9/11/01 - The Day America Gave Its Soul to The Fox

Sunday, September 11, 2011 - ten years later - was a day of reflection, if you believe everything you saw on television. The day was all about the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Flight 93. The day certainly gave me a lot to think about, from the moving ceremony at Ground Zero to the 60 Minute interview with FBI Agent Ali Soufan, who interrogated Al Qaeda operatives (Frontline did an excellent job documenting Soufan's activities), to the documentary "9/11" hosted by Robert Di Niro about Engine #7, Ladder 1, a New York Fire Department response team just down the street from the World Trade Center, to the interviews with the 9/11 victims to the huge growth of America's Top Secret Security apparatus since 9/11, a thousand fold increase that now spies on its own citizens. Not all 9/11 victims died in the World Trade Center. Some were victims of the instant mood of the day; the national cry for vengeance, the dose of uber-patriotism - "the day the gloves came off," Cofer Black said. Cofer Black was "The" guy who sold Congress and the Bush Administration the "New" CIA war plan back then. He was in the right place at the right time with a plan, right or wrong, and America followed him to war. Well... there were a lot of people in the Bush Administration who already had war on their minds, especially war with Iraq. It was just a minor detail that Al Qaeda was in Afghanistan and not in Iraq, a detail that could be revised, repackaged and sold to fit the Bush agenda - even if it was a lie - especially after 9/11 finally set America's state of mind. The Iraqi War was a "product" and Bush put it on display. It is ironic that the Christian Evangelicals, one of which President Bush claimed to be, were so ready to go to war. It is ironic that, from their own behavior and speech, the God they claimed to represent mercy and justice became a God of War and injustice. After 9/11, America didn't care who it attacked, as long as the target could be even remotely connected to the Muslim extremists. The Christian Charismatic churches cheered - the end of days were near, the final war had begun. The War on Terror began - against Muslims, no matter who said it wasn't.

Two of my brother's grandchildren were born only a few weeks around the 9/11 attack. He reflected on the ten year anniversary, "What kind of world had my new grandchildren been born into?" What kind of world indeed? I would say a world of war, and this time it's different. They are ten years old and they've already been indoctrinated, in spite of anything my brother did himself, into the new America, an America with the "gloves off." They've heard the uber-patriotic ads on television and at movies about the glory of joining the National Guard, Army, Marine Corps and, although less so, the Navy and Air Force. They've heard to heroic deeds of Navy Seal Team Six who, in the dark of night and in a hostile country, killed Osama bin Laden. These are the paths to heroic deeds. They've never heard anything else. They've heard "God Bless America" so many times that they believe it's true. They will hear, if they haven't already, that "collateral damage" that kills a hundred thousand innocent Muslims is okay, and even willed by God. They will learn that torture is called "enhanced interrogation" and is necessary to find the truth, even though it never has. They may even get a daily dose of how God is on the side of our warriors, because the words "warrior" and "God" are used together more today than in the lifetime of their grandparents since World War II, if they were used as frequently in that war. The video games they see advertised, even if they don't play them, are mostly war games. Even churches build war game-rooms to attract new young members. Selling the American warrior is a big business.

By the time those children are eighteen, only eight years away, they will have been fully indoctrinated in the ways of war. We, America, may still be at war at that time, because Afghanistan is not a war we can end, even though it is identical to Vietnam, a war we did finally end by of overwhelming opinion against it. Nor will those children know any other economic system than one which gives unreasonably low wages to labor and extraordinarily high incomes to those lucky few to become industry leaders; the "trickle down free market" system. It is God's economic system, it is the system of "freedom." We've been told that for forty years. They will accept the fact that if they don't make it out of the lowly labor force, well - that's tough. They will believe that it is God's will that they are poor while other's have been given the blessing of the gospel of prosperity. That is the new religion that they will believe has been gospel forever. It hasn't been.

The above paints a picture of indoctrination, and I guess one might think that it began relatively recently, but it began a long time ago. This latest cycle, if I could point to a specific time, began in the 50s and 60s, with the rise of the New Conservatives, the neo-conservatives. Originally, Irving Kristol, the "father of new conservatism," was a Marxist, specifically a Trotskyist, and a liberal intellectual, but that changed under President Lyndon Johnson. Kristol's neocons liked Johnson's war against communism, especially in Vietnam, but they did not like his "Great Society" of welfare, so Kristol led his growing following to the Republican Party to support Senator Bary Goldwater's Cold War against communism. As a student of philosophy, he brought with him a philosophical principles that make me cringe.

"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." Abraham Lincoln said that. He should have added, "but, you can fool enough of the people all of the time." All it takes is "enough" of the people to gain power. Kristol knew this as did many of his closest followers, who later became the leaders of neo-conservatism. They preferred the political realism of Machiavelli, who principally said that anything goes in grabbing power; the goal is more important than the means used to get there, and the goal, even back in Irving's day, was to once and for all grab the ultimate power in the United States and keep it. People like Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Richard Pearle, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, all key players in Bush's Iraq invasion. Kristol particularly liked a Chicago University Professor/Philosopher, Leo Strauss. He integrated Strauss' philosophy into the New Conservative movement. Strauss believed, like Machiavelli, and taught that "fooling the people" was appropriate to gain power, and he especially believed that religion could be used as a tool to fool people into supporting a political agenda even when the agenda was against the best interest of the people. Religion, Strauss said, was a useful myth. Another neocon who joined Cheney and Rumsfeld in the Nixon White House was Roger Ailes, who is now the Chairman of Fox Television Stations Group and runs Fox News Corp. Ailes was the media consultant to Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, G. H. Bush and Rudy Giuliani. It was Ailes who saw the benefit of political party-media coalitions and propaganda in keeping a party in power and using the media, slyly designed advertising and outright propaganda to persuade a public to keep a political party in power.

And so the die is cast. My brother's grandchildren will hear it everyday, as many other children will and have, perhaps not directly from their grandparents, but in school, or maybe a teacher, or an aunt or uncle or their own parents. There is a teacher in South Gibson High School who regularly distributes anti-Obama, ultra Right Wing, Republican and racist emails to his list almost daily. That teacher will teach his hate and lies. They will not know that the government does good things because they hear that the government "is the problem." They will believe that all Muslims are evil. They hear angry slurs, curses, rumors and innuendo against President Obama, who really doesn't deserve the slurs and who, in fact, has followed more of a Republican agenda than he has a liberal left agenda. He is a good man. He is, in fact, a Christian man, but they will believe that he is a Muslim. They will not know that Bush's wars were illegal and unjust wars or that Bush is more likely a war criminal than not. Nobody told them that. How could they know? They live in a comfortable and secure home. They do not know how close they live to poverty caused by the deregulation, war and militaristic policies of the Right that slowly decayed the heart of a country since Ronald Reagan. They will never know that what they've seen and heard from the Right-Wing is more fascist than American democracy.

Congressman Ron Paul is more right than wrong when he said that the 9/11 attack is a result of three decades, and probably longer, of misdirected American foreign policies. We've been led down a road of force diplomacy rather than peace diplomacy. It is all documented on the website of the Project for New American Century, the website of the neo-conservatives, above. It is one of fear and of projecting America's military force to spread America's morality, system of government and its economic hegemony. But, Ron Paul was met with a yelling mob when he suggested that America may be partly at fault for the 9/11 attack as much as it was the hate of Muslim extremists. The yelling mob proves more that the indoctrination is successful than it proves any knowledge of truth by the citizenry.

So, ten years later, Americans have been indoctrinated very successfully. Most citizens hate Muslims - all of them. Most citizens glorify American warriors and reject any idea that their own children are being sacrificed or scared for life or destined to live a life with disabilities. We turn our back on anyone complaining, legitimately, of war-caused bodily or psychological wounds. Complainers are un-American. Suck it up and live with it, is the message. God is a war god and we lack faith if we question that idea. "Get a job!"  we scream at the unemployed, even though there are no jobs. Suddenly, the unemployed are freeloaders. Suddenly, the poor who have no place to turn are freeloaders if they take welfare. They should get a job or starve, we're told. Actually, none of these things happened "suddenly." It has been a gradual indoctrination, a brainwashing, in all aspects of American life, even religion. A preacher, Jerry Falwell, who was once thought to be a radical has become mainstream. He founded a university that teaches his particular religious beliefs and a number of Liberty University law students became district attorneys across the country. Publishing companies owned by Falwell, and other equally radical Christian organizations and preachers, now distribute their particularly radical beliefs to churches for Sunday School or the prepared text for the pastor's Sunday Sermon and even so-called "Christian" home-schooling. These companies even publish school books and many states now incorporate religious ideology in public school books.

America's indoctrination is nearly complete, if not fully complete. Now, all that's needed is maintenance, such as making sure new generations are brainwashed for the future, sort of like Hitler's youth programs that turned children against their own parents; country before family. It is all so easy. The truth is that 9/11 was the day that America turned it's back, a slow turn to be sure, on all of our compassionate and democratic beliefs. It was the day that we gave up freedom for security. It was the day that we became afraid. It was the day that we completed the Right Wing agenda and turned our back on God.

Dave

Gimme That Old Time Religion, err, Rick Perry?

