Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Two Tiered Justice System
Glenn Greenwald writes many articles for "The Guardian" and for "Reader Supported News." He is a constitutional law scholar and has written the book "With Liberty and Justice for Some."
His opinion piece is not shocking as nothing shocks me about our country much anymore but it is certainly dismaying. Read the following here or below and pass it on if you like.
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/304-justice/14989-focus-hsbc-new-poster-child-for-two-tiered-justice-system
The new normal (on the Corporate Equality Index) COMPANIES FROM WHICH TO BUY
If you scroll down to the link below there are MANY companies the Human Rights Campaign Fund suggests from which to buy goods. These companies (and there are dozens) are LGBT friendly and supportive. They are given color coded ratings and percentage ratings as well. 100% is of course the best. For all the companies who are not supportive there are many which are one simply has to look.
The movement for equality has taken on a life of its own. With all the sometimes negative press like Justice Scalia's rancid and insulting comments that are so discouraging it is refreshing to get a dose of reality and know there are many more who think opposite from the ignorant justice.
One must simply look and realize it without allowing the inhumane, ignorant, unfeeling and uncaring to send negative karma to one's soul!
If you click on the link below and scroll down you will be amazed at how many categories of business that support this humane cause. I suggest you look at some, examine the color coding and the percentage and consider when the need arises buying from them!
Companies that are AOK! The NEW NORMAL
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For American companies, 100 percent is the new normal.
That's not a sales figure or a stock value.
That's the perfect score that 252 companies earned when we evaluated their workplace policies for LGBT employees in this year's Corporate Equality Index (CEI).
When we started the CEI 11 years ago, there were just 13 perfect scores.
So while the federal government and many state governments lag behind, American businesses continue to make great strides on LGBT equality. The result is a total transformation in the lives of millions of LGBT employees and their families.
HRC's goal with the CEI has always been to provide companies with a roadmap to fair policies. As more and more businesses compete to retain top talent, LGBT-inclusive policies have become a corporate standard – just 11 years after our first edition.
There's a lot more good news out of this year's CEI. Here are some of the other amazing stats and what they mean for equality:
Enacting these company policies isn't just the right thing to do – it's good for business and makes an enormous difference in the lives of millions.
But there's still quite a bit of work left. While the average score of companies who participate in the CEI is 84 (in the green), the average score for corporations who chose not to participate in the CEI this year is a disappointing 11. And that's the biggest problem – a full quarter of businesses in the CEI are in the red, just because they didn't respond.
Now you can take part by downloading the 2013 Buying for Workplace Equality Guide that'll show you how your favorite stores and companies treat their LGBT staff. (There's even an app for that!)
Thanks for taking a minute to look through and share this encouraging and great news.
With pride,
 Chad Griffin President 
This link is specific to you, so send your message before you forward to your friends. Having trouble clicking on the links above? Simply copy and paste this URL into your browser's address bar to reach the action page:
http://www.hrc.org/apps/buyersguide/index.php | |
© 2012 The Human Rights Campaign. All rights reserved.
Human Rights Campaign | http://www.hrc.org/ 1640 Rhode Island Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036-3278 Phone: 202-628-4160 TTY: 202-216-1572 Fax: 202-347-5323 | |
Do not reply to this email. This inbox is not monitored on a regular basis. Replies to this email will not be read or responded to.
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Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Right to Work for LESS -- BEAT THEM AT THEIR OWN GAME
Why cannot workers beat these Republican bastards at their own game much like the voters did in voter suppression states that made sure they registered to vote, came out to vote and stood in line seven hours if necessary to vote? And they fought those laws in the courts.
In this case since there is a freedom to join a union AND there is the freedom to PAY YOUR DUES to the union, PAY IT VOLUNTARILY with no contract. Why cannot there be a HUGE effort at signing workers up in unions making sure through the media, through unions themselves through television programming and advertisements to VOLUNTARILY PAY THEIR DUES?
Then organize to throw Republicans the hell out of state legislatures and governorships. When people vote in Republicans the people lose and the 1% richest win. They MUST be made to see that. So on two levels beat those swine at their own game. REGISTER in unions and then pay a fair fee so that the unions can survive to assist workers. If workers pay then unions survive and help themselves in the process.
The next order of business is to get out the Democratic vote like we did in 2012 and in 2014 beat those shameful loathsome jerks at their own game. That is the way to do it. They make a law so obey the law but make sure that you pay your dues!
In this case since there is a freedom to join a union AND there is the freedom to PAY YOUR DUES to the union, PAY IT VOLUNTARILY with no contract. Why cannot there be a HUGE effort at signing workers up in unions making sure through the media, through unions themselves through television programming and advertisements to VOLUNTARILY PAY THEIR DUES?
Then organize to throw Republicans the hell out of state legislatures and governorships. When people vote in Republicans the people lose and the 1% richest win. They MUST be made to see that. So on two levels beat those swine at their own game. REGISTER in unions and then pay a fair fee so that the unions can survive to assist workers. If workers pay then unions survive and help themselves in the process.
The next order of business is to get out the Democratic vote like we did in 2012 and in 2014 beat those shameful loathsome jerks at their own game. That is the way to do it. They make a law so obey the law but make sure that you pay your dues!
My Statement to Justice Scalia--On Homosexuality
The Supreme Court has a comment section. I left a few choice off the cuff words on it for Justice Scalia.
You are equating feelings against homosexuality with feelings against murder? I would say we can have feelings against most anything we find objectionable EVEN blacks marrying whites or feelings against integration of blacks and whites and our Constitution could be seen as supporting that and has OR not and now does not. The homosexuals I know do not even kill a fly or kill any living thing and are some of the kindest, most brilliant and creative people I know but you, sir, are lumping them in with a feeling against MURDER or murderers?
Respectfully, Sir, you insult me. I stand incredulous that a Supreme Court Justice would say something so unintelligent that I cannot believe this person sits on the highest court of the land. To lump a feeling against homosexuality with a feeling against murder is simply utterly absurd.
If one finds oneself loving a member of one's own sex then what should one do? Murder oneself? Feelings that you espouse against homosexuality have been used as a justification for murdering THEM. But hey, according to you there is no difference between murder and homosexuality. Homosexuals are the victims of murderers and NOT the perpetrators of murder. Feelings that you express are the rationale for killing them.
Can one have a feeling against, well, Italians and equate it with a feeling against homosexuality after all so many Italians were in the Mafia? Should we have the ability to discriminate against them because of that? This is how absurd your comment is.
I ask you to reconsider that statement and to apologize to an entire group of people you insult by lumping them in the same category of murder. You offend, hurt and debase a group of people who are often among the best and the brightest and who hurt no one. Shame on you, Sir, for your hateful comment.
Justice Scalia: You are quoted as having said the following:
"IF WE CAN'T HAVE MORAL FEELINGS AGAINST HOMOSEXUALITY, CAN WE AGAINST MURDER?"
You are equating feelings against homosexuality with feelings against murder? I would say we can have feelings against most anything we find objectionable EVEN blacks marrying whites or feelings against integration of blacks and whites and our Constitution could be seen as supporting that and has OR not and now does not. The homosexuals I know do not even kill a fly or kill any living thing and are some of the kindest, most brilliant and creative people I know but you, sir, are lumping them in with a feeling against MURDER or murderers?
