MEA CULPA

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

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

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

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

Elections matter.  

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

Forward this to anyone you choose.

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

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

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

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

Simple Complexity

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Either or

Either we unseat these vicious, death wielding stupidity of the tea baggers ACROSS THE NATION or we will die AS a nation. It cannot go on this way. Science denying IDIOTS, racists and NRA wackos CANNOT and MUST not prevail.

I do not care how you do it but they MUST MUST MUST be defeated in 2014.  They are a blight and a pox on our nation.  Think of how many good things would be if they NEVER gained a foothold in 2010.  They make us the laughing stock of the world in a world that does NOT have much to laugh about.

From the NECESSARY funding of the government to making the presidents health care law work to even better economic recovery this can ONLY be done with a majority in the House and Senate while we still have the president in office.  Baggers MUST MUST MUST be crushed in 2014 along with voter suppression.  This is a national nightmare and reducing the vote instead of increasing it is simply wrong.  DO WHAT YOU CAN AND START NOW!!!

-- 

Fukushima: Uncontainable by Stephen Lendman--Knowledge is Power

I do not always agree with my very left of center cousin, Stephen Lendman, BUT there are some things on which we do and Fukishima is one of them.  He backs up his writing with facts.  He is a weekly commentator on PRN radio (Progressive Radio Networks) and a writer of numbers of books.  His article on Fukishima has substance and, although lengthy, is worth taking the time to read.  It's not cheery as little in national and global politics is BUT my adage to know is better than to not know prevails.  Ignorance is doom but knowledge is power even IF power over this phenomenon eludes!

Japan's apocalypse continues. Emergency conditions persist. No end in sight looms. Fukushima's radioactive discharges can't be stopped. They continue. They're uncontainable.

At issue is by far the worst environmental disaster in history. It's multiples worse than Chernobyl. It's an unprecedented catastrophe. It's reason enough to abolish nuclear power.

According to Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, about 300 tons of radioactive groundwater flow into the Pacific daily.

It's done so since Japan's March earthquake and tsunami triggered Fukushima's meltdown.Tokyo Electric (TEPCO) says water's getting over and around "chemical walls." It can't be stopped. Three Fukushima reactors suffered meltdowns. A fourth was badly damaged.

The worst fear remains. Unit Four's structural integrity was seriously undermined. It contains hundreds of tons of highly radioactive water.

If an earthquake or other natural disaster occurs, its fuel rods almost certainly will catch fire. Radioactive emissions will follow. They'll compound what's already disastrous.

Emissions will continue longterm. They'll circle the planet. They cause catastrophic harm.

Since March 2011, Tepco estimates around 20 to 40 trillion radioactive tritium becquerels leaked into the Pacific. So have large cesium and strontium discharges. They continue. They're much more dangerous.

According to nuclear expert Arnie Gunderson, "(t)he horse is already out of the barn." Leakage continues since earthquake and tsunami struck.

Radioactive water contaminates the Pacific. Gunderson's "experience with underground water is that - if it is serious at the ocean, it is more serious" on land.

Japanese officials proposed erecting a barrier. At issue is preventing water from reaching the Pacific. Whatever's done "is two years too late and will be too late by the time" construction's finished, said Gunderson.

A barrier's not the solution. It causes another problem. "If the water can't go anywhere into the Pacific Ocean, it is going to build up onsite, which means that the nuclear reactors themselves will become unstable." "The water can pull underneath the nuclear buildings and if there is an earthquake, in fact the nuclear buildings could topple. So, by solving one problem, they are creating another problem."

Gunderson believes contaminated water will keep discharging for at least 20 to 30 years. It's the most radioactive water he ever experienced.

Cost is another issue. Cleanup involves around half a trillion dollars, says Gunderson. Most important is human health.

Epidemic cancer levels are certain. And not just in Japan. In early July, Fukushima's former chief operator, Masao Yoshida, died of esophogeal cancer.

He was 58. Tepco lied saying his death was unrelated to radiation exposure. Japanese children are experiencing a shocking 40% rise in thyroid irregularities.

Experts expect much higher numbers ahead. Fukushima's an ongoing disaster. It persists. It's not ending. It'll continue for decades.

According to Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) president Arjun Makhijani:

"Fukushima continues to be an emergency without end - vast amounts of radioactivity, including strontium-90 in the groundwater, evidence of leaks into the sea, the prospect of contaminated seafood."

"Strontium-90, being a calcium analog, bioaccumulates in the food chain. It is likely to be a seaside nightmare for decades."

It's much more dangerous than cesium 137 and 134. It's at levels 30 times higher.

"So to give you an idea of the level of contamination, if somebody drank that water for a year, they would almost certainly get cancer."

"So that's one problem. The other is the defenses to hold back this water from the sea seem to be overcome."

"So now the contaminated waters, 70,000, 80,000 gallons, are flowing into the sea every day."

"(S)ome of it will disperse and dilute. Some of it goes into the sediment, and some of it is taken up by the life in the sea."

"And the unfortunate thing about strontium especially is that it bioaccumulates in algae. It bioaccumulates in fish."

