I read the New York Times this day and was not surprised. On the left side, all the way down the front page, they began a story about protesting Catholic Nuns. There are about sixty thousand of them left out there in the world. At one time there were many many more than that. They, apparently, do not wear the revealing (and respect demanding) habits of the past. I kind of knew that from somewhere, but it hit home with this article. The substance of the article was about how the leadership of the Catholic Church (read Pope Ratso) is opposing the Nuns because they have kind of gotten together to argue against a few idiotic things still supported by the Roman Catholics of Rome. They oppose, for example, the required celibacy of priests. The Pope is still big on this malformed and unsuccessful doctrine. And it is not, or at least I do not think so, that the sixty thousand remaining nuns are simply horny and want all those priests for their own. No, I am afraid that the nun's logic is more factually grounded (however fun it might be to think otherwise). It seems that, over time, the celibacy thing just has not worked at all. Priests have been out there screwing just about any human they could get their hands on for many many years. The Catholic Church is currently paying out billions in reparations because of the failure of celibacy among its priests. It seems that the pent up sexuality of these guys has led them to exploit young boys under their care. But the payouts have not fazed Ratso. He contends that celibacy works and must be kept in place. All priests must be male and they must not have sex. The male only thing is another piece of studied stupidity that the nuns oppose.
I was raised a Catholic and went to Catholic schools all the way up through my undergraduate degree in college. My elementary school nuns were the most noteworthy of my teachers. It was Hawaii right after the big war. The nuns at St. Augustine Elementary School, just off Waikiki, had just returned from surviving the entirety of WWII in Japanes prison camps. Those nuns were in no mood to take any garbage from elementary school children. Later, I was to train and then serve in the United States Marine Corps. The Corps had nothing on those nuns. My D.I., SSgt. Baines, could not have gone one round with Sister Michael Marie (a.k.a. Sister Joseph Louis), much less the dreaded Sister Gregoria (called the 'Flying Black Axe' for reasons unknown).
I am a writer today because of those nuns. I miss their disciplined learning techniques. Techniques no longer applied to school children anywhere. I learned the ABC's, how to decline a sentence, phonics, and the Chicago Style Manual of English. I learned them by trial and error, and the studied application of attentive pro-active pain. Those nuns did not have to strike often. They used a form of willful psychology and parental support no longer existent within the confines of our culture. I learned to speak in front of groups and to overcome embarrassment and failure. I got a C Plus in English at the end of 5th grade. And I still write very regularly to Sister Michael Marie and Sister Gregoria. In fact, when my book was recently published, I sent Sister Michael Marie a copy of the book (lovingly inscribed) and a copy of my fifth grade report card. I high-lighted the C Plus I received in English with a yellow marker, to point out the error of her conclusion. That was a month ago. I got a letter yesterday. She sent me the report card back with a note stuck to it. "You have improved" it said, and there was B Plus written in red over the crossed out C Plus. She also noted a few grammatical errors in the final production hard-cover novel! I suppose that is why I, and my publisher's editors, did not get an A.
The Catholic Church has not supported nuns in any way for fifty years. The older ones live in near poverty under poor conditions in run-down care facilities. The few younger ones do not even get habits to wear. They are allowed to work for the Church for free and get by as best they can. It is a shame. The value those women provided to millions of children across the world goes unrewarded and barely even thanked. Yes, they did it for the love of God, but come on! The Catholic Church is run by men. By White old men living in splendor inside stone chateaus. They are just like human leaders everywhere on earth. There is no difference, and there is about the same level of compassion exercised and exhibited toward those whom worked to put and keep them there, as exists in the civilian world outside.
I loved those nuns and tried my heart out for them. I did that because I knew, down inside, near the bottom of my little well of souls, they wanted the best for me. I really believed that they wanted me to succeed and enjoy life, and a good measure of bliss. They wanted me to be successful, simply because, well, in their prayerful and hallowed way, they loved me. They loved God above all, and then all the children in their charge. They still do. Their belief in me, and my belief in them, sustains me to this day.
The numbers of nuns are dwindling rapidly, as the older ones die off and no new ones come aboard. This is part of the design of the Catholic Church. I do not know why. Maybe, like most male leaders everywhere, Ratso and his Italian Mafia fear women. I just don't know. But I lament their passing. They have been a force for good and love out here, across the surface of this troubled earth. Those nuns left now deserve honors and a great retirement. The young ones, the few, deserve our endearing support...financially and emotionally, because it is good for us all. I am not much of a Catholic anymore, but I know a good thing when I experience it. I love those nuns, and you should too.
http://www.jamesstraussauthor.com
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http://www.from-the-chateau-dif.blogspot.com
The drums of the Middle East keep on pounding away, far off in the distance, but routed direct through television to the living room of our homes. Year by year, month by month...right down to moment by moment, the twisting turns and sinuous paths of those vibrations are changed to meet the behavioral control needs of a very few. We, those of us who think of ourselves as intelligent interpreters of this jumbled mess of communication, are nearly as stumped as the rest of the population, as to who those few are. We are not sure, either, of what real direction they are caging us to follow. Is the combined power of the media really simply the beast of finance? Does it only respond to what makes it money? Or are there other motivations as to the messages channeled so personally into the heart of our very lives? And where, among all these messages, across all the mediums, is there any truth at all? We watch the network news, looking for clues (or maybe just laying there...senseless after a very hard day's work for too little pay), then move to the cable channels for more. Some of us listen to the radio, attempting to 'true up' any of what we have received from the other sources. Near the end, there are the newspapers. All those sources of supposed news contain 'vetted' stories, which means that someone has looked them over and checked them out to make sure they have some semblance of truth in them. Finally, there is the internet. From blogs to YouTube, and then down into the Facebook and Twitter stuff. And what are we to make of it all?
