Friday, December 25, 2009

Blessed Are The Poor --- But...NIMBY


Vicar Speaks Out On Behalf of the Poor




Most everyone was outraged when the Vicar made a case for Christians to show compassion to poor people who shoplift. Little does the Vicar understand that property is sacred beyond church or anything. And at no time does this clinging to material goods and selfishness show itself than when a Vicar, the conscience of the community, reminds his congregation that all of life is actually illusion. And besides your greed is showing, people.








Thursday, December 24, 2009

Why They Danced In The Streets On 9/11


American Hegemony




Dancing in the streets. Hearing the news that America had been attacked on its' own soil, we all focused our eyes on the TVs in our living rooms and saw the rest of the world celebrating the take down and indignity of America. There was no compassion for the 3000 innocents who died in the World Trade Center. There was only rejoicing that now America had been paid back for the appalling foriegn Policies of deceipt, murder and interference with the rest of the world governments for the past sixty or seventy years.

Back in the Fifties and Sixties, I was too young and stupid to pay attention to the way American Foreign Policies seemed to invade other countries around the world and set up it's own puppet regimes whose function, really, was to play potsy with Big Old Uncle Sam. And if they stepped out of line they got stepped on.

I did not know that the Shah of Iran was setup and enthroned by the CIA, who had arranged for the coup and eventual murder of the previous and freely elected president of Iran.

Well, I thought in my naive way, it isn't as if we went into that country and meddled with their politics and economics and their whole way of life, is it? But a terrible answer comes back. You mean that we were responsible for putting that monster Pinochet into office, and again murdering the freely elected people's choice.

Nyah.

This is America!

We believe in Motherhood, America and a Hot Lunch for Orphans.

Don't we?

Well, some of us do, and some of us, who are deluded, greed filled oligarchs, don't. Take a look at these videos and begin to understand, in the words of Harry Truman, that, "The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know."

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Senate's Xmas Gift To Health Care Insurers


And Now Some Well Deserved Grandstanding



If you thought that the insurance companies were going to clean up their act and, for once, do something right, or, at least be what they say they are, and do what they say they do, you might want to rethink that illusion. They are, instead, stepping right up for an outright gift from the U.S. Senate. The US Congress has pulled off some sleazy legislation in the past decade; like the way they gave away the store to the Credit Card industry; allowing for the banks to raise their percentages to well above and beyond usurious rates. Then there's that delightful little $800,000,000,000B give-away to the banks, so they could have a nice retreat for their execs at some neat little luxe spa resort in Saint Bart's and talk about all the fun foreclosures they intend to get even richer on. All the small business loans they can deny. After all, it costs a lot of taxpayer money to say "NO!"

And these lavish gifts to those crooks slapped the faces of vast majorities of their constituents. But they knew one thing the public did not know: the public merely would groan and roll over, forget and forgive when the little tempest in a teapot blew over.

It takes real panache to stand up and take bows for the truly heroic act of sticking a standard size meat-hook up the collective bum of the American public and then of course, shaking it around up there and telling your constituents that what they are feeling is love. And all this without a kiss or benefit of KY Jelly.

I agree with Michael Moore when he says, on Larry King's show, that we are watching the end of Capitalism. Well, I have been calling it dog-eat-dog, end-game, Crony Capitalism for a few years now. And nobody, so far, has fired a shot! Well, except for the Crony Capitalists who have shot themselves in the foot and the American Economy in the heart and the head.

Harry Reid and Max Baucus have a lot of nerve to pose for photo ops for the Associated Press for a job so very poorly done. Your health Insurance rates are going to soar; sooner rather than later; and if the whopping new deductibles don't kill you first,(there is no provision for regulation) perhaps the co-pay rate hike will.

Here is Wendel Potter, perhaps the only insurance exec in the United States who has a conscience. He tells us exactly how crooked the insurance industry is, but does Congress listen to him. Well, they would be happy to listen to Wendel, just as soon as they can get their fingers out of their ears.


Tuesday, December 22, 2009

The US Senate's Health Care Reform Bill



As Crooked As They Wanna Be





What is most difficult to understand, is why the Republicans, who do not have even enough votes to fillibuster this bill, have so much clout. If this situation had arisen five years ago when there was a Republican majority in the Senate and the House, as well as in the Whitehouse, we all know that the Repulicans would have ridden rough shod over the Dems and laughed in the face of anybody stupid enough to object to any of their provisions at all. But what we are witnessing now, is a Democratic Congress unwilling to so much as whisper that the Republicans need to get on board with what the vast majority of Americans have expressly demanded of Congress, or else, you Repukes go to Hell and we will take it from here and for once, do our jobs--- which the voters sent us here to do.

I received a letter from Charles Schumer D-New York, in this morning's e-mail and was rather put off by Schumer's claims that this is a great Health Care Reform Bill as hammered out by the Senate. I did not have to check any other newsletters to know that old Charlie Schumer is lying through his political teeth. He wants the voters to believe that he and others worked so hard and achieved so much. But achieved so much for whom, Charlie? It's for damn sure you did nothing admirable for the voters! What he really wanted in the letter is money. After lying like a snake in the grass he included a DONATE button at the bottom of the page.

Whassamatter, Charlie? The Big Bad Insurance Lobbyists lurking under your desk didn't slip enough schekels into your pocket?

No Charles, this bill is not even vaguely acceptable. You and your lying cronies need to go back to the drawing board and do big revisions. And you already know that.

And you knew it last summer.

It is for certain that Max Baucus was not just whistlin' Dixie when he told Ralph Nader that the Health Care Reform Bill was a Done Deal. Right now, this bill is a massive gift to Wall Street and the insurance companies and at the massive expense of the tax payers on Main Street. Merry Christmas from the Senate Santa--- to Cigna and all the other big Health Insurers.

So what, specifically, is wrong with the bill as it stands at this moment? Well, thanks to MoveOn.org, here are a few highlights that, even at first glance, just look wrong:

  • Forces you to pay up to 8% of your income to private insurance corporations -- whether you want to or not
  • If you refuse to buy the insurance, you'll have to pay penalties of up to 2% of your annual income to the IRS
  • After being forced to pay thousands in premiums for junk insurance, you can still be on the hook for up to $11,900 a year in out-of-pocket medical expenses
  • Massive restriction on a woman's right to choose, designed to trigger a challenge to Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court
  • Paid for by taxes on the middle class insurance plan you have right now through your employer, causing them to cut back benefits and increase co-pays.

