republican tyranny be we the people!
The Republican mendacity, deceit and yes treason of our time must be fiercely fought as our Founders fought tyranny so long ago. A world in Republican Land would be a fascist oligarchic tyranny indeed and in their eyes the people be damned as they block time and again a presidential compromise made in good faith. Raising the debt ceiling means this country will rise or fall unless it is raised and Republicans know that, block the president's compromise at every turn and do not care.
I quote Longfellow’s last stanza:
“So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,—
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.”
This time let the defiance of Republican treason and tyranny be fought by we the people. Always fight, never surrender, never give in and to quote another patriot Patrick Henry: “If this be treason make the most of it.” Let us not waste this moment which reflects the perfidy of this malicious mendacious Republican American minority. This time let the defiance of Republican tyranny be we the people!
Friday, July 22, 2011
Pray away the gay -- NOT: Please think about signing the petition below. Bachmann and her husband are ruinous of lives, they are hateful, hurtful and UTTERLY unprofessional most especially their views and her husband's "treatment" of homosexuals through his "clinic."
Her husband is dealing with people's psyches some of whom are fragile. To THINK much less convey a treatment as moronic as that which says praying away the gay works is insanity in and of itself. The word expert is not in the Tea Baggie repertoire as intellectuality and rationalism are shunned. Praying away the gay is no more efficacious than is creation non-science or the denial of evolution which is scientific FACT or that climate change is a hoax. These people will be responsible for the destruction not only of individuals and our country but of the planet as well.
Her husband should have his license taken away and be investigated for FRAUD. He is accepting, of all things to Tea Baggies, Medicaid funds-- i.e. government payments for services that are junk to say the least. Your tax dollar at work -- NOT!
http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/bachmann_clinic/?rc=fb_share2
Her husband is dealing with people's psyches some of whom are fragile. To THINK much less convey a treatment as moronic as that which says praying away the gay works is insanity in and of itself. The word expert is not in the Tea Baggie repertoire as intellectuality and rationalism are shunned. Praying away the gay is no more efficacious than is creation non-science or the denial of evolution which is scientific FACT or that climate change is a hoax. These people will be responsible for the destruction not only of individuals and our country but of the planet as well.
Her husband should have his license taken away and be investigated for FRAUD. He is accepting, of all things to Tea Baggies, Medicaid funds-- i.e. government payments for services that are junk to say the least. Your tax dollar at work -- NOT!
http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/bachmann_clinic/?rc=fb_share2
Thursday, July 21, 2011
The Bottom Line Is You: The headline of the link below is “Wells Fargo Illegally Pushed Borrowers Into Subprime Mortgages, Falsified Loan Documents, Fed Says.” Wells Fargo was fined millions BUT it made BILLIONS. How will a few million in fines hurt them? The truth is NOT MUCH. What I DO hope is that it hurts its reputation and that people BOYCOTT firms that have been guilty of the GREATEST swindle and fraud since the Great Depression. In truth this economic Ponzi scheme was, I believe, systemically worse. While the Great Depression was a horrifically difficult time in world history no one can dispute, not that many invested in the stock market and there was not a mortgage facet that kicked it off.
If the government will not adequately protect us we must protect ourselves and in libertarian fashion BOYCOTT those banks and other companies that do not have safeguards in place and for God's sake WATCH THE LOANS YOU TAKE OUT. MAKE SURE YOU CAN AFFORD THEM. Beat these beasts at their own game and let them know their vicious behavior has consequence!! WATCH what or from whom you buy and READ EVERYTHING including all the fine print and most of all TRUST NO ONE. Assume these too-big-to-fail gargantuan dinosaurs will care NOTHING for you but WILL CARE for themselves. They will eat you for lunch IF you let them. DON'T!
The Huge Grant story linked below means that in addition to banking and other fraudulent investment schemes send a message to ALL media that stealing your privacy or lying is NOT acceptable either. Boycott those entities which engage in illegal and fraudulent informational activities.
Like a doctor who treats infectious disease -- ACT AS IF the person has it and proceed to rectify the malady. IF people offer you the world that seems too good to be true it often IS. QUESTION EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE WHO TAKES YOUR MONEY WHETHER IT'S A NEWSPAPER, A RETAIL BUSINESS, A MORTGAGE LENDER OR AN INVESTMENT FIRM. Assume they are not telling you the truth and investigate it.
Libertarians hate government regulation so test their philosophy. Be responsible for your own security and information. BOYCOTT those who do not ethically comply! Sign on the bottom line. Remember, the bottom line is, in fact, YOU!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/20/wells-fargo-subprime-fraud_n_905198.html?show_comment_id=98309593#comment_98309593,sb=18931,b=facebook
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/43821759/ns/today-entertainment/t/hugh-grant-wins-court-ruling-uk-phone-hacking-scandal/?fb_ref=story_header&fb_source=profile_oneline
If the government will not adequately protect us we must protect ourselves and in libertarian fashion BOYCOTT those banks and other companies that do not have safeguards in place and for God's sake WATCH THE LOANS YOU TAKE OUT. MAKE SURE YOU CAN AFFORD THEM. Beat these beasts at their own game and let them know their vicious behavior has consequence!! WATCH what or from whom you buy and READ EVERYTHING including all the fine print and most of all TRUST NO ONE. Assume these too-big-to-fail gargantuan dinosaurs will care NOTHING for you but WILL CARE for themselves. They will eat you for lunch IF you let them. DON'T!
The Huge Grant story linked below means that in addition to banking and other fraudulent investment schemes send a message to ALL media that stealing your privacy or lying is NOT acceptable either. Boycott those entities which engage in illegal and fraudulent informational activities.
Like a doctor who treats infectious disease -- ACT AS IF the person has it and proceed to rectify the malady. IF people offer you the world that seems too good to be true it often IS. QUESTION EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE WHO TAKES YOUR MONEY WHETHER IT'S A NEWSPAPER, A RETAIL BUSINESS, A MORTGAGE LENDER OR AN INVESTMENT FIRM. Assume they are not telling you the truth and investigate it.
Libertarians hate government regulation so test their philosophy. Be responsible for your own security and information. BOYCOTT those who do not ethically comply! Sign on the bottom line. Remember, the bottom line is, in fact, YOU!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/20/wells-fargo-subprime-fraud_n_905198.html?show_comment_id=98309593#comment_98309593,sb=18931,b=facebook
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/43821759/ns/today-entertainment/t/hugh-grant-wins-court-ruling-uk-phone-hacking-scandal/?fb_ref=story_header&fb_source=profile_oneline
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
The Gang of Six, Seven or whatever -- debt ceiling compromise coming out of their gangland corners -- I HOPE!: The president was vague but talked about at first the gang of six and then the gang of 7 as he added one in hopes the debt ceiling will be raised. He said he is hoping that a deal is in the works. It would be as he said "strengthening entitlements" and some as he put it revenue.
