We Owe the Troops an Exit

The 'war' in Afghanistan is turning into a disaster both in lives of Americans and Afghans and total costs that this country simply cannot afford. Our two 'wars' are now ranging towards the trillion dollar level -- 3 and growing:

http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2009/0915/economic-scene-afghanistan-will-cost-us-more-than-iraq

Innocent lives -- ours and theirs -- are being slaughtered and our returning troops have a suicide rate higher than our national one!

All too often our TV does not report these deaths -- or only briefly.

As Bob Herbert suggests below it is time for us to move out as graciously as we can. With Pakistan a disaster area we have no help in catching up with let alone halting the Taliban attacks. They are hidden away in inaccessible mountains and our good General Petraeus seems to have no clue as to how to cope. The Taliban are where we are not or mixed in with civilians -- except when they attack us. Bob Herbert is one of our few commentators who has it right -- We do owe our troops an exit. May it come sooner than later -- our Vietnam revisited.

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We Owe the Troops an Exit
By BOB HERBERT
Published: August 30, 2010

At least 14 American soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan over the past few days.

We learned on Saturday that our so-called partner in this forlorn war, Hamid Karzai, fired a top prosecutor who had insisted on, gasp, fighting the corruption that runs like a crippling disease through his country.

Time magazine tells us that stressed-out, depressed and despondent soldiers are seeking help for their mental difficulties at a rate that is overwhelming the capacity of available professionals. What we are doing to these troops who have been serving tour after tour in Afghanistan and Iraq is unconscionable.

Time described the mental-health issue as “the U.S. Army’s third front,” with the reporter, Mark Thompson, writing: “While its combat troops fight two wars, its mental-health professionals are waging a battle to save soldiers’ sanity when they come back, one that will cost billions long after combat ends in Baghdad and Kabul.”

In addition to the terrible physical toll, the ultimate economic costs of these two wars, as the Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz and his colleague Linda Bilmes have pointed out, will run to more than $3 trillion.

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/index.html
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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]

Glenn Beck's Christianity?

Glenn Beck's show yesterday mentioned the name of Jesus Christ as much as, if more than, any other. I once was a Christian back in the days when the social Gospel efforts were reforming this country. After theological studies here and in Britain I learned that there were many good and caring people in all our world's major religions, but that our institutions and many self proclaimed religious were among the most dangerous operators in our globe. Check out the wars, burnings at the stake, killings by drones from on high.

I became a disbeliever who saw Jesus as one of our great men such as Socrates who were both murdered by their resentful establishments. Today whistle blowers still take great risks and they will probably do in our Wikileaks head along the way as well. Whistle blowers are hated by the rich who control all too many of our societies. The U.S. is horrendously transforming from a democratic republic to an oligarchy run by the rich in their own interest -- and to hell with those in need.

If you believe that Glenn Beck or the Tea Party crowd give a damn about anything but their own interests, watch what they do -- not what they say.

May our courageous and honest ones continue to speak out!
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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]

Winning WHAT Wars?

The battles between the Sunnis and Shiites will presumably degenerate into a civil war if and when the U.S. pulls out of Iraq -- the hatreds have been exaggerated, not calmed, by our presence there. People have been driven out of their homes by the alternative version of Islam. The country is in a mess. People are mixed between wanting us out and keeping us there to moderate the daily violence. No war has been more disastrous than this one in its consequences. And then there are the Kurds, too, at war with Turkey.

With the flooding disaster of Pakistan, we have no ally there with which to cope with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Petraeus is kidding himself that he can with limited troops and massive costs now halt the Taliban assaults. We shall be seeing only more innocent people being killed there by the Taliban and us. Needless to say Karsai is a crook:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/world/asia/29afghan.html?ref=todayspaper

Graft-Fighting Prosecutor Fired in Afghanistan
By DEXTER FILKINS and ALISSA J. RUBIN
Published: August 28, 2010

KABUL, Afghanistan — One of the country’s most senior prosecutors said Saturday that President Hamid Karzai fired him last week after he repeatedly refused to block corruption investigations at the highest levels of Mr. Karzai’s government.

****************************************************************

As the last officially designated American combat forces left Iraq, television cameras caught the exultation of a soldier finally heading home.