Five Critical Flaws in the Senate Health Care Bill

The Senate bill would:

  1. —Deny Americans the choice of a public option. In contrast, the House bill contains a national public option, the key to real competition, greater choice, and lower costs.
  2. —Leave insurance unaffordable for some lower income and working people. Both bills require virtually all Americans to buy insurance. But even with the subsidies provided, some families could have to pay up to 20% of their income on health care expenses.
  3. —Impose dangerous restrictions on women's reproductive health care. Unfortunately, both bills do this and the House provision is worse. Both versions would be a dangerous step and neither should be in the final bill.
  4. —Tax American workers' health coverage to pay for reform. The Senate would pay for part of reform by taxing the hard-won benefits packages of some working Americans. The House, on the other hand, pays for reform with a small surcharge on only the wealthiest Americans—a far better approach.
  5. —Allow insurance companies to remain exempt from anti-trust laws. Under current law, insurance companies are actually exempt from laws designed to prevent monopolies and price-gouging. The House bill would fix this, but the Senate bill leaves it in place.
  6. --Of course, these aren't the only problems with the bill. Most glaringly, both the Senate and House bill would leave millions uninsured, a far cry from the vision of universal coverage so many of us have fought for. That remains a long-term goal.


But these five things need to be fixed immediately—and we need to spread the word to make sure House and Senate leadership and the White House get the message we're counting on them to craft a final bill with these key fixes.

If the American people don't cry out loud and ugly on this one, then they are just too stupid to care about and I quit. They have been totally shafted by the Democratic Party and the US Senate.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Percy Schmeiser and Monsanto


Why Monsanto Must Rein In Or Be Thrown Out




M onsanto provides a perfect model for study of the abuse of intellectual patents. Other questions, such as the real value of Genetically Modified food are certainly worthy of discussion. And whether or not there is any real validity to Monsanto's intellectual patent on seeds. The problem is, they want to control all the seeds in the world; just as they want to control all the world's supply of food, while pretending to be concerned with the welfare of poorer nations, and how they Monsanto will be able to feed everyone who now hungers. But their behavior now, is the all important clue as to how they will behave once they have accomplished their nefarious goal of having all the farmers under their profit motivated thumb: is more to be lost in the public sector than gained by this kind of privatization of property which has always belonged to the farmers, and the government merely held them in Trust, like the world's water supply, on behalf of the citizens. George Bush and Dick Cheney and a few other Neocons certainly believe that what Monsanto is doing is a good thing. But they want to privatize the air we breathe, the water we drink, and ground we walk upon. This kind of doctrine makes one want to proclaim oneself a socialist, even if one has never considered oneself a socialist before. We saw that during the Bush administration, privatization was considered a good thing, but now, we realize that this sort of thing when done by corporations---is inevitably the path to intolerable abuse. And the damage doesn't stop at abuse, but these economic policies are, historically, the road to the destruction of civilization.

So why is nobody suggesting that we throw out this dog-eat-dog crony capitalistic self-destruction of America? Why are these insane Rethugs who have, through their own willful criminal ways, destroyed the economy and instigated foreclosure on hundreeds of thousands of American families, generally acted as pirates, why are they looking so attractive to American voters again.

To hope for a different outcome from these pigs is insanity! Literally, the classical definition of insanity.

And Monsanto is leading the parade of crooked thinking. And perhaps, actually, Monsanto's piggishness is now actually working against the neo-cons. And that is why there was an article in the Statesman Journal, which was, in fact, an exposé of the evil ways of Monsanto. The article was written by a writer for the Associated Press, which is owned by the Rothschilds. More conservative you will not find. So perhaps the big guys have determined that Monsanto's ways are not sustainable. And while not in so many words, they are throwing the corporation out into the cold. Nobody, no single entity actually gets to control the world's food supply.

The Canadian judges were obviously partisan conservatives. They ruled (badly) on Percy Schmeisers suit against Monsanto. In fact, their rulings were so in defiance of logic and reason that it became clear, that if they had not been bought off by Monsanto, the case more than amply gave the appearance of judges having obeyed the letter of the law, but having violated the spirit of the law.

The United States Department of Justice is now investigating anti-trust accusations. At issue is whether Monsanto is involved in illegal Global Dominance in the seed market to the point of crowding out all competition. But it isn't only that Monsanto controls the seed market. There is an unbelievable evil which they disingenuously perpetrate, namely that when their genetically modified product is next to a farm where the seed has been carefully nurtured for many generations, the wind will blow the modified seed and infect the adjacent farm. Then that farmers seeds will no longer produce a crop. That is the price of GE seed infestation. And it is obvious that Monsanto is entirely knowing of this. Then they take some of that farmers product and show how it has incorporated the DNA which Monsanto has patented. But the latest conversations now have to do with passing of new laws which question the entire area of intellectual patents on things which belong to the public domain.

If this is where civilization is headed---count me out. I will not willingly live in a world where the law protects only the wealthy and powerful. That is merely archaic! Primitive to the point of being nearly chthonic, actually. And in fact, such a system can be summed up as the law of the jungle, where might is right.

Might is Right only in the jungle and the jailhouse!

Criminal minds think that way.

In which case it is time to dismantle the so-called Justice system and start over again. It is too corrupt for my taste.




Coincidently, I happened to see the excellent film Michael Clayton, the other night on TV. It is now clear that the giant corporation they are talking about is Monsanto. If nothing else, Monsanto's arrogance is repulsive. Its' Greed is bottomless, not unlike the hugely gross fat-man being served in the Monty Python skit where the man is served more and more food in the fancy restaurant, until, finally, he explodes, leaving a dreadful mess. But if you simply examine the fact that prior to its disquieting excusion into cornering the world seed market, Monsanto was famous for 2 products. Weedkiller Roundup and the Agent Orange used in Viet Nam which destroyed so many of both American and Vietnamese military men's nervous system.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Chomsky: Government In the Future



The Real Enemy of the People



N oam Chomsky makes one grateful that we have access through Youtube.com, to his far ranging political insight and strenuous logic. Somehow, for me at least, the image and the sound of the voice combine to make for quicker absorption and comprehension of big ideas, although books are a good tool for preservation of thought in low-tech mode. Here is Chomsky recalling a ditty composed by a Canadian Economist on the subject of Globalization:
The poor complain, they always do,
But that's just idle chatter,
The system works for most of us,
At least for those who matter
Be sure to watch the alternative videos parts 2 and 3 of the Government in the Future, which will show themselves after this one is done.





Once you've established yourself in the basics of political theory by viewing the above series of 3 videos, then it is time to go to the issues which define the present moment in American history: namely, that America is not a Democracy.

