Round One for Terrorism

Yesterday I distributed a blog entitled, "Small Still Voice," in which I had cited passages from NY Times articles noting that the deaths of U.S. soldiers are now running at about one a day in Iraq and that the real objection to the Times and other papers having broken the story of our covert tracing of monies possibly going to terrorists was "less in tipping off terrorists than in putting publicity-shy bankers in an uncomfortable spotlight."

Subsequently I have heard dire reports to the effect that our incursions into Iraq and Afghanistan have mainly encouraged wider recruitment of terrorists. A poll of 100 leading U.S. security experts reported on npr -- a balanced group running across the political spectrum -- that the Bush wars and clumsy follow-ups had enhanced rather than diminished the recruitment of potential terrorists. One ex-general being interviewed suggested that our attack on Iraq most likely had been the best possible news for bin Laden.

Certainly the reports from Afghanistan and Iraq are depressing so far as American interests are concerned -- both are falling into sectarian violence. Both are disenchanted by the American occupation, which has delivered only grief to their respective populations.

Adding to the above the discrediting of American democracy in the eyes of the world by Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and our failure to assist Israel and Palestine in resolving their conflict, this turns out to be a pretty bad week . Whatever the distracting events featured by the Republicans and our-home-front-violence-hungry media, peace there is not.

As one who had been conscious of foreign affairs since my childhood afternoon radio program was disrupted by the announcement of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, I am at once appalled and despairing that America has sunk so low. But that's where things have gone since 9/11 when we for a year or so we had won heartfelt support for what we had suffered and still retained the world's admiration and respect for American democracy.

Needless to say the terrorists -- a dim foggy cloud of disparate individuals and groups -- seem well on the way to defeating us in the real war -- the claim upon the hearts and minds of those hoping for better things in their lives.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

A Still Small Voice?

[If one flips the dial of our major TV media -- where a preponderance of Americans obtain their information about the states of our nation and globe today, one is most likely to be beset (along with the latest reports of grim U.S. murders and/or child rapes here and there) by oft repeated quotes from Republican leaders calling for criminal prosecution of our press for revealing secrets such as that cited from a NY Times report immediately below. Occasionally there is a mention of some deaths out there -- large numbers of "insurgents" combined with minimal ones of our troops engaging them in various locations in the Middle East.

Yes, I am also hearing some shocked comments from people deeply distressed by the latest Gaza developments -- people who are having second thoughts about our carte blanche support for Israel -- thus far a still small voice. Ed Kent]

......................................

Experts on terror financing are divided in their views of the impact of the revelations. Some say the harm in last week's publications in The Times, The Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal may have been less in tipping off terrorists than in putting publicity-shy bankers in an uncomfortable spotlight.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/29/washington/29intel.html?th&emc=th

.......................................

Death comes often to the soldiers and marines who are fighting in Anbar Province, which is roughly the size of Louisiana and is the most intractable region in Iraq. Almost every day, an American soldier is killed somewhere in Anbar — in Ramadi, in Haditha, in Falluja, by a sniper, by a roadside bomb, or as with Sergeant Lisk, by a mortar shell. In the first 27 days of June, 27 soldiers and marines were killed here. In small ways, the military tries to ensure that individual soldiers like Sergeant Lisk are not forgotten in the plenitude of death.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/29/world/middleeast/29soldier.html?th&emc=th
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

The Long Road Towards Peace in the Middle East

Many long years ago in the early 1970s I put together a collection of essays originally to be called Dissent and the Rule of Law, which an aggressive publisher switched on me to Revolution and the Rule of Law. At that time a number of us in my field, which spanned law, political science, and philosophy, were concerned with achieving social justice without recourse to violence. Needless to say civil disobedience was the route that we shared -- that distinctive American product that permitted strong protest against injustice without resort to outright revolution.

Several of those with whom my own concerns resonated are still around and striving in similar directions:

http://www.law.uchicago.edu/faculty/gottlieb/


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Walzer

Gidon in those days was quietly traveling around the Middle East, trying to work out peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. I see from the current bio that he is still at it.

Michael Walzer was most recently protesting our attack on Iraq and suggesting less drastic means by which we could have whittled back Hussein and eventually achieved his replacement.

All three of us, incidentally, had British universities in our backgrounds and came at things with a slightly less nationalistic bent in our concerns.

I have not been in touch with either in some time, but imagine from what I can see of their evolving bios that we would still share similar approaches to the current Middle East conflicts.

The U.S. has made a mess in Afghanistan and Iraq and may have set back the achievement of modern democracy by decades, if not longer, by intervening clumsily into the situations of those two countries and, thereby, generating chaos.

Iraq is a mad mess -- where is the Queen of Hearts -- down the rabbit hole?

Needless to say the most recent venture of Israel with military force into Gaza with attendant destruction of the infrastructure there runs parallel to our American assaults in Iraq -- Fallusha and now our latest depredations -- here, there, and elsewhere. Our media blithely report the insurgents killed daily in each country by the dozens and mildly mention regrets about the deaths of innocents. Needless to say these regrets -- even with minimal payments of compensation here and there -- are not going to heal the wounds.

Most recently I have opened up yet another Yahoo group focused on working towards truth and reconciliation in Israel/Palestine:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine

I don't expect many group members to join this list -- one is likely to become a target of vilification these days if one takes a stand against nationalist violence. But I am learning much and passing along quite a bit of information, including links to various sources of information, ranging from A.I.P.A.C. to more peace oriented groups than I would have hoped to find.

I must get in touch with my former wider colleagues and find out how their thinking is going now. We need creative solutions in the face of the outright stupid brutality of the Bush administration and the panicked reactions of the Israeli one.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

How to Stop the Neocon Ego Trip?

[Taking Ramadi is reminiscent of our taking Italy and Germany during WW2. But there is a big difference -- the Germans and Italians had launched a war against us, not the other way around.

I cannot forget the costs of that war -- some 50 million killed. And on the personal level it more or less devastated two of my favorite uncles who never really recovered from its horrors Both had faced violent death and survived. One was in a tent during the taking of Italy with about 25 of his buddies when a German shell hit it -- he was the sole survivor. Both of these uncles returned -- not to complete the high school educations they had departed to enlist (5 sisters had done college and some professional studies towards various careers). Each had poverty level jobs and drinking problems. These would be what we now recognize as the effects of post traumatic stress.

Needless to say the children of Ramadi, their parents, and our troops are engaged in deadly combat which can do good for none of them. This neocon ego trip must be stopped before it does even more damage to America and those whom we are afflicting. Ed Kent]

.....................

U.S. and Iraq Take Ramadi a Neighborhood at a Time
By DEXTER FILKINS
American commanders have ringed Ramadi with thousands of
American and Iraqi troops and have begun to reclaim the
city neighborhood by neighborhood.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/27/world/middleeast/27ramadi.html?th&emc=th

..................

Some Insurgents Are Asking Iraq for Negotiations
By EDWARD WONG
Several Sunni-led insurgent groups have sought talks after
the prime minister presented a reconciliation plan.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/27/world/middleeast/27iraq.html?th&emc=th

..................

Military Fails Some Widows Over Benefits
By LIZETTE ALVAREZ
While the process of collecting survivor benefits is smooth
for many widows, others experience lost files and delays.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/27/us/27benefits.html?th&emc=th
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts/
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Smear and Steal

Per today's NY Times report below the Republican Senatorial candidate running in New Jersey against a Democrat has launched a smear campaign against his rival. This would not be particularly news in the realm of American politics were it not becoming the standard Republican tactic at all levels of government. Every Republican seems to have his Karl Rove designing slogans to smear his opposition -- 'cut and run' being only the latest effort to discredit Democrats.