I remember those days when we sang that song in church back when we all went to The General Baptist Church. "Gemme that old time religion" everyone belted out like it was their last chance for Heaven. I gave it a try, too. I also remember that we sang it one time when a tent revival came to town. I believe it was the opening song. It could have been the closing song, too. A huge tent, it seemed to me way back then, was erected where the water works and fire station is now. It seemed to me that we spent an eternity listening to that revival preacher. He was a long-winded guy, but I don't recall the sermon. Dad thought he was nuts. Mom and Grandma thought he was God-sent to Owensville; the answer to everyone's prayers. Everything was going to get better! Grandma's health problems, Mom's health problems and, finally, Dad would see the light; the same light, by the way, that Grandma saw - and on her terms. Grandma was a bit vengeful, especially when the Lord wasn't doing His job to suit her. She liked the idea of taking things into her own hands if she could. But, knowing Dad, it would be a cold day in Hell for him to ever agree with Grandma! In retrospect, I don't think Dad liked grand public displays of religion or the idea of running to God every time he had a problem, like Grandma did. She evaded responsibility for her own actions in that manner.

That's not saying that Dad wasn't a spiritual person, because he was. But, too much shouting, wailing and "Hallelujah!" and "Praise the Lord!" so that everyone in town heard, so to not mistake your faith and conviction, turned him off. I wonder what Dad would have thought if that preacher was running for President? It could be that Dad impressed on me, way back then, to take most preachers, especially those who shout the loudest, have the biggest mega-church along with a grandiose and rich life style and who claim to know what God does, says, wants, likes and favors, with a healthy dose of salt and a great deal of skepticism. They have, in most cases, a captive audience that they flimflam all the way to the bank.

Rick Perry is a revival preacher, as far as I'm concerned, and he is extremely good at flimflamming. He IS a state governor, which means that he convinced, which is to say flimflammed, over 50% of Texans to vote for him, astonishingly not once but three times, the longest Texas Governor to hold that office, and those same Texans had to have overlooked in all three elections all of his petty little deals, his disregard for human suffering and his unapologetic and blatant misuse of his office and taxes for his own personal use and for his cronies and, of course, his lies! The facts behind his governorship make me wonder "What the hell is going on in Texas?!" But, it isn't only in Texas. Grandma's type of religious fundamentalism appears to be spreading to all states, and that is a dangerous sign. It could mean that Perry will be our President simply because he drops God's name. That thought gives me the willies.

Grandma would have liked Rick Perry. They are alike in some respects. Perry appears to believe that God takes vengeance occasionally for the wrongs perpetrated by mankind and Grandma would have certainly agreed with that. In fact, I'm ninety-nine percent sure she would say that God is causing the drought in Texas and she would be on the stage praying for rain, right along with Perry. Grandma would have made a good Texan.

She would also like Perry in regards to his brand of criminal justice. During Perry's tenure as governor, Texas' notoriety for convicting innocent people has exploded to national fame and it is the most likely state to use the death penalty. Every year there is a Texan convict who has been exonerated because they were innocent and, in each case, Governor Perry appears to object to their release or he fights against each claim of innocence beyond any sense of reason. Grandma would have yelled, "If he's innocent, then why was he arrested?" Grandma didn't need a court trial to prove a person's guilt. That sounds a lot like Perry's response when he was asked why he didn't review the famous Cameron Tod Willingham case. Perry is reported to have said, "He's a bad man. He even cursed at his wife!" as if that was sufficient enough to show that Willingham was guilty and deserved his death sentence. Of course, that didn't answer why an expert hired by the Texas Forensic Science Commission disputed the arson claim by the small-town Corsicana, Texas Fire Department. The expert analysis reported that the fire that convicted Willingham of arson-murder was, in fact, an accidental electrical fire. It wasn't Willingham's fault at all. But, in Corsicana, Willingham didn't have a chance. After all, the Fire Inspector there, a guy with little education and training, with only a high school diploma, like Grandma, firmly believed that eighty to ninety percent of all fires were arson. Nobody stopped to think that that might be a bit high. In fact, Corsicana has more fires started by arson, according to the Corsicana Fire Inspector, than any community in the nation. The documentary showed many interviews with town citizens that reminded me a lot of Grandma, people who had no idea of the facts in the case, but nevertheless believed, beyond any doubt, that Willingham was guilty as hell and deserved to die.

Grandma experienced a murder trial in 1955-56 that she thought was a waste of time; the trial of Leslie Irvin, the "Mad Dog Killer." Dad was sequestered with the jury in a Princeton hotel for the duration of the trial, so we, Mom, Jean, Dan and I, stayed with Granddad and Grandma while he did his jury duty. I recall a couple of visits to Princeton to see Dad, although I don't recall who took us. On each visit we waited outside the hotel in the car and Dad would finally come out, give all of us a hug, and talk a few minutes to Mom, and then we'd go home. "I don't know why Wayne has to waste time on that jury," Grandma would rant. "That Irvin is a killer. They don't need to go through all that rigmarole to figure that out!" As I recall, Grandma didn't shut up about that for the entire trip to Princeton and back and continued until bedtime. The "rigmarole" of course was the trial. My niece reminded me that Irvin escaped the county jail while awaiting trial. Everyone in the county locked their doors while he was on the loose, including Grandma. His trial resulted in a death penalty sentence, but that was overturned by the Supreme Court because it decided that Irvin could not have received a fair trial because of all of the publicity. He was given a life sentence instead. Grandma would have been very upset by that decision. I got the impression that she didn't really believe in a fair trial if it interfered with vengeance or her idea of justice.

Of course, I now see Grandma's faults in regards to her version of justice, and I also think I see how she influenced me, adding to the baggage that I've carried all of these years and, hopefully, tossed out completely or modified to a more thoughtful fairness. But, back then I loved Grandma. She made the best corn patties, that I called corn cakes back then. After Granddad died and she moved closer, I dropped in on her fairly frequently. She would cook corn cakes and spinach or green beans or some other vegetable, and we would eat and she would read the Bible to me. She always read the story of David and Goliath, which made it my favorite Bible story in my youth, and I never tired of hearing it. But, now I think Grandma was a very poor voter and citizen. She really had no idea, nor could she ever be convinced to change her mind, about the basic fairness that founded the United States of America. Neither does Perry. Perry sees the government as a Goliath that needs to be killed. I see him as Goliath that needs to be stopped.

I'm going to keep an eye on Perry and speak up whenever I get the chance. I'm adding a new blog to my list of blogs to keep better track of his shenanigans, the Washington Spectator Blog by Lou Dubose. I heard Mr. Dubose on the radio recently and he made a lot of sense and he seems to be on top of all of Perry's nonsense. We all need to be alert that Grandma's ignorance doesn't spread or we could end up with President Perry. That would be a disaster.

Dave

The Standard and The Poor's

In spite of being told to take up knitting, I just can't help saying something about Standard & Poor's downgrade of U. S. credit. It downgraded the United States' credit rating from AAA to AA+, which is to say that it wasn't much. U. S. Treasury Bonds are still "investment grade" investments. From all the hype, you'd think the downgrade is a disaster. I thought so too initially. Who do they think they are? The S&P was one of those companies that inflated the grades on all of those collateral debt obligations (CDOs) mortgage bond derivatives that caused the mortgage loan bubble that burst in 2007 and crashed the U. S. economy. And, they inflated the CDO ratings for money and to get more market share of the rating business; they earned a fee for rating those CDOs that made it easier for the big banks like Goldman Sachs to sell them to unsuspecting investors. Goldman Sachs would not do business unless they got the high ratings and S&P's greed wanted the big fees so their own stock price would rise and they could pay big bonuses to their execs just like all of those other fat cats on Wall Street.

So, yes, who the hell do they think they are to downgrade the US credit? And, to top it off, they made a $2 trillion mistake when calculating the downgrade! $2 trillion! A mistake that if corrected favored a higher rating, not a lower one. But, they did it anyway. How can a few analysts make a $2 trillion mistake? That ought to stand out like gouty toe!

But, after thinking about it, maybe this is what we need. Maybe we need someone like the S&P to say, "get it together!" and to put a crimp in our ability to borrow money. We are IN DEBT! And we owe more that we make. We hear a lot of noise to run our country like a business, especially from Republicans running for president and those in Congress. Perhaps we should run it like a business. After all, if we look at the U.S. as a company, it would be a publicly owned company and we do own stock in it through the Treasury Bonds we buy and taxes we pay that return payment in interest and services, respectively. After the downgrade, the interest on Treasury Bonds should go up, but that may, and more than likely, mean higher taxes to pay the interest. We will pay more taxes if a couple of things don't happen anyway.

One thing that has to happen is that the U.S. has to get more revenue, right along with cutting expenses (spending). And, it would help a great deal if the revenue was more than expenses, like we had back in 2000 before Dubya gave it away or spent it. The Republicans believe that raising the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is the way to raise revenue for the country, instead of raising taxes. That means that "The People" need to be employed, circulate money in their communities, spend money in stores, buy cars, buy homes, build homes, buy farm equipment and be good obedient consumers. Companies need to sell things. When all of that happens, then the GDP and economy engine hums along like a finely tuned clock. The caveat on all of that, however, is that unemployment needs to be minimal and that "The People" need to have living wages they can spend. If that is not the case, then the GDP/economy engine sputters and stops. I'd say that "sputter and stop" situation is pretty much where we are now. Unemployment is high and wages have been going down for years. And, the fact that wages have been going down caused a lot of borrowing by consumers that, in the end, just made matters worse. Too much consumer debt.

"The People" have stopped spending because, 1) they don't make enough, if they have a job, and 2) they still owe on the debt they've accumulated in the past. The unemployed, obviously, have nothing but an unemployment check, if they get that at all. They do spend it, but it's not nearly enough. Ninety percent of Americans have very little to spend primarily because money doesn't circulate to them and through their communities. The wealth that could circulate is held by the top one percent who owns approximately fifty percent of America. That's "The Gap" between the wealthy and middle-class or the less fortunate, the inequality gap.