So what is it?

Good Question!

America is something now called, technically: A Polyarchy.

A polyarchy is a type of government system put forward by none other than James Madison, (great American that James was, he said with his tongue way into his cheek)) which purports that the people don't really count for anything except as unknowing pawns who through propaganda are persuaded that it is their mission to protect and uphold the handful of the wealth and power elite.

How is this done?

Through the ownership and absolute control of the Main Stream Media. The most blatant example of this tactic is Rupert Murdoch's buying of the Wall Street Journal. And then eliminating whatever integrity of honest journalism the WSJ might have had. Another example which comes to mind because my local newspaper, The Statesman Journal, is run by the huge right-wing conglomerate, Gannett. So? What's the big deal. Try writing a letter to the editor which espouses a liberal point of view. See if they publish your letter. Based on my own experience, I'd say chances are not good. But they will fall all over themselves to publish a letter to the editor, from a tea-bagger, upholding the most extreme kind of Fox News propagandistic thinking.




And here is a short video which speaks to the Republican purview which says that the earth is an infinite garbage can. It also addresses the view that "the private gain is the public good." This is a gloss of the ideas about the so-called Free Market as put forth by Adam Smith in his book, The Wealth of Nations, which Crony Capitalists point to and quote till you want to puke. But the problem is that these Republican idiots did not really read the whole book. Had they read the entire book they would have seen that even Smith qualifies his theories with a warning that the Free Market must be equally available to the smallest citizen or none of it will work. Indeed Smith goes even futher and says that, "A nation is only as wealthy as it's poorest citizen!"


The private gain is the Public good theory was best encapsulated in automaker GM's dictum that "what is good for GM is good for the country." As we have seen, that view wrought immense destruction of our precious infrastructure. And indeed, in this speech, Chomsky adds that
it has long been understood that this view has consistently led to the utter destruction of the very culture which fostered such a notion.
The idea has been massaged by conservatives until it has been so corrupted that George Bush, who remarked that the Constitution was merely a piece of paper, and indeed, one that got in his way, could have so twisted the meaning to become perhaps the most appalling treasonous and downright criminal expression of an entire rogue administration, in American history. (Why is he not in Jail?) If the ideas of Freedom and Democracy are not infinitely valuable to each human being, and not just the mouthing of the words by brainwashed stooges who parrot what the power elite tells them to say, we are lost not only as a culture but as a species and as citizens in the Universe.






Thursday, December 10, 2009

Deep Space Is Now Deeper


I Am The Universe and So Are You




A new view of the heavens. Scientists pointed the Hubble Telescope at nothing at all, they thought, and found that they had now photographed the deepest image of space ever photographed. They now had a picture of more than 3,000 galaxies which they hadn't known existed. This is a beautifully produced video with narration and an animated view of what they had got.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

The Global Economy Since 9/11


The End of Capitalism and Communism



T he old systems of both Capitalism and Communism have failed humanity. Both systems have been thoroughly discredited by their own shortcomings. Not by their enemies. Greed has afflicted so many in the first world as if it were a fatal disease like the plague. Greed has corrupted both the corporate system and government. We have seen the ways in which corporatism gives rise to corruption:
  • Built-in Obsolescense: product is designed to last until the warranty is done--- then it fails. Frequently a day later.
  • Then there is the issue of corporations buying out the United States Congress, both houses, to pass bills favorable to the corporations but unfair to consumers. We are watching this happen right now with the Health Care reform bill, now being debated in the United States Senate.
  • Government acts as the big umbrella corporation as if it were set up for the protection of the corporations; to insure greater corporate profit--- against the will and welfare of the American people. Thomas Jefferson, himself, began to rage against the corporations, and the banks, before the end of his presidential term. And Woodrow Wilson, though, in the beginning of his term, he was a corporate patsy, he later recanted, and before the dust had settled he accused the corporations and the banksters of crime and racketeering. John Fitsgerald Kennedy spoke out against secret organizations which sought to control American finance.
  • One feature of Crony Corporate Capitalism which is particularly onerous is Corporate Welfare, also known as Pigs at the Trough. This is a system where big corporations are given huge handouts of cash often in the billions, as gifts from Congress. At the same time, the same people castigate the poor for their slovenly ways and the right wingers make sure to cut their welfare payments, degrading the single mothers, calling them "Welfare Queens" who demand their entitlements!"

Make no mistake! These are not small crimes. These are the very crimes which lead eventually to the disintegration of civilization itself! Basically what has happened is that by becoming multi-national in their ever expanding quest for profit, many corporations have become treasonous national entities unto themselves.

This is a medieval construct.

If humanity is to survive, the greed must be reined in and tossed out. Otherwise, it all breaks down.

The Global Economy which is based either on Capitalism, or, in fewer cases, Communism, is collapsing. Both systems tend toward corruption. Consider The Socialist Nation of Viet Nam: Without an inspired leader such as Ho Chi Minh, the communist system has become totally corrupt. There is a reason unforeseen by Marx and by Adam Smith, a reason which cannot ever be denied or avoided. Namely, the human being, locked into an inflexible ideology (and all ideologies, by their nature, are inflexible) tends inevitably toward corruption of the rules.

When my wife and I were in Viet Nam, we learned from our Vietnamese guide, that, in Socialist Viet Nam, as in Capitalist countries, there is now an upper crust: A ruling elite class who have installed themselves, whether legitimately or not, as an unmoveable fixture of their culture. And through new laws and cronyism, they seek to prevent the rise of anybody else into their midst.

The Global economy is not merely on the verge of collapse! "The verge of collapse" has been the case for several decades now. Right now we are seeing the Global Economy in the process of collapse.

Here is another great documentary from Google. Commanding Heights, Part 3 of 3. It gives you an idea of the kind of profound educational experience of political and economic overview to be found by viewing a great many of these extremely well produced videos, such as this one and the 2 previous 2 hour installments. Even if you studied economics in College, everything has changed, now. But fear not, some of these videos can bring you up to date. Most were prepared originally as series for either PBS or the BBC.





Tuesday, December 8, 2009

   Why we are at war again        



Who Wants War?



By Ron Paul


If anyone still doubted that this administration's foreign policy would bring any kind of change, this week's debate on Afghanistan should remove all doubt. The President's stated justifications for sending more troops to Afghanistan and escalating war amount to little more than recycling all the false reasons we began the conflict. It is so discouraging to see this coming from our new leadership, when the people were hoping for peace. New polls show that 49% of the people favor minding our own business on the world stage, up from 30% in 2002. Perpetual war is not solving anything. Indeed continually seeking out monsters to destroy abroad only threatens our security here at home as international resentment against us builds. The people understand this and are becoming increasingly frustrated at not being heard by the decision-makers. The leaders say some things the people want to hear, but change never comes.

