A Topsey Turvey Alice in Wonderland Nation from Head to Thighs

We live in a topsy turvey nation.  What is up to progressives is down to right wingnuts everywhere.  Could the 2010 Republican takeover of the House and state legislatures all over the nation have created this monstrosity of our stuck-in-cement-unable-to-rule nation?  I suspect it did.  It is something we must ameliorate in 2014 -- MUST being the operative word.

 

Republicans SAY they want small government.  How is it small government when what they want government to do is enter the privacy of a woman's uterus to determine for her everything from abortion and contraception to even the TYPE of relations one has with one's mate.  Nothing with respect to control of one's sexual proclivities and the private human FEMALE anatomy is off limits to them.  Naturally, in Republicanland, if one is gay then one has NO choice of one’s life at all! Nice--NOT.   Republicans are OBSESSED with sex and the restriction of it!

 

Anti-choice state legislation is passing in states all over the nation where Republican wingnuts control state legislatures as they do in the south and many other "flyover" states.  They are TRYING in the Congressional House to do the same thing.  Thankfully, for now, rational thought still exists in the senate and the presidency.  If Republicans EVER control it all ... well, paraphrasing Gone with the Wind's Scarlet Ohara, I'm not going to think about that.

 

Am I daft or did I hear Republicans say they wanted to create jobs? Guess not.  Forget the jobs.  Their goal is nothing short of returning the nation to a 19th century world or is it the 17th century Puritan world?  Republicans' goals have been from day one, since that fateful 2010 election, in the Congress, states legislatures and in the courts when they can control them, is to stuff THEIR brand of religious indoctrination and social engineering down our collective throats. South Carolina -- get this -- EVEN tried to gather up enough support for making that state a "Christian" state.  I kid you not. They, so far, have tabled that wholly unconstitutional gem.  Google Rachel Maddow for her explicit description of the insanity that grips red state nation and the halls of the Congressional House of Representatives.

 

Forget the Constitution, forget the separation clause, forget the right to privacy as extremist right wingnuts in state legislatures – mostly men at that – want control of a woman's entire body from head to thighs!  Do they care about providing for the poor, for the jobless, for the sick, for the elderly or for the disabled?  Of course NOT.  They want SMALL government doncha know!  

 

We do live in an Alice in Wonderland topsey turvey nation where up is down and down is up as the science denying idiots move us closer and closer to the social, economic, cultural and science-denying abyss.  I link the article here or below for your reading pleasure.

 

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/06/17623840-kansas-lawmakers-pass-sweeping-anti-abortion-legislation?lite

FOR THIS AND MANY OTHER REASONS REPRESENTATIVE ED MARKEY IS THE ONLY CHOICE FOR THE US SENATE IN THE SOON- TO-BE-HELD DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY IN WHICH WE MUST ALL VOTE.  HE HAS A 100% RATING FROM PROGRESSIVE NATION.  HIS CHOICE IS A MUST AS WE TRY TO INCREASE PROGRESSIVE LIFESAVING VIEWS IN THE SENATE.

Why I Support Ed Markey

We live in a topsy turvey nation.  What is up to progressives is down to Republican rightwing extremists everywhere.  Could the 2010 Republican takeover of the House and state legislatures all over the nation have created this monstrosity of our stuck-in-cement-unable-to-rule nation?  I suspect it did.  It is something we must ameliorate -- MUST being the operative word.  Right now Democrats have the opportunity on April 30 in our special senatorial primary to support Ed Markey, a champion of the rights of women and for many other rational progressive lifesaving causes as well such as gun control legislation.

 

Republicans SAY they want small government.  How is it small government when what they want government to do is enter the privacy of a woman's uterus to determine for her everything from abortion and contraception to even the TYPE of relations one has with one's mate.  Nothing with respect to control of one's sexual proclivities and the private human female anatomy is off limits to them.  Naturally, in Republicanland, if one is gay then one has NO choice of one’s life at all!  Republicans are OBSESSED with sex and the restriction of it!  Radical right wing extremism has become the prevailing face of the once respected mainstream Republican Party and its sometimes conservative compromising Democrats as well.  

 

Anti-choice state legislation is passing in states all over the nation where Republican right wing extremists control state legislatures as they do in the south and many other red states.  They are TRYING in the Congressional House to do the same thing.  Thankfully, for now, rational thought still exists in the senate and the presidency.  If Republicans EVER control it all ... well, paraphrasing Gone with the Wind's Scarlet Ohara, I'm not going to think about that.