So to me IF and I say IF the strengthening of Medicare and Social Security are based on income and need. i.e. those who pay into it and make more pay more, and those that get Medicare if they make more they will pay higher co-pays and higher fees to have Medicare I can live with that. If you make more you pay a LITTLE not a lot but a little more. Sounds good to me.
Other "revenue" I don't know -- maybe close a few loopholes. It's all very nebulous now. It's raising taxes by going around the mulberry bush maybe but keeping the entitlements for those who need it for example not paying the same as someone who can afford to pay more.
Ed Schultz who is absolutely death on compromising with Republicans I think is not correct. My feeling is if we the middle class do not take a hit and those who make much more than the middle class have to pay more we MUST make a compromise and raising the debt ceiling depends upon it. I think the rich will feel this very little. Okay great who cares? As long as the middle class and the poor do not feel it I say yes to compromise.
If the president can get a negotiated settlement with the worst of the worst most uncompromising and mean Republicans to ever grace the halls of congress since before the Civil War period than who can fault him? He may have saved the country and the world from implosion yet again but worse. Our actual national security is at risk. I say you can't fault him BUT I reserve the right to change my mind when the plan comes out IF it ever does.
So to me IF and I say IF the strengthening of Medicare and Social Security are based on income and need. i.e. those who pay into it and make more pay more, and those that get Medicare if they make more they will pay higher co-pays and higher fees to have Medicare I can live with that. If you make more you pay a LITTLE not a lot but a little more. Sounds good to me.
Other "revenue" I don't know -- maybe close a few loopholes. It's all very nebulous now. It's raising taxes by going around the mulberry bush maybe but keeping the entitlements for those who need it for example not paying the same as someone who can afford to pay more.
Ed Schultz who is absolutely death on compromising with Republicans I think is not correct. My feeling is if we the middle class do not take a hit and those who make much more than the middle class have to pay more we MUST make a compromise and raising the debt ceiling depends upon it. I think the rich will feel this very little. Okay great who cares? As long as the middle class and the poor do not feel it I say yes to compromise.
If the president can get a negotiated settlement with the worst of the worst most uncompromising and mean Republicans to ever grace the halls of congress since before the Civil War period than who can fault him? He may have saved the country and the world from implosion yet again but worse. Our actual national security is at risk. I say you can't fault him BUT I reserve the right to change my mind when the plan comes out IF it ever does.
Monday, July 18, 2011
WRITE, EMAIL or SMOKE SIGNAL YOUR REPS AND SENATORS IMMEDIATELY -- see link below.
Hands Off Social Security! http://action.ourfuture.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=127
Social Security is once again under attack. The White House debt commission co-chairs want to cut benefits and raise the retirement age.
DUH no kidding. Listen to George Carlin the late great comic below who nailed it right on the money.
(some of the language in the Utube
is rough, if your sensibilities would be bothered then don't click on it -- BUT it is so prescient and he said it years before this economic
insanity debt ceiling)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q
Hands Off Social Security! http://action.ourfuture.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=127
Social Security is once again under attack. The White House debt commission co-chairs want to cut benefits and raise the retirement age.
DUH no kidding. Listen to George Carlin the late great comic below who nailed it right on the money.
(some of the language in the Utube
is rough, if your sensibilities would be bothered then don't click on it -- BUT it is so prescient and he said it years before this economic
insanity debt ceiling)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Big and Small -- More Murdoch Empire Falling: The Murdoch News of the World, Wall Street Journal et al media times 1000 has to be the most unbelievable scandal eclipsing Watergate by MILES and MILES and MILES. In both cases, though, even though I bath in the joy of seeing right wingnuts brought down, it is still in a human fashion sad. These people like Rebeckah Books the editor of News of the World at 46 years old -- 46 years old -- at the TOP of her professional career being arrested and ruining the life of a probably bright person is astounding and yes unlike she I can evoke a certain appreciation for the sadness of tragedy.
What was/were she/they thinking? The first second -- no millisecond -- she became aware of people in Murdoch's empire HACKING .. HACKING into private phone conversions of the mighty and the small what would ANY moral person do? They would say FORGETABOUTIT I'm outta here. Who could EVER on God's earth think they could get away with this MASSIVE scale of actually STEALING -- stealing lives from people, stealing their personal phone conversations and private lives. It is at the very least SICKENING. Do I see an empire falling? It surely seems that way as it is stretching endlessly from scandal sheets like News of the World, to Parliament, to Scotland Yard, to Hugh Grant to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's newborn son's cystic fibrosis diagnosis and it is crossing the pond to US newspapers like the (formerly respected) Wall Street Journal. Its editor Les Hinton resigned his post. Perhaps it will even stretch to Fox News. I would not be surprised.
From under what rock did these so called "conservative" hacking Neanderthals and their financiers crawl? Maybe Murdoch, Murdoch's son, people like Rebeckah Brooks and Les Hinton will understand what it feels like to be unemployed and the prospect of getting another job after overseeing criminal behavior does not bode well. Watch as the rats desert a sinking ship. I cannot say that I am not glad because I am. I hope the charges stick. Then again the rich get off and maybe they will hack into yet more conversations to make sure they don't end up in jail. How many judges' phones can they hack, find something personal and then blackmail or buy them off?
Keep a close watch on your phone everyone. In an anything goes culture everyone is at risk!
What was/were she/they thinking? The first second -- no millisecond -- she became aware of people in Murdoch's empire HACKING .. HACKING into private phone conversions of the mighty and the small what would ANY moral person do? They would say FORGETABOUTIT I'm outta here. Who could EVER on God's earth think they could get away with this MASSIVE scale of actually STEALING -- stealing lives from people, stealing their personal phone conversations and private lives. It is at the very least SICKENING. Do I see an empire falling? It surely seems that way as it is stretching endlessly from scandal sheets like News of the World, to Parliament, to Scotland Yard, to Hugh Grant to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's newborn son's cystic fibrosis diagnosis and it is crossing the pond to US newspapers like the (formerly respected) Wall Street Journal. Its editor Les Hinton resigned his post. Perhaps it will even stretch to Fox News. I would not be surprised.
From under what rock did these so called "conservative" hacking Neanderthals and their financiers crawl? Maybe Murdoch, Murdoch's son, people like Rebeckah Brooks and Les Hinton will understand what it feels like to be unemployed and the prospect of getting another job after overseeing criminal behavior does not bode well. Watch as the rats desert a sinking ship. I cannot say that I am not glad because I am. I hope the charges stick. Then again the rich get off and maybe they will hack into yet more conversations to make sure they don't end up in jail. How many judges' phones can they hack, find something personal and then blackmail or buy them off?
Keep a close watch on your phone everyone. In an anything goes culture everyone is at risk!
Friday, July 15, 2011
"Contagion": A Communicable Disease for Everyone: Matt Damon's new film "Contagion" coming in September (by the name you can imagine what this film is about) is one I will see and you MAY want to see as well. I attach a link to the trailer below.