One has to ask, if the people who elected these leaders so obviously do not want these wars, who does? Eisenhower warned of the increasing power and influence of the military industrial complex and it seems his worst fears have come true. He believed in a strong national defense, as do I, but warned that the building up of permanent military and weapons industries could prove dangerous if their influence got out of hand. After all, if you make your money on war, peace does you no good. With trillions of dollars at stake, there is tremendous incentive to keep the decision makers fearful of every threat in the world, real or imagined, present or future, no matter how ridiculous and far-fetched. The Bush Doctrine demonstrates how very successful the war lobby was philosophically with the last administration. And they are succeeding just as well with this one, in spite of having the so-called "peace candidate" in office.

We now find ourselves in another foreign policy quagmire with little hope of victory, and not even a definition of victory. Eisenhower said that only an alert and informed electorate could keep these war racketeering pressures at bay. He was right, and the key is for the people to ensure that their elected leaders follow the Constitution. The Constitution requires a declaration of war by Congress in order to legitimately go to war. Bypassing this critical step makes it far too easy to waste resources on nebulous and never-ending conflicts. Without clear goals, the conflicts last forever and drain the country of blood and treasure. The drafters of the Constitution gave Congress the power to declare war precisely because they feared allowing the executive unfettered discretion in military affairs. They understood that making it easy for leaders to wage foreign wars would threaten domestic liberties.

Responses to attacks on our soil should be swift and brief. Wars we fight should always be defensive, clearly defined and Constitutional. The Bush Doctrine of targeting potential enemies before they do anything to us is dangerously vague and easily abused. There is nothing left to win in Afghanistan and everything to lose. Today's military actions are yet another futile exercise in nation building and have nothing to do with our nation's security, or with 9/11. Most experts agree that Bin Laden and anyone remotely connected to 9/11 left Afghanistan long ago, but our troops remain. The pressures of the war racketeers need to be put in check before we are brought to our knees by them. Unfortunately, it will require a mighty effort by the people to get the leadership to finally listen.


Ron Paul is a Republican congressman from Texas.

Monday, December 7, 2009

Excellent video if I could only remember what it is. The embed code doesn't give me a clue. I want to try out this beautiful new drop cap from the Daily drop Cap by Jessica something. This drop cap code in html business is really very trying. If you miss even a single dot or a space or if you don't say your prayers or drink the wrong brand of coffee, whatever, the code will not work. Don't know why this is so skittish but there we are.

Friday, December 4, 2009

Sarah Palin Fans Can't Articulate Support

High Kickin' Donkey
Long Lines At The Mall



At a recent booksigning, Sarah Palin fans, who were lined up outside of the bookstore, were selected at random to be interviewed by a young journalist for online news journal, The Public Record. Curiously, as one watches the video it becomes clear that her most ardent fans are unable to articulate why they support her. This video captures the essence of the mental and verbal deficit of her diehard devotees at a mall where the ex-Alaskan Governor happened to be signing her book. Such mental vacancy points to a need to establish a quick quiz to be given at the polls, which each voter must take and pass with flying colors before they are allowed to actually vote.

"Freedom, Liberty, Free Speech!" was all one woman was able to come up with when asked why she supported Sarah Palin. In reality, Palin has never said that she stands for such things. That is all imputed to her persona as it would be to any politician.

A brief survey of Palin's political career and dubious credentials invokes less than confidence in reasonable people. Some would even question her abilities as the leader of a sparcely populated outpost of civilization, let alone the president of a vast and complex nation: an unsuccessful mayorship wherein she fled the place before being driven out, but not before she saddled the small community of Wasila, Alaska, with millions in debt. That fiasco set the stage for her run at the Governorship. She won, but then quit the four year term just halfway through. An unstable personality is not her only flaw; there is also her religous fundy extremism. Based on this unsavory history, she was chosen by John McCain to save his bacon as a Presidential candidate. He was counting on her youth and physical appeal to balance out the fact that he was too old.

The interesting thing is that she is smart enough to attempt to pull off this duplicitous lifestyle and make it pay. Hence, the title of her book, Going Rogue. Even the title fits with her wink wink style of pitbull with lipstick soccer mom persona. Her admirers find her foibles amusing and attractive.

They think it a sign that she's plucky.

And who would disagree on that point? The issue is--- does any of this qualify her for the presidency? Instability and an inflexible mindset regarding outmoded mythology suggest hypocricy at best, and mental fragility as an underlying modus operandus.

Unspoken, was the idea that in the minds of her many fans, President Obama is against such things. Utterly forgotten, was the recent history which demonstrated that George Bush, whom the very same people also supported, not once, but twice, had aggressively moved to destroy those values of Freedom, Liberty and a hot lunch for orphans.

"The Constitution," Bush said, "is just a piece of paper." You can see and hear him say those words on Youtube. Look it up!

So if they can't give a good reason for why they support her for president, what might be the real reason? My own theory is that she whips them up into a sexual frenzy. They will deny it of course, but I have seen on TV, how, at her rallies, she whips them into hatred, anger, and subverted sexual tension. Not just the men, but the women as well. Of course they don't want to own up to that sort of thing, so they come up with bogus reasons such as Freedom, Liberty, and so forth. The Big giveaway, however, as to her true nature, is that the McCain staff went from adoring her to resenting her, till, finally, nobody on the team could stand her. So she seems to appeal only to the same sort of person that worshiped George W. Bush. That kind of authoritarian submissive was best encapsulated by the woman who when speaking of her president, exclaimed,

"I just love that man so much. I love him so much that if I saw him put a gun to my little boy's head and pull the trigger, I would still love that man."







Here is what a dead Elephant looks like. Oops! I meant a dead Republican elephant which has been shot full of holes. Of course, in reality, the elephant shot itself full of holes.

Sarah Palin, for example, recently has been talking about how she really wonders if Obama is actually a citizen, as she has never seen his birth certificate. Really, Sarah, that is so cynical and transparent. And if your followers go along with that kind of disingenuousness, this nation is in worse trouble than I thought.





