Strange Bedfellows

The fact that this nation invaded Iraq a country that did nothing to us and the fact that we have been involved in the heart of the fragmented Middle East with its sectarian warfare for 14 years because of it, refugees from those wars will seek asylum. The wars in which this nation involves itself produce refugees who seek safety from constant mayhem and death. The more this nation is involved in and making policy for foreign lands risking the fragmentation, dismemberment of populations and the constant war it engenders the more there will be refugees whom we have the moral obligation to help. There are and will be many Middle Eastern refugees because we are in that part of the globe involved in its eternal civil wars often the result of US foreign policy gigantic error.

Now we must worry about strict immigration policies for those refugees from those areas and worry about visas which provide free access to this country by those who were born here and the wives/husbands picked up along the way who obtain automatic citizenship through those marriages.

The fault dear Brutus said many times is not in the stars but in ourselves for our crushing Middle East policy over what else? -- OIL, money and the power it brings not to mention the evil side effects of climate change oil helps create. It is sickening.

I am NOT a Trump supporter but he is quite right when he says we are a nation that has been controlled by stupid people who cannot think more than 10 minutes ahead as to what the ramifications of its violent Middle East policy for a “new American century” will be.

My mother used to say “whichever way you make your bed that is how you will lie in it.” This nation’s policy makers made the bed and must lie in it. The problem is all of us must lie in the bed with them!

IF YOU THINK THE STATE OF THE WORLD IS BAD NOW JUST WAIT UNTIL A BULLY AND WARLIKE REPUBLICAN IS ELECTED PRESIDENT. AS AL JOLSON USED TO SAY: "YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHIN YET!" ELECT DEMOCRATS TO ALL POSITION OF POWER OR RISK THE END OF OUR NATION AS WE KNOW IT AND THE END OF THE PLANET ON WHICH WE ALL RESIDE. WE ARE, AS THE GREAT HELEN CALDICOTT, SAID ONE MINUTE TO MIDNIGHT!

A Republic IF you can keep it

The Republican Party and its political shill the corporate media especially Fox Faux News FAIL to give the American public the rest of the story. There are many sides to our current political morass and some of it, perhaps much of it, is in reaction to toxic American foreign policy over decades perhaps centuries. I am convinced of it.

What you do not know about what your government is doing in your name particularly in the Middle East, particularly for oil and the power it brings may in fact dramatically hurt you, the nation and the world. In pertinent part it may get us all killed.

You must not be ignorant of facts, you must maintain your humanity and our majority must elect a government that promotes these ideals and NOT succumb to extreme fascist-like demagoguery of the extremist Republican Party in our midst. The politics of a Donald Trump and his supporters are a cancer flowing through the national veins. It must be electorally exorcised and separated from the body politic or we will succumb to its metastasis.

As Dr. Benjamin Franklin said in response to a question when he was asked during the creation of our Constitution: "Well, Doctor, what have we got a Republic or a Monarchy?" He answered "A Republic IF you can keep it!"

IT IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER THAT YOU KEEP THE PRESIDENCY IN DEMOCRATIC HANDS, TAKE BACK THE SENATE AND ERODE REPUBLICAN TOXIC INFLUENCE IN THE HOUSE. THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IS NOT ABOUT YOU! GET OUT THE DEMOCRATIC VOTE

MADNESS: 14 Dead at Social Service Center in San Bernadino

My worst fear that the attack would be terrorism by an indigenous Middle Eastern person(s), born here basically undetectable. It is my worst fear because I worry for those of Middle Eastern extraction who will be swept up with one brush of hostility, accusation, and discrimination of innocents especially by those on the right wing extremist part of our political spectrum which in our time is increasingly the majority of the Republican Party.

We still do not know if the shooter who was employed by the Social Service Center had a workplace grievance. For some it will not matter as the name will confirm all their prejudgements and hate. We of good will must be slow to judgment and all must learn somehow in some way to live together.

As JFK said in his commencement speech at American University, June 10, 1963:

"... So, let us not be blind to our differences — but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”

To that I say Amen!

HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO GET OUT THE VOTE FOR DEMOCRATS?  VERY.