 

Am I daft or did I hear Republicans say they wanted to create jobs? Guess not.  Forget the jobs.  Their goal is nothing short of returning the nation to a 19th century world or is it the 17th century Puritan world?  Republicans' goals have been from day one, since that fateful 2010 election, in the Congress, states legislatures and in the courts when they can control them, is to stuff THEIR brand of religious indoctrination and social engineering down our collective throats. South Carolina -- get this -- EVEN tried to gather up enough support for making that state a "Christian" state.  I kid you not. They, so far, have tabled that wholly unconstitutional gem.  

 

Forget the Constitution, forget the separation clause, forget the right to privacy as the extremist right in state legislatures – mostly men at that – want control of a woman's entire body from head to thighs!  Do they care about providing for the poor, for the jobless, for the sick, for the elderly or for the disabled?  Of course NOT.  They want SMALL government doncha know!  

 

We do live in an Alice in Wonderland topsey turvey nation where up is down and down is up as the science denying right wing malevolent move us closer and closer to the social, economic, cultural and science-denying abyss.  

For this and many other reasons Representative Ed Markey is the only choice for the US Senate in the soon-to-be-held Democratic primary.  He has a 100% rating from progressive nation.  Compromise is NOT a choice.  His election is a must as we try to increase the lifesaving progressive science-based rational views in the Senate!  

OUT OF BOUNDS!

If you have not seen the video of Rutgers basketball coach Mike Rice perpetrating physical and verbal violence against his players then click on Youtube and watch it. 

This is some of the most disgusting violent egregious behavior by a coach I have ever seen.  Literally I felt sick to my stomach.  Why on earth Rutgers kept this beast is beyond me. What should happen now? Rutgers has as of this writing fired Rice and appropriately so.   I wonder why it was not done before as there are a plethora of examples on tape of his assaults.  Assault charges should be filed by the players.  Both Rutgers and Rice as an employee of Rutgers should be sued by the parents of the players.  This has been an indecent assault on young men.  It is sadistic violence in extremis on young players with young growing minds.  Rice's behavior has been OUTRAGEOUS and the firing of him should not end the issue.  Rice and Rutgers, a respected institution of higher learning, need to be taught a lesson that is not found in books.  ANY coach EVER violently touching a player or verbally compounding the assault with bigoted profanities is OUT OF BOUNDS!!

Is this what a man in a position of authority over student athletes does to the powerless players? Where is the kinder gentler nation I knew as a child? It seems like it is a long distant memory. We are a part violent, extremist nation and will not be able to survive if we do not learn to ameliorate the worst that is in us.  We need to take a long hard look in the mirror and ask who we are and, more specifically, what kind of nation do we want to be.

In Your Heart You Know He Is Right!

Since the 2000 theft of the presidential election by George W. Bush & Co. I have been loathe to read or watch anything Ralph Nader, the left of center 2000 presidential candidate who took enough votes away from, at that time the infinitely superior Democratic presidential candidate, Al Gore, to allow Bush to steal Florida and “win” the election. The majority conservative Supreme Court handed the CLEARLY unqualified George Bush the hanging chad presidency. We have been paying through the nose for that mistake ever since. Hundreds of thousands have died including thousands of Americans with over 30,000 wounded either bodily, psychically or both. 2 million have become Middle East refugees while if one watches "Democracy Now" one knows the killing in the fragmented Middle East continues even though the lame stream media would have one think otherwise giving the nation sugar coated sap on the evening news that passes for truth but is anything but.

Because of the insane foreign misadventures of neo cons who neo-conned Bush the Lesser to "reform" the Middle East in their rancid image, the powder keg of the globe blew up. Bush, et al racked up a 4 TRILLION dollar debt in a ten-year war that was supposed to last six months and they said would pay for itself though vast Iraqi oil reserves. Oh sure! They love to blame all of this debt and human catastrophe now on the current president. Sorry, it is NOT President Obama's fault.

Add to that horror Republican corruption and an economic catastrophe rivaled only by the Great Depression as Wall Street got bonuses while the rest of us got the boot then one knows WHY Democrats took the whole enchilada in 2008. Unfortunately, Democrats did not retain the House as the 2010 election placed a racist Republican Tea Bag white obstructionist albatross around our collective necks. As Republican South Carolina State Representative Chris Crawford said in January when he told a gathering of doctors, organized by the S.C. Hospital Association, that “it is good politics to oppose the black guy in the White House right now.” How sweet the Republican Party is -- NOT!

Recently, I have been pocketing my anger and have decided to read what Ralph Nader has to say. You know why? As Barry Goldwater's campaign said of Goldwater in 1964 "Because in your heart you know he is right." I offer the following written by Ralph Nader for your reading pleasure.

How Big Corporations Are Unpatriotic

Ralph Nader

March 28, 2013

 
Many giant profitable U.S. corporations are increasingly abandoning America while draining it at the same time.