This is, by the way, the same GOP logo which displays three inverted pentacles. If you go to my first post on this blog, back in September of 2009, you will see that the 3 inverted pentacles have a very particular dark, occult meaning. A meaning in the practice of black magic or Satanic worship. You will also find that this logo was re-designed in the year 2000 just when George Bush came into the Oval Office the first time. A modicum of research on Youtube.com will show that the Republicans who attend the Bohemian Grove meetings and events are known to participate or at least witness Satanic Ritual events there. If you delve even deeper into the goings on of the international banksters, you keep coming across the idea that many are indeed involved in Satanic worship, with Philip de Rothschild frequently mentioned as a high priest of Satan. I don't like to think that grown men and women take such things seriously, when you keep coming across it over and over again, you begin to say, there might be something to it.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

The Zeitgeist Movement: Orientation Presentation




American History's Bitter Pill...



Zeitgeist is a stunning presentation of the realities of history. The real events, with warts and all, not the pretty gloss that give an entirely different outlook on key events that your high school history teacher would not ever have allowed discussed in his or her classroom. By using actual footage throughout much of the film, the ring of authenticity pervades. There are good chunks of real footage to illustrate the truth of the hideous fiasco of Lyndon Johnson's Bay of Tonkin attack, for example. This is hitherto highly classified film footage. The attack, we discover, was staged by the American president who had made a backroom deal with Israel. His intention was to sink an American warship and all the men aboard using Israeli fighter airplanes to sink her. The event was deemed necessary to outrage Americans enough to daze and confuse them so as to easily steer them into invading Vietnam. A pschological tactic which has proved enormously useful to big government, as can be witnessed in the dreadful attack on the World Trade Center on the 11th of September, 2001. And in the aftermath of 9/11, Americans were once again dazed and confused and were all too easily led into an illegitimate war with Iraq. Naomi Klein has named the technique, The Shock Doctrine, in her book of the same name, which details the mechanics of the tactic.

In response to the bald faced lies which poured forth from both Federal and local government, there arose in the mid to late 60's, a grass roots anti-war revolution such as had never been seen in America. And out of that came the hippies. Only a few hippies were genuine in their eschewing of the lies and corruption of modern life. The rest came over to Manhattan on weekends from Jersey and Great Neck, all decked out like flower children: Trendy bourgeois poseurs who then went back home to their dentist daddies and soccer moms. But for some reason nobody can quite pin point, great rock and folk music flourished even among the anti-war protest songs.




It turns out that during WWII, the Rockefellers were silent partners with I.G. Farben, the German producer of Hitler's weaponry. There were actually two treasonous sources of American money funding the German army. The other was the Bush family's progenitor, Prescott Bush, George W. Bush's grandfather, who was president of the Union Bank. Finally the Union Bank was seized for treason against the United States. But Bush was never brought to justice for his crimes.

Isn't that odd?

Nobody in the Bush family has ever been brought to justice for their remarkably terrible crimes: war crimes and crimes against humanity. This is a family so rapacious in their greed, sociopathological bloodthirst, they make Ghengis Khan, Stalin and Mao look like quiet, peaceful guys who wouldn't hurt a flea. But these are just a few of the highlights of the two hour video. The documentary shows the horrors of contemporary history in order to make the case for peace, for harmony in one world, all the stronger.

If you have seen the previous versions of Zeitgeist, the movie, don't make the mistake of saying, "Oh, I've seen this before. This final version makes a definite roar of a statement. And if you watch it and merely shrug and forget it, then you deserve all the bad stuff coming down the pike. If you want to understand where the Zeitgeist movement is coming from, watch this:






Tuesday, December 1, 2009

The New Jesus of the Christian Right



High Kickin' Donkey



Jimmy Jack Jesus


§

Poor old Jesus! This cartoon catches exactly the way the new portrait of Jesus is emerging from the Evangelical Right. We have known for a long time that they do not qualify as real Christians. But now they have solved that problem. They simply re-made him in their image. They've hijacked Jesus. And the new Jesus is so much better than the old Jesus: It even hints at the White-Aryan-Jail-Bird-Jesus! You know that Jesus--- That's the Jesus who gets likkered up and beats on the wife and kids like clockwork every Saturday night.

Oh, yeah, that's the same Jesus who stalks her and the kids, if they try to get away. And then, of course, that would be the very Jesus who shoots his own brains out after he's murdered his own family. His last words are no longer, in the words of Christ, "Into thy hands I commend my spirit."
No. Now the New Jesus's last words are, "Now lookit what you made me do!"





Originally, Christianity was all about how close one could grow and be in the image of Christ. There was the spiritual exercise by Saint Thomas A Kempis, called, "The Imitation of Christ".

But forget that crap!

Now, it seems that the Evangelical Right is only interested in how they can make Jesus look like them.

Let us hope these people can see the enormity of their misperception. Otherwise, their narcissistic narrowness will bring this country down.






Sunday, November 29, 2009

The Prosecution Of George W. Bush For Murder: The Movie




Why Has This Issue Been Dropped?



When Vince Bugliosi gave his testimony in Congress, in the House, actually, some nobody of a Republican objected strenuously to what he was saying. "It's just his opinion," the lone Republican said. He spoke quietly, but urgently, to the chair of the proceedings who had voiced his skepticism at the beginning of the hearing. It was as if it had been already agreed that nothing would be done about the criminal, George Bush, his unlawful administration, nor their crimes against humanity: Karl Rove, Condoleeza Rice, Dick Cheney for their lies.

But the lone azzhole Repuke, sitting next to the chairman, had some sort of unearned, undeserved clout. As a member of the minority party he should not have even been there at the hearing. And, indeed, the Repuke was the only one in attendance. Why, pray, is it that he had only to say, "You told me that this sort of thing would not be allowed"? And immediately the Chair silenced Mister Bugliosi.

That was really mysterious.


When the Repukes were in power they would not have tolerated a single word from a Dem. In any way and at any time. And yet here is this mysterious visitor from the enemy camp and they all but genuflect when he speaks. Something foul is going on.

Especially, you know something foul is going on when nobody is allowed to speak the truth about George Bush and his war crimes. We need to get rid of The Heritage Foundation and torch the Cato Institute. Symbolically, of course.

But, we need to literally send George Bush to jail along with Cheney; and wouldn't it be swell to see Condi in a striped outfit and chains.

Bugliosi says all he needs is one juried trial in one little town in America. But the Repukes would bus their Teabagger sheeple-people in to disrupt as much as they could. Glenn Beck would tell his sheeple-people to bring their guns. Then he would cry real tears and tell everyone how frightened he was.

