Religion Day in the U.S.???

The U.S. is supposed to have a Religion Day in the near future. As most claim the U.S. to be a 'Christian' country, such is a bit ironic as of all the Western religions Christianity has been the most murderous, prejudiced against others, and cruel -- torture, burning alive still seem to be popular with such as Cheney and too many others. We have a fourth of the world's prisoners in our jails. Poverty and wealth both are growing and dominating our economy.

I was once ready to go to war for my nation, but I am increasingly ashamed of its actions. The Iraq war which distracted attention from what could have been a restored Afghanistan where we are now once again killing innocents both on the ground and from on high.

The U.S. leadership has not caught on to the change from military to economic might which is now running our world. No jobs in the U.S.? China and other nations have stolen them away. The rich are either spared taxes or hide their wealth in other nations. Some people have a dozen homes or more while others are increasingly homeless, short of food and medical care.

I wonder whether we shall start burning witches again, i.e. homeless elderly ladies begging for help? Such would do what the Republicans seem to want with our budgets. Don't spend on those who most need help. I can't understand how we could have produced such a political party of 'NO' to all humane things. Reminds me of Mussolini's fascism.

Can Obama make a difference? I do not know. Do you?
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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]

Summer Community Feuds!

Summer communities are notorious for the hostilities sometimes lasting for generations that have often been generated by some random insult or other irritation.

I have seen this personally at both the summer homes where my and my wife's families spent summer vacations. For the past several decades I have spent teaching to earn extra tuition monies for my 3 children. I have been horrified over the growing animosities as to who owns what of the five cabins at County Line Camp at Valois on the east side of Seneca Lake.

My wife's mother had left her cabin to all three of her daughters at a time when the bylaws specified only two owners per cabin. Two of my wife's sister laid claim to their mother's cabin -- but only two owners per cabin were allowed then. Now things have changed and four members of each cabin can attend annual meetings and vote on issues.

But the animosities linger. I cannot be there to make peace because of a restrictive spinal damage problem, but I am bugging all to make peace now. All have a cabin of their own, as one was sold to one of my wife's sisters.

I argue that 'ownership' is a menace and that sharing by all should be our aim. Can we do it? I do not know.
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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)
--
Ed Kent [blind copies]

Israel as Tyrant!

I was a strong supporter of the institution of Israel as a refuge from the centuries of slaughter of Jews by mainly Christian nations and authorities.

I have become increasingly horrified as Israel, itself, has become a tyrant abusing and slaughtering Palestinians. It is sometimes said that victims begin to imitate their abusers. The Holocaust is no excuse for Israel abusing the Palestinians who had nothing to do with the Holocaust and were sometimes its victims themselves.

This decline from admirable Zionist values has been a horror to watch as it has accelerated. Caring Jews everywhere are trying to halt this horror. Israel is not a democratic state. It is a tyrannical regime now bent apparently on driving out the Palestinians per the mythology of its origins.

One hears story after story of settlers abusing Palestinian children with impunity.

And Israel is in the process of making itself one of the world's most despised nations.

I see no good ending here as Israel obviously does not plan to allow a Palestinian state and is stealing the lives and means of living of the Palestinians. Gaza has become a shameful nightmare.

How sad to see Jews of all people now abusing others and threatening G-d knows what it will do to Iran -- a nuclear destruction?

There is no good end in sight here and I fear for Israel's existence and that of my friends there.
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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)
--
Ed Kent [blind copies]

Guns!

Let us be clear that the second amendment was intended to have an army available if we needed it. We had no formal military then. And hunting with rifles is okay. But most guns end up killing family, or suicides -- and murders. Such makes news and money for corporate ads, I suppose.

Now one can gun down anyone with a good excuse and get away with it. We supply the world with more guns than all other nations combined and many of these end up shooting at us and ours.

We are the only democracy that lets people run around with guns displayed and used -- possibly the Swiss are a partial exception as a small nation among large and aggressive ones.

Manifestly we should restrict guns to those who need them to protect -- not threaten us. Will we ever be able to beat back the gun lobby? If we can't the killing will presumably get worse with our economic hardships. If you can't get a job, use a gun to take what you want.

And so goes Amerika -- daily more and more a killer police state.
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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)
--
Ed Kent [blind copies]

All Hell Is Breaking Loose

The only instance of suicide missions in my recollection were the Japanese Kamikaze planes which were made into flying bombs with the pilots locked in so that they had no alternative but to try to fly their planes into American warships. This struck us as inhumane madness.


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

But now wherever we turn suicide bombers are trying to kill masses of people -- many of them mere innocent civilians at a market of some such public place.