Iran has had an election. Some kind of election. We are never sure of any of that anymore. We have such deep suspicions about our own elections to the point that now, when we see or hear the word 'election,' we take the information in with a skeptical, barely contained, sneer of disdain. The message streaming from almost every source tells us that the current leader of Iran has stolen his re-election bid. The loser really won. We are given no figures because we have nobody, at all, in Iran (from any part of the mass media). The few that were there merely filmed what they could from hotel windows before they fled to the airport and got the hell out of there. Since Iran is connected to the internet, we have gotten YouTube footage and Twitter reports. But what can we make of them? Anybody can say or do anything on the internet, using video as well, if they are schooled in the technology of its use.
But lets look at the overall message we are getting from almost all sources. Iran's leader is bad. He stole the election. People are protesting. The runner-up should be crowned leader. Iran's leader should step down. All peoples everywhere have the right to peaceful assembly and protest.
Now re-read that paragraph. What is the message we are supposed to be getting? Maybe we should get more elemental than that. Okay, let's ask a more elemental question. Why should we care one whit? The current leader of Iran is just as big a hater of America as the runner-up! Yeah, the other guy was running around with that same screwy Iman who spear-headed the whole hostage crisis which catapulted Reagan into office. And the peaceful protest garbage! What is that? We don't have the right to protest here in the U.S.! Have you not noticed? Our cops and Secret Service have carte blanche to arrest and incarcerate anyone who assembles to protest, if that protest is anywhere near any of our big leaders. At the presidential conventions last year the protestors at both events were relegated to cages specially built to hold them, miles from the actual events! And this is in America! There is no right to peaceful protest of big leaders anywhere in the world. So what the hell is going on? This nonsensical 'reporting' is just like the idiocy that gets printed about torture. We decry all forms of torture...except the torture we commit as a nation. Yes, your nation and in your name.
We hate the Arabs. As a culture we hate them. We don't really want to, but we do. We hate Iran, Iraq, Libya and even Afghanistan. We are scared crapless of islam and everyone over there who follows its teachings. If they come here, to our country, we accept them...conditionally. But not over there. We have given Israel (now there is a bunch of cool-headed clever dudes living in a desert oasis!) nuclear weapons and every bit of high tech weaponry we can make. That is how scared we are. And so our news reflects this fact. There were supposed to be tons of YouTube tapes and Twitter comments about the riots in Iran. Those did not materialize after they were predicted. What do you suppose our vaunted mass media had to say about that? They said that Iran had gotten really good at internet suppression! All those Youtubes and Tweets were there, but suppressed by the brilliant internet hackers from under the sand in Iran. Oh please.
What humor, if you sit back and look at it. There were no YouTube tapes or Tweets because there were no real riots of any kind. I think you can pretty much take that to the bank (well, a bank in the Channel Islands, if you have connections and are smart). Oh sure, there was some demonstrating and crowd interaction. But that was it. And we are not even sure what any of that was about because our own media high-tailed it the hell out of there.
We believe the the Persian's hate us. And we keep asking the question about why they do. The question is meaningless because the premise is bogus. They do not hate us. They are frightened to death of us! How would you feel if a monster country, possessing more nuclear weapons than any combination of countries in the world, hated you? A monster country that has proven it will indeed use nuclear weapons if it fears and hates you enough? We need, as a culture, to begin asking the right questions. Why do we hate them? What exactly is it about them that we are so abominated by? Why do we fear these small groups of strange believing peoples living in awful desert conditions so very much? If we can't even ask ourselves those things then what are we to do? Wait for just the right opportunity to blow them all into oblivion? Is that any kind of answer at all?
Osama Bin Laden. There are all kinds of small groups around the world who want power. Individuals crave it. We are hard-wired by sociobiology to crave it. The leaders get to impregnate more females (if they are male) or secure a quality future for their spawn (if they are female). Just look at Michael Jackson as an example. He was one miserable human being. I don't think that that can be denied. His personal life did not exist. But he craved public attention right up to the end. Osama does too. Cheney does too. These people never go away, unless it is to 'write' another book and then return. Or make another video. We must understand, as a culture, that this will always be the case. There will always be an opposition party. There will always be militia groups and terrorist outfits. It is hard-wired into our genetics. Evolution will only allow that to change if 'survival of the fittest' no longer includes getting rid of those presumed to be weaker. I, personally hoped, when I was younger, that technology would eventually allow us to vault up from the murder pit of amoral evolutionary expedition. As I age, I wonder, and the wondering is not a good thing.
We are so hurtfully directed to success. We are driven by fears so deep and dark that we cannot ever discuss them. If they are revealed by others we deny them and put down those others or label them losers or the weak. Only success matters. It permeates our financial sector, our trading mercantile sectors, our sports and even our television shows. It is all, and only, about winning. And it means that most people have to be losers. Do the math. "There can only be one Highlander," is a favorite expression of mine.
We must all be of Persian Persuasion in order to stop hating them. We must know them to care for them and about them. It is applied anthropology. Anthro, closely followed by history, is one of those disciplines, however, which interests many but is practiced by only a few, and almost none of the few are leaders of any sort. If we had paid attention to the anthropology of Iraq we would not be there. If we had paid attention, right after WWII to anthropology, Iraq would never have existed as a country for us to attack. Anthropology is about understanding other cultures. Amazingly, once you understand other cultures, guess what? You come to like them. So, in reality, our problems with the Middle East are all about schooling. We don't teach the right things in our educations system here, and then the media fails miserably to educate when we are done with that formal system.