I wrote the following comment of the trailer on Facebook:
OH MY GOODNESS. There is no question (if I am alive) I will see this film. It appears on first glance to be one of Damon's great films and with Steven Soderbergh directing I am not surprised. It is a perfect film for our times. The one worry I have: with all the fear directed at humanity day after day after day by the media and the events it covers do I really want to see a fictionalized film of that which hits the reptilian fear synapse of our brain in triplicate?
http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi3924270105/
I wrote the following comment of the trailer on Facebook:
OH MY GOODNESS. There is no question (if I am alive) I will see this film. It appears on first glance to be one of Damon's great films and with Steven Soderbergh directing I am not surprised. It is a perfect film for our times. The one worry I have: with all the fear directed at humanity day after day after day by the media and the events it covers do I really want to see a fictionalized film of that which hits the reptilian fear synapse of our brain in triplicate?
http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi3924270105/
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Midnight in Paris: Woody Allen yet again serves up a thought provoking, entertaining and brilliant film. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Have you ever wondered if it would have been better to have been born in a previous era? Woody Allen helps us answer that question by having us time travel a bit through the experiences of a young writer attempting to publish his first work which has as its setting a memorabilia shop filled with things of bygone eras which interest him. In this era, however, he travels with his shallow fiancé and her conservative condescending parents to Paris where the hero is smitten with its beauty and culture. What his fiancé does not know is that at the stroke of midnight our protagonist is transported to another era -- the Roaring Twenties – complete with Cole Porter music, Ernest Hemingway literature, Picasso art and Gertrude Stein as critic of the book he has just written.
This is a wonderful film especially if one has a general familiarity of the art, literature and music of that era as well as a general understanding of cultural settings in times other than our own. The film is brilliant and clever as only Woody Allen can be. The protagonist could certainly have been Woody Allen himself as he has played similar roles in many of his earlier works and if it were in a different era perhaps 20 years ago then Woody would have played the lead role instead of Owen Wilson whom I think was excellent.
Allen's talent will endure long after all who have enjoyed the genre of his films have left the scene. He brings a flavor to his films that is unique to him and yet carries with it something that touches all of us by trying to understand the human condition, its philosophical dilemmas, its heartaches, its romantic love, its fears, its joys, its failures and its triumphs.
Which era would you want to return? I always say the late 60's but "Midnight in Paris" warns us each era has its problems and its vicissitudes as mankind tries to improve upon his historical condition from generation to generation. It, therefore, gives us pause for thought maybe the era in which we do live is the best era of all. It is surely the only one we know.
This is a wonderful film especially if one has a general familiarity of the art, literature and music of that era as well as a general understanding of cultural settings in times other than our own. The film is brilliant and clever as only Woody Allen can be. The protagonist could certainly have been Woody Allen himself as he has played similar roles in many of his earlier works and if it were in a different era perhaps 20 years ago then Woody would have played the lead role instead of Owen Wilson whom I think was excellent.
Allen's talent will endure long after all who have enjoyed the genre of his films have left the scene. He brings a flavor to his films that is unique to him and yet carries with it something that touches all of us by trying to understand the human condition, its philosophical dilemmas, its heartaches, its romantic love, its fears, its joys, its failures and its triumphs.
Which era would you want to return? I always say the late 60's but "Midnight in Paris" warns us each era has its problems and its vicissitudes as mankind tries to improve upon his historical condition from generation to generation. It, therefore, gives us pause for thought maybe the era in which we do live is the best era of all. It is surely the only one we know.
Done: Tea Baggie Republicans do not care if the country tanks and it looks thankfully that the president won't budge. I hope he doesn't he has offered these swine the world. So what is the end game? Answer: Unknowable. Be prepared for another Great Recession or EVEN Great Depression. If Social Security Checks do not go out or if Medicare does not pay be prepared to have your loved ones die. Really, I'm not kidding, it's that serious. Not to mention the ever present stock market vigil as yet again your investments WILL plunge. Got any gold on hand?
I am through listening to the debt ceiling talks I can't stand it any more. No Rachel, no Olbermann, no Larry O'Donnell, no Ed Schultz, No News at least not tonight.
I will watch old movies, buy some verboten chocolate cookies, drown my tears in chocolate and at some point see Woody Allen's new film Midnight in Paris. Got fabulous reviews unlike our government!
I am through listening to the debt ceiling talks I can't stand it any more. No Rachel, no Olbermann, no Larry O'Donnell, no Ed Schultz, No News at least not tonight.
I will watch old movies, buy some verboten chocolate cookies, drown my tears in chocolate and at some point see Woody Allen's new film Midnight in Paris. Got fabulous reviews unlike our government!
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
As I see it: Larry O'Donnell cinched it for me. No matter what the criticism I may have this president is unmatched in his intellect and I think in his heart of hearts wants to do that which we elected him to do but this insanity that happened in the 2010 election midterms with the Tea Party extremists put a big fly in the ointment.
So we have to play the ball where it lies. I thought this strategic move by the president on the debt ceiling seemed very savvy and could only come from one who knows politicking inside and out and who knows what he is doing. I will place the Larry O'Donnell link below explaining how good the president's judgment on this was.
The bottom line is a Republican is unacceptable in the presidency and, as importantly, I do believe Democrats can win back the House. If that happened we would, I think, see some very good policy in the second term as a result. The president has been stonewalled at every turn. Moreover, Democrats CAN win elections as we are seeing in these small elections in NY and in CA and elsewhere. Even the State Sup Ct. Republican Judge Prossser in Wisconsin was nearly eclipsed by the Democrat and indeed she should probably have won if not for internal machinations of Republicans. It should have been a piece of cake for Prosser but it was NOT!
Wisconsin and other states that took a Republican hit with unions like Ohio and Michigan and Scott who is hated in Florida along with Maine governor Paul LePage (one of the worst extremist Republicans in Maine history) may NOT win re-election and we COULD do it with all the exposure of dirty Republican politics of which there is an abundance.
So I am linking to sites where you can listen to Larry O'Donnell's interpretation of what transpired yesterday vis a vie the debt ceiling and McConnell's offer
and a link to a donation site for the president.
Let's turn the Republican extremist and racist ideologues around and take back the House and, importantly, of course, re-elect President Obama. He needs your help. Let's repeat the glory of 2008. Our lives depend on it!
http://thelastword.msnbc.msn.com/
http://www.barackobama.com/get-involved
So we have to play the ball where it lies. I thought this strategic move by the president on the debt ceiling seemed very savvy and could only come from one who knows politicking inside and out and who knows what he is doing. I will place the Larry O'Donnell link below explaining how good the president's judgment on this was.
The bottom line is a Republican is unacceptable in the presidency and, as importantly, I do believe Democrats can win back the House. If that happened we would, I think, see some very good policy in the second term as a result. The president has been stonewalled at every turn. Moreover, Democrats CAN win elections as we are seeing in these small elections in NY and in CA and elsewhere. Even the State Sup Ct. Republican Judge Prossser in Wisconsin was nearly eclipsed by the Democrat and indeed she should probably have won if not for internal machinations of Republicans. It should have been a piece of cake for Prosser but it was NOT!