Milton Friedman, a Nobel Prize winning economist, suggested the "trickle down" free market, deregulation economic theory in the 1960s that became popular when he was an adviser to President Reagan in the 80s and is now the religion of Republicans and Libertarians. He was big on accumulating wealth, no taxes on the rich and no inheritance tax and said that raising wages didn't really lead to increase production or consumption nor provide a better life for the wage earner. Supply-side economics, he said, drove the economic engine, not consumer buying. In other words, build it and they will come, even if they are broke I presume. I guess that works only up to a point before consumer credit runs out. Friedman is an impatient guy when his theory is questioned, as in the documentary "The One Percent" that can be seen on YouTube in eight segments. He was, during Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal time, a John Maynard Keynes follower, until he wasn't. He then refuted Keynesian economics with his trickle down theory to win the Nobel Prize and he is absolutely persuaded that he is right and the Republican/Libertarian philosophy is his legacy. Ironically, he said, "The most harm of all is done when power is in the hands of people who are absolutely convinced of the purity of their intentions." He also frequently quotes the old adage, "The road to hell is paved with people with good intentions." Of course you could say that of both sides of the coin, but since it is his philosophy that is primarily the source of our current economic problems, perhaps he shouldn't be so certain. His philosophy seems to work fine in good times, but utterly fails in bad times. I suspect that there is a middle way. Maybe it is the extremes that we need to stay away from.

I probably wouldn't have a problem with Friedman's theory of letting the chips fall where they may if those people less fortunate had a way to be involved in their own destiny. More often than not, they don't. They work for a non-living wage that does not provide enough to save for hard times or retirement. The mysteries of investing are mostly too complicated for the average educated person, and frequently for the well educated person, and programs like Social Security, that Friedman despises, become the best investment most people make in their lives. You have to wonder what would be if those social programs did not exist. Would we be more self-sufficient and more responsible for our own destiny, like Friedman claims, when volatile markets win and lose fortunes on the turn of a dime? I doubt it. Friedman also said, "Morally bad power triumphs over good intentions." That means that powerful greedy people can destroy the good intentions of people saving for self-sufficiency. "Oh well," he would say, "that's the breaks."

Supply-side doesn't work because it doesn't depend on true demand, demand that stems from what you and I, as consumers, really want. Supply-side is driven entirely by marketing; marketing that creates demand and creates a need that you and I only think we want. It just so happens that Professor David Kaiser, who writes a blog I read, wrote something about that apparently a few minutes ago. Just when I was about to finish this and publish it, I read Professor Kaiser's blog and Lo and Behold, he must be thinking my thoughts, but better. Read his blog here.

So, maybe a downgrade is a good idea to wake us up. Alan Greenspan, once an ardent Friedman disciple, appears to have changed his mind about a Friedman's "self regulating" market a little, and Ben Bernanke, Fed Chairman, has also changed is mind about the so-called Friedman free market. Perhaps even the Republican Congress will change its mind. Maybe we'll get a tempered approach that will reform us out of debt, bring in enough revenue, hopefully more from the rich than the middle-class and poor, and cut spending to make government better so that everyone is happy. I'm not holding my breath, though.

Maybe we'll have an insurrection, a good old fashion civil war or armed and bloody revolution.

Dave

The Blinding Micro and the Macro of Kindness

Just when I think I have nothing more to say, I'm compelled to say something, probably with no effect but I'll say it anyway. I've just returned from a two week visit to my roots, Owensville, IN, my favorite little town and the best place in the world, at a time when the country is torn between a factious Right-Wing Republican uprising and, in my opinion, common sense. We all watched a divided congress and entrenched factions fight to the bitter end over the debt ceiling and deficit spending. And, through it all I continued to search for a reason that some people follow the extreme right and vote Republican. It made no sense to me that a small faction, claimed by some congressmen to be the Tea Party, would jeopardize our national economy for the sake of their own political beliefs, such as adamantly voting against any hint of the rich or corporations paying more taxes even if the United States defaulted. The Bill they passed promised cuts in services, a trigger for the Bush tax cuts to expire if a super committee didn't find more cuts, and more cuts. I wonder.

Why adamantly hold to ideological beliefs when such devastating results hang in the balance? And, even more perplexing is that some I talked to actually wanted America to default, a sort of "that'll teach 'em" attitude. It seemed to me that they are like drug addicts, that they won't realize how wrong they are until they hit absolute bottom, when unemployment and poverty levels have doubled and we have fallen back into recession, and only then admit that they were wrong. But, after talking and listening, I doubt that they will ever admit to mistaken beliefs. They will never see the connection between their vote and bad policy. They will never see that they bear a great deal of responsibility for the condition the country is in. A Republican vote is a vote for a philosophy that leads to failure. How did that happen?

My answer is that there is a deliberate effort to confuse and mislead us and to hide the forest from us with trees, the trees of those micro details that make us angry, the micro minutia that consumes media attention 24/7 and the horde of opinionated talking heads arguing simply for higher television ratings. Most of the so-called issues, the minutia, are generated by political ads designed to curry our favor for the sole purpose to gain power and nothing else. The ultra-right wing is more successful, so far, in framing and leading the discussion, and it is winning. We are inundated with its misleading political ads and media hype over small issues and it is those small details we argue over instead of standing back and taking a look at the larger picture. We've lost the ability to judge what's good for us; the overall good. Why?

We've forgotten our grounding philosophy, or at least it doesn't come to the surface of our conscious mind from its deeply buried subconscious place. It is buried in our subconscious beneath layers and layers, tons and tons, of minutia; the micro details inundating us every day. If there is a word that describes the founding principle of our nation and constitution, I would say that word is "kindness." It seems to me that that word is at the bottom of the thoughts and ideas of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and all of the others who participated in the first days of the United States. It seems a coincidence that I'm reading at the moment, "Examined Lives," by Jim Miller, that examines the lives of philosophers from Socrates to Nietzsche. I haven't finished the book, but one small sentence hit me like a brick from the start. Miller says that all of them actively searched for a "philosophy to live by." To live by! If there is one thing I would like to have been told in my youth, it would have been to have heard Dad say to me, "David, find yourself a philosophy to live by." The fact is that if he had said it, and if I had listened, I would have known immediately what that philosophy would have been: Kindness. It was ingrained in my upbringing by him and my family, from the church I attended, from the town I lived in and from the friends I had. I couldn't have escaped it. I think this is true of everyone I know. But, people don't think out loud about the philosophy they live by and they don't evaluate what they are voting for to any great depth; they jump on the first band wagon because their friends did, or vote for a candidate's minor promise and overlook the candidate's philosophy, or agree with a political commentator without a great deal of thought, jumping to conclusions because it sounds right.

Back in the days of President Johnson, a movement against the "Great Society" grew primarily under Irving Kristol's leadership. From all accounts that I've read, Kristol saw a way to gain power by following an idea suggested by Leo Strauss, a philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago. Strauss suggested that it is critical, for those who want to stay in power or to gain power, to perpetually deceive the people; to lie to them. Strauss suggested that it is "strong leadership" to tell the people what's good for them, whether it is or not and even if it's a lie, to get their support. Strauss said that the objective is to gain power by any means. Strauss was not a liberal democrat, nor for liberal democracy. He appears to have been a socialist, more inclined to Leninism and Communism. But, it was the movement against Johnson's Great Society that gave the Republicans, the neo-conservatives, their way back to power. They were effective under Reagan, Bush I and more so under Bush II. And along the way, they gave welfare a bad name. Republicans are against welfare.

Welfare is a good example of our (the royal "our" for all of us) inability to evaluate a kindness; the overall good of a program. I heard a spin on welfare that I hadn't heard before while visiting Owensville. The argument was that when the Republicans are in power, we give it away to the rich, and when the Democrats are in power, we give it away to the poor. Where did the idea that we "give it away" to the poor come from? I had never thought of welfare in those terms, a give away, a waste. It was a new spin on welfare to me. Helping the poor was part of my upbringing and I've never thought differently. In fact, I've always considered it a duty.

The main argument is that welfare creates a dependency that becomes a trap that welfare recipients refuse to escape from. They like the free money, so they become complacent, they say, and suck on the welfare teat their entire life. I don't believe that. I believe that that particular perspective is a micro view of welfare and based on a few cases of someone abusing the system or, like President Reagan's non-existent welfare mom, falsely claimed by political ads. I've never met a person abusing the welfare system. I've never spoken to a single person who likes welfare, including welfare recipients. I've never seen a proven, factual case of a welfare mom scamming the system. As far as I know, those exist only in rumor and innuendo. The micro doesn't appear to agree with the macro. I see, instead, a despondent, dejected, dispirited and depressed people with the worst luck, a chronically unemployed people, unable to find work and who seem to lose at every juncture. I don't see a dependent people; I see a depressed people. And they are depressed by the very policies that we vote for. Welfare was changed in the early 1990s by a Newt Gingrich lead Republican Congress and signed by President Clinton who found himself in a similar situation as President Obama is in; forced to accept a Republican Congress' demands or accept nothing at all.