“We won!” he yelled. “It’s over! America, we brought democracy to Iraq!”

Which naturally raises an intriguing and provocative question: Did we win? Seven years later, after all the spilled blood, after all the roadside bombs and sectarian strife, after all the terror and torment, did the United States actually win the war in Iraq?

The soldier was right in that the United States deposed a dictator and brought democracy to Iraq — a rudimentary, still-in-progress, somewhat dysfunctional democracy that has yet to seat a government nearly six months after an election, but a democracy nonetheless. And certainly it looks more like victory than it did just three years ago in the depths of the devastation before the American troop surge and the Sunni uprising against Al Qaeda in Iraq.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/weekinreview/29baker.html?ref=todayspaper

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The only final word here is imagine the Republicans replacing Obama and most Democrats who care about those who are suffering even though our economy has no extras with which to help much. It looks as though an apocalypse is closing in on us.
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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]

Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor"

I spent an incredibly boring 3 hours or so watching Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" on C-Span. Most channels had switched to other things. What seemed to be the content was a series of 20 or more fundamentalist Protestant sermons given by various invitees -- which looked to be be boring the Lincoln Center audience as much as me. The things not included or mentioned while I listened were Roman Catholics, traditional Protestant denominations or their leadership, Muslims, or political issues.

http://www.glennbeck.com/828/

This was Beck the nice guy heading up a fundamentalist Christian event with some kind words thrown in now and again about our battered military heroes out there. The only recognizable speakers were Beck and, and, of course, Sarah Palin. The implicit attack on Obama and Democrats lay in the title of the event.

Traditional Martin Luther King, Jr. commemorators on the King dream speech were meeting elsewhere and plan to hike to meet Beck's crew at Lincoln Center when they finish their own event.

What a waste of time!
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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]

Koch Brothers Run Massive Secretive Campaign Against Obama

Two of the wealthiest men in the country, the Koch brothers, are running a massive behind the scenes campaign against Obama and Democrats. See below.
Jane Mayer blows their cover in a New Yorker article quoted below.

Needless to way our current Supreme Court opened the doors wide with their ridiculous claim that corporations have free speech rights and can contribute whatever to whomever. As I have said repeatedly before we are watching our nation being converted from a democratic republic to an oligarchy run cruelly by the super rich. The Koch brothers are the archetype of this horrendous conversion. No amount of intelligent and caring commentary by Obama and Democrats gets the TV media coverage of Koch run operations under dozens of names. As Jane Mayer suggests the Koch
s have substituted our government for their former ally and then enemy -- Stalin's Soviet Union.

Needless to say such madness can dominate our nation with super wealth -- theirs is something like the second or third largest fortune in the nation -- greed pays off, alas! And perhaps their Tea Party manipulations will, too?

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Covert Operations
by Jane Mayer

Oddly enough, the fiercely capitalist Koch family owes part of its fortune to Joseph Stalin. Fred Koch was the son of a Dutch printer who settled in Texas and ran a weekly newspaper. Fred attended M.I.T., where he earned a degree in chemical engineering. In 1927, he invented a more efficient process for converting oil into gasoline, but, according to family lore, America’s major oil companies regarded him as a threat and shut him out of the industry. Unable to succeed at home, Koch found work in the Soviet Union. In the nineteen-thirties, his company trained Bolshevik engineers and helped Stalin’s regime set up fifteen modern oil refineries. Over time, however, Stalin brutally purged several of Koch’s Soviet colleagues. Koch was deeply affected by the experience, and regretted his collaboration. He returned to the U.S. In the headquarters of his company, Rock Island Oil & Refining, in Wichita, he kept photographs aimed at proving that some of those Soviet refineries had been destroyed in the Second World War. Gus diZerega, a former friend of Charles Koch, recalled, “As the Soviets became a stronger military power, Fred felt a certain amount of guilt at having helped build them up. I think it bothered him a lot.”