Refugee response or lack of it

Although I loathe the author of the post, Douglas Feith, and all the other neocons who besides the incompetent George W. Bush and his administration, are responsible for the utter explosive chaos throughout the Middle East and its blow back on the west that is ENORMOUS, the Wall Street Journal (admittedly a paper I do not usually read) oped makes some points as to the Gulf oil sheikdoms response or lack of it to the Syrian refugee crisis.

We have been in bed with pythons that I hope will not ultimately devour us because of what else the filthy planet polluting oil. Climate change and oil are the AK47's pointed at our heads! The Middle East mayhem, climate change and oil are intricately intertwined and IF we keep electing science denying idiots to positions of power then we deserve the utter destruction we WILL ultimately get. Science always has the last say and does not care about religious nonsense, mythological irrationality or money making gluttony!


HOW MANY REASONS DO WE NEED TO KNOW THE REPUBLICAN PARTY OF LIES IS THE POISON IN OUR MIDST?  GET OUT THE VOTE FOR DEMOCRATS IN FEDERAL, STATE AND LOCAL ELECTIONS.  AS I HAVE SAID SO MANY TIMES I AM DEMOCRAT BLUE IN THE FACE.  NOTHING LESS THAN OUR LIVES AND THE LIFE OF THE PLANET IS AT STAKE!

here or http://www.wsj.com/article_email/an-obvious-unused-home-for-refugees-1448928225-lMyQjAxMTE1MjAzMTkwODEyWj

Donald Trump's Good Fortune

In the psychologically profound film “Ordinary People” about a family coping with the death of their oldest son there is a confrontation on a golf course between the Beth, mother of the dead son and her brother, Ward, seemingly untouched by family tragedy.  It is the following:

Ward: Beth, we just want you to be happy.

Beth Jarrett: Happy! Ward, you tell me the meaning of happy.  But first you better make sure your kids are good and safe, that they haven't fallen off a horse, been hit by a car, or drown in that swimming pool you're so proud of!

Audrey (Ward’s wife): Oh Beth!

Beth Jarrett: Then, you come and tell me how to be happy!"

I loved that film because it spoke to me.  I know both what the loss of a child can do to a family and I know disability from my own personal experience.  My mother knew both as well since she lost that child two weeks after giving birth to it.  She knew sadness again when her only surviving child suffered paralysis from polio.  She said to me that she was not so fearful for my childhood, although children can be cruel, but she worried about my young adult years when the goal is a body beautiful to snag a mate. 

In reality my childhood did not endure taunts by friends but my experiences as an adult were more problematic.  One “friend” compared me to a pigeon who had lost its foot saying “Oh look that pigeon looks like you!”  A boy with whom I was supposed to blind date walked away from me as soon as he saw me walk.  There were, of course, more uncomfortable experiences that are both unnecessary for me to relate and difficult about which to write.

I relate these personal experiences in response to the clear mocking by Donald Trump of the joint disease disabled reporter he claims he did not know but whose lies about those claims are exposed by those who know the truth and say so for all the world to hear.  Clearly, Trump knew him and clearly Trump was mocking him because the writer caught him in yet another lie one of so many he tells.

No one who has not experienced it can truly understand what it means to be physically different.  No one who has not experienced it can truly understand what it means to walk out of the door with a disability which not only makes it harder to navigate but harder to endure the insensitivities of others who seemingly win life’s lottery.

It is hard to know what to say to this Cretan Trump man with no heart.  If we become intoxicated with his insensitive evil then WE become truly evil ourselves.  I suspect and I surely hope in the end he will fail and that he will do so in no small part because of his wretched mocking of a disabled man!  Extrapolating Beth of “Ordinary People” fame: Lucky are you, Donald Trump, that you have had good fortune that your kids are good and safe, that they haven't fallen off a horse, been hit by a car, or drown despite the riches of which you are so proud.  Quoting another from the Bible Trump says he loves so much but I suspect he has not read:  “What profit a man if he gain the whole world but lose his soul?”  What profit a man, Donald Trump, what profit him indeed?!

ARE TRUMP AND THE OTHER REPUBLICANS JUST LIKE HIM THE AMERICA YOU WANT?  I SUSPECT THEY ARE NOT.  GET OUT THE DEMOCRATIC VOTE FOR SOMEONE WHO CAN WIN AND THEN IF IT HAPPENS WE DEFEAT THE REPUBLICAN MENACE, BREATHE A SIGH OF RELIEF FOR YOU WILL HAVE SAVED THIS NATION FROM ITSELF!