If Bugliosi were able to get past the imported sheeple and have his trial anyway, someone would kill him. In fact, his life is in danger, right now. These folks don't hesitate to murder you if you get in their way. They have already murdered people in their airplanes; John F. Kennedy Jr., for one, and on the night before they were to give testimony in court. George Bush's computer guru, for another example. They killed him the night before he was to give testimony in court. And guess what? The Corporate Media barely seemed to notice and no reporters investigated what seemed to me to be absolute murder and done so as to leave no doubt as to who did it.


I ripped this article from The Public Record, Intrepid New Journalism. If you'd prefer to read it in its original incarnation Click Here but be assured I changed not even an adverb, nor did I leave anything out:


One of the best features of a visit to Los Angeles is the opportunity to hang out with the guy who put Charles Manson in prison, the most successful criminal prosecutor we’re ever likely to see, Vince Bugliosi (105 convictions in 106 felony jury trials, 21 convictions in 21 murder trials).

I spoke with him on Tuesday about his forthcoming documentary film, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, based on his bestselling book http://www.indiegogo.com/bush).

I consider Vince a friend, an ally, and a hero, but we don’t see eye to eye on everything. I oppose the death penalty and all manifestations of revenge. I’m an atheist. I think the United States had a pretty darn horrible government before George W. Bush even came on the scene and that war lies have been a proud tradition of ours for centuries.

I see strategic advantage in pushing for accountability from underlings and for less than the most severe charges. Vince disagrees to various degrees on each of these points.

I don’t object to Vince’s choice to focus exclusively on one thing, because what he is focused on is one of the most important things anyone could. He is seeking to prosecute George W. Bush for the murder of the U.S. soldiers he sent into war on false pretenses.





Vince has written three New York Times #1 bestselling books, so he expected the one on prosecuting Bush to do well. It has, in fact, sold nearly 100,000 copies. But that is a shocking disappointment to its author.

The difference with this book was that the corporate media completely whited it out. There has not been a single review in a major newspaper (although the New York Times published an article about the lack of coverage).

And Bugliosi has not been put on national television to talk about this book, as he was with his other books. So, his publisher has been thrilled with the sales that have been generated through the independent media.

Vince told me he thought a blackout like the one of his book would not happen in any other country except perhaps Russia.

His topic, an illegal war on Iraq based on lies and the need to hold a former President accountable, is not discussed in the corporate media or even much by independent sources any more. It was a hot topic in 2005 and 2006, but the Democrats in Congress dropped it in 2007 when they obtained the power to do something about it. Vince has been flabbergasted by this every time I’ve talked to him for years now:

“How is it possible for George W. Bush to take this nation to war on false pretenses with the cataclysmic results that there have been, and America does absolutely nothing about it – How is that possible?”

I asked Vince if there was anything people could compel Congress to do that would help in any way. He said that a congressional committee had made a criminal referral to the Department of Justice which was now investigating whether baseball pitcher Roger Clemens had committed perjury when he testified that he hadn’t used steroids.

Bugliosi suggests, rather reasonably, that an apparent case of lying the nation into war should be similarly referred for prosecution. He made this same suggestion in his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee last July.

Why does this not happen? In Vince’s analysis, “the Democratic Party is much too civilized. They’re not fighters like the shrill and strident Republicans.”

Vince has spoken to large crowds around the country about his book. The forthcoming documentary, making the same case as the book, is built largely around a speech Bugliosi made at UCLA Law School.

Also included in the film is footage of my friends Carlos and Melida Arredondo who lost their son Alex in the Iraq War.

Another survivor shown in the film is Jane Bright who lost her son and expresses the guilt she feels for not having been there to stop a rocket from hitting him. She holds no ill will toward the Iraqi who shot the rocket who, she says, was just doing his job: “George Bush murdered my son.”

The film is still a work in progress, but a rough cut was shown to a group in Los Angeles last week, not a group of peace activists, but not necessarily a strictly representative sample of the country either. For what it’s worth, over 90 percent of the viewers said they would definitely urge their friends to see it, and the rest said they probably would.

Just as torture photos move Americans much more powerfully than written evidence of torture, the passion of the film may have an impact that reaches much further than the book. Footage of bloodshed in Iraq is juxtaposed with footage of Bush joking about WMDs, intended to show Bush’s lack of interest in honesty, as well as footage of Bush enjoying himself, intended to encourage the hatred that Bugliosi feels.

I asked Vince, as I always do, to explain his targeting of Bush for killing American soldiers who participated, but not innocent Iraqis who did not. Vince said that Bush was clearly guilty of the deaths of Iraqis (he STILL uses the outrageously low figure of 100,000 dead Iraqis in order to not overstate it).

However, Vince explains, he was not able to establish jurisdiction in America for trying Bush for those murders.

I asked why it is that the highest laws of our land cannot be enforced. The Constitution makes treaties, like the UN Charter, the supreme law of the land, but unless there’s a corresponding statute in the U.S. Code there’s nothing a prosecutor can do. Vince’s explanation was that, sadly, that’s just the way it is.

So I asked whether he would approve of the International Criminal Court developing the jurisdiction to prosecute the crime of aggressive war, and/or approve of Congress legislating criminal penalties for the same crime.

In the case of Congress, Bugliosi expressed concern that the creation of such a new law (which could not be used against Bush’s past crimes due to the Constitution’s ban on ex-post-facto laws) might be used to argue that heretofore the activity has been legal.

Bugliosi explained that the biggest obstacle he’s faced with his book has been the assumption by all sorts of people (he mentions Jerry Brown, once and perhaps future governor of California, as an example) that it’s simply not possible to prosecute a President for a war. But, Vince says, every single person who has argued that has admitted that they have not yet read his book.

I asked Bugliosi whether Jay Bybee’s Oct. 23, 2002, memo purporting to legalize aggressive wars, could make him complicit in murder. The question, Bugliosi said, would be one of proving that Bybee knew what he was writing to be false.

There are a million things I know I could never do, but I think I could persuade a jury on this one with no sleep, no breakfast, and a ban on using words with the letter ‘E’ in them. I have no doubt that Bugliosi could do it in a brief afternoon.

I asked Bugliosi what he would think if the Department of Justice were to indict Bush for the felonies of misleading Congress and making false statements to Congress. Bugliosi’s response was what it has been before: “That’s such small potatoes.”

Vince would be glad to include those charges as one count of an indictment, but only if another count was murder. The punishment for lying to Congress is far too low, he thinks, and — says Bugliosi — presidents lie to Congress all the time. (He acknowledged that while I think they do this about wars all the time, he thinks they do it only about other topics.)

We also talked about Pakistan and what we are doing there, in particular with drones. Bugliosi said the killing there could certainly be murder, regardless of whether it’s a war or what we call it.