Let's look hard at some of their slogans:

"TAX AND SPEND" -- here we have several of the Republicans' primary goals embodied in a single jeer and smear:

a) Republicans want to cut the taxes for the well off, so we have the first half of this slogan with its various subsidiaries such as 'death tax' which was designed to protect the super wealthy from passing along massive fortunes to their heirs under the guise of protecting the average Joe from having his mortgage free house confiscated by the government. Needless to say virtually none of us will be able to assemble such a huge fortune ($10 million) in the face of the increasing concentration of U.S. wealth among the rich by such slogans devised to con the public. But we will have to pay taxes to make up the deficit created by this latest Republican give away!

b) The second half of this slogan targets the support systems that keep us alive -- payments of unemployment insurance when we get downsized from jobs, medical care when private insurance is not available, reduced support for our medical institutions that deliver life-saving care -- Medicare and Medicaid, affordable housing when only luxury stuff is being built and public housing projects are being destroyed by HUD, schools to provide kids with the minimal requirements for employment or military service in these days of massive high school dropout rates, or even benefits for injured veterans!


"CUT AND RUN" -- is obviously designed to cover the dual fiascoes in Afghanistan and Iraq where disenchanted peoples are beginning to turn on each other and upon any Americans who have the temerity to wonder out of protected 'Green Zone' shelters in their major cities where we and their embryonic governments huddle together.

These two lying slogans are the central Republican misrepresentations for the upcoming election, but their previous subsidiary misfires have been frightening. I don't know who came up with the slogan for our initial attack on Baghdad, "Shock and Awe," but someone must have been resonating with the central Nazi military slogan -- "Blitzkrieg" (lightening war) -- to give us that one. And another Nazi tune is echoed by our current drive to dominate the Middle East -- "Drang nach Osten" (drive to the east). The neocons seem to have the same latter day imperialist impulses as the Nazis -- but have forgotten the consequences when both Napoleon and Hitler over extended themselves and made catastrophic moves to the East. We, too, are now engaged in potential two front wars -- Iran's and North Korea's REAL WMD and their developing capacity to deliver them to Israel and/or the U.S. if we cannot cool things down!

Sloganeering was the ugly game that the Nazis played to con the German people. All one needs is an enemy -- Jew or Muslim, control of the media, an appeal to human greed, and the steady drum beat of lies, big and small!

The game being played here is to portray those who have opposed the neocon military adventures in the Middle East as neo America Firsters comparable to those who opposed halting Hitler -- but Hussein was no Hitler heading a major military/economic power. We are the ones who are playing Hitler's smear and steal game. And look what it got him!

Note the National Review assault on Kerry along these lines August 2004;

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_16_56/ai_n13781970

..................

New Jersey Senator's Rival Faults Him in 80's Corruption
Case, but History Disagrees
By JIM DWYER
In the campaign for U.S. Senate in New Jersey, the
Republican candidate, Thomas H. Kean Jr., has leveled
accusations against his opponent, Robert Menendez, that
haven't been supported by records.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/25/nyregion/25menendez.html?th&emc=th
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Life and Death Outside the Green Zone

We hear from the Bush administration breathy comments about democracy in Iraq and staying the course while all hell is breaking loose outside the walls of the Green Zone. Who is kidding whom? Read the following reports of the past two days. Notice also that our reporters -- apparently themselves only safe in the Green Zone -- now credit Iraqi assistants who help them compile their reports. Ed Kent

Fear Invades a Once-Comfortable Iraqi Enclave
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
The residents of Mansour worry that a wave of attacks that
has devoured large swaths of the city has begun encroaching
on them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/24/world/middleeast/24mansour.html?th&emc=th

Bomb Kills 12 Worshipers at Sunni Mosque in Iraq Near Site
of Zarqawi's Death
By JAMES GLANZ
The bombing came as the Iraqi government declared an
afternoon curfew after gun battles broke out in central
Baghdad.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/24/world/middleeast/24iraq.html?th&emc=th

..................


Basra bomb 'kills at least four'

At least four people have been killed and 14 others injured in a bomb attack in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, Iraqi police say. A state of emergency was declared in the city last month because of rising violence and crime.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5109196.stm

..................

Iraqi Government Declares State of Emergency
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/23/world/middleeast/23cnd-iraq.html?ex=1308715200&en=95a2c3b9e52a4576&ei=5090
By JOHN F. BURNS and JOHN O'NEIL
Published: June 23, 2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 23 - The Iraqi government declared a state of emergency in Baghdad after American forces were involved in quelling a firefight in the city's center.

Elsewhere in Iraq, at least 12 people died and 24 were wounded after a bomb exploded just outside in a Sunni mosque in the village where Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed. And at least 10 people were killed by a car bomb in the southern city of Basra, news services reported.
The American military announced today that a Marine was killed on Wednesday during combat operations in al-Anbar province, and that a soldier in Baghdad had died the same day in an incident unrelated to fighting.

The gunfight today broke out in Baghdad as members of the Mahdi Army militia moved in force to escort the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to a Shiite mosque in a Sunni neighborhood. During last week's Friday services, a suicide bomber carrying explosives in his shoes blew himself up in a crowd of worshippers at the Baratha mosque, killing 11 and wounding 25.

Four members of the militia were killed when gunmen opened fire on the Mahdi Army convoy, in fighting involving guns and mortars that left eight of the group's vehicles ablaze, an official with the Interior Ministry said.

Iraqi and American troops rushed to the scene, and three Iraqi police officers and five Iraqi soldiers were wounded in the fighting, Reuters said. Televised images showed American helicopters swooping low to drop flares over the midday battle.

The government responded to the outbreak by ordering a sudden curfew, extending from 2 p.m. today to 6 a.m. Saturday, sending Baghdad residents scrambling to get home in time. Normally, vehicle traffic is banned in the city from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Friday, to prevent repetitions of earlier car bomb attacks on the crowds attending Friday services.

And Iraqi forces today found five bullet-riddled bodies of factory workers who had been seized on Wednesday by a large group of gunmen, the Associated Press reported.

The gunmen had released all the workers they believed to be Sunni, along with a number of women and children, and 17 more were rescued by Iraqi police on Thursday on a raid on a farm north of Baghdad. After the five bodies were found today, about 30 people remain missing from the Wednesday incident.

The abduction, involving 40 or 50 gunmen, some wearing police uniforms, represented a sharp intensification of a tactic that has become increasingly common in Iraq.

The gunmen arrived at the factory, in northwestern Baghdad, in a large number of minibuses. They herded workers and their family members at gunpoint onto buses owned by the manufacturing company, which are ordinarily used to transport workers to Shiite neighborhoods around Baghdad, according to Iraqi officials and a bus driver who escaped.

One man who was released told The A.P. that the kidnappers sorted the hostages by ethnicity, and that he was let go because he had forged papers saying he was a Sunni.

"One of the gunmen told us to stand in one line, and then asked the Sunnis to get out of the line," said the man, who is a Shiite. "That's what I did. They asked me to prove that I am a Sunni, so I showed the forged ID, and three others did the same. They released us."

The American military also announced Thursday that four marines had been killed Tuesday by a roadside bomb in Anbar Province, and that a soldier had died Tuesday after his vehicle hit a roadside bomb south of Baghdad.

And in a predawn raid on Thursday in Basra, in the south, 20 gunmen dressed in commando camouflage and black masks stormed a police station and freed three prisoners who had been charged with killing police officers, Iraqi officials said.

The prisoners were described as members of the Tharallah Party, one of the numerous armed Shiite groups contending for power in Basra. They were being held on charges of attacking police officers in reprisal killings after clashes outside the home of the group's leader.

Police officials in Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, said Thursday that at least 25 people, mostly thought to be Kurds, were killed there in execution-style shootings in the past week, The Associated Press reported. The police have found the bodies, left alone or in pairs, around the city.

Mosul, in the north, has a mixed population, largely Kurds and Sunni Arabs, and tension often flares into violence. Police officials said they were not sure whether the killers were Sunni Arab insurgents, sectarian death squads or common criminals.