Respectfully, Sir, you insult me. I stand incredulous that a Supreme Court Justice would say something so unintelligent that I cannot believe this person sits on the highest court of the land. To lump a feeling against homosexuality with a feeling against murder is simply utterly absurd.
If one finds oneself loving a member of one's own sex then what should one do? Murder oneself? Feelings that you espouse against homosexuality have been used as a justification for murdering THEM. But hey, according to you there is no difference between murder and homosexuality. Homosexuals are the victims of murderers and NOT the perpetrators of murder. Feelings that you express are the rationale for killing them.
Can one have a feeling against, well, Italians and equate it with a feeling against homosexuality after all so many Italians were in the Mafia? Should we have the ability to discriminate against them because of that? This is how absurd your comment is.
I ask you to reconsider that statement and to apologize to an entire group of people you insult by lumping them in the same category of murder. You offend, hurt and debase a group of people who are often among the best and the brightest and who hurt no one. Shame on you, Sir, for your hateful comment.
Monday, December 10, 2012
Who I will print
Warning: I am NOT posting comments that are rude, vitriolic and just plain nasty. If you want to argue policy or points on MY view great. I will be glad to entertain them BUT they must be written since they are directed at one person, with cogent, polite commentary.
My views are not directed to a person but rather groups that are trying to influence policy and not in ways I deem humane. My viewpoint is I will give you passionate but to an individual I NEVER insult and if I have I apologize for that.
Fine you want to post opposing opinion I will be more than glad to post it but I will not be made to feel personally bad. It's my OPINION that is ALL it is. I hold NO elective office, I wield NO power except through my pen and I do not ever hope of holding elective office. Frankly, I do not know how those who hold office do it ESPECIALLY progressives who generally, like me, simply want to help their fellow man who needs the help ONLY government can provide.
If you oppose that fine. Say it decently and I will print it!
My views are not directed to a person but rather groups that are trying to influence policy and not in ways I deem humane. My viewpoint is I will give you passionate but to an individual I NEVER insult and if I have I apologize for that.
Fine you want to post opposing opinion I will be more than glad to post it but I will not be made to feel personally bad. It's my OPINION that is ALL it is. I hold NO elective office, I wield NO power except through my pen and I do not ever hope of holding elective office. Frankly, I do not know how those who hold office do it ESPECIALLY progressives who generally, like me, simply want to help their fellow man who needs the help ONLY government can provide.
If you oppose that fine. Say it decently and I will print it!
An Important Link
I have now DVR'd Democracy Now which appears on my local cable station on Fios Channel 43
I am enclosing a link here and below to this incredible independent news network which gives information and the TRUTH on the vital questions and occurrences of the day WITHOUT corporate influence skewing the news and showing you ONLY what the corporate sponsors WANT you to see. You may THINK you are getting the news from sources such as NBC Brian Williams and all the other corporate clones but you are NOT.
Look at the cover page of Democracy Now and see how you can obtain a live stream from your own cable network. It's as easy as sitting in front of your own cable TV and turning to the station that carries it.
At this moment Amy Goodman from Democracy Now is reporting on a live stream feed from the climate change summit and reporting about the devastation in the Philippines of a massive typhoon which has already killed 500 and injured thousands depriving millions of homes. It is a catastrophe CLOSELY related to our own climate change catastrophes we have witnessed ALL over the country most recently New York City and surrounding areas. This is a global problem and we TRULY are all in this together.
Mother nature knows NO politics and will proceed with the science construct of man as it is. It is ONLY man who can reverse this deadly trend and we can ONLY do that with the information we have. I enclose the link below which will enable you to find the many stations there that carry Democracy Now. Demand your cable network carry this important true reality based news.
Share this with anyone you like.
http://www.democracynow.org/
I am enclosing a link here and below to this incredible independent news network which gives information and the TRUTH on the vital questions and occurrences of the day WITHOUT corporate influence skewing the news and showing you ONLY what the corporate sponsors WANT you to see. You may THINK you are getting the news from sources such as NBC Brian Williams and all the other corporate clones but you are NOT.
Look at the cover page of Democracy Now and see how you can obtain a live stream from your own cable network. It's as easy as sitting in front of your own cable TV and turning to the station that carries it.
At this moment Amy Goodman from Democracy Now is reporting on a live stream feed from the climate change summit and reporting about the devastation in the Philippines of a massive typhoon which has already killed 500 and injured thousands depriving millions of homes. It is a catastrophe CLOSELY related to our own climate change catastrophes we have witnessed ALL over the country most recently New York City and surrounding areas. This is a global problem and we TRULY are all in this together.
Mother nature knows NO politics and will proceed with the science construct of man as it is. It is ONLY man who can reverse this deadly trend and we can ONLY do that with the information we have. I enclose the link below which will enable you to find the many stations there that carry Democracy Now. Demand your cable network carry this important true reality based news.
Share this with anyone you like.
http://www.democracynow.org/
Saturday, December 08, 2012
Crème DeMint or Tea and Toast
If one follows politics as I do one knows Jim DeMint, Tea Party senator extraordinaire from South Carolina has resigned. He is not serving out his second term in the senate a short month after his reelection. Many are stunned and more still are trying to decipher whether this is a good thing or bad for Democrats. Does this mean another Civil War is erupting this time within the Republican Party trying to purge itself of its moronic madness that exists on the far right? Or will it give an opportunity for the king of the Teas to wined up and throw many more pitches over the plate simply thinking at the Heritage Foundation think tank to create Tea Party policy at a reported one million a year.
The question remains because Tea Baggers are nearly incapable of winning a national election what could Crème Jim DeMint pour into his drink to sweeten it making it more palatable to the American electorate?
The formation of the Tea Party began after passage of the Affordable Health Care Act. It was made up of many middle class mostly whites who carried signs like "Keep your hands off my Medicare" and wore hats with tea bags hanging off of them like one's Aunt Millie from the Ozarks. I thought this would be a movement that could step on the heads of Wall Street who rode rough shod over the world's economy since they were mighty angry at the bailouts too. Instead, the Republican hierarchy seized upon the chance of capturing millions of disaffected white voters convincing them that government spending on programs for the poor was the problem using so called Obamacare as evidence.
They herded these low information voters and watchers of Fox No News News corralling them into believing the Republican Party cared about them because it was against spending especially for the poor (meaning minorities and blacks of course.) It wasn't about helping these middle class whites but it was about deluding the old Moral Majority of the Nixon years making them work FOR Wall Street and not against it.
The necessary vital life-giving ingredient to the Tea Party Republican pie of white was the middle class white hot hatred of a black president and his black family walking into the very white house. As one election sign of a supporter of Mitt Romney said, "Let's keep the White House white!"
What the reality Tea Partiers failed to see and the Republican hierarchy ignored was, of course, demographics. The demographics of the nation are changing. The white man will soon be in the minority and no amount of gerrymandering or Sheldon Adelson and Koch brothers stuffed pockets of money will help.