Lloyd Kaye: “Metro West News, November 29, 2015 Lives lost to 'knee-jerk militarism” -- My Response

Lloyd Kaye--Lives lost to knee-jerk militarism:  There are still some people unwilling to walk down the path of militarism. I am one of them.

Vietnam was insane. Iraq was a crime. And what we have done and doing to the Middle East and its people is simple indiscriminate bombing of huge populations of civilians. There is no justification, only families left lifeless in their own homes as a result of 500 pound bombs from U.S. aircraft or drones. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and now Syria. Justifying this policy of militarism has never been and will never be acceptable.

The result of such large-scale bombing has already left millions of refugees all over the borders of Jordan and other nations unable to provide the services needed for so many. The unwillingness of the West to reform the Picot-Sykes borders or to stop supporting dictatorships for decades at a time has resulted in a societal destabilization of the Middle East and is now spreading to Europe and Asia. One of the problems related to all this is the unwillingness of the West to admit publicly what they have done in the Middle East the past 40 years.

Sadly, I am hoping mature diplomatic negotiations and agreements will take place and prevail. However, the knee-jerk reaction of militarism has again taken the West down a path of wasted time and resources and lives.

My Response:

Lloyd, another wonderfully written opinion by you and one to which I agree most profoundly. Nations it seems rarely admit fault or guilt for the heinous actions of violence they employ in war unless they are roundly defeated. With the exception of Nazi Germany I am having a hard time coming up with ones who admit guilt.

Every war you site in which the US has engaged in merciless tactical killing of innocents I believe is correct. At least the obliteration of the hospital of Doctors Without Borders engendered an apology and an admitted mistake by US military brass but that is rare. Not only does the US not apologize for is gruesome mistakes of waging futile wars it does not usually even admit the mistakes exist.

The Middle East mess is courtesy of a George Bush administration -- a man who did not have the cerebral capability needed for a president of the most powerful nation on earth. It was chilling that man who did not even get the popular vote was elected by a politicized Supreme Court. Now we pay the price when we elect clearly unqualified leaders.

The chickens are coming home to roost even to our allies because this nation post WWII is addicted to war that makes millions of bucks for our Washington entrenched military industrial complex. The first rule of an alcoholic addiction problem is to admit one has one. Now we suffer not only in trillions of bucks wasted but so many lives lost and other lives by the tens of thousands perhaps if one counts those who are on the receiving end of the bunker busting bombs millions ruined. It is a tragedy, an American tragedy, of Shakespearean proportions which still has no end in sight.

A Thanksgiving response to a friend

The sentiments that you said in your email made me cry out of thankfulness. You are MY template for all that is good in us. I am more than thankful for you, I am blessed because of you!

I just had time to read the attachment you sent. There is nothing to oppose. The Indians like so many "others" got their posterior handed to them by Anglo Europeans. Learning these things does not surprise me nor does learning about Indian history before the Anglos had the inclination to overtake the land surprise me either.

What it does is emphasize man's proclivity to view every "other" with suspicion and worthy of ultimately eradication. That never left us as we so often today see war a constant method of ameliorating the bad as we define it. Will it ever be different?
I say the Serenity Prayer: "God grant me the wisdom to accept the things I cannot change, change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference."

Our nation's Thanksgiving myth will probably never be eradicated and in truth maybe it shouldn't be. It emphasizes befriending the "other," sharing a meal with him and accepting each other for who they are. Okay, so it's a myth but the sentiments are good and let's face it the Anglo European culture (though thoroughly mixed) is not going anywhere any time soon. I say, know the truth but remember the good parts of myth as it is better than always thinking that the Anglos brought disease to a people who were later trampled to death, nearly eradicated through the wars that were waged a upon them and the agreements Anglos made with them broken.

What would our nation be like had the Europeans never set foot on this soil? I suspect whatever it would have been it would not be so great. This Mecca of amalgamation that is America may, as Lincoln said, not perish from the earth.

Love always to all those you love in your life

"Spotlight": Why a free press matters

I saw the film "Spotlight" which is, as most likely know, a film about the Boston Globe’s “Spotlight” team’s exposé of systemic pedophile sexual abuse of children by priests in the Catholic Church in Boston and the Church’s cover-up complicity of it.  Viewing it took courage as, quite frankly, some things despite the worldly horrors we are privy to each day, are so noxious, hypocritical and sickening that it takes fortitude to view the stories about it in detail.

