I had heard about and finally had the time to watch this video http://www.wecansolveit.org/..... I also had this video sent to me by my mom. Some of you may have seen it but I offer it up as well since it is also about the environment and is a perfect 'cleanup man' (or in this case girl) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Sb6RmRMbBY
I encourage all that see this to sign up to the Al Gore initiative and spread the word! This is our future as a species..... borders, governments, languages, religions, origins should not matter as it pertains to the only environment we have!
Its not like we have another planet to run to!
http://www.wecansolveit.org/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Sb6RmRMbBY
HR676 - A bill that is under consideration in the House of Representatives, brought to you by Dennis Kucinich (D) Ohio and supported by none other than Barack Obama is most certainly a huge step in the correct direction for America. As mentioned in the docu-movie "Sicko" by Michael Moore
Of course the battle lines will be drawn and stepped on and push every which direction by both sides of the issue..... We Progressives must win!
On one side, you have the vast majority of Americans that want and demand a healthcare plan that not only they can afford, but one that they can be sure to be taken care of.
On the other side, you have the rightwing corporate special interests and their paid assassins on the TV and radio in the form of corporate owned media, along with a small minority of our fellow citizens to lazy to listen any further than Rush Limbaugh or Fox Noise that will fight this tooth and nail trying to convince their listeners that this is 'socialized' medicine that will only lead to communism....... yeah.... like its ok that corporate interests and state being merged (as it pretty much is now) is a good thing?
While there are many issues that this country must face, certainly due to the laziness of our leaders these last eight years..... from our infrastructure, our educational system, our environment, the illegal occupation of Iraq, a foreign policy that is just begging to be 180'ed, energy, the rift between the 'have mores' and the 'would like to have' and various other issues...... healthcare may not be completely dealt with, but HR676 most assuredly is a step in the correct direction!
It is time to fight the good fight!
Spread the word in your local paper!
Call in to your local radio shows!
Show up at local townhall meetings and start grassroots movements!
It is time to take back our country from the corporations and put them in the rightful place..... as a fictional creation by We the People, subject to We the People!!
I leave you with a link that needs to be spread about: http://www.hr676.org/
Yes We Can!
I was listening from afar a report on ABC with Charlie Gibson that the IRS is investigating that individual people are putting money in tax free havens and that it seems several billions of tax revenue has been lost as a result.
The way I see it, if corporations can claim that they are 'humans' via the Santa Clara v Southern Railroad 1886 ruling. Actually, the Supreme Court never actually ruled on whether corporations were 'people' or not, they simply ruled on the supposed unfairness of a different level of tax from one county to the next. A court reporter, J.C. Bancroft Davis, an ex-railroad executive wrote on the headnote area of the ruling that corporations were in fact people. This ruling has never had any real legal standing, but has been used since then as a way for corporations to keep getting away with more and more 'stuff'...... then we individual people should be able to do the same!
Corporations can open up a PO Box in the Bahama's or the Caymen Islands, in essence, moving their 'corporate' office there, even though physically, the building may still be in America.....
Many of the 'things' that corporations have been arguing for since that 1886 'ruling' have been argued claiming that corporations have 'human rights', no different than a living, breathing, eating, drinking human being.
Mind you, I'm quite sure that a vast majority of those individuals are within the top 2% of our society that are doing this, but I get the feeling that as this story unfolds, it will be those of us in the middle class that scraped and clawed to a savings worthy of sending it over seas that will be the ones to take the fall.
I think it might be time for America as a whole to expose not just those minor players who tax evade, but the major corporations that get away with paying billions in taxes every single year!
Anyways..... I leave you with a link to a story that covers this issue. Senator Obama? Are you reading this?
http://www.globalpolicy.org/nations/corrupt/2002/0326evasion.htm
1. One to deny that a light bulb needs to be changed at all
2. One to attack the patriotism of anyone who says the light bulb needs to be changed
3. One to blame Clinton for burning out the light bulb in the first place
4. One to tell the nations of the world that they are either for changing the light bulb or for eternal darkness. PERIOD!
5. One to give a billion dollar no-bid contract to Halliburton for a new light bulb. Because Cheney said so!
6. One to arrange a photograph of Bush, dressed as a janitor, standing on a step ladder under the banner “Bulb Accomplished”
7. One administration insider to resign and in detail reveal how Bush was literally “in the dark” the whole time while the bulb was working!