The racist religious fascist cranks of the Tea Party Taliban have gotten our attention and continue to try to gum up the works for anything with the name Obama attached to it even if that man won a crushing victory against them. I believe it is this that is at the heart of the Tea Party movement despite the one or two token African Americans who on occasion showed up at a Romney rally drowning in a sea of white! In the final analysis I think it will not matter if Crème Jim DeMint sits at the throne of the conservative new “think tank” Heritage Foundation or occupies a seat in the United States Senate. His tea baggers and the toxicity they bring to the nation will, ultimately, make them toast!
The question remains because Tea Baggers are nearly incapable of winning a national election what could Crème Jim DeMint pour into his drink to sweeten it making it more palatable to the American electorate?
The formation of the Tea Party began after passage of the Affordable Health Care Act. It was made up of many middle class mostly whites who carried signs like "Keep your hands off my Medicare" and wore hats with tea bags hanging off of them like one's Aunt Millie from the Ozarks. I thought this would be a movement that could step on the heads of Wall Street who rode rough shod over the world's economy since they were mighty angry at the bailouts too. Instead, the Republican hierarchy seized upon the chance of capturing millions of disaffected white voters convincing them that government spending on programs for the poor was the problem using so called Obamacare as evidence.
They herded these low information voters and watchers of Fox No News News corralling them into believing the Republican Party cared about them because it was against spending especially for the poor (meaning minorities and blacks of course.) It wasn't about helping these middle class whites but it was about deluding the old Moral Majority of the Nixon years making them work FOR Wall Street and not against it.
The necessary vital life-giving ingredient to the Tea Party Republican pie of white was the middle class white hot hatred of a black president and his black family walking into the very white house. As one election sign of a supporter of Mitt Romney said, "Let's keep the White House white!"
What the reality Tea Partiers failed to see and the Republican hierarchy ignored was, of course, demographics. The demographics of the nation are changing. The white man will soon be in the minority and no amount of gerrymandering or Sheldon Adelson and Koch brothers stuffed pockets of money will help.
The racist religious fascist cranks of the Tea Party Taliban have gotten our attention and continue to try to gum up the works for anything with the name Obama attached to it even if that man won a crushing victory against them. I believe it is this that is at the heart of the Tea Party movement despite the one or two token African Americans who on occasion showed up at a Romney rally drowning in a sea of white! In the final analysis I think it will not matter if Crème Jim DeMint sits at the throne of the conservative new “think tank” Heritage Foundation or occupies a seat in the United States Senate. His tea baggers and the toxicity they bring to the nation will, ultimately, make them toast!
Thursday, December 06, 2012
A Link to Senators who Opposed the Treaty on Disabilities
I am posting the link below or here that gives you how particular senators voted on treaty ratification of the Americans with Disability Act to extend throughout the world by treaty signature. G.W. Bush began and signed it as did President Obama.
I urge you IF you have time to contact as many Republican senators who voted NAY on the list. The list is divided so you can see who voted nay on this all important treaty. We are the ONLY developed nation not to have signed it. It needs 67 votes for treaty ratification and Tea Baggers dumped it. This small group of Republicans must NOT be allowed to hijack not only this treaty but economic policy that is good for the country and the world. They MUST NOT be allowed to subvert the president at every turn.
Here is the list below. By simply Googling their last name and hit contact you will be given a form for policy comments that has auto fil. Once you fill in your name, etc. on every other one you click on it will be automatically be put in. It saves much time.
We MUST show Republicans and the heartless Tea Baggers within that Party that we will be dedicated to replacing them.
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=112&session=2&vote=00219#top
Wednesday, December 05, 2012
A National Disgrace
The Republican Party yesterday — mainly Tea Baggers — disgraced fellow Republicans, the United States Senate, United States Servicemen and women AND the United States of America while kicking sand into the global community's eyes by refusing to ratify a treaty for the disabled that was begun by George W. Bush to extend our own American with Disabilities Act to other nations. The American with Disabilities Act passed into law by President H.W. Bush the elder and the treaty of it put forth by George W. Bush was signed by him and President Obama to help this cause.
The elder statesman and WWII veteran, former Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole, came literally off his death bed in a wheel chair to the floor of the Senate as did many other senators, congressmen and veterans to ratify this treaty.
It takes 67 votes to ratify a treaty. It failed 61 to 38. It lost because of Tea Party Republican intransigents who refused to vote for it because it was attached to the UN and Tea Party perceived loss of American sovereignty and world government crank fears. This was truly an abomination and proof positive that all of us, Republican and Democrat, alike must work hard to send a message loud and clear that these inhumane deluded excuses for humanity Tea Baggers will LOSE their respective seats in both the House and the Senate in 2014. This minority MUST not be allowed to hold the United States of America hostage to their rancid poisonous philosophical malevolence.
If this simple treaty could not be ratified how on God's earth is one going to navigate the so called fiscal cliff? They stood intransigent, I believe, to show they will never do as the majority of Americans have commanded and as reflected by the president's resounding win. The Tea Bag party, the party of stupidity and treason secessionists, the party of birthers and 911 conspiratorial ranters has become a GREAT evil in the American political scene. A minority party of viral low information voters within the Republican Party has taken this country close to the abyss. How did these cerebral nincompoops gain so much power that they can make the United States of America look anemic to the world?
A part of the Republican Party is insipid and will never in its present form win ANYTHING major again. They are a dead party as they exist today. Republicans need to kick the Tea Baggers into the ash bin of history, place them in the dump and close the lid. Let's have the funeral for them and be done with it to get the American Congress moving once again.
Sen. Hatch, Sen. Graham, Sen. Shelby, and 35 other senators SHAME ON YOU for not ratifying a simple treaty for the disabled around the world. You are a disgrace to veterans, you are a disgrace to your own colleagues who have given their lives in service, you are a disgrace to the disabled everywhere and you are most of all a disgrace to the nation you are supposed to serve!
Tuesday, December 04, 2012
Suppressing the Vote Yet Again!
As you can see from the link here and below the Republican liars are at it again attempting to make voter ID law in Wisconsin (and I am sure other states) enshrined in state constitutional law not because it is necessary but because it will suppress the Democratic vote. Democrats everywhere need to mount a HUGE challenge in the courts and by organizing protests of honest people wherever this is attempted before 2014 mid-term elections when Republicans stand to lose dramatically. If Republicans attempt voter suppression by making voter ID’s a state constitutional mandate then it will be on the Democratic Party across the nation to make sure legally this does not happen.
The Republican attempts at this are a ruse, brazen, unethical and just plain WRONG because there is NO voter fraud. Wisconsin has one of the highest voter turnouts in the country. Apparently Republicans in Wisconsin are against high voter turnout. The rationales they give for needing Voter ID's are FALSE. They are designed to make it harder for the elderly, minorities, the disabled and the poor to vote. It has nothing to do with alleged voter fraud which is non-existent but has EVERYTHING to do with suppressing the Democratic vote.
We need to beat Republicans at their charlatan game and ensure they do not do this by taking it to the people and the Courts to reject. The Republican Party will be the most vulnerable in 2014 and they know it as the president is making a great case for Democratic economic policy taking it to the people all over the country as to why the top 2% richest should contribute more and why the middle class is deserving of tax relief growing the economy NOT from the top down which was tried and failed but from the middle class out. Taking your case and explaining it to the people works!