Wisconsin and other states that took a Republican hit with unions like Ohio and Michigan and Scott who is hated in Florida along with Maine governor Paul LePage (one of the worst extremist Republicans in Maine history) may NOT win re-election and we COULD do it with all the exposure of dirty Republican politics of which there is an abundance.
So I am linking to sites where you can listen to Larry O'Donnell's interpretation of what transpired yesterday vis a vie the debt ceiling and McConnell's offer
and a link to a donation site for the president.
Let's turn the Republican extremist and racist ideologues around and take back the House and, importantly, of course, re-elect President Obama. He needs your help. Let's repeat the glory of 2008. Our lives depend on it!
http://thelastword.msnbc.msn.com/
http://www.barackobama.com/get-involved
My Facbook comments summary--excuse the poorly written prose it is off the top of my head written fast to get it out. THREE good things-NOW 2012 DEMOCRATS TAKE BACK the HOUSE so the president can get more passed without having to wade through sludge.
Hahn defeats Tea Baggie in CA: The idiot Tea Baggies have shown to this country what they are about. The populist movement was taken over by BIG money and could care less about the people. They simply did not get it. Now they do as the Wisconsin governor Walker showed everyone so nicely and as Scott is doing in Florida. True colors show so when Dems make an effort they can topple these bas&*%^%ds with ease. CONGRATS to Janice Hahn in CA...bring on 2012. The Republicans have blown their own foot off. Extremism of any stripe does NOT work in this country the Republicans are seeing the beginning of a death knell because their platform is HATEFUL and regressive. This has happened spasmodically all over the country but says a LOT!!!
In Wisconsin all six fake Democrats lost to Democrats supported by the party in primaries Tuesday that are the first in a series of recall elections targeting nine Wisconsin state Republican senators along with their hateful governor tried to destroy the unions in Wisconsin -- BAD move.
ON WISCONSIN. The Tea Baggies have shown their colors. Democrats are winning and some Republican special election seats all over the country. The Republican Party's days are numbered. They ruined it themselves by buying into the extremist Tea Baggie wing which is funded by BIG corporate money that hijacked a populist movement. It appealed to the most hateful part of this country.
After 2008 they were saying Republicans need to reformulate the substance of their party. They regrouped STUPIDLY and filled themselves with OLD, WHITE often racist morons who could not articulate an intelligent thought if you paid them. This is what they are getting. The Walkers and the Scotts and others like them throughout the country you cannot steal, buy or lie your way to success. EVENTUALLY they are found out for the poison policy they are about.
GO DEMOCRATS never give up, never give in and VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE. Do the necessary things and overcome roadblocks that Republicans have set up like the poll tax of old. Let them know that won't matter because you will overcome it and VOTE!
Between what happened yesterday with special election in CA, Wisconsin AND McConnell's offer on the debt ceiling (after we examine it) this is VERY good -- I feel like life is coming back into my body. KEEP IT UP!
Republicans are sowing the seeds of their own demise. Keep ruining yourself Republicans I LOVE it!
Hahn defeats Tea Baggie in CA: The idiot Tea Baggies have shown to this country what they are about. The populist movement was taken over by BIG money and could care less about the people. They simply did not get it. Now they do as the Wisconsin governor Walker showed everyone so nicely and as Scott is doing in Florida. True colors show so when Dems make an effort they can topple these bas&*%^%ds with ease. CONGRATS to Janice Hahn in CA...bring on 2012. The Republicans have blown their own foot off. Extremism of any stripe does NOT work in this country the Republicans are seeing the beginning of a death knell because their platform is HATEFUL and regressive. This has happened spasmodically all over the country but says a LOT!!!
In Wisconsin all six fake Democrats lost to Democrats supported by the party in primaries Tuesday that are the first in a series of recall elections targeting nine Wisconsin state Republican senators along with their hateful governor tried to destroy the unions in Wisconsin -- BAD move.
ON WISCONSIN. The Tea Baggies have shown their colors. Democrats are winning and some Republican special election seats all over the country. The Republican Party's days are numbered. They ruined it themselves by buying into the extremist Tea Baggie wing which is funded by BIG corporate money that hijacked a populist movement. It appealed to the most hateful part of this country.
After 2008 they were saying Republicans need to reformulate the substance of their party. They regrouped STUPIDLY and filled themselves with OLD, WHITE often racist morons who could not articulate an intelligent thought if you paid them. This is what they are getting. The Walkers and the Scotts and others like them throughout the country you cannot steal, buy or lie your way to success. EVENTUALLY they are found out for the poison policy they are about.
GO DEMOCRATS never give up, never give in and VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE. Do the necessary things and overcome roadblocks that Republicans have set up like the poll tax of old. Let them know that won't matter because you will overcome it and VOTE!
Between what happened yesterday with special election in CA, Wisconsin AND McConnell's offer on the debt ceiling (after we examine it) this is VERY good -- I feel like life is coming back into my body. KEEP IT UP!
Republicans are sowing the seeds of their own demise. Keep ruining yourself Republicans I LOVE it!
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
The Recipe: Republican Mitch McConnell proposes giving the president power over debt ceiling. I never trust Republicans. If they offer a solution there must be a trap. Could this be unconstitutional and get Obama impeached?
Impeachment notwithstanding, I don't care who does it just raise the darn ceiling so we can have a country again and so the suicide rate does not go up. America, get Republicans OUT of the House so the president can do what will get us out of the ditch. Republicans keep us there by not doing what is needed and that is increasing revenue which is at an all time low seen only in the 1950's. We need both prescient spending cuts AND increase in revenues with an emphasis on the latter.
We need government to work FOR us not against us. Mr. President, after God willing, your re-election please ask Dr. Krugman what he is doing the next four years and then put Elizabeth Warren in the most advantageous position possible. See if Brooksley Born would want a job and make your economic advisers the kind that will make you one of the greatest US presidents in history along side Lincoln and FDR. You are stymied by bad advisers and Republicans who jack boot you into submission and stagnation. Given favorable conditions I believe the president could give us an injection of incredible pride!!
DO IT. Put the House back into Democratic hands, re-elect the president in 2012 and change his economic advisers. A recipe for success!
Impeachment notwithstanding, I don't care who does it just raise the darn ceiling so we can have a country again and so the suicide rate does not go up. America, get Republicans OUT of the House so the president can do what will get us out of the ditch. Republicans keep us there by not doing what is needed and that is increasing revenue which is at an all time low seen only in the 1950's. We need both prescient spending cuts AND increase in revenues with an emphasis on the latter.
