Citizens Disunited: Each day when I log on some new nightmare awakens me from the haze of an eight hour sleep. What is today's nightmare? If any of you watched Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann last evening or go on to MSNBC this morning you will have heard and will see the unmitigated insane curse a systemically SICK "conservative" Supreme Court majority by fiat placed upon our nation through its decision of Citizen’s United.

For those of you who do not know, in essence, that decision made the corporation the same as a person with respect to campaign contributions for political advocacy. It RADICALLY and in ACTIVIST fashion, which conservatives CLAIM to loath, overturned decades of law and precedent.

This means that the corporation, heretofore limited as to what monies it could contribute to political campaigns for advocacy, is now free to contribute MILLIONS upon MILLIONS of dollars to any candidate it chooses. Worse, those same corporations do NOT have to disclose who they are. So, even one man, under the guise of numerous corporations, could give HUNDREDS of MILLIONS of dollars in campaign ads and buy an election. Worse STILL, foreign corporations in foreign nations like China, or anywhere for that matter, can contribute as well. Supreme Court "conservative" faux Justice Samuel Alito when our president at the State of the Union address last year called this rancid decision out for the oligarchcal corporate money capture of our political institutions it is, insultingly mouthed the words "that's not true." Does it SURPRISE you that conservatives lie? In the oft quoted words of the "great" RepublicRAT minority leader John Boehner "HELL NO!" It does not surprise me AT ALL.

This is without a doubt in the forty years that I have been politically conscious, the worst election I have ever experienced. Not only do the RepulicRATS have a chance of taking the House and maybe even the Senate but the composition and MEAN-SPIRITED CHARACTER of many individuals under the Republican umbrella will be the ones who could win. THAT my fellow humanitarian friends is not ONLY unacceptable but WILL spell the doom of our democratic nation IF it occurs. It means that our republic WILL turn into the oligarchy that many have said it already is by the corporate money capture of the process. Well, if it is now, as the Great Depression era entertainer Al Jolson used to say, "You ain't seen nothin yet!"

The ONLY way we can HOPE to stem this possible hemorrhaging of Democratic seats is TO VOTE DEMOCRATIC on NOVEMBER 2, 2010. If you want to read more about this horrendous muck of cash coursing through the veins of our body politic attempting, like a myocardial infarction, to KILL it go to Rachel Maddow's and/or Keith Olbermann's site and watch their programs from last evening. They will tell you what you SHOULD know about this DISGUSTING phenomenon of our electoral reality in 2010. Money talks we all know that but talking is one thing corporate filibustering an entire process is quite something else. The RepblicRATS through their corporate lackeys have outspent Democrats 7 to 1. They are injecting, through Carl Rove’s cohorts and others, hundreds of millions of dollars to literally BUY a Republican takeover and put those in charge who will do not the people’s bidding but the CORPORATE bidding. Republicans are NOT for the majority of us! They are using even the tea bag anger to capture power for themselves and return us to the Bush years that got us into this dysfunctional MESS.

DO NOT LET THEM DO THIS TO WHAT IS LEFT OF OUR COUNTRY. They are the toxic brew we all worried about and the minions of Justices Alito, Thomas, Roberts, Scalia and the swing vote Kennedy installed by various Republican presidencies put this CORRUPT house in order. They and it are poison to our system. The ONLY weapons we have to FIGHT against this horrible reality are our own contributions to Democrats which I URGE you to keep making contributions if you can AND our VOTE. VOTE VOTE VOTE for Democrats on November 2. If you want a country left for the middle class VOTE like your economic life depends upon it because, as I have said many times, IT DOES!


Onward -- we are STILL a free republic -- FOR NOW. Forward this to anyone you like.

VOTE: Okay, I sound repetitive but it is because I KNOW how I feel when I hear the media's gloom and doom for Dems. I feel down and want to throw my hands up. Then I say to myself DON'T DON'T DON'T do that! DON'T fall into the trap of believing that which they want us to believe and to ramp up the pessimism to defeat our HUGE block of voters who voted for a president unlike any other in US history.

DESPITE some progressives who have been critical, sometimes I have even been one, our president KNOWS what he is doing and I believe DOES have the interests of those who are middle class and the powerless in our nation at heart. He will DO well for us if given a chance. GIVE HIM A CHANCE and by VOTING DEMOCRATIC you will do just that. Don't let him down, do NOT let us down and DON'T let the country down by putting it again in EVEN more vicious hands than those of the Bush era IF THAT IS POSSIBLE. It is. Those crazy tea baggers and Republicans are NOT about us. NEVER be duped for one minute that they are. They are NOT and are propped up by a few who have carloads of CASH to get them to win and save their BILLIONS.

Do NOT BE AFRAID of them and SHOW your power and VOTE for Democrats. Again and again tell ALL those you know and most especially those in OTHER STATES like Nevada to VOTE Democratic so they cast a vote for themselves. Sharon Angle and her mean racist ilk MUST be stopped. The HORROR of a Republican smashing victory is really too much for my brain to comprehend so I BEG YOU and others you know to SPREAD THE WORD and VOTE. VOTE DEMOCRATIC so our president can show what he can do! He has done a LOT even with an UNCOMPROMISING, intractable and anything-BUT- bipartisan Congress. He can and WILL do more IF he has a Congress interested in us with which to work.

Do not give up, do not falter and DO NOT FAIL. VOTE DEMOCRATIC. Our lives are literally at stake!

Onward!

My Idol: Maureen Dowd: Dowd's piece today "Making Ignorance Chic"(link below) was so good and so on target with what I have been reading and about which I have thinking that I sent a letter to the New York Times below.