Beyond that we also know other social issues from a women's right to choose her health care including birth control are in the mix. Republicans will regressively push our country backwards in draconian fashion attempting to return us to another era. They MUST BE STOPPED by any means necessary including forming a massive campaign to sign up voters and to GET OUT THE DEMOCRATIC VOTE (GOTV) when the time comes! In the meantime do NOT let Republicans constitutionally enshrine Voter ID laws!
Maintaining our democracy takes work and oversight and it did not end by our crushing victory in 2012. Make no mistake the Republican Party will stop at nothing to win even through illegal conduct if they deem it necessary. We must not allow this to happen. There is too much at stake.
WHY ELECTING DEMOCRATS ACROSS THE BOARD IN LOCAL, STATE, AND FEDERAL ELECTIONS IS NOT ONLY NECESSARY BUT MANDATORY.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/03/wisconsin-voter-id-state-constitution_n_2233319.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
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The Republican attempts at this are a ruse, brazen, unethical and just plain WRONG because there is NO voter fraud. Wisconsin has one of the highest voter turnouts in the country. Apparently Republicans in Wisconsin are against high voter turnout. The rationales they give for needing Voter ID's are FALSE. They are designed to make it harder for the elderly, minorities, the disabled and the poor to vote. It has nothing to do with alleged voter fraud which is non-existent but has EVERYTHING to do with suppressing the Democratic vote.
We need to beat Republicans at their charlatan game and ensure they do not do this by taking it to the people and the Courts to reject. The Republican Party will be the most vulnerable in 2014 and they know it as the president is making a great case for Democratic economic policy taking it to the people all over the country as to why the top 2% richest should contribute more and why the middle class is deserving of tax relief growing the economy NOT from the top down which was tried and failed but from the middle class out. Taking your case and explaining it to the people works!
Beyond that we also know other social issues from a women's right to choose her health care including birth control are in the mix. Republicans will regressively push our country backwards in draconian fashion attempting to return us to another era. They MUST BE STOPPED by any means necessary including forming a massive campaign to sign up voters and to GET OUT THE DEMOCRATIC VOTE (GOTV) when the time comes! In the meantime do NOT let Republicans constitutionally enshrine Voter ID laws!
Maintaining our democracy takes work and oversight and it did not end by our crushing victory in 2012. Make no mistake the Republican Party will stop at nothing to win even through illegal conduct if they deem it necessary. We must not allow this to happen. There is too much at stake.
WHY ELECTING DEMOCRATS ACROSS THE BOARD IN LOCAL, STATE, AND FEDERAL ELECTIONS IS NOT ONLY NECESSARY BUT MANDATORY.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/03/wisconsin-voter-id-state-constitution_n_2233319.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
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Sunday, December 02, 2012
Light Through the Darkness
The article below appeared in the G Section of the Boston Globe on Saturday, December 1. It is entitled: "He Saved Me, Too: the story of an unlikely friendship that of a Holocaust survivor and a woman" by Bella English here or below.
The article, I think, conveys the ability of human beings to connect with one another, give a part of each to the other filing voids many of us feel as we travel through the difficulties of life. Victor Frankl chronicler of his Holocaust experience in his famous work “Man's Search for Meaning” said, even then, in the darkest hour the will to live was endemic in most. Where no meaning seemingly exists we seek to find one, to give reason to the unreasonable, to replace the darkness with light, and seek happiness despite our despair. Rabbi Harold Kushner in his work “Why Bad Things Happen to Good People” says when hope seems the most elusive one human being can help the other assisting us through our tragic moments. Indeed, he says, this is God in the human experience.
The meeting of the aging Holocaust survivor, Aron Lieb, former Dachau resident who lost his family to fires of Auschwitz and the new mother saddled with post partum depression was unforeseen. Each filled a void in the other. He lived here with no family, no wife, and no children of his own save the stranger he acquired in a meeting of chance. He provided for her a way and a why out of depression. She would provide for him the family he never knew and the daughter who would sit beside him at 91 when he died.
The story is, I think, about hope where seemingly there is none and where there is the love of friendship in an often loveless world. Its tale is a message for all of us who have endured the vicissitudes and tears of life but go on nonetheless finding meaning in those we love and who love us through it all. He assured her if there is life after death he would send a sign. You must read the article to find out if he did.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/2012/11/30/saved-too-story-unlikely-friendship/m0D4GHpZUub8EOol3SNI3H/comments.html
The article, I think, conveys the ability of human beings to connect with one another, give a part of each to the other filing voids many of us feel as we travel through the difficulties of life. Victor Frankl chronicler of his Holocaust experience in his famous work “Man's Search for Meaning” said, even then, in the darkest hour the will to live was endemic in most. Where no meaning seemingly exists we seek to find one, to give reason to the unreasonable, to replace the darkness with light, and seek happiness despite our despair. Rabbi Harold Kushner in his work “Why Bad Things Happen to Good People” says when hope seems the most elusive one human being can help the other assisting us through our tragic moments. Indeed, he says, this is God in the human experience.
The meeting of the aging Holocaust survivor, Aron Lieb, former Dachau resident who lost his family to fires of Auschwitz and the new mother saddled with post partum depression was unforeseen. Each filled a void in the other. He lived here with no family, no wife, and no children of his own save the stranger he acquired in a meeting of chance. He provided for her a way and a why out of depression. She would provide for him the family he never knew and the daughter who would sit beside him at 91 when he died.
The story is, I think, about hope where seemingly there is none and where there is the love of friendship in an often loveless world. Its tale is a message for all of us who have endured the vicissitudes and tears of life but go on nonetheless finding meaning in those we love and who love us through it all. He assured her if there is life after death he would send a sign. You must read the article to find out if he did.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/2012/11/30/saved-too-story-unlikely-friendship/m0D4GHpZUub8EOol3SNI3H/comments.html
Saturday, December 01, 2012
The Cure
Before you ignore this opinion below please give it some thought. It is not very long and it truly means saving our country's economic life. After you read it contact as many legislators as you can especially if they are Republicans. You must let them know you understand their game.
A preface from Wiki: Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. He is on the faculty of UC Berkeley's Goldman School of Policy. Since then, he has taught a popular course called Wealth and Poverty. In addition to his professorship, Reich is also a Member of the Board of Trustees for the Blum Center for Developing Economies at the University of California, Berkeley. The Center is focused on finding solutions to address the crisis of extreme poverty and disease in the developing world.
I believe he speaks truth. WHY cannot this country with all its talent get it and why was there not someone screaming this especially in 2010 when the Tea Party cancer struck? We needed the president selling his policies, in that time on Obamacare, as he is now explaining his program for economic growth, fiscal so called "cliff" avoidance and why the Republican austerity plan is NOT a cure for our nation's economic woes but a death knell.
If I can understand Mr. Reich anyone can because I am afflicted with some kind of genetic malady for math or its associates. Languages yes, math no but what Mr. Reich says makes perfect sense even to me and, I believe, he is spot on correct.
