Only the Super Rich can save the planet.

If the Super Rich don't like my tirades, I recommend they practice the option of suicide, always open to them. The Ruling Class could make a better world by killing their sick selves, and writing out their wills to benefit those who really want, need, suffer and hunger. It couldn't happen too soon. Michael Jackson had it right!

The Bright Side

Looking at the bright side: The Republicans will not take the US Senate, anyway. However, I am hereby renouncing my Wisconsin residency. Biggest Idiot Contest-winner Ron Johnson is to be our US Senator until 2017? I am now officially a resident of "Stoopidist State, USA!!!" Cheeseheads, you make me boycott all dairy products!!!
Also, the Repub elite will hardly welcome Tea Bagger boors into Karl Rove's country club. Rove even recently said he doubts Palin's abilities. Capitalize on the upcoming divergeant views withing the GOP, for the next two years, minimum. Or else learn to speak Canadian, eh? I'm studying Dutch, French & German. The "USS Titanic" is sinking!
Anyway, I was hanging out in Waunakee the other night with Durwood Grobschmidt, and this was his take: "I'm a White American, working-class male. I'm over-exploited, underpaid, regressively taxed, barely literate and non-insured. Not only that, I LOVE IT! I'll keep voting for the VERY WORST of those who keep me that way. God bless my fellow Americans, and God Bless the USA!!"
Finally, can you imagine the mockery from Right-Wingers if Nancy Pelosi had publicly wept tears (either of joy or sorrow) in Washington? Yet when House Speaker-elect John Boner does it, it's an indication that he really "Manned up." Yikes! Improve America - IMPEACH ALL REPUBLICANS.

Posted on Mike Malloy's FB page, Oct 28-29 2010

Mike:
I think I can at least partly concur with what you've been saying about the election, with the Dems in mind especially. I'd like to respectfully tell you where I'm coming from this season: I say vote AGAINST Republicans. Using my own state of Wisconsin as an example, I strongly feel Russ Feingold is measurably better than his Republican opponent Ron Johnson. If nothing else, Feingold's a lot more consistent; Johnson claims he'll cut the deficit, but won't say how he'll do it. Especially mystifying considering Ron Johnson wants to continue the "open-ended commitment" in Afghanistan, i.e, the endless, blood and treasure-sucking war. And Tea Party favorite Ron Johnson wants to make the Bush Tax Cuts for the rich permanent; cuts like that are a time-tested way of adding to the red ink. Russ Feingold has at least proposed a timetable for withdrawl from the Afghan quagmire. Another issue: The GOP's Johnson is purportedly against "Government intrusion in health care," even while some of his plastic factory's employees have been covered by our state's "Badger Care." There are SOME important differences this year. But admittedly, I'm not able to follow the New Jersey, Nevada or Florida situation as closely as I'd like; maybe ALL the Dems in most other states really suck!

If people don't want to vote for any of the above, they should write in someone's name. That's my take. When my father first got involved in the Civil Rights Movement, somewhere around 1967, he started doing his activist thing in Mississippi. People, the vast majority of them Black, were being beaten or even killed in the Magnolia State. Just for trying to exercize their CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT to vote for the candidate of their choice. Women didn't obtain "Suffrage" until 1920, after years of agitation and protest. I believe one should fight to retain those precious rights enumerated in the US Constitution. Voting is one of those rights. Not to pretend like a piece of paper really enables or safeguards our often illusory "freedoms," but still. Voting rights aren't some touchie-feelie notion. "Democracy" (even the pretense thereof) dies with the death of honest elections, as it did in 2000, 2004.
Voting rights: use them or lose them!

How sick the show....

Just watch this sick Hollywood production, if you dare. Warning: it might make you feel vaguely, even completely ill. See how they fill American Whites full of really otherwise inexplicable loathing. The hate, already so deeply ingrained, is amplified, exacerbated.
Consider that the non-white people portrayed are the sort that couldn't possibly hurt Americans in "The Homeland."
This episode dates from about 1985, height of the Cold War. So they were big on casting Russkies as the villain. Back then, a Russian would do in a pinch. SOMEBODY hs to play the "_____," the Untermensch. Even a white guy sometimes. The overarching desire was/is to fill the insatiable yearning for a villain, a Bad Guy. For plastic people whose identity is so awfully weak, there is a hankering for some kind of excitement, some vicarious thrill. People whose capacity for love has been horribly stymied might just find something to fill the terrible vacuum. That's why shows like this are produced:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HO_Bfdbc_pE

I'm not making excuses for White People who are clearly so f*cked up. White Europeans created an unprecedented wave of violence directed at most of the planet ever since colonialism was the new rage. Present day racism and discrimination are an American, thus a World horror. But the kind of televised conditioning that makes a bad situation worse should be challenged.

P.S: If anyone has better luck finding Coretta Scott King's anguished words upon the assassination of her husband Martin Luther King Jr., please let me know. A truly passionate and heart-wrenching statement I haven't come across since I heard it somewhere on TV.

On The "Race Issue," to a Friend.

I'd have to remind everyone, though, ______, that the situation is complex, very complex. Many people, of all colors and all backgrounds sometimes feel strong "racist" feelings in America. Probably most Americans, if you want to cut through all the understandable hypocrisy and hand-wringing, are fundamentally "racist." At least on many barely- or sub-conscious levels. When I say the hypocrisy is "understandable," I mean that the hypocrisy is understandable in terms of constituting a defense mechanism. Oh boy, does it ever, on all "sides," in different ways. I know of what I speak.
One can say what one wishes about which group should feel more responsible for our hideous, long-term, appalling American "racial situation." I'm not going there now, if only because this issue is so unavoidably explosive, I've no doubt already tip-toed too far into the minefield. It would be amazing if an American of ANY background hasn't been traumatized, mentally, along lines of being exhorted to bigotry. Even if such appeals are merely designed to sell products! And avoiding such temptation is going to require ongoing work of the highest order on everyone's part.

But good people come in all colors, and bad people too. I know that from experience.

It's largely the SYSTEM, you know. The divisions are there for an obvious structural REASON. Divide and Conquer, as always. When I first visited Europe, I felt noticeably free of my racial hang-ups, maybe for the first time ever. Not because Europe is non-racist - it clearly has massive problems of that sort. But I was free from the American "Racial" Hell for the first time. The twisted, warping, maddening, vexing burden was 3000 or 5000 miles away. I wasn't surrounded by it. Not even trips to Canada had ever set me so free before.
This SYNDROME is not just a matter of individual failings, it's SYSTEMIC. Malcolm X noticed. He wrote about the peculiar horrors of the American "Racial" situation, which became more apparent in his mind when he visited other countries. It's always strongly noticeable and of course it's substantially unique to the United States. And I'm not, btw, over-looking the pressing need for people of good will to assume a strong sense of individual responsibility. Let's all have at it, OMFG!!!

I'm back in America now....
AUGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

The breakneck pace of innovation offers some good.

Dan Goldstein keeps making more and more progress understanding the impact of Facebook, and about himself. Having first read Marshall McLuhans "Understanding Media" 27 years ago, I should've remembered: All new media are capable of serious dislocating effects. And they are tools, not panaceas. One always brings oneself to the place of innovation. It's up to me to figure out an acceptable way of using this medium in a way that is conducive to social and intellectual growth. Something to be continually kept in mind while logged on is this: tools and instruments of human progress hopefully serve a societal purpose - they are not here specifically as a kind of electronic medicine whose function is to make me feel better. With that in mind, I've come to reconsider my definitive, yet quite possibly erroneous statements of the last ten days:

1. Rather than freaking out about unavoidable feelings of information overload, it is wise to consider that social media may REALLY reflect a major trend: Individuals may actually be destined to involve themseves in the affairs of hundreds/thousands of others, in an unprecedented way. In a way that could easily appear inconceivable at the present. Some of you have no doubt already realized this possibility, and taken steps to organize your networking activity accordingly. I may be halfway there, but have a long way to go in discovering what approach works for me.
2. Again, with McLuhan's theories in mind: History has demonstrated time and again that we tend to view the present through the "rear-view mirror of the past." Facebook and other sites are so new and largely untested that the jury surely must still be out about many aspects. My opinions may be intense, even interesting, but hardly authoratative. The future beckons, and if I lack the kind of intellectual courage required to confront it head-on, that's my problem. The future is, more than ever, NOW. One can run, but one can't effectively hide.
3. All media have their advantages as well as their drawbacks. Describing Facebook as "Odious," or "Monstrous" may have struck me as accurate when I said it. But I pride myself on at least trying to avoid over-simplifying things. Making across-the-board condemnations like that was a mistake.

Special thanks to a Facebook friend who very recently stressed the strong need for me to take responsibility for my networking activities, especially how I may impact others. And to also be responsible for numerous other areas of my life. He knows who he is.

http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Media-Extensions-Marshall-McLuhan/dp/0262631598

So sick of itall I could...

Dan Goldstein cannot realistically pretend he's not sick to death of it all. But what the hell; it's like I've said before: I have a friend who described the majority of Americans as "Fascists" about 15 years ago. I thought he was exaggerating then, but it's likely November will prove him right. "What's the matter with Kansas (Wisconsin)!?!?!"