Maureen Dowd's excellence never ceases to astound me. Who writes better and more eloquently, incorporating great literature, music and art in her editorials than she? I salivate with jealousy at this astoundingly intelligent interesting woman. I try ALWAYS to read what she writes. Her editorial today "Making Ignorance Chic" on the Palin paucity of intellect and the national pride it evokes is no exception, indeed. It was brilliantly written. Beyond that it is chilling.

In keeping with the content of her article may I make a reading suggestion to both her and others who read and love learning as I do. A book was recommended to me by my ever so astoundingly brilliant physician and friend. It is entitled: "Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free" by Charles P. Pierce. I have begun to read it and cannot put it down. I think both Ms. Dowd and the rest of us who cannot learn enough each day and wish the hours would stretch to be able incorporate the works of Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Toni Morrison and Shakespeare all one day will LOVE it. This book speaks to the issue of the screaming ignorance of a part of the American public. It is both profound and sad that this nation of 350 million has such an overabundance of ignorance and worse it is proud that it does!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/opinion/20dowd.html?_r=1&hp

EXTRA EXTRA READ ALL ABOUT IT!: Yet another FABULOUS book recommended by my friend who is a brilliant physician (Link Below). This one is entitled: "Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free" by Charles P. Pierce. You can order it on Amazon or probably find it at Barnes and Noble. If you happen to have a Kindle you can even download a sample of it instantaneously to see if it appeals to you as computer science, chemistry and physics work their rational miracles!

If you are in love with rational academic thought, reason, science and the PROOF it delivers as I am, then you will LOVE this book. I cannot put it down. I wonder still how this nation has DEVOLVED into an Alice In Wonderland world where up is down and down is up speaking Jabberwocky that passes as truth. Have we gone Mad Hatter Mad as some try to make a case for a literal unerring biblical truth and think Noah tamed the dinosaurs a mere six thousand years ago which appear at the Creation Museum in wax form with saddles on their backs sitting comfortably with humans on Noah's ark? At times I suspect insanity in this nation rules the day!

http://www.amazon.com/Idiot-America-Stupidity-Became-Virtue/dp/0767926145/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_1

MY HEROES: I am reading an interesting interview of Sam Harris (link below). He is famous in the science and atheist/agnostic community. He, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking, the late Carl Sagan, the late Stephen Jay Gould and Christopher Hitchens are MY heroes! I urge you to read the interview of Harris.


http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2010/10/17/sam_harris_interview/index.html

JUST SHOW UP: I think we CAN do better than the prevailing media is saying. They are drowning Democrats in gloom and doom. I had a physician friend who used to say to me DO NOT READ THE MEDICAL BLURBS!! You know why? The media is about the sensational. It is about ratcheting up the moment to increase THEIR own bottom line so the pill pushers, their clients, can make MONEY. When the pill pushers make money the media makes money and the only way THEY can make money is to try to sensationalize the public appetite to watch their shows!

SO TOO WITH POLITICS. The media is NOT JUST about reporting facts. They are about making SURE you watch their news broadcast and they make sure you do that by ramping up the conflict and the fear. News NOW is ENTERTAINMENT. By saying Republicans will automatically win they just may get some sensational news as many would love nothing more than relate it to an Obama slide.

I THINK they are overstating the degree that Republicans will win. Give this president a chance to work his magic. He KNOWS what he is doing. Wouldn't it be great to ruin ALL those prediction doomsayers telling us Democrats are going down to a Republican takeover? I DO NOT THINK DEMOCRATS ARE GOING DOWN. I think we can GO UP by simply SHOWING UP. Yes, that is a winning phrase: Democrats WILL GO UP by simply SHOWING UP November 2, 2010 to VOTE DEMOCRATIC. If you can help a Democrat at risk in another state or in this state with a contribution no matter how large or small please DO SO.

All of our hard work, all of our effort and all of our HOPE is on the line. Programs we need to live and to survive are on the line. NOTHING I know of that is worth anything is easy to get. This time though it really IS easy JUST SHOW UP at the polls and VOTE Democratic and tell ALL THOSE YOU KNOW FROM ALL WALKS OF LIFE -- white, black, Hispanic, Indian, and many others in every state just VOTE DEMOCRATIC like your life depends upon it because in the FINAL analysis IT DOES!!

A letter to Andrew Bachevich: I decided to test my new Kindle out as I bought my first online book entitled "Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War." I am loving the book and decided to email the author, Professor Andrew Bachevich just that.

A little background on the author:

According to Wiki "Andrew Bachevich is the Director of Undergraduate Studies; Professor of International Relations and History. (BS, United States Military Academy; MA, PhD, Princeton) Specialization: American Diplomatic and Military History, U. S. Foreign Policy, Security Studies. He is a retired career officer in the United States Army. He is the author of Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War (2010). His previous books include The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (2008); The Long War: A New History of US National Security Policy since World War II (2007) (editor); The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War (2005); and American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U. S. Diplomacy (2002). His essays and reviews have appeared in a variety of scholarly and general interest publications including The Wilson Quarterly, The National Interest, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Nation, and The New Republic. His op-eds have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Boston Globe, and Los Angeles Times, among other newspapers."

In addition to that his son was killed in 2007 in Iraq.

Dear Professor Bachevich. I was given a new Kindle for my birthday. I had to decide which book I would choose to break it in. Perhaps, you will be glad to know I chose one that you wrote "Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War."