This internet 'cloud' phenomenon, as some are terming it today, may be our only hope. Only here can words be written and read everywhere. They are not read everywhere for most of us who write here, however. There is just no easy or simple way to get people's attention to be read. That attention is being consumed by the famous. The Krugmans, Krauthammers, Coulters and Limbaughs gather the people in, but in becoming famous, they surrender telling the truth about what they are communicating. They communicate to stay famous and become more famous. Until they too are ready for their last shot of Demerol. But then, maybe, it only takes a few thinking human beings to influence the course of events. I pray that is so.
Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. JFK There was a time for change, but now we need to change the results.
The strangest city I ever lived in was Houston, Texas. By far. I moved there in 1980, prodded by a friend who went there before me. I had the idea of working in the construction trades, gaining enough experience to eventually return north and become a union member. I had taken a class in electrical wiring, and had some wiring experience, so working as an electrician was my likeliest option for finding work. I was lucky. The first employer where I applied, Joe Swartz Electric, offered me a job immediately, for the lofty wage of $5.00 per hour. Joe Swartz was the largest residential electrical contractor in Houston, putting fifty trucks on the road daily, each with three man wiring crews aboard. It was unbelievably hard work. I worked on "rough" wiring, running wire in stud frame walls before the drywall was installed. The three man crews I worked with wired four houses every day, working from one new house to the next on the same street. Very few of the workers at Joe Swartz were licensed journeyman electricians - at the most about five, including the managers. The standards in Houston were so low that it didn't matter if you had no experience. As it turned out, the electrical wiring was probably the highest quality work done in the houses built at the time. The buildings were rush jobs, with corners being cut on inspections, materials, and code compliance. The wiring was done safely and according to accepted standards.The crew of "electricians" at Joe Swartz were from diverse locations, mostly from southern states, but some from Colorado, Michigan, New York, California, and other northern and western states. They got along pretty well, but the native Houstonians were probably the least qualified, and from the most marginal backgrounds. One day I was assigned to work with an "underground" crew. It was simple work. The crew leader used a "Ditch Witch" - a small bulldozer-like vehicle - to dig a narrow trench from the power source to the house under construction. Rubber coated electrical cable was placed in the trench, about six inches deep in the ground. My job was to lay the cable and do whatever hand digging with a shovel was necessary. The crew leader was something of a hothead, and supposedly had spent some time in "Huntsville." This meant that he had been an inmate at the main state prison, which was located in Huntsville, Texas. Huntsville is notorious for its many executions, and the prison itself is much feared among men in Texas. When you go to Huntsville you do hard time.I got along with the crew leader, in spite of his attempts to irritate me. He would say things he thought would bother me, but I just laughed. I remember one time he said to one of the other guys at lunchtime, "You know, Billy (or Jimbo, Red, Bobby, Shorty, etc.), I just about hate a God damn Mexican worse than I do a nigger." I laughed out loud, it sounded so stupid. The sentiment was one thing, but to just say something like that out of the blue seemed moronic. He didn't like my reaction, but I didn't laugh with malice or derision, so the conversation moved to other topics, like drinking, getting stoned, and driving fast.A few weeks later I found myself in a more serious situation. The hothead guy wasn't a real criminal. He was a young kid with a wild streak who got in trouble with the law, for drug possession, if I remember right. Another guy showed up one day, someone who had worked there before, but who had just gotten out of Huntsville after serving a sentence of longer duration, over five years. His last name was Alexander. I never knew his first name. He was of a different sort. He had the predatory eyes and menacing grin of a career criminal, a sociopath. He was about six foot one, solid build, and was older than almost everyone at Joe Swartz, probably in his mid-forties. I didn't give Alexander much notice. He wasn't on any of the crews I worked with. But for some strange reason I was sent out on a truck with him one day to do some cleanup work on a few unfinished houses. For various reasons some tasks got left incomplete, or had to be done over before a house is approved in a final inspection. While traveling from one house to the next, Alexander turned to me and said, "Are them niggers runnin' things up there in Michigan?" As a matter of brief explanation, you don't engage in a lecture about racial equality or proper language on a construction job in Houston, Texas, if you have any intuition at all. Meeting him half way, I told him the Laborers union in Ann Arbor-Ypsilanti was controlled by a "black" bargaining agent. I was hoping to explain that there was a certain justice to this circumstance, because "blacks" had a hard time getting into the skilled trades - carpenter, electrician, plumber, bricklayer, etc. Before I could elaborate, Alexander eased out the response that "Down here we have the Nazis and Klan to take care of things like that." Without hesitation I replied "I don't go for that bullshit." The quiet was palpable. Alexander said no more, but drove in a different direction from where we were going, turned down a side street, and stopped at a house that was older and occupied. It was in the area of the Astrodome, one of the worst parts of Houston. There was no work to be done there. He got out of the truck and told me he would be back in a few minutes. He went into the house, and I sat there waiting. After about an hour, he came back, and it was too late in the day to start any more work, so we returned to the company office.Though I was uncomfortable working with Alexander, and a bit concerned about his side trip, it wasn't until much later that it occurred to me that I had been in great danger. Alexander probably knew about the Nazis and Klan because he was one of them. He was a genuinely worthless individual, menacing and foul-natured. By now he is likely dead or in prison, having continued in his criminal ways until the great balancing force finally caught up with him.What got me