The remedy for our economic woes since the Bush induced Great Recession is staring us right in the face but some of the electorate duped by all things Republican continues to vote for these charlatans as it did in 2010 handing the Republican Party of fiscal death power in the Congressional House and individual state legislatures as well. Republicans sell themselves as the cure for a sound economy but they are the crank poison. It is like having the cure for cancer before you and instead of the cure you choose a diet Coke which will kill you. I paste Mr. Reich's article from Reader Supported News below. Please consider reading it and, like Paul Revere, pass it on to every village and farm! The link for it with reader commentary is here or below.
Why We Should Stop Obsessing About The Federal Budget Deficit
By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog
19 November 12
wish President Obama and the Democrats would explain to the nation that the federal budget deficit isn't the nation's major economic problem and deficit reduction shouldn't be our major goal. Our problem is lack of good jobs and sufficient growth, and our goal must be to revive both.
Deficit reduction leads us in the opposite direction - away from jobs and growth. The reason the "fiscal cliff" is dangerous (and, yes, I know - it's not really a "cliff" but more like a hill) is because it's too much deficit reduction, too quickly. It would suck too much demand out of the economy.
But more jobs and growth will help reduce the deficit. With more jobs and faster growth, the deficit will shrink as a proportion of the overall economy. Recall the 1990s when the Clinton administration balanced the budget ahead of the schedule it had set with Congress because of faster job growth than anyone expected - bringing in more tax revenues than anyone had forecast. Europe offers the same lesson in reverse: Their deficits are ballooning because their austerity policies have caused their economies to sink.
The best way to generate jobs and growth is for the government to spend more, not less. And for taxes to stay low - or become even lower - on the middle class.
(Higher taxes on the rich won't slow the economy because the rich will keep spending anyway. After all, being rich means spending whatever you want to spend. By the same token, higher taxes won't reduce their incentive to save and invest because they're already doing as much saving and investing as they want. Remember: they're taking home a near record share of the nation's total income and have a record share of total wealth.)
Why don't our politicians and media get this? Because an entire deficit-cutting political industry has grown up in recent years - starting with Ross Perot's third party in the 1992 election, extending through Peter Petersen's Institute and other think-tanks funded by Wall Street and big business, embracing the eat-your-spinach deficit hawk crowd in the Democratic Party, and culminating in the Simpson-Bowles Commission that President Obama created in order to appease the hawks but which only legitimized them further.
Most of the media have bought into the narrative that our economic problems stem from an out-of-control budget deficit. They're repeating this hokum even now, when we're staring at a fiscal cliff that illustrates just how dangerous deficit reduction can be.
Deficit hawks routinely warn unless the deficit is trimmed we'll fall prey to inflation and rising interest rates. But there's no sign of inflation anywhere. The world is awash in underutilized capacity As for interest rates, the yield on the ten-year Treasury bill is now around 1.26 percent - lower than it's been in living memory.
In fact, if there was ever a time for America to borrow more in order to put our people back to work repairing our crumbling infrastructure and rebuilding our schools, it's now.
Public investments that spur future job-growth and productivity shouldn't even be included in measures of government spending to begin with. They're justifiable as long as the return on those investments - a more educated and productive workforce, and a more efficient infrastructure, both generating more and better goods and services with fewer scarce resources - is higher than the cost of those investments.
In fact, we'd be nuts not to make these investments under these circumstances. No sane family equates spending on vacations with investing in their kids' education. Yet that's what we do in our federal budget.
Finally, the biggest driver of future deficits is overstated - rising health-care costs that underlie projections for Medicare and Medicaid spending. The rate of growth of health-care costs is slowing because of the Affordable Care Act and increasing pressures on health providers to hold down costs. Yet projections of future budget deficits haven't yet factored in this slowdown.
So can we please stop obsessing about future budget deficits? They're distracting our attention from what we should be obsessing about - jobs and growth.
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/14611-why-we-should-stop-obsessing-about-the-federal-budget-deficit
A preface from Wiki: Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. He is on the faculty of UC Berkeley's Goldman School of Policy. Since then, he has taught a popular course called Wealth and Poverty. In addition to his professorship, Reich is also a Member of the Board of Trustees for the Blum Center for Developing Economies at the University of California, Berkeley. The Center is focused on finding solutions to address the crisis of extreme poverty and disease in the developing world.
I believe he speaks truth. WHY cannot this country with all its talent get it and why was there not someone screaming this especially in 2010 when the Tea Party cancer struck? We needed the president selling his policies, in that time on Obamacare, as he is now explaining his program for economic growth, fiscal so called "cliff" avoidance and why the Republican austerity plan is NOT a cure for our nation's economic woes but a death knell.
If I can understand Mr. Reich anyone can because I am afflicted with some kind of genetic malady for math or its associates. Languages yes, math no but what Mr. Reich says makes perfect sense even to me and, I believe, he is spot on correct.
The remedy for our economic woes since the Bush induced Great Recession is staring us right in the face but some of the electorate duped by all things Republican continues to vote for these charlatans as it did in 2010 handing the Republican Party of fiscal death power in the Congressional House and individual state legislatures as well. Republicans sell themselves as the cure for a sound economy but they are the crank poison. It is like having the cure for cancer before you and instead of the cure you choose a diet Coke which will kill you. I paste Mr. Reich's article from Reader Supported News below. Please consider reading it and, like Paul Revere, pass it on to every village and farm! The link for it with reader commentary is here or below.
Why We Should Stop Obsessing About The Federal Budget Deficit
By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog
19 November 12
wish President Obama and the Democrats would explain to the nation that the federal budget deficit isn't the nation's major economic problem and deficit reduction shouldn't be our major goal. Our problem is lack of good jobs and sufficient growth, and our goal must be to revive both.Deficit reduction leads us in the opposite direction - away from jobs and growth. The reason the "fiscal cliff" is dangerous (and, yes, I know - it's not really a "cliff" but more like a hill) is because it's too much deficit reduction, too quickly. It would suck too much demand out of the economy.
But more jobs and growth will help reduce the deficit. With more jobs and faster growth, the deficit will shrink as a proportion of the overall economy. Recall the 1990s when the Clinton administration balanced the budget ahead of the schedule it had set with Congress because of faster job growth than anyone expected - bringing in more tax revenues than anyone had forecast. Europe offers the same lesson in reverse: Their deficits are ballooning because their austerity policies have caused their economies to sink.
The best way to generate jobs and growth is for the government to spend more, not less. And for taxes to stay low - or become even lower - on the middle class.
(Higher taxes on the rich won't slow the economy because the rich will keep spending anyway. After all, being rich means spending whatever you want to spend. By the same token, higher taxes won't reduce their incentive to save and invest because they're already doing as much saving and investing as they want. Remember: they're taking home a near record share of the nation's total income and have a record share of total wealth.)
Why don't our politicians and media get this? Because an entire deficit-cutting political industry has grown up in recent years - starting with Ross Perot's third party in the 1992 election, extending through Peter Petersen's Institute and other think-tanks funded by Wall Street and big business, embracing the eat-your-spinach deficit hawk crowd in the Democratic Party, and culminating in the Simpson-Bowles Commission that President Obama created in order to appease the hawks but which only legitimized them further.