I am about, according to the Kindle, 10% through it but I could not wait to dash off an email to you and tell you how much I am enjoying it. It is wonderful. It reminds me of my days at BU during the turbulent late 1960's when I met Howard Zinn, Murray Levin and Edgar Bottome, three men who made an indelible imprint on my mind and my politics. I remember, too, reading J. William Fulbright's "The Arrogance of Power." It was written in 1966 and I read it in 1968. It was the first book on American foreign policy I had ever read which questioned America's position and empire building in the world. I never forgot it and remember thinking at that time I wished I could pass the book out on the street corner. Your book is bringing back those old feelings except I read it now with much more maturity and understanding of global politics. Still, as I read it I am thinking similar thoughts that I remember having oh so many years ago. How could THIS America be so different from the one I knew as a child?

I suppose, even though I am Jewish, some thoughts in the New Testament ring true. "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, thought like a child, and reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I no longer used childish ways." 1 Corinthians 13:11 is applicable to me.

I now return to my bookmarked place on the Kindle and continue to be unable to put your book down!

This is Why: I enclose an excellent article entitled "Tea Party Poised to Win Enough Races for Wide Influence" (link below) which appeared in the New York Times. It is an analysis of the midterms and makes a WONDERFUL case for WHY DEMOCRATS and DEMOCRAT LEANING INDEPENDENTS MUST GET OUT TO VOTE. While it says that Tea Party candidates are having the greatest impact on districts that ordinarily would remain Republican, the Tea Party WILL, IF ELECTED, gain an influential caucus.

Tea Party candidates are determined to undue not only the president's and Democratic agenda recently passed BUT ALSO tea baggers are determined to dismantle age old safety nets such as Social Security, Medicare and other programs begun in FDR's New Deal. Those nets have proven over time to have SAVED MILLIONS in this country from the whims of a laissez faire unregulated capitalist system which is subject to the unstable events of history and the unpredictable influences of the natural world. An unfettered, unregulated free market is UNRELIABLE to protect our country -- ALL in our country -- from the ravages of old age, illness, catastrophic climate events, educational breakdowns, infrastructure repair, economic downturns and much more. The stock market USED to be the exclusive domain of the few in the country who had the means to invest in it. Now Tea Baggers and their Republican Party minions would want to hold ALL of us hostage to the glories of this whimsical free market with its unreliable fluctuations, and sometimes all too often CRASHES and COLLAPSE so they, the few, can make BILLIONS. This Tea Bag movement is MONEY DRIVEN.

Tea Baggers, too, are for spending most especially within the military which WILL obviate other social programs. It is the little guy who is suffering most from this current all pervasive Great Recession. This recession could linger if remedial policies do not remain in place and enhanced. Our economic fledgling recovery could turn into another Great Depression. Worse it could even mean PERPETUAL UNRELENTING and UNREMITTING war ultimately EVEN, dare I say, NUCLEAR war as unregulated war profiteers stand to make trillions. Is THIS what you want for your progeny?

Tea baggers are angry yes and "tax cuts" sound oh so good but their policies are in reality about another kind of spending. Their policies are corporatist in nature, hostile, ruinous and warlike. For them to be a caucus which has overriding influence in the traditional Republican power structure is utterly CHILLING. It forces Republican moderates OUT of the party. This movement has the eventual potential to DESTROY this nation as we know it by destroying or eliminating those programs which historically have worked and will continue to save us from an uncontrollable free market RUN AMOK. The Tea Bag movement if it gains enough power will not only destroy THIS country but it COULD take the rest of the world with it by not addressing the HORRIFIC TRUTH of global warming something which an overwhelming majority of scientists world-wide agree is a man made reality. Is THIS what those of you who have children and grandchildren want for them?

Worse still is the fact that this movement is almost EXCLUSIVELY white and fanatically religious. It ignores the diversity of man and would love nothing more than to eliminate, in any way and by any means possible, minorities or the “other” as a political force.

Man does NOT stand still. He LEARNS new truths. These reactionary malcontents DUPE an unsuspecting and unknowledgeable myth-infused public like a virus that overtakes the cells of a functioning body and ultimately KILLS it. Evolutionary regression WILL kill its host. The only thing that defends man against a hostile environment is the knowledge his magnificently complex brain can understand and the skills which can be learned and created from it. KNOWLEDGE and TRUTH cannot be denied or they can to ALL of our peril.

For these and MANY other reasons the Tea Bag Party CANNOT and MUST NOT be allowed to gain so much power that would threaten the very existence of this body politic with ALL the progressive policies we have attained through the blood, sweat and tears of collective effort. The Chilean rescue of the miners is an example of the GOOD that can be achieved if we ALL work together.

If you do NOTHING else November 2, 2010 PLEASE PLEASE I urge you in the strongest possible way to VOTE and to VOTE exclusively for DEMOCRATS. Tell ALL those you know to VOTE DEMOCRATIC. MOST ESPECIALLY DO NOT FORGET BLACKS, HISPANICS, MEXICANS, BRAZILIANS and OTHER MINORITY GROUPS EVERYWHERE IN THIS COUNTRY. Organize and urge everyone to VOTE DEMOCRATIC. This election is ours to win IF we all stick together and get out the Democratic vote but it is the nation we lose if we do not!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39681415/ns/politics-the_new_york_times/

A Quiver of Arrows-Letter to the New York Post--Consequences for Paladino

See link below to the New York Post Article entitled "Uncle Slam! Gay Nephew Blasts Carl -- Very offended by kin’s ugly remarks"

Dear Ms. Fermino: There are times in life when one CANNOT take something back. There are times when an apology does NOT matter. This is such a time for Carl Paladino. His apology to the gay community rings hollow as one may SUSPECT he is apologizing because he KNOWS how much damage his vile comments did to his campaign and how idiotic he looked playing footsie with religious fanatics kow towing to those who espouse ideologically fundamentalist and mystical views. It alienated a LARGE number of New Yorkers, other Jews such as myself, as well as a large number of gays, parents, friends of gays AND even other Republicans who KNOW what the future is dictating for gay rights. Some in the Republican ranks have even been at the forefront of the fight.