 

The film itself starring Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams was expertly crafted and the acting was without flaw.  Happily, it did not reenact the many sickening crimes.  Through a few adults re-telling their horrific experiences one could, I thought, cope with the retelling of their trauma.  It was a seamless and truth-telling reenactment of the "Spotlight" team's investigation of the Catholic Church's most impactful and nearly self-immolative destruction not only in Boston but ultimately all over the nation and even the world.  The Globe's exposé was an earthquake indictment of an institution many thought sat next to God himself.

 

Sadly, most institutions whether the Church or money-driven power-crazed government will sell their soul for a price and the Church paid a heavy price for doing just that transferring pedophile priests from parish to parish and "treatment" centers to "treatment" centers without a whisper to the authorities of the priestly crime of sexual abuse of minors lest it cast aspersions on a sacrosanct institution.  The church remained in silent cover-up of itself despite its rape of so many young souls.

 

I viewed it because I thought it important to do so much as I think it important to view the history of the Holocaust though it is difficult to do. We view these things so that light can be shown on silent darkness and so others may never know such crushing experiences again. "Spotlight" is spotless in its focus and makes crystal clear why a free press matters. Without the exposure of these indelible crimes by the press they might never have seen the light of truthful day and nothing would ever change from one generation to the next.

 

Framing this utterly funny pic Norman Rockwell would love!

Eating Trump would make me sick!

here or

https://www.facebook.com/PeeFartyHatriots/photos/a.146479628702533.28614.146475095369653/1226505297366622/?type=3

MORE TO THANKSGIVNG HISTORY THAN PILGRIMS

I thought this blogger's post below was worthy of note.  It is in response to those who do not celebrate Thanksgiving or do so as a holiday of mourning--the Indians.  There is another story someone posted that remembers history which does not begin in 1620.  I paste it indented and in italics and my response is below it.

There is more to the history of Thanksgiving than the Pilgrims.  He states:

The Mashpee Wampanoag were (literally) decimated before the Pilgrims arrived; first by war with another Indian tribe (the Tarrantine War 1607-15) then by an epidemic (1616-19), leaving only about 10% of the 1600 population to greet the Plymouth landing in 1620.

The then-leader of the Mashpee Wampanoag ( Massasoit) allied with the Pilgrims for protection against the Narraganset, which proved provident when the Narraganset attacked the Wampanoag in 1632 and the Pilgrims came to their aid.

It was not until the next generation that the settlers and the Wampanoag fell out, resulting in the1675/76 King Phillips War (King Phillip was Massasoits's son.)

Few Americans know our own history let alone history before the Pilgrims arrived.  That is the problem. Our history by many is divided into the white hats (the good guys) and the black hats (the bad guys.) If it were examined one would see the hats are a variety of shades of grey.

I for one am thankful my grandparents had the foresight at the beginning of the 20th century to have immigrated here. If they had not either the Russian pogroms or ultimately the Holocaust would have killed them. I celebrate Thanksgiving as my favorite of all American holidays with the knowledge that there is always more to the story.
Every time I take a shower and clean water comes out I sing "God Bless America!" So many in this sad world of ours look forward to a life of famine, disease and/or war. We must help humanity improve living conditions which in the end is the real key to ending conflict and send war to the ash bin of history!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

THE REPUBLICAN SOUL

Someday historians -- good ones -- will analyze our era, as most now do of my idol FDR’s internment of the American Japanese during WWII, as shameful. NPR broadcast a segment of a Japanese woman who, as a young child, was interned in a Japanese-American camp. What her family went through, like many Holocaust survivors, was heart wrenching. The psychological scars often did not heal and, like many who survived the German camps, her father could not and never did talk about it. Their property was confiscated and their lives wretchedly uprooted.

George Takei of Star Trek fame tells a harrowing story of his family and him bused to a Japanese relocation camp of an American variety. These were people who did NOT hold allegiance to Japan.  They were thoroughly American. Their only sin was to be born Japanese at a time when this nation was at war with Japan.  Interning them is an indelible stain on this nation's history that can never be washed away.  I thought when I heard the rendition of the American Japanese experience that our nation would never again do such a thing but, as the conservative icon Ronald Reagan would say, "There you go again."  The rancid rhetoric and treatment of those Syrians who merely want to escape war with their lives in a nation whose Lady Liberty statue welcomes the huddled masses with open arms is an abomination.