Naming Names

Twinkie Brickmaul; Freeway Ghraib; Toyota Wittgenstein; Austin-Kitty Spinoza; Seventytwo Osiris; Gunshine Ratzinger; Jefferson Rosenberg Flashdrive; Argentina Sunspot; Taha Geert Morales; Aodha Karloff; Yasser Bembenek O'Hearn; Sexabuse Johnson; David Henry Starbucks; Tiger Celine; Guus Proctor Sitting Bull; Parmesan Clocktower; Spatula Wasserman; Pepsi Korfu Nelson; Krauthammer Andreotti; Paris Blatz; Gertrude-Frenesi Robespierre; Security Glyphosate; Trump Gandhi; Jessica Neptune; Aliya Ebeneezer Claudius; Crenshaw Hoxha; Jesus Sakimoto Churchill; Britney Alfalfa; Myspace Blackhawk; Q. Erasmus Winetka; Diana Plethora; Ike Tito; Luis Ignacio Van Der Zaande; Concrete Ferguson; Disraeli Kemal Schmutzenzimmer; Sykes Ninevah; Herbie Rafsanjani; Clemente Halvorson; Rory Molotov Benson; Umlaut Kopinski; Stonewall Benifer; George Bin Laden; Muhammed Yamamoto; Pierre Waddington; Borneo Molson; Verboten Lipsynch; Ringo Peoria; Thronton Igor Ramirez; Tenerife Allgood; Eliot WalMart; Cerebrus Platz; Hemphill S. Muscat; Stacy Basalt; Obama Zinoviev; Huey There; Petulia Borax-Wilkes; T. Rigamarole Alhambra; Knackwurst Troutcream; Avandia Gameday; Manana McClure; Felix Byproduct; Entropy Nicholson; Wikipedia Ono; Hishinuma Elroy; Hu Jin Tower-Cabrini; Wolfgang Oconomowoc; Microsoft Lilly; Salma-Tim Longstreet; Summit Sinners; Gilda Wesley Cop; Imre Goolagong.

They're all major celebrity names for the next 90 years. Copywright 2010, D. Ludicrous Goldstein-Roberts, all unportunities reserved.

My Generation

When my generation was coming of age in about 1976 to 1980, we must have known instinctively our development was taking place underneath the shadow of those who matured a decade earlier, and their stunning political and cultural accomplishment. We sensed, from the legends transmitted by the likes of the Beatles, Stones, Dylan...
that we were unavoidably cast in the role of historical intermediaries, firmly and yet ambiguously set adrift in a period smack dab between the protective anonymity of earlier rebellious masses and the deliberate identification of subsequent aspiring up and comers. Our historical destiny was veiled by a haze of cool-posturing drug consumption and teeter-tottering uncertainties. We moved about recklessly in our premature abandon, thrashing for meaning. Trying to impress, but feeling extremely empty, dangerously aware that we lacked the tools required to reach goals that only true discipline would enable, crawling through the violent social debris left over from confrontations whose shocking reverberations still had residual stunning power, and desperately willful with the need to strike a nonchalant air. To this day, as a generation, we have demonstrated a retrospectively surprising collective inability to define what our strongest moment stood for. We have either straggled along vaguely upon the temporal coat-tails of the sixties folk, or tried to squeeze in on the "Hip to be Square" mentality that emerged about 1984.

Maybe more than all that, we finally located our worthwhile voices as the internet age dawned, but in doing so ended up realizing that the prior freedom of expression had become so curtailed, such a terminally limiting cultural cul de sac, an irreconcilable impediment to our finest potential legacy. And now, marooned here, in an America that has removed all traces of once-sanctioned rich psycho-graffiti, we're stuck in a time-frame whose most salient aspiration involves the dull wish for material stability. But there's no colour, no pizazz, no originality and no life as it should be properly understood. I don't think New York City should ban smoking cigarette smoking in Public Parks, that's going WAY too far.
We've reached the stage of de-facto absolute docility, masked by a rigid and drab disguise, the charade of them doing it all "for our own sake," the apparent end of the line for all imaginative rambunctiousness, the complete and utter disregard for what keeps the stymied spirit going. In allowing them to define us against us, we've hunkered down in the Fallout Shelter of self-war, the cage that contained our former dreams, but now holds not even those. A public "good" is ascribed to the degree to which we love our invisible prison walls, and even the money that fueled the boom years has evaporated, leaving us only a hollowness that had to be felt (NOW) before one could credit its actual existence.

A 9/11 Memoir

9/11, I was up on 110th, near the corner of Broadway. Brother in law comes into the room and says "Dan, a 757 has crashed into the World Trade Center. Being a late riser, I began in my grogginess to say "you gotta be kidding m...," but could tell straight up that he was serious as a cardiac arrest. He found out because he'd been listening to NYC radio; suddenly there wasn't a station to be found on the dial. The Twin Towers' antenna had already plunged with the towers, I believe. Or maybe not, just out of service, because when we took the elevator up to the roof of the 15-story building, we saw - from about 6-8 miles distance - the first tower still burning. Then we saw what we thought at the time to be an Air Force fighter sent late to intercept, but during the last 9 years my bro-in-law have compared our experiences. We now both believe that the plane we saw was the one that struck the second tower.
We went back to the first floor and watched the coverage on TV, as the transmission had been switched to the Empire State Building by then. Made me cringe to see "NYC Under A State of Emergency." Of course one must expect it, but it was a very uncomfortable sense of being imprisoned on Manhattan. Which we effectively were, for two days. I went back to the roof a little later and saw a vast cloud of dust and ash where there had been sinister smoke and flame before. I apparently viewed the aftermath of the collapse, rather than the collapse per se.
Thinking we would be under a protracted state of martial law, I went to a nearby supermarket and stocked up on supplies, as did so many others.

It was still Tuesday, 911: We watched the TV and listened to the radio coverage, as transmission had been switched to the Empire State Building. I unsuccessfully tried to donate blood at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center and stopped in on the way at the Cathedral of St. John The Devine for a little "quiet time." Later, I tried to purchase heavy boots for, can you believe it, volunteering - for the "rescue" effort. No dice; I bussed or subwayed or walked down as far as 40th street near Times Square; Manhattan was blocked off south of that point. The whole day we were under the impression that 10-20,000 were dead and thousands more injured. All day Sept 11, 2001 there was a caravan of first responders screaming down the Henry Hudson Parkway from upstate, and black SUVs and NYPD squads screeching through the streets. Still Tuesday, 9/11, I heard about the Pentagon and the Plane that went down in Pennsylvania. I wondered if Bush and Rummy were behind the Terrorist Attack, as Rumsfeld was conviently on the opposite side of the Pentagon from impact. Bush and Cheney, by our reckoning, were god knows where. Wednesday I walked the dog down by the Hudson River and smelled the burning plastic in the air, as the wind had shifted northwards.
The Siege of Manhattan was lifted on Thursday the 13th; bugging out, I got to experience the bedlam and bomb threats at the Port Authority Terminal that day. As the bus emerged from the Lincoln Tunnel on the New Jersey side, there were gasps from the passengers as we all turned to see the smoldering ruins at "Ground Zero." The coach continued almost non-stop to Cleveland, where the station was mobbed. There were hundreds of passengers trying to board various buses, and a near-riot, because those of us originating at New York and continuing to Chicago got precedence over all other newcomers. Some of the transfers who got on in Detroit had been waiting for 12, 18 hours or maybe even longer.

Noticed, between Cleveland and Chi-Town, for the first time in my life, not a plane in the sky! Arriving in Chicago, the skyline never looked better. This is all to the best of my recollection; I've probably got many things out of sequence.

How Stupid, the Tea Baggers

If only Obama really WAS a Marxist! How stupid are the people who believe Glenn Beck? All I can tell you is I used to know one, and the remarkable thing was she wasn't actually stupid. She was merely ignorant, reactionary, narcissistic, materialistic and bigoted. Other than that, she was pretty cool.

Recovery Redux

I realize I've been nagging about Obama's failings incessantly, but here's another, SERIOUS bone I have to pick: During campaign 2008, Barack made much of his "plan" to create 3 million+ "green manufacturing jobs." Was Barack Obama simply being the consumate, cynical politician, telling the electorate what he correctly figured they desperately wanted to hear? Or did he truly believe his own pipe dream?

Remaining cognizant that Mr. Obama was then a senator rather than a prophet, one nevertheless has to directly confront the lamentable fact: few if any such jobs were created, and the plan never came to fruition.
There is a highly dubious assertion being widely propagated on the Democratic side of the aisle, to the effect that Obama's "Economic Stimulus" has created or saved 2+ million positions nationally. While it's (officially) true that 700,000+ jobs aren't disappearing monthly as they were when the Obama administration assumed the presidency, job growth remains indisputably stagnant. The probable reality is more unfavorable than that - I'm guessing the US economy continues to actually shed more jobs every day than it adds. Nationally, official unemployment hovers stubbornly in the neighbourhood of 10%; most realists understand it is actually at least twice that level. The "Recovery," never much more than a fantasy, is over.
I know the President isn't a magician, but he could have at least fought passionately on behalf of the Amercan Worker. He didn't. Health Care? Taking into account "Single Payer"was politically impossible, Obie could have at least stood by his commitment to a "Public Option." He didn't, and what we got instead is basically a Byzantine maze of half-measures putatively destined to benefit the uninsured, but in truth destined to fatten the already bulging wallets of Big Insurance CEOs.

Who among you believes anything this guy says anymore? And why, in the face of all the evidence, would anybody believe positive Change of any kind has been accomplished, or will be accomplished before November 2012?

Did it begin with Watergate?

Did it start with WATERGATE? No, not the age-old political dirty tricks. Rather, the monumental, "fashionable" apathy. Were millions so shocked, so scandalized by Nixon's minor malfeasance - which nailed him - they simply dropped out of meaningful politics? I refer to Tricky Dick's minor crimes, as he was actually caught and forced to resign, in the immediate sense, on account of a second-rate break-in at Democratic National Committee Headquarters, not for the massive war crimes committed in SE Asia. But the real focus of my inquiry concerns the American Public. I'll always remember being ten years old and going to my best friend's house in the Summer of 1973. Nancy, Peter's mom, was glued to the telescreen, entralled with the Watergate Hearings. I was naturally bored on the one hand, being ten years old, and quite unable to fathom why Ms. ____ was so obsessed with such nonsense. On the other hand, I was fascinated, intrigued with the intrigue.
Of course, the United States had experienced political scandal before. Teapot Dome in the 1920's. Bobby Baker's misdeeds during the LBJ years. But never before, apparently, did so many people pay so much attention to cloak-and-dagger antics in the White House. So why the subsequent humungous level of apoliticization in the (long-term) wake of the "Plumbers'" shenanigans? Eisenhower had already been caught red-handed in a major international LIE in May 1960, when he falsely denied Gary Francis Powers had been involved in a U-2 spying mission over the USSR. Faith in the supposed truthfulness of Presidents certainly took a hit, but the population didn't seem to wallow, as a result, in complete indifference.