"It targets the bone, because it's like calcium. And so this is a problem. We don't have measurements far out to sea."

"The Woods Hole Institute has done some surveys. And they were surprised by how much continuing radioactivity they found, but no clear explanation yet."

The effect on human health's expected to be devastating. It's already bad. It's getting progressively worse. The genie's out of the bottle. No end in sight looms.

Strontium-90 and cesium are both perilous. "(S)ince strontium-90 is more mobile and also more dangerous biologically, (it) behaves like calcium, so it goes to the bone."

"It also bioaccumulates in the base of the food chain and algae. Ultimately because it does bioaccumulate and there is quite a lot of strontium, you could have a large part of the food chain near Fukushima being contaminated."

If pregnant women ingest contaminated water, fish or other food, "the outcomes could be worse than cancer because then you’re talking about a much more compromised child in the sense of having a compromised immune system - it makes you more vulnerable to all kinds of diseases."

Makhijani doesn't know how Tepco can handle the problem. It's uncontrollable.

"It's very, very unclear to me how they are going to be able to get at this molten fuel, extract it from the bottoms of these highly damaged buildings and package it for safer or less dangerous storage or disposal."

"This is an accident that's shockingly not stopping." It's certain to worsen. It's unchartered territory.

It affects the region. It's humanity's worst environmental nightmare. Nuclear rain affects North America and Europe. Obama's an unabashed nuclear power promoter. He wants more reactors built. He wants licenses for aging poorly maintained plants with poor safety records extended. He wants them operating unregulated. 

He's recklessly endangering Americans. He talks clean energy alternatives. Policy measures spurn them. He fronts for corporate favorites.

He's captive to a destructive industry. He risks a Fukushima-type disaster on US soil. He risks millions of American lives. He's mindless of potential dangers.

Nuclear power's inherently unsafe. Einstein called it a hellova way to boil water. It does so through massive heat. It turns it into steam. It powers an electricity generating turbine.

According to anti-nuclear activist Karl Grossman:Avoiding potentially catastrophic accidents "requires perfection and no acts of God." Humans and technology aren't perfect. Natural and other disasters happen.

"We can't eliminate them. But we can - and must - eliminate atomic energy." Otherwise it'll eliminate us.

Nuclear expert Helen Caldicott's clear and unequivocal, saying:"As a physician, I contend that nuclear technology threatens life on our planet with extinction." 
"If present trends continue, the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink will soon be contaminated with enough radioactive pollutants to pose a potential health hazard far greater than any plague humanity has ever experienced." 

It doesn't get any clearer than that.

A Final Comment

Coverup and denial followed Chernobyl's disaster. Helen Caldicott called doing so "the most monstrous coverup in the history of medicine."

The death toll was many multiples greater than reported. Estimates range up to a million or more.

The New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) translated thousands of Russian articles and papers. It added "revised and updated contributions."

"Written by leading authorities from Eastern Europe, the volume outlines the history of the health and environmental consequences of the Chernobyl disaster," NYAS said.

"According to the authors, official discussions from the (IAEA) and associated (UN) agencies (e.g. the Chernobyl reports) have largely downplayed or ignored many of the findings reported in the Eastern European scientific literature and consequently have erred by not including these assessments."

Fukushima far exceeds Chernobyl. Millions of lives are threatened. Perhaps future independent studies will explain. They'll be too little to late to help victims.

Say it Ain't So: Unpresidented debacle:Deadliest Part of Fukishima nuclear plant cleanup

Say it ain't so:  here or below.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/13/fukushima-nuclear-plant-cleanup_n_3752046.html

Why I Love MSNBC

My email friend responded to one of my mails concerning my own decided political slant and use of progressive talking points to compose my opinions.  I admit  I am 100% biased when it comes to intellectual stars and academic pros.  One of my professors used to say, during the Vietnam years, that studies seem to place higher educational academics and experts left of center in the political spectrum of ideas.  I concurred with her and so does my friend K.F. Stone who writes the K.F. Stone Weekly.

He wrote the following which says it all:

I must admit that I too thoroughly enjoy (Dr.) Rachel Maddow (B.A. Stanford, M.A., DPhil. Oxford, Rhodes Scholar), Lawrence O'Donnell (B.A. Harvard), Ezra Klein (B.A., UCLA) and Sam Stein (B.A. Dartmouth, M.A. Columbia).  But how can you compare them to Glenn Beck (Sehome High School), Rush Limbaugh (Central High School) and Sean Hannity (Adelphia drop-out)?

Oh what an intellectual snob I am . . .

Be good to yourself!

 KFS (B.A. in History, Philosophy and Political Science, Univ. of California; Fellow, Eagleton Institute of Politics; M.A.H.L., Rabbinic Ordination and Doctor of Divinity, Hebrew Union College).