General Electric, for example, has paid no federal income taxes for a decade while becoming a net job exporter and fighting its hard-pressed workers who want collective bargaining through unions like the United Electrical Workers Union (UE). GE’s boss, Jeffrey Immelt, makes about $12,400 an hour on an 8-hour day, plus benefits and perks, presiding over this global corporate empire.

Telling by their behavior, these big companies think patriotism toward the country where they were created and prospered is for chumps. Their antennae point to places where taxes are very low, labor is wage slavery, independent unions are non-existent, governments have their hands out, and equal justice under the rule of law does not exist. China, for example, has fit that description for over 25 years.

Other than profiteering from selling Washington very expensive weapons of mass destruction, many multinational firms have little sense of true national security.

Did you know that about 80 percent of the ingredients in medicines Americans take now come from China and India where visits by FDA inspectors are infrequent and inadequate?

The lucrative U.S. drug industry – coddled with tax credits, free transfer of almost-ready-to-market drugs developed with U.S. taxpayer dollars via the National Institutes of Health – charges Americans the highest prices for drugs in the world and still wants more profits. Drug companies no longer produce many necessary medicines like penicillin in the U.S., preferring to pay slave wages abroad to import drugs back into the U.S.

Absence of patriotism has exposed our country to dependency on foreign suppliers for crucial medicines, and these foreign suppliers may not be so friendly in the future.

Giant U.S. companies are strip-mining America in numerous ways, starting with the corporate tax base. By shifting more of their profits abroad to “tax-haven” countries (like the Cayman Islands) through transfer pricing and other gimmicks, and by lobbying many other tax escapes through Congress, they can report record profits in the U.S. with diminishing tax payments. Yet they are benefitting from the public services, special privileges, and protection by our armed forces because they are U.S. corporations.

On March 27, 2013, the Washington Post reported that compared to forty years ago, big companies that “routinely cited U.S. federal tax expenses that were 25 to 50 percent of their worldwide profits,” are now reporting less than half that share. For instance, Proctor and Gamble was paying 40 percent of its total profits in taxes in 1969; today it pays 15 percent in federal taxes. Other corporations pay less or no federal income taxes.

Welcome to globalization. It induces dependency on instabilities in tiny Greece and Cyprus that shock stock investments by large domestic pension and mutual funds here in the U.S. Plus huge annual U.S. trade deficits, which signals the exporting of millions of jobs.

The corporate law firms for these big corporations were the architects of global trade agreements that make it easy and profitable to ship jobs and industries to fascist and communist regimes abroad while hollowing out U.S. communities and throwing their loyal American workers overboard. It’s not enough that large corporations are paying millions of American workers less than workers were paid in 1968, adjusted for inflation.

Corporate bosses can’t say they’re just keeping up with the competition; they muscled through the trade system that pulls down on our country’s relatively higher labor, consumer and environmental standards.

Corporate executives, when confronted with charges that show little respect for the country, its workers and its taxpayers who made possible their profits and subsidized their mismanagement, claim they must maximize their profits for their shareholders and their worker pension obligations.

Their shareholders? Is that why they’re stashing $1.7 trillion overseas in tax havens instead of paying dividends to their rightful shareholder-owners, which would stimulate our economy? Shareholders? Are those the people who have been stripped of their rights as owners and prohibited from even keeping a lid on staggeringly sky-high executive salaries ranging from $5,000 to $20,000 an hour or more, plus perks?

Why these corporate bosses can’t even abide one democratically-run shareholders’ meeting a year without gaveling down their owners and cutting time short. To get away from as many of their shareholder-owners as possible, AT&T is holding its annual meeting on April 26 in remote Cheyenne, Wyoming!

Pension obligations for their workers? The award-winning reporter for the Wall Street Journal Ellen E. Shultz demonstrates otherwise. In her gripping book Retirement Heist: How Companies Plunder and Profit from the Nest Eggs of American Workers, she shows how by “exploiting loopholes, ambiguous regulations and new accounting rules,” companies deceptively tricked employees and turned their pension plans into piggy banks, tax shelters and profit centers.

Recently, I wrote to the CEOs of the 20 largest U.S. corporations, asking if they would stand up at their annual shareholders’ meetings and on behalf of their U.S. chartered corporation (not on behalf of their boards of directors), and pledge allegiance to the flag ending with those glorious words “with liberty and justice for all.” Nineteen of the CEOs have not yet replied. One, Chevron, declined the pledge request but said their patriotism was demonstrated creating jobs and sparking economic activity in the U.S.

But when corporate lobbyists try to destroy our right of trial by jury for wrongful injuries – misnamed tort reform – when they destroy our freedom of contract – through all that brazenly one-sided fine print – when they corrupt our constitutional elections with money and unaccountable power, when they commercialize our education and patent our genes, and outsource jobs to other countries, the question of arrogantly rejected patriotism better be front-and-center for discussion by the American people. 