John F. Burns reported for this article from Baghdad and John O'Neil from New York. Sabrina Tavernise, Mona Mahmoud and Khalid al-Ansary contributed reporting for this article.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Autobiography of a Reader

I happened to tune in a few minutes ago to Amy Goodman's Democracy Now where Julia Wright, Richard Wright's daughter, was being interviewed. Immediately there came to mind the tremendous impact that Wright's classic, Black Boy, had had on me as a very young reader -- the sudden awareness of the terrible injustices done to people in this country where I had had in school only the most benign reports of happy alliances with native Americans a la Thanksgiving celebrations and the usual 'we are the best' routines that we kids were imbibing -- along with the slogans manifesting our deeply embedded racism -- "The only good Indian is a dead Indian." "Enny meany miny mo, catch a nigger by the toe," with which we would choose batting orders or whatever in our school yard games (I once inadvertently slipped and repeated this when working with young African American teens in West Harlem many years later and was halted by a startled, "TEACH!").

Okay, I was a lucky one. I grew up as an early reader which exposed me to the wider world in more direct ways than the minimal media interferences with our learning processes in my day. I went to a nursery school in West Hartford, Connecticut as a non talker at 2 and 1/2 -- my parents were worried about my development until I came home from my first day speaking full sentences -- I had been able to get by just pointing until then.

We moved shortly thereafter to the outer 'burbs -- Farmington, Connecticut where we purchased an old apple orchard from a farm family that had received a royal charter to their land prior to the Revolution and who were living on the proceeds of their chickens -- as their family dwindled down to only two sons -- one not married and living at home.

I had scarcely entered the local Farmington kindergarten when I developed what was diagnosed as the then deadly for children rheumatic fever which attacked the heart -- a playmate and I later had overheard our parents mention that our doctors had predicted that we would not live beyond our teens -- seemed a long way off for her and me then at about 6 ;-).

The result of this condition was that I was held virtually immobile for several months -- carried out in the orchards to lie on an old army cot days and confined to my bed days. My caretaker during my mother's pregnancy with my younger brother was a marvelous English nurse who taught me both how to count and how to read which I undertook with great enthusiasm. As we lived about 3 miles north of Farmington in rural circumstances -- nearest neighbors about 1/4 mile away, my frequent relaxation lay in reading voraciously whatever came my way. My good fortune was both that we had inherited a rich library from my academic grand parents and that my mother, too, was a voracious reader who brought a steady stream of books into the house. Comic books helped me, too, to expand my reading vocabulary. The only animated cartoons that I saw were the Disney things on Saturday mornings when with many another American child I headed to the nearest movie theater for the standard fare of a double feature and a slew of cartoons -- the latter tended sometimes to stimulate nightmares.

The end result of all this reading was that I was a bit of an odd ball compared with my peers. I had been made conscious of some of the horrors of our American prejudices -- anti-Semitism as well as anti-African American racism -- against which I would later editorialize at Yale which was permeated with it -- a quota for Jewish students and virtually no Jewish faculty -- only two among my philosophy faculty. I found the same restrictions at Vassar where I began my teaching and also challenged that as well as the exclusion of African American students there, too. In my Yale class there had been 3 in a class of 1,000, and Vassar in the mid 1960s had only 3 African American students in a student body of 1,700!!! And Jewish faculty were an uneasy one in number. We have come a way since then.

The point of my self-exposure here is that I am worried that our current generation coming along is being deflected from realities beyond their immediate personal experiences -- person to person or MTV media distractions -- that can only be discovered by plunging deeply into books or other information sources such as going there and looking for oneself? I hope the internet will partially correct this cutoff from experience that I witness in my otherwise very intelligent students. Few of mine, for instance, have much clue what is where. I finally in desperation printed out some maps of Africa and the Middle East last semester to orient them to what is where -- and I teach philosophy -- not geography.

My reading as a pre-teen and during my early teen years carried over as a habit into college, where no matter how busy I was I continued to read beyond my class assignments for interest and enjoyment. I am curbed now by near blindness -- but, hurray, can enlarge with the computer as I need and can find innumerable things simply by Googling.

It is the feelings of respect and concern for others that I find lacking in current American culture. Is there a disassociative process going on from watching too much Roadrunner and not plunging into the worlds of consciousness of others that one can only fathom by contemplative reading -- not sound and sight bits that constitute the mass of fragmented information deluging the typical American these days? How can we be so uncaring about all those people we are killing day by day in Afghanistan and Iraq. The silence on such things is truly deafening -- and horrifying. These killing games are just as horrendous as they were in Viet Nam. But the present consciousness of Americans is very different. Witness the bold dishonesties of the Republicans that they press out without widespread challenges -- cut and run? Slash and burn, I call it, but I am in a minority of those who have gone beyond the skin and shell of such things.

I fear what we are becoming a nation now that we have largely ceased being readers. We are returning to the feudal era when few had the benefits of literacy. When one is illiterate one tends to be traduced by the loudest voices assaulting one with repeated messages (lies). The Nazis perfected that tactic and the Republicans are replaying it -- Carl Rove is Bush's Goebbels. They can get away with such stuff because we Americans are trapped in a fog with explosive noises emanating from here and there that are stunning us into silence and impassivity.

I hope I am wrong with this analysis. It frightens me, frankly. But things have been changing and I fear not for the better.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

What Is Wrong with the Republicans

[What is really deadly here in NYC is the number of kids -- almost 90% in poor neighborhoods -- who do not graduate from high school and, thus, who are destined for a life of poverty -- or worse! We know how to reach these kids -- have for decades -- through early childhood beginnings for their educations and a range of practices designed to keep them in school or to direct them into vocational programs. We do such for a few through good luck and our excellent programs in some schools and our CUNY programs, but we are losing far too many now who will in too many instances spend their lives providing jobs for prison guards in upstate NY! But we could do it right if we invested the necessary funds in our public school programs -- in our children! Ed Kent]

A Look at Republican Priorities: Comforting the Comfortable
The estate-tax cut passed by the House of Representatives
would put $760 billion in new debt on the backs of
Americans in the name of making a handful of extremely rich
people even richer.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/23/opinion/23fri1.html?th&emc=th

..................

A Look at Republican Priorities: Afflicting the Afflicted
At the same time that Republicans are fighting to exempt
the richest estates from taxes, they are blocking a raise
for the nation's poorest workers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/23/opinion/23fri2.html?th&emc=th

--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Resistance to Raising the Minimum Wage -- Murder in Slow Motion!

There is no greater mark of the Republican corruption, dishonesty, and greed than their resistance to increasing the minimum wage:

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=1453117

The big lie here is that an increase will reduce the number of jobs. Nothing could be further from the truth. Those at the bottom spend their monies on necessities -- and these produce far more jobs than yacht building or vacation stints in foreign lands:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage

It is increasingly clear that the right wing agenda is set to end off poverty in this country -- by killing off those who live in it! In New Orleans HUD is trying to close down the public housing projects. Nearly a decade at the present minmum wage has made it impossible for a husband and wife both working to earn together enough to lift themselves out of poverty. Medicaid is under attack -- one will need a passport or the equivalent proof of citizenship -- often nearly impossible to establish -- to qualify for it. This is murder in slow motion!
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

The Brutality of Executions in Amerikkka

[The subject heading above is mine. I know more than I want to know of the brutalities of executions here in the U.S. -- nearly the last of the democratic nations to carry out these barbarities. We are fully aware now that we execute per class and race biases -- including the innocent framed by corrupt and careless prosecutions. Of late we have been chipping and chopping -- no longer executing kids, perhaps no longer executing the mentally disabled, making some efforts not to execute the innocent. Nevertheless with all this nit picking of which the following is but another instance, we DO IT WITH GREAT GLEE -- or at least with the ratings-building promtion of our greedy mass media -- hateful and only a legalized extension of our last century practices of lynching. Don't read what follows unless you can bear a report of great cruelties. Ed Kent]

http://news.bostonherald.com/editorial/view.bg?articleid=144351&format=&page=1

Executions mustn’t be painless for society: No numbing inhumanity of capital punishment
By James Alan Fox
Monday, June 19, 2006

There’s a small ray of hope for death row dwellers.