Ground Your Stand

For those who cannot see the entire piece here is the link:

http://www.kurtfstone.typepad.com/

August 11, 2013

Ground Your Stand

Audio Link to "Ground Your Stand"

Yes, yes, I know: Ground Your Stand is a pretty kitschy title for an essay -- an obvious and unapologetically sophomoric play on words.  Nonetheless, it is the title of this week's piece . . . one which will strive to make a serious -- and hopefully less than kitschy -- point.  For it seems to me that these days, the positions -- the stands -- many people take on issues of importance,  are, far more often than not, grounded in the tremorous quicksand of pre-packaged, spoon-fed opinion.  Baldly stated, far too many of us are being schooled by folks who haven't the slightest idea what they're talking about.  And, what's even worse, as more and more major media outlets are scooped up by the unfathomably wealthy, our ability -- let alone our opportunity -- to separate the cement of responsible reportage from the quicksand of partisan propaganda will become ever more dangerously degraded.

As a rather public person, I have the opportunity of conversing with literally hundreds of people every week.  While I would relish more chit-chat about baseball (my Dodgers are absolutely fantastic!), most of the conversations deal with political issues: with Obamacare, the state of the economy, the disfunctionality of Congress,  foreign relations, the Middle East . . . you name it.   Frequently, I find that these conversations, far from being an exchange of facts, impressions or ideas, are a boldfaced attempt to ram a point of view down my throat; to prove that they are right and I am wrong.  Just within the past week, I have been told in no uncertain terms that:

• President Obama's cancelling his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin was "an act of weakness";
• Obamacare is "forcing a lot of employers to go out of business";
• "With the likes of Filner, Weiner and Spitzer it's the Democrats, not the Republicans, who are anti-woman";
• If the government winds up being shut down, "it will be the President's fault";
• "Democrats want to keep unemployment high so that more and more voters will be beholden to them for food stamps";
• "The single-best way to expand the nation's economy is to slash spending."

Now, while intelligent people can agree to disagree -- and I for one do not agree with much of the above -- the thing that struck me in listening to these people is how many of them used precisely the same verbiage.  When I asked, as an example, how slashing spending would create economic expansion, I was told that "in the real world, that's how things work."  When asked for an instance when cutting federal expenditures led to economic revival, the response was a groaning silence. When it came to the issue of Obamacare causing many small businesses to shut their doors, I asked for further details; all I got in response was "It's happening all over America."  With regards to Filner, Weiner, and Spitzer, I said that while I certainly agree that all three are undoubtedly reprobates, they, unlike such squeaky-clean politicians as Romney, McCain, Cantor and Rubio support a woman's right to choice, as well as equal pay for equal work.  "They have severe shortcomings as men, not as members of the Democratic Party," I said.  To this all I got back was the comment that "It's the Democrats who are anti-woman, not the Republicans." 

Could it be that these folks are grounding their stands in the same partisan fact-free loam?  You betcha.  And what's more, the ground upon which they anchor their stand is even less secure than one might imagine.  

According to a recent Farleigh Dickenson University PublicMind survey watching only Fox News makes one less informed than watching no news at all.  In their study 1,185 respondents nationwide were asked about what news sources they consumed in the past week and then were asked a variety of questions about current political and economic events in the U.S. and abroad. On average, people were able to answer correctly 1.8 of 4 questions about international news, and 1.6 of 5 questions about domestic affairs. Researchers determined that someone who never watched the news would nonetheless be able to answer 1.22 out of 5 questions on domestic policy correctly.  Unbelievably, those who got their information from Fox News were only able to answer 1.04 out of 5 correctly -- meaning that watching Fox makes you less well informed than watching no news at all.  Now, in fairness, those who got most of their information from MSNBC were scored only slightly higher (1.26 out of 5).  At the top of the scale, the best informed were those who got their news either from NPR (1.51), Sunday talk shows (1.47) or the John Stewart Show (1.47).

In terms of international issues, NPR devotees again scored best -- 1.97 out of 4, while those getting news from Fox languished in last place at 1.08 out of 4.  The survey concluded that " . . .those who watched no news -- answering questions by guessing or relying on existing knowledge -- fared far better than those who watched the most popular 24-hour cable news network (i.e. Fox News)."

Cable news, talk radio and most websites do have political slants.  They are in business to entertain, keep their advertisers happy and their viewers/listener/readers engaged.  If they can back up their opinions with facts, more power to them.  However, in most cases, as they used to say on Fleet Street, "If it bleeds, its leads."  Sensationalism and attack will generally win out  over reason and fact.  Regrettably, that is the nature of the beast.  

However, if we are to have control of our destiny as a society and nation, we must strive to be informed; to seek fact instead of slant, to grapple with issues rather than regurgitate pre-digested opinions. 

In short, we need to ground our stand . . . even if it does sound a bit kitsch.

©2013 Kurt F. Stone

 Posted by Kurt F. Stone on August 11, 2013 in Just Ruminating . . ., On the Media |Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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August 05, 2013

The Neverending Story

Yet another article saying exactly what I said two years ago about Fukishima! Am I a brilliant predictor? NO just a realistic interpreter of how governments -- ALL governments -- react to corporatist behemoths like the nuclear power industry. Neither cares about you!


http://www.juancole.com/2013/08/fukushimas-strontium-neverending.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+juancole%2Fymbn+%28Informed+Comment%29

Alec Baldwin to host MSNBC Fridays at 10:00 p.m.