We need government to work FOR us not against us. Mr. President, after God willing, your re-election please ask Dr. Krugman what he is doing the next four years and then put Elizabeth Warren in the most advantageous position possible. See if Brooksley Born would want a job and make your economic advisers the kind that will make you one of the greatest US presidents in history along side Lincoln and FDR. You are stymied by bad advisers and Republicans who jack boot you into submission and stagnation. Given favorable conditions I believe the president could give us an injection of incredible pride!!
DO IT. Put the House back into Democratic hands, re-elect the president in 2012 and change his economic advisers. A recipe for success!
Monday, July 11, 2011
Do the Right Thing: I watched the entire presidential news conference. There was NOTHING with which anyone of good and fair conscience could disagree. This big deal between Republicans and Democrats that the president wants sinks or swims on Republican heads. It is simple. Tax increases for revenue or income coming in to the federal government will be SLIGHTLY increased and will (not until 2013) come FROM those who CAN afford it. It will NOT come from the majority of Americans. There is NOTHING unfair about it. IF big corporate anything – big finance, big pharma, big oil would not be agreeable to that then they DESERVE to have the country go down the drain. Make no mistake IF the debt ceiling is not raised our experiment in democracy WILL fail and those who will make it fail, Republicans, are anything but patriotic.
Cuts will be made to programs about which we as Democrats grit our teeth but will have to bear. To extend the debt ceiling it requires, as the president said, for the country to feel more comfortable that our debt is being ameliorated. Extending the debt ceiling is a no brainer. It will be on Republican heads if this simple-to-understand issue which deals with debts ALREADY incurred is not done. The full faith and credit of our country is at stake and if not done the economic survival of the US and the world WILL sputter. This has implications not only economically but defensively as well since there may be soon a 7th war in the Middle East. If we are plunged into economic chaos the rich may do fine but everyone else will not. Our very lives could be at stake.
Even IF the American public – god forbid – in 2012 elects Romney what is Romney going to do? HE will extend the debt ceiling assuming the House remains in Republican hands but by that time it will be too late. NO jobs will be created because those who have all the money will abscond with it and jobs will NOT be created here.
You will NOT want to see an America that refuses to raise taxes on the wealthy but will only cut programs for the middle class and you will not want to see an America which relies ONLY on business to create jobs. It won't. They will take jobs overseas because after all the free market will be SO free the American people be damned. If it is profits or people in Republican land profits win out exclusively. Republicans do NOT care about most of you.
The president said NOTHING with which anyone of sane mind could disagree. It's only Republicans who are mean, intractable, uncompromising and, in fact, truly unpatriotic. You want to put YOUR future in their hands? I don't think you do.
America, be smart and demand your representatives NOT be an impediment to the security of the country and to our president who, I believe despite my criticism, in good faith wants to do the right thing. The debt ceiling MUST be raised.
Cuts will be made to programs about which we as Democrats grit our teeth but will have to bear. To extend the debt ceiling it requires, as the president said, for the country to feel more comfortable that our debt is being ameliorated. Extending the debt ceiling is a no brainer. It will be on Republican heads if this simple-to-understand issue which deals with debts ALREADY incurred is not done. The full faith and credit of our country is at stake and if not done the economic survival of the US and the world WILL sputter. This has implications not only economically but defensively as well since there may be soon a 7th war in the Middle East. If we are plunged into economic chaos the rich may do fine but everyone else will not. Our very lives could be at stake.
Even IF the American public – god forbid – in 2012 elects Romney what is Romney going to do? HE will extend the debt ceiling assuming the House remains in Republican hands but by that time it will be too late. NO jobs will be created because those who have all the money will abscond with it and jobs will NOT be created here.
You will NOT want to see an America that refuses to raise taxes on the wealthy but will only cut programs for the middle class and you will not want to see an America which relies ONLY on business to create jobs. It won't. They will take jobs overseas because after all the free market will be SO free the American people be damned. If it is profits or people in Republican land profits win out exclusively. Republicans do NOT care about most of you.
The president said NOTHING with which anyone of sane mind could disagree. It's only Republicans who are mean, intractable, uncompromising and, in fact, truly unpatriotic. You want to put YOUR future in their hands? I don't think you do.
America, be smart and demand your representatives NOT be an impediment to the security of the country and to our president who, I believe despite my criticism, in good faith wants to do the right thing. The debt ceiling MUST be raised.
The Road to Perpetual War: A stream of conscious:
So let's see the below link is on MSNBC and is new Sec. of Defense Panetta threatening unilateral (another Bush invention) action against Iran: WAR NO. 7?? And just when does anyone think the US will pull out of the illegal Iraq War? As they say in the trade next Tishabov: Translation -- NEVER! We are in permanent never ending war for the foreseeable future and most likely for the rest of my own life! But hey people are protesting the Caylee Anthony trial.
As bad as what happened to that little girl was does anyone protest the hundreds of thousands killed by American forces all over the Middle East, families torn, uprooted by an unnecessary destabilizing Iraq and refugees by the millions. Where is the protest? What about bombing Libya? Another ruse. You know when people will finally figure things out? When they begin drafting your sons and daughters. Now with a volunteer army one can say they opted in but a draft would change the whole picture. If that happens welcome to Vietnam II. Stay tuned for the Great Recession II and permanent war coming to a theater near you! I can hardly wait.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43708897/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/
So let's see the below link is on MSNBC and is new Sec. of Defense Panetta threatening unilateral (another Bush invention) action against Iran: WAR NO. 7?? And just when does anyone think the US will pull out of the illegal Iraq War? As they say in the trade next Tishabov: Translation -- NEVER! We are in permanent never ending war for the foreseeable future and most likely for the rest of my own life! But hey people are protesting the Caylee Anthony trial.
As bad as what happened to that little girl was does anyone protest the hundreds of thousands killed by American forces all over the Middle East, families torn, uprooted by an unnecessary destabilizing Iraq and refugees by the millions. Where is the protest? What about bombing Libya? Another ruse. You know when people will finally figure things out? When they begin drafting your sons and daughters. Now with a volunteer army one can say they opted in but a draft would change the whole picture. If that happens welcome to Vietnam II. Stay tuned for the Great Recession II and permanent war coming to a theater near you! I can hardly wait.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43708897/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/
Saturday, July 09, 2011
The Limits of War -- Food for Thought: I am reading "Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War" by Andrew Bachevich who according to Wiki is a professor of international relations at Boston University and a retired career officer in the United States Army. He is a former director of Boston University's Center for International Relations (from 1998 to 2005), and author of several books, including American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of US Diplomacy (2002), The New American Militarism: How Americans are Seduced by War (2005) and The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (2008). He has been "a persistent, vocal critic of the US occupation of Iraq, calling the conflict a catastrophic failure." In March 2007, he described George W. Bush's endorsement of such "preventive wars" as "immoral, illicit, and imprudent." His son, also an Army officer, died fighting in the Iraq War in May 2007. In summer, 2010, he accused President Barack Obama of "want[ing] us to forget about the lessons of Iraq.":
I thought the following quotes from a blog on a Glen Greenwald article "The Great Generational Threat http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/07/09/terrorism/index.html were food for thought:
-Andrew J. Bacevich, Washington Rules
I thought the following quotes from a blog on a Glen Greenwald article "The Great Generational Threat http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/07/09/terrorism/index.html were food for thought:
"James Forrestal, the first person to serve as secretary of defense, coined a term to describe this permanent crisis. He called it semiwar. Conceived by Forrestal at the beginning of the Cold War, and reflecting his own anticommunist obsessions, semiwar defines a condition in which great dangers always threaten the United States and will continue doing so into the indefinite future. When not actively engaged in hostilities, the nation faces the prospect of hostilities beginning at any moment, with little or no warning. In the setting of national priorities, readiness to act becomes a supreme value.