The gay community has come a long way inside of forty years. ALL of these rancid impediments to human beings who have known up until now NOTHING but impediments to THEIR freedom despite how much they love the country, finally see some light at the end of a long dark tunnel. We have a LONG way to go but we have made GREAT inroads. We know how important it is for one to love oneself first and then oppose VOCIFEROUSLY anyone who would deny rights to one minority group that everyone else takes for granted.

Mr. Paladino's candidacy, in my opinion, IF it even had any credibility before, has NONE now. He is a rude, crude, angry, political hack, immoral opportunist NO different from those he says he rejects. He does NOT reject them. On the contrary he IS one. I look forward to a Governor Cuomo. No matter what the outcome, the rest of the country should be on notice we will NOT allow ANYONE to kick gays around any longer. If they do there will be electoral, prosecutorial and courtroom consequences. Finally, we have at least those arrows in our quiver.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/uncle_slam_gay_nephew_blasts_carl_gKUExcwnaEqJ6SdZ8WLugN

Media Matters: Does it EVER!” The article "Damage Control" by Media Matters (link below) says it all about the nature of a pathetically HUGE part of the American electorate who will step in line to the music of a right wing march that these battalions of evil purveyors of lies like Fox News convey. The forces against those of reason are SO overwhelming, SO evil, SO mean and SO toxic that for the first time in my life I wonder if I shouldn’t just leave.

If Republicans take over the Congress it WILL mean the American economy will sink to new depths, perhaps into even another Great Depression for a LONG time. It is what the salivating Republicans waiting in the wings want. If you need to ask why then you have not been paying attention to the months of unbridled hatred directed against the president which runs racist deep. The forces of right wing fanatical darkness will do ANYTHING, even plunge this nation into an economic sewer, if they can jet propel this president out of office to seize power so the minions of madness and corporate greed which brought us to this sinkhole will prevail. So many in droves fall for their putrid deceptive perception.

We will have no more country left if this viral avalanche of corporate greed and money is allowed to infect our electorate which it already has. It is, I think, beyond redemption as a large part of the public eschews academic excellence and reason duped by the proponents of stupidity. The right wing money machine enabled by the Supreme Court Citizen's United decision counting corporations as people allowed the insertion of the bile of unlimited money into the sinews of the American political landscape. It is so relentless and the sheep-like people SO ignorant who number in the millions that if I could manage a ticket and instant citizenship to a SMART, educationally sophisticated and science loving republic I might for the first time in my life be tempted.

To understand the superfluous stupidity of the masses read the Huffington Post article (link below) entitled: "Republicans Prefer Strip Clubs Over Mosque at Grown Zero" to see how utterly valueless a large part of the population is. Our culture has gone haywire. All one needs to do is read about the girl from Duke University who decided it would be just such a neat idea to plaster her myriad of sexual exploits on the Internet, of course, only for her friends -- which became the immediate world -- to see. It ALL fits into to the classless pathology of unreasoned stupidity that has overtaken this nation. It is all around us from college women having sex puffed-up-proud of their behavioral anarchy to an explosive right wing media which will not call out lies even when they KNOW the lies are patently ABSURD. It defies credulity how low our nation has sunk whether the personal or the political.

Any fiction is believable if a media soaked in cash wants to sell it and so much of an undiscerning public wants to buy it. Money, historically, has been the key and one can make plenty of it even if one is a woman who places her sexual exploits on the Internet OR even if one is the dumbest Palinesque idiot in the land. They laugh all the way to the bank capturing millions from an unaware clueless public ready to believe anything most especially if it comes from a pretty face.

We have seen the Goebels mantra of media come true. Tell the big lie enough by controlling the media and you will control everything. The sheeple WILL stand in line to be led off the cliff but will bring untold millions of bucks to those who lead them. Just ask Sharon Angle, the tea bag fringe wacko senatorial candidate from Nevada to tell you how it works. Ultimately through their evil efforts they will effectively condemn the middle class and the poor to endless suffering, sickness and early death as they will relegate society’s hard fought for safety nets of healthcare, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to the greedy private sector investment banks which we know worked so well for everyone in 2008. One wonders who they will hire then to carry their bags.

November WILL be telling but I am not sure I want to be around to watch the potentially pathetic results as America is ready to return to power to those who brought us to the dance of economic collapse in the first place.

http://mediamatters.org/columns/201010080043
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/08/poll-republicans-strip-club-mosque_n_756259.html

An Article on Israel and its Existential Threat: This article linked below is about the State of Israel and the Jewish existential dilemma. I am moved and convinced of its veracity. It is the way I feel and it is why I support the Jewish state. As the article states Jewish history since the Diaspora (the dispersion of the Jewish people out of the homeland 2000 years ago) especially has been defined by others. Jews were ALWAYS at the mercy of those nation states which often showed us little. Jews existed always on a whim of someone else but Israel changed all that almost in an instant. As quickly as the security of our existence seemed to come that is how quickly it can evaporate as Israel, a besieged country from its inception, sits in the middle of the worst neighborhood possible at the worst possible time.

I urge those who do not know the history of the Jewish people and the Jewish state to read this very excellent explanation of why it means so much to the Jew and why the possibility of Iran possessing a nuclear weapon is so threatening. You do NOT need to be Jewish to appreciate the gravity of it and the existential threat it poses.


http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/the-other-existential-threat-15530

NO JOKE: I BRIEFLY viewed, because I cannot even endure listening to interviews of people like Pat Buchanan, Joe Scarborough this morning. The little I did see had the enthusiasm factor poll to vote at 50% for Republicans and 43% for Democrats. Who knows if this is correct but lets assume for now that it is: THIS POLL MUST MUST move in the Democratic direction and get Democrats to vote!