In 1958, Fred Koch became one of the original members of the John Birch Society, the arch-conservative group known, in part, for a highly skeptical view of governance and for spreading fears of a Communist takeover. Members considered President Dwight D. Eisenhower to be a Communist agent. In a self-published broadside, Koch claimed that “the Communists have infiltrated both the Democrat and Republican Parties.” He wrote admiringly of Benito Mussolini’s suppression of Communists in Italy, and disparagingly of the American civil-rights movement. “The colored man looms large in the Communist plan to take over America,” he warned. Welfare was a secret plot to attract rural blacks to cities, where they would foment “a vicious race war.” In a 1963 speech that prefigures the Tea Party’s talk of a secret socialist plot, Koch predicted that Communists would “infiltrate the highest offices of government in the U.S. until the President is a Communist, unknown to the rest of us.”

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=3
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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]

Happy News for a Change

Now that I am in my eighth decade I avoid reading obits like the plague and worry each time I look for an old friend on Google -- the last had died several years ago.

What a delight it was to receive a phone call from a very old friend -- when we were in our very early teens. He is well and retired and in better health than me. But we both have grand children and shared our life experiences since we lost touch when I changed to a new school in our sophomore year.

We agreed to share emails and to have future talks. I must admit that I am pretty out of touch with the younger generation -- its music (I love jazz) and life styles. Or at least the much publicized ones I see reported here and there. There is nothing, then, like sharing notes with someone of one's own generation -- we are the same age. He has been reading my blogs, if not entirely agreeing with me on all points. But presumably we can have a warm disagreement about this or that along with recalling all the things since forgotten when we were kids.

I forgot to mention that I pass my Ed Kent blogs on to the Bloggers News Network:

http://www.bloggernews.net

where he can respond to whatever I have had to say for better or worse.

I pass along this experience which others might wish to duplicate. I had completely forgotten our friendship of those days until suddenly his name clicked in my fading memory.
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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]

Balancing Act for Imam in Muslim Center Furor

For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the background of the founder of the Mosque community center to be located several blocks north of Ground Zero, here is today's NY Times report indicating that he is above all a peace-maker. See the NY Times article below.

This is a most precarious time for us. With Pakistan nearly destroyed with flooding, we have no ally against the Taliban in Afghanistan. The last thing we need to be doing is giving Muslims the message that a majority of Americans see them as our enemies. Such also is a recruiting device for the Muslim terrorists.

Obama had to speak out to counteract the message of American hatred of Muslims. The last thing we need to do is to generate hostility towards the world's second largest religion and it towards us, given our 'wars' against Muslim countries.

What I am saying here is obvious to our sane leaders -- or at least those running for office who are not exploiting hatred. Shame!

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"Not everyone in the Cairo lecture hall last February was buying the imam Feisal Abdul Rauf’s message. As he talked of reconciliation between America and Middle Eastern Muslims — his voice soft, almost New Agey — some questioners were so suspicious that he felt the need to declare that he was not an American agent."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/nyregion/22imam.html?ref=todayspaper
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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]

Islam Is the Second Largest Religiion in the World

For the record Muslim extremists are killing far more Muslims than Americans or others. For us to attack Islam as a whole for the murders by Muslim extremists could not be a better recruiting device for these crazies. Needless to say Obama was reaching out to our Muslim friends when he supported the right to build a Mosque and peace-making institution several blocks away from Ground Zero.

May our pols attacking this religious right get their just deserts. I have had it with Republican 'treason' to the the U.S. with their constant attacks on our nation. This party has degenerated into representing the worst elements -- pure greed and contempt for those in desperate need of help -- 13 million living in poverty including a majority of children. Shame!

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Number of Muslims in the world:

Estimates of the total number of Muslims in the world vary greatly:
bullet 0.700 billion or more, Barnes & Noble Encyclopedia (1993)
bullet 0.817 billion, The Universal Almanac (1996)
bullet 0.951 billion, The Cambridge Factfinder (1993)
bullet 1.100 billion, The World Almanac (1997)

http://www.religioustolerance.org/isl_numb.htm

As of mid 2010, we accept the Pew Forum's estimate 1.57 billion as the most reliable estimate.

With that number, they represent about 22% of the world's population. They are the second largest religion in the world. Only Christianity is larger, with 33% of the world's inhabitants -- a little over 2 billion.

Islam is growing about 2.9% per year. This is faster than the total world population which increases about 2.3% annually. It is thus attracting a progressively larger percentage of the world's population.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/isl_numb.htm
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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]

Petraeus Is a Fine General -- Who Has Lost the Afghan 'War'

I listened to General Petraeus's interview this morning on Meet the