Glacier Calving --THIS IS OUR INCONVENIENT TRUTH

This is IMPORTANT for ALL to see.  THIS IS CLIMATE change at its most frightening.  It is what the inconvenient truth is all about!  When these things happen that gargantuan chucks of polar glaciers break off as the oceans warm since carbon pollution raises the earth's temperature, we run the risk as they happen more and more that our cities like NYC WILL be submerged with massive feet of water.  There will or could be no more at least lower Manhattan ever again. You can imagine what this toll would take on the rest of Manhattan, Boston and ALL cities that border the ocean around the globe.   

Our cities all over the earth grew up BECAUSE they were ports to the ocean.

THIS is how much desperate trouble man is in as our volcanic weather patterns so CLEARLY show.  Man has polluted the earth SO badly that he threatens his very existence on planet earth.

AMAZING video, the most amazing I have ever seen!  Feel free to forward this to anyone you choose.  Climate change is NO joke and it is sin to deny it. It is real and will be coming to a city near you!

Click here or below to see it.

 

"CHASING ICE" captures largest glacier calving ever filmed

 

 

Thinking -- Prop 8/DOMA

Yes, we really do have to wait to see what the justices say in their opinion. Brief statement: The BEST way it could be struck down is to say that DOMA is unconstitutional because of the EQUAL PROTECTION CLAUSE in the Fourth Amendment and that would apply to Prop 8 as well. That would be the best for the pro gay side because then ALL the states would not be able to enact Const. Amendments against it. Of course the right wingnut states would go berserk. So I think THAT is not going to happen because SCOTUS is not that brave like the Warren Court of 1954 Brown v. Board so it probably will not happen in my lifetime.


What is more probable I THINK (not sure) is that Prop 8 will have possibly no standing in SCOTUS referring it back to the CA fed court which ruled it was unconstitutional so gay marriage which now is ahead in public opinion there now anyway WILL be legal in CA. As for DOMA, the Court I suspect will rule it a states rights issue and that is where it is legal those married WILL be able to get Fed. benefits. They will say it is not legal for the Fed. government to discriminate IF and only IF those states that say okay to gay marriage then the Feds cannot discriminate.

So what happens next? As usual when one looks at rights for African Americans since slavery, when one looks at women's rights going back to the Revolutionary War, it will be a LONG LONG slow hard slog as each individual state will have to legalize it on its own.

When will the southern reactionary states EVER recognize it? Many if not most won't so at another time in another day when the generation that is old eventually dies and their children assume power little by little more states will get it. I say MORE. Some may NEVER get it so gays will have to move to states that have it and that is OKAY by me since many gays are very successful and wealthy. Bring that money right on to Mass I say. BTW, why I LOVE this wonderful state. We were the first to recognize gay marriage thanks in large part to the Mass Sup. Ct. headed by Margaret Marshall. I LOVE MY STATE the bluest of blue the most progressive in the country ... well usually!

This is just an brief quick overview as I read the tea leaves. I as usual reserve the right to change my opinion!

NOT JUMPING

for joy quite yet because it will take months before the decision is made but the headlines on NBC are below as is the link to the story!

COURT SEEMS SET TO SCRAP DOMA

Here's the story:  http://www.nbcnews.com/

Who would have EVER believed it in the late 1960's when I became politically active.  It was in the days of Anita Bryant and all that followed. I am thankful for SO SO SO many who are young even before they understand the reality who they are this decision HOPEFULLY will save them from thinking they are something awful or worse ending their lives. 

 I put the big change at AIDS and the outing of big celebrities because of it and of course Stonewall in 1969 the first time gays rioted in Greenwich Village and the late 60's that changed everything.  AMAZING.  Truthfully, I am  hopeful but it ain't over til it's over.  The pro marriage straight religious wingnuts had NO argument.  Their representation could simply mount no defense but we'll see in three months when the decision is handed down.

The Bad Joke is on Plymouth County's Sheriff McDonald

The joke Sheriff McDonald made at a breakfast with mostly Republicans was DISGUSTING but not surprising coming from Republicans.

Lincoln was ASSASSINATED NOT just wounded like Cheney's friend whom McDonald claimed it was like. It is NOT the same. Millions make comments in private and on public forums like the Internet both for and against the president. Some against strain credulity but are defended on First Amendment grounds. I agree anyone has the right to say politically negative things against anyone in office. This president, however, has received more RACIST death threats than any president bar none.

The difference between simply online criticisms no matter how noxious is the fact that Sheriff McDonald is a public persona and one that is SUPPOSED to advocate law and order. It would be different if it were just another person but he is SUPPOSED to represent ALL the people of Plymouth County.