Semiwarriors created the Washington Rules. Semiwarriors uphold them. Semiwarriors benefit from their persistence.
The scathing complaint of foreign policy critic Roger Morris, registered some thirty years ago, remains apt today. Average Americans, he wrote then, their attention absorbed by the problems of daily life at home, 'give the rest of planet only a distracted, fleeting glance.' Easily persuaded that the United States is called upon to lead, they leave it to others to work out the details. As a result, ordinary citizens remain 'heedless of the people and closed politics,' cloaked in secrecy, that formulate policies advertised as essential to the nation's safety and well-being. From time to time, 'dour, mostly anonymous men' emerge from behind closed doors to 'announce discreetly some fresh disaster.' Although inquiries and investigations inevitably ensue, the net effect is not to fix responsibility but to disperse it. Then the game continues, the terms of reference all but unaffected, the cast of characters largely unchanged, with Republican and Democratic insiders simply exchanging portfolios at periodic intervals."
-Andrew J. Bacevich, Washington Rules
Thursday, July 07, 2011
Professorial Prescience: These are two short lectures I found on UTUBE which was given by my new-found guru, Dr. Simon Schama. I always have to find one as for me Howard Zinn's loss needs repair. I heard Professor Schama discuss the US Constitutional construct. It was riveting. Professor Simon Schama is a Professor of history and art history at Columbia University. His resume is longer than this page so I place the link below to a few words he gave about Barack Obama. This was delivered in 2009 at the Carnegie Council. It is called "Obama's Realism." We now have a bit of hindsight with which to judge his words. I think his words were as on target then as they are now.
Underneath that on Utube you will see another one of Dr. Schama's lectures given in 2009 entitled: "Us in Afghanistan and Iraq." The latter was particularly interesting I thought as he gave his rationales for why the Afghanistan war in his view is justified as opposed to the War in Iraq. I find him presciently correct.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSj-MOissYc&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6LdFsylArk&feature=relmfu
Underneath that on Utube you will see another one of Dr. Schama's lectures given in 2009 entitled: "Us in Afghanistan and Iraq." The latter was particularly interesting I thought as he gave his rationales for why the Afghanistan war in his view is justified as opposed to the War in Iraq. I find him presciently correct.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSj-MOissYc&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6LdFsylArk&feature=relmfu
No News of the World: Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch and his evil media tabloid style empire have tasted the fruits of their own Machiavellian machinations. Murdoch's closing of News of the World because of its wholesale phone hacking of innocents is I suspect but a ripple in an ocean of deceit, lies and immoral behavior in the world of scandal tabloid news. It seems to me someone famous who some think divine said "What profit a man if he gain the whole world but lose his soul?" What more precise question to address to Mr. Murdoch, et al.
I suspect News of the World is only the tip of the iceberg of this scandal driven, gluttonous, money making swill, written on the backs often of the innocent and gleaned because of the thirst for uncontrolled capitalization of human suffering. I can say, Mr. Murdoch, this is small justice but justice nonetheless to one of the most megalomaniacal , avaricious, power hungry excuses for humanity ever to grace this planet.
I suspect this is merely a scab on a festering infected sore of sensationalist tabloid anything-goes media gone WILD! May those who pumped life into this scandal NEVER rest in peace!”
I suspect News of the World is only the tip of the iceberg of this scandal driven, gluttonous, money making swill, written on the backs often of the innocent and gleaned because of the thirst for uncontrolled capitalization of human suffering. I can say, Mr. Murdoch, this is small justice but justice nonetheless to one of the most megalomaniacal , avaricious, power hungry excuses for humanity ever to grace this planet.
I suspect this is merely a scab on a festering infected sore of sensationalist tabloid anything-goes media gone WILD! May those who pumped life into this scandal NEVER rest in peace!”
Social Insecurity: he summer 2010 when the town meetings because of health care got ugly. People yelling don't take my health care away -- they meant Medicare the president did not step up to the plate and tell them the realities of the health care he was pushing. He did not push back forcefully against the Tea baggies who were fuming from the bailout. The tea baggies are SO dumb many did not realize why bailouts were necessary. He needed to scream why bailouts were necessary if they were not bailed out the big corps would fall like dominoes!!
Nov. 2012 -- he is handed a "shellacking" over bailouts and perceived spending on health care. it is what the Republicans who lost so much power in 2008 were salivating over. Now they had furious groups against bailouts and ready to hook on to no taxes. sounds good but no new spending no new jobs. By the time the Republicans had taken over the House it was too late. Now the president must work with the hand he was dealt. If he stands and fights he will be defeated by a solidity Republican House.The time that he needed to fight was the summer of 2012. The economic catastrophe was NOT the fault of him nor really of many Dems it was 30 years of a deregulated Wall Street gone mad with greed. It was his fault in the summer of 2010 but it is not his fault now.”
Nov. 2012 -- he is handed a "shellacking" over bailouts and perceived spending on health care. it is what the Republicans who lost so much power in 2008 were salivating over. Now they had furious groups against bailouts and ready to hook on to no taxes. sounds good but no new spending no new jobs. By the time the Republicans had taken over the House it was too late. Now the president must work with the hand he was dealt. If he stands and fights he will be defeated by a solidity Republican House.The time that he needed to fight was the summer of 2012. The economic catastrophe was NOT the fault of him nor really of many Dems it was 30 years of a deregulated Wall Street gone mad with greed. It was his fault in the summer of 2010 but it is not his fault now.”
Tuesday, July 05, 2011
Why support Israel: Joyce Kaufman is a talk show host and is on Utube. I agree with her generally about Israel EXCEPT for her final reason about god. Everyone thinks god is on their side and I would not base my support of Israel on a document written 5000 ago by men. The rest of her diatribe has substantive worth.