But following Watergate, it became "cool" to not give a shit. "Cool," when I was in Middle School in 1975, was showing off your Converse All Stars and running around the Gym to the tune of "Pickin' Up The Pieces" by the Average White Band. ...(Don't get me wrong - Great Song.)
It was evidently quite cool to make it known to everyone you'd seen the latest "Tony Orlando And Dawn" episode on ABC. Of course, I'm talking about kids here, but I'll wager many of those mental children who were absolutely THRILLED by "The Towering Inferno" were 18+.

CONVERSELY (heh heh) it became equally "uncool" to care about things that actually mattered, eyes were endlessly rolled to high heaven if you so much as mentioned any actual, grown-up ISSUE. By the time I entered High School in 1977, the fashionable boredom was so thick you could cut it with a switchblade. Example: We had Madison's Chief of Police visit the class one day. I expected someone to challenge him, to call him a goddamn fascist pig, SOMETHING. Instead, the entire class, girls and boys alike, sat there for 60 minutes like a bunch of granite statues. Myself as well - I wouldn't have been caught dead being so "uncool." OK, I lie, if my recollection is correct, I did ask a question, having already been discovered to be hopelessly UNCOOL. I haven't changed one bit, as you see.

I realize noone gives a shit, so I'll STFU and have a nice day. I'm kidding! Tell me, tell me, what did THEY do to YOU, to ME, to US??? Or rather, WTF did we do to ourselves?

Facebook, Trivial Pursuits, Lesbian Potato Chip Factories

New friends, thanks for joining, thanks for inviting, accepting. Facebook is just a notch in the stick of history. You oldies recall when PCs first made the scene Big Time, in 1981? How the Apple II was going to change and liberate the world? Bah, humbug. True, FB is THE Fad, but it's promise is similarly hollow! As long as the majority of users lack the barest notion of how, let alone WHY we should use this remarkable technology for the Global Good, it is likely to remain a kind of interactive Trivial Pursuits on a previously unimaginable scale. A Big Forking Deal that might have made a tangible difference when there was widespread political consciousness. You know, back in the day, before the Gay Marriage issue was inflated in stature to the sort of colossal proportions we've seen in recent weeks. Sorry, it just ain't all THAT important, folks. Not so important we need to hear about it every day, seventeen thousand times.

Don't get me wrong - I don't dislike Gays as a group. I have no "moral" objections to same-sex marriage. I just feel very strongly Gays and Lesbians want the WRONG things: namely, to join the fucking military and to get married!
Meanwhile, 14 million Pakistanis "displaced" by epic flooding. An uptick in car bombings in Iraq. The usual Afghan Quagmire. But please, don't stop, Main Stream Media, and all the rest of you as well. The clarion call remains: "Gay Marriage, Gay marriage, Same-sex marriage, Lesbian Potato Chip Factory, Transgendered Bicycle Repair, Bisexual Horticultural Association, Transvestite Gun Clubs, Same Sex Unions... Oh, did I remember to adequately emphasize GAY MARRIAGE!?!?!"
Please, don't stop! We haven't heard enough about GAY THIS AND GAY THAT, the most important issue on the PLANET! No make that the fucking Solar System, No the entire GALAXY!!!
Is it because you "cultural revolutionaries" have no substantial, real issues, independent of self-seeking IDENTITY POLITICS AT ITS WORST?

Those jobs aren't coming back.

If, despite the looming desperation that is presently being or about to be shared by millions, a critical mass of Americans cannot practice the organizational skills to effectively protest the bogus "Jobless Recovery," than they/we are doomed to suffer and starve alone. Being over-the-top, of course; I'm not starving, but what the hell? At some point, people who are affected need to put their foot down. I'm not one to talk, of course; being quite iconoclastic, ideosyncratic and individualistic by nature, I simply don't do meetings anymore.
But at least I know my behavior has got to change, and moreover, SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE!

For Hiroshima Day, 2010

If all a person had available to him/her was the commonplace, revisionist history, one would never even know that a number of influential American military figures were adamantly opposed to dropping Atomic weapons on civilian populations. Dwight Eisenhower, for example. But Harry Truman was teased incessantly as a child. He was small, and almost blind without his glasses. Little Harry was called a "sissy" on a daily basis (true story.) By nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Truman conveyed to a skeptical American populace, still reeling over the loss of the "magisterial" Roosevelt, that he truly was in command. It only cost several thousand lives to demonstrate Truman could be "tough as nails," and also make Stalin think twice about messing with Imperial America.
The US Air Force was quite prepared to drop a third nuke; only the Japanese surrender obviated that distinct possibility.

Election 2008 Nostalgia

In November 2008, I much prefered Chicago's foreign-born (HA HA!) "Centrist Intellectual" and his foot-in-mouth-disease suffering sidekick from Delaware. After all, the only real alternative would have been to select Arizona's PTSD-plagued former POW and Wasilla's vapid, moose-killing, Tantalizing Tart of a running mate. With such a meaningful choice at my disposal, the decision was easy.

Aiming for Cogency, RE: The Obie Factor

Apologies for my perennial lack of cogency. Allow me to try to win y'all over again. A wise person once suggested that I aim my critique high; so I call attention to Obama’s current very damnable political calculation. It’s helpful, in this regard, to examine recent history.
For those whose conception of history doesn't transcend the most recent Lindsey Lohan saga, let's go back a few years.

William Jefferson Clinton, our God-Blessed 42nd American President, is a good case to analyse. Clinton successfully “out-Republicaned the Republicans,” on a wide range of issues. He ended “Welfare as we know it.” Clinton declared the era of Big Government OVER. In reality, of course, he massively escalated the Drug War. That led inexorably to a massive increase in prison construction and the rate of incarceration all throughout the ‘90s. “Bill,” as he was affectionately known by many of the Liberals he snookered - and I voted for Slick Willy in '92, much to my chagrin - waged a long and squalid series of “Drive-by wars” in the Third World and the Balkans. Clinton actually carried out a larger number of military interventions than did George Herbert Walker Bush, putting the lie to the bumper sticker slogan, “When Clinton Lied, No one Died.” Total bullshit; many, many thousands died. Madeline Albright proudly told Leslie Stahl that the price of 500,000 Iraqi kids dead from the brutal sanctions regime was “worth it.” You get the idea. From a political perspective, it worked, at least until the American Public learned the name “Monica Lewinsky.”

So now we get President Barack Obama, who appears to be out-Bushing the Bushies. But unlike the Clinton scenario, I strongly doubt Obama will win over hearts and minds among the Right Wing Nuts he now literally panders to. Bubba was a genuine good ol’ boy, his Oxford years notwithstanding; Barack exudes Harvard Law. Obama may emulate neocon policies till he’s green in the face, but he won’t achieve a notable level of support from the Tea Partiers, no matter how reactionary he behaves, for reasons that should be obvious. Well, maybe he can permanently bleach his skin, Michael Jackson style.

But Barack WILL lose the support of those who voted for him. Eventually, his tilt to the right will become so flagrant, so odious, that even those who now continue to rationalize, to obfuscate, and defend him at all costs will be forced from sheer disgust into apathy. An epidemic of indifference among the Dems and Independents who believed in the change Obama touted could prove devastating to the Pres in 2012.
I don’t have the gift of prophecy, but I see disaster at the polls for Obama as a distinct possibility. I guess that would be a negative development in a few specified areas, considering Obama has supported extending unemployment benefits, and come out against Arizona’s “SB 1070.” Remember what happened to Gore ten years ago - and not, contrary to a lot of hogwash spread by Gore-supporters, because of Ralph Nader’s candidacy. Basically though, why should I care if Obama wants to sabotage his own re-election prospects!?!

Snookered Libs, High on Fox

It's totally in character for Fox "news" to accept the misleading video clip as representative of Shirley Sherrod's speech in its totality; I wouldn't expect otherwise. It's not even altogether surprising that Obama's administration was so VERY creudlous, taking the Breitbart video at face value, without even viewing it in its entirety. But I would have expected the NAACP to do a thorough review of the whole address and evaluate it in context. That venerable institution seriously failed its constituency.
Returning to the Obama factor, it's notable how the admnistration has widely distanced itself from the Progressives to whom they owe their 2008 victory; Afghanistan war funding supplementals, for example. But the Administration now gets a great deal of unqualified support from GOP reps and senators. Obama faces the imminent prospect of an understandable rebellion from his own partisan ranks, among "leftists." That's a bad omen for November. The disheartening fact is, Obama has now, across a wide spectrum, gone above and beyond the misdeeds of the Bush regime. But I'm not actually telling people anything they were unaware of, am I?

Taking into account decent, but probably politically inadvisable actions the Pres might take, it would have been more meaningful for Obie to fire Robert Gates than Stanley McChrystal.

Barack the Charlatan

I'm no supporter of Obama's. Though it took me a while to come around, the best I can say for him is he is a very educated, charming, intelligent, articulate servant of the most high-level corporate and military-industrial interests. Where to begin in criticizing Barack Obama? Let's see...