thinking about Alexander were the recent murders of the abortion doctor and the Holocaust Museum guard. There's a bit of a trend going on, with one of the leaders of the "Minutemen Civil Defense Corps" anti-immigration group being arrested for murder and robbery in Arizona. With her partners in crime, the accused, Shawna Forde, apparently posed as a Federal agent, and robbed and killed a man of "Mexican" descent, and his young daughter as well.The mainstream news media, and even the "alternative" media portray the people who commit these crimes as "racists," religious zealots, "white" supremacists, and "right-wingers." It always has to be couched in some kind of ideological terms, for the internal purposes of the news media. They have a narrative, a story line for everything that happens in the world, and what are known as "hate crimes" have to conform to the story line of ideology.In truth, these perpetrators are criminal sociopaths, just like the zealots of the Bush criminal regime, and just like Alexander of Houston. They kill people because they want to kill people. Their righteous beliefs are mere excuses. The essence of what they do is murder. The woman from the "Minutemen" is suspected in other crimes, committed partly to finance her anti-immigrant activities. These people are given cover by the news media. They also are egged-on by the news media, especially "Fox." Some may object to Fox News being referred to as a news organization, but it is only different from the others by degree. Minions from National Public Radio, including "senior news analyst" Juan Williams and "national political correspondent" Mara Liasson, appear regularly on Fox News.I could go on and on. Fulminators like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity fuel the fires of hatred against perceived racial minorities, and hysterically rail against our perceived "black" president, Barack Obama, claiming that he is not even a citizen of this country. As a result, gun and ammunition sales since Obama's election have increased drastically.These fulminators are criminals. They should be in jail, working at hard labor. For some reason, in the social and legal matrix that constitutes the "United States of America," these criminals are not only not in jail, but they are millionaires many times over. This inversion of morality and ethics is holographic - the part revealing the whole, and that is why I can say with confidence that our failing system will not be revived, no matter what stimulus package, stop-gap measure, band-aid, or recovery plan is enacted. If we are institutionally incapable of prosecuting serious crime, then we are doomed. As long as Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity are walking free, we have a fake legal system. With a fake legal system, and a corporate news media system that supports it and feeds off it, we are doomed. And, needless to say, the Polar ice caps are melting. _______________________________________________________This song is for Alexander.
Here's a tune from Woody Guthrie. It's a message for those among us who think they are "fascists." This song just might open the doors of perception.Don't forget what your good book says. Learn about it here.Here's Willie Nelson with Ray Charles. And, for good measure, Waylon & Willie.This Ernest Tubb song is worth a listen.
Here's some Freddy Fender. Here's some more.The Texas Tornados. Before the Tornados, Doug Sahm fronted the Sir Douglas Quintet.And, to finish up, Archie Bell and the Drells, from Houston, Texas.
Q Why have a national health care plan?
Its a tool to discipline the health insurance companies.
Q How are you going to pay for it?
The health care dollars are already in the system and all that needs to be done is to re allocate those dollars elsewhere.
An option for you to choose that is not profit driven.
President makes great response to 'Won't a government run health care system put the private insurers out of business."
A If true as the private insurers say that government can't run anything, they won't have any competition.
Q How will we pay?
A We already pay
ps one trillion now, aren't we already paying two trillion? projected estimates are 4 million according to Organic Consumers Association see this link http://foodfascist.blogspot.com/2009/06/organic-alternative-recipe-for-survival.html
Ellen Ratner reported on Thom Hartmann today at the very end of the show that Diane Feinstein is on the take from the health care industry as well as Tom Daschle, whose wife is a pharmaceutical lobbyists like Chris Dodds wife.
I would love to be wrong, if I am, show me the proof.
Americans are getting pissed off enough to vote for Kuninich, I tell you.
Contact Governor Tim Pawlenty and Lt. Governor Carol Molnau, please write, phone, fax or e-mail.
Mailing Address:
Office of the Governor130 State Capitol75 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.St. Paul, MN 55155
Other ways to reach our office:
Telephone: (651) 296-3391Toll Free: (800) 657-3717Facsimile: (651) 296-2089E-mail: tim.pawlenty@state.mn.us
Mr. President,
As a gay man in Texas, I was filled with hope during your presidential campaign. I spent hours talking to family, friends, co-workers and neighbors about your views on gay rights and how we might finally be seen as equal under the law. While you were explicit that you believe marriage should be an institution entered into by one man and one woman, you expressed a desire to see all loving couples afforded the same rights and privileges as married couples.
Imagine my surprise and dismay when I read the brief your Justice Department submitted backing the constitutionality of DOMA! My committed relationship of over 10 years was compared to both incest and pedophelia.
If this is truly your administration's view of my relationship, then I made a terrible mistake. I trusted you and you betrayed me.
Mr. President, you have lost more than just my future vote. You have lost my respect.
Sincerely,
JC
We have come so far and flown so high that it is nearly inconceivable we may have gone right beyond our areas of normal expansive and progressive interest. Flight. Ever since I was a child I have loved flight. Any kind of flying machine, or person who operated a flying machine, was of great and endearing interest to me. My father was in the military, which allowed our family to fly from duty station to duty station across the land and over oceans. And I loved it all, from the aluminum framed web seats, to the loud piston engines of mixed dependabilty...and even the boxed chicken lunches, which were commonly distributed. Although planes were not on time or always able to take off due to weather or mechanical problems, it was okay. Airports had few services and little in the way of entertainment while we waited, interminably, to fly.