And we talked about the just-opened investigation of Iraq war lies in England.

“I’m impressed with England,” said Bugliosi. ”Their nation is not in the decline that America is. I salute them for what they’re doing. If there’s a prosecution of George W. Bush in the United States, and if I’m involved, several of those witnesses would be asked to testify, including Manning and Dearlove.”

What about Blair? Has Tony Blair committed murder? We discussed this for a while.

Vince stressed that his focus has been on Bush. The question of whether Blair is guilty, Vince said, comes down to whether he lied to the British people in taking them to war. We discussed areas where it looked like Blair had lied.

Bugliosi pointed to the Downing Street Minutes in which the attorney general of the UK (Goldsmith) tells Blair that his planned war has no legal basis. The minutes state: “The Attorney General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult. The situation might of course change.”

Bugliosi decided that the more he talked about it the more he would find Blair deserving of prosecution, but that Blair’s responsibility did not compare to Bush’s.
David Swanson is the author of the new book Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union by Seven Stories Press. You can order it and find out when the tour will be in your town:




Wednesday, November 25, 2009

And Now, A Word From One Of The Grownups...

High Kickin' Donkey

Listen, Humanity...



A human being is part of the whole called by us 'universe', a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self [ego].

We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive."
~ Albert Einstein, 1954.




Thank you, Mister Einstein.


Thank You Albert.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Was Jesus Gay?

High Kickin' Donkey

Well, there was that night...


Pat Condel asks that question which is so troubling for many Christians. And then answers in the affirmative, darn it. Pat seems intent on destroying so many sacred cows which happen to be standing around. And he does it with such relish. And enormous wit and intelligence. It's for sure that he wastes no love on the "Holier than Thou" crowd. But then who among us does, really?





Condel breathes fresh air into just about everything he approaches, whether the subject is Religion or Afganistan.














Saturday, November 21, 2009

Swine Flu: What You Need To Know About The Pandemic

Has Big Pharma deliberately polluted the swine flu vaccine? Are they maliciously trying to kill off a large percent of the world population? Well,..it sure looks that way when you learn the facts about how the current outbreak all began. Fifty-nine minutes make it a long video--- BUT, its' content is astounding and well worth the time. The brilliant Teresa Forcades, a Spanish nun, who is also a doctor of internal medicine, AND who happens to hold a Phd. in Public Health, as well, gives a full and objective account of the origins and path of the current Swine Flu pandemic.

  • How it came about.
  • How the vaccine became contaminated.
  • The dirty politics discussed without hysteria:
  • Should you obey employers who demand that you get yourself vaccinated?
Or should you be free, in a true democracy, to make up your own mind?
What about Big Pharma once again working behind the scenes to buy off lawmakers to write legislation which make sure it is free to give foul, deadly vaccine and, at the same time, protect itself from any financial responsibility?

BELL TOLLING for the Swine Flu (CAMPANAS por la gripe A) subtitled from ALISH on Vimeo.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Bill Moyers speaks with William K. Black about the people responsible for the current economic crisis

This interview is one of the true benchmarks of the current economic collapse of America. William K. Black pulls no punches. He names names and institutions, gives dates and outlines the buildup to the collapse. Black tells us who exactly was responsible--- even as the Republican Party is now trying to smoothe things over and re-set the trap to lure the foolish back to their disastrous ideas.

Black is one of those highly intelligent watchers of the economic scene who cannot help telling everybody what is actually going on, rather than helping with the coverup. Politicians and bankers hate him. Charles Keating, for example, remember him? The main man of the Keating Five, the chief perpetrators of the Savings and Loan debacle, hates Black so bad he sent out a now famous memo demanding that somebody Kill Him!

What many are now calling the Greatest Depression was caused by the intentional super-fraudulent-scams on the part of the biggest banks, all of whom are simply waiting out public anger. Citibank, Bank of America, as well as AIG, to name a few. Your local banker may not be the very guy who shafted you, but he belongs to a banking system which had a swell time hosting meetings at some overpriced resorts while you lost your retirement and/or your home and the college fund for your children and grandchildren, evaporated. If you are smart you will join the angry Americans marching on the banks to get their money back. The politicians and the banksters know that the average American's political memory is very short, and now that the American tax payer has handed over everything they own, and that their children and grand-children own, the banks will just take some nice expensive holidays at the expensive resorts which are never written about in the travel magazines, while they wait for tempers to cool so they can do it all over again.

These guys need to go to jail. And I use the word NEED, purposely.

So without further ado, have a look at this:




And after you have fully grocked the implications of the above interview, have a gander at this clip, from the movie Network, by Paddy Chayevsky. 1976.


And old Ned Beatty is right on every point. We have now lived through enough economic turmoil and suffering to see clearly that Paddy Chayevsky was a hundred percent prescient. Beatty's speech could have been delivered yesterday or tomorrow.

And how did this treasonous situation come to be? Well, through DE-REGULATION. And for that we can thank Bill Clinton, Phil Gramm and John.

But it is almost not worth the time it takes to figure it out. The Banksters and Corporations have already won. They have bought off all peaceful means of dissent. They own the main stream media, print and electronic, the judges, from the Supreme Court on down, the politicians, and now, most likely, the president and his entire staff.

And if anybody shows up who looks like they might have enough moxie to upset the corporate apple cart, they just buy them off, too.

Karl Marx's take on history, as the exploitation of the weak by the strong; the wealthy or powerful, was a stunning insight. Thinking which strays beyond the fence of acceptable thought will perforce bring one face to face with fresh realities. Realities as rich and compelling as the usual, worn out modes of thought.

Does this mean that the only method of dismantling the dog-eat-dog end-game corporate system of crony capitalism ushered in by the indutrial era and perverted by the boomer generation. So that what the corporations are really doing is attempting to dumb down the public educational system, to produce a world rather like that envisioned by Jules Verne in his The Time Machine where the brutal Morlocks rule a timid and frightened husk of what is left of humanity.

The only way out of that scenario is to storm the corporate gates. But, say we did violently overthrow this system. Isaiah Berlin, the Cambridge scholar and intellectual, in his definition of the two kinds of Freedom, points out that history shows that violent revolution always leads to the same repression and tyranny it sought to destroy.

Either way the house must be burned to the ground and a new one built. And that will take a hundred years.

On the other hand, as Marx pointed out: "Give them enough rope and they will hang themselves." We have now begun to see the truth of that.

See The Trap, a BBC documentery about fifteen years ago. It is available on Google. And also has been made available in annoyingly short ten minute segments on Youtube.