The U.S. Supreme Court has held that a condemned Florida man should be permitted to argue before a federal judge that lethal injection is not quite painless after all and, therefore, violates the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

In a unanimous decision announced last Monday, the high court ruled not on whether capital punishment is just or even on whether death by lethal injection is unconstitutional, but very narrowly on the appropriate process for challenging whether this method of execution is as humane as it is purported to be.

Lethal injections have a relatively short history. Developed because of concern for the apparent barbarism of older methods like the electric chair, over 850 executions by lethal injection have been performed in the United States since 1982.

The death recipe involves three ingredients, given in sequence. First, sodium pentothal is administered to anesthetize the prisoner. Then pancuronium bromide is injected to paralyze muscles. Finally, potassium chloride is added to stop the heart, causing death in seconds.

For years, critics have alleged that the condemned, despite the appearance of tranquility, may actually feel excruciating pain, particularly if the anesthesia is inadequate. Yet because of complete paralysis, he is unable to show it.

The argument was given support by a study, published last year in a British medical journal, that examined toxicology reports on 49 U.S. prisoners executed. In 43 instances, the dose of painkiller was less than would have been prescribed for surgery; in 21 cases the level of anesthesia was so low the prisoner would have likely been relatively alert throughout the ordeal.

Critics also note episodes of botched executions performed by non-medical technicians. Last month, for example, it required 40 minutes for Ohio officials to execute a man when the drugs backed up in his veins, causing his arm to swell. At one point, he shouted, “This isn’t working.”

Several years ago, I witnessed an execution by lethal injection. I journeyed to Missouri (appropriately nicknamed the “show me” state) to observe the death penalty ritual for 40-year-old Richard Zeitvogel, a good-for-nothing career criminal who had murdered two cell mates.

The process was carefully orchestrated; after all, Missouri had had lots of experience in doing the deadly deed. At the stroke of midnight, the curtains over the viewing window were opened, as if it were the start of a theatrical performance, revealing the condemned man on a gurney.

Zeitvogel said nothing and just stared at the ceiling. Whether it was the sedative he had taken to polish off his last meal or his own disregard for life, the prisoner seemed the calmest person in or around the execution chamber. Moments later, the sequence of drugs was introduced by the hidden executioner; Zeitvogel closed his eyes and expired without any sign of struggle.

I was deeply disturbed by the process, even though or maybe because the “operation,” as it was called, went off without a hitch. I was not bothered so much by having watched a man being killed, but by the fact that it was much too easy. [continue]

Frankly, I would prefer an execution method that is messy and excruciatingly painful. I’m not a sadist and I do not wish for the condemned to suffer gratuitously; but I want the rest of us to be uncomfortable. I want the executioner, the warden, the guards, the witnesses and all those who only hear about the execution to agonize over it. Only then do we fully confront the inhumanity of capital punishment.

James Alan Fox is the Lipman Family Professor of Criminal Justice at Northeastern University. Talk back at j.fox@neu.edu.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Hit Men Conning Middle Class Americans

Will the Republicans succeed in conning Middle Class America -- again? The gays are coming! The terrorists are at the door and the Dems want to provide homeless shelters for them? The immigrant hordes are descending and will rape your children unless you vote Republican?

Well, Rove's simplistic appeals -- repeated over and over and over again by a chorus of lined up voices, ranging from the right wing thunk tanks to the bought commentators, has worked before. The techniques -- big and little lies repeated over and over and over again pioneered by the Nazis have done it -- have gotten Middle Class America to put the noose around its own neck!

Needless to say 'death' taxes will not affect anyone -- unless one has an estate ranging at $4 million or more to leave to heirs -- then not very much. No family farms have been sold at auction to meet this alleged menace.

A living (minimum) wage will not put people out of work - it will actually create jobs as those at the bottom of the heap have a bit more to spend at their neighborhood groceries.

For anyone who knows the facts, the constant lying on so many fronts is an outraging manifestation of betrayal of our American ideals -- equal opportunity, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The huge budget gaps being built up by the Republicans in pursuit of ego tripping wars abroad will leave us all impoverished in ways that would have been inconceivable but a few years ago.

Will Americans wake up this time, see through the fog of lies emanating from our despicable greedies and their well paid hit men? We shall see.

No, we Democrats need not form a united front against our greedies -- we merely need to keep pointing out the obvious -- as Krugman has as usual this morning in his NY Times op ed:

Class War Politics
By PAUL KRUGMAN
An important new book called "Polarized America" suggests
that our bitter partisan divide is really about two words:
class warfare.

http://select.nytimes.com/2006/06/19/opinion/19krugman.html?th&emc=th
(Available only to TimesSelect subscribers)

Excerpt for those who do not have access:

So what's our bitter partisan divide really about? In two words: class warfare. That's the lesson of an important new book, "Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches," by Nolan McCarty of Princeton University, Keith Poole of the University of California, San Diego, and Howard Rosenthal of New York University.

http://repositories.cdlib.org/igs/WP2005-11/

for download (700+ k):

http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1053&context=igs
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

St. Paul's Death Sentence for Gays -- and Their Derfenders!

When I studied the bible at Union Theological Seminary in 1956-57, we spent our first semester working our way through the 'Old Testament' with all its riches -- and mixtures of religious roots -- we could see and compare the Hebrew version of Genesis with the original stories borrowed from the Gilgamesh (Babylonian) Epic. Our teacher, James Muilenburg, obviously loved these texts and communicated his respect and appreciation to us as beginning students -- with the caveat that we should not apply them too literally to the events of today.

Our spring semester was to focus on the New Testament. Much to our distress our rather distant Anglican professor lectured at great length _about_ the New Testament, but had us do no readings of the text. A bunch of us finally protested that we wanted to study the actual texts line by line as we had with the Old Testament. In redirecting we discovered many surprising things, particularly the hatreds incorporated in the Pauline letters that seemed to have no connection with the figure of Jesus of Nazareth, indeed, seemed to contradict his message of compassion and forgiveness with precisely an opposite message of hatred -- of unconverted Jews, gays in particular -- and disrespect for women -- conjoined with servile sycophancy towards Roman imperial authority that could do no wrong! Paul was greatly proud of his Roman citizenship -- scarcely the disposition of Jesus who had had some strong words about rendering unto to Caesar versus rendering unto God.

I think that spring semester course may have steered about the brightest 10% of our class straight out of careers in religion. We had not been drawn to seminary studies to become warriors for St. Paul.

I offer this preface because the verses from the first chapter of Paul's Letter to the Romans more or less tell it all. Paul was the figure who launched two millennia of anti-Semitism ("The Jews killed Jesus" in another of his epistles) and anti-gay biases that culminated in the double Holocausts of Nazis via the pass along of of his prejudices through the foul mouthed hater, Martin Luther:

http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/german.bible/rom-eng.txt

To update a bit I was told that a current teacher at Union Seminary was the leading expert on Paul's attitude towards gays. As I live only a few blocks away, I sought him out to query what current views were of Paul's homophobia? I should not have been surprised to have him tell me that Paul was not anti-gay, only anti gay pedophilia -- Allen Ginsberg's North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), I guess. This was also a bit before the Catholic Church scandals had broken.

Needless to say my personal view here is that Paul launched an horrendously perverse heresy which unhappily still pervades much of the Christian church. The Anglicans at this very moment are duking it out:

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060618/NEWS01/606180421

Will they be Christians -- or followers of St. Paul, the devil's advocate marching us off to wars? We shall see shortly.