But we waited and we waited willingly. We loved to fly, and we loved all the preparation that went into the process. We loved the unseen 'John Wayne' pilots, and we loved the stewardesses in their wonderfully stylish attire. We loved the big aluminum monsters that flew us through the air. Most of us knew them all, by airline, model description put out by the airline, and even the manufacturer.
So what the hell happened? United is losing money...again. The rest are losing money, or making little, while they shrink the number and length of their flights. And that is all over the world. The airlines are all complaining about falling revenue and passenger miles. And they are correct. So what happened?
We don't like to fly anymore. We fell out of love. Flying today is a bitter experience of humiliating phony service. It is a series of unending embarrassments, to those who fly economy, and almost intolerable in first class, which is so expensive as to be almost humorous. We have horrid parking at airports and worse intra-airport transportation. Just the act of dropping somebody off or picking them up is to be avoided at almost any cost. Homeland Security is rotten. Rotten attitudes and stupidly rotten procedures. More humiliation. Once aboard an aircraft it is just as bad. Less room for carry-on, if any room at all. Charges for everything. Crammed planes outfitted with ever smaller seats and spaces. Tickets that cannot be changed. Tickets that cannot be returned. Fear of being run through some security system and denied the right to fly. Fear of everything connected to flight or the geographics where it occurs.
We don't like to fly anymore. That is what happened to revenue and passenger miles. We attempt to avoid it. We take a car or a train, but, more and more, we don't go at all. And it is getting worse. With less disposable income, we fly only when we absolutely have to. Our hatred for the experience is obvious to all around us at the airport, making matters all the worse. We hate the security guards, even though we understand their work. We hate the airplane crews even though we know that it is not their fault. We hate the dirty unsafe equipment we see all the time.
And so, we are beginning not to fly. It is the airlines fault. It is our governmental leadership's fault. It is the caving in to vapid stupidity at fault. There are not going to be any 9/11's because no passengers will allow it anymore. Heard of any hijacked airliners lately? Me neither. But I think it is maybe too late for the current airlines to recover. Flight will have to change. We won't accept it the way it is. We will kill it off, by not going. Then something will replace it. Like cars. I noticed, the other day, that I was standing at a Borders bookstore magazine rack in the automobile section. I have always bought automobile magazines. I looked and then bought nothing. My love affair with that method of transportation is dying too. I used to love to read about powerful sports cars, the faster the better. Now I think they are a joke. I do not want to pay for gas to support a 500 horsepower engine. An engine that will spend all of its time idling in traffic, or in the very very unlikely event that I can drive fast at all, idling by the side of the road as the ever-more aggressive highway patrols write me expensive tickets, accompanied by idiotic morality tales about safety.
And the other car stuff is boring. Oh, I know we gotta have the hybreds and the electrics. It is for the good and economy of all, not to mention, green of all. But those cars are boring. You just can't read very far into an article about a Prius. So the cars are going to go too. We are driving less. We are driving less for the same reason we are flying less...because we don't like to do it anymore. We are so simple to figure out, if you take the time and trouble to study us...the people...the fabric of the culture. We work because we have to, and because we believe in work as a part of our foundation of worth. We play because we want to. We'll continue to drive the trucks and cars for work, and fly for work, but we won't do those things for fun anymore. Unless there is just no other way to get there, and then we may not go at all.
The Thom Hartmann thesis that President Obama’s Cairo Speech swayed Lebanese voters to vote pro American is brilliant and true. The World loves President Obama and this takes hate as a tool away from these bizarre creepy fear mongers; those that truly do not love what America is all about.
Arae you still not listening to Thom Hartmann?
Go here M-F between 9 and noon or find podcasts here: http://www.thomhartmann.com/
Want more? Twitter Cairo as the search term and see the good feedback the President is getting on his speech.
John Rothmann has the uncanny ability to take you back in time and bring you
up to date all in the same breath. As an author, lecturer, teacher, archivist, and political consultant, it's easy to see how he keeps up his end of the conversation. In fact, there's never a dull moment with John.
Using audio tools to convey important issues in a clear, interesting, and exciting way, John makes the radio come alive. The show might start with the day's headlines and then move on to revisit and capture a historical moment through original sounds. You name it, John can find the recording of it, and callers love to reminisce along with him. He inspires recollections you didn't even know you had! "The people that tune in to my show have strong opinions, are highly intelligent, and are very sophisticated - and that's the secret to why the show is so much fun!" says John.
A frequent lecturer on American politics and the Presidency, John has spoken at over 150 campuses throughout the United States, Canada, and Israel. He has been involved in many political campaigns on the national, state, and local levels, including Richard Nixon's in 1968. He has also published a wide range of articles on American political history, the Middle East, and education. John's personal love is his 15,000-volume library - one of the finest private libraries in the country - specializing in American political history and political biographies. All of these experiences, combined with his San Francisco heritage as a fourth generation native, make John a warm and captivating host for Bay Area listeners.
Click here: http://members.kgoradio.com/kgo_archives/60400.mp3
NOTE: There are about 10 minutes of news and advertizing that are at the top of the analysis that the station does not cut from the archive and so I am sorry that these simply must be waited through before you will actually hear John's voice.
John’s show is on weekends from 1AM to 5AM Friday and 1 AM – 6 AM Saturday mornings on the West Coast on various stations and also heard over the internet at http://www.kgoradio.com Archives are posted for one week so if you miss the show you can download the show during the day. Lately, he has been covering the M-F 10PM – 1AM slot as well.
BTW- in the case you would like to hear the full program..... here are all the links. The show happened to be all about WWII, with the Obama Cairo Address interwoven to reflect also the dedication of the day of honoring WWII veterans.