‎1. Obama continued the Bush Regime bailouts of Wall Street criminals (AIG, for example) who brought about the Great Recession.
2. Nobel Prize winning Obama escalated the disastrous Afghanistan War. And "we've" gone back to funding "our" wars off the books, through "supplemental funding bills." The Obamites are using a Chinese credit card to pay for endless war, just like the Bushies did.
3. He has failed to live up to his promise to get the US out of Iraq.
4. The Obama administration weakened the rules against off-shore oil drilling in March, only a month before the Deepwater Horizon blowout.
5. Barack Obama has not only failed to close Guantanamo, as he promised, his administration has bent over backwards to let Bush Regime torturers escape justice.
6. Obama ditched those liberal Democrats who argued for a "Public Option;" his "Health Care Reform" will end up benefitting Big Insurance to the tune of many tens of billions of dollars.
7. Now it appears that Obama has appointed a panel to "study" ways to "fix" Social Security. The commission is stacked heavily with Washington Insiders who favor privatization and investment of social Security funds in the stock market.

Nope, I'm afraid Obama and his administration are not friends of anyone on the Left.

"Hello, I'm Merideth Baxter. I'd like to tell you about..."

The application of brute force or the surreptitious ingestion of psychotropic drugs are rather dramatic brainwashing methods. Then there's Advertising; the soft sell, when the actress simply gives a "wink and a nod;" a rising intonation and a certain look in the eye assures you "you're dealing with a great company."

My early political education

Not that it's all that important, but my early political education took place in the mid-to-late 1970’s; it was largely of the confrontational variety. Quite a few demonstrations and much hands-on activism. It often involved some not very pleasant interaction. Back then , I had the privilege of participating, at some level, in an activist community.

Later, after a period of “apathy” from about 1980-1984, I connected with a small group of politicos whose work centered around disseminating real News and Information. I had a kind of re-awakening that coincided with the Iran-Contra scandal’s fallout and 1987’s “Olliemania.” The idea around which our group revolved was that, if the American People had access to unfiltered information about real world events and issues, a critical mass of them might come around, might wake up. And they would petition the government – in whatever manner - for a redress of grievance. That’s how naïve we all were! Still, I’ve got no regrets about that period and our activities.

The people with whom I associated then with were particularly focused on using shortwave radio sources, which were pretty much free, in the public domain. Kind of a pre-internet-age WWW, if you will. Anyway, I’m still influenced by that failed approach, even after all the predictable disappointments I’ve experienced since. Though I’m not nearly so wet behind the ears as I was in the ‘80s. I’ve long ago realized that if one has any chance of appealing to the majority of Americans, one needs to emphasize that dependable (for purposes of politicization) old factor known as SELF-INTEREST. In a hyper-materialistic society like this, you need to keep hammering on ideas like: “A Three Trillion Dollar War is so intrinsically untenable that it will backfire against YOU and ME;” “The Deepwater Horizon Catastrophe is an ECONOMIC atom bomb aimed at all Americans…” “We can’t AFFORD to lock up such a large percentage of the population for non-violent offenses,” etc.

In short, I no longer believe that most people in the USA can be reached by means of altruistic entreaties. I don’t DISREGARD the suffering of the rest of the world, particularly the “underdeveloped” (overexploited) world. But if you ask me, most Yankees don’t really give a rat’s ass about the American Underclass, let alone the “Third World” and its sorrows. Most North Americans regard people who DO care as quaint, irrelevant throwbacks at best – maybe as hysterical do-gooders, if not worse. So I’ve firmly adopted the cynical strategy of appealing to their selfishness, self-centeredness and vanity. Try to convince them their PERSONAL survival is at stake, if they even care about THAT. Try to pass along some useful information, maybe shock them a bit, in the hope they might get agitated.

I'm not holding my breath, but is life livable with no hope at all? I suppose so… I guess so… but I’d rather NOT go on like that!

2003 Essay written in West Palm Beach, Florida, USA

Friends, adversaries, and those who plain just don't give a piss, I wish to thank you all. For many weeks and days I have sat around drinking too much coffee here in soporific, strip mall, Sun Belt malaise, doing a little yard work, getting on the computer from time to time, but ABOVE ALL afraid to contemplate the awful fact that yes, I may just own an ounce of originality. You know, the kind of thinking that one may occasionally engage in during the wee hours of the night. Well, i hereby resolve to take this manic episode and render it a continuum of creative insanity, wary of the consequences but nevertheless unafraid to be labeled fuckin' nuts, all the while mindful that were Van Gogh to be born during the last half-century, he would never have lost that ear of his. They would have him on Haldol, Thorazine, Prolyxin, Prozac, and maybe a little oxy-contin just for sadism's sake. His own sake, I mean.

For too many long, arduous, alienating weeks I have laid about feeling sorry for myself, or contemplated getting the kind of job others attribute to a responsible course of action, acclimatizing themselves to the tedium that has been transformed, in their warped opinion, from a necessity to a virtue. When I turned 40 years old recently, a gnawing, searing sense of inadequacy began to fester in the back of my skull. It was especially pronounced, I noticed, in the company of those retrograde thinkers and their accompanying "conservative" values, whom i was somehow compelled to "admire." Force of habit I guess, and SOCIETY REALLY DOES MAKE ME SICK!

I found myself once again emulating those fatheaded, authoritarian bozos and ultimate ideological traitors as role models! Propelled as it was by a philosophy of inferiority and self-effacement obtained by this author, I was often astonished upon discovering that I felt a need to acquiesce to their stringent requirements of conformity and death-dealing BOREDOM! Who the hell cares how, when or why it was obtained - fom here on that pathetic little habit of trying to fit in at all costs will be mercilessly quashed by a rigorous program of natural-born weirdness!

Be it fucking RESOLVED: I'm gona tear the cyber-joint apart, not be timid about making a goddamn fool of myself, because I don't have to - i HAVE that luxury, I Have the time on my hands, waning as it may be in light of my achieving this point in time. Because "everyone" is so cool, collected, mature, together, with someone now, in the dream relationship that they always prayed or hoped or dreaded would someday come about, and I'm not. Most decidedly not, for various neurotic reasons, but again who the fuck cares about that ol sap opera? This boy-man, notoriously immature and appalingly underfunded is here to stay, blissfully obtuse. Oblivious and immune to the scorn of those mentors who once mentored him to a razor-sharp hatred of this that and the other, to the point where above all he hated himself. To the point where he scoffed at Che's famous maxim "At the risk of sounding ridiculous..."

God or Satan or Elmer Fudd has bequeathed upon me a talent, of this I am sure. The talent of missing the spirit i, in my silliness and naiveté am convinced existed in the hyper-romanticized '60's, the talent of being absolutely bonkers by the reckoning of a society grown so sterile I can TASTE the dead air and it's vicious lack of hope, compassion and a certain I don't know what, the theme song to the Mary Tyler Moore (YEEEEEEECH) show said it best I suppose. Love WAS all around once, far away, but a man who doesn't work a cursed 9-5 is therefore, in the morbid and moribund view of all my sell-out friends from long ago, (another life it seems) unworthy of love, not to say sex, romance and all of that claptrap. I'm talkin about the love deep within an acid trip, the love of a good snowball fight, the love of senseless and sensible abandon.

So go ahead, stick your (their, my) switchblades of sarcasm deep within me, who ain't scared no more to be pigeon-holed as the weenie, the freak, the jerk, the loser, the loner, (I AM PROUDLY ALL THOSE AND MORE, i INSIST) and all the other put downs you (we) use to justify your (my) arrogance and back-stabbing DECEIT. Ooooh we're soooo cynical and sooo cool. Fool.

That's the real reason I wanted your opinion about my writing skills, and whether you have witnessed any improvement therein.

Thanks a bunch,
Dan

Rhetorical Questions to "Libertarians," RE:Bill Gates

Some people say there should be no government. If that were the case, it goes without saying there'd also be no need for progressive taxation. We wouldn't want to "rob" the super rich, now would we? Let THEM rob the world's resources, through violence and extortion carried out both by governmental military and corporate police forces. Through massive environmental criminality. Let Bill Gates accrue a $100 billion fortune - he obviously "needs" it, right? An individual obviously "needs" a billion dollars while at least a billion people go hungry tonight, is that it? Above all, the filthy rich must not be inconvenienced.
That's Laissez Faire Libertarianism for you; truly "compassionate".

I deny the moral equivalency of a man who, while billions go hungry every day, many actually STARVING, has a 52-car garage in his 45,000 square foot Uebermansion on Mercer Island Washington. Protected by PRIVATE security up the wazoo and motion detectors as well. How many Haitians, newly homeless from the Janaury earthquake, and many homeless before, might he feed if Bill Gates really wanted to?

So I'll just ask you - do you feel there should be ANY limit whatsoever to the process of self-enrichment and self aggrandizement that Bill Gates and Warren Buffet and George Soros engage in every single day? Or are you one of those Ron Paul lovers who wants to do away with the Federal income tax for EVERYONE, making no distinction between the couple hundred billionaires among us and the 50,000 a year librarian?

Because what you people propose is virtually impossible in 2010 America. You would need to:
1. Boycott the public library
2. Keep your kids out of public school (if you have kids - I have none)
3. Never use the Post Office
4. Never drive or bicycle on the public street or highway.
5. Never flush the toilet if it's connected to the Public Sewage system.
7. Never walk on an urban sidewalk, unless in a private, gated community.
8. Refuse all emergency services, including EMT and Fire Fighters.

Are you beginning to see what I'm driving at? As an ideal, I can see why you might want to believe you are truly an "Island", a Man or Woman unto yourself. But in the Real World, in practice, I think you know better. The ultimate conclusion to your Ayn Randian, "Objectivist","Selfishness is a virtue" creed would be to kick the children out of the house by the age of three. Those freeloaders! Put the elderly out on the ice, the useless, burdensome old trolls!
So-called Primitive Cultures were right when they regarded selfishness as a major drawback, not a virtue. They understood that survival is a collective goal which transcends individual self-interest. It's modern, "Western", and above all American society that has glorified the maxim: "Greed is good."