Reports are that Alec Baldwin will be taking the Friday at 10:00 p.m. slot at MSNBC. Thank GOD! I LOVE Alec Baldwin and I cannot wait to see him. He is a hard hitting progressive who is unafraid to say what he thinks as passionately as he thinks it. He is strong in his presentation. I have always wanted him to run for higher office and I will love him replacing the rotten "Prison" segment on Fridays. I never watch something that makes me want to take a bath after I watch it. Prison was UGLY especially coming after the lofty, totally infused with class Rachel. I'm HOOKED before Alec begins.

Yet again MSNBC shows how superior it is to that OTHER no news faux news network the loathsome Fox.

GOOD luck to Alec I will surely be watching! :) happier -- made my day

Wrecked Fukushima nuke plant leaking 330 tons of contaminated water a day

Every time I see an article on this my blood pressure rises. I hate to say I told you so but I told you so as I look at my blog over two years since the Fukishima plant exploded. I KNEW and said many times that the Japanese government along with TEPCO was NOT NOT NOT NOT telling their people AND the world the truth. So here and link below is the truth. If you think it is not affecting our oceans, rivers, streams and ground water all over the world you are kidding yourself. 

Nuclear power is UNSAFE at any speed and this proves it. Do NOT expect protection from your government. They will lie before they will tell you the truth to protect the wealth of the nuclear power industry. SHAMEFUL!

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/07/19910577-wrecked-fukushima-nuke-plant-leaking-330-tons-of-contaminated-water-a-day?lite

National Treasures

There are not enough hours in the day for me to watch every commentator on MSNBC. I love them all without exception. Particular kudos go to my big three in the evening without whom my life would be so much more diminished. In the evening I watch without fail three hours of MSNBC programming -- Chris Hayes, Rachel the Supreme Maddow, and Larry O'Donnell. They are the best of the best in news commentary. I also tape other MSNBC shows that I do not have time to watch regularly.

Last night's sequences of Rachel Maddow and Larry O'Donnell were superb. I even taped The Tonight Show with Jay Leno because Larry discussed with Leno his interview of the president.

In short, MSNBC is the BEST in progressive news commentary featuring the most experienced, rational, and academically brilliant hosts as they combat the bone chilling ignorance, lies, and racism of the now extremist religious Right Republican Party. For me their commentary is like breathing and necessary for the body politic to survive. I urge you, if you did not see their shows last evening to Google them online.

Every single day is filled with interesting, highly academic and well produced political programming. MSNBC and its evening hosts are prices above rubies -- national treasures whom I highly recommend!

A Blight on Our Nation -- George W. Bush Hospitalized

The AP is reporting that George Bush has been hospitalized to open a blocked heart artery. The story is here and below.

The UNNECESSARY suffering the incompetent George W. Bush, a man who should NEVER have been president, placed on our nation and the world cannot be measured. The cost of his wars was and is staggering. From failing to act on the PDB that predicted Bin Laden's 9/11 attack to the illegal Iraq War he waged based on lies destabilizing a tinderbox Middle East region is his legacy. The killing of hundreds of thousands INCLUDING our men and women -- more than who died on 9/11 -- while relegating a million Iraqis to refugee status is the sulphurous evil he has left. The costs of his actions or in-actions are incalculable. We will, as a nation, be paying for his utter incompetence for generations.

An anarchistic Wall Street gone wild leading to a near collapse of the entire global economy and a foreign policy that wielded only death and destruction are his bestowals. It should be a LESSON to all of us to never elect a non compos mentis academically inept man to the most powerful office in the world.

May he survive his health issue but we should NEVER forget the hundreds of thousands who now suffer their own health issues from the untold cost in blood and treasure of an illegal and unnecessary war he alone perpetrated. Now he must think on his own mortality as a man who never thought on the mortality of others and a man who never experienced the human misery, damaged bodies and broken minds of those who experienced the effects of the wars he ordered waged. 

The history of the presidency of George W. Bush will be written by academically credentialed historians as a failure. He is and will forever remain a blight on our nation!


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/06/george-w-bush-hospitalized_n_3712804.html

Mercy--A Restoration of Faith

If you want to see a Sixty Minutes segment that restores one's faith in mankind watch the segment of it here or below. It is about Mercy Hospital, a medical ship that sails to a number of African states along the west coast of Africa and provides medical help (free of course) to all those who need it. 

The ship sails near where the slave trade took place in the 18th and 19th centuries but this ship and the doctors, nurses and medical personnel on it may as well be a million miles away from the slave trade horror. If this is the face of 21st century humanitarian Christianity as the ship is funded by a number of Christian churches then I say kudos to it. Perhaps Pope Francis can begin anew reinvigorating the Christian left, caring for the poor and posing the best defense and offense against the hatred spewing poisonous Christian Right. 