Click here:
http://members.kgoradio.com/kgo_archives/60200.mp3 1- 2AM * Edward Murrow recording
http://members.kgoradio.com/kgo_archives/61500.mp3 2- 3AM
http://members.kgoradio.com/kgo_archives/60400.mp3 3 – 4AM * Analysis of President Obama’s Cairo
http://members.kgoradio.com/kgo_archives/60500.mp3 4 – 5AM
President Barack Obama,
Let me begin this communication by revealing the fact that I was not enamored with your candidacy during the primaries. I would have been far happier with (among the declared candidates) Dennis Kucinich or John Edwards or (among the non-candidates) Al Gore or Russ Feingold. I knew that you were not, and would not become, the person who would champion the repair of the destruction to our country with the passion and energy with which it has been destroyed over the last 40 years and, in particular, during the Bush administration.
I did, nevertheless, respect your intelligence and your integrity. I am very sad to say that you have not lived up to my limited expectations in either of these areas.
As for your intelligence, I am amazed that you have been so blind as to put in charge of the economic recovery the very people who caused the problem in the first place. Yes, I know that you have some friends from the University of Chicago, and I know that the School of Business there has been lauded with a number of Nobel awards. Nevertheless, I would expect somebody of your intellectual capacity to see beyond what was clearly a set of decisions couched in the popular culture of the time – these awards could well have been delivered by the Enquirer, given the shallowness of the assessments. Since those awards were bestowed, it has become abundantly clear how inappropriate they were at the time. In response to the abject failure of the implementation of the theories of Hayek and Friedman, the awards are now going to the more Keynesian economists such as Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman. Have you missed the message? Hayek and Friedman, as well as the Chicago School of Economics, are failures. Dismiss them and their protagonists from among your financial advisors (Summers, Geithner, Volker, Rubin, et al) immediately and bring in people who will change the mindset to one that will be (and, historically, has been) capable of restoring economic sanity!
Most recently, you can simply look at the failure of Iceland, which implemented the kinds of economic policies that you are allowing to be pursued, and which has failed miserably, and then look at the successes experienced by Sweden, which has implemented dramatically different responses and has been orders of magnitude more successful. For crying out loud, Ronald Reagan was a complete incompetent, and his administration was (after having created the problem in the first place) successful in staunching the bleeding that resulted from the S&L debacle. The Reagan administration took over the failed S&Ls, dealt with their problems, and then re-privatized them. In contrast, you (or Geithner) throw money at the failures and allow those failed execs to fritter away billions wherever they would like to. They won't even commit to defining how they will return to health or when they think they will manage to accomplish it. You are letting these bastards lead you down the garden path, just because they threaten to undo you if you don't toe their line!
As for your integrity, I need not go far to describe my complete and utter disappointment in your performance. I was quite ready, once you won the Democratic presidential primary, to go to the ends of the earth to support you. Then came the body blow of your vote on the renewal of the FISA law. At that point, I was no longer able to go out and knock on doors and otherwise support you. Yes, I voted for you as an alternative to voting for the continuation of the Bush administration. I ask you: do you understand the difference between voting for your candidate as opposed to voting against the alternative? I was reduced to voting against McCain instead of voting for Obama. I was far less than proud of my decision than I had hoped to be.
Since your election, you have substantially betrayed your promises of reestablishing civil liberties, reestablishing open government, and upholding the Constitution of the United States of America. Just because Chief Justice Roberts completely screwed up your Oath of Office does not mean that you are not still bound by the intent of that oath. Your Constitutional responsibility remains. You do not get to choose whether war criminals are prosecuted. You do not get to choose whether those who overtly broke Constitutional and Federal laws are prosecuted. It may be politically unpalatable, but it is not a choice of which you are allowed to avail yourself. You have Constitutional officers whose responsibility it is to deal with such lawbreaking, and it is not within your purview even to comment on the appropriateness (which is beyond question in the first place) of such investigation and prosecution.
It feels so uncomfortable for me, unschooled in Constitutional law as I am, to lecture a professor in Constitutional law in how this professor should comport himself. You have been described as a pragmatist, but I'm afraid that I can only view your actions as political. In this area, I consider myself far more pragmatic than you have shown yourself. The pragmatist simply looks at the cards dealt and plays them. You have been dealt a hand in which your predecessor administration has clearly committed egregious criminal acts. A pragmatist looks at this situation and simply deals with it dispassionately and lets the chips fall where they may. The process may take political allies down, but the system and the Constitution itself will emerge stronger, and the Nation will be seen again, the world over, as the ideal to be emulated. To continue along the path that you appear to have chosen will do nothing less than to continue to bring shame upon our Nation, our Constitution and our people.
The saddest thing about the entire situation is the fact that it is so unnecessary. You have the skills that will allow you to do things that would be unthinkable by lesser individuals. You have an intellect unmatched in a generation for assessing and countering the opposition. You have the oratorical capacity not seen since JFK, and before him, FDR, which you could use to sway the American people to your support, making your detractors suck your dust. Despite these gifts, you compromise your position in some 'kum-ba-ya' effort to generate some kind of consensus approach to governing. Again, I am amazed at your inability to take advantage of your intellectual capacity. Since 1980, it has been very clear that the GOP, or something that calls itself 'conservative', is immune to 'kum-ba-ya'. They have their agenda, and they will pursue it ruthlessly. They will not be satisfied until they have a completely fascist (in the Il Duce definition) government, and even having established that goal will then continue to press forward. Open your eyes and you will see that they only understand power. Establish your own power position. Demonstrate to them that they only have power derived from your power, and when they are appropriately cowed, we can move forward as a unit.