The welfare change was to a so-called welfare-to-work program. The idea was to limit welfare to a definite period during which parents, either husband or wife or both, would receive job training to eventually move off the welfare rolls. Nearly every state has a different plan, with different goals for the program. Usually, if both the husband and wife didn't find a job by the end of the period, say five years, welfare was terminated for the family adults but continued for the sake of the children in the family. There was no other criteria used for terminating the welfare, such as mental ability or disability or local job market. This report suggests that liberal, generous and kind plans with the objective of getting the welfare recipient back on their feet, being a more productive member of society and contributing to the national economy is more successful than a more miserly and chintzy plan where the only objective is to reduce government spending. The report suggests that the so-called dependency argument doesn't hold water, then, and this is a clear distinction between political parties. A Republican's philosophy favors the miserly, chintzy welfare program because they believe that a person should live by their own work, or die, and a Democrat usually favors the more liberal and kind plan because they believe that sometimes other factors force people into welfare situations, such as job availability or economic conditions.

The dependency argument only works at the micro level when you assume that the same person who received welfare this year is the same person who receives welfare next year, that he/she did nothing but sit lazily on the couch, either did not try or did not find work, and was not retrained. But, that's not the case. The welfare rolls stay the same or increase not because those on welfare wanted it, but because the job market failed them or other reasons that we hide our eyes from. In the more successful, liberal plans, the individuals on welfare change constantly, however. On one year but off the next. We can't say that they are dependent on welfare even when the total welfare counts don't seem to change or get lower. Someone very smart said, "there will always be poor." You know who I mean. He also said to always help them. I wonder why we don't believe him?

So, which is good? Which is a kindness? The macro kindness is clearly better. It is clearly a kindness to be more generous and less of a cheapskate in regards to welfare. It is not a "give-away" nor is it a waste. It is a duty. Nor should we care or go into a hyperventilated spasm about how, specifically, a welfare recipient spends what they receive. I've heard some people say with outrage, "they spend it at MacDonalds!" or, "they buy toilet paper with it!" or some other nonsense about what welfare recipients spend the money on. The fact is that once we've done our duty, we should not interfere with how another person manages their lives. They, just like us, must be free to do what they deem best with what they have, even if we don't like it or we question their wisdom, as long as it is legal.

Not only is it a kindness to the recipient of a generous welfare program that favors the recipient first, over government budget cuts, it is also a kindness to tax paying citizens. We tax payers reap the benefit of a person moving off the rolls by their own initiative, becoming a better citizen, of contributing to the national economy, helping the country grow and of becoming a tax payer themselves. The more tax payers there are, the less all of us pay.

If we evaluated policies that cause welfare on the basis of kindness, we would have prevented several policies that create it. NAFTA, for example. NAFTA allowed corporations to move manufacturing and production outside of the United States so that products created by U.S. companies were then imported free of charge under a Free Trade agreement. The Free Trade philosophy is one aspect of the Free Market, Laissez-faire philosophy. This gives corporations full reign to ride roughshod over consumers. NAFTA was the culmination of two or three decades of trying to compete with foreign companies, or so we were told, when "Made in America" became too expensive and "Made in China" meant cheap products (and cheap quality). Outsourcing caught on. The welfare rolls increased. More Americans who could not move to the jobs worked for Walmart and MacDonalds than at skilled labor.

The free trade and free market philosophy was, we were told, the great equalizer, bringing world-wide labor wages in line and eventually letting the rest of the world catch up with developed countries. The market would "self regulate," Libertarians and Conservatives said, and prices would be affordable and products would improve. US companies could compete better, company CEOs and Republicans said. In Republican Administrations, regulations were overlooked or repealed by Republican congresses. Regulators turned their heads on their small, microcosm of influence or sent an occasional "advisory" letter to companies under their purview. It was, in effect, a great give-away to corporations and foreign countries. In effect, those behind the philosophy, Republicans, threw the baby out with the bath water. Some of it was good change, but the part that went wrong was devastating; the part that should have been regulated.

In fact, NAFTA was probably the precedent toward a larger objective; domination of global markets by global companies. A "Globalist's" vision. It is a macro vision, but not an American vision. It's a world with free unencumbered trade and global reach of corporations where there are no borders. Immigration law and policies mean nothing to Globalists. They see no borders. We've already seen cases when global corporations don't like national laws, they simply move their headquarters to countries that they like better. They evade the law and taxes in that manner. This global vision is not kind, nor can it be. At that level, where global profits mean that a smaller number of individuals will be able to own so much, you and I, American middle-class, give or take, don't matter much, if we are noticed at all. Usually, globalist don't know we exist.

How little we matter to a globalist reminds me of another story told in "Examined Lives" about the philosopher Diogenes, who was particularly obstinate and somewhat degenerate, but thought to be mediocre and not worthy of notice by other philosophers. When Alexander the Great saw that he was not among the philosophers, including Plato and Aristotle, who came to pay him homage and to congratulate him on his new kingship:


     A messenger from Alexander [the Great] invited Diogenes to come see the king, but the philosopher refused, instructing the messenger to tell the king, "That which prevents you from coming to us is that which prevents us from coming to you."
    The messenger imagined the king's response: "So what prevents me and what prevents you?" he asked.
    "You are too powerful to need me - and I am too self-sufficient to need you."

Diogenes was apparently an indigent, owning only the clothes on his back, and he wanted it that way and he therefore did not need anything from Alexander and certainly Alexander didn't need anything from Diogenes. I don't think we want to be indigent, however, to be free of the ruling class. I believe that most people simply want a good and comfortable life; not a life of constant worry about the next policy that might ruin them financially or force them from one job to another simply to satisfy corporate mergers or global schemes. A vote for Republicans, regardless of what they promise in a campaign, is a vote for globalists, not you and me nor America.

We now know that NAFTA, at a macro level, was a disaster for job stability and creation in America, yet those that still support it are voted into office. Ron Paul, a free-market Libertarian, for example, said "the market will decide" when he was asked why he didn't buy "Made in America" t-shirts for his presidential campaign instead of "Made in Honduras" t-shirts through Fruit of the Loom, located in Bowling Green, KY and owned by Berkshire Hathaway. He is either a globalist or doesn't get it or he looks at the market from a micro perspective, concerned only with the limited scope he comes in contact with. So, no, the market didn't decide. If we evaluate the t-shirt production process, from the factory to the market, step by step, from the perspective of kindness, we can see that the market for a t-shirt is decided at the point of sale, i.e., on the retail shelf. A Fruit of the Looms t-shirt is not significantly cheaper on Macy's shelf than any other t-shirt on the same shelf and, in fact, profits from a t-shirt made in Honduras are outrageously high because of slave-labor wages paid to women and children who make the t-shirts in Honduras, labor that violates US child labor laws. We know that for a fact. That is the truth behind Ron Paul's "the market will decide." Violating child labor laws is acceptable under the Laissez-faire philosophy, a "let it be" philosophy. So, is it a kindness to buy from a company who exploits child labor in Honduras? Is it a kindness to allow corporations with global designs, such as Fruit of the Loom, to achieve market domination by using illegal child labor? Even if that company provides a wage to very impoverished children earning the wage? I would say no. It would be a kindness to force the company to comply with child labor laws and to pay a living wage to its factory workers wherever they are located. In fact, Fruit of the Loom is practicing non-competitive methods by undercutting their competitors through the unfair and illegal practice of using child labor. It cannot be a so-called "free market" if some of the competitors are subverting good or fair business practices. It is, in fact, a subsidized market.

Gibson County may be a microcosm to Walmart, but to a citizen living in Gibson County it is a macrocosm. Walmart has had a devastating effect on the county. I suspect that when the big box stores, Walmart, K-Mart, Rural King and Menards Home Improvement came to Princeton, everyone thought it was great. There would be jobs for everyone, they likely said. But, the fact is that every town in the county was devastated. Small grocery stores, hardware stores, pharmacies and novelty stores closed their doors. Two, three or four local jobs were lost for every job Walmart created. It was a net loss to every town in the county. Citizens of Owensville and Fort Branch must now travel to Princeton or Evansville for most of their daily needs. The choices are fewer and fewer. The elderly in Owensville depend more and more on the Dollar Store, the only store in town that carries a small number of grocery items. If it wasn't for a few churches, they would suffer more in spite of having money to buy what they need but are not able to travel to Princeton, only eleven miles away. Owensville seems to be a dying town, primarily because there will come a time when no businesses exists there. I think it is a sad day coming. It could have been different. A vote for Republicans is a vote for the business killing and jobs killing Walmarts in less populated areas.

What would have happened if those who were in political office in Gibson County back when Walmart and the others began the permit process to build their stores in Gibson County? What if they had evaluated the impact of Walmart on the local businesses from the perspective of kindness? Would they have chosen Walmart over the demise of local businesses or the added burden of traveling to Walmart? I doubt it. I think they would have seen a kindness in maintaining all of the smaller groceries and hardware stores over the larger big box stores, even if the smaller store priced things slightly higher. The big stores may have a cheaper price on the shelf, but that doesn't tell us how much effort or gas or car use or time away from family we have to spend to go get the item we need. Perhaps some families could have gotten by with one car instead of two simply because they didn't need to go to Princeton or Evansville so frequently. Would a macro-view of Walmart's impact on the county, on personal lives and on the total family cost of shopping there change things? I wish it would. Gibson County isn't populated enough for big box stores. They should run Walmart and the others out and restore business health to the county and towns.