Most of the media have bought into the narrative that our economic problems stem from an out-of-control budget deficit. They're repeating this hokum even now, when we're staring at a fiscal cliff that illustrates just how dangerous deficit reduction can be.
Deficit hawks routinely warn unless the deficit is trimmed we'll fall prey to inflation and rising interest rates. But there's no sign of inflation anywhere. The world is awash in underutilized capacity As for interest rates, the yield on the ten-year Treasury bill is now around 1.26 percent - lower than it's been in living memory.
In fact, if there was ever a time for America to borrow more in order to put our people back to work repairing our crumbling infrastructure and rebuilding our schools, it's now.
Public investments that spur future job-growth and productivity shouldn't even be included in measures of government spending to begin with. They're justifiable as long as the return on those investments - a more educated and productive workforce, and a more efficient infrastructure, both generating more and better goods and services with fewer scarce resources - is higher than the cost of those investments.
In fact, we'd be nuts not to make these investments under these circumstances. No sane family equates spending on vacations with investing in their kids' education. Yet that's what we do in our federal budget.
Finally, the biggest driver of future deficits is overstated - rising health-care costs that underlie projections for Medicare and Medicaid spending. The rate of growth of health-care costs is slowing because of the Affordable Care Act and increasing pressures on health providers to hold down costs. Yet projections of future budget deficits haven't yet factored in this slowdown.
So can we please stop obsessing about future budget deficits? They're distracting our attention from what we should be obsessing about - jobs and growth.
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/14611-why-we-should-stop-obsessing-about-the-federal-budget-deficit
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Michael D’Antuono’s painting“The Truth,”
I love this painting below and think the artist has great talent. I think this painting has merit as political commentary. It is in my opinion, excellent. I agree with the artist. The president has received the most heinous criticism and even worse from a right wing extremist Republican base and beyond. The president must at times feel like he is crucified.
I say it is FREE SPEECH. How does the religious right like it when THEY think it's "blasphemy" about THEIR religion?
I do not. I do NOT think it about Christianity. I think it is about things political and I think it valid empathy for a president like no other in American history who has received a critical onslaught no matter what he does!
![The_Truth[1].jpg](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_v9GPZRfkooAxBV8WM_Gt3KAkvI4q48If9EljGgeSyvVX_F7szEL2VoNCxqEAOhGjR2syhII74HUoGD-Z2PEH7nsBMX6ilWYysnjp9WTtPHVC4BwpEvtWAo0D4r4UCkzvVNj03uD_hdabKcmwmZqv1xvITOvm9uqiETlMOF=s0-d)
I say it is FREE SPEECH. How does the religious right like it when THEY think it's "blasphemy" about THEIR religion?
I do not. I do NOT think it about Christianity. I think it is about things political and I think it valid empathy for a president like no other in American history who has received a critical onslaught no matter what he does!
Bunker Hill Community College displays controversial painting depicting Obama as Jesus
"The Truth" by Michael D’Antuono
A Method to Their Madness -- The bulldozing of Susan Rice
Republicans blathering against Susan Rice is utterly ridiculous and immoral. To attack an innocent qualified person who WILL be Secretary of State over NOTHING is deplorable. There, however, is a method to their madness. Republicans want John Kerry's Senate seat for Scott Brown if Kerry leaves it to become Secretary of State if Susan Rice has a problem securing it. Scott Brown though will NEVER get that seat. He is THROUGH! McCain, Graham and Ayotte want to block Rice by any means necessary no matter if they run over her with a bulldozer.
McCain is aged, mean and a shadow of what he was. He is full of anger and revenge because his attempts at the presidency were foiled at every turn. He is washed up and knows it. Graham is a remnant from the Confederacy or tries to be. He is a HYPOCRITE. Bush's Condoleza Rice advocates for a phony war killing THOUSANDS and destabilizing a region but he had no problem with that.
PAAAHLEESE give me a break. We are NOT stupid. They sock it to the eminently qualified black woman because they THINK Republican Scott Brown (remember him?) can get Kerry's seat if Kerry becomes Secretary of State. NO WAY! WE MUST NEVER LET THAT HAPPEN. Mass. hopefully came its senses since the 2010 fluke election of Brown because Democrats were not paying attention. We will NOT NOT NOT be asleep again.
Write or contact John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Kelly Ayotte and tell them they look like bullies in their attempt to crush Susan Rice. They will NOT be successful as the president has said. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire as Santas's helper looks like a Stepford Wife token female in support of her men. Tell them to LEAVE SUSAN RICE ALONE. Tell them NOT to hope for Scott Brown. I thought we just had an election telling him he is THROUGH! WE NEED TO MAKE SURE HE IS!
McCain is aged, mean and a shadow of what he was. He is full of anger and revenge because his attempts at the presidency were foiled at every turn. He is washed up and knows it. Graham is a remnant from the Confederacy or tries to be. He is a HYPOCRITE. Bush's Condoleza Rice advocates for a phony war killing THOUSANDS and destabilizing a region but he had no problem with that.
PAAAHLEESE give me a break. We are NOT stupid. They sock it to the eminently qualified black woman because they THINK Republican Scott Brown (remember him?) can get Kerry's seat if Kerry becomes Secretary of State. NO WAY! WE MUST NEVER LET THAT HAPPEN. Mass. hopefully came its senses since the 2010 fluke election of Brown because Democrats were not paying attention. We will NOT NOT NOT be asleep again.
Write or contact John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Kelly Ayotte and tell them they look like bullies in their attempt to crush Susan Rice. They will NOT be successful as the president has said. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire as Santas's helper looks like a Stepford Wife token female in support of her men. Tell them to LEAVE SUSAN RICE ALONE. Tell them NOT to hope for Scott Brown. I thought we just had an election telling him he is THROUGH! WE NEED TO MAKE SURE HE IS!
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Nailed to a Cross
What I want to know is HOW MUCH are they going to take out of the hide of the little guy -- ME -- as to Social Security and Medicare. My goodness these so called "Christian" Republicans want to back humongous corporations so THEY do not have to be the ones to shoulder the main tax burden. Taxing them an extra minuscule percent to them will mean NOTHING. They will NOT I assure you be in a soup line but those of us who are part of the 99% if there are significant cuts to Soc. Sec., Medicare or Medicaid then it WILL mean something placing our lives at risk.
As one whose family's life was saved by Social Security and Medicare I KNOW how wonderful these programs are and they were NOT free. We paid into them for decades. The president should NOT budge on the social safety nets.
I bet Jesus Christ himself would want to sock it to the behemoth corporations, Wall Street and the big guys who will NOT suffer one inch by a slight increase in taxes and closed loopholes, shutting off incentives to tax evade but the poor will be nailed to the proverbial cross that WILL kill us!
WRITE TO CONGRESS, SPEAKER BOEHNER AND THE PRESIDENT TELLING THEM NO TO DECREASES IN SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE!
As one whose family's life was saved by Social Security and Medicare I KNOW how wonderful these programs are and they were NOT free. We paid into them for decades. The president should NOT budge on the social safety nets.