If we could get out the vote ESPECIALLY in minority communities i.e. African Americans, Hispanics and others as well as all progressives and Democrat leaning Independents as we did in the 2008 election I am CONVINCED we can take the midterms on November 2. Heck we could even take the House and the Senate by significant margins. Democrats staying home and not voting in November is as threatening to us as it would be if Sarah Palin were president (and by the way she's probably going to run.) This UTTERLY UNACCEPTABLE potential result has HUGE consequences and all of them bad for the the majority of Americans, the middle class and poor!

THIS IS NO JOKE. I do not know how else to say it and impress on EVERYONE that we MUST get out the Democratic vote AND we must IF we possibly can contribute money and/or time to Democratic candidates ALL OVER the country. Yes, this is a life or death situation I am convinced as Republicans would keep this nation in eternal war, would dismantle health care and financial reform, would try to privatize Social Security, make Medicare cuts and increase the age of retirement to 70, SIGNIFICANTLY reduce or get rid of Medicaid, outlaw abortion EVEN in cases of rape or incest as they want to infuse government into your personal life. Moreover, they will allow the planet to melt through the indisputable FACT of industrial related global warming. Some even advocate for homosexual people not teaching in public schools and certainly not have the ability to marry the person of their choice.

A NEW Dark Ages hovers on the American horizon. We, if we keep electing Republicans, over time our country will decay and ultimately fall as other cultures advance by maintaining the health and welfare of their citizens and by making SCIENCE rule over superstition and myth. Republicans are NOT about government assisting people. They are about helping themselves to HUGE corporate money enabled by the Citizens United Supreme Court decision and, if they take the majority will throw this nation into a double dip recession or even Depression and, oh yes, always will enable eternal expensive in blood and treasure, war. Republican philosophy is DIAMETRICALLY opposite to our Democratic principles. They favor unregulated property rights over personal rights it's that simple.

Do you realize how many lives these social programs engineered over DECADES have saved and how many they WILL save in the future? Answer: MILLIONS. Moreover, the health care and financial reform already passed under Democrats will be improved over time IF Democrats prevail.

Republicans through their corporate cronies are BUYING elections outspending Democrats 7 to 1. We CAN show this country that money is NOT the only variable. People power is the REAL variable. Please send this on to anyone you know to make it crystal clear how important getting out the Democratic vote is.

DO NOT GIVE UP, DO NOT FALTER AND MOST OF ALL DO NOT FAIL. Think of it as your life and our country's well being hanging in the balance!

Sowers of the Wind: Steven Hayes was convicted today of murder, sexual assault and other counts by a jury that heard eight days of gruesome testimony. There have been SO many horrific utterly inexplicable cases of inhuman treatment by one man against another that I have lost count. One odious crime often blends into the next. The wholesale murder of the beautiful Petit family of Connecticut by two unconscionable men who invaded the private peace of the Petit home, though, is so remarkably odious and is so far beyond the scope of sanity that it defies diagnostic description but must be sketched permanently into the synaptic map of the human brain. This tragedy was so inhuman I cannot find the words to express the monstrosity of the acts. It reminds me of Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood" where Capote writes of the planning, torture and murder of the innocent Clutter family of four in Kansas by a couple of two-bit thieves and misfits. The question in both these cases is why. Capote comes to the conclusion, I think, that nothing is done in cold blood and that everything and everyone has an emotional story behind it.

Of what stuff are the perpetrators made that they view life as something so cheap and take it so easily? What poison crossed over the blood brain barrier and infiltrated their sickening minds to ALLOW them to exit the boundaries of sanity into the world of the insane? I shake my head in disbelief. I have no answers for the unanswerable. How can men kill with such ease, impunity and malice but have no conscience to restrain their unrestrained explosive anger? I do not know.

Through thousands of years of socialization, STILL, even now, man often lacks the capacity for empathy; the ability to put his feet in the other guy's shoes and THINK about how the other guy might feel. What childhood is responsible for these unspeakable crimes? There are no answers except that through all of man’s religiosity, through all of his teaching, through all of his thousands of years of socialization man's inhumanity to man still goes unbridled and unchecked. It is as true for nation states as it is true for one person. It is as prevalent now as it was at the dawn of recorded history and, perhaps, more so because man now is so technologically advanced.

Yes, in this case, I am glad for the death penalty option even though often I am against it. When, though, the crime is SO beyond the scope of human decency and strays SO far and so wide into another realm of utterly unspeakable horrific acts of human cruelty then my human yearning for justice and revenge prevails.

When is a crime worthy of the death penalty? As Justice Potter Stewart said of pornography "I know it when I see it." The murder of an entire family fits that bill. Sometimes there is a crime so dastardly and humanly irredeemable that it begs for state revenge. Yes, I know, it does not bring back the victims BUT in the words of the prophet Hosea 8:7: “For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.” In this case I hope they surely will!

Bill and Melina Gates a Portrait of Greatness the Eradication of Polio and Care of Its Survivors:

If you did not watch last evening I urge you to view "Sixty Minutes" online and the particular segment they did interviewing Bill and Melinda Gates whose Foundation has helped MILLIONS in the poorest of poor nations all over the world. Their work has concentrated most especially in the fields of immunization (polio, HIV AIDS, and malaria), infant mortality and the education of children. They and their Foundation are an example to us all as the Gates impart to their own children values of service and not the endless acquisition of material goods. Most of their astounding wealth is being given away to help those who are sick, weak and who cannot help themselves. I wrote "Sixty Minutes" and the Gates Foundation asking that the children who have already contracted specifically polio, a disease which hit close to home, not be forgotten either.