The US Syrian refugee vetting process is in extremis complex and the ad infinitum requirements to get into this country many.  The fiery hoops Syrians must jump through to gain sanctuary let alone citizenship are daunting.  Why Syrian refugees would want to come to our exceptionally unwelcoming land I do not know.  It's hard enough for persons of color whose ancestors came here in chains. Those African Americans who were born here have had their voting rights taken away, many have been jailed and more than a few have been shot dead in the streets by over-reactive police. 

A pox on Republican heads whose racist rhetoric is reflected in what comes out of the mouths of the leading Republican candidates and is a national disgrace. When these mendacious Republicans die may their souls, if they have them, never rest in peace!

"Turkey Shoots Down Russian Military Plane Near Syrian Border" + a joke

"This complicates an already complicated situation in the Middle East"
here or http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/turkey-plane-syria_56541c75e4b0258edb32ce67

Points to remember: Russia's ally is Syria and our ally is the rebels trying to overthrow Syria's Assad. Russia is targeting the rebels, Turkey's enemy is Syria and Turkey is our ally. Turkey just shot down a Russian jet? Sounds like the bane of my existence -- an algebraic word problem:

"If I have 3 apples and you have 9 pencils then how many pancakes will fit on the roof? Purple. Because aliens don't wear hats!" Okay, just trying to see some levity in this horror show. http://weknowmemes.com

Welcome to war in the Middle East. If you thought World War One was too complicated to understand this makes that war seem like a sandbox dispute. This is utter LUNACY and we will be dragged into just what ISIS wants another war.

This is NOT good. I just hope it is not WWIII. Call me a pessimist -- that I am -- but I think there is some merit to the madness of my worried thought.

Mental Illness Madness: Babysitter in alleged Hamilton kidnapping held without bail

Babysitter in alleged Hamilton kidnapping held without bail
Abigail Hanna, 21, allegedly kidnapped 2-year-old: story here or below:

Tom Crosby and his wife should be given heroes' medals. Initially, as they drove down a sparsely-settled dirt road in Rowley, Mass, they thought they saw a doll lying face-down naked in the leaves at the side of the road but they had the good sense to turn around to make sure and by doing so found a little girl shivering from the cold, bruised with cigarette butt burns on her body. They called police and saved that gorgeous child's life. Kudos to them and kudos to all those who were and are involved in the investigation of this heinous crime.

Clearly, the alleged 21 year old perpetrator is saturated with mental illness and, who knows, an arm-chair diagnosis of possibly psychosis. Our nation is drowning in mental illness in so many ways. What happened to us or maybe it was always this way but never discussed. I do not know. We have so many fixes for diseases below the brain but little fix for the brain itself especially so for mental illness. It is very hard to treat and meds are often thrown into a hat to try with little or no measurement for their use. Mental illness, too, takes lives but our culture has little empathy for one who suffers from it. Is it genetics or environment -- nature or nurture? In the end it is a disease which needs an ameliorative fix as other diseases do. Unlike other diseases of the body like diabetes or even cancer mental illness affects behavior and therefore has implication for all of us who are at the other end of its ugly assault.

My heart goes out to everyone in this story. At least there is a happy ending win for the child victim but a probable ruined life loss for the perpetrator of this unconscionable act. Our collective nation should be benefiting from research into the causes and cures of mental illness so that those who suffer from or who are the victims of its onslaught will be spared its ruin.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/11/23/parents-kidnapped-hamilton-girl-expressed-thanks-child-found-safe-after-horrific-ordeal/2qDDMUkpAWEFr5xcHo01AK/story.html

If you want to hear something gorgeous listen--9 years old! "Hello"

She is 9 years old singing Adelle's "Hello" with a phenomenal voice.

here or http://www.drewoliviatillman.com/

Restores my faith in our species.

My letter to Dr. Malk M.A. Kahn of Islamic Center of Boston, Wayland

Dr. Malk M.A. Kahn wrote a condemnation piece of the Paris attacks for the Islamic center in the Middlesex News.  I paste it here and below.  I commented on his thoughts.