First Job

Do you remember your first ever Job? I remember mine, at least my first "above the table" gig; it was May, 1984, doing minimum wage janitorial work in a "fancy" bar and restaurant. Told the boss I definitely DIDN'T want to do dishwashing - busting suds literally busted my back, it was so stressful, arduous and painful. I got stuck, fairly frequently, "helping out" the dishwashers when they were too busy, during holidays or one of them was sick. Despite making it CRYSTAL CLEAR I had applied for the janitor job,not dishwashing.

So much for the wonderful, hypothetical Dream World of "strictly voluntary association." Doesn't work that way in present day America, or anywhere else on this troubled planet. Of course I could have refused, or quit, both of which I eventually did. And gotten a better job, which I eventually did. But in the short term, I would have faced eviction 26 years ago. And had to go back to shoplifting food at the supermarket, with all the accompanying risk and possible incarceration.
"Earth to Utopians... Come in please?"

Dirty Words

Hello Fellow ADULTS. NEWSFLASH: The United States' Federal Communications Commision (FCC) lists SEVEN BANNED WORDS. In the interest of DECENCY, they are: Sh*t, F*ck, C*cksucker, C*nt, Motherf*cker, *sshole and Tw*t. Just thought you all should know. So let's all try our very best to keep things squeaky clean. Thank You.

P.S: I'm just not sure about the following: "Turd," "CodPiece," "Collateral Damage," "Armpit," "Mustard Gas," "Throbbing Manhood," "Snot," "Beef Medallion," "Strontium-90," "Booty," "McCain," "Cucumber," "Dreck," "Dink," "Dork," "Dong," "Dork," "Dookeyshine," "Goddamn," "Queen Elizabeth," "Beaver," "Prince Charles," "Schmuck," "Methyl-isocyinate" "Fartknocker," "BP," "Ronald Reagan," "Poop," "Deepwater Horizon," "Titties," "General Petraeus," "Toxic Waste," "Mound of Venus," "Wee-wee," "Pee-pee," "Poo-poo," "Ca-Ca," "Chernobyl," "Sarah Palin," "Wang," "Wong," "Willie," "Weenie," "Margaret Thatcher," "Bunker Buster," "Mel Gibson," "Gonads," "President," "Barf-bag," "Cops," "Butthole," "Donny Osmond," "Luscious Glory," "Johnson," "Merde," "Country-Western," "Gunshot Wound," "Ponocha," "Televised Violence," "Puke-bucket," "Knockers," "Cooties," "Poontang," and "Englebert Humperdinck."

Some of the above aren't banned, but probably should be.
However, Penis, Screw, Pussy, Snatch, Dick, Testicles, Cock, Vulva, Prick, Balls, Ass, Crap, Fart, Bitch, Fag, Dyke, Nosebleed, Slut and Wanker are all perfectly acceptable.

Last night, and well into the wee hours of the morning, I examined my own motivations. It was probably less of an investigation into why I wrote such an “outrageous,” profanity-laced “essay,” than why I had for so long denied my strong desire to do so. The following conclusions, some obvious, others less so, are listed in less-than-perfect order:

... See More1. I have observed a kind of restlessness, a hankering, a yearning within me. While the nuts and bolts, very grave social and political conditions of life on 2010 Earth do preoccupy me, it would be dishonest to claim that other phenomena escape my rapt attention and profound interest. Continually, constantly and exclusively limiting oneself to posting “respectable,” “orthodox,” “acceptable” links, important as they are, gets downright boring. It would be a lie for me to maintain that the ironies of the “Culture War” aren’t at least equally fascinating. The stark conflicts proliferating within American Society today are based largely in an outdated, two-faced and increasingly irrelevant sense of “morality.” That very “morality” has been historically based on religious systems I personally disdain. Such morality is so fraught with irony and contradiction that it (still) needs to be confronted openly. But outmoded as it is, that “moral imperative” remains extremely powerful. I desired to confront it head-on, despite the fact such morality keeps its grip on me, in much the same way it affects others. As I already observed, it was not easy for me to enunciate such examples of “Obscenity” in the way I did, possibly to be noticed by several hundred people. And why is that? Why the inhibition? Why would I potentially lose sleep over giving “naughtiness” explicit expression? All of those individual epithets, profanities, curses, call them what you will, are ultimately composed of random phonemes. And a “potty-mouth” writer like me merely assembles a series of morphemes that don’t by any means DIRECTLY represent the items and concepts they “stand for.” To a large degree, arbitrariness rules the day.

2. I make no false claim to any real originality of conceptualization. At best, I’ve managed to display a bit of innovative authorship. Think of the Late Great George Carlin and the battle he waged – a truly pioneering struggle that earned him real legal consequences, but also real recognition. Consider the actual hardships experienced by Lenny Bruce, Jim Morrison, Wendy O. Williams and others. They paved the way. Yet here we find ourselves, thirty, forty, even fifty years later, confined in the proverbial Prison House of Language. The Massachusetts Bay Colony still persists in America’s collective unconscious.

3. It is in my nature to shock people. I suppose this is connected to my need to get attention. That’s not a very mature motivation, I’ll admit, but I wager it’s one I share with many Facebookers. I believe it would have been very beneficial for me to have “completed” my “Higher Education.” A deeper, more comprehensive understanding on a wide range of topics would probably have obviated the need to put myself in the spotlight. Still, I have no overwhelming sense of shame or regret for having done so. This attempt to rationally examine the motivations for and implications of my act have put my mind largely at ease.

Another interesting self-analysis I have accomplished: Focussing obsessively on issues of severe gravity has had an undeniably leaden impact on my mood. Try as I might, the ceaseless preoccupation with America's endless wars, the world's economic injustices and environmental calamities, and a plethora of other human-made tragedies never fails to immerse me in a negative state of mind. Sometimes I need to lighten up, and giving expression to the ridiculous double standards that abound in our culture has been, to put it plainly, a bit of fun. Fun that conveniently raises the serious issue of whether the First Amendment is still in force in these Disunited States. I believe it is, to some extent anyway. Otherwise the Gestapo would have already dragged me off.
The Bill of Rights - use it or lose it.

Perpetual War has killed America's Soul

Allow me explain my own actions, especially since the wars that signaled the end of the "Vietnam Syndrome." Starting, for me, in 1983; That's when Ronald Reagan, under false pretenses, invaded the tiny island of Grenada. Population 100,000. I protested in the streets. In 1989, George Herbert Walker Bush, acting under false pretenses, invaded Panama, killing AT LEAST 3000 civilians in El Chorillo alone. I marched in protest here in Madison WI, with about 12 other people in minus 10 degree Fahrenheit weather. All throughout the 1980's I protested, wrote letters to the editor, called talk shows in vociferous protest against Washington's funding of the Nicaraguan Contras and Salvadoran Death Squads. Got arrested at an anti-nuke rally in Colorado on Hiroshima Day (Aug 6) 1987.
Protested the 1991 Gulf War as an unspeakable crime against humanity AND international law. Ditto for Clinton's "Drive-by" wars and his murderous sanctions against Iraq. Protested the NATO bombing of the former Yugolslavia. Continue protesting the 2001-present war in Afghanistan, and George W. Bush/Barack Obama's 2003-2010 Iraq War too.

The reason I do so is because, like it or not, I am an American citizen, and feel a special responsibility for the blood shed in MY name. But I will try to pay more attention to the horror in Sudan. It's kind of tough; so many years, so many tears, so many wars. Probably sounds like I'm boasting, sorry, didn't mean it that way. It just seems so overwhelming at times. I still remember being 10 years old when Allende was overthrown by ITT/Kissinger/Nixon/CIA. Ten thousand people, mostly students jammed the University of Wisconsin-Madison Field House. People had the Power. Even in America! To look around me now - that world is so, so long ago and seems so, so dead. But we will bring those kinds of crowds back to the UW, I am sure of it!

Margaret Warner is a dork & News Hour SUCKS.

"Oil Leak Drama Draws Public Outrage, Outpouring of Ideas:"

This link simply won't be posted by my computer in a very complete and colorful way, at least not right now. But I'm going to post it anyway, for a number of important reasons:

1. I watched the televised report tonight, and it was very instructive in terms of how PBS tones things down.
2. In watching the report, I learned that more than 80 percent of Americans are "following events in the Gulf closely"; that, at least, is a very hopeful sign.
3. Margaret Warner is either an idiot or is deliberately attempting to "dumb us down." Maybe both?

MARGARET WARNER:
"Paul Saffo, beginning with you, the public's fascination with this story, what is driving it? Is this like other disasters, or is there something more at work here?"

Dan Goldstein: Well, duh, Margaret. This might "only" potentially release 2.3 million BARRELS of crude oil into the Gulf by August!

MARGARET WARNER: Bill Nye, how do you see it? Do you find this a McLuhan-esque moment, a turning moment?"

Dan Goldstein: No Margaret, you genius, it's not really a turning point. It's only the biggest oil spill EVER in American History. This could end up being the worst environmental calamity of all time. Only a few other ecological disasters are comparable.

One more interesting point: during the broadcast, the "ever-controversial" Margaret Warner only referred to the public's "fascination" with the Gulf catastrophe. But the headline for this link at least concedes that there is also considerable "outrage." I suppose I can only infer that the nightly TV broadcast reaches a lot more viewers. PBS' boob-tube presentation certainly wouldn't want to alert the massive TV audience to the actual OUTRAGE that is out there. PBS' web coverage is forced to make a concession to REALITY.

Really, who in their right mind would bother with PBS' insipid coverage if they had the time to choose other options, mostly on the internet? That's why the web version above admits that people are pissed, and the TV version doesn't. Sorry if this is rather boring, but amateur media analysts like me find it fascinating.

BTW, the guests, as opposed to the host, are a bit more honest - they use terms like "horror" and "terror." That's all too typical. Listen to the broadcast or read the whole transcript, if for some absurd reason you want to see just what a clod Margaret Warner is! And I'm not singling her out; she's just one of the very worst.