I shed more than a few tears watching this incredible story and I think you will too!



http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50152297n

Imitation of Life -- A Long Way to Go

Last evening Turner Movie Classics replayed the1959 film, "Imitation of Life." It, to me, was one of the classic great films of that era. It was a film centered in part on the pathos of race. It starred Lana Turner, a white -- very white and blond -- woman trying to make it in theater, John Gavin one of the most handsome actors of that time played Lana Turner's love interest, and Sandra Dee, Lana Turner's very sweet very white blond daughter. While their performances in the main plot of the film for that time were quite good, they were not, to me, the most important aspect for OUR time.

The side plot, in my opinion, was the center of the film. It included Susanna Kohner, as a mulatto young woman, Sara Jane, and her black mother Juanita Moore as the kindly Annie, Lana Turner's paid live-in housekeeper. Kohner received an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actresses in 1960. Not surprisingly she did not win as the Oscar went to a whiter actress in another film. At least, however, Kohner was given recognition for one of the best acted content rich parts in one of the best films of the time.

Over decades, I never forget the movie and wrote a review on IDMB which appears there. If any get the opportunity to view or rent this film and if you care about the never-ending American sad saga of race you will not be disappointed. The film is as heart breaking as it is important.

I wrote (with some edits) the following: 

I viewed this film when I was quite young and possessed very little political awareness. It would take the maturity of higher learning to understand why this film was so brilliant. It was a film ahead of its time discussing a subject that would not gain traction until decades later. It dealt with race in a way that reflected a 1959 Mad Menesque time when it was significantly more desirable to be white than black and when it was particularly difficult to be of mixed race origin. Those of mixed race were shunned often by both the black but most especially the white worlds. Sara Jane, the mulatto daughter of Annie, is for me the most compelling character. She is born to a black mother and a never-seen white father and desperately wanted to be accepted as white in a white centric world of privilege and social class advantage. She suffers humiliations because superficially she could pass for white BUT when her truth was understood she was brutally rejected and sometimes violently so. In her racial torment she distances herself completely from her black mother who achingly and heartbreakingly loved her but whom Sara Jane both loved and hated for bestowing upon Sara Jane her immutable genetic reality.

I so often throughout the years thought of this film. I loved the character of Sara Jane and empathized with her emotionally desperate yearning because of my own immutable circumstances. When I became more politically aware I knew why we were advocating for changes that were so necessary. Sara Jane was born too soon in a world that crushed, brutalized and destroyed both her and her adoring, tortured and sad mother who tried desperately to retain her daughter but could not. Sara Jane leaves her to make it in a white world and makes her mother promise to never look for her or even if encountering her on the street demands her mother pass her by without acknowledgment.

This film is a tear jerker for sure BUT an important film which I cannot recommend highly enough. It should NEVER be lost in time because it said so much about THAT time, the realities of our own time and why things had to change, did change but, in many ways, remain the same. I am proud that I stood up for that change and wanted to tell Sara Jane that things get better. Things did get better but as history unfolds we know we still have a long way to go, indeed.

White on white crime! -- Huff Po Headline

THE $14 TRILLION CRISIS

This is WHITE ON WHITE FINANCIAL VIOLENCE! Those too big to fail [fill in the blank] who knowingly perpetrated this -- big banksters, rating systems FRAUD, housing liars loans and lending institutions should be given LIFE times 1000 in a federal prison!


story here or below!




http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

From Angry Red to Pacific Blue – My Letter to the NAACP

Sirs/Madams:   The Supreme Court case neutering Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act means we must fight against those who would try to CLEARLY suppress the minority vote.   Republicans know if those who can legally vote are allowed to vote Republicans will lose overwhelmingly in both state and federal elections. They are a dying party made up primarily of older angry racist whites. We of all races, age and ethnic groups must effectively finish the job of extinguishing the Republican Party by ALL legal means necessary.

These know-nothing racist ghosts emanating from previous American eras are very much alive in this era trying their best to regress this nation to its vicious racist and misogynist past.  We MUST fight this by every legal means necessary.  I believe Attorney General Eric Holder will help us do that; at least I hope he will.

Moreover, we must, on every state and federal level do what needs to be done to ensure every minority who CAN vote is registered TO vote and the efforts to do this must begin now.  Someone I know suggested hiring buses in states like Texas, where the drive for a photo ID would be long and difficult, to transport hundreds if not thousands to obtain the required voter ID and thereby sign up Democratic voters.

We must fight these illegal attempts by Republicans to take away the vote from minorities to ensure Democratic losses and Republican wins. Voting rights were fought for with the blood of black and white patriots over centuries.  It MUST NOT HAPPEN that a Republican Party to avoid its extinction is now allowed to do things even third world nations do not do.  Our nation, an exporter of "democracy," looks like a nation of hypocrites when the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, decided in the Shelby case to emasculate and excise Section 5, the enforcer of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.  The five so called "conservative" justices KNEW racism and prejudice in this nation had not gone away but they decided to cut the legs off the Voting Rights Act by neutering Section 5 of that law. 

The murder of Trayvon Martin, if nothing else, proved that racism and prejudice are quite firmly entrenched in the foundational cement of this nation.  They have never gone away and the fight for minority rights is NOT over because we elected a person of color to the presidency.