I bet Jesus Christ himself would want to sock it to the behemoth corporations, Wall Street and the big guys who will NOT suffer one inch by a slight increase in taxes and closed loopholes, shutting off incentives to tax evade but the poor will be nailed to the proverbial cross that WILL kill us!
WRITE TO CONGRESS, SPEAKER BOEHNER AND THE PRESIDENT TELLING THEM NO TO DECREASES IN SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE!
Monday, November 26, 2012
The Real Apocalypse
I urge you to read and heed this excellent article Stand Still for the Apocalypse by Chris Hedges in TruthDig on climate change if not for you then for future generations and URGE power everywhere to act and act NOW before it is too late!
here or below.
http://readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/54-54/14730-focus-stand-still-for-the-apocalypse
here or below.
http://readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/54-54/14730-focus-stand-still-for-the-apocalypse
Thanksgiving
I labored long as to how I would write this opinion. I decided to merely write that which I think about often and am thankful for every day. I think about how lucky I am through accident of birth to enjoy a warm shower, to brush my teeth, and to have indoor plumbing. I am thankful for these simple things which much of the world does not have and things we often take for granted. These things keep us safe, clean and free from disease. In another time or place this would not be so.
Yes, I am thankful, too, for the garbage collectors, for selfless firemen and police who like doctors keep us safe from that which could destroy us. I am thankful for a country which, although divided, manages to still govern transferring power bloodlessly. I am thankful for our country’s Founding Fathers who wrote documents so prescient and so well written that we still celebrate their genius centuries after our nation’s birth. I am thankful for Lady Liberty symbolically lighting the way for ships carrying men and women like my grandfathers and grandmothers who would have died with all the other Jews of Nazi-infected Europe.
How lucky I am that in my extended family there are two doctors, one speech therapist, one Harvard graduate, one Wellesley graduate, one Stanford Medical and Johns Hopkins graduate, one in the White House, and others whose successes are too numerous to mention. I am lucky to have wonderful family and friends whose intellect I value and whose advice I cherish. I am lucky to have family who continued the line of my grandparents by raising wonderful children some of whom have had their own children extending the line further still.
I am lucky to have been born in a nation where even sixty years ago accorded me excellent treatment for polio, a disease which often deforms avoiding that deformity by receiving the best care even without a national healthcare plan. I am thankful for that. I am thankful that my father went to law school, made a living, bought a house, bought many cars and never could have dreamed that life possible for a Jew anywhere else on earth. I am thankful for all those things.
I am thankful my father bestowed upon me a love of history, a love of FDR, and a love of country. Although we had many policy disagreements we both shared a love of that. I am so thankful for the education I received, for the colleges I attended, for the many teaches and professors who shaped my education and my political views. I am thankful I can write and say most anything I please without the fear of a knock at the door or prison without trial. I am thankful for all those things. I am thankful to live in a nation blessed by geography which has allowed it to prosper and which allows me to hope a warless nation continues to be its fate. I am thankful that change of policy is possible without violence and that I can continue to hope for the change of its foreign policy as well.
I am thankful I bore witness to the election and then the re-election of the first African American president along with Massachusetts’s first brilliant woman senator. I am thankful for all the civil liberties I enjoy that allowed me to find a partner of my choice and realize things which were once beyond my capacity to hope. I am thankful for fate giving me a window to the beauty of the planet and the span of man’s history upon it. I hope that I, in some small way, can contribute to the easing of suffering through political policy that can make it so.
For all these things I am eternally grateful and why the national holiday of Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of all.
Yes, I am thankful, too, for the garbage collectors, for selfless firemen and police who like doctors keep us safe from that which could destroy us. I am thankful for a country which, although divided, manages to still govern transferring power bloodlessly. I am thankful for our country’s Founding Fathers who wrote documents so prescient and so well written that we still celebrate their genius centuries after our nation’s birth. I am thankful for Lady Liberty symbolically lighting the way for ships carrying men and women like my grandfathers and grandmothers who would have died with all the other Jews of Nazi-infected Europe.
How lucky I am that in my extended family there are two doctors, one speech therapist, one Harvard graduate, one Wellesley graduate, one Stanford Medical and Johns Hopkins graduate, one in the White House, and others whose successes are too numerous to mention. I am lucky to have wonderful family and friends whose intellect I value and whose advice I cherish. I am lucky to have family who continued the line of my grandparents by raising wonderful children some of whom have had their own children extending the line further still.
I am lucky to have been born in a nation where even sixty years ago accorded me excellent treatment for polio, a disease which often deforms avoiding that deformity by receiving the best care even without a national healthcare plan. I am thankful for that. I am thankful that my father went to law school, made a living, bought a house, bought many cars and never could have dreamed that life possible for a Jew anywhere else on earth. I am thankful for all those things.
I am thankful my father bestowed upon me a love of history, a love of FDR, and a love of country. Although we had many policy disagreements we both shared a love of that. I am so thankful for the education I received, for the colleges I attended, for the many teaches and professors who shaped my education and my political views. I am thankful I can write and say most anything I please without the fear of a knock at the door or prison without trial. I am thankful for all those things. I am thankful to live in a nation blessed by geography which has allowed it to prosper and which allows me to hope a warless nation continues to be its fate. I am thankful that change of policy is possible without violence and that I can continue to hope for the change of its foreign policy as well.
I am thankful I bore witness to the election and then the re-election of the first African American president along with Massachusetts’s first brilliant woman senator. I am thankful for all the civil liberties I enjoy that allowed me to find a partner of my choice and realize things which were once beyond my capacity to hope. I am thankful for fate giving me a window to the beauty of the planet and the span of man’s history upon it. I hope that I, in some small way, can contribute to the easing of suffering through political policy that can make it so.
For all these things I am eternally grateful and why the national holiday of Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of all.
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Israel -- Swords into Plowshares – The Eternal Spring of Hope
How many times have we seen competing volleys of violence between Palestinians and Jews in Israel? Each side has its unyielding truths. That is the problem as I see it. It is why this issue has been so intractable even to the most seasoned foreign policy genius. Peace has been attempted by many USpresidents and international others over decades and yet even when close to it violence erupts to foil once again the efforts of the makers of that peace.
I believe in not returning to ancient history to buttress either one side or the other’s claims on this land. That is futile. I believe in (forgive the cliché) playing the ball where it lies. It does not matter now who had the land first as we know it has had many occupiers over centuries. The questions are what do we have to do now and what will it take for each side to give a little bit up to stop the endless rounds of recriminations, violence and the deaths of innocents.
I always believed the president does, indeed, have Israel's back but is not unmindful of the suffering of the Palestinian people. The fact that others disparage him means that they do not, as I see it, know what they are talking about. All presidents must endure a democracy’s natural opposition but this president suffers the slings and arrows of opposition the vitriol of which has not been seen since the Civil War and we, too often, know why. Though he is pilloried he takes the onslaught and plods on much like his historical mentor, Lincoln, did and in this difficult moment with hope in the crosshairs of despair I hope he can help create what no one ever has.
I am yearning for this foreign policy magician who caught Bin Laden, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at his side, to help perfect an Israeli/Palestinian peace carving it out on tablets of stone which now seem like a molten mass of distant hope.