I heard several other problems caused by "big government," some I agree with. I heard a lot of anger at the EPA, suggesting that the entire EPA should be dismantled. Regulating dust created by farming, for example, stirred up animosity at the entire EPA. I have no idea how regulating dust can be done. I suppose the farmer could buy a giant vacuum to follow the combine, but that's a ridiculous idea and a ridiculous regulation. But, it is still no reason to throw out the baby, the entire EPA, simply because a few bureaucrats got carried away. Nor can it be blamed on Obama. Instead, we should insist that Congress use its oversight authority to put a kibosh on that and any other "government creep" or "spending creep" that invariably grows from any organization. Overall, I believe government, and the EPA, is doing a credible job in most programs, better than a privatized program managed by a corporation can do. A vote for a Republican will privatize most government programs, including Medicare, Social Security, more of Defense than already is, Education, Energy and Housing. After that, corporations will dictate policy behind closed doors. It may be profitable for the company, since tax payers will pay the bill, but it won't be kind.

This line of thinking was prompted by a friend's comments during my Owensville visit. He said that our generation, my generation, probably had it best, and I would add for the past one hundred years, including the generation that lived through the Great Depression. He said we had good role models with good work ethics to follow in Owensville. He said that our children and grandchildren will not fare so well. I have to agree, we had it best and, like him, it breaks my heart that my children and grandchildren will not have the opportunity I had. In fact, I'm outraged about it. He also said that our education that we received in the first twelve grades in the 1950s and 60s was probably better than any time since. There have been any number of arguments and claims about our failing education and about improving it, with recent emphasis on charter schools, a Republican school privatization objective, but the education we received in public schools way back then was a good, well rounded education, taught by dedicated teachers. It was better than any generation has received since, including charter schools and home-taught children. Those days will never return, unfortunately, unless Republicans are voted out of office for as long as they insist that public education should be dismantled and privatized.

I see a number of politicians who appear to be honest and dedicated public servants. I also see those that are dishonest, greedy and self-aggrandizing. There are several characteristics of the latter dishonest ones that can be identified for easy recognition. A politician with a gift for gab, for example, is probably one who can come up with an answer whether he knows a good answer or not and who will more than likely bullshit us as not. A person who promises too much is another one who likely won't, or can't deliver. So, choosing who to vote for should be relatively easy if you can identify the general philosophy rather than anything a politicians says or promises. When the choice is not clear, we can count on the person we vote for following the caucus they belong to when they get to Washington. So, if you have to hold your nose to vote because all candidates stink to high heaven, vote for the most kind caucus. At the moment, the Republican caucus leads to trickle-down failure and more recession. They haven't changed their philosophy that got us in this mess.

I see a day coming when local and state politicians become more important to us than national politicians. Perhaps they were more important all along. It is the local and state governments who need to be strong enough to protect the citizens from corporate driven agendas and community killing policies and to save in good times and spend in bad times. Make sure you vote for kindness. A mean politician stuck in ideology will only break hearts, maybe your heart. Make your voice heard and speak for those who can't.

Dave

Okay, Let's Take Her Down

This kind of Republican political bullshit ticks me off. I happen to believe that the Republicans are so far removed from reality that they are preposterous. They've blocked every plan for the recovery of America. They've spent an inordinate amount of time on the most trivial pursuits in Congress after they gained the majority in the House. They have done and are doing everything they can to make sure Obama fails and they appear to be winning. They do everything they can to cause undeserved criticism of the Obama administration, and they're winning at that too. They constantly extort their philosophy by deceptive methods, twist or misrepresent the truth and any other means to delude the people. And so it seems that we are headed for a time of severe austerity when we should be stimulating the economy, investing in America, and gradually working into the plan of more austere debt reducing policies. They remain unconvinced of their own misguided ideas and are more than willing to sink their own country for their own selfish reasons. So, go ahead with Walker, Daniels, Christie, Perry, Bachmann, Palin, Romney, Huckabee and your other heroes who are more than willing to have other, usually poorer, people pay to benefit themselves. Let's see what happens.

The people, it seems, are like drug addicts and they are ignoring the doctor's warnings, such as the warning against short-term extreme Republican austerity policies that Ben Bernanke gave in his speech on June 7th.

Okay. Since an addict will not learn or change their ways until they hit absolute bottom, let's do it. Go ahead and vote your guys in and let's test their theories to the bottom. Perhaps that will be the end of them and the nonsense when, I hope, everyone wakes up, finally, once and for all, and learns that we cannot put a self-regulated economic system above human needs, desires and rights. Perhaps, I hope, people will actually learn that not investing in their own country is actually a bullet in the head. Let's do it. It's the only way to the truth.

Personally, I can do a third-rate developing country. I can hack being poorer, no healthcare, no military pension (even though YOU promised) and begging on the street. So can my kids, although I wish they didn't have to go there. I'll live through the worst of times, God willing. It will be heart breaking, but I can watch my brother, sister, nieces and nephews and their families go through bad times when I'm unable to help. The pain inflicted will last fifty years or more, but I can hack it during my short stay here.

But, while I'm here, KNOW that I'll know WHO did it and I'll be in your face and I won't be your friend and I won't be quiet.

Dave

Some People Will Believe Anything - A False Witness Even on a Nice Day

I usually wake up early and listen to the usual suspects on the radio to get the daily blather while I go through the New York Times and Washington Post headlines. Funny thing this morning - the radio was playing Christmas music, and I love Christmas music. Well, I thought, the usual host must be taking the day off, so I let it pass and enjoyed the music. But, when 5:00 A.M. passed and the music didn't turn into the morning news, it got my attention so I listened closer to learn what station I was listening to. Someone, apparently, changed the station to KOIT (Kay-Oh-Eye-Tee, as it says, RADIO - you have to sing it). KOIT always starts playing Christmas music in November and I usually listen to it, so I left the station tuned to KOIT. It's a nice way to start the day.

That didn't stop me from thinking, however, about yesterday's Ronn Owens KGO Talk Show. Owens is easy to figure out. Track any Republican talking point, no matter how outrageously delusional it is, from Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Right-Wing blogger or any Fox News personality and it will eventually make it to The Ronn Owens show, and Owens usually takes the Right Wingnut side. Owens is a neo-con, a so-called "New Conservative." He's a Leo Strauss guy, the political philosopher, in that it is okay to voluntarily "fabricate a myth and an illusion (or delusion)" to attain the desired results. In other words, it's just fine to lie, distort the truth or create a myth to get what you want. It is also okay to accept a lie as part of an argument about any issue. Like Strauss says, "it is human nature to accept and choose, and in fact desire, a myth or untruth over the hard facts of the truth," or words to that effect. We can't face the truth, Strauss says, and we like it that way. Strauss' conclusions came, he claims, from reading all the great philosophers from Socrates to Locke.

Well, I'm no philosopher and I don't claim to be, but I can read and understand English and I can usually think through the things I read, hear and observe enough to come to a reasonable conclusion. So, I have to ask: How can anyone make a good decision about anything if they are not willing to learn the factual truth, or as much as they possibly can about the truth? But, in today's world, I am apparently wrong. I don't remember a time when so many people are so willing to believe and pass on distortion of facts, outright lies, rumor and innuendo. I have to wonder what happened to that old Golden Rule about not being a "False Witness." It's forgotten, I guess.

The truth is that I can't stand Owens' show because of his willingness to distort the truth and to continue myth. He is a false witness. I listen until I have to get up from the chair and turn him off, usually long enough to tell what the morning subjects are, where his conversation is going in his first hour and what his point of view is. Long enough to hear that what he has to say is the usual rubbish. But, yesterday, I listened a little longer because I found the position he took intriguing. I thought, until yesterday, that Owens knew his own political philosophy, that he identified himself as Right-Wing, a neo-con and a wingnut. But, after yesterday's show, I don't think he knows. He is just as deluded by his own blather as most Right-Wingnuts are and he thinks he's a moderate and he's gaming his listeners. His sole agenda is to be controversial, to compete with those other Right-Wing talk-show hosts for the sole purpose of gaining listeners, to improve his ratings. He's a con-artist and it's probably intentional KGO policy. He may not have an honest personal opinion about anything and he's not interested in the truth.

Yesterday's show was about Obama spending $200 million a day on his Asian trip. $200 million a day? Any normal person who has a brain should know from the outset that a statement like that is hogwash. But, the Drudge Report, the usual suspect, picked it up from some "anonymous" source in India and Minnesota's Congresswoman Michele Nutcake Bachmann repeated it on CNN with Anderson Cooper. Cooper checked into it and debunked it the next day and Thomas Friedman, New York Times columnist, patted Cooper on the back for debunking the myth. Actually, I'd like to see more lie debunking by the mainstream media, but didn't we know that it was hogwash when we heard it? Do we actually believe that it cost $200 million a day for a Presidential trip? The story said that thirty-four U.S. warships were "standing off the coast of India" to protect the President. Are you kidding? I spent twenty years in the Navy and not once did we EVER send a single ship to protect a President, and they visited areas where we were close enough to do that. The FACT IS, our admiral would have laughed in the President's face if he got a request like that. THE NAVY'S MISSION IS NOT TO PROTECT THE PRESIDENT - IT IS TO PROTECT AMERICA!! In fact, a Pentagon spokesman said just that, "it's laughable." The Secret Service protects the President.