8. One to viciously smear #7
9. One surrogate to campaign on TV and at rallies on how George Bush has had a strong light bulb-changing policy all along
10. And finally, one to confuse Americans about the difference between screwing a light bulb and screwing the country
And, after all is said and done, no one will be able to do anything about the fact that they never even actually managed to change the light bulb.
I want to give credit to the exact website that I got this from, but I can't find it at this time. I had saved this joke and forgot to keep the website handy..... if I ever do find it, I will give proper credit, until then.... here's to you!
I want desperately to only write one post per day, but this recent rightwing attack on Barack Obama's saying that it would be a great thing for all American kids to learn at least one foreign language just could not wait.... I completely and firmly agree to that. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that a third foreign language should at least be taught at a basic level!
Many blogs have already posted several different takes on this:
On the left, you have blogs that agree and on the right, you have several that only demand more ignorance out of our children.....
I often wonder how the rightwing mind works.... fear? purposeful ignorance? they like to be led by their noses? It boggles the mind how these people survive on a daily basis, so with that said....
I leave you with a link to the CarpetBaggerReport..... pay attention to comment #6
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/16143.html
I get the feeling that this concept might take some doing and/or perhaps Latin may become the new French in the rightwing mind?
Jimmy Carter will go down in history as the most unfortunate president ever.....
I say this in the sense that Jimmy Carter became our president between Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan.... I believe that Carter was one of the best presidents we ever had who had little chance of getting anything of substance done! How else to explain the rightwing spewing of hate toward him?
Glen Beck says he is a waste of skins, Ann Coulter believes he should be tried for treason for accepting the Nobel Peace Prize on the eve of the Iraq war!
Jimmy Carter was smart enough to know what We the People wanted back then, to be energy independent! He had solar panels put up on the White House, sadly, it was at a time when the Middle east was having a fit over the way American foreign policy was damaging the way those countries wanted to create itself and Reagan became the president. America has always claimed to be spreading democracy, but at the barrel of a gun, can anyone say: Iran/Contra?
If this country is to become energy independent, we need to have a leadership that is willing to go against the grain of corporate interests and invest many billions of dollars in solar, wind, hydro, and the infrastructure that exists today and some that is not even built yet!
We need to stop feeding billions to corrupt regimes in Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Pakistan and allow their people, who likely hunger for real freedom like we have here in America (except the 4th amendment of course, but thats for a different post) and to allow this country to be dependent on itself!!
The rightwing machine of course will scream that doing this will only anger those countries into wanting to attack us? Really? Since we have gone the direction that we have gone since the 1950's, we have only bred hatred of us..... perhaps a change in the opposite direction is the future of America? It seems to me that the last 60 years or so in the direction we have gone , as it pertains to foreign oil has only led to heartache, hatred, wars, and disaster....
Perhaps a 180 degree change in foreign policy is needed? I have a feeling that a large majority of this country would be all for it.... regardless of what the rightwing may say contrary about it!
When George Bush became the governor of Texas, it was ranked, if I remember correctly, seventh in the nation in education. After he left Texas for the White House, Texas was ranked 48th or 49th in the nation.
Let that sink in for a moment: From 7th to 48th in less than seven years because of the (N)o (C)hild (L)eft (B)ehind law, and within the first six months in the White House he and his corporate cronies in the education business decided to implement this useless law to the entire country.
The provisions that are the worst of the law are: the flat standard across the board and that the military is to be allowed to enter all highschools undetered across the nation.
The NCLB law testing standard is a joke. It is creating nothing more than a new generation of test takers instead of critical thinkers. My take on this is that since private schools are not subject to this law, I firmly believe that it is intended to create a new group of potential slaves for the rich elite to rule over. In its current form this is what is happening and there is little doubt to it.
The fact that the military is allowed in our highschools has to be the biggest insult to public schools and We the People since personhood was allowed to be stolen by corporations back in 1886. My daughter was aproached by a recruiter, my daughter tried to walk away wothout bothering to listen, she knows the score, but the recruiter practically would not let her walk away until she listened to his speech. It took a friend of hers to yell out her name to get her away.
In my daughter's school the students have to wear their ID's on their neck, so this recruiter was able to take her name down. I know this because within a week she bagan to recieve mailers in the mail from the Army and the Nat'l Guard.
I think that the reason this provision was put into the NCLB law was simply because the Bush administration knows perfectly well that if they were to attempt to implement the draft, the illegal occupation of Iraq would end the next day! So to force a back door draft on our nation, these people added this provision. Lets face it, in a public school, you have many children being inticed by upwards of $40,000 signing bonuses to join or face a battle for that minimum wage job at McDonalds.