It is so disgusting and heinous that Dr. Kahn even has to write an opinion of the Islamic rejection of the Paris attacks and really even all attacks for which innocent Muslims are so grievously indicted. Dr. Kahn, truly I think there are more who harbor views as I do believing in our constitutional system which CLEARLY separates church from state. Your belief is your business and rejecting these unconscionable attacks should NOT have to be stated by you or any in the greater Muslim community.

It is a given through our Constitutional principles that a man is considered innocent and it is up to the state NOT you to account for guilt. Your statement is well received by me, a Jew, who would no more hold you to account for any crime not committed by you than I would for me. Painting the Muslim community with a broad brush of guilt for something most would never think of committing is simply morally reprehensible. Most acts of violence are committed by a few political extremists or psychopaths and most all in the Muslim community are not about that.

Personally, in Paris I loved the hugs given to each other that show love and caring of one another. One woman was a Jew and the man was a Muslim. They hugged proving we are all human. I am you, Dr. Kahn, and you are me. We are the same under the skin. It is sad, indeed, that in this nation we have carnival barker Republican candidates that would take us back nearly a century when Jews were forced to identify themselves as Jews by a star of David on their clothing. Trump makes me ashamed.

The day when someone forces you to enter your name in a data base or wear a crescent on your lapel is the day I leave what will be a God forsaken land that has gone temporarily insane!

THE ANTIDOTE FOR THIS HATRED IS TO KICK REPUBLICANS OUT OF OFFICE EVERYWHERE AND KEEP THE OVAL OFFICE, THE SENATE AND THE HOUSE IN DEMOCRATIC HANDS.  OVERTHROW ELECTORALLY REPUBLICANS IN STATE LEGISLATURES. REPUBLICANS ARE AN EMBARRASSMENT TO THIS NATION.  DO THIS BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.  GET EVERY DEMOCRAT OUT TO VOTE!

Read and Learn

CONFESSIONS OF AN ISIS SPY

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/15/confessions-of-an-isis-spy.html

A Deal Breaker

Glenn Greenwald: It's 'Irrational' To Blame Paris Terrorism On Snowden

"Many large scale terrorist attacks have been successfully perpetrated well before anyone ever heard the name Edward Snowden." Link here or below.

I used to be a Glenn Greenwald fan. I even heard him speak at Harvard where one person said to me he was "a national treasure." I wish I had written the name of that person down to see what he thinks now.

Well before the ISIS attacks, initially when Snowden spilled the beans he and his mouthpiece Glenn Greenwald made me, a civil liberties aficionado, uncomfortable. I saw his pitch BUT also see the realities of the world in which we live. I thought Snowden's leak was utterly dangerous, stupid and naive to a fault.

In an imperfect world one must be intellectually challenged to think that this country's adversaries would accord one the freedom that has been for years accorded to Glenn Greenwald. I always wondered what if Snowden and Glenn lived in Snowden's present residence, Russia, and Snowden had the same job for Russia that he held in the US. What if Snowden saw equal or even more egregious civil liberties abridgements, torture, jail for homosexuals and others who do not meet a patriotic test and even death for those who are deemed traitors to the state would Snowden have felt comfortable doing what he did here there and would Glenn, a citizen of Russia, too, have felt comfortable traveling all over the globe to get this story out?

I submit they would have been jailed without trial in a heartbeat second, probably tortured and then disposed of forthwith. Yes, I am willing, in view of the noxious attacks I have seen from ISIS and others to allow my government to do anything it needs to protect the homeland. I aver one does not appreciate what one has until one looses it and if both Snowden and Greenwald did what they did in Russia they would appreciate how good they had it here.

Snowden and Greenwald cannot pretend to know everything  Snowden released and if there were one shred of information that helped our nation's murderous adversaries -- which I am sure there is -- supporting both Snowden and Greenwald is a deal breaker for me.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/glenn-greenwald-irrational-to-blame-snowden-leaks-for-paris-terrorists_564b4005e4b08cda348a7d00?utm_hp_ref=hpl

A Metaphor for Darkness

"Massive Police Raid In Paris Suburb Targets Terror Mastermind

The seven-hour siege focused on Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks."  Link here and below.

 

The Paris plotters are killed or captured but there are oceans more to take their place.  This is the face of eternal war.