The story had other, just as outrageous, lies; such as 800 hotel rooms booked for the entourage in hotels that only had 200 or so rooms, nearly an entire air force following in tow, and other such innuendo to disparage Obama. Owens asked, "Where does this stuff come from?" acting incredulous. "This comes from the Right Wing," he said, as if the "Right Wing" wasn't his wing. He seemed genuinely unaware of what Fox News, Drudge, Limbaugh say on a daily basis, even when he eventually, in a few days or a week, picks up on the same subjects and the same points of views they discuss and spews it from his show. The "Muslim Mosque" that he was "sensitive to" and against and he completely ignored the Constitution, the "Koran book burning" "that he understood," the "two Presidents" that he thought "might work," "the British compulsory work plan for the lazy unemployed" he "supported" and the Sarah Palin "Presidency" that he thinks "might work" are all Right-Wing sponsored rubbish. I'm sure that he'll say, "I didn't say that" or "that's not the impression I gave," but he did. He pretends to be moderate, "looking at both sides of an issue," while he spreads the Right-Wing propaganda to his legions with a "soft touch." Of course all the while he's claiming "freedom of speech" for anything and everything he says. It's ironic that we've distorted the concept of freedom of speech so much that it now includes our right to knowingly and willingly lie.


I heard the $200 million a day story two weeks ago. I wrote a blog post about it on November 5th. I'm surprised that Owens picked up on it so late or that he picked up on it at all. Well, he reads the New York Times, so he picked it up. It's controversial, so he picked it up. And, since Anderson Cooper debunked it, Owens had no choice except to agree with Cooper. I wonder what train of thought he would have pursued if Cooper hadn't led the way to the truth to start with. But, Owens is not alone. It is a trendy thing to spread untrue hype, especially by email. I've managed to stop many of those rumor and innuendo, disparaging stories of false witness from reaching me by sending them back to the sender with links or references to where the sender can find the truth. I find it curious that those emails stop coming when the lie is debunked. That's not to say, however, that the person stops sending them to other people. I've noticed that those people that I once received those emails from are still sending them to other people, but not to me. Isn't that highly irrational? You'd think that once a viral email is debunked and the truth laid bare, that that simple fact would cause a person to pause before sending it on to others.

I also find it curious on who sends those emails. These are seemingly intelligent, educated people in positions of responsibility; teachers, lawyers, judges, doctors, investigative reporters. The last email disparaging President Obama I received, only a few weeks ago, was about "Subject:  REAL ESTATE SALES TAX TO GO INTO EFFECT 2013 (Part of HC Bill) -- Did you know that if you sell your house after 2012 you will pay a 3.8% sales tax on it? That’s $3,800 on a $100,000 home etc. When did this happen? It’s in the healthcare bill. Just thought you should know..." Actually, the truth is entirely different, and it can be found here. I sent the email back to everyone it went to, including the teacher who sent it to the person who sent it to me. I debunked the myth in my return email. And, of course, the other part of the healthcare bill story is that it wasn't Obama that wrote the health bill anyway. It was Congress, and if you're really interested in how the insurance industry manipulated the Senate process and the Senators who sold us out, here is the Frontline report on how Obama was backed into a corner on the healthcare bill. The story is called "Obama's Deal," but what I noticed is how much he didn't like the medicine that he was forced to take. It should piss you off at the corrupt Senators who sold out and the insurance companies who bribed them, not Obama.

The funny thing is that I haven't received an email from "that" person since. I did receive another from the "teacher," showing a small boy with a t-shirt that read "The mess in my pants is nothing compared to the mess the Democrats will make in this country if they win Nov. 2." That's funny... and delusional. The facts are that there is overwhelming evidence that Reagan's Supply-Side, voodoo, free market economic ideology led the way to our financial destruction by what our so-called leaders, including President Reagan who started the ball rolling, have been doing for the past 40 years. And, there appear to be only a few in Congress and government who understand the true cause, including President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, Congressman Barney Frank and Senators Carl Levin and Christopher Dodd, yet these are among the most hated people in the United States; hated because of hyped Right-Wing propaganda. Hated because of Ronn Owens and the wingnuts he follows and their nonsense he spreads. Republicans, as a whole, are more than willing to exploit ignorance of the masses, as is Owens. And, Republicans, as a whole, believe in the ideology, from A to Z, that got us into the mess we're in.

Another, and equally surprising point is that here we have a teacher, teaching our kids at his high school, who sends these lies to everyone when he hasn't a clue about the historical facts of the recession or the truth of allegations he sends in emails. Rather than find and spread the truth, which we might expect from a teacher, he would rather be a false witness. How's that for a teacher? It troubles me. Does it trouble you? I'm not surprised that our children continue to be more ignorant as each year passes in spite of paying more for education. I'm not surprised that the Tea Party leaders were able to exploit the ignorant in this country. It has been happening for years. They don't know any better. And, it is obvious that for the teacher, and those who are mislead, further self-education has stopped, perhaps on graduating from high school or college. Even recreational reading has stopped, apparently, otherwise, it is logical to assume that people at least would educate themselves on current events and would know better. In that regard, Fox News keeps them misinformed.

The scary thing is that we could very easily end up with President Sarah Palin, who said yesterday that she believes she can defeat President Obama. The fact that we had two terms of President Bush is proof enough that voters in this country can be misled over and over again. We too easily believe hype and lies and we elect those who tell them. Before we get to Palin's run for President, I'd like to see Britain's law passed in our country; if you lie to get elected, then you get kicked out immediately. But then, we wouldn't have a single person in office if we did that!

I guess if I had to make up a Christmas list, these items would be on it.

1. If you're going to vote, please, please learn about the person you're voting for. It's not about the person. It's about his or her ideology. Please don't vote for the same ideology that nearly destroyed us. You won't get anything you're voting for if you put those people in power.
2. If you're going to send me an email, make sure you're an honest witness to the truth. Do the research and tell the truth. Don't be a false witness or you will get the email back debunked to the best of my ability.
3. Be honest enough to tell the truth to those who send you distorted truth or lies the truth. Debunk the lies yourself and send them back to sender.
4. Be honest with yourself. If you're following the Right-Wing hype, find out if they're telling you the truth. Research their claims. Figure out, the bottom line, about why you are following it.
5. Read a book or see a documentary that gives a good account of how and why we came to be in the condition we're in, for example, All the Devils are Here, is about the economic collapse and who caused it. The Documentary "Inside Job" is also about the mega-bank crash, who did what, and is also good reporting. Learn about the wars we're in, and what's right and wrong about them and what the obstacles are.

And, on a personal note:
6. Don't buy me "stuff." My closet, drawers, bed-side table, bed-side chair, desk, garage and utility closet are full. I have no place to put the stuff you buy, not even space for a Christmas card. Send me a "Merry Christmas" email or text or call instead.
7. Use the time you were going to spend on shopping for me to take a nap - on me. You'll be refreshed.
8. Use the money you planned for my gift to buy yourself something, like a dinner for two - on me.
9. Have a Merry Christmas. Listen to some Christmas music.

Dave

Crucifying the Victims

We go to great lengths to imagine ourselves as victims, and we don't give up on that idea come hell or high water. Imagining that we are victims makes us do things we wouldn't normally do. It makes us act without compassion and without thought. We overlook injustices. We behave irrationally. There is real contradiction in our logic, too, when we describe how we are victimized and rationalize our response. Our response is to penalize and crucify the object of our scorn, both the bad and the good or innocent, anyone who fits our imagined description of bad guys. It makes us crucify true victims. For example, take some of the explanations President Bush is giving for his actions; he's on tour to promote his book, "Decision Point." His explanation for invading Iraq was "to protect America from weapons of mass destruction (WMD)" and "those Iraqi terrorists" and he makes that statement in the same paragraph where he says he was "sickened" when WMD were not found. And we know that there were no Al Qaeda terrorist in Iraq until after we invaded and opened the door for them. You would think, like Chris Mathews says, that he would now see how illogical it is to say that he "was protecting America" in the same paragraph where he admits that there was no WMD. What was he protecting America from? Imaginary weapons? Yet, he still claims that he was. The illogical logic reminds one of the definition of a psychopath; a personality disorder characterized by an abnormal lack of empathy combined with abnormally immoral conduct despite an ability to appear normal. In fact, Bush lost, or never had, the ability to step back and objectively evaluate data, or even to insist on objective data about Iraq. Actually, he never had that ability and it is because of his complete lack of compassion. He is totally self-absorbed. He was and still is incapable of seeing the destruction he caused in Iraq. I knew he totally lacked compassion and that he was totally self-absorbed when he was running for President in 1999.

Bush said, blatantly, that he ordered water-boarding, "because his lawyers said it was okay." "Use 'em," he said when he was told that extreme interrogation methods were legal. A person who has compassion and empathy for fellow humans would hesitate. He would ask the questions that need asking. He would listen to experts and military leaders, such as Colin Powell who said "it's a bad idea. It puts our troops in danger when we don't follow the Geneva Convention (that outlaws torture)." But, Bush asked no questions. He got no advice beforehand. "Use 'em," he said. "It worked," he said. What Bush doesn't know, even after the fact when more facts are known, is whether normal, less extreme interrogation techniques would have worked just as well or even better. There is evidence that normal techniques did work, and would have in all cases. Back then, there were reports from experienced interrogators, who did not agree with and did not use torture, that indicated that they got just as much, if not more, and better information by using normal techniques. But, we refused to listen to those professionals too, even though they were professionals, because we were victims and we knew better and we wanted vengeance. Here's Bush's interview with the Washington Post. It's interesting.

It is a group thing, because if we disagree with the common beliefs of our group, we would be disagreeing with our friends, neighbors and family who do agree. Everybody yelled, "Yeah! Torture the rag-heads," and we did. We follow the majority's opinion of those around us whether we would agree with the opinion or not if we were not associated with our group. Group pressure sucks us in. We're afraid to object or disagree when we're with our group. We are nice and comfortable being a victim along with our buddies. And, we tortured the innocent along with the guilty without distinction.