It is time to either rework it by removing many of its more vile provisions or rid ourselves of this dispicable law and toss it away into the dust bin of history.
Although I could not stand it when he went up to the podium, because I knew without doubt that he was simply going to spew the talking points of the Bush Administration, but I find myself rather sadened by the death of Tony Snow. My heart goes out to his wife and children.
I think mostly it is that he was only 53, he was well-off and no doubt had the insurance to cover his medical expenses.
I begin to wonder if perhaps his death will get many American men to go out and get checked out. I would love to be able to do that myself, but since my wife lost her job, she lost her insurance, so we no longer have the ability to have check ups. Of course, I could get a check up, but it would be at my expense but since we barely have enough income to cover the few expenses we do have....
Perhaps Tony Snows death could be a sign? A sign that it is about time to call for a universal heath care plan? It is a foregone conclusion that it would be cheaper to have preventative medicine healthcare than having 50 million Americans holding off getting a check up until it is likely to late.
This drives up the cost of everything within our society. But the real trick will try and reconvince the many of our fellow citizens that paying a bit more in taxes to guarantee that they, their love ones and their fellow citizens will be able to see a doctor when ever they please who have been brainwashed into believing the rightwing talking point that taxes are bad and that any kind of 'society' type mind set will only lead to communism, facsism or worse.
After 240 years of American history, only a group led by rightwing idealogy and corporate money can possibly believe that garbage! Somehow I find myself weary of these same people being the ones that would try and lead us down that path.
I keep my checkbook in fairly good order and at time, like many of us, I make mathematical errors. Usually it is by a dollar or two. You get distracted when carrying the one and instead of a three you put a five or perhaps a one ans wa-la you are off by two dollars.
That two dollar mistake, especially if you are living paycheck to paycheck can be the difference between just hovering above $0 or being in the hole by as much as $39 dollars.
I have had the pleasure of having these wonderful bank charges, called NSF (non-sufficiant-funds) charged to me over the years. Ten times that I can remember. Two were reversed, lucky me! The others were not. While I can somewhat agree with parts of the law, as there are some rather unscrupulous people out there that write checks knowing that they will bounce.
Until the last 8-10 years many of us 'mythical' little people could go to the store Tuesday night, knowing that the check will not clear the bank until Friday or even as late as the next Monday, up to six days later! Today, many companies have the ACH system, this is where they make a copy of the check, it goes through the very next day, in some rare occasions it may take two days.
By and large, this law is and was designed to hurt the little guy. When one lives paycheck to paycheck it is already a stress to chose whether to pay the bills or buy food before the next payday. Gone are the days of being able to buy food on Tuesday and being forced to wait until Thursday before being able to buy food for ones children.
Of course unless you have lived paycheck to paycheck or gone without a job for more than a couple of weeks and bills become over due, you have no idea!
So this creative bank law (NSF) was given to us via the Newt Gingrich 'Contract With America' back in 1994, so that if you had the nerve to buy food for your kids on Tuesday and you did not get paid until Friday, instead of choosing for your children to go to school or even bed hungry, in supposedly the richest most powerful country in the world.
Banks can charge upwards of $40 for your account going negative $1.01. Thats right at $-.99 cents you are ok, but at $-1.01 you somehow end up owing the bank upwards of $40.
This happened to me today and while in this case it was not because of a choice per se, but because of a mathematical error of $3.00..... three dollars! It was the difference between being positive $1.08 and negative -$2.08. Between being positive $1.08 and negative $-37.08 because the bank has now charged me $35 for being more than negative $-1.01.
I have heard the arguments on why this law is necessary and unless you have always been rich, never lived poor, once lived poor but now are rich and you have forgotten your beginning, you either never lived it or forgot what it is like.
These laws have created a profitable boon for the banks and is succeeding in breaking the back of the little guy. It is time to not just simply look into these laws but to eliminate them or rework them so that it is fair for both the banks and the little guy! Next president of the USA Barack Obama... are you listening?
I leave you with a link to other similar stories:
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/130/RipOff0130268.htm
and
http://www.my3cents.com/showReview.cgi?id=31878
I just finished reading Thom Hartmann's "UnEqual Protection" and I have to say, I was not sure if I was more shocked than pissed off after reading this book.
I invite Senator Obama and all of his campaign workers to read this book and consider the possibilities. I realize that a huge political issue like "Corporate Personhood" is one that could be very intriguing, but rest assured that a grassroots movement is occuring to rid ourselves of the stolen human rights from us natural persons.