Beyond even that is that he was casting a humorous light on one of the nation's most heinous crimes; one which has had and still does have PROFOUND implications for the negative trajectory of race relations through this century. Lincoln is on Mt. Rushmore for God's sake. NOTHING is funny absolutely NOTHING is funny about the assassination or attempted one of President Lincoln or ANY president. If the shoe were on the other foot and it were Ronald Reagan, who was I might add in fact nearly assassinated, I would say the same thing against making a joke. Making a joke about it is OUT OF BOUNDS! This is NOT appropriate for the subject of comedy. Shame on those who laughed and SHAME ON Sheriff McDonald! He should be FIRED.

A New Pope -- I HOPE!

I have been an ardent critic of the Vatican which is my right BUT I am not -- certainly NOT-- impervious to error.  When I make one, and I have made many observational errors, I am not afraid or incapable of admitting them. SO FAR, emphasis on so far, there is something about this pope I like. I do not agree with him on the social issues BUT I LOVE his reaching out to the poor, I LOVE his going to AIDS patients irrespective of his view on sexuality and things related to it, and attending to those stricken. MAYBE this is a pope who can change things; when I look at him I want to embrace him and say PLEASE keep saying things about the inequities and the sins of our economic systems and continue to be an advocate for the poor.

He SEEMS to be a humanitarian despite the stands he took on social issues years ago. Maybe it was his way of being able to slowly rise through the Catholic ranks ascending ultimately to the papacy so he can really do something. I am willing to change my views and although I am Jewish and very agnostic at that I say, Holy Father, help us. We need someone something to lead us out of such desperate times. I am willing to listen. So far I mostly like what I hear and I like what I see reaching out of the popemobile into the crowd.

As for the rest there is NO way he could EVER change the church's stand on abortion.  Do NOT even look for that. Maybe though he is changing the focus AWAY from the bedroom and, as NYT ediotorialist Frank Bruni and someone else from another newspaper whose opinion I value said, "into the soup kitchens."  Maybe he would stop by the boardroom too as he talks about the inequities of our economic system.

I am willing to give him a chance. Isn't that what Jesus said to turn the other cheek so despite the past behavior of the Church, I so far, like their choice for pope! I do reserve the right to change my opinion.

New Pope

I am rethinking my opinion of Pope Francis.  He may be better than I thought he would.  Time will tell. So far I am liking certain things I am seeing.  Stay tuned!

The Last Letter

The next time power wants to drag this nation into war THINK on this letter. His picture is here or at the link below.[1]   Scroll down and pass this letter on to whomever you want.

 

The Last Letter

A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran

 

To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney

From: Tomas Young

 

I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

 

I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

 

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

 

I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

 

I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.

 

I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.

My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness. 

 

http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/the_last_letter_20130318/

---

[1] Truthdig, “The Last Letter A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran”March 19, 201

This is a POLITICAL issue before the Supreme Court link here or below.  Republicans want it because it will make it more difficult for minorities to vote.  If it were the reverse they would be against it.  Their transparency is obvious.  They SAY it's to ensure fair elections.  We KNOW that is BALONEY.  It is to make it more difficult for minorities. ie. Democratic voters to vote.  Another Republican attempt at stealing an election!

It is obvious another 5/4 decision WILL be handed down by the questioning -- four of the five are "conservative" absolutes and the one so called swing Justice Kennedy by his questioning one can see where it will go -- with his conservative buddies.  The Supreme Court has turned into a political Republican hack job.  Stare decisis, (Latin translation: the thing already having been decided, Roberts said?  Believe that and Republican Supreme Court justices will tell you another joke.  This is the most "conservative" activist court EVER! The five "conservative" Supremes today would have voted against Dred Scott IF they had had the chance.

My advice to Democrats EVERYWHERE since this case will go against us.  Beat these RepublicRATS at their own game.  Do what is ever mandatory in each state to vote and the DEMOCRATIC Party should ENSURE THAT in triplicate in EVERY state. LINE THEM UP AND SIGN THEM UP -- that should be our mantra!

WHY IT IS IMPERATIVE TO VOTE DEMOCRAT BOTH IN THE STATE AND NATIONAL ELECTIONS.  WHY IT IS ALSO IMPERATIVE TO VOTE REP. ED MARKEY AS THE NEXT US SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS!!

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/03/18/186195/supreme-court-hears-arizonas-voter.html#emlnl=Daily_News_Update

A Slice of Pi?

The Life of Pi which we saw over the weekend appeals to those who are plagued by the larger questions of life and its difficulty. It is a HUGELY profound film BUT one has to enjoy that type of intellectual challenge to take the time to analyze, walk through its weeds and see the depths of its thought. 