This is totally incomprehensible to me. I know that some people enjoy killing others, but they are more rare than most of us who care about others.

Is this the result of personal depression, the desire for revenge, or whatever else can so motivate people?

Iraq may fall apart with this killing game. Iran may be plotting it. I can understand Afghanistan where we are killing so many innocent people.

The droning game horrifies me and I think we should get out of there as soon as possible.

Where this will end I do not know. It is my main criticism of Obama.
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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)
--
Ed Kent [blind copies]

My Heart Goes Out to the Guys Killed in the Mine (and, of course their loved ones)

The summer before I was married in 1957 I worked simultaneously two industrial jobs to earn enough money to support us in Oxford for a year.

I particularly remember one at an aircraft plant as a major parts packer.

The first week the guys hazed me a bit and then we became closest friends as a group working together. They nicknamed me "preacher" as I was studying theology then. They knew I was working two full time jobs 6 days a week, so they would do whatever they could to let me rest -- piling stuff around me when I would nap during a break to let me sleep longer.

Most of the guys had come from working in the oil wells in Texas, so shared much already. One day this huge guy came at me and claimed I was trying to make it with his wife. Suddenly he stopped and left. I looked around and my buddies were putting their switch blades back in their pockets.

Working together in such jobs really draws guys together in special ways -- we had some women in the factory, but working in separate areas.

What a loss to have so many guys blown to hell at once by a boss CEO who obviously gave not a damn about them or their safety.

All this is small instance of an America that is being divided by a global economy which puts profits above the value of people. Pretty obviously our industrial jobs have migrated to China, etc. where workers are treated like dirt compared with most of our workers. They can make it cheaper and Walmart is there to get us to buy Chinese rather than American. It is a new world -- financial -- not military -- and even Obama does not seem to have caught on yet.
--
"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 [blind copies]

Pull Out of Afghanistan?

With Karzai playing games with us and the Taliban, I wonder whether the time has come for us to pull out and let the Afghans settle their own affairs -- enough of our troops slaughtered for a losing cause!

Yes, this IS beginning to look very much like the Vietnam mess from which we finally moved away and now are doing business, etc. there.

Obviously Karzai can't run the show and we are seen as foreign invaders. Enough already!

I suspect that the Afghans will make the Taliban behave or else become the Afghan enemy #1! Certainly we are not loved as occupiers droning from on high.

The news announcement below is more or less the last word so far as what we can do with this corrupt crook -- brother dealing drugs and all -- his police hated more than the Taliban, apparently.

What do you think?

NEWS ANALYSIS
Karzai Steps Up Attacks on NATO, Boxing In the West
By ALISSA J. RUBIN
Afghan President Hamid Karzai continued over the weekend to
make hostile statements as the West took stock of just
how little maneuvering room it has.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/05/world/asia/05karzai.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)
--
Ed Kent [blind copies]

"greed-driven free-market ideology"

King was not the only one to anticipate bad things ahead for the U.S. His popularity dropped rapidly both because of his opposition to the Vietnam war, but also to the widening gap between poverty and wealth in this country. What he foresaw then has become even worse with the loss here of industrial jobs to China and others who abuse their workers and so can sell here cheaper -- Walmart and others that have driven out our small neighborhood stores.

In Morningside Heights (Columbia) stores are selling at outrageous rates and our lower West Harlem stores have been driven out of business.

People living in public housing are hit from all directions. In one category of public housing with the ending off of a 25 year lease arrangement, people are literally being evicted by new market rates that replaced their previously affordable rents. Slightly south of Columbia some big outfits are buying up rental housing, doing some reconstructing of apartments which allows them, too, to raise rents to market rates.

One would expect Columbia to be fighting for such people in need, but in Manhattanville it is trying to evict them with eminent domain tactics. They have allowed the low cost stores to be driven out in this process.

As a Columbia Ph.D. I am appalled by my own university.

The caring people in NYC are being drowned out by the BIG MONEY which includes our richest one, Mayor Bloomberg, who bought himself an illegal third term in office and who always supports the huge real estate interests rather than our our needy -- particularly our growing numbers of homeless.

"Bill Moyers and Michael Winship | Dr. King's Economic Dream Deferred
Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, Truthout: "This is a perilous moment. The individualist, greed-driven free-market ideology that both our major parties have pursued is at odds with what most Americans really care about. Popular support for either party has struck bottom, as more and more agree that growing inequality is bad for the country, that corporations have too much power, that money in politics has corrupted our system, and that working families and poor communities need and deserve help because the free market has failed to generate shared prosperity - its famous unseen hand has become a closed fist."
Read the Article"

http://www.truthout.org/dr-kings-economic-dream-deferred58258
--
"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 [blind copies]