The Change I No Longer Believe In

It's true Obama is very bright and has amazing public relations charm. Whereas Ronald Reagan lacked discretion, Obama is renowned for telling each individual audience exactly what he thinks they want to hear. Now, almost a year and a half after his inauguration, all I can say is: So much for "Change We Can Believe In." BTW, I voted for him, and probably deserve a pie in the face for doing so. But what are the FACTS?

1. The US is still very much in Iraq.
2. The Obama administration has escalated the war in Afghanistan, just as he told us he would during the '08 campaign. It's a fine testament to my own capacity for self-delusion that I thought he might be cajoled into doing otherwise.
3. Obama decided to keep George W. Bush's Iran-Contra and Iraq War tainted Robert Gates in office.
4. The latest Pentagon budget to be passed cost a RECORD $708 billion - realistically it's more in the neighborhood of $1 trillion.
5. The Obama administration has fought passionately in the courts to be able to "legally" violate the civil/human rights of those detained unconstitutionally. It's even gone out of its way to let the torturers from the Bush regime off the hook.
6. Obama has been - to say the LEAST - much less forceful than he needs to be about making BP plug the spewing Gulf oil well and clean up the sludge.
7. Obama has been saber-rattling lately in the direction of Tehran and Pyongyang.
I could go on, but I think I've made my point. I no longer believe in this alleged change.

More on Rand & Son, dates corrected

In 2006, Ron Paul voted against renewing the 1965 Voting Rights Act. But it had nothing to do with pandering to racist proto-tea baggers, of course. "Junior" Rand Paul had problems with the 1964 Civil Rights Act the other day. The next day, he flim-flammed, flip-flopped and obfuscated. Rand Paul's "confusion" had nothing to do with pandering to racist tea baggers, of course. Rand just needs to iron out the bugs. He should take lessons from Karl Rove, that behind-the-scenes genius who taught "W" how to say "vociferously!"

Lesson: "Paulians" can be against the Iraq War and still seek to deny certain people's constitutional rights. Ayn Randians can be all for ending the drug war, and still give a tacit nod to racially-motivated voter suppression. I can NOT overlook these reprehensible votes father & son cast, for all the "States' Rights" arguments in the world. Anyway, I'd hoped the Civil War of 1861-1865 and the Civil Rights Struggle of 1956-1968 settled the question of Federalism vs. States' Rights once and for all. When it comes to the most basic protections for people who've been discriminated against for ages, the former pretty much trumps the latter. In my estimation.

However, if all one cares about is the Private Enterprise System's unquestioned "right" to make a fast buck - toxic sludge be damned - then either Paul is your guy. Do YOU trust a used Paul?

Libertarianism is problematic.

I guess it's a question of nomenclature. Does Libertarianism indeed amount to a system that provides unfettered freedom of action for the "free market?" That sounds to me like another way of saying British Petroleum is presently "allocating resources" along "free market" principles. Allocating those toxic resources straight to the Louisiana Bayou! As a result - partially - of woefully inadequate government oversight, I might add. Moreover, BP, by money-grubbing Libertarian standards, is doing "right" by focusing more on trying to salvage the gushing oil from the New Horizons blowout, rather than doing the responsible thing - PLUG THE LEAK FOR THE LOVE OF HUMANITY!! Or am I mistaken somehow? I just don't see the precious Private Enterprise System stepping up and acting decently. QUITE THE CONTRARY! It's been a full month now; the Gulf may be dead by the end of the year!

On another topic, I will say this much: I am annoyed by those absurd "Constitutional Literalists," who utter nonsense like "All we need to do is abide by the exact letter of the US Constitution." Such folks are apparently unaware that the document adopted by the states in 1791 allowed for slavery. It allowed, for purposes of White electoral supremacy, that Blacks be considered 3/5 of a person. It denied women the right to vote. Yes, "Strict Constitutionalists" are seemingly unaware of these deficiencies. Either that, or they are comfortable with chattel slavery and the denial of womens' suffrage. As if the Constitution should be frozen in time, straight-jacketed by 18th Century sensibilities!
By contrast, I believe in the evolution of constitutional law; by means of amendment, for example.

America, the lover who jilted me.

"Good-bye, America. I loved you." So said Jim Morrison. Not my favorite poet, but that choked me up a bit. I can relate. It's a mistake to think a dissident hates the land of his birth. Not me. Quite the opposite. I don't expect anyone to understand why "my heart is of this place." Not of Capitol Hill, but of the Black Hills, though they're not mine. A love of the Big Sky, complicated but real.

Gulf disaster update

The collapse of the "New Horizons" rig has become a global environmental emergency the likes of which we have never seen - with the possible exception of Chernobyl. The world has never before faced the actual specter of an offshore Lousiana blowout soiling British and Irish beaches. But maybe that's not actually a possibility - the oil would sink to the bottom of the sea before it ever went that far? I don't know for sure. I have been hearing plenty of apparently valid speculation about the Gulf Stream taking "New Horizons" oil to the US East Coast.

News during the last 24 hours was all about the vast amounts of submerged crude in the Gulf. Huge amounts of raw petroleum that haven’t been included in the “official figures.” Also how US Gov’t agencies, the mainstream media AND BP have all been, from the beginning, vastly understating the true extent of the contamination. The quantity of oil “spilled” will FAR exceed that which leaked from the Exxon Valdez, if it hasn’t already.

On top of that, it appears BP, despite repeated “attempts,” is apparently only capturing a miniscule 5000 barrels a day! They need to focus on shutting down the well, not salvaging oil. Money really is the root of all evil, I guess.
Ed Garvey was right when he recently wrote that the Gulf of Mexico might be dead by the end of the year. And I won’t even mention the use of “dispersants” which are more damaging than the oil itself.

Having stated the doom and gloom scenario, I firmly believe a short term technical solution, at least, is possible. The well needs to be plugged, and I’m inclined to think they can but they just won’t. Another thing that’s infuriating is certain experts have proposed methods for sensibly cleaning up the oil. I don’t read or hear in the media about any such rational methods being used.

Didn't mean to go on too long, but I wonder if even some people who view blogs like mine are unaware of the scope of this thing. Plus I want folks to be considering solutions.

My valiant attempt to "context" the Great Depression

The idea of a significant public works project in the United States appeals to me, though it certainly appears unacceptable in this age of wildly inaccurate socialism-bashing. But let’s look to history for an example. How many people are fully aware of the domestic crisis that held sway in March 1933, when Roosevelt took office?

Unemployment was far higher than 25% nationally. The dust bowl had transformed much of the nation’s midsection into a vast wasteland. True starvation was hardly unknown in the USA. Herbert Hoover had done too little too late to alleviate a desperate situation; when he appeared around the country crowds would shout “Hang him!” Armed soldiers ringed Capitol Hill. Private enterprise had already had two or three years to prove either able or willing to heal the nation’s festering economic wounds; it had failed spectacularly.

What did the Roosevelt administration do? From “Roosevelt and Hopkins; an Intimate History,” by Robert E. Sherwood: “…They drew the plans for the Civil Works Administration which put the four million people to work in the first 30 days of its existence and, in less than four months, inaugurated 180,000 work projects and spent over $933 millions.” That was a vast sum in 1933 dollars! They were quite willing to improvise; when one program didn’t achieve sufficient results, they came up with another. As Federal Emergency Relief Administrator Harry Hopkins dispersed $5,000,000 to the desperate - during his first two hours in office! Hopkins, facing the wrath of Capital and its reactionary mouthpieces like the Chicago Tribune, figured “I’m not going to last six months here, so I’ll do as I please.”

Millions received a paycheck for real work; for many the it was the first cash in months or years. Thousands of schools (and we are now cutting education funding? MADNESS!!!) and a half million miles of highways were built or repaired. Artists and writers also were employed by the government. When he was criticized for this, Hopkins said: “They have to eat like everyone else.”

Some folks say that spending their way out of the Depression in Keynesian fashion would have worked even better if the “stimulus” hadn’t been cut significantly later in the Roosevelt years. Some opponents of this idea are quick to claim that only the accelerated military spending beginning in the 1939-1940 period - culminating in America becoming the wartime “Arsenal of Democracy” - finally dug America out of the hole. I think there may be some truth in both these claims.

But, bottom line: the New Deal indisputably put hungry and homeless people to work and even saved lives. It even, ironically, saved Capitalism! It is now time to replace the dangerously decaying infrastructure that dates from the thirties and even earlier. A great opportunity that must be properly understood as such. Unfortunately, Obama’s pathetic half-measures, the sadly minimal public works projects of 2009 and 2010, don’t fit the bill.

In the interest of full disclosure: Dan Goldstein is a Socialist!

P.S: N

ow I'm thinking (thanks to someone who pointed this out on another person's Facebook page) that in seeking to draw a moral distinction between two different recipients of public spending, I failed to recognize the actual affinity of military and "peaceful" spending under Keynesianism. My half hour of fact-checking before posting what I wrote above didn't prevent me from stating a likely error concerning ideology. By some definitions, Ronald Reagan was a Keynesian! Hmmm... but does cutting taxes - of the richest Americans in particular - while you dramatically increase spending - like Reagan and W. Bush - strictly adhere to the doctrine of John Maynard Keynes? Economics is admittedly not my forte'...

Don't worry folks, I know how to do a google:)

Today's Book

Reading Jon Margolis' "1964; The Last Innocent Year." Full of obscure and interesting information. Just one gripe; he's as bad as William Manchester (author the notorious whitewash "Death of a President;") always making reference to Lee "Patsy" Oswald as if Oswald really were JFK's assassin. NOT!

America's Ruling Class

If it's true that 1% of the population owns 43% of the financial wealth in the USA, and the next richest 19% controls another 50% (and I believe it is true) then we sure do have a Ruling Class in America. No hyperbole from me, just an affirmation of our "way of life."