Below I have provided 3 English translations of the key Pauline text in Romans on gays. Judge for yourselves. Commentators have noted that Paul does not use the explicit term, homosexual, to whom he is clearly referring, but instead makes references to what is "natural and against nature" -- the latter deserving death. Ed Kent

................................

King James Version

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/romans-kjv.html

Rom.1
[1] Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God,
[2] (Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures,)
[3] Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;
[4] And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:
[5] By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name:
[6] Among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ:
[7] To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.
[8] First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.
[9] For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers;
[10] Making request, if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you.
[11] For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established;
[12] That is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me.
[13] Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, (but was let hitherto,) that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles.
[14] I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise.
[15] So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also.
[16] For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
[17] For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.
[18] For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
[19] Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
[20] For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
[21] Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
[22] Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
[23] And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
[24] Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
[25] Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
[26] For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
[27] And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
[28] And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
[29] Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
[30] Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
[31] Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
[32] Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

................................

American Standard Version

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/romans-asv.html

1:1Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, 1:2which he promised afore through his prophets in the holy scriptures, 1:3concerning his Son, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, 1:4who was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead; even Jesus Christ our Lord, 1:5through whom we received grace and apostleship, unto obedience of faith among all the nations, for his name's sake; 1:6among whom are ye also called to be Jesus Christ's: 1:7To all that are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 1:8First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is proclaimed throughout the whole world. 1:9For God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit in the gospel of his Son, how unceasingly I make mention of you, always in my prayers 1:10making request, if by any means now at length I may be prospered by the will of God to come unto you. 1:11For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established; 1:12that is, that I with you may be comforted in you, each of us by the other's faith, both yours and mine. 1:13And I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you (and was hindered hitherto), that I might have some fruit in you also, even as in the rest of the Gentiles. 1:14I am debtor both to Greeks and to Barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. 1:15So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you also that are in Rome. 1:16For I am not ashamed of the gospel: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. 1:17For therein is revealed a righteousness of God from faith unto faith: as it is written, But the righteous shall live by faith. 1:18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hinder the truth in unrighteousness; 1:19because that which is known of God is manifest in them; for God manifested it unto them. 1:20For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity; that they may be without excuse: 1:21because that, knowing God, they glorified him not as God, neither gave thanks; but became vain in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened. 1:22Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 1:23and changed the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. 1:24Wherefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts unto uncleanness, that their bodies should be dishonored among themselves: 1:25for that they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. 1:26For this cause God gave them up unto vile passions: for their women changed the natural use into that which is against nature: 1:27and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another, men with men working unseemliness, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was due. 1:28And even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up unto a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting; 1:29being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity; whisperers, 1:30backbiters, hateful to God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 1:31without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, unmerciful: 1:32who, knowing the ordinance of God, that they that practise such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but also consent with them that practise them.

...................................

World English Bible

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/romans-web.html

1:1Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the Gospel of God, 1:2which he promised before through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, 1:3concerning his Son, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, 1:4who was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, 1:5through whom we received grace and apostleship, for obedience of faith among all the nations, for his name's sake; 1:6among whom you are also called to belong to Jesus Christ; 1:7to all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

1:8First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, that your faith is proclaimed throughout the whole world. 1:9For God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit in the Gospel of his Son, how unceasingly I make mention of you always in my prayers, 1:10requesting, if by any means now at last I may be prospered by the will of God to come to you. 1:11For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift, to the end that you may be established; 1:12that is, that I with you may be encouraged in you, each of us by the other's faith, both yours and mine.

1:13Now I don't desire to have you unaware, brothers, that I often planned to come to you, and was hindered so far, that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles. 1:14I am debtor both to Greeks and to foreigners, both to the wise and to the foolish. 1:15So, as much as is in me, I am eager to preach the Gospel to you also who are in Rome. 1:16For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes; for the Jew first, and also for the Greek. 1:17For in it is revealed God's righteousness from faith to faith. As it is written, "But the righteous shall live by faith." 1:18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 1:19because that which is known of God is revealed in them, for God revealed it to them. 1:20For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity; that they may be without excuse. 1:21Because, knowing God, they didn't glorify him as God, neither gave thanks, but became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless heart was darkened.

1:22Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 1:23and traded the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed animals, and creeping things. 1:24Therefore God also gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to uncleanness, that their bodies should be dishonored among themselves, 1:25who exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

1:26For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions. For their women changed the natural function into that which is against nature. 1:27Likewise also the men, leaving the natural function of the woman, burned in their lust toward one another, men doing what is inappropriate with men, and receiving in themselves the due penalty of their error. 1:28Even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting; 1:29being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil habits, secret slanderers, 1:30backbiters, hateful to God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 1:31without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, unforgiving, unmerciful; 1:32who, knowing the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but also approve of those who practice them.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Training Camp for Little Christian Suicide Bombers

[Note that not all U.S. Evangelicals are nut cases such as those portrayed here. But there are wars within the fading Christian groupings that index the decline and fall of American Christianity. Lest we forget:

-the Catholic Church sex hang-ups that are de facto anti-women (contraception and abortion) and anti-life (stem cell research) and in extreme cases pedophiliac,

-the Episcopal Church war between the gay and the gay haters,

-and the evangelical split between the warriors and the peace makers reported below.

Sad, very sad. One could see it coming when I was studying theology in the mid 20th century. Ed Kent]

USING CHILDREN AS 'GOD'S ARMY'
Kirsten A. Powers, The American Prospect
A new documentary chronicles a summer camp where children,
as young as six, are trained to become devout Christian
soldiers.
http://www.alternet.org/movies/37373/
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Growing Wikipedia Revises Its 'Anyone Can Edit' Policy

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/17/technology/17wiki.html

Some are bothered by the Wikipedia on-line source of information on most anything -- particularly that anyone can contribute to editing particular entrees. Certainly errors can creep in, but from my own experience as a contributor way back when to the 3rd edition of the Columbia Encyclopedia as a grad student pulling in a few extra pennies without really working, I am all too aware of the misinformation collected and passed along by the established ones -- Britannic, etc.

I was asked on an emergency basis to re-do the Columbia's entrees in religion and philosophy. I was at the moment mid Ph.D. in philosophy which had followed studies in theology here and at Oxford -- both with leading figures in these two fields. So I was about as up to date as one could be with the latest studies in this and that. And I could check out things that I did not know with experts.

I was startled to discover that the predecessor 2rd edition of the Columbia Encyclopedia was filled with misinformation. Some of this amusingly had been cribbed from the big boys, often word for word! In one instance some predecessor in a hurry had simply taken the last and least important paragraph as his contribution from the Britannia. I found innumerable errors that I corrected earnestly -- many of which had been passed along obviously through all the major encyclopedias that had been cribbing (plagiarizing) from each other. Much to my own embarrassment thereafter I discovered that I, myself, had misremembered something from a lecture I had had and had incorporated a real howler as fact.

I have not had the courage to check subsequent editions or other sources to discover whether my revision of history has endured and spread. But I am convinced that newly minted scholars -- mainly in their 20s so this Times article indicates -- are probably doing the best possible job of making info available on line in response to a simple Google query. I am inclined to trust Wiki when it states something authoritatively -- and when it indicates that the current entry needs repairs!
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Updike's Ugly Anti-Muslim Pot Boiler

I have not read Updike's latest fictive effort, Terrorist. Nor will I. I personally think it should be trashed from his own account of it on a recent npr interview. The plot line is simplistic. Young son of an Arab-American father who deserted his Irish-American mother when he was 3 discovers an Imam who introduces him to Islam which persuades him that those navel exhibiting American high school girls are the root of all evil, so he will get them, which he apparently does by blowing a hole in the Lincoln Tunnel -- Updike was not too happy that his reviewer had disclosed his plot climax.

Needless to say, by his own admission, Updike has no first hand knowledge of what produces a terrorist. Let me enlighten him -- would send this to his college roommate, a good friend now sadly deceased to pass it along, but perhaps someone else will.