I wrote the following:

The segment on "Sixty Minutes" about the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was wonderful. I was particularly struck by their efforts at the immunization of children. The immunization against polio struck my heart as I am a polio survivor who contracted the deforming disease in 1954 in Boston, Massachusetts.

The interview of Bill and Melinda Gates moved me to tears as I saw children who had contracted polio in the poorest of poor countries languishing in unsanitary hospitals with a bleak future ahead. It defies imagination as to those children’s difficult fate and makes me SO thankful for the care I was given at Children’s Hospital in Boston. I was lucky to have born here and I was lucky to have had parents who knew where to take me that fateful October day. They knew how to navigate a system put in place in large part through the March of Dimes established during the Roosevelt administration.

These children who contract this life-changing disease in third world nations do not have the good fortune as I did. With polio it is, of course, necessary to prevent the disease through vaccination BUT if a child is one of the unlucky to have contracted it there is the lasting orthopedic and other devastation that needs to be addressed. I, at that time, as a child, was constantly monitored until the age of 16. I needed all kinds of medical attention including casts, braces, crutches, corsets, orthopedic surgeries, xrays, skin temperature tests and physical therapy to make sure my paralyzed limb, bones and wasted muscles grew correctly. I even was given assistance by a social worker who helped me as a child with the difficult socio-psychological and later even the occupational consequences of polio. I have MUCH for which to be thankful. Proper care for those children who have contracted polio needs to be monitored at LEAST through teenage years. In adulthood, too, orthopedic appliances need to be reformed, updated, refitted and sometimes post-polio issues arise as they did for me.

I am writing to give my sincere thanks to Bill and Melinda Gates for their Herculean efforts and their marvelous good works. I ask, in particular, not to forget those children who have already contracted polio so that they can get the utterly NECESSARY but expensive orthopedic and assistive device care that they will need to deal with the many ramifications of polio. These children who have contracted polio like the ones who have been immunized against it must, too, not be forgotten. MUCH can be done and much assistance given to improve their condition so that they can function as normally as possible throughout their entire life.

The Cost of War: Nuremberg trial anyone? If these recent pictures (story linked below) of our troops committing unspeakable crimes against Afghans get out, and I suspect they will because they are UNCLASSIFIED and were sent to many, we are in deep trouble. The Iraq war began the destabilization of the Middle East. The Pakistan government -- you know the government that really DOES have nukes -- is teetering on the edge. Of course, one could say look at what the enemy does but I do not think that is an excuse. These pictures will be damaging and damning no matter how one looks at it.

War is one thing but torture, mayhem and the grizzly dismemberment of bodies is quite something else, indeed. Our soldiers allegedly keeping detached fingers from dead bodies like charms on a bracelet makes me want to throw up.

We are SUPPOSED to be better than our enemy. Those in this country wringing their hands wanting to know why there is SO much violence here I can, in part, tell you. When a culture turns its back on the violence perpetrated by its government ALL over the world killing MANY innocents for DECADES and then its people, uninvolved and untouched by it, go to Starbucks to get their morning coffee and read the sports page we get a culture immune to atrocity. Hannah Arendt's "The Banality of Evil" says it all.
War is BESTIAL and it brings out the beast in Everyman no matter who or where they fight it. Our country is no exception.

This is BAD -- VERY bad. Let's hope the pictures do not see the light of day to inflame the people we are trying supposedly to help and by doing so defend ourselves. I am nearly positive they will see the light of day, though, revealing the truth to the folly of American exceptionalism. Those of us who DO have a questioning brain and care about the humane behavior of our country KNOW propaganda when we hear it. After and IF these pictures come out the sound will be coming in loud and clear!


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/01/stryker-brigade-murder-charges-photos-corpses_n_747784.html

Homosexual Suicide a Letter to Rachel Maddow and Keith Olberman.

Rachel/Keith: I suggest, which I am sure you will do, a story on Tyler Clementi's suicide at Rutgers after two Rutgers students actually PHOTOGRAPHED him having relations with another man. THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS. I HOPE that they throw the book at those two sad excuses for humanity who would, for their amusement, perpetrate such a thing on an innocent man.

My heart goes out to the Clementi family for their loss and for the NEEDLESS, UNNECESSARY and HORRIBLE suffering that young man must have endured before he took his life. An emphasis must be made, ESPECIALLY to help teens and young adults who may not have the psychological sophistication to understand that they are not alone. They sometimes, too, have not had the experience with political and social movements which have helped so many deal with this psychological assault and civil rights issue.

I thought about him last evening and how different the struggles for gay people are now as opposed to those who came before him. It was SURELY unacceptable in previous eras for gay people to admit to themselves their own homosexuality much less THINK about coming out to family and others. Times have changed. It is certainly better now with many homosexual rights having been secured in so many venues. AND yet it was almost easier in previous eras because one COULD, if one could endure it, remain secret, as most of the culture did not even talk about nor acknowledge issues of sexuality. It was not on the radar screen.

Because of so many successes securing the civil rights for so many gays and others, the issue is more conscious in our minds. Add to that the phenomena of the technological age, those who would be ready to bully or have a smug laugh at the expense of another person are MUCH more numerous and technologically connected. Through the Internet they now have the means to make one's private life public and harass them more effectively. WE MUST fight back.