Ramblings, April 2010

I've had a bit of time off from the major media insanity to dwell on things again - kind of like Simon and Garfunkel must have done before writing the "Sounds of Silence." So here goes. Hope this answers some questions, implied or explicit. Pardon my rambling, I'm just getting my "writer's fingers" back:)

What's really remarkable to me is how many of these ghastly reports have appeared on the pages of the New York Times, quite recently. Remember - this is the same NY Times which just a few months ago "validated" (supported) the recent escalation in Afghanistan with much enthusiasm. What, do they suddenly have cold feet? A little squeamish? That's the price "we" pay, I suppose. A price, it must be reckoned, that seems extrememly minor in comparison to those doing the suffering and dying. But it is a price we pay nonetheless. Like those of us who play all kinds of mental tricks on ourselves; the way we fool around excessively with essential truths. Some of us bend over backwards to swallow the lies, with Gusto!!! And in this way all our lives are diminished, warped, cheapened. Of course, The New York Times does this for us, anyway. The Times lowers our consciousness with every editorial praising the "surge" it has shamefully printed. Bullshit columnists like David Brooks rationalizing all kinds of armed intervention, apparently totally oblivious to the resulting flagrant violations of international law. Alledging that we must stay the awful, but "necessary" course. Portraying out-and-out lawlessness and national aggression as understandable defensive, action. Seems I heard that one before, with respect to Iraq! So the pundits get rich telling us manifold absurdities. Telling us that yes, we did try diplomacy, but it failed. (A lie; we needed desperately to engage in honest diplomacy, as we still need to.)

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/10/07/ret.us.taliban/

We are told "We were attacked; we had to respond militarily." (Another lie, or misrepresentation, at least - the ordinary people of Afghanistan, those dying from drones and gunshots, had nothing to do with 911.) Anyway, one might, depending on ones level of ignorance, genuinely wonder "Why? What have we done to earn such hatred?" But that would require taking into consideration hundreds of thousands of Muslim lives taken by western militarism. For example, in the 1991 Gulf War, and other well-known acts of Western state-sponsored terrorism. Yes, a vigorous examination of one's own national history might shed some light on the question: "why did they do it?" Curious mortals might wonder, under ordinary circumstances, if the vicious bombing campaign inflicted day after day on Iraqis entirely innocent of attacking Kuwait might be a sore spot in the Muslim World. We might then, following such reflection in America, avoid falling prey to the Disinformation Meisters who would have Americans believe nonsense like "they hate us for our freedoms."

A question of Force.

Americans are FORCED to patronize the "Free Market" when they buy food and clothes. They are forced to patronize the "Free Market" when they buy a house or car, or practically any other consumer item. Can you give me an example of a washing machine produced by nationalized industry that is available here? People are forced to get some kind of a job, and more often than not, the jobs they take are low-paying service sector jobs. Only so many "Communist" government jobs available, you see. On the other hand, there's only so much room at the top of the Corporate pyramid, as we all know very well.
Though I'll grant you this: I suppose the distinct MINORITY of Americans that live in government-subsidized housing are benefitting from a socialized entity. More humorously, the "large" percentage if US citizens who manage to purchase a 1970's East German "Trabant" have succeeded in buying into Socialism. Virtully everyone else buys a GM, Toyota, Ford, Nissan, etc. But they certainly do have a lot of choice in the matter - if they don't like supporting Corporate industry, they can walk, or buy a "People's" bicycle. Of course, one can also take admittedly "Marxist" Mass Transit.
Still, most of us can't afford our own Private Lear Jet when we go to Washington to beg the taxpayers for more money to benefit OURSELVES. Obviously, the few remaining GM workers left in this country don't make the kind of obscene money GM's CAPITALIST Chairman Rick Wagoner was making, even after the bailout went through. Bonuses and all!
Not all folks who are compelled to prostitute themselves for Capitalism are minimum-wage employees, but many are. The reason "Free Marketeers" don't see any evidence of compulsion in the fact that the vast majority of Americans are FORCED to participate in the "Free Market," is that they've come to take the Private Enterprise system for granted. They regard it as virtually a god-given natural law, which it isn't. It's just one of many potential ways to structure the economic system within a given society. And hardly perfect, at that! When folks bemoan the alleged "Socialization" of America, they might take the time and effort to present a plausible case.

P.S: I'm writing this on a DELL keyboard of a DELL computer at the local Communist Public Library.

That Sinister Obamavich!!!

"From Tea-Partei-Reichs-Journal.com:
US Communist Party General Sekretary Boris Obamavich was in Barfpail Iowa today, implementing his ruthless forced collectivization program on hapless Blorchson County farmers. Comrade Obamavich then journeyed to Des Moines, where he poisonally disconnected feeding tubes from seven terminally-ill grandmothers at People's General Hospital. Amdist the terrified shrieks of communalized family members, Obamavich was heard to utter bizarre, rambling and mumbledy-peg comments extolling the virtues of 'Superfluous Humanity Panels.' Afterwards Tovarisch Obamavich and his Mobile Texting Central Committee crossed the New Volga River into the Federated Socialist Republic of Illinois, where, somewhere in the vicinity of West Leningrad, Obamavich personally molested and axe-murdered fourteen Republicans, two goats and a chicken."

So I was indeed prompted to wonder when this monstrous Stalinist Obamavich will finally be purged from our ranks. We DO need to stop the creeping Socialization of Amerika before it's too late! Also, from yesterday:
"Pravda Today columnist Greg Gorbachov caught up with Trudy Trotsky and her anti-husband Comrade Craig Khrushchev as they stood next to the 'Krazy Kremlin' ride at Evil Empire Theme Park in nearby Moscow Heights. The couple weighed in: 'Worse part of entire sordid affair, dear comrades, is Obamavich not even true, patriotic citizen of esteemed homeland. He born outside of USSA (United Soviet States of America.) Obamavich hail from Bourgeois Bulgaria. How we can trust Boris Obamavich secure future socialist paradise? Nothing but revisionist running dog imperialist, if not worst!!!'"

(Saw a picture of a Tea Bagger carrying sign with photo of Obama reading: "Socialism; it's not a joke." I beg to differ.)

Getting The Message Out

It's a sad reality that we "Progressives" have ceded much of the space dedicated to the expression of public opinion to a rather conservative crowd. I see this on the editorial pages, on the web forums, and of course "Talk Radio" is massively skewed in their favor. We can't completely blame the reactionaries themselves. We neglect our obligations.

Hate them and cast insults their way all you want. Justifiably despise the powerful figures whose huge sums of money have enabled the Tea Party Rallies to achieve an often impressive turnout. I've done both of those things myself. But learn something from those "Wingnuts."Fools though many of them may be, they FIGHT. I'm not referring to their spitting on Representative Cleaver of Missouri; that was a big-time public relations debacle. When they called Barney Frank a "fag," you knew right away they made a serious error, requiring major damage-control. What I'm talking about is the very significant impact they've made during the last year on public opinion, particularly on the fence-sitters. Basically, Tea Baggers are active and mobilized, unlike many, many progressives who seem to conclude that "Obama is President now, we can indulge ourselves a little." Right now, I see much more indolence, passivity and indifference among (interestingly) both liberals and leftists than I do on the "right side of the dial." At least when it comes to getting the message out, on places besides Facebook.

It's tough, but with a tenacious, relentless and sophisticated approach, it can be accomplished. Every time I see right-wing yahoos getting away unchallenged after uttering absurdities (like calling Obama a "Socialist") there is no doubt in my mind that honest and informed people aren't doing their "job." Shame on us if we let them spread the Big Lie unopposed, when we are perfectly capable of effectively, accurately contradicting them. I'll shut up now and include these sentiments of mine in a letter to the editor of a reactionary-leaning newspaper. May the Infowar continue unabated!!!

On "Obamacare."

If the "Free Marketeers" had their way, we'd have the kind of situation that prevailed under the notorious Sulla in ancient Rome. That very sullen Roman set up a fire brigade of his own, a private venture. When a tenement caught fire, his minions would race to the scene. Then heated (pun intended) negotiations would ensue - under conditions of obvious duress - with the building's owner. A price would be agreed upon for services rendered, usually resulting in Sulla's taking possession of the property. That is, if the negotiations were carried out to completion before the building burned to the ground. With our present system of "Socialized" urban fire-fighting, this approach is not permitted. I think that's for the best. Don't most of you, even the "Free Market" fanatics among you, agree?

Suffice to say that if the precious private-enterprise system were the appropriate means of providing affordable, effective, high-quality health insurance to the majority of the people, we wouldn't have more than 45 million uninsured Americans in the first place! Corporate health insurance cartels have had half a century and more to prove they can do the job; they have failed miserably. Thousands have died waiting in vain for the life-or-death assistance the Humanas and Blue Crosses too often fail to provide. In fact, the Institute of Medicine reports that lack of health insurance causes approximately 18,000 avoidable deaths every year in the United States. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the overall outcome for health care in this nation ranks 37th world-wide, just behind Costa Rica. Costa Rica, a poor country which happens to have government-run health care!

In Britain, home to the much maligned National Health Service (NHS) the average British Subject lives three years longer than the average American Citizen! Companies like United Health Care have made untold billions while sending out letter after letter denying coverage based on "pre-existing conditions." The prohibition of this kind of corporate-imposed death penalty by these venal and greedy companies is just one reason that passage of the dreaded "Obamacare" is, by and large, a good thing. Fact is, under the "Free Market's" stewardship, a majority of all personal bankruptcies in the United States today result directly from unpaid medical bills; yet another reason to rejoice over the beginning of the end of corporate insurance's stranglehold.

"I don't EVER want my taxes raised."

I don't EVER want my taxes raised. Let the roads build and fix themselves. Let the sewage treatment facilities take up a collection in local churches. Let the wounded veterans fend for themselves. Make the irresponsible school children pay all the costs. Let those gold-bricking Medicare seniors march out onto the ice and end it quickly. Let the garbage piled alongside NYC sidewalks collect itself. The snow that piles up on city streets and county roads will melt, eventually. Duh

More kvetching on Heath Care Reform

The situation is discouraging. "Our side," for complicated reasons, isn't getting out there in significant numbers. Hasn't really, since many thousands of Obama's supporters rejoiced on The Mall in DC on election night 2008. And the MILLIONS who showed up for his inauguration the following January. I think it has to do partially with what a friend of mine recently said - "Among Amerikans, hope has been mostly killed." There's also very much plain old complacency on the part of a lot of progressives now that Barack Obama is President.