Reading what others say about it online is helpful to understand the depth and varying opinion about it. Some things about its essence were not clear to me. The more I thought about and discussed it with others who have seen it the more I can appreciate its brilliance. Ang Lee won the Oscar for best director. I surely can see why.

I think to get the film's maximum experience one should see it, if possible, in a theater with 3D disposable glasses the theater hands out or view it in IMAX. Viewing it with 3D glasses makes it a stunning visual experience as one sees, for an example, birds flying in the most vivid color directly in front of you as if one could touch them. 3D makes Pi amazing.

It is about man, animals, the universal creation and every living thing's challenge to survive within it. One sees life's diversity, gorgeous complexity but continuously asks why we as sentient understanding beings are left to forge though it seemingly alone with the constant companion of suffering and death running along side.

I believe the major thrust of the film is contained in the Biblical story Job. It is about man's yearning to understand and give meaning to the vicissitudes of life without losing faith in a God in the face of life's table of tragedy spread out before us. It is man's quest to find the meaning in life to give it purpose and help us when we are weaker than what life visits upon us. 

The protagonist a young Indian boy named Pi Patel is constantly thinking about the same things and even becomes a Hindu, a Christian, a devotee of Islam and even Kabbala Judaism in his quest to seek personal answers and peace. 

The film is available On Demand on TV BUT without the 3D glasses one does not gets, the visually awestriking experience. I may see it again on TV so I can re-see the thoughtfulness behind the movie albeit not in as visually appealing form. 

I give this film a thumbs-up IF and ONLY IF those aforementioned things usurp your consciousness as they do mine and if you are prepared to think hard about what the film is offering. To some it may seem like a children's movie but I suggest it is far from that. It could be seen by children but they would not have the sophistication, ability to question life and the experiences of it that only an adult could possess.  Want a slice of Pi?  I hope your answer is yes!

What we are up against

On the March 14, 2013 edition of Larry O'Donnell's "The Last Word" he quoted a South Carolina state senator Kris Crawford.  Crawford said as follows when he was talking about S. Carolina accepting the president's Affordable Healthcare Act and I quote:

"The politics are going to overwhelm the policy [the Affordable Health Care Act.]  It is good politics to oppose the black guy in the White House right now, especially for the Republican Party!"

That says it all and shows one the impetus behind most of the Republican obstructionism in Congress and why the president has to pull teeth to get anything passed.  It also affirms what I have been saying for years.  

I received criticism from a conservative former friend of mine.  He said that I was completely wrong telling me that racism is not at the heart of the Republican opposition but that it is the policy that is at the force behind it.

I say, as Rachel Maddow would say, BULLPUCKY!

THIS IS EXACTLY WHY WE MUST NOT ONLY ELECT ED MARKEY THE BEST MASSACHUSETTS DEMOCRATIC SENATORIAL CANDIDATE FOR OUR PROGRESSIVE CAUSE BUT IT IS ALSO WHY WE MUST SOUNDLY OBLITERATE RACIST REPUBLICANS IN 2016.  

WE MUST TAKE BACK THE HOUSE, KEEP THE SENATE AND TRY AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE TO TAKE BACK STATE LEGISLATURES.  THIS SOUNDS LIKE A TALL ORDER AND THAT MAY BE SO BUT IT MUST BE DONE IF THE PRESIDENT IN HIS FINAL TERM CAN PERFECT THE CHANGE THAT WE KNOW IS NEEDED NOT ONLY FOR HIS LEGACY BUT FOR THE COUNTRY'S MIDDLE CLASS TO SURVIVE.  JUSTICE MUST PREVAIL!

Rachel Maddow the Magnificant

I cannot get over Rachel Maddow's show last evening meticulously explaining how the Newtown shooting took place killing so many many children/teachers and why the shooter's high capacity magazine clip made it so much easier for him to perpetrate his madness. 

I had tears streaming down my face and can only hope Rachel does what she does as long as humanly possible. A friend of mine and I were incredulous as to how good she truly is.  

I loved not only her segment on Newtown but Senator Boxer's retort to the buffoon Republican senator Cruz concerning gun control legislation they were debating.  Cruz went to Harvard?  What was the admissions officer there doing downing a fifth of gin when he interviewed that malevolent huckster passing himself off as intelligent?  

I hope tonight, too, she could illuminate the Republican South Carolina senator who is on record and quoted as saying in South Carolina that it "behooves Republicans to vote against anything the African American president is for."

Of course I have known, talked about and written of the blatant racism that is working against absolutely everything this president wants and we KNOW it is behind so much of the rancid Republican opposition.  They need to be exposed and use this quote as MSNBC did for the infamous 47% audio tape said by Romney at a $50,000 a plate dinner recorded by the event's bartender, Scott Prouty.  It quite possibly sank the Romney campaign exposing him as the uncaring empty suit he was.