Friday, October 16, 2009

One Love(Bob Marley song)

I love this. Wonderful song. Perhaps the politics of the lyric is worthy but on the other hand the implementation of it might be a difficult thing to endure.



Playing For Change | Song Around the World "Don't Worry" from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

The Whoppers of Lou Dobbs (Essay currently under construction)

Now the Right wingnut Corporate Media dogs attack another Obama "Czar". Seeking to discredit the Obama administration anyway they can, whether legitimately or not, they really don't care about their lies, just as the Nazis didn't care and the German people finally came to believe them, the right wing media has allowed its' purview to be tainted with a Ku Klux Klan trailer trash mode of action. Rupert Murdock and his puppets are an arm of White Supremacy.

Sort of a Puppetry of the Penis in broad daylight. Murdering and stealing from Native peoples. Here's Joe Conason slamming Lou Dobbs. Love it how Joe shoves it right up Dobb's butt. His wonderful turning of the tables of the precedent set by Bush, Rove, and Cheney for not being held accountable for the indiscretions of twenty or so years ago. And how the tables can turn.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Some letters

The other day I received in my inbox, something which said that Harry Reid would, if pressured enough, reveal the names of the Dems who will fillibuster with the Republicans to stop Health Care Reform. So I signed it and sent the form letter to my dear friend, R.:
Hi,
I just signed a petition to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to stop protecting corporate Democrats who are willing to filibuster a public health insurance option.
Can you please add your name?
Click here to sign: http://action.firedoglake.com/harryreid

Thanks!


As an after thought, I added a few words of my own:
This is me, Bull, to say I think this is so very important I can't find the words. Please let these political betrayers know that they won't get away with it. Our representative in the House, Kurt Shrader, for whom I did a lot phone banking to help him get elected, now turns out to be a blue dog. So he has lost my vote. If the Senate doesn't shape up and give us a strong public option, I will think twice about even voting for Ron Wyden again, even though there was an article in the paper this morning which hastens to assure us all that Wyden voted for the public option. The thing is, he knew it was a failed issue before he voted. So for him, his vote was just another dog and pony show.
B.
* * *

Next day, I got this from R.
B.---
So corrupt. I stopped signing petitions...they do absolutely no good, give people a false sense that they have power, and give your e mail address to others who bombard you with political messages that I always immediately delete. Public option never had a chance... too much $$$$ involved
R.

* * *

R.
Of course, you are right as rain, now that I think stop and think about it. All those politicians--- so that is where they come from and where they get my email address from. And now I just got a message from Charles Schumer of New York. And I am thinking, where did this jerk get my email from, damn it! And then there is another email from Al Franken! Why isn't he addressing his constituents in Minnesota? Why me? And they all have their hands out for money. "Won't you please have Paypal send us a quick $20 and that will put us over the top." I get at least ten or fifteen requests for money every day in my inbox.

I will say, however, that Moveon.org, at least, has made some good political commercials for main stream TV, putting the liberal view out there really powerfully. What is it about money that makes these crooked polititians do nip ups for anybody who throws some money their way and, hold on a damn minute--- isn't there a law against that sort of thing where they buy and sell their votes. What they count on is that the man in the street doesn't have a clue about the issues. And doesn't really give a darn. But I can't stop caring. I wish I could. I know too many people who have died of a lack of health insurance. They couldn't even afford to go to a doctor. Several who knew they were dying of AIDS but no money for treatment or meds.

My insurance company is a perfect example of the for-profit phony health care outfits. The CEO's make a hundred thousand dollars a minute for fucks sake. Nobody is worth that! Especially when the company won't pay for what they agreed to when you first signed the premium. That is just racketeering! Like the mob. No different.

I want to take all the profit out of health care. I don't give a rat's ass if Max Baucus thinks it is all settled! I will keep on and I will be vengeful as hell. At the Town Hall meetings and at Democratic headquarters, where next time I see Kurt Schrader--- I will insult him all to hell.

Isn't it funny how you can tell what people really are?

I mean, I felt a little guilty when somebody would mention how great Kurt Schrader was, and I had nothing good to say about him ever since the night he spoke at Democratic headquarters and afterwards he was standing there not talking to anybody so I ambled up to him. He did not offer his hand.

"How do you feel," I asked, "about the Impeachment, of Bush and Cheney?" and I saw him do this little side step. True. Absolutely true: His left foot shot out to the side, away from me, and then his right foot closed the distance, bringing the feet together again. And while his feet are doing that his lips are moving.
"Oh," he says. "I think it's a little too late for that," and immediately he is looking over my shoulder at the guy behind me, who, of course, only throws him soft balls. And Kurt puts out his hand to the guy, shakes it with a warmth only a true politico could generate on the spot, and turns a cold shoulder to me to let know that I am dismissed. But before he could get away locked into fascinating conversation with his worshipful fan, my voice cut through the pleasantries.

"Yeah," I said, "but I'm not willing to let those bastards off the hook."

Old Kurt glared a final look and actually turned his back forcing the guy who had been behind me to step quick over to a position in front of me so they could schmoose in peace.

Well, that one little encounter made me very suspicious of the man, and I wasn't sure I wanted to send him to represent me in the House. I had been phone banking for him. And I sure didn't like his attitude. But hell, I have never met a Congressman or even a Congressional candidate before so I wondered, "WTF! What do I know?" And now, sure enough he is showing his blue dog colors all over the place. And yet I voted for the bitch! He sent out a mailing on how much he supported health care reform. And right under his full color photograph, in very small print, it says "This mailing is sponsored by the Health Care Insurers of America." And nowhere does he mention a public option. This may be his first term in Congress, but he learned very fast how to double cross his constituents. And now, he's turned out to be the snake in the grass I always knew he really is.

Well, I wrote a letter to the Editor of the Satesman Journal today, which, if they publish it, I will send along to you. It is pretty strong language and calls a spade a spade. The Editor might not like it. They are owned, after all, by Gannett and they really let you know it. I never saw a newspaper shove the Republican viewpoint so totally down their reader's throats. When they want to trot out an economic pundit they give us Charles Krauthammer, for Christ's sake. Never a word from Paul Krugman. After all, Krugman won a Nobel Prize in Economics and Krauthammer very noticeably did not.

That's enough rant for now. More Later.
Bull

Well, I called it right. The editor most decidedly did not like my letter. Far too liberal! The letter I had written was about Ralph Nader's article in the spring of 2009, in which he reported a conversation with Senator Max Baucus about Health Care Reform. At the end of the phone call Baucus blurted out, "Relax, Ralph, it's a done deal!"