The only thing I would admire the "Tea Baggers" for would be the impressive turnout for their rallies last year, despite the fact their movement is filled to the brim with imbeciles. But I know better. Fact is, it's a lot easier to produce massive rallies when you have Dick Armey's "Freedom Works" providing literally millions of dollars. For buses, for telephone lines, for all sorts of costs incurred when you organize masses of idiots who can't even coherently express their "views."

Obama tries to speak sensibly to the Republicans

Saw a bit of today's White House Health Summit on the PBS News Hour. I wish I had CSPAN so I could have spent the whole day watching. Not really, it was enough to hear John McCain whining about who said what during the 2008 election. Also annoying to hear John Boehner go off into the deep end, into his usual bullshit talking points. Was pleased, though, that Obama was in fine form, and didn't miss a beat. I think the Dems are starting to get it at last; if they don't obtain a political brain, if they don't serve their constituency, they stand to lose the loyalty of their base. You know, people like me. Hell, I'm not reflexively loyal to the Donkeys, but I sure voted for Obie, and today I finally know why. He's good when he's at his best. As he was today, when he took on the Elephants with one brain tied behind his back.

But getting back on track, let's take note of a well known fact. When pollsters ask the right questions, they elicit interesting answers. Such as the fact that a majority in the United States actually favors a government-run health-care system, more or less along the lines of Medicare.

http://www.healthcare-now.org/another-poll-shows-majority-support-for-single-payer/

Common Cause

It's interesting to consider some of the "Tea-baggers'" grievances. I share some of the outrage. It's difficult for me as well to accept the $180 billion A.I.G. bail-out. Of course the public was scared silly that if they didn't go along, they wouldn't get along. But when the question arises as to what should be done to remedy the ills of "Capital," that is where I part company with the extreme Free-Marketeers. Maybe there is some grounds for common cause in the midst of the present "polarization?" After all, 80% of the American pubic weighed in recently against the Supreme Court's "Citizens United V. FEC" decision. Turns out most Americans, across a wide spectrum, still don't want the largest corporations to run EVERYTHING.

Abraham Linkster

Hard for me to believe Abe Lincoln existed long ago and far away in a dark dingy past that impresses me the same way all 19th century events do - odd, dreary, impossibly recent/ancient happenings in a dull-imagined black & white daguerreotype delusion...

Impeach John Roberts

John Roberts should be impeached. We cannot tolerate a Chief Justice who “validates” the absurd, self-serving, pathological and destructive notion of “Corporate Personhood.” A Supreme Corporate Court that eliminates the minimal existing limitations on corporate campaign donations is an abomination. This despicable ruling allows massive, obscenely wealthy institutions like Exxon-Mobil or Microsoft to exercise unlimited influence in Congress. Or the Executive. Or any other aspect of the American political process.

Any “reasoning,” to the effect that these often monstrous entities are simply composed of numerous individuals is transparently specious. Sure, a few individuals, like New York Mayor and media mogul Bloomberg, Microsoft honcho Bill Gates, and currency-trader/political activist/”philanthropist” George Soros have the kind of megabucks it takes to game the system. But financial behemoths who can assume the role of big-time players are the exception, not the rule. I haven’t that kind of money, power and influence; neither do most of you reading this, unless you’re a lot wealthier than anyone ever imagined.

Thanks to this Court’s disgusting ruling, which conservatives salivate over, the impending mid-term congressional elections promise to be more compromised than ever. We can expect the airwaves to become absolutely flooded with advertisements, bought by the highest bidders. This socio-economic arrangement, which neocons label “Freedom” is really the economic analog of a political philosophy known as Fascism. It’s corporate hegemony at its worst, where one can have just as much “democracy” as one can purchase! The situation here in the United States is now doomed to become yet more pyramidal, more hierarchical, with the huge money interests running ever more rampant in their insatiable quest to control EVERYTHING. To OWN people, places and things. To patent living creatures. To destroy the environment to an extent that will make the Exxon Valdez spill or the Three Mile Island Meltdown look like minor glitches.

In general, it’s time to ABOLISH once and for all the absurd and twisted notion that corporations are persons! If that were true, and they ARE homo-sapiens, when can we “arrest” Goldman-Sachs for embezzlement or jaywalking? Better yet, when can we sentence AIG to death for massive fraud and for “his” role in bringing on the current global recession?

Relative Costs

I love all the complaints about Wisconsin Governor Doyle, President Obama and other Democrats getting us into debt. Not surprising there is no mention about the debt resulting from the Iraq war. Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel prize-winning economist has calculated that Bush's disastrous and illegal aggression will end up costing US taxpayers between 3-4 TRILLION dollars. The neocons hid a lot of the real cost by funding that war "off the books." Where were all the Tea Baggers when they had a chance to oppose that colossal expenditure back in 2002-2003? Notably silent, that's where. By the way, the deficit during George W. Bush's last year in office was just a little less than the $1.6 trillion deficit for this fiscal year. Barack Obama's administration has actually inherited some of this red tape from the catastrophic "Bush Administration." But I digress. And I don't excuse Obama from charges of reckless spending; this years Penatgon budget weighs in at a whopping $708 billion. What a waste! What a travesty!

As far as the high-speed rail project is concerned, the projected cost will be a little more than $800 million. About a third of the cost of the 894/Zoo Freeway reconstruction in Milwaukee. The price tag for that boondoggle, to use the language of the high speed naysayers, is projected to be $2.3 billion, according to a 2009 report in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. But I suppose endless subsidies for the construction and oil industries don't count as a waste of the taxpayers' money, eh? Even though all these freeways will have to be rebuilt in what, 15 years?

At least the high speed rail project is intended to serve a useful purpose and will create some jobs. In that respect, it's quite different from massively exorbitant wars waged endlessly by Republicans and Democrats. And if some of the automobile-addicted public in this region would have the decency to ride the train instead of drive themselves to distraction every time they travel to Milwaukee or Chicago, there would be a lot less need for subsidies of any kind.

What's worse?

Now you tell me, folks - what was worse, Clinton getting a blow job or Clinton illegally bombing Serbia and Kosovo? I suppose I shouldn't even bother to mention that unmentionable murderer, George W Bush. What about all the unprovoked Burning Down the World he enjoyed doing in your name and using $3-4 trillion of your (our) tax dollars? I tried to STOP the Gulf War, The "drive-by wars" of Bill Clinton, and the "Shock & Awe" of Herr W. Don't like Obama's recent escalation in Afghanistan, either. Our government has (borrowed from foreign banks and) spent a mere $100 million on emergency relief for Haiti in the wake of the quake. That's less than 1% of the cost of sending the latest 30,000 cannon-fodder troops to Afghanistan, at a cost of one million dollars annually per soldier. At least 60% of all discretionary spending in the US is devoted to the Pentagon!

It's the "system," man. Woman. Read Dwight D. Eisenhower's January 17, 1961 Farewell Speech, warning the US and the world of the dangers of the Military-Industrial Complex. Watch and listen to it online if you prefer; it's remarkable. Watch Errol Morris' "The Fog of War," where Morris interviews JFK's and LBJ's War Secretary Robert McNamara, who, throughout the course of the film, expounds upon 11 lessons about war he learned (too late) during his sordid career. McNamara says, "The human race needs to think more about killing." Amen, Robert.

A wise man once said - don't remember if it was Jesus, Ghandi or Martin Luther King Jr. - that "we need to find a better way to settle differences between peoples than war." Now I am not a total pacifist; I believe Hitler, for example, could only be defeated by force of arms. But this nation hasn't DECLARED war since December 1941. That should be a required precondition of the United States before it attacks another country. The spineless Congress, to whom the Constitution assigns the responsibility for initiating armed intervention, has left this to a series of increasingly aggressive and opportunistic "Executive Presidents."We have so much work to do yet before our empire collapses, just like Imperial Rome, and for pretty much exactly the same reasons.

Wrote this to the State Journal Sunday, January 31, 2010:
Dear Editor: I was extremely satisfied with your editorial of Sunday, January 30, titled: "All abord to help rail roll." Regardless of where a possible Madison staion is located, High-Speed rail in the upper Mid-West would be a good thing on many levels. I personally would prefer, for convenience' sake, a terminal on East Washington Ave and First Street; but even if the station is at the Dane County Regional Airport only, I want to see this vital infrastructure constructed.

I am very irritated when I read about Republicans like Alberta Darling casting aspersions upon this excellent idea. Pandering to the tea-bagger crowd, Darling complains about the necessary expenditure; she knows quite well the private sector isn't going to provide jobs like these, not without active governmental support. Did Alberta Darling ever complain about the cost of the I-894 Zoo interchange project in Milwaukee? The price-tag for that reconstruction will be more than $400,000,000. The Republican state senator from River Hills just obstructs, to the detriment of her own constituents and the entire region. Let's roll!

Bush's Lap Dog is not properly contrite!

There's nothing like defending the indefensible. On false pretexts, Bush and his poodle Blair launched a completely illegal, unjustified aggression. The damage from which is not yet over.
The article says: "Many British critics also assailed Mr. Blair for what they depicted as his slavish support of Mr. Bush, who, unlike the British leader, has not been called to account publicly for his decisions."
As if either of these turkeys has really been held accountable for:
1,000,000+ Iraqi Deaths
4000+ American deaths
179 British fatalities
Three -Four trillion dollars wasted
And more heartbreak than anyone can even imagine:

Citing 9/11, Blair Defends Legacy at Iraq Inquiry - NYTimes.com

www.nytimes.com