Ed's Schultz's interview of Scott Prouty was GENIUS.  I urge all who have not heard it to Google it and listen to Ed Schultz and to Rachel Maddow's show last evening as well. I link them both below.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/26315908

http://tv.msnbc.com/shows/the-ed-show/

Pope on a Rope

The Catholic Church is in trouble.  We who have witnessed the unconscionable pedophile sickness infesting the Vatican and its Catholic Church throughout the western world like the emperor of all maladies[1] cancer, know that this is so.  Its corruption sexual and otherwise is eating it alive as we witness church after church shutting its doors, emptying its pews and seeing many shunning the priesthood like a building marked “Typhus Keep Out.”  I suggest the Catholic Church is on the ropes.  In its esteemed wisdom it has chosen a 76 year old Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina as its new pope since for the first time in 700 years the previous Pope Benedict resigned.

I believe Pope Benedict did not give up his papacy because he merely was too age-related tired to continue.  He could not continue because the reality of the allegations against him and his Church are so stunning and so disastrous that if Benedict dares travel outside of the Vatican state I have read he allegedly will face arrest.  It does not take imagination to think what those charges are since Pope Benedict’s butler spilled the beans.  Allegedly, only two men will know what the Vatican intrigue has been and that is the resigned Pope Benedict and Francis, the new Pope.  Traditionally, the Church’s crimes have surrounded money, power or sex.  In this case it may be all three.  We do not yet know.  We may never know the truth behind the flurry of Vatican activity to elect this new pope quickly.

I am fond of the fact that the new pope is a Jesuit placing a value on intellect.  I like his formerly being a chemist, a man of science.  I support his stand on the poor.   BUT his  utterly false statement about gays saying they are induced by Satan in an attempt to subvert God's law, opposing even gay adoption, heterosexual contraception, married priests, women in positions Church power and more is the ridiculous apex of the Medieval hypocrisy of a church saturated with homosexual male priests some of whom molest children by the hundreds and maybe thousands.  

Not only has he made grievous statements against consenting adult homosexuals who dare ask the right to marry like everyone else but he tried in vain to overpower Argentina’s president Cristina Elisabet Fernández de Kirchner who won marriage equality for everyone in her nation. Cardinal Bergoglio (now Pope Francis) and his Church were singularly and calculatedly active in their laser-like focused quest to win the argument against the Argentinean president’s effort to make gay marriage law.  In Argentina, this very Catholic nation, Cardinal Bergoglio and his Church lost!

I would never think the Church would be pro choice on the issue of abortion but I might think a Jesuit and a man of science would at least soften his position on the reality of the sexual diversity of homo sapiens (man) while making it crystal clear that pedophile priests will never now be let off the hook for their crimes against humanity.  

His ascension to the papacy does NOT obviate the fact that this unisex institution has many adult NON-abusive homosexuals within it and as reflected in its history probably always will.  Either he turns his back on his heretofore ignorant medieval hypocritical religious dogma interfering in the political realm – something which Christ himself eschewed – or he will keep the Church in the stagnated quicksand of its own making.

Yes, the Pope and his Church are on the ropes in the west.  Only he has the ability to win the fight by making the Church attractive to the poor, the dispossessed, those on the margins of society and to homosexuals who are an oppressed minority variant within the sexual diversity of man.  Surely he can see, as the scientist he was, the truth in this fact and bring the Church into the 21^st century.  I am neither anti-Catholic nor anti-papacy but I am anti ALL religious institutions inserting their right-wing extremist anti-humanist views into the political affairs of nation states.

Pope Francis can repair this rope and allow the Church to bounce back into the ring or he can use it to ultimately hang itself relegating it, ultimately, to the thumbs down legacy of western history’s verdict.   How he modernizes the Church is his choice and his alone.  The problems he and his Church face are immense, systemic and profound. The rope is in his hands to do with as he wishes.

---

[1] The Emperor of All Maladies – a Biography of Cancer, Siddhartha Mukherjee

An email to my ideological compatriots

I wrote the following below to Ed Markey campaign for Senate people with whom I sometimes join for Markey campaign events.  I decided to send it out to my group.  Many of you live in Mass. and many if not most know people in Massachusetts.  If you do feel free to spread this on.  You can watch Elizabeth Warren, too, by Googling Larry O'Donnell's "Last Word."  It is a short segment but one can see how fabulous Elizabeth Warren is and Ed Markey, who WILL win, follows in her ideological footsteps.  I said:

If you did not see Senior Senator Elizabeth Warren today on the Banking Committee on MSNBC Larry O'Donnell's The Last Word  interviewing the soon-to-be-confirmed (HOPEFULLY) -but God-only-knows-how-long-it-will-take Richard Cordray for director of the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau then I suggest you Google "The Last Word" to listen to and see it.  She was EXCELLENT.  We ALL should be proud of Massachusetts and the work of so many dedicated to her election as senator.