Mr. Updike, Arab terrorists first got started with U.S. backing (against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan) with CIA assistance. The hard-line terrorists then were targeting some of our U.S. supported brutally corrupt regimes (e.g. Saudi Arabia from which 15 of the 19 of 9/11 came). Al Qaeda then moved on to U.S. supported economic interests, i.e. the corporations that were exploiting oil in the Middle East (again our CIA, lest we forget, which blew Mossadeq out of his democratic Iranian government in 1953-54 to get at his oil and then replaced him with the very brutal Shah, another of our very own corrupt leaders). The extension to cultural objections to the West is a side issue of the extreme Islamists, a very small segment whom Updike has targeted as his 'terrorists' here -- all those bared navels of our high school girls (Updike's image, not mine).

What I see here in Updike's own account is a bigot from small town Pennsylvania exposing himself as such -- and thereby also endangering those of us who have to traverse the various tunnels in and out of NYC. I check my watch each time I enter the one under the East River as I commute home to Manhattan from Brooklyn.

In sum with all his diddling around in the 'burbs Updike has lost touch with the rest of us living in the blue states. I particularly despise his anti-Muslim propaganda in this book because it hits some of my own Muslim students who were as much shocked by 9/11 as were the rest of us:

http://www.youthcomm.org/NYC%20Features/Nov2001/NYC-2001-11-15.htm

Some have been forced to leave this country, thanks to the threat of incognito incarceration in our American gulags set in motion for them around the country -- in Brooklyn after 9/11 and in various county jails in distant states where a $90.00 per diem allowance tempted rural counties mainly in the deep South to solve their local tax problems.

John Updike, you owe American Muslims an 'umble apology. I thought your patronizing comments to one who called in from Patterson, NJ were nauseating. Run, you damned rabbit, back to the suburbs where you hang out. NYC is not for you. Suggest you do some serious reading out there to learn more about Muslims today than a few cursory verses extracted from the Qu'ran. Here is a starter for you -- Islamic Thought in the Twentieth Century:

http://www.ibtauris.com/ibtauris/display.asp?K=510000000051606&bic=HRDD*&ds=Islam&sort=sort_date/d&m=8&dc=94

It will teach you a bit about the internal struggles within Islam between Islamists and secularists for the support of the traditionalists (people in the street) whose hearts and minds we are not winning with either our brutal killing games over there -- or novels such as your ugly pot boiler.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Down with Medicaid!

Funds for Iraq run low
The $20 billion the US gave for reconstruction will be exhausted within
months. By Peter Grier
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0615/p01s02-usfp.html?s=hns

............................

It looks as though we had better divert funds from the gulf coast -- or we shall be seeing some pretty unhappy Iraqis over there? And so it goes -- down with Medicaid!
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Amrican Gulags

Judge Rules That U.S. Has Broad Powers to Detain
Noncitizens Indefinitely
By NINA BERNSTEIN
The class-action lawsuit, Turkmen v. Ashcroft, is the first
and largest of several brought by immigrants held after the
Sept. 11 attacks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/15/nyregion/15detain.html?th&emc=th

..................

After 9/11 large numbers of Muslims were not only detained in Brooklyn, but also shipped out to county jails around the country where they were held without the benefits of basic due process rights. Our Brooklyn 'gulag' per reports in Newsday and much later in the NY Times permitted brutalization of those being held -- including the sort of stuff at Abu Ghraib where one of the Brooklyn guards eventually did his thing also, resulting in his conviction. See Google sites for Brooklyn Gulag:

http://www.google.com/search?hs=PBV&hl=en&lr=&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial_s&q=Brooklyn+Gulag&btnG=Search

This brutal system of incarceration, splitting parents from American children in some instances, parallels the cruel internment of Japanese Americans during WW2 for which economic compensation has only recently been made to survivors. Here again is a saga of shame for the U.S. which boasts to the world its democracy as a model for other nations to emulate. G-d forbid that they do so.

See also American Gulags:

http://www.google.com/search?hs=NW&hl=en&lr=&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial_s&q=American+Gulags&btnG=Search
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

"Spend, but Don't Tax? Run, but Don't Cut?"

The Rove spins emerging from the current Camp David photo op are bound to promote the usual vicious attacks on Democrats on the home front and on Iraq.

In response to the disastrous deficits that they have been building up that threaten our most fundamental public services ranging from Social Security and medical care to keeping our bridges and highways in shape, the Bush Republicans will be replaying their shopworn 'tax and spend' theme.

And WE shall be accused of 'cut and run' from the mess that THEY have created in Iraq. Needless to say the ones that they want to keep there to be slaughtered are not (with very few exceptions) their OWN sons and daughters, but rather the Americans who have sought to serve our country honorably and who have found themselves trapped in a hell that offers no end in sight.

The Republicans will be running as usual-- in their own interest. And they will be cutting essential funding for us here and for those all too vulnerable over there -- their announced game plan is to 'repeal the New Deal'. But let us not forget the economic disaster that brought us the New Deal in the first place -- the Republican Crash of 1929! The stock market these days seems to be smelling the smoke of the fires the Republicans have ignited in our economic basement.

Perhaps the economic gods have had it with our misbegotten neocon monstrosity?
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Hi Tech Cheating -- Scotland to Asia

SHOCK RESULT IN EXAM CHEATS BATTLE
REPORTS of exam cheating by Scottish school pupils have rocketed this summer, with incidents of plagiarism doubling.
Full story: http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=860062006


High-tech cheating in Asia's high-stakes exams
As students sweat through do-or-die tests for college spots, educators
do battle with clever cheaters. By Simon Montlake
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0609/p01s02-woap.html?s=hns

................................

Cheating has always been around. I remember at one of my schools a practice that focused our attention on the phenomenon which required us to append to our answer sheets the word "pledge" which stood for: "I have neither received nor given assistance to others in doing this exam."

However, my own students have alerted me to the fact that the impulse to cheat is alive and well today and, perhaps, on the increase as exam results are thought to affect one's future well-being. It ranges from the usual old time glance at the exam answer being drafted by the person in the next seat to modern hi tech stuff that could scarcely be detected short of intimate body searches of those entering an examination room.

How sad.

Now on to our pols and CEOs.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

America's Brutalizing Violence

The hypocrisy of American moralism is horribly manifested by the contrast between the fuss made about a young woman's breast only momentarily displayed on TV and the bloody distorted face of the dead Zaqawi repeatedly thrust at us over and over by our media -- even on the front page of the NY Times!

Add to this the constant mind bending reports of disappeared children -- then discovered brutally killed -- and one has the real source of post traumatic stress inflicted upon our children -- salaciously pounded into them day after day simply to boost media ratings!

Needless to say, if a good percentage of our soldiers are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with disabling post traumatic stress from what they have seen (or done) there, what can be the impact on our children of our constant U.S. media drum beat of brutalizing violence?
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

It tolls for thee!

I have been particularly conscious of all our wars since WW1 -- when I was a child it was still vividly detailed in the American consciousness -- my father as a young lieutenant had barely missed fighting in it, as it was concluded just as he was about to be shipped out.

As a teen driver for the chaplain to the princes, Tubby Clayton, co-founder of TOC H http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toc_H I visited the trenches in Belgium and viewed those thousands upon thousands of crosses marking the slaughter at that grim scene where the war stalled and a generation was "lost." Tubby explained how a young officer had to lead his troops over the top against the opposing trenches of the enemies and how thousands would be slaughtered each time such a hapless attack was launched. We derived our concept of triage from there -- slightly wounded in the upper body could walk back to the field hospitals, less wounded in the legs would be carried, and those gut shot would be left to die. TOC H was a Christian organization dedicated to NEVER AGAIN!