Exploit your oratorical skills. Stake out radical (radical only given the false establishment of the last 40 years) positions on economics, health care, civil rights, Constitutional law, anti-trust, labor and comportment in foreign affairs. Do the work necessary to re-establish the manufacturing capacity of the nation in contrast with the 'get obscenely rich quick' approach that the über-wealthy have been pursuing. This, as much as anything else you might do, is a national security issue – what is our national security if we need to import ball bearings during a wartime blockade? Extend that to any commodity that we are no longer capable of producing because of the selfish actions of the modern robber barons and what do you see?
Newt Gingrich likes to present himself as an historian. Perhaps he is. He knows, from history, how to destroy the country for the benefit of the well-heeled. It was done in the early 1860s. It was done in the early 1890s. It was done in the late 1920s. Every one of those periods culminated in a depression – the last of which was called 'The Great Depression'. Can you be the one who uses historical memory to benefit the general welfare? Can you be the one who will hold accountable the criminals in the prior administration? Can you be a leader?
Mr. President, please make me proud of having voted for you rather than just being complacent in the thought that John McCain was not elected. If, after a year from now, you have not dealt with the criminality of the prior administration, then I will have no choice but to begin exhorting Rep. Quigley to present articles of impeachment for your continued abetting of that criminality through your inaction.
Today Reuter reports Bryan Whitman, Pentagon spokesman of entering the 'lie parade' we knew so well from the Bush era.
In particular he claims that "...that news organization (Daily Telegraph' : Thursday's Telegraph quoted retired U.S. Army Major General Antonio Taguba, who conducted a 2004 investigation into abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, as saying the pictures showed "torture, abuse, rape and every indecency.") as lying.
If it all was a lie, then why don't you come out on the open, and give the public access to those pictures ?
The newspaper said at least one picture showed an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.
Others were said to depict sexual assaults with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube.
In an interview with the New Yorker magazine published in 2007, Taguba was quoted as saying that he saw a video of a male American soldier in uniform sodomizing a female detainee.
Let me just say this one thing : "I do not have a doubt about the authenticity of this report."
And to make the 'Daily Telegraph' look like a stupid school Boulevard paper does not serve the purpose.
If you do not come out with all the truth, and clean up the past, public opinion on your presidency stands to be tarnished.
We need answers, and we need them for good.
No more cover-ups, no hide behind the truth, no lying to the American and international public.
This way you can only restore the confidence in our nation, our international image.
Without this, we have no right to point our fingers against other human rights violaters, we are no better in fact.
You are talking endlessly about reforms, how to deal with the financial crisis, but you do not want to bring justice to those
who have been abused.
Our own confidence is vaning in your policies, what you stand for, and what you have promised to do.
You falter in front of those who have told you not to reveal the truth. And one day the truth shall be known,
so let it be known during your administration.
Mr. President, you and only you can, and must lift the lid on the accusations, and call those who have been
accused to face their judge.
Do it now, Mr. President. Don't wait any longer.
There is a damned good reason why the investigation of all torturing done by the United States, and its allies, is vital to our current and future cultural health. That reason is simple, yet responding to it may be one of the most complex undertakings of this new 'mired-down' administration. The reason we must investigate fully is to know. We must first know what was done. We cannot evaluate data we are not given, or allowed to know exists at all. If we cannot analyze and evaluate, then we support what occurred. Tacitly, we go along with what took place. Our sense of justice, outrage or even understanding, is suspended...and our future becomes bleaker because this. The United States Government, under almost every administration, has been right up there near of the top of the pile of controlling social orders. The public has been treated like it consists of cows, bunched into herds, fed hay, watered, pastured, but told nothing. After all, what could cows possibly understand? By treating the public this way (think the Kennedy Assassination, TWA 800, 9/11) the public is left totally out of any possibility of being part of decision making. Okay, so we don't know who killed Kennedy, really. We don't know what the hell happened to 800, really. We don't know what happened about the towers, really. We just know that we don't know the truth. It rankles inside of us. The 'us' who are not conspiracy theorists, even.
But, we also know that we voted for people who we wanted to run things. We gave them the ability to know things we cannot. We gave them the ability to make decisions for us when we could not. We trusted them. Not all of us. Most of us. It is how it all works here. Occasionally, however, there are things that happen which we need to be involved with. Our leaders fall into habit patterns, now supported by this whacked-out media, and tell us less and less. That is what has happened here. And we must protest. Torture is not an event. Torture is a putrid infection that forms a crack in our social order. It works its way in and then festers, eventually killing the cultural being we have fought so hard to grow and mature. It spreads. It spreads slowly and insidiously. We must find out what happened, no matter how terrible (and hundreds, or thousands have died terribly painful deaths), and then we must confront these acts. We do not even need to punish the real physical perpetrators. Public revelation would probably more than deal with that. No. We need to confront our fear. The fear that allowed us to allow our leaders to direct such acts in our name, and then to deny they did it, or cover up the very acts themselves.
If we can bring all this out from under the black cloak of intended secrecy, then we can rise up and apologize. Yes, apologize to the world and to the survivors. For our good, as well as the good of all. After apologizing we can put this horrid diseased Genie back in the bottle. We do not need to punish those who acted, but we can certainly establish and isolate some of our draconian imprisonment penalties for future perpetrators. We are a nation of laws. But those laws are interpreted by, and applied by, men and women. We need to direct these people by law, and then let them know what is in store for them if they ever commit, or allow to be committed, acts like this again. This is called taking a stand!