The soon to be Senator Ed Markey will EXCELLENTLY complete the marriage of TWO INCREDIBLE senators from Massachusetts.

We need the success of his election as we did Elizabeth Warren.  These are two shining stars from Massachusetts that make me SO proud to be from our state!

NEVER GIVE UP and NEVER GIVE IN TO REPUBLICAN MEAN SPIRITED AND HATEFUL TYRANNY! 

ONWARD and ALWAYS FORWARD

Winning the Hearts of Other Men -- the Leadership of Hugo Chavez

Why does everything have to be all good or all bad?  Humans will never attain perfection.  Hugo Chavez knew how to tap into an entire class of people -- the poor and the powerless.  He made the powerless feel powerful and that their interests would be recognized and served by him.  If he did it through strong-armed techniques and perpetrating the longest hatred of some so be it. As long as the need to eat and the need to see a doctor when sick were met then he was elevated by many to idolatry status.  I think Chavez did that for the vast numbers of poor in a poor but very oil rich nation.  He rewarded himself, of course, handsomely for it.

I love George Orwell's "Animal Farm" and William Golding's "Lord of the Flies."  Both knew the impossibility of purity and all-good leadership.  One system falls and another system often worse than or as bad as the one before fills a vacuum to take its place. Mostly, man has an almost innate desire to be led.  As long as he does power will emerge to fill a void in peoples' hearts by tapping into what they want most -- protection, healthcare, a full stomach and a job. The leader who sees so presciently what man most needs will invariably fall short but often take advantage of this ever-present need for leadership nonetheless.

All institutions, whether in the form of government or in the form of religion like the Vatican, see a universal need of humans for help and hope for the hopeless.  They tap into it, gain a reputation for caring about the least and while they are at it grab power and the great security of wealth it brings for themselves. So what if they are a bit corrupt -- just a bit?  The millions will look the other way not because they have to but because they need to.

It does NOT take a genius to figure out what people want. Both religion and government always do and manage to put one over on the follower masses multiple times.  As Bob Dylan said “You do not have to be a weatherman to see which way the wind is blowing.”

My motto:  Question EVERYTHING and know that most leadership does things NOT out of the goodness of their heart but out of their singular need to win the hearts of other men.  It is the give and take constant in man’s evolutionary struggle to survive.

The Jury is Out (If you listen to or watch nothing else listen to Glenn Greenwald's speech before the Oregon ACLU)

If you listen to or watch  nothing else in your life listen to Glenn Greenwald's speech before the Oregon ACLU.  I post it here or below.  It is pure mastery of the definition and application of civil liberties.  Just what do civil liberties mean, what are they, are they abridged in our nation and if so why?  

Glenn Greenwald is utterly brilliant in his analysis.  If nothing else it causes one to think about the issue especially as it applies in our world today.

I will admit that as much as I think this man a national treasure I am hesitant to agree with him on his thought universally and am more cautious than he because, well, frankly I rather enjoy breathing.

Are we less safe now than we have ever been in our history because of our clearly Constitutionally questionable actions and alleged legal memos supporting them or are we safer?  Hamlet stated it best:  "To Be or NOT to be THAT is the question.  

In our time I believe we are existentially at risk not only from those without but most especially from those within.  Where do YOU fall on this important issue?  For me the jury is out.

http://vimeo.com/61306840

HARUUMPH!

I haven't been writing much as I am in a this-is-a-too-bleak-universe-which will-all-end anyway frame of mind.  Not good.  But the article below on Fukushima shows how the money corruption of EVERYTHING influences it all.  If man cannot use his evolutionary mega intelligent mind to make sure the stupids do not inherit the earth denying climate change, evolution and the scientific truth of it all than we are all doomed.

With nations just itching to push the nuclear button too well my mood is less than positive.

Also watching a science lecturer on PBS Brian Cox who does a series "The Wonders of the Universe" does not paint a pretty picture of it all but nonetheless is FASCINATING.  He is brilliant! I highly recommend it even though some realities are dark.

All I have to say is HARUUMPH!

P.S. Below is a generally progressive site called OpedNews but I did notice that they had a couple of ads that are anything but progressive.  I have an email into them asking why.  If you see something like "Obama, don't Tax  us" or something for Rand Paul -- naturally PAHLEESE ignore if you choose to read the article which is very good as are others on the site.  

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Fukushima-is-already-harmi-by-Harvey-Wasserman-130310-602.html