As I investigate more because I knew not much about her she appears to be a right wing nationalist ideologue much like Palin. I am not sure about that but it may be so. I do not know why I cannot voice my general support and love for Israel while not going for the rest of her anti-immigrant rants. I think I can and do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmV1ffKP0ms&feature=share
As I investigate more because I knew not much about her she appears to be a right wing nationalist ideologue much like Palin. I am not sure about that but it may be so. I do not know why I cannot voice my general support and love for Israel while not going for the rest of her anti-immigrant rants. I think I can and do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmV1ffKP0ms&feature=share
Monday, July 04, 2011
PLEASE READ and THINK: I cannot believe I am sending a link below to a Fox News story but if they have posted it you can imagine the threat. I am NOT surprised I have said this from
Day 1 of the Fukishima explosion and tsunami. Nuclear power is UNSAFE at any speed. It is subject to the whims of nature and the gross mistakes of man.
Global climate change is a FACT, it is occurring because of man and is a FACT, catastrophic weather events we have been seeing both in winter
AND summer related to fossil fuels ruining the climate is a FACT and nuclear power is NOT the answer. Rational thought rules. THINK and do not rely on
fairy stories and religious irrational myths that will DOOM all of us. Science tells us what we need to know and FACTS cannot be disputed.
For your Fourth of July reading which I hope prods you to THINK well what our Founders gave us and how toxic religion mixed with government policy is. Ultimately, it will kill us all.
Christ was right when he is alleged to have said: "Render to Cesar what is Cesar's and to God what is God's." THINK ON THAT and
do not give up man's gift -- the ability to rationally THINK!
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/06/29/radiation-in-our-food/
Day 1 of the Fukishima explosion and tsunami. Nuclear power is UNSAFE at any speed. It is subject to the whims of nature and the gross mistakes of man.
Global climate change is a FACT, it is occurring because of man and is a FACT, catastrophic weather events we have been seeing both in winter
AND summer related to fossil fuels ruining the climate is a FACT and nuclear power is NOT the answer. Rational thought rules. THINK and do not rely on
fairy stories and religious irrational myths that will DOOM all of us. Science tells us what we need to know and FACTS cannot be disputed.
For your Fourth of July reading which I hope prods you to THINK well what our Founders gave us and how toxic religion mixed with government policy is. Ultimately, it will kill us all.
Christ was right when he is alleged to have said: "Render to Cesar what is Cesar's and to God what is God's." THINK ON THAT and
do not give up man's gift -- the ability to rationally THINK!
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/06/29/radiation-in-our-food/
Friday, July 01, 2011
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE NUCLEAR MADNESS AND OTHER THINGS: This blog is off the top of my head. There is no time to waste writing a pristine constructed opinion so I am writing what I thought as I awoke and read the news. Two stories at first light -- the Minnesota government shut down AND Los Alamos.
There is so much sickening news I don't know where to begin. This country is waging SIX yes, count them SIX wars -- Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya under the direction of a Nobel Peace laureate!! All I have to do is get up and check the news in the a.m. and I begin to shake. Huffington Post has a huge headline -- "Minnesota shut down." I'm not a naive person but I saw that headline after just waking up and even though I have woken up to worse headlines certainly but with EVERYTHING else I am not kidding I am sitting here shaking.
It's not just Minnesota its the whole country and even the world -- Greece comes to mind. Their people riot but their legislators do not care. They cut their jobs anyway. This has all been perpetrated by bankster Wall Street greed that's where the thread to all this horrible news began. Do you think Blankfein of Goldman Sachs and his cronies are worried about losing their HOMES (plural)? HELL NO but little teachers in 50 states are shaking in their boots. People with no homes, no jobs, no food, living in cars, shelters or motels is no longer the exception. George Carlin had it so right it is amazing. The oligarchy is coming for all you have because they do NOT care about you.
Of course there is always the nuclear madness of Los Alamos, Fukishima, and two nuclear powered big time floods in Nebraska. Our nation is sinking fast I do believe that and I lay it at Wall Street's feet and a government whose people were railroaded by them because our oligarchic government whores and its corporatist johns are in bed with each other.(pardon the rough expression.)
I feel so powerless because the people of this nation are SO unintelligent if they can elect Republicans and some Dems too who put us into this mess. I do believe that for the most part Dems would NOT slash the little guys' jobs or humanitarian programs that feed the poor but go after the millionaires and billionaires who SHOULD contribute more to our nation's fiscal sanity. They would also have started to deal with climate change ridding ourselves of the corporate albatross -- OIL and infusing our economy with new clean energy life. This is a startling time. It is the worst I have ever known. But Americans will do what Americans always do care about comparatively waste-of-time stories about Whitey Bulger, Strauss-Kahn, Casey Anthony's trial for murder and Nancy Grace's histrionics when the nation of 350,000, 000 and the world of six billion people are drowning. It's all about priorities and our nation, for the most part, simply does not get it.
I enclose my relative's blog about our nuclear madness. In addition, I link Huffington's blog about Minnesota for your reading pleasure.
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/07/lies-damn-lies-and-safe-nuclear-power.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
There is so much sickening news I don't know where to begin. This country is waging SIX yes, count them SIX wars -- Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya under the direction of a Nobel Peace laureate!! All I have to do is get up and check the news in the a.m. and I begin to shake. Huffington Post has a huge headline -- "Minnesota shut down." I'm not a naive person but I saw that headline after just waking up and even though I have woken up to worse headlines certainly but with EVERYTHING else I am not kidding I am sitting here shaking.
It's not just Minnesota its the whole country and even the world -- Greece comes to mind. Their people riot but their legislators do not care. They cut their jobs anyway. This has all been perpetrated by bankster Wall Street greed that's where the thread to all this horrible news began. Do you think Blankfein of Goldman Sachs and his cronies are worried about losing their HOMES (plural)? HELL NO but little teachers in 50 states are shaking in their boots. People with no homes, no jobs, no food, living in cars, shelters or motels is no longer the exception. George Carlin had it so right it is amazing. The oligarchy is coming for all you have because they do NOT care about you.
Of course there is always the nuclear madness of Los Alamos, Fukishima, and two nuclear powered big time floods in Nebraska. Our nation is sinking fast I do believe that and I lay it at Wall Street's feet and a government whose people were railroaded by them because our oligarchic government whores and its corporatist johns are in bed with each other.(pardon the rough expression.)
I feel so powerless because the people of this nation are SO unintelligent if they can elect Republicans and some Dems too who put us into this mess. I do believe that for the most part Dems would NOT slash the little guys' jobs or humanitarian programs that feed the poor but go after the millionaires and billionaires who SHOULD contribute more to our nation's fiscal sanity. They would also have started to deal with climate change ridding ourselves of the corporate albatross -- OIL and infusing our economy with new clean energy life. This is a startling time. It is the worst I have ever known. But Americans will do what Americans always do care about comparatively waste-of-time stories about Whitey Bulger, Strauss-Kahn, Casey Anthony's trial for murder and Nancy Grace's histrionics when the nation of 350,000, 000 and the world of six billion people are drowning. It's all about priorities and our nation, for the most part, simply does not get it.
I enclose my relative's blog about our nuclear madness. In addition, I link Huffington's blog about Minnesota for your reading pleasure.