I HOPE there is an outpouring from the gay community and its supporters for this wonderful student. He was a musician and seemingly such a quality person. Those who perpetrated this DASTARDLY deed need to have the BOOK thrown at them. I hope your show, the leadership in the gay community and others do NOT rest until the two who perpetrated the vile act of invading the privacy of this young man are prosecuted to the FULLEST extent of the law including FEDERAL hate crime charges. The possibilities for prosecution are NUMEROUS. They should be pursued with the VITRIOL and dogged determination which our ENEMIES, who want to defeat and cowardly intimate, use so effectively.

We live in noxious, angry and odious times and YET we live in the best of times for the cause. ALL those who are gay, who are struggling with being gay and those now who go on to live their lives with ease as well as other supportive allies SHOULD BE WALKING HAND IN HAND to help stop this evil among us. We must let others know there are MILLIONS not only here but all over the world who share their feelings. There is POWER in numbers. We should NOT falter and we should NOT fail to show ours!

Tea and Crackers anyone? Yet again Matt Taibbi has hit the nail on the head in his latest Rolling Stone article "Tea and Crackers" (Link below). Just WHO are the Republican Tea Party array of malcontents, scooter riding, oxygen puffing white skin angry elderly sad sacks? He will tell you. Nothing wrong with elderly scooter riding, oxygen puffing white skin angry elderly sad sacks maybe I am close to being one of them BUT when they want to destroy programs which help millions (INCLUDING THEM), their story gets ugly. It is a WONDERFUL article which I urge you to read and send to anyone you want.

Just who ARE these tea partiers? Matt Taibbi went to Kentucky to find it out. It is a riveting article which sheds light on the stupidest of stupid movements American culture has seen in a long long time and that's going some!

Sit back, relax, enjoy and then get your posteriors in gear and GET OUT PEOPLE to vote for Democrats to defeat these moronic duped jerks before they gain power and burn the whole place down. Their scooters government Medicare bought and paid for will go along with them. Do they know that? NO. They just know they "want the country back." I ask from whom? Do you think the black man in the oval office has anything to do with their war cry? If you answered YES you are quite right! Read it and then call any Democratic candidate you want around the country, work for them, email, donate to their campaigns, offer to make calls or send up smoke signals. Just DO SOMETHING!! Otherwise, welcome back to the glory days of yesteryear pre 1865 and we will have ONLY ourselves to blame for it!

http://ebm.cheetahmail.com/c/tag/aBMpMXaB7RrIeB8U-9YNAX15CKc/doc.html

American Exceptionalism on the Chopping Block: Glen Greenwald yet again has written a wonderful editorial in Salon.com entitled "Questions for Andrew Sullivan" about the latest Cbama nod to unlimited executive power by actually advocating and creating a method for the president ONLY to be able to kill EVEN an American citizen on the president's say so alone. The article, as usual, is excellently crafted (Link Below).

I have thought that Obama extending what I call his God Father Law making an offer NO ONE can refuse but worse NO ONE anywhere can even DEFEND against is simply egregious! Moreover, I have thought, too, that having Obama in office will POSSIBLY preclude an INNOCENT American like you or I, who LOVES this country and the civil liberties for which it is SUPPOSED to stand, will not suffer from executive power in the extreme BUT what happens NOT IF but WHEN Obama or someone like he is NOT in office? Sarah Palin would be a PERFECT example despite the overwhelming odds against her gaining the presidency who can predict WHO will occupy that office and what despotic powers they would love an excuse to use against their perceived enemies? Has world history shown this to be SO true? The answer, OF COURSE, is a resounding YES!

Has American behavior ESPECIALLY post Word War II been all that unblemished that we have not targeted innocents all over the globe? The answer is NO. Academics like the late Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, and even Prof. Andrew Bachevich of Boston University have said that there is no such animal as American exceptionalism in contemporary history as case after case of lying a nation to war exists and case after case of the most EGREGIOUS inhumane and downright UNJUST American political usurpation of civil liberties continues to be perpetrated against so many innocents.

One can look most RECENTLY to 12 US soldiers charged for the murder of innocent Afghan men JUST FOR SPORT (one Afghan simply plowing his field) and adding to that the sadistic mayhem of chopping up corpses' body parts. What a simply sublime way of winning hearts and minds! What HAS this nation with its ever so TOXIC brew of right wingnut fanatical extremists and its tone deaf leaders DONE to expand its war powers into the stratosphere? To what lengths will this nation excuse such horrific crimes under the sheet of American exceptionalism that, because of these crimes, does not exist anymore?

There is NOTHING exceptional about the policies of war carried out by the US government over the last decade. There is NOTHING exceptional about infinite power given carte blanche to ONE leader in a democracy. I ask do YOU FEEL SAFER because YOUR president can kill you based on HIS say so ALONE and you have absolutely NO right to defend yourself? I submit the answer is NO because although NBC News drops these horrific stories after a 15 second news bite they continue and I am sure will continue to be aired on Al Jezeera and in Arab nations in perpetuity as a way to ENRAGE their people and promote violent jihad against this country. Americans as usual go their merry way, have a cup of coffee at Starbucks and lament not having enough jobs. Not having enough jobs? THAT may be the least of our problems.

DOES ANYONE THINK that the policies of those who love war, who want war, who make their living FROM war want these policies to end? HELL NO. Does anyone think that the Republicans will turn this nation's productivity around by these and other loathsome policies aimed directly against the middle class and used by them to create more for the top 2% on the backs of the middle class and poor?

It is the MIDDLE CLASS who will suffer as they bear the burden not only of war but of the economic cataclysm as well. They COULD also primarily bear open hunting season on any American with the green light to kill given by solely one man. It is surely NOT the top 2% who sign up to FIGHT wars. Just ask the Tillmans what the government is capable of doing and/or hiding. The Godfather Law is one of the MOST loathsome policies in the history of a nation that has prided itself on its implementation of justice through the fairness of its civil libertarian ideals and its attendant ideal of innocent until proven guilty with its rules of evidence crafted over centuries. Who can stop these toxic policies of overruling the ESSENCE of our nation? I have NO idea!