We must fight these dastardly attempts at voter suppression in the courts, we must fight them at the ballot box, and we must fight them by peaceful protest.  We must fight them any way we can.  In addition, we must beat these haters at their own game and DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO SIGN PEOPLE UP TO VOTE.  I do not care how we do it, whether on foot, by bus or by helicopter it must be done. 

2014 SHOULD be the year the Democrats TAKE BACK THE HOUSE.  It is imperative for our president to do what he has wanted to do all along and that is to concentrate on creating jobs, building infrastructure and developing clean energy the country so desperately needs.  Republicans and Tea Baggers mostly white racist know-nothings OBSTRUCT him because they want this first president of color to fail even if it means the failure of the nation as well.  We must NOT LET THE REPUBLICAN PARTY do their dastardly deeds.  We of humanitarian and progressive thought must in 2014 take back the House, take back state legislatures and the governors’ mansions too.  We must through the only political vehicle we have, the Democratic Party, turn ALL of them from angry red to pacific blue!

N. Rosen

Framingham, MA

 

Op-Ed: Helen Thomas - The Ugly Truth

Op-Ed: Helen Thomas - The Ugly Truth

One doesn't speak ill of the dead, but perhaps there are exceptional circumstances.

By Rabbi David Nesenoff

While serving for decades as a pulpit rabbi, I had the opportunity to hear eulogies offered by family and friends. It is quite curious to see how we speak of the dead. And so it is in the case of Helen Thomas.

As the person who video interviewed Helen Thomas on the White House lawn in May 2010, the famous video that went viral, capturing Helen Thomas saying that the Jews should leave Israel and go back to Germany and Poland, I watched with interest the memorializing of her passing. After all, three years ago, when she delivered her scathing words to me on the White House lawn on Jewish Heritage Day, she was thrown out of her job; the White House press corps banished her, the Nines Agency dropped their representation, her coauthor quit her and numerous speaking engagements were cancelled.

Soon after, the White House removed the plaque bearing her name from her front row seat in the briefing room; her name was removed from the tolerance award at her alma mater Wayne State University and her name was erased from the Society of Professional Journalists’ award as well. President Obama, himself, on camera, said that her words were “indefensible.”

Helen Thomas went on further to tell Playboy Magazine that the Zionists own “Congress, the White House, Hollywood and Wall Street.” Two congressmen, Republican Steve Chabot and Democrat Elliot Engel, even threatened to cancel all funding to the Palestinian Authority specifically because of its award to Helen Thomas.

Certainly one should be able to talk about Israel, disagree and offer various opinions on the White House lawn or any front lawn. But the classic dictionary definition of a bigot and racist is “Blacks go back to Africa” and “Jews go back to Germany.”

Helen Thomas managed 60 years of hiding behind her anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian veil until it was finally removed. And the naked anti-Jewish truth stood before us. Everyone saw it, knew it and threw her out.

But upon Helen Thomas’ death, TV show host Mika Brzezinski announced on MSNBC that Helen Thomas was her “role model.” CBS News decided to just change history and say that Helen Thomas said that the Jews should go back to “Europe.” CBS erased the word “Germany.”

President Obama lauded Helen Thomas as a “true pioneer,” ignoring her vile anti-Jewish words that had her thrown out of his house. Newspaper obituaries trivialized her bigotry, characterizing it as a small controversy stemming from her feistiness, and newscasters’ dimples’ grinned, “Oh that Helen, ha-ha.”

While every news source and the U.S. Justice Department scour information resources and beg, steal and borrow to find a nuance of a glimpse of evidence that George Zimmerman is a racist, Helen Thomas is on video blaring and blazing words that threw her out of polite society.

Yet upon her passing, the truth, facts, videos, quotes, and evidence of Helen Thomas being a blatant proud anti-Semite are all buried even before Helen is. Her original apology is sometimes included, but without mention of her continued post apology anti-Jewish words that have been documented. All the media are very quick to throw stones at Rolling Stone magazine’s cover of bombing suspect Tsarnaev, while they themselves air brush and glorify the life of a banished, video proven, anti-Semite Helen Thomas.

Whatever Helen Thomas may have accomplished for females in journalism and women’s rights, she erased by denying Jewish rights and human rights. And last I checked, women are part of humanity and they should be concerned about her denigrating words as well. She is the antithesis of a role model. If you are blessed to have the front row center seat, you should shine the light on the truth, the whole truth, and not take advantage and use it as a bully pulpit. And more recently she spouted disgusting lies about non-existent Israeli atrocities that I wouldn’t even dignify to repeat.

The world is a scary place and those informing us need to pay attention and report with truth. They can start by telling the truth about one of their own. Being a proven banished video documented anti-Semite should not be a small footnote in someone’s obituary. It is ultimately part and parcel of one’s legacy and it infected the world.

I found out the news that Helen Thomas died when I received an email from someone who wrote: “Happy now Kike?” He called me a “nasty filthy and smelly Jew …one of the ones Hitler missed.” I assume Helen Thomas was also his role model.