Perhaps, I am naïve, wrong and too idealistic out of a strong desire to simply stop the killing. Maybe the situation is in reality impossible and ultimately hopeless. I think though, truly, nothing is impossible in the course of human events which are, after all, shaped by humans themselves. It will take some to bend a little bit and eschew policy aversions to peace cemented in their brain over time. I hope the belligerents give up some of their steadfast long-held positions and lay down their violent opposition giving up a little for all the innocents seemingly plunged into war’s eternal darkness. It will take acceptance of that which has heretofore been unacceptable.
Instead of the bellicosity of war let us hope, no matter the difficulty, peace prevails despite the allusiveness of its intractable history. I am betting on the president, as he shows time and again he can do what has been thought impossible and go where none has gone before. He above anyone else can help secure a peace with Secretary Clinton at his side. With Secretary Clinton’s genius and the president’s imprimatur, together, I believe, they can help do the impossible for both sides whose innocents have suffered so much and for so long. I hope the eternal spring of hope helps them turn the weapons of swords into the plowshares of peace for everyone and in our time.
I believe in not returning to ancient history to buttress either one side or the other’s claims on this land. That is futile. I believe in (forgive the cliché) playing the ball where it lies. It does not matter now who had the land first as we know it has had many occupiers over centuries. The questions are what do we have to do now and what will it take for each side to give a little bit up to stop the endless rounds of recriminations, violence and the deaths of innocents.
I always believed the president does, indeed, have Israel's back but is not unmindful of the suffering of the Palestinian people. The fact that others disparage him means that they do not, as I see it, know what they are talking about. All presidents must endure a democracy’s natural opposition but this president suffers the slings and arrows of opposition the vitriol of which has not been seen since the Civil War and we, too often, know why. Though he is pilloried he takes the onslaught and plods on much like his historical mentor, Lincoln, did and in this difficult moment with hope in the crosshairs of despair I hope he can help create what no one ever has.
I am yearning for this foreign policy magician who caught Bin Laden, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at his side, to help perfect an Israeli/Palestinian peace carving it out on tablets of stone which now seem like a molten mass of distant hope.
Perhaps, I am naïve, wrong and too idealistic out of a strong desire to simply stop the killing. Maybe the situation is in reality impossible and ultimately hopeless. I think though, truly, nothing is impossible in the course of human events which are, after all, shaped by humans themselves. It will take some to bend a little bit and eschew policy aversions to peace cemented in their brain over time. I hope the belligerents give up some of their steadfast long-held positions and lay down their violent opposition giving up a little for all the innocents seemingly plunged into war’s eternal darkness. It will take acceptance of that which has heretofore been unacceptable.
Instead of the bellicosity of war let us hope, no matter the difficulty, peace prevails despite the allusiveness of its intractable history. I am betting on the president, as he shows time and again he can do what has been thought impossible and go where none has gone before. He above anyone else can help secure a peace with Secretary Clinton at his side. With Secretary Clinton’s genius and the president’s imprimatur, together, I believe, they can help do the impossible for both sides whose innocents have suffered so much and for so long. I hope the eternal spring of hope helps them turn the weapons of swords into the plowshares of peace for everyone and in our time.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Lincoln
Stephen Spielberg's film "Lincoln" is yet another masterpiece from the master. It is one of the best snapshots of our 16th president and the social milieu in which he lived that I have ever seen. It concentrates on Lincoln as president toward the end of the Civil War and the machinations between Congress and him to pass the 13th Amendment to the Constitution eliminating slavery from our national reality.
Daniel Day Lewis as President Lincoln and Sally Fields as Mary Todd Lincoln are brilliant as is Tommy Lee Jones in the part of Thaddeus Stevens the great orator of the House of Representatives from Pennsylvania and fierce proponent of abolition.
A refresher course on the 13th Amendment content:
One can understand by attempts to pass present-day legislation how difficult it actually is and the compromises it takes to pass it as events on the ground unfold. Outlawing slavery by passing the 13th Constitutional Amendment was, to say the least, a Herculean task. Our racist past still even now digs its heels into the cement of our national architectural construct. It lives on in generational perpetuity gumming up the works in our attempt to create a more perfect union. Through this excellent film one can see the nature of our racist roots, the brilliance of Lincoln as he overrules many in his own party to force Congress into passing the 13th Amendment. One can see that which divided us then still divides us now albeit in different form through a quite different Republican Party hardly, now, the party of Lincoln.
This is a must see for those who love watching the arc of history as it bends, slowly, towards justice. The film's creators spared us the view of Lincoln's assassination but rather cut to an announcement of its occurrence at another Washington theater. We hear Edwin Stanton, Secretary of War, at the president's bedside uttering history's memorable quote: "Now he belongs to the ages." And so he does as history marches forward from then to now and our election of the first African American president not once but twice resoundingly so. Not surprisingly it made me cry as I thought about my own efforts to support our first African American president and how thrilled I am to be apart of this nation's efforts to perfect this union.
This film presented the Civil War era and the Lincoln presidency as a reflective mirror of our nation's past that lives today and is not only relegated to the south but occupies a major wing of a major party continually seeking immense power in every state taking advantage of the lesser angels of our nature to do so. It is up to us, in my view, to make sure they do not attain power so as Lincoln in his Gettysburg address so artfully said about the massive amount of Civil War dead … "that these dead shall not have died in vain!"
Daniel Day Lewis as President Lincoln and Sally Fields as Mary Todd Lincoln are brilliant as is Tommy Lee Jones in the part of Thaddeus Stevens the great orator of the House of Representatives from Pennsylvania and fierce proponent of abolition.
A refresher course on the 13th Amendment content:
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
One can understand by attempts to pass present-day legislation how difficult it actually is and the compromises it takes to pass it as events on the ground unfold. Outlawing slavery by passing the 13th Constitutional Amendment was, to say the least, a Herculean task. Our racist past still even now digs its heels into the cement of our national architectural construct. It lives on in generational perpetuity gumming up the works in our attempt to create a more perfect union. Through this excellent film one can see the nature of our racist roots, the brilliance of Lincoln as he overrules many in his own party to force Congress into passing the 13th Amendment. One can see that which divided us then still divides us now albeit in different form through a quite different Republican Party hardly, now, the party of Lincoln.
This is a must see for those who love watching the arc of history as it bends, slowly, towards justice. The film's creators spared us the view of Lincoln's assassination but rather cut to an announcement of its occurrence at another Washington theater. We hear Edwin Stanton, Secretary of War, at the president's bedside uttering history's memorable quote: "Now he belongs to the ages." And so he does as history marches forward from then to now and our election of the first African American president not once but twice resoundingly so. Not surprisingly it made me cry as I thought about my own efforts to support our first African American president and how thrilled I am to be apart of this nation's efforts to perfect this union.
This film presented the Civil War era and the Lincoln presidency as a reflective mirror of our nation's past that lives today and is not only relegated to the south but occupies a major wing of a major party continually seeking immense power in every state taking advantage of the lesser angels of our nature to do so. It is up to us, in my view, to make sure they do not attain power so as Lincoln in his Gettysburg address so artfully said about the massive amount of Civil War dead … "that these dead shall not have died in vain!"
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