Needless war came again when I was an eight-year-old enlisted in helping run our front yard aircraft warning station after 12/7/41 The end of WW2 came too soon for me to fight as all us near teens had hoped to do, but I vividly remember the horror of the Life Magazine portrayals of the survivors of the death camps -- and later the same of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Tokyo which we had pretty well annihilated with great glee along with their mainly civilian populations -- burned to death or left scarred for life, physically and psychologically.

One need not run through our subsequent killing games. Korea would have been my own fighting war, but Eisenhower ended it just in time for me to resign from further NROTC training at Yale. I was too ancient for Viet Nam which began to turn me off war as a means for solving human conflicts. I spoke out at an anti-war rally at Vassar College and helped our students a few years later organize another at Hunter where John Bennett, President of Union Theological Seminary and WW1 pacifist, was keynote speaker. I counseled students who wanted to to protest the war not to refuse but to volunteer for conscientious objector status -- one faced up to five years in jail then for resisting the draft. A peak year came in 1969-70 when the draft was extended to college students for the first time on a lottery basis and all hell broke out at my 3 campuses that year when I was visiting at Barnard (philosophy), Columbia (gradate religion), and moonlighting my philosophy of law course at CCNY. War had become real at last for our students.

It was, thus, with horror that I watched the Bush administration stumble into the Neocon-induced chaos of Iraq. Perhaps Afghanistan was justified -- although not the use of that brutal daisy cutter there:

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/blu-82.htm

We owed the Afghanis much, having participated with the Soviets in disrupting their poor nation over several decades -- a debt that we apparently have determined not to repay with solid reconstruction of the destroyed facilities there.

No, we had to carry out the Neocon dream of dominating the Middle East and all its oil and imposing free enterprise on people still recovering from the depredations of European and American 'free enterprise' exploitation! Let us not forget that our CIA drove Mossadeq out of office and brought in the brutal Shah to keep the Iranian oil securely in our hands:

http://www.iranonline.com/newsroom/Archive/Mossadeq/

Certainly the Iranians haven't forgotten!

So it is not with Rumsfeldian glee that I greeted the dead face of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi displayed with full gore on Fox News yesterday. Yes, he was a vicious and destructive man, but . . .

"Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." John Donne
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Where Does All That Tuition Money Go?

[One of my very able Brooklyn College students delivered a term paper last night focused on the exorbitant tuitions and loan commitments being imposed on college students these days. Certainly today's is a very different world than my own undergraduate one where we were granted full scholarships, had minimal job commitments if scholarship were awarded, and then graduated with a clear financial slate for whatever lay ahead -- further studies, jobs, whatever.

No longer. The typical student today (and his/her family) now reaches graduation with massive debts (unless fortunate enough to have it made at very high level income and/or inheritance levels). Even my teaching institution, CUNY, abandoned free tuition in the 1970s so that too many of my students are obliged to stagger study years with earning ones -- or must drop out simply because they can't make ends meet.

Where are all these monies going? Judging from what one observes our corporate models of higher education are gobbling tuition funds for secondary uses -- per Thomas Sowell:

http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/sowell-tuition

How much are Bollinger and crew pulling down plus perks?

And how is Columbia paying for all that real estate that it is currently purchasing in Manhattanville (or will be paying off future interest on loans taken for those purchases)? Needless to say tuition is covering a good bit of this stuff one way or another.

I admit that we at Brooklyn College -- where junior faculty are struggling along with adjuncts to survive and tuitions leap upwards for our students each year -- are the beneficiaries (?) of a recent &79 million or so library upgrade -- thanks also to the largesse of the Dormitory Authority. I tell my students that as tax payers they had better enjoy it now, as they will be paying for it for the rest of their lives, if they stay in NY.

So perhaps someone in the Columbia Business School might put a spread sheet to work to figure what percentage of parents' and students' contributions in tuition and loans are respectively allocated to:

a) corporate salaries?

b) building projects?

When I was at Oxford our business operation at my college was run single handedly by the college bursar who also tutored me in Greek. That was it plus some cooks and "scouts" who cleaned things up.

See the Columbia tuition rates below and start saving if you have children struggling to get educations now in NYC. We do better at Brooklyn, incidentally, in national awards for our students at far lower tuition rates -- 2 Rhodes, 3 Beineckes, and a Truman Fellowship recently and entry to all the professional schools, including Yale and Columbia Law, NYU Medical among my own students, etc. But even our tuition is now paying far more than half our operating expenses. This is no way to run higher education -- $39,200 for next year's undergrad tuition? Help! Ed Kent]

http://www.ce.columbia.edu/as/tuition.cfm

Fall 2006/Spring 2007

3 points $3,920 flat rate
(for students registering for a total of 3 points in a given term)

Fewer or more than 3 points in a given term $1,086 per point

Noncredit foreign language courses $1,750 per course

Noncredit creative writing courses $2,700 per course

Chemistry F0001y $2,172

Summer 2006

Per point $1,030

Noncredit foreign language courses $1,350 per course

German S1121D $5,400

Columbia Arabic Summer Program $2,700 per language course per session

Russian Practicum $2,700 per language course per session
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

An Open Letter on College Teaching and Learning

Dear Liz,

Please consider this to be an open letter of concern - not directed at you personally, but at all of us at B.C. I am immersed currently (by the chance that I was doing 3 electives in an 'intensive writing' department this past semester) in assisting as best I can in teaching nearly 100 students how to write what we used to take as SOP -- a term paper. I can't give a firm statistic at this point -- as approximately half of these papers have not yet reached me -- as to how many of our students:

1) have previously learned how to do a critical research paper,

2) have learned the wrong way to do a paper (e.g. copying stuff from here and there strung together without sources indicated or straight purchase or theft of stuff),

3) have not much clue as never taught to do such papers either in secondary schools or at Brooklyn College!

However, I would guestimate that about 10-20% are in category #1, 5-10% are in category #2 (we discuss such things in my classes so I probably have less of a problem than most with cheating), the remainder are not taught at all and need to be. Almost all of my students indicate that they have cheated in the past -- mainly on conventional types of exams where cheating is easy and the norm. A majority, including graduating seniors, have NEVER been taught how to do a term paper.

I am sure that we are not really preparing most of our students for the real world of research and writing now. One of my student papers was instructive -- I noticed that some stuff did not correlate with the listed sources and so checked and discovered that there were paragraphs, etc. from an unlisted source in the student's bibliography. I called and asked her what was up and she explained that she had had an experienced friend working as a paralegal find her research materials. Obviously the friend had been sloppy in indicating sources and this student is now at work clearing up what is hers and what comes from all sources. This will not be too easy for her to do.

BEWARE LIBRARIANS!!! Future research will increasingly be done on the web. The Dormitory Authority needlessly spent $79 (?) million redoing our Brooklyn College library. As the librarians report, it is less and less used. They don't even bother to keep it open for evening students (i.e. past 9 p.m.) as so few wonder in. Why should they. They can get what they need sitting at home at their computers. Expand our Computer Cafe!!!

BEWARE PUBLISHERS AND BARNES AND NOBLE!!! We don't need your over priced textbooks a la Murdoch any more either. Texts are increasingly available on the web. And most of the news outlets are there, too -- about 24 hours ahead of the best newspapers and most of the understaffed/underfunded TV news media as well. I have a list on Israel/Palestine to which I have thus far added 21 links on peace matters there:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine

Obviously such will be one of our teaching tools in the future for our courses.

BEWARE OUT-OF-DATE ADMINISTRATORS!!!

Sitting alone in one's lonely faculty office may not be the proper place for a teacher to interact with his/her students. I also have a Yahoo group for my students to which I can post current stuff. This allows great flexibility in moving the course along and also is a way to fill in students who have had to missed classes on what we are doing: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns

Such tools take about 5 minutes to set up and they are free. I had hoped that students would dialogue on this list, but this is a shy generation (just as mine was the "silent" one). So instead I have daily exchanges with at least several students by private email. They are free to call my home if they want to talk about something important to which they need detailed responses. This is not exactly on-line teaching, but it is teaching supplemented by the newest technological tools. I am dubious about the stuff used in the classroom that I have observed as an alternative to writing on the board. It is okay, but tends to rigidify one's presentations and discussions. I prefer greater freedom both to expand in a particular class and also to redirect my syllabus as appropriate along the way. Thus, I violate the rigidities sometimes suggested by our administrators for syllabi -- which I see sometimes stifling learning. I always have in mind an A.N. Whitehead quote that got to me as an undergraduate one semester when I was writing 6 term papers with Whitehead in the titles: "It is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true." I am not as good at keeping my classes interesting as I once was -- now half blind and deaf -- but I try.

As a sample of things that can be done with students at a distance, I will end with an assignment that came my way on short notice a few days ago. One of my students MUST finish her studies by the end of the first summer session. She asked our chair if I could do a special studies project to satisfy a major requirement. I was not planning to be at the college for the summer, but I thought about it and realized that I need not hunt for a text or spend daily sessions with her face to face. I sent her the following independent studies assignment which pretty well provides basics that one should know about theoretical ethics -- past and dominant in the Anglo American tradition. Mine is an Oxford tutorial approach wherever possible -- one should get students deeply into things rather than offering them superficial surveys of topics such as too many American courses do. The upshot of the latter is superficial understanding mainly forgotten within a year or two.

Here is the assignment sent by email:

OK. I suggest that you do two 10 page papers. The first should be a comparison of Plato and Aristotle on the concept of justice. Plato's Republic would be one of the readings and Book V of Aristotle's Nichomachaen Ethics would be the other. These are both on line:

http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.html

http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.5.v.html

The second paper should compare Kant's duty ethic with the utilitarian teleological (consequentialist) one presented most clearly in John Stuart Mill's "Utilitarianism." Here is a site for the Kant's Introduction to the Metaphysic of Morals:

http://philosophy.eserver.org/kant/intro-to-metaphys-of-morals.txt

and for Mill:

http://www.utilitarianism.com/mill1.htm

Kant tends to be a bit obscure, but his Categorical Imperative is the bottom line. You can Google around for help, but cite any sources you use for the paper.

You can ask questions by email or phone. Best, Ed Kent

P.S. I find that blogging has widened my sphere of teaching beyond my Brooklyn College students. I get queries from all over on a wide variety of topics to which Google must have attached my name -- particularly fun are grammar and high school ones. Start a blog. They are a fun outlet, too. There are collections of bloggers that do various and sundry things. And one can sign up for Google notifications on a wide variety of things that come in daily. I open new Yahoo groups to meet needs and interests (See signature listing below.).

P.P.S. My characterizations here apply to American college students generally so far as I can determine -- not just ours at B.C. I should add that among my recent students are a Rhodes Scholar, a Beinecke (3rd in a row for the college), and a Truman Fellowship award winner. Only about 20 of each are awarded nationally. We are also the best!
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

And so it goes in NYC

Our apartment looks out upon lovely Riverside Park on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It is a great place to live and raise children with all sorts of facilities, ranging from play grounds and basketball and low seasonal cost tennis courts to simply lovely vistas for strolling or walking a dog.

However, we share the park with homeless people who generally return to it to sleep -- often in the Amtrak tunnel running under it -- after we have departed with nightfall when one is cautioned not to stray where one can have a violent encounter -- these are not perpetrated by our homeless who are generally frail people, but the occasional predator who may seek monies from the unwary stranger who does not know our protocols as to where to be when.

Sadly, we are reminded of the homeless sleeping in the tunnel -- which is open to the winter blasts from the Hudson River, by the mournful sounding of the trains warning those who might be sleeping too near the tracks to pull back.

Such are the extremes of life in NYC where an apartment such as ours now brings in $1 million or more to overlook either all that greenery or the sweeping views of the river while the homeless scout our trash for deposit bottles to eke out a bare living -- or to support in some cases a drug habit picked up while doing military service in far places.

And so it goes in NYC.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Beware the 'Death' Tax Cutters!

[Unless your estate (husband and wife) is more than $4 million, you will not be touched by estate taxes. However, if you are a CEO who has been making out like mad -- as are most of the trustees of this outfit lobbying to end the 'death tax' -- you want to take it all. And this all will be taken out of the hides of the rest of us either in the form of increased taxes or decreased basic services such as life-saving medicine, highway maintenance, national security, whatever. Spread the word about them as they are self-disclosed here. Ed Kent]

MEMO

From: Rod D. Martin, Chairman, TheVanguard.Org
To: TheVanguard.Org Members and Friends
Date: 31 May 2006, 8:33 AM
Re: Death Tax Update: Victory Within Reach

Dear Conservative Friend,

As you know, last month, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist promised a
final vote to abolish the abominable Death Tax by the end of May.

For a variety of reasons, that hasn't proved possible. But the man is
as good as his word.

THE FINAL DEATH TAX VOTE IS SCHEDULED FOR JUNE 8TH. AND WE'RE WITHIN
TWO OR THREE VOTES OF VICTORY.

But there's more to this story, and we have to act fast.

As you know, the Senate is not like the House, where a straight-up vote
is possible and 51% wins. Senate rules are much more complicated and
have been since George Washington's day; what's more, since it takes 60
votes (out of 100) to stop a filibuster and force a vote, the hard-left
Democrat minority can stymie most things our good guys try to do.
That's the biggest reason why we've had such a frustrating couple years.

Because of this, we have not one but THREE votes we have to win. The
first is called an "Agreement to move forward"; the second is a "budget
point of order". Each of these must receive 60 votes before the final
vote can be held.

In short, this is going to be a busy week, and you and I have to get to
work NOW.


1. Call and Fax the Fence-Sitters

Our petitions have been very successful, but with three votes to win in
the next week, there's not much time left for that. We need everyone to
put maximum pressure on the fence-sitters, to let them know we mean
business. At this late date, that means calls and faxes: if we ring
their phones off the hook - especially in an election year - they'll
know what they need to do.

For a list of the eight Senators we have to work on - with their phone
and fax numbers - click here:

http://www.TheVanguard.Org/r/call/060531_deathtax_calls.shtml


Also, if you don't have time to call or fax them yourself, we have set
up a system through TheVanguard.Org to do it for you. It costs a little
bit - $6.18 - so we can pay our bills, but that's nothing compared to
what's at stake, and we'll make sure everyone gets your message. All
you have to do is fill out the form and pay.

http://www.TheVanguard.Org/r/fax/060508_deathtax.shtml


But don't stop there. There's more:


2. Tell Your Friends

Don't spam anybody of course, but we need you to tell your friends and
get them involved. Forward this email to as many of your friends as you
think might help. With three votes to win in just one week, there's not
a moment to waste, and we need everybody now.


I know we've all been pretty bummed about the Republicans in Congress
lately, but you should notice this: they came through on extending the
tax cuts this month, and they're coming through on the Death Tax too.
When you see our list of fence-sitters, you'll see they're all
Democrats. The only Republican we're "working on" is perennial
disappointment Mike DeWine (R-OH), and he's probably with us on this.
The truth is, after a rough year and a half, our guys are really coming
through, in no small part because YOU came through first, uniting
through TheVanguard.Org and other groups to "encourage" them. It shows
what we can do when we pull together. It also shows how radically worse
America would be with the Democrats in charge.

Now, let's go finish this. 2006 can still be a big year for America.
Let's make it happen.


Thanks for all you do,
- Rod, Sherri, Shawn and all TheVanguard.Org team


P.S. No kidding: the faxes are crucial. We won the tax cut fight by
acting: we'll win the Death Tax fight the same way. Pitch in with me,
and tell your friends too.

http://www.TheVanguard.Org/r/fax/060508_deathtax.shtml

--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net