The same self victimization effects our ideas on almost every important issue. The other day, I listened to Ronn Owens, our local Right-Winger Talk Show Host, disparage the unemployed. He was discussing whether England's compulsory labor plan to force the unemployed to work without pay for a month would work in America. He agreed with the plan. The plan is proposed by the new conservative government that recently won in Britain's national elections. It follows the conservative idea that the unemployed are "milking the system," are in a "cycle of dependency," are "lazy" and "laggards." I hear the same thoughts expressed by conservatives in the group I associate with. An overwhelming number of callers to Owen's program expressed the same idea. "They're lazy bums!" most said, even though a few callers called to tell their own stories; in tears they explained of not being able to find a job, of how embarrassing it is getting food for their children from the local food charity and of being in despair that they are at the end of their rope. Poverty, welfare or homelessness are in their future. Even after those heart breaking stories, subsequent callers shouted, "lazy bums!" At no time did an unemployed caller say, "I'm milking the system." At no time did I hear a caller actually site evidence or a reference that proved that the unemployed are "lazy bums." Owens and all of those callers who said that are guessing; they have no evidence of it. Neither does anyone else.

It's sad that as we approach Christmas and as our economy actually needs many more people to shop this Christmas and we need much more money circulating in our communities that we have a situation in Congress where many of the unemployed will go without because our Congress believes we are victims. We would rather crucify the unemployed and innocent because of some imagined offense against us. This article, Dems Lowering Expectations for the Lame Duck Session - Blog - OpenCongress, says that since there is little "interest" for passing an extension of unemployment benefits through Congress that it will not be brought up in the lame duck session. In the time of greatest need of the unemployed and our economy, Congress is scaling back. There is a complete lack of compassion when we're a victim, real or imagined.

I suppose that there are a few unemployed who could be milking the system. But, I don't believe they would do it for long, if they do it at all, or that the overwhelming majority do. I haven't observed too many lazy people in America or, for that matter, in those other countries in the world that I've had the good fortune to visit at one time or another in my life. In fact, I've seen people do some of the lowest, filthiest, demeaning, belittling, laborious jobs that I would never think of doing myself, yet they did them; seemingly without complaint and without any display of being lazy. 

As a victim, we also are blinded to the side effects of our actions. We failed to see the uproar of world opinion when we tortured only a few. In fact, the side effect of using torture proved Osama bin Laden's point that we are a ruthless people. World opinion changed from respect for America to one questioning whether America was an imperious hegemonic country or not. Where at one time America was thought to be compassionate, we began to be seen as completely lacking compassion. We are blind to side effects of our policies at home, too, when we believe we are victims.

When I hear of the prevalent attitude against helping the unemployed, I also think of the street corner beggar, the guy trying to wash my car windshield, the guy wanting to paint my house number on my curb and the homeless. The growing homelessness is a side effect of refusing to help the unemployed. The ongoing argument in the Bay Area is whether to give the homeless cash or whether to give them in-kind services and goods; i.e., stuff. The prevailing thought is that if we give them cash, they will buy alcohol and get drunk, but if we give them services and goods; a place to live, food to eat, clothes to wear, they will be forced to "come back" into society using the stuff we give them. It's as if all of them, 100%, are alcoholics. Maybe most are, but we don't know how many are. And, we refuse to help them with the disease; we would rather they suffer abstinence alone. In either case, it's up to the homeless to make their own way back from despair. There is no "system" to help them come back. We do not help them learn ways to survive. We've done our part, we think, by giving them cash or stuff and we step back to see if they prove our point that they're lazy laggards and are only milking the system and victimizing us by staying homeless.

My wife and I got to know, as well as we could know, a homeless guy several years ago who, at one time, stood at the end of the 580 Center Street exit begging for handouts and later washed windshields at a gas station. I gave him a five dollar bill about every other week for a while until he no longer stood at the exit. A few months later, at my wife's suggestion - to get a windshield wash from a homeless guy, I stopped at the World Gas Station in Hayward. It was same guy that stood on the highway exit. I recognized him and, surprisingly, he recognized me.

"Hey," he said, "you gave me a five a couple of times at Center Street." he said. "I'll give you a free wash," he said. Imagine that! A homeless guy giving a free windshield wash!

I declined the "free," but accepted the wash. "My wife told me to stop here to get my windshield cleaned," I told him. He beamed at being remembered, like a kid getting a compliment; a smile from ear to ear. After I pulled into a parking space where we could talk. It was clear to me that he was not well educated and he didn't clearly understand how he became homeless or what he did that was so wrong that landed him and his family in the circumstances they were in. He had been, however, functional in society. From his ramblings, I pieced together his story. His name was Ken.

He was a carpenter who injured his hand on the job and the employer denied that the injury occurred on the job which in turn caused his workman's comp and unemployment claims to be denied. He used his meager savings for medical expenses. His union couldn't find work for him because, he claimed, word had gotten out that no employer would hire a person who filed for workman's comp. His union membership lapsed from non-payment. He was black-listed. He worked in the underground job market at odd jobs he could find for a while and then his wife lost her waitress job because of knee pain. They lost their home. He sold his carpentry tools; his livelihood. The state put his wife and kids in a homeless shelter, but the small two-room apartment the state furnished was too small for four people, so he took up sleeping where the homeless gathered in wooded areas around Castro Valley and Hayward and he visited his family daily if he could. The state, then, moved his wife and kids to another community without him knowing about it and out of his area and ability to see them. It took him weeks and miles of walking to find a state office that could tell him where they were, and even then he had to argue that he was the husband and father since he had no means of identifying himself to prove that he should be given private information about them. At the time we talked, he had been homeless for four years. The last thing, he said, was that his raggedy tent and what little belongings he had were stolen by other homeless from where he slept each night; in a small clearing beside the Castro Valley Creek. "I'm nobody," he said, in a tone that implied everything "nobody" could mean. He had nothing except for what he wore and nobody knew him. He had dropped out of every state and government system and off the edge of the Earth. I gave him ten dollars for the wash.

I saw him several more times and I gave him the phone number to Fresh Start, a charity I know about, and I offered to take him there. But, I don't believe he called them, at least at that time, and he refused my help to drive him. "Don't want to bother you that much," he said. He didn't want my help. After a while, he didn't show up at the gas station anymore. Chris learned that he worked occasionally at the Salvation Army in Hayward. She believes he had mental problems, and I don't doubt that. But, he did work and he needed much more help than my piddly ten dollars or whatever he earned from washing windows. He needed government sponsored system help.

In the midst of remembering Ken's story, I ran across this heart warming article about lending a helping hand, The Kindness of a Stranger that Still Resonates, during the Great Depression when there was no unemployment program, or any other social safety net for that matter. Back then, the unfortunate had nothing and no where to go, like Ken. All of the unemployed, 25 to 30% of the working population in those days, would have been considered lazy beggars by today's prevalent attitude. In this story, simple, anonymous kindnesses went a long way and may have been the one thing that turned the tide for those in need.

Please note that those in the story hesitated to ask and delayed asking for help as long as they could. “I waited two weeks because I didn’t want to apply for unemployment,” Mr. Macey, 25, said (in the story). “It’s embarrassing.” These are not signs, in my opinion, of people "milking the system." The story highlights the stigma attached to asking for help or charity. I don't see "lazy laggards" in this story. I see people who need systematic help. I also don't see people who need to be forced into a "compulsory labor" system just because of the imagined wrongs we believe, but can't prove, that they do to us. The "system" probably does need to be redesigned for more support, not less, to find better jobs faster as well as incentives for employers. But, in the meantime, we've got the system we've got and I don't see that the unemployed are guilty of doing us harm. They are not making us victims. Most, a huge majority, are innocent and probably trapped by an inefficient system. Why should we deny millions of that one thing, perhaps a single check, that may turn the tide for them? We haven't done enough, yet. I don't know when the time will come when we can say we've done enough. A safety net for unfortunate job loss is crucial, or else we risk having many more Kens. More Kens cost more than helping the unemployed because Ken has much more distance to come back to society and we must provide more support to help him come back. I called all of my congressional representatives a few hours ago to make unemployment a priority during the lame duck congress. I hope they pass a bill that Obama will sign to help them.

Oh well, today is a new day and we have another thing that we claim to be victims of; today the focus is on healthcare. There are 60 million, according to the radio today, more than we thought, who are uninsured. But, "kill the bill" is what we hear. It doesn't matter that the hype, exaggeration and distortion is imagined and false; the prevalent thought is that we are victims of this law. All who want to really know should check out this article and follow the links on life expectancy and infant mortality cited in the article, or look those statistics up here. Surely we can come to the same conclusion, you think? Are those who desperately need help the bad guys or is it our system that both caused their misfortune and refuses to provide support?

It's Christmas time. Time for giving. Or, is it just the thought that counts?

Dave

Fracked

Boy, those were the good old days, back in 2005 when Republicans were in control. Don't you think so? Those were the days before the Democrat 2006 takeover when Republicans could get just about anything they wanted through the House and Senate. And, indeed they did. Take the 2005 Energy Policy Act, enacted under Dubya, Cheney and the Republican Congress. That act had a big intentional loophole, known as the Halliburton Loophole. In fact, there is enough information about that loophole to suggest that the only reason the act was passed and signed at all was because the oil and natural gas corporations wanted that loophole. In fact, I would bet my social security check that the loophole was specifically requested in that secret Cheney-Energy Corporation meeting that Cheney refused to disclose. Remember that meeting? Ah, yea, those were the good old days. The loophole exempts oil production companies from having to comply with environmental safety laws when drilling for oil and natural gas.