(David Nesenoff is a rabbi, film maker and author of David’s Harp. He is the publisher of RabbiLIVE.com and speaks worldwide on topics including anti-Semitism, Israel, media and the Middle East.)

Dan Friedman
NYC

Hitler's Stationery

Among CIA museum's prizes, an American love letter on Hitler's stationery

John Makely / NBCNews.com

After the Allies formally accepted the surrender of Nazi Germany in 1945, OSS agent and future CIA Director Richard Helms wrote a letter to his young son Dennis on a captured sheet of Adolf Hitler's personal stationery.

By Richard Engel and Robert Windrem
NBC News

Inside a glass case in a “secret” CIA museum is a swastika-emblazoned letter written on Adolf Hitler’s personal stationery that was delivered to the museum the day after Osama bin Laden died.

The handwritten letter, sent by future CIA Director Richard Helms to his 3-year-old son at the close of World War II, may not be as ominous as bin Laden’s AK-47 featured in this exclusive NBC News report, which rests in another of the private museum’s display cases. But it too serves as both a trophy of war and a reminder of evil.

NBC's Richard Engel gets a tour of the greatest museum you will never see: the CIA museum, where items like Osama bin Laden's personal AK-47 rifle and some of the agency's most high-tech gadgetry are on display.

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“Dear Dennis,” reads the letter from Helms, then a spy stationed in Germany. “The man who might have written on this card once controlled Europe – three short years ago when you were born. Today he is dead, his memory despised, his country in ruins. He had a thirst for power, a low opinion of man as an individual, and a fear of intellectual honesty. He was a force for evil in the world. His passing, his defeat – a boon for mankind. But thousands died that it might be so.  The price for ridding society of bad is always high.  Love, Daddy."http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=32520698#editor/target=post;postID=6989931629993020541

The Understatement: Snowden in Russia--My Letter to Glenn Greenwald

Glenn Greenwald is a brilliant civil libertarian lawyer/journalist who writes for "The Guardian." He is the writer who broke the story and interviewed the former National Security Agency contractor systems analyst Ed Snowden who released thousands of classified NSA documents. This is a huge story as Snowden released many classified documents exposing US foreign and domestic behavior and has in his possession allegedly even more embarrassing documents he is threatening to release if anything should happen to him.

Snowden is now holed up in the transit section of the Moscow airport seeking asylum because if he returns to the US he will face, if he is tried, nearly certain long term or life imprisonment and even death for treason. He is currently seeking or has sought asylum from 20 countries including China, Russia, India, Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Italy, Nicaragua, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain, Venezuela and others. Many have already denied his request. Russia and a few others are still considering it.

I have remained critical of Mr. Snowden and Glenn Greenwald for what Snowden has done and about which Greenwald has written extensively. My left of center allies often, about this issue wholeheartedly disagree with my opinion but I remain steadfast in it for what I think is good reasoning. The following is the opinion I wrote to Greenwald (some edits have been made for clarity):

Glenn, one cannot help but marvel at your civil libertarian analyses. I have heard you speak at Harvard and have thought you a national treasure. Usually, while not always agreeing with your opinion, I share with you a basic political affinity. I keep hoping you will change my opinion about Snowden to be as supportive of him as you but I continue to defend the Obama administration's committed efforts to stop more leaks because I am a pragmatist and a realist. Moreover, I not only love but I trust the former civil liberties Constitutional law scholar and our president to know what he is doing.

Our Founders could NEVER have known the dangers we face as a nation nor the existential threat that indeed exists for the entire planet and for us who live in its shelter. Man now has the capacity to wipe himself and everything else on planet earth out. Indeed, many of our adversaries would not hesitate to attack this nation again perhaps worse than 9/11.

Our Founders could not have known of nuclear peril when they wrote about due process. Beyond even that, there is NO nation -- none -- on earth which does not have its own embedded hypocrisy. Last evening I had the pleasure of watching Larry O'Donnell who interviewed the noted playwright Harvey Firestein. The subject was Russia's war on homosexuals. My thoughts turned to Mr. Snowden because he is asking asylum in that country and will have to endure Russia under Putin's civil libertarian slaughter. Will Snowden or you criticize Russia or Putin? I think not.

Moreover, I suggest if he is granted asylum in Russia that you or anyone you know who is homosexual NOT go there. You can be fined, jailed, hurt or even killed IF they find out that you are homosexual, you associate with homosexuals OR if you even advocate for homosexuals. Indeed, one could be arrested for wearing a rainbow flag T-shirt. That is a country one would NEVER want to choose for asylum especially if one were gay. You tell me a nation to which Snowden would go and I would be able to enumerate all the civil libertarian violations of that state. Russia surely would be on my top ten tyranny list.

We do not live in a sugar coated world and this nation with all of its faults is still worthy of defending and saving. Indeed, personally, I could NEVER conceive doing what Snowden did no matter how noble he thinks his ends are. In the final analysis I suspect Moscow and other states of his choosing for asylum would NOT accord him the ability to criticize the state and if one is homosexual like you are the thought of what Russia and those states like it could or would do to you is unthinkable and that is an understatement.