We cannot heal this potentially terminal infection by putting a bandage over it, even if the bandage is skin colored. We must clean the infection out, then provide antibiotics to actively fight the remaining tendrils that run through our cultural body. Laws are the antibiotics. Laws without exceptions for this area. We, as a country and a people, cannot go through life being known allow such things as 'rending' other people, or tearing them limb from limb, or drowning them, or delighting in their pain, for the simple reason that we wanted something from them. We have raised up quiet, and not so quiet, enemies against us. You know it and I know it. And I'm not writing about the stupid 'war on terror,' or any of the other Orwellian terminology adopted to keep fear in control of the masses out here. I am writing those men and women who are the families, relatives and friends, of the tortured by us, the missing under our care, the dead because of our studied sadism. Those people are coming, ever coming, and we are going to have to deal with them. We have empowered them by acting like frightened school children. We have been cowardly. And we cannot simply ignore them or provide them with silence and denial. They know. We know. We must come out of this closet. Let the healing begin.
And then there is the rest of it.
Where the hell is the new World Trade Center? Why are there not two towers standing this very day, twice the size of the old ones, in central Manhattan? You think American would not have collected and paid for such a demonstration of cultural will and strength? Where the hell is Osama? You really believe that if a country like our country, of its size and power, could fail to find one man on this earth for eight years? Where is my beloved space program? (for Christ's sake, we are about to 'rent' Russian space vehicles for the next ten years to put our people in space!!!!). Where are our factories? Where are our car companies? Where are our bridges and roads? Where is the money that all these hedge-fund and derivative executives have stolen and hauled away?
Where the hell are you and what are you going to do about it? Get off your couch and your butt and do something, even if it is just to write and say something about it all. I am not the voice of this culture. I am merely a participating observer, like you. But I am writing about it and I am asking hard questions. And I am mad as hell that my present, my future and my children's future has been stained, soiled and trampled under foot by selfish thieving bastards. And its all happened on my watch.
Our newspapers are failing because they will not write this. You need to read this. You need to think about these things. You need to reflect, argue, complain, disagree and take action. Our television media is a morass of mediocre crap fed to us daily by weak-kneed pitiful people who could not work effectively in a General Motors assembly line. You need to scream at Obama, Roberts and all of them.
I want my honor back! I was a Marine Officer. I am still a Marine Officer. But I am supposed to be that proud being, not because of the honor of the Corps, but because of the honor of the United States of America. I want my honor back. I want those things back that allow me to have bliss, and to share that bliss with the world. I want to know I am doing the right thing. I want the Christmas Eve feeling of waiting for the morning, and what I will find under the tree! But I want that back, about life itself. Have you ever lived a time when you could just not wait for tomorrow because it was going to be so great? You just knew it! I want that time for my children and my grand-children, and yes, even for me. Help me get it back. Help yourself in getting it back, or maybe having it for the first time.
I wrote a book called "The Boy." It is about honor. Honor lost. Honor won. About internal honor. Getting it, and then holding on to if for dear life. The book is going to be a movie (at least, as of yesterday!). I am not encouraging you to buy my book. I am encouraging you to write your own! To think. To write. To take action. This is all about you out here so start acting like it.
I love the Marine Corps. I love America. And I love you.
Before our government can go forward it must deal with the past. A past that involves torture, unconstitutional detention, black sites, and Guantamamo. Until we face the past we will not be free. The Bush administration got us into this mess. We elected Obama, to break the chains of the Bush administration misdeeds and to lead us forward. This can only happen after the past is faced and dealt with in it's entirety.
It is very seductive to say we have an economic crisis, a health care crisis and other pressing problems that are more important and that we must deal with them first. But, the reality is that until the past is honestly faced it will control the future resolution of these pressing problems.
Facing the past is painful but the pain is a necessary part of our growth as a free country.
Kennedy Kids Capture War Criminal : [The Darkth Neighbor] with Cookies!
More bizarre Cheney This is a true story per audicast.
The Dark Force itself was confronted by the White Light of ebullient girls in bathing suits visiting Grandmother Kennedy for Mother’s Day. As told per the May 16th weekly broadcast of Ring of Fire Radio, apparently the Cheney’s purchased a home in Mrs. Kennedy’s neighborhood. Though Grandma has not exactly rolled out the welcome wagon, the bright new generation of gals boldly went where few have gone before to the door to the depths of the Cheney dungeon itself with …a plate of cookies.
Assumedly, a security guard answered the door but did not ask the girls to test taste them…..whereupon The Great Darth Vader himself appeared in all his crotchety bleakness to grumble “Where you kids from?”
The girls gleaned [to pick up after the reaper] –“over there”
“Oh- his back curled- “The Kennedy House” – [Dark Vaudeville Music sounds]
The cookies were kept.
The next day, so Mrs. Kennedy reported, several of the Cheney grandchildren brought forth from the depths of hell – a cake.
Listen yourself here: http://a1135.g.akamai.net/f/1135/18227/1h/cchannel.download.akamai.com/18227/podcast/SANFRANCISCO-CA/KKGN-AM/Ring%20Of%20Fire%20051609%20hr%201.mp3?CPROG=PCAST&MARKET=SANFRANCISCO-CA&NG_FORMAT=progressivetalk&SITE_ID=5257&STATION_ID=KKGN-AM&PCAST_AUTHOR=Green_960_/_Air_America&PCAST_CAT=Politics&PCAST_TITLE=Ring_of_Fire