Well, natural gas is a big deal and it has been the latest buzz since President Obama began running for president way back in 2007. "Drill-baby-drill," they said. T Boone Pickens made all of those ads to stop paying Saudi Arabia $700 billion a year by converting all long-haul semi trucks from diesel to natural gas. The United States, it turned out, had a super abundance of natural gas. A HUGE NATURAL GAS RESERVE! In fact, he sold me on the deal, too. I was ready and willing to be his spokesman. "Yeah! Stop paying Saudi Arabia for oil. Use our own natural gas!" Even Obama got on that band wagon. Ha! I should have known that there was a catch. There is always a Republican catch.

It was also back in the good old days that President Bush had those signing statements. Remember those? It turned out that even though Congress passed a law, that a President could just attach a little signing statement to his signature saying how the President "interpreted" the law, and Bush did. He instructed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to overlook and rubber stamp many oil and gas company drilling requests. But, the U.S. Minerals Management Service, by a Bush order, was already looking the other way and the signing statement just reinforced what it was already doing. And so, we got the BP Gulf oil disaster, which, by the way, isn't over yet - since it was discovered only a few days ago that a large area of ocean floor coral has died. We don't know everything, yet, it turns out.

But, back to natural gas and that Halliburton Loophole that exempts oil and gas companies from EPA rules. They can drill for natural gas anyplace, anytime. It turns out all of those natural gas reserves that we have is mostly contained in solid plates of shale rock. And, it turns out that to get the natural gas out of the shale, the shale must be broken up, or fractured into cracks and crevasses to release the gas. And, it turns out that "they," especially Halliburton, have developed a technique called Hydraulic Fracturing, "Fracking" for short, that breaks up the shale that releases the gas. Fracking involves injecting millions of gallons of fresh water into the shale under tons of pressure to fracture the shale.

Whoops. Here we are again. The "usual" suspects are at it again. It turns out that Fracking uses millions of gallons of your very valuable drinking and irrigation water and when that water recycles back into the ground water supply, through those underground seeps back to your city's water supply or your well water or your livestock watering trough, such as into those artesian wells for Owensville, Indiana or into the Wabash or Ohio rivers ground water system that supplies your personal drinking well, (I have friends and family I care for in that area - so I always mention it) it will contain highly toxic minerals and methane. The water cannot be used for drinking anymore. It will kill you. And, it will burn!

Well, according to this New York Times article, the gas companies are not "convinced" that they are the problem. "The jury is not in," they say. But, I guess if you had water suitable for drinking one day, and the next day your water burned and tasted like crap; looked foggy, yellow or muddy; and tests showed that it was full of toxic chemicals, and the only thing that could have caused it was a Fracking drilling rig within ten or twenty miles, then I guess that would be proof enough. In fact, the article says that many people are REALLY ANGRY about being fracked.

All of this, of course, goes back to philosophy, or more precisely, Republican philosophy. I guess if you believe the "drill-baby-drill" philosophy and be damned to any environmental impact, then the Republican philosophy is right up your alley. But, I guess if your water is burning, maybe you will change your mind. I wonder if you'll change your mind if your neighbor's water is burning? Or if your neighboring state's water is burning? Would you vote Republican in your state, say California, if you knew that your vote could cause water to burn in Lafayette or Owensville, Indiana or Gainesville, Georgia? (I have loved ones there too) Actually, it's too late to change your mind after your or your loved ones' water is burning. You've been Fracked!

Dave

Why We Can't Vote Republican and Why We Can't Depend on Charity and Why We MUST VOTE.

It's all about ideology, and it's personal. The reason it's personal is because of all of the people I know, both friends, family and associates, I know only two or three who might be, I say "might" because I don't personally know whether they are or not, considered in the top twenty percent who own eighty percent of America's wealth. They certainly appear wealthy, or at least they act like it. Nearly everyone else I know is just like me, smack dab in the middle class, and some are perhaps in the lower percentile of the middle class. A few I know are dirt poor. Those that I know in the middle class have more hope for either continuing to have enough to stay where they're at, or climb the ladder to the upper class. I've noticed, however, that those who are poor have no hope, and it breaks my heart. Government help for them has run its course; they've had their so-called job training, but have no job; they've reached the end of welfare; they have no money for further education; they've lost their mobility; they've lost their driver's license because they can't afford the car, insurance, renewal fee or the court cost to get their license back; and they've been rejected by every employer they've applied to. Charity, to them, means a few dollars every month or so, but nothing to sustain them until they get back on their feet. Charity is fickle. It's good for some, for a short time, but not for most. They have no hope and no place to turn. They've dropped off the edge of the Earth. They are unknown and unheard.

I'm not saying that all of my perceived wealthy friends are Republicans. Some hold very similar views to mine. But others do not. Once at a family reunion several years ago, I heard an extended family member, who believed in the Republican ideology, complain bitterly about welfare. He said, vehemently, "it's forced charity!" He resented paying taxes that were eventually used to pay welfare to the poor. It was the same complain that in President Reagan's Administration lead to limiting welfare because of the imaginary "Welfare Mom" who, they claimed, was cheating, and so welfare was reduced. Those unfortunate poor on welfare who were not cheating, the great majority, got less and hope diminished. The number of poor increased. It was the same complaint that in the mid-1990s lead Newt Gingrich, then the Speaker of the House, to pass legislation to limit welfare, and the freedom of welfare recipients to spend the money the way they saw fit, in a "work for welfare" scheme that ended the welfare payments after five years. And, those that the scheme did not benefit after five years on welfare, and who may have still had a chance while they received welfare, lost all hope of ever climbing out of the deep, deep hole circumstance, luck, and/or the American Capitalistic "system" put them in. They dropped out of sight and mind. So, even after two experiments with welfare, the ranks of the poor continued to increase. The complaint, however, hasn't changed. It is still the most often repeated complaint, in some form or another, by Republicans today. It's "Forced Charity!" It is resented by Republicans. And, right along with that complaint follows the second complaint, "they're spending the money we give them on junk!", or on Las Vegas, or on games, or on something that is not really "necessary," as, of course, defined by Republicans. So, just like the hope that disappears, and always will for those invisible poor, the complaints continue and is never resolved until Welfare itself is completely eliminated. What do we do then? Let the poor starve? But, Welfare increased in spite of all efforts to reduce it, because the number of poor increased. More and more of the middle class migrated to poverty and filled the ranks of poor and welfare recipients. Today, one in seven American's are in poverty. That should frighten you because while that migration was happening, more and more of America's wealth migrated to the top twenty percentile of American's. Deregulated "Trickle Down" didn't work, and it never will. You and I could be next to join the ranks of the poor, unless by some miracle, against all reasonable odds, we elevate our condition to the wealthy. What welfare, call it safety net, is next? Social Security? Medicare? You're retirement fund? They are all targets of fraudulent Republican ideology.

There is another reason, but perhaps not the last, that I take personal offence toward Republican ideology. I gave a large portion of my life for the ideals that were the ideals of my youth, mostly Christian ideals of helping the poor, giving, treating my fellow man fairly, and the American ideals of freedom, liberty, truth and justice. It all appears to have been wasted time. And, even though the greater majority of Christians in America seem to be following the Republican ideology, I don't see a single Christian or American value expressed in Republican policies or ideals. All I see is resentment, injustice, half-truths and lies, unfair treatment, selfishness and greed, intolerance and false gospel. One person who I know who has been taken by Republican ideology mentioned that they "continue to pray the prayer of Jabez every day" for their own benefit. That prayer, mentioned once in 1 Chronicles 4:9-10, two sentences in the entire Bible, is the basis of the so-called Gospel of Prosperity making the church rounds recently. I was appalled. Oh, they are wealthy, so I guess it could be said that the prayer worked. But, I wonder. Did the wealth come before the prayer? Or the prayer before the wealth? How much of saying they pray that prayer is self aggrandizement, pride in front of friends, showing off the favors from God? Are "they" the "chosen?" Is it "Look at me, I'm Blessed?" I also wonder that if that particular prayer is answered, what payment is expected in return? To those that much is given, much is expected. I suspect that, one way or another, that payment will be made whether they payee wants it or not. Is payment to sustain a society not worthy? Is only Charity worthy? If it is only Charity that is worthy, are we not required, then, to give a constant stream of charity to sustain the poor? I would say that when society is just, fair and equal, then payment to the society is required in the form of taxes because that is the only consistent way to sustain those in poverty. It is even required when all government efforts are to make its society just, fair and equal. I don't see anyplace where today's Republicans are supporting the causes of justice, fairness and equality, even though they go to great extent to say the do. They have blocked every effort to support the poor, and the unemployed for that matter. To some that follow Republican ideals, the payment will be a fall from grace, to others it will be a fall from revolution. I wonder if they will be surprised when it happens. When the ranks of the poor increase to the point where a country cannot sustain itself, revolution is inevitable. That happens when so few have so much.

I haven't heard our current situation, that of the precarious edge to America's downfall being so close, expressed as well as I've heard Robert Reich express it. For that reason, I've added his blog to the list of my favorite blogs. I don't know if he is a religious person, atheist, or somewhere in between, or if he believes in another religion. But, he speaks the truth. That should be good enough for anyone. Read his blog. Listen to him speak. Educate yourselves before it's too late.

Dave