The Beautiful and Mystifying Earth--The Time to Act is NOW

Since the projections for the eradication of our coastal cities by flooding because of the rise in global temperature relate more to our descendants than to us, those of you who do not care about your children, grandchildren and future descendants will not care about this article. I suspect, however, most who do have children and grandchildren with pictures of them occupying every inch of your home and desks, WILL care mightily about the link of the article here and below.

Those of us who do not have children or grandchildren by choice or nature's design it can serve to make one think that one's choice or fate has worked to one's singular advantage. Unfortunately, those who did make the choice to have them and count on generation after generation promoting their legacy through genetic and cultural heritage then, well, you MAY want to advocate -- strongly advocate -- for the significant decrease or even elimination of fossil fuels that have our planet and homo sapiens (modern man) in its death grip.

Even IF one does not have children the fact that one can count on the magisterial beauty of our planet every day we awaken upon it should be enough to compel us to save it no matter how long it will take climate change to eradicate man's place on this beautiful and spiritually mystifying earth.

The time to influence and elect our minions of power who know science rules is the present. The time to act is NOW before it is too late!

NB: It is why I advocate for the Democratic Party on the state and the national level. You can be assured IF 2014 sees an increase in the Republican racist party of interposition and nullification obstructionism then our country and, indeed, our planet WILL fail.

Make no mistake, whatever critical analysis you may hold for the Democratic Party you will make a monstrous mistake by putting Republicans in office.  I urge you to contribute to the Democratic Party any way and everywhere you possibly can.  There is too much at stake as we have seen what happens when Republicans control it all. 

Republicans will continue to perpetuate rule by oligarchy, the mega rich and usurp racist and misogynist control of the courts even possibly the Supreme Court generally setting our country back a century.  Tea baggers should NOT be fooled.  The Republican Party has been hijacked by the oligarchs of wealth and privilege. The Republican Party is surely NOT about them or you!  Sign up, sign up, sign up (beat Republicans at their own game) all Democrats to vote everywhere Democratic to finally give the president a chance to govern and the country the chance to live out its dream!



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/due-to-global-warming-end_b_3628981.html

Alex Beam for Senate? PERISH THE THOUGHT!

What I wrote Alex Beam in response to his Op Ed in the July 21, 2013 Sunday Globe.

Alex, smoke came out of my ears from the fire in my brain when I read your Op Ed against our newly elected Senator Warren "Lots of noise from Warren but little delivery" pasted here or below. I LOVE Elizabeth Warren, I worked hard for Elizabeth Warren as much as I was able since I am disabled so I take your article as a HUGE affront to the point where I am considering canceling my subscription of The Globe. That is how passionate I am. Yes, I understand it is your First Amendment you are exercising. You have a right to say that you think she is the devil or Medusa incarnate but it does not mean I have to like it.
We are NOT talking about Queen Elizabeth. We are talking about one brilliant senator but ONLY one. She is swimming in a pool of sharks who want to take not only her down but the president himself down as well. We live in the most obstructionist of times since the Civil War. That fact goes on and on and on unless the rancid, mean, racist Republicans can be squashed at the polls. That is what I am hoping will happen.

Until then our WONDERFUL senator is one among 100 and must also know that anything she proposes will be met with House cement-like resistance. The agency for which she fought the Consumer Protection Bureau is a big accomplishment. The president, though, had to pull teeth to have its head, Richard Cordray confirmed by the Senate and then it was only through threat of drowning the filibuster that made those unconscionables compromise.

Give this woman a break. She is still nascent new. What would you like her to have done usher in a stimulus package on her own to jump-start the economy? I am SURE she would wholeheartedly agree. Holding the banks and the economic behemoths accountable for their malodorous mendacity of fraud brought on by decades of Republican rule and which cost the taxpayer trillions would be nice too. She would again agree to that I am sure.

You try and get the other 100 plus a Republican takeover of the House to be united to fix this country. Then I would say how about Alex Beam for Senate. Perish the thought!

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2013/07/20/the-big-noise-senator-elizabeth warren/iCPYI1tOK1g03bcgZQENEJ/comments.html

Another Take: Explaining the Rolling Stone Cover, by a Boston Native

Another take. Is Rolling Stone Magazine correctly attacked for the DzhokharTsarnaev cover photo or is this yet another unwarranted media no news news hype?

NB: I have read the left of center Rolling Stone Magazine from its inception in the radical left late 1960's. It has become serious journalism at its best. Matt Taibbi is one of the most excellent and entertaining tell-it-like-it-is journalists I have ever read. His many exposés of the financial fraud debacle of 2007/8, his book Griftopia, and his revelatory article about General Stanley McChrystal Commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan have been brilliant.

The article responding to the Rolling Stone cover by him is here or below.

Explaining the Rolling Stone Cover, by a Boston Native

By MATT TAIBBI

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/explaining-the-rolling-stone-cover-by-a-boston-native-20130719?utm_source=dailynewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter