Lies and Sabotage

Obama has quite a job ahead this summer, but I can think of no President more ready to take them on.

I have never seen one coping with both wars and such a frail economy and under such vicious attack as that being directed at him by the Republicans, tea party, or whatever they are.

Obama has been making considerable progress with both these major challenges and presumably will no longer play conciliatory games with the party of 'no'. But I have never seen a major opposition party on the edge of 'treason' in critical national times, nor so ready to boldface lie and smear their opposition.

Unhappily our media all too often play along with the lies and smears, leaving a confused public trying to figure out what is true and what is false. The format of running brief excepts from both sides is a disgrace. And the latest appeals to violence are downright scary. We hear daily of the nut cases out there killing women and children. What will we do if they redirect these efforts to our political leaders? There are already some groups that want to replay the Civil War which cost us more lives than any other in our history. Needless to say there is no small appeal to racism at work here with whites feeling threatened by our numerous other ethnic and national groups. It is all too easy to blame affirmation action for the fact that one's factory or small business has closed its doors. People are mislead by frequently repeated lies and smears!

We are off to a good start with medical reform and Obama's trip to Afghanistan. In contrast the Republicans seem to have no competent leaders and their party may divide between supporting the public interest and sabotaging it. Let us hope that some of them try to do the former, but they may be driven out of office by their party saboteurs.

An interesting summer ahead, I fear. But let us hope for the best!
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"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)
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Ed Kent [blind copies]

Social Class Attitudes Prior to FDR

Social Class Attitudes Prior to FDR

Actually I was too young to be aware of such things personally, but each summer after I stopped working as a camp counselor, I would look for interesting things to do summers. These included everything from construction of houses to writing during my junior year summer for Time Inc, publications. I did short stories of enterprise for Fortune, letters editing for Sports Illustrated, a week with Time, etc. The boredom of churning out articles at which I was pretty good, turned me off journalism as a career -- too many of my colleagues were also bored to death with half finished novels in their bottom drawers.

The one experience, however, that turned out to be a shocker was working as driver and assistant to a retired Yale academic who promised to work with me on Shakespear. I took along a good supply of books to read, too. To my chagrin, however I discovered that this 'teacher' was way over the hill. His notion of my studying Shakespear was for me to go through the texts to collect specific words used by Shakespear -- never specified by him. So ended that summer tutorial.

What was particularly interesting was that he was married without children and he and his wife treated their Irish cook/house manager and me as less than human beings -- some echo of the class attitudes of the previous generation. My first day at work I was supposed to clean the walls of their bedroom. Mrs. X arrived wearing white gloves with which she checked my cleaning and scolded me for some dust she discovered. Another day in the middle of a hurricane they sent me off to get their mail which I could not do -- the office windows of the post office had blown out and it was closed.

Peggy, their imported Irish helper, was treated less well than their pet dog. She was terribly underpaid and supposed to work 12 hours a day with one half day off on Sunday for which she had nevertheless prepared a cold dinner for the Xs. This particular community consisted of many Yale retirees including a president -- all treated their servants as underpaid slaves.

One day Mrs. X's pet dog grabbed the hand of the wife of the former Yale president and refused to let go. Mrs. X was going to have the dog put away, but I offered to train it and so rescued her beloved 'baby'. There were some amusing moments. The Xs would have large many course dinners that Peggy would have to prepare. I finally suggested that she deserved a raise which they did give her grudgingly. Peggy hated the scorn with which she was treated. To retaliate, she would spit in the soup just before she brought it in from the kitchen. All the Irish workers hated their employees who treated all of them worse than their pets.

Frankly, I was stunned to see what America had been prior to FDR when we started treating helpers as humans -- not animals. Such was what brought on our great Depression -- the combination of greed by our ruling classes and their scorn towards the rest of us.

I hope we are not seeing an echo of such stuff once again with our vast gap again between great wealth and the struggle to make it in an expensive world.
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"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)
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Ed Kent [blind copies]

Let us hope for better days ahead!

Except when I am reporting events from my early days (I turned 77 recently and have clear memories of many things either unknown or forgotten by us, e.g. our incredible abuses of Latin America which ranged from destroying developing democracies and putting tyrants in power to assassinations).

We are now aware of the Cheney horrors -- torture, killing, the illegal war on Iraq which he hoped to make our base to control the Middle East -- I think Bush was a patsy through most of his years as president to Cheney. Bush had made it as a frat president at Yale by being good with names. His academic record was a disaster. And he was an easy set up for our evil ones.

But to see now to happier things. The American public looks to be waking up to the fact that it had been misled by the lies and smears of the Republicans -- the polls favoring the new health reform have jumped up something like 19% since it was passed. Obama is back in his old campaign mode and has no reason now to continue to mediate with the Republicans. Our risks are tea party racism and possible murders of our leaders. Hopefully they will fade in time as they learn how much they have been conned. We live in a global economy and our jobs have been sent overseas by our corporations in pursuit of profits -- China is our real menace on that front. They have taken by latest estimates about 3 million of our blue collar jobs by cheating their own workers with minimal pay and no benefits as well as playing games with their currency rates.

I will not try to Google all of this stuff here, but it is easy to find with a little searching. And hopefully Americans as decent people have been turned off by the Republican lies and smears. There are many months before the November elections to tell them the truth for a change and Obama looks to be ready to do that.

Let us hope for better days ahead!
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"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)
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Ed Kent [blind copies]

More Lies and Smears? And Racism, too?

I am deeply worried that our job shortages -- really a consequence of our allowing China and other nations to grab our jobs -- may risk enhancing racism in this country once again as fearful whites blame our lack of jobs on affirmative action. This has been an easy, if not too subtle sell by the Republicans organizing mobs of anxious people worried about surviving in this ever more divided nation between the super rich and the rest of us. Our NYC mayor obviously bought a third term in office by spending about $100 million on supporters. As it was, his was a relatively narrow victory against a not particularly inspiring Democratic candidate.

So where will the Republicans go now. Some seem ready to make a bit of peace over the Health Reform success which benefits so many people. But will others appeal to Tea Party types to block universal medical care as an affirmative action move? All this stuff about government running medicine now lends itself to this sort of racism. People forget that Medicare and Social Security were introduced to save the lives of people growing older without jobs or funds to support either medical care or their homes.

My college years shifted me from Republican roots to the Democratic Party. But I well remember the decency of Robert A. Taft who came out in support of affordable public housing when he was persuaded that private investment could not make such housing available to those in need. I lived in public housing with my wife while we were graduate students and saw what a vast difference it made in the lives of minority families -- kids could study and feel safe in their homes from the violence of drug addicts.

The Republicans seem divided once again. They are going to have a hard sell against our much needed medical reforms which brings us now in line with every other major democracy and even little nations such as Costa Rica which has a longer life expectancy than we do! Will they revert again to the lie and smear tactics that have made their party a disgrace for decent and caring Americans? I hope not.
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"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)
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Ed Kent [blind copies]

American Economic Disaster in the Making

As Bob Herbert succinctly summarizes in his NY Times Op-Ed today, Our great recession is slashing the very things we need most -- education, medical care, and, of course, jobs.

I frankly don't see where we can go from here. We have allowed our big money institutions to sabotage our financial system, waste monies on things like 'wars' and far too much military stuff to go on fighting the cold war against the Soviet Union which no longer exists -- substitute some Muslim radicals who are using our military presence in their countries to excuse their own slaughters of innocents. Needless to say our military presence in 150+ nations both generates resentments against us and is bankrupting us! We live now in the 21st century where economic competition is the name of the game and our Supreme court has now opened the door to corporations -- dominated in some instance by other nations -- to compete freely in funding our political candidates.

We are a nation divided increasingly into the super rich and those struggling to survive -- or if Health Reform fails are having to chose between death by hunger and expulsion from their homes or lack of medical care guaranteed to all major democracies and paid for by their wealthy who have had their taxes here dropped to incredible lows. There is even talk of sales tax increases which hit poor and rich alike -- in amounts, but, of course, not in effects.

How many hungry kids do we have in this country? One state is talking now of dropping their medical coverage. Ironically our Roman Catholic bishops and Pope are opposing health care reform while their own nurses and our doctors are supporting it.

We are daily becoming less and less of a democracy and more and more the domain of the super rich. Even the concept of the "public interest" is under attack by the right wingers! Such is hard to believe, but so it seems to be -- only in Amerika.

A Ruinous Meltdown
By BOB HERBERT
As the states face fiscal ruin, severe budget cuts across
the country are undermining economic recovery.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/20/opinion/20herbert.html?th&emc=th
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"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)
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Ed Kent [blind copies]

Blogging to Try to Correct the Smears and Lies

I cannot remember a period since my early memories of WW2 when I have seen such casual distribution of lies and smears -- through the major TV sources of information for most Americans trying to make political judgments as to how they should vote in the national interest and that of themselves and their families.

We fortunately have a highly intelligent and caring president in the precarious times of economic disaster mustered by the Bush administration and his obsession with 'wars' to be fought with our over stressed military -- more returning soldiers committed suicide this past month than were killed in both Iraq and Afghanistan!

Needless to say there is more at work here than simply Post Traumatic Stress. Killing innocent people -- or even enemies -- does things to people of conscience that haunts them to the point of taking their own lives!

Even Obama does not seem to see that there are no military answers to our problems now. We live in a globalized economy and our competitors who abuse their own workers are stealing our jobs from us. There is no simple answer to these job losses apart from using national funds to put our own back to work and pressuring such as the Chinese who are manipulating our job markets.

Worst of all are the treasonous actions of our ever more right wing Republicans who lie and smear their Commander-in-Chief under more pressure than even Roosevelt who had his Depression and 'wars' separated by a decade rather than compounding our national disasters in the making. I could not believe the other day learning that we have our military in 150+ countries tying down there about 1/3 of our military forces. Needless to say these countries do not love dominance by the American military although they don't mind the financial benefits we pay them for the privilege. That is where our jobs have gone and where are deficits are situated in massive amounts.

I read a variety of sources daily. But rarely do I see our TV -- main source of public information -- telling things as they really are. We are being collectively conned as a nation by our super rich and things will now get far worse thanks to our Supreme Court's blank card for our corporations to use their massive funds to elect their own lobbyists!

I see bad times ahead for our fading nation.
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"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)
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Ed Kent [blind copies]

Internet Robbery!

I share as little of my personal information as possible except in blogs designed to capture some history with which I am personally familiar now at age 77. But I am terribly worried that people are opening themselves up to exploitation from here, there, and elsewhere. I get more than 100 emails each day with useful information from a variety of sources. I also receive about half of them as crooked operations searching for suckers whom they can exploit. I fear for the widow or widower trying to take over the email of a former spouse. I am forced to do battle almost daily with collection agencies for bills that hospitals have failed to cancel -- GHI pays our 20% beyond Medicare and again and again they are trying to double collect. Where such monies go, I would hate to guess. Most of us know that email queries about our finances are fraudulent. But how many innocents find themselves conned out of monies -- say from credit cards they have not ordered that have been stripped of funds?

In short we are living in a new world with the internet and it is a dangerous one which is used to mislead us both politically and in our personal interests. Imagine corporations now being allowed to contribute directly to candidates by our Supreme Court! Whom will they represent -- us or those paying them huge lobbying monies?

Help! I see our democracy at ever more risk! Already we are watching a vast gap opening up between our superrich and the rest of us. Recall that their taxes are constantly being reduced. But there is no free lunch for the services such as health care that we desperately need.
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"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)
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Ed Kent [blind copies]

Getting to the Facts

Most of our TV presentations are expressed as opinions pro and con presented so briefly that it is virtually impossible to follow them. Real reporting consists of in depth research rather than mere expressions of opinions often voiced as smears of opponents and of the real facts which are so critical to the workings of a democracy. Manifestly the U.S. is being divided up between the superrich and the rest of us struggling to survive -- sometimes even to stay alive without medical care.

As a retired professional philosopher "opinions" have always been suspect since the times of Socrates and Plato who warned us of them as alternatives to the truth -- often with vicious motives in the background intentionally designed to deceived people. Certainly we saw this game played to the hilt by the Nazis during WW2. Repeat a lie often enough and people begin to believe it. Their primary target was the Jews but they also despised non Aryans:

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

"The Aryan race is a concept historically influential in European culture in the period of the late 19th century and early 20th century. It derives from the idea that the original speakers of the Indo-European languages and their descendants up to the present day constitute a distinctive race or sub race of the larger Caucasian race.[1]

"While originally meant simply as a neutral ethnic classification, it was later used for political racism in Nazi and neo-Nazi ideological form. It became a concept of scientific racism, and hence also in other currents such as occultism and white supremacism."

Needless to say we are still haunted by this racist categorization. It fits neatly with white fear of minorities in this country and is a carryover from the days of slavery and mistreatment of the natives who preceded our European colonization.

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"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)
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Ed Kent [blind copies]

The Census -- " HUMAN" at Last!

I have always hated the census requirement that one give a racial or other label to self and family. This year the requirements are weird. One has 4 choices to be black, white, American Indian or Alaskan native. Then follow about a dozen or so Latino alternatives. Thereafter we have Asia and the Pacific Islands. And finally a fill in blank for the Middle East countries.

The good news is that there is finally a "some other race" final write in category. Whee! At last one can officially indicate that one is a HUMAN. I have been adding this for the last several census forms. My first family members arrived in the early 17th century. G-d only knows what we have mixed in along the way. But my in-laws are just about everything and I deeply have resented being anything else than HUMAN. I know the the census is supposed to break down group numbers, but with the increase in minorities it has been setting off another round of racism as 'whites' feel threatened by their declining percentages. The marvelous mix of people that we are is something of which we should be proud and a model for our changing world. Spare us from more racist 'wars'. And let's get our economies organized in just ways.

I hope many others will follow my lead and classify themselves as HUMANS rather than mutually antagonistic sub-species! Wars are what such subdivisions motivate. And we have a long way to go to end off racism in this country. Such things linger and word labels make a vast difference in how people view and treat each other.
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"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)
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Ed Kent [blind copies]

War Heroes or Mass Murderers?

The Republican insistence of speaking of a 'war on terror' makes of said 'terrorists' heroes in their minds and those of their supporters. Wars are fought between nations -- not clusters of serial killers of innocent people -- many of these their own.

Words make a vast difference in characterizing facts. A check with those being slaughtered by the mass murderers reports widely that normal citizens of Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan and perhaps even Iran have had it with the killing games. Through the internet they can see how normal people live in democracies designed to represent the public interest -- no 'wars', medical care for all, and the other amenities that they expect and we Americans deserve.

The party of NO denies us all the best of things and does its best to sabotage reforms of our corrupted practices. What nation apart from a cruel dictatorship divides its super wealthy from the rest of us struggling to make it?

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"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)
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Ed Kent [blind copies]

Civill Court Hearings on Rachel Corrie's Death 7 Years Ago

[I happened to catch Amy Goodman's interview with the Corrie family today on the occasion of the beginning of the civil case protesting her killing by an Israeli bulldozer seven years ago as she was trying to halt its destruction of a Palestinian home filled with family members.

The family has faced on-going Israeli resistance to their protest of their 23 year old's killing which has now allowed only a civil suit meet statutory limitations.

Rachel was trying to protect Palestinians from the destruction of their homes in Gaza -- an Israeli tactic used to convert Palestinian properties to Israeli colonies -- I refuse to use the euphemism, "settlement" to describe these abuses. Israel is an occupying nation and is doing some of the same things that we have done in the way of killing innocents where we have pulled similar grabs.

We now know that Iraq was an illegal invasion which has simultaneously cost us a fortune while losing us the support of the Afghans who now are similarly resisting our occupation. Will we and the Israelis never learn or do we believe that military dominance allows such license? Needless to say caring Jews both in Israel, here, and in other nations are as appalled as I am by this behavior. At least Obama is trying to make peace here and there, whereas the Israelis seem determined to make enemies wherever they can.

The website below offers the latest as of today. What a horror for this family to face!

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"Court begins hearing civil suit brought against Israeli government over death of US activist killed by Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza Link to this video

"A court today began hearing a civil suit brought against the Israeli government over the death of Rachel Corrie, the US activist who was killed by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza seven years ago.

"While Corrie was in the Palestinian territories, she wrote vividly about her experiences. Her diaries were later turned into a play, My Name is Rachel Corrie, which has toured internationally, including in Israel and the West Bank."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/10/rachel-corrie-civil-case-israel--

"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)
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Ed Kent [blind copies]

U.S. Military (War) Obsessions May Destroy Us!

[No nation is wasting so much of its resources as the U.S. with its deployment of its military in more than 150 counties around the world (See below). No wonder the Republicans insist on violations of U.S. Constitutional and world standards with their continuing obsession with the Cold War now transferred to a 'war on terror'.

The problem here is that precisely our determination to dominate the world with our military is a large part of the reason why we are being attacked here, there, and elsewhere by those resistant to such meddling in their lives. Our 'allies' are scarcely so stupid and are getting themselves one by one out of the messes that we have been creating. I would venture a guess that it will soon be virtually our troops alone who are scattered in our chosen war zones and are losing their lives -- for what?

I am not saying that the suicidal Muslim murderers are innocents, but their killings of people are turning off their communities which are best left to handle these nut cases -- imagine someone blowing him/her self up along with innocent victims for what? This is not a war that we are fighting -- it should be a moral and financial support movement for those who are being so harmed by these thugs. It looks as though the Pakistanis have had it with the Taliban and are taking steps to get rid of them. If we leave others this option, the same is likely to happen widely -- no longer the excuse of resisting the American military trying to dominate the globe which is now a financial institution wasting resources that are leaving us far behind -- education, medicine, infrastructure, jobs, etc., etc.

Will we be able to redirect our efforts or will we end up bankrupted with our military excesses as were the Soviets? Save us from this antiquated Republican mentality! It is risking our future as a people and a nation. Ed Kent]

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The military of the United States is deployed in more than 150 [1] countries around the world, with more than 369,000 of its 1,379,551[2] active-duty troops serving outside the United States and its territories. Many of these troops are still located at installations activated during the Cold War, by which the US government sought to counter the Soviet Union in the aftermath of World War II. Since 2001, the US has redeployed some of its forces as part of the "War on Terror."

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

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"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)
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Ed Kent [blind copies]

Excessive Military Expenses

[The U.S. spends more in its military budget than the rest of the world combined. We have powerful lobbies that support these often totally pointless expenditures and many willing buyers -- some of whom resell them to people who use them against our own forces out there. Obama has done his best to slow things down, but as a practical politician he needs some of the votes involved to get other things done. Speaking of deficit spending . . . . Ed Kent]

Pity the poor Department of Defense. Allocated a mere $665 billion for 2010, these folks now are asking for an additional $33 billion to squander in Afghanistan. The White House will be sending this request for supplemental funding to Congress next month. That's right. While we, the people, struggle to stretch our own budgets, the War Machine wants to pick our pockets once again, and the White House and Congress are willing enablers.

If ever there was time for some tough love and hard lessons in fiscal responsibility, this is it! We're going to put Congress on notice - NO MORE BAIL OUTS FOR DEFENSE! - and we need your help:

TOUGH LOVE PHONE-A-THON
12 Noon - 1.30PM
Thursday, March 11
Brooklyn Borough Hall
Court St near Montague
Near the fountain: (We are easy to spot.)

No cell phone, no problem. Borough Hall is a busy location and Brooklynites are receptive and responsive, so there will be plenty to do. And if you can't join us, click here for some suggestions on calls to make to STOP THE FUNDING, STOP THE WAR.

Fran Sears
for the Legislative Committee
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http://www.grannypeacebrigade.org/

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"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)
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Ed Kent [blind copies]

U.S. Abuses of Latin America

[Most Americans are totally unaware of our history of political abuses and economic exploitation of Latin America. It would take a lengthy essay just to sketch the details. I see no evidence that Obama is repeating the Bush policies there as this piece intimates. For the record Hillary was better received than the Pope in his recent visit -- the Catholic hierarchy having been a prime supporter of the cruelest abuses there. Christians there have been converting from the Catholic church in growing numbers to the evangelicals. And nothing could be healthier for Latin America than that it is at long last detaching itself from external domination -- even ours. Ed Kent]

Hillary Clinton's "Damage Control" Trip to Latin America
Mark Weisbrot, The Center for Economic and Policy Research: "Hillary Clinton's Latin America tour is turning out to be about as successful as George W. Bush's visit in 2005, when he ended up leaving Argentina a day ahead of schedule just to get the hell out of town. The main difference is that she is not being greeted with protests and riots. For that she can thank the positive media image that her boss, President Obama, has managed to maintain in the region, despite his continuation of his predecessor's policies."
Read the Article

http://www.truthout.org/hillary-clintons-damage-control-trip-latin-america57412
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"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)
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Ed Kent [blind copies]

Our Psychopaths

I am constantly startled by the boldness of our psychopaths. I would not have believed that all of our Republican pols are more than willing to see thousands die each year through lack of medical care. Ours is supposed to be a Christian nation. Anyone who studied theology seriously knows that Jesus supported care for each and every person in need of it. He was alleged at one point to have blown his stack at those collecting monies for themselves and their religious buildings.

As one who studied theology here and abroad, I was taken by this indication of care -- whether or not he was alleged to be the son of G-d. If there is such a benevolent being -- I have my doubts -- then we would all be his/her children. Not long after I departed membership in churches the word went around that "G-d is dead!" It made for a salable book title.

It had become clear that the best minds were leaving religion -- some with kind hearts remained -- but at their own risk. Our greedy corporations -- particularly those with medical connections -- are the paradigm of Christianity that we are watching emerge now -- those tea party types. Our Supreme Court has really unleashed them and I fear that we are now facing dangerous times. When will torture become the Christian answer again to dealing with enemies? Perhaps it has already.

We have not quite returned to burning thousands of 'witches'. But we may be watching the cut off of as many from affordable medical care which is tantamount to witch burning in slow motion -- along with children, too, of course.

I happen to be on a heavy pain killer to quell the effects of a bone spur pressing on an inoperable spinal nerve. I am one of the lucky ones with Medicare and GHI covering the additional 20%.

But my heart goes out to those who do not have my good fortune -- quite a few millions, I gather, in the only major democracy which denies medical care to all.

Hopefully Obama can get the reforms through the Republican psychos.
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"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)

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Ed Kent [blind copies]

Time for Us to Stop Funding Israeli Colonization of Palestine

The U.S. has been giving billions of dollars to Egypt and Israel ostensibly to keep the peace between these to nations. Egypt is far from being a democracy and Israel in effect uses its funds to colonize Palestine. Is it not time that we put these monies to better use? We could redirect some of them -- now approaching one hundred billions of dollars -- to assist the suffering Palestinians or at least to reduce our own national debts.

Let us stop funding oppression and violence there -- both Palestinian and Israeli -- and begin to enforce real peace in that region.

I realize that Obama has enough on his hands now not to take on AIPAC (America's pro Israel lobby), but I think the time has come for Americans to speak out and stop letting ourselves be conned into sending funds no longer supported by the bulk of us with financial problems of our own.

Please don't pull the anti-Semitism smear on me. I support the existence of Israel, but not its abuses of its neighbors which I fear are breeding anti-Semitism. Christianity has long been anti-Semitic since -- ironically -- its Jewish origins. I would hate to see it unleashed yet again in yet new forms:

http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/antisemitism.html

It is time for us to call Israel into good order and to stop supporting its worst practices. Caring Jews are doing so both here and in Israel! It is time that the rest of us gave them our full support! If we do not, we may see catastrophe for all living in that region -- WMD are too available to do the worst there.

AIPAC is not an organization that has American interests as its aim -- only control of our politicians by intimidation.

http://www.aipac.org/about_AIPAC/default.asp

Enough already!
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"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)
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Ed Kent [blind copies]

Attitudes Towards People Shaped Very Early in Life

I recall very early in my life experiences with people that shaped my attitudes thereafter.

When I was very little -- up to about 4 when we moved to Farmington -- we lived on a street in West Hartford, Connecticut. Among our neighbors were a retired policeman and smuggled really in the backyards of houses built later a small cabin where Bert lived, the only African American, as I later learned, residing outside a small ghetto in the center of Hartford. Only African American women working as household servants would travel on our buses.

To to get to my experiences, our police friends and his family countered what might have become my prejudice that all cops were mean and racists. One day I followed a young policeman for several blocks until he realized that he had a 3 or 4 year old in tow and kindly asked me where I lived and brought me home again. Police were friends was the lesson that I had learned -- or at least some of them.

But it was Bert who had the major impact on my attitudes. One day my pet Boston bull terrier cut his leg on a broken milk bottle and Bert kindly patched him up. On another occasion I was teasing my dog by confining him under a chair. Bert gently explained to me that I was making my dog unhappy. And I thereby learned that animals have feelings, too, and are not just inanimate toys for one to treat anyway an impulse strikes. Bert in effect became my extra parent and taught me that care and concern for others were important. He was the first of many future mentors who made all the difference in my life and disposition toward people and other living and feeling beings. I am guiltily not a vegetarian although I know how cruelly our now mainly commercialized meat producers abuse our 'food' supplies. At least when I was a kid, chickens and other wild animals lived largely happy lives until we slaughtered them. Living in the country my pets included dogs, cats, two lambs, and a pig. We thought we could raise our own meat during the rationing of WW2, but once one has made a pet of an animal, killing and eating it is not going to happen. We returned them to farmers raising animals in humane ways.

I will forever be indebted to Bert for teaching me that all our fellow humans -- even some of the more evil ones -- as well as intelligent animals -- are creatures to be treated as feeling beings and with all the care we can muster. I am not a pacifist. I lived through WW2, wanted to join the fight which ended before I was old enough, and was in training later as a naval officer in college until Eisenhower ended the Korean war just in time for me to resume a civilian identity. I view capital punishment to be one of our lingering crimes practiced by people not fortunate enough to have had a Bert as a critical formative influence in their lives. And I deeply appreciate Tony Papa's heroic efforts to end off the cruel Rockefeller imprisonment laws for non violent offenders:

http://www.15yearstolife.com/
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"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)
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Ed Kent [blind copies]

Where We Democrats Must Go Now!

We Democrats need to tell it as it is. There are no neat and tidy solutions for most our major problems. Our jobs have been shipped overseas. We have inherited huge debts from at least one pointless war -- Iraq -- which distracted us from fixing Afghanistan which now is in a mess, thanks to our Iraq diversion. We have spent a fortune on these 'wars' that diverted monies from where we really needed them -- rebuilding our infrastructures -- bridges, sewers, etc. We let the Republicans run wild with our national wealth through the sabotage of the restrictions needed to protect us from our bank and Wall St. fiascoes. We have let the rich become incredibly wealthy both by these failures and cutting their fair share of taxes.

The one good thing we can do now is fix our medical system so as to keep our people alive, let alone healthy -- bringing us into line with all those other systems that work in the rest of the democratic world -- at half the costs. Enough of profiteering by our drug and medical insurance companies!

No president except possibly FDR has inherited such incredible messes and his Depression and WW2 were separated by a decade.

Sadly we in NY have had to watch some of our own marching towards what may turn out to be criminal conclusions to their political careers. And it was stupid of our party to allow the Republicans to block action after action with the threat of a filibuster when we should have moved directly to majority rule in our Senate.

Obama has been learning, but what burdens for a regime barely getting settled into office!

Let us hope we can pull things into some sort of order before the Republicans go back to the business as usual that has created the messes in the first place.

At the very least we must get the health reform bill done ASAP. From there on we can try to fix whatever we can -- some things nevertheless being beyond our control -- particularly recalling our jobs from overseas.

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"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)
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Ed Kent [blind copies]

Our WW2 Atrocities, etc.

In response to my worry that Israel's abuses may be generating covet anti-Semitism, a critic pointed out some of our own WW2 atrocities. Let me expand. Hiroshima was a horror, but we added Nagasaki to speed up the Japanese surrender to keep the Soviets out. And more deadly than the combination of those nuclear horrors, we had killed more Japanese in Tokyo by the same device that we used in Dresden (a non military target) -- concussion bombs followed by incendiaries that created firestorms particularly in Tokyo which was a city of wood and paper.

War is Hell. It brings out the worst in good people and unleashes the psychopaths to kill and maim innocent people -- women and children. I am not sure that our drones are not doing something along these lines in Afghanistan and Pakistan. And let us not forget our napalm -- jellied gasoline that splatters widely -- particularly on people. And we look not be be outlawing cluster bombs that remain as 'toys' for kids for decades that explode when touched by them.

My concern remains, however, that excessive military tactics that kill innocent civilians -- by Israel or us -- generate not victories but long standing hatred of the perpetrators.

Incidentally some Israelis and visitors to Israel have shared with me my concern. As one who grew up surrounded by anti-Semitism and all too aware of the two millennia horrors of it, I don't want to see yet another Holocaust atmosphere generated. For the record leading German Christian scholars at the turn of the centuries (19th and 20th) stimulated much of Germany's anti-Semitism along with its major corporations during the Hitler reign. Our current Tea Party types who support the reestablishment of Israel to bring on the second coming also maintain that Jews unconverted then will be damned.

I can understand Israel's wish to protect itself in a hostile environment. But this need not be done with abuses of Palestinians and others which stimulate hatred.
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"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)
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Ed Kent [blind copies]

Sabotaging Our Government?

The latest attacks on our national government strike me as the equivalent of sabotage or even treason. We have been drawn into two 'wars' and had our economy gutted by Republicans since Reagan. Obama inherited more messes than can be easily listed -- the 'wars', lack of government guidelines and enforcement mechanisms in a host of areas, a nation increasingly divided between the superrich, those of us trying to survive economically, and those dying needlessly and devastated by medical expenses and losses of their homes. Fear and anxiety dominate the public consciousness -- except for those with several residences here and abroad. And the latest Republican smear is that Washington is 'broken' which is picked up by too many Democrats who should know better.

What nation apart from a petty dictatorship attacks its own people? Needless to say when they are not focused on the latest child murder, the bulk of our media are repeating these smears over and over again until people begin to believe them. I have not seen such trashing of our nation since the Joseph McCarthy era which it took an Eisenhower to to counteract.

None dare call it treason is a slogan from another source, but it looks to me as though we are pretty close to that. Bush thought he could use Iraq as our permanent base in the Middle East and built a huge American embassy there to run it. He left Afghanistan in chaos which could have been avoided. He cut taxes for the superrich which should have been paying for such 'wars' and also monitoring agencies to keep our economic disaster from evolving.

Obama has been left to pick up all these pieces -- burdens which no president has seen since the great Depression and WW2.

I find this all deeply depressing -- lies and smears from the Republicans rather than a nation uniting to solve its major problems. Can you imagine our government now being operated by such crooks who are manifesting increasing degrees of madness -- commending a murderer who supported their anti tax madness? Let us not forget that their suicide pilot was claiming his home to be a tax exempt church and whose family values consisted of trying to destroy his own.

What a depressing mess!
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"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)
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Ed Kent [blind copies]

Reform Health Care or Continue Being Ripped Off!

I recall my beloved wife who died last summer and who handled our bills and taxes, spending many angry hours on the phone prying loose literally thousands of dollars owed to us by our health insurance companies.

Now that bills and taxes are my responsibility I find rarely a day when I don't receive a bill from a collector for some hospital or doctor. All such are covered for us by Medicare and GHI for doctors. But again and again I have to challenge -- with many minutes on the phone to reach a live body -- someone to clear up the mess. My heart goes out to others who simply pay those bills that come into their mailboxes. Many people are stealing from us in health areas in a variety of ingenious ways. No wonder our drug and health insurance cons have the highest profits of any of our industries!

In fact the U.S. has a worse health system than any other democracy and a good number of poor nations as well: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/opinion/05kristof.html

We are being conned by both the Republicans and the health care profit makers. Our doctors know better. If one is well off and lucky one can get decent care here -- given some 98,000 malpractice errors each year. But millions of Americans have no health coverage and 70% of our bankruptcies are health cost related.

Don't be taken in by the Republican lies!

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/2008-releases/republicans-democrats-disagree-us-health-care-system.html

Other nations know full well how dangerous our system is. My family members have studied in several European countries and paid nothing for excellent health care there.

One must see such things first hand to realize how rotten our health care system is.
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"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)
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Ed Kent [blind copies]

Israel's Abuses ---> Anti-Semitism?

I was shocked some time back when Yitzhak Rabin was Prime Minister of Israel and one of the most decent of the lot when a human rights group in which I was participating had the issue of Israel's mistreatment of Palestinians arise. I was shocked to discover that I was the only non Jew (about even numbers of Jews and non Jews) who did not connect anti-Semitic dispositions with their criticisms of Israel's misconduct on the relatively minor matters then.

This was a group of people who would never say apart from friends that they were drawing this connection, but it left me with the sense that many people are silently making it today. We have, of course, the apocalyptic Christians who want Israel restored to bring back the second coming, but most are quite candid that only converts to Christianity in Israel will not be damned.

Few pols are willing to risk this connection with or even loudly voice criticisms of Israel. But this it does not bode well for the future. I was a child of WW2 and horrified to learn of the Holocaust. I have more Jewish in-laws than others. I am particularly worried about anti-Semitism both here and around the world. The horror stories of Gaza, etc. are terribly destructive of good will towards Israel. Its military tactic towards enemies has been to destroy as much as they can. And with the destruction of infrastructures comes the loss of innocent lives.

I don't like posting a blog of this nature, but I think some of us have to tell it as we see it.
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"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)
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Ed Kent [blind copies]