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/07/lies-damn-lies-and-safe-nuclear-power.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
Thursday, June 30, 2011
The Case for Northern Secession: I just read a headline on MSNBC which said: “With a price tag of at least $1.5 billion, the Jiaozhou Bay Bridge is 2.5 miles longer than Louisiana's Lake Pontchartrain Causeway.” The article is about a huge bridge China recently constructed and made my cerebral wheels turn. My sin is envy. Some say China will be on the downturn. Well, I do not see that yet. I see wherever I go, whatever I buy a made in China tag. Few things are made in America now.
Can I get citizenship in rising China or maybe a China that already HAS already risen? I jest, of course, but I pause for thought. That industrious and population gargantuan country is where the US used to be at the turn of the 20th century through 2000 when the activist SCOTUS installed George W. Incompetent Bush in a stolen presidency. The US used to be the one unveiling progress and creating immense hope. I vaguely remember they used to call it the “American Dream.” Those days are gone as EVERYTHING is made somewhere else BUT in America. Nothing is left of the promise. 50% of America duped wants to vote for Republicans whose 1% mega rich supporters will take it all and leave most of us with really, well, nothing – no jobs, no homes, no money, no Social Security, no Medicare – nothing, zip, nada.
I wonder if there will be a mass exodus some day out of this country. If one rides down a major road in my town it is dotted with “Going Out of Business” and foreclosure signs on homes. Much business is gone EVEN movie theaters do not get the attention they once did. With the exception of car and body smashing stupidity films there is often nothing in the movies to see anyway and who needs a rotten box of butter drenched artery clogging popcorn for ten bucks. This is what sells in America – stupidity. What is good here any more?
We are a completely divided nation as we were in 1860, the age of Lincoln. In fact, this era reminds me of that time. Sometimes I really do wish they had allowed the red southern states to secede. Think of all the lives NOT waging the Civil War would have saved: 620,000! Maybe the Lincoln election was our biggest mistake because it forced states with an entirely regressive and reactionary philosophy to stay in a nation that was about creating its egalitarian promise and progressive change. Lincoln the last great hope for Reconstruction was, of course, assassinated by the southern “Cause” zealot John Wikes Booth.
In truth, though, in the election of 1860 Lincoln did not win by much as the election was split and the south ran the Democrat Breckenridge. Look him up he was why the Democratic Party in the 1860 election could not win. Not only did he believe in slavery, he believed in the expansion of it into the then western territories. Every candidate in that election INCLUDING Lincoln did not think the black man their equal. The difference was that Lincoln disliked slavery, did not want it to spread westward and thought a man should get paid for the labor he performed.
If it were not for most especially the southern red states our President Obama could get anything his philosophy would dictate passed. Why can he not? -- Because racism is still the cancer that rules, invades and is killing the body. That racist thought and the desire to Christianize this country tying church to state is now the underpinning of the Republican Party.
The Republican Party, some say, is the party of Lincoln? I say not any more! The Republican Party today morphed into the party of Breckenridge then. Lincoln took only 43% of the popular vote because the country was so split. We are STILL split except the parties have reversed roles. The Democratic Party became the party of FDR and systemic institutional change. The Republican Party stood for the Hoovarian status quo. In the election of 1968 the morphing of parties took shape and the so called “moral majority” – the party of endemic racism, opposition to FDR’s New Deal and LBJ's Civil Rights Act of 1965 – was born. It is now the reason the Congress can get nothing done.
I believe, racism, the cancer within that body never dies. It is the fuel that fires Republicans now and why they are so rabid to defeat Obama. One simply need look at the complexion of that party in events of its candidates. It is nearly all white. Its platform is the mixing of religion and state as well as the dismantling of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. Except for some technological advancement between 1860 and 2011 the psychological essence flowing through the veins of this country is now, as I see it, eerily the same!
Can I get citizenship in rising China or maybe a China that already HAS already risen? I jest, of course, but I pause for thought. That industrious and population gargantuan country is where the US used to be at the turn of the 20th century through 2000 when the activist SCOTUS installed George W. Incompetent Bush in a stolen presidency. The US used to be the one unveiling progress and creating immense hope. I vaguely remember they used to call it the “American Dream.” Those days are gone as EVERYTHING is made somewhere else BUT in America. Nothing is left of the promise. 50% of America duped wants to vote for Republicans whose 1% mega rich supporters will take it all and leave most of us with really, well, nothing – no jobs, no homes, no money, no Social Security, no Medicare – nothing, zip, nada.
I wonder if there will be a mass exodus some day out of this country. If one rides down a major road in my town it is dotted with “Going Out of Business” and foreclosure signs on homes. Much business is gone EVEN movie theaters do not get the attention they once did. With the exception of car and body smashing stupidity films there is often nothing in the movies to see anyway and who needs a rotten box of butter drenched artery clogging popcorn for ten bucks. This is what sells in America – stupidity. What is good here any more?
We are a completely divided nation as we were in 1860, the age of Lincoln. In fact, this era reminds me of that time. Sometimes I really do wish they had allowed the red southern states to secede. Think of all the lives NOT waging the Civil War would have saved: 620,000! Maybe the Lincoln election was our biggest mistake because it forced states with an entirely regressive and reactionary philosophy to stay in a nation that was about creating its egalitarian promise and progressive change. Lincoln the last great hope for Reconstruction was, of course, assassinated by the southern “Cause” zealot John Wikes Booth.
In truth, though, in the election of 1860 Lincoln did not win by much as the election was split and the south ran the Democrat Breckenridge. Look him up he was why the Democratic Party in the 1860 election could not win. Not only did he believe in slavery, he believed in the expansion of it into the then western territories. Every candidate in that election INCLUDING Lincoln did not think the black man their equal. The difference was that Lincoln disliked slavery, did not want it to spread westward and thought a man should get paid for the labor he performed.
If it were not for most especially the southern red states our President Obama could get anything his philosophy would dictate passed. Why can he not? -- Because racism is still the cancer that rules, invades and is killing the body. That racist thought and the desire to Christianize this country tying church to state is now the underpinning of the Republican Party.
The Republican Party, some say, is the party of Lincoln? I say not any more! The Republican Party today morphed into the party of Breckenridge then. Lincoln took only 43% of the popular vote because the country was so split. We are STILL split except the parties have reversed roles. The Democratic Party became the party of FDR and systemic institutional change. The Republican Party stood for the Hoovarian status quo. In the election of 1968 the morphing of parties took shape and the so called “moral majority” – the party of endemic racism, opposition to FDR’s New Deal and LBJ's Civil Rights Act of 1965 – was born. It is now the reason the Congress can get nothing done.
I believe, racism, the cancer within that body never dies. It is the fuel that fires Republicans now and why they are so rabid to defeat Obama. One simply need look at the complexion of that party in events of its candidates. It is nearly all white. Its platform is the mixing of religion and state as well as the dismantling of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. Except for some technological advancement between 1860 and 2011 the psychological essence flowing through the veins of this country is now, as I see it, eerily the same!
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