12 of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia but the genius Bush was persuaded into attacking Afghanistan and Iraq.  Bombing Afghanistan possessed, perhaps, some justification because they provided a safe haven to train those who would and did attack this nation.  Attacking Iraq based on a WMD lie, a nation that did nothing to us, to warrant military invasion became not only insanity but a war crime.  It revived ancient tribal and religious civil wars between Shia and Sunni Islam about which Bush did staggeringly not know.  He did not even know the difference between Shia and Sunni.  Iraq's strong arm Hussein, the glue that kept Iraq together, was deposed and control of all the oil in that area was in the American neocons’ sights.

 

The neo con barbaric know nothings like Cheney, Wolfowitz, Pearle and others were salivating as their long-held vision for total American domination of that region was, it seemed to them, possible and Bush’s  cozy love relationship with Prince Bandar of the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia -- you know where massive amount of oil flows -- was the ticket to ride.

 

This nation dismembered a sovereign entity that did nothing to us, fractured an entire Middle East tinder box region, deposed dictators that kept the lid on revolution, killed innocents and created a million Iraqi refugees.

 

The Republican criticism of Obama is that he did not stay in Iraq long enough breaking the “Status of Forces Agreement” to leave, breaking the rationale for his electoral win and breaking his word to the American people that he would extricate us from Iraq but who cares about all of that?  If Cheney was alleged to have said "F___ the Constitution favoring warrantless wiretaps he could easily have said F___ the Status of Forces Agreement and remained in Iraq in perpetuity.

 

The Iraq War waged by Bush and his so called "coalition of the willing" is wholly responsible for the present chaos not only in the Middle East, Syria and elsewhere but for the carnage in Paris as well.   A straight line can be drawn from the Middle East destabilization of Iraq and other Middle East nations to the Paris attacks, the refugee Syrian crisis, the growth of ISIS, ISIL and Al Qaeda in Iraq now omnipresent all over the region (and even the world) where they never existed before.

 

The know nothing Republicans and their carnival barker so called "candidates" for the 2016 presidency will continue to spew their lies and short sighted cruelty of a now anarchic Middle East to elect another RepubliCON to the nation’s highest office with his finger on the nuclear black box button.  He will commit your children and your children’s children to eternal war.

Paris, now, is a metaphor for darkness in the city of light.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/gunfire-exchanged-raid-in-paris-suburb_564c003ce4b06037734bb306

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN REPUBLICANS ARE ELECTED.  DO WHAT IS NECESSARY ELECTORALLY TO ENSURE THIS NEVER HAPPENS!

Robert H. Jackson (1945) Opening Statement -- Nuremburg 1945

Said to be one of the greatest pieces of oratory at the beginning of the Nuremberg trials of crimes against humanity and should be viewed and listened to among those of all nations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJj6NcWHkDE

Singularly Lucky

I cannot stop thinking of Paris. What can and should be done to ameliorate our fears? What can we do at this moment in our time? Would removing all western troops from the Middle East even help now? I suspect no it would not. It is much more complicated than that now and one blog or opinion cannot say it all so I summarize my thoughts.

I love the west which is no secret from those who know me. I love the freedom of expression, I love the freedom to believe OR not to believe in religion. The two most important freedoms -- the freedom to speak as one chooses and the separation clause of the US Constitution that implies you may say anything you want ... ANYTHING for or against religious belief and religion itself remains separate from the state.

One can say, most especially, anything for or against a political belief or for or against any political policy which god knows I utilize that freedom with consistency because I may do that here. I am not afraid of the NSA, the FBI, the CIA or any other government institution entrusted with this nation's security because I love and believe in this nation and the impenetrable Constitutional principles on which shoulders our way of life and our freedoms rest.

In elementary school I remember thinking how wonderful it was that I could ask my teacher anything. So young was I to appreciate even then the blessing that was bestowed upon me. I was singularly lucky and so are we all who were lucky enough to be born in the west!

Are there changes in Middle East policy we must address? To be sure there are many and our nation has done much wrong. Still, with all of our nation's faults at least we can discuss them and ultimately change them. Yes, we were singularly lucky to be born in the west! It is worth preserving and it is worth changing policy to ensure those freedoms, we often take for granted, do not disappear from our midst.