If this God Father policy is so then the terrorists, who know nothing of a government BASED on civil libertarian ideal, win by our losing our most treasured principles and giving infinite power to one man; our Founders must be turning in their graves. It is EXACTLY what they feared. "We have a REPUBLIC IF you an keep it" said Benjamin Franklin. I think he would shake his head in disbelief as the nation devolves into the tyranny he and the Founders MOST especially feared.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/09/29/sullivan/index.html

Levi’s Last Word: Lawrence O’Donnell had Levi Johnston on his new MSNBC show “The Last Word.” What can one say about the performance of Levi Johnston? Secretly, I was hoping he had SOME -- just a FEW -- articulate abilities and a LITTLE smidgen cogent opinion about issues since he is contemplating a run for Mayor of Wasilla – sound familiar? I thought he might study up. Of course, Mayor of Wasilla does not mean a direct line to the White House, does it? Asking a 20 year old man who never graduated high school questions that a serious student of policy going to Georgtown University could be more qualified to answer I thought was ridiculous for Larry O'Donnell to do. What was I hoping for? I was hoping the boy, who looks rather like an Adonis, had SOME – just a LITTLE -- cerebral ability or that he PREPARED for the show. I was secretly hoping then he would become a Democrat and help change some of the nature of our rancid politics. Okay, so I hoped stupidly! I admit it, mea culpa.

Why he would go on Lawrence O'Donnell's show the "Last Word" and subject himself to that humiliation is beyond me. Was it for money, perhaps? Why would I think THAT? Well, because he was so OBVIOUSLY ignorant of really EVERYTHING even citing "Field and Stream" as the only magazine he reads certainly, he says, "NOT the "New York Times." Heaven forbid he read THAT paper. I wonder CAN he read at all? It shows me, however, just what type of person with whom Bristol Palin, the daughter of a former VP candidate one heartbeat away from the presidency, hung around. Not ONLY did she hang around with him but chose him to be the father of her illegitimate child. Further, the Tea Baggers say nothing. I THOUGHT they were for family values and abstinence? To me a mother with a young child takes CARE of that young child especially if she comes from far away Alaska rather than traipsing around to go on "Dancing with the Stars" shamelessly in a skimpy dress with her leg up erotically on the gentleman with whom she was dancing.

Who cares for the Palin BROOD? Does mamma grizzly Sarah? I doubt it as she hop scotches around the country selling her hateful what passes for ideology to the highest bidder. Does Bristol care for her baby brother with Downs Syndrome AND her OWN toddler? I doubt it as she dances her way to the stars. These people are DREADFUL. Not only do they have the IQ of a seven year old but they have the lowest of the low family values. Is this the stuff John McCain thought perfectly fit to run the country? Since McCain was a senior citizen who has had cancer several times, succession to the presidency of the idiotic utterly unqualified Palin could EASILY have taken place.

This country is SHAMEFUL as some put their trust in the MOST UNTRUSTWORTHY and BLATANTLY UNQUALIFIED INSIPID IDIOTS who seek to thrust their stupidity upon the rest of the nation. The fact that some in the Tea Bag Party may actually get elected nationally in the most powerful nation on earth is the MOST CHILLING bit of news since the explosion of the atomic bomb. That they even have a chance is UNCONSCIONABLE, telling and pathetic indeed!

Bridge the Divide: I responded to an interesting article in John Hopkins Magazine entitled: "The Big Question: Can Republicans and Democrats Agree on Anything?" by Catherine Pierre (link below). She thought we could. I think, naturally, otherwise and said so.


I am a Democrat. As the two party system has evolved over many years to its current dysmorphic state it is impossible for me to see the two party system of Republicans and Democrats working together, side by side and in peace for the greater good. Does this sound like an Israeli/Palestinian peace soundbite? The intractability of this difficult prospect feels that way to me.

Sometimes, in life, there are positions which are SO obnoxious, SO inherently malicious, stupid, reactionary, unjust and untrue it becomes IMPOSSIBLE to bridge the divide. Although the president can be criticized, in my opinion for not being progressive enough, he has given the opposition MORE than ample opportunity to work with him. He has never, in fact, STOPPED from reaching out to the other side. He gets kicked in the gut and slapped in the face EVERY time not ONLY by a party that simply has a different philosophy but by utterly racist political ammunition loaded for bear.

I would be MORE than happy to compromise IF the other party ditched their uncompromising and extremism religious loyalty oath, realized that some times, indeed, private enterprise needs a disciplinarian to keep it from running us over, killing the pedestrian and stealing all of his credit cards. I could compromise IF they thought health care were a RIGHT and not equate it to low cost insurance for a rusty old high mileage jeep. We are talking about policy for HUMAN BEINGS and about a basic fundamental philosophy crafted initially by FDR which FINALLY, after a Great Depression and much misery, placed PEOPLE over property. This is what the Depression of 1929 was about, it is what the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was about and this is what it is about during the much needed financial reform and health care legislation which is the hallmark of the Great Recession of 2008.

When Republicans take off their sheets, CARE about the entire humanity of this land, vote on issues for the PEOPLE and not only for the property of the wealthiest 2% billionaires then I will think about TRYING to work with them. Until then forgetaboutit. The divide is MUCH too deep!

http://magazine.jhu.edu/2010/09/the-big-question-can-democrats-and-republicans-agree-on-anything/comment-page-1/#comment-1009