The 14th amendment was never intended to give rights to a non-breathing, non-eating, non-drinking human made fictional entities, it was explicitely created for the ex-slaves!
I'm very encouraged by the fact that Barack Obama decided against 'public' financing and hope against all hope that you will NOT take anymore 'soft' money from corporate special interests beyond the amount that someone like myself (a hard working, but slipping out of the middle class American) can give.
If you do this and stick to your guns, you can go down in history as one of the greatest presidents this country has ever had.
It is a foregone conclusion that the Republican party has sold out this country for the expedience of power and the greed for money. So I ask, why the heck does Barack Obama and any within the Democratic Party in any way support this recent FISA bill that allows for Telecom immunity? How did this vile law even become possible? Let alone up for vote?
Does the fourth amendment mean anything to those in a position of power?
Does the Constitution mean anything to anyone in power anymore?
I want my elected officials to give a damn and stop being so worried about monied interests!
Each and every one of the elected officials need to ask themselves:
Which is more important"
1) Taking money from special interests who's only intent is to make it easier for their paymasters to make even more money and to have the ability to change the laws and regulations to suit their greed and file, sick, and disgusting un-American attitudes?
or
2) Doing what is right for the commons of ALL "We the People" so that each and every one of us can live, not just in peace, but live knowing that ALL of our water, air, food, and public lands are not full of chemicals, poisoned, diseased, or defiled and that a proper set of regualtions that allow for corporations to still make their profits do so under the watchful eyes of a government full of leaders that care?
To,
Barack Obama,
Whether you win it all and become our next president or you don't and stay on as a Senator from Illinois, I would implore you and all others, like myself that desperately need our country to become the beacon of light it is supposed to be, not by force but by diplomacy, not with lies, whether to "We the people" or to those of that other country, but with the truth, regardless if it hurts.
We as a nation have to come to terms with our horrible past, it seems that at every turn we have spread freedom, liberty, and justice not with our Constitution in hand but with our military forcing our preceived "We are America and can do no wrong" attitude that we have all grown up with.
While we can't change our past, we can change our future by collectively coming to terms with our past and the damage our government has done in our names, from the wholesale slaughter of indigineous American Indians to bringing here and forcing blacks into slavery to attacking an Arab country under false pretenses and utter lies.
I encourage everyone, starting with you Barack Obama to read, with an open mind "on the JUSTICE of ROOSTING CHICKENS" by Ward Churchill, regardless of whether you or I or all of our fellow American's don't fully believe everything written, it is obvious that those that have governed us since the birth of our nation have at times used our military to get what they or their business interests want and yes, they have used our military for the right reasons too.
If you make it to the White House, I'm not saying that you or even we should say sorry for our past but to simply change our foreign ploicies to reflect America as a country that allows the other 96% of the people of the Earth to have total control over their lives, their destiny, and the resources under thier soil, (with only guidence from America) if we do this we take away two things:
1) Terrorists; individual or groups, have no new motivations to hurt their own or us.
2) You take away the motivation of Big Business to pay under the table, politicians that can make or break laws that make it easy for them to make profit using our boys/girls blood and the blood of millions of innocents worldwide!
There is no doubt that we live in a scary world, yes, Muslims have been killing eachother for centuries before America existed, but lets not forget that Christianity hasn't been a collective group of saints either, the door swings both ways (remember the Crusades), but if we start playing by using the Rule of Law by its very definition we can begin to be looked upon as a real beacon of light to all that is decent and good!
It would also create an atmoshere throughout the world that those individuals that can be defined as a terrorist would be jumped upon by those that would be following the leader (America) by also using the Rule of Law
While war is ugly, it is at times nescessary, and the entire point of my post here is to say that we (America) shouldn't be waging war for nothing more than certain corporations from making profit, this could be possible by repealing the Telecommunications Act 1996 that Bill Clinton fatally passed into law that deregulated media, look at the damage done to our media since; Fox News is pure propaganda, ABC, CBS, NBC are all now owned by corporations that own divisions that make war possible, so little if any truth is ever possible to be heard again from these 'media'
In some cities, one company might own every type of media outlet, so how can news and truth be told if this company is owned by someone that loves profit at the cost of the truth or death of innocents!
Please, I implore you to consider this, even if you don't do this directly (I understand politics is ugly) find a way to do this quietly, but please find a way to do this, to save this planet, to save its people, to save America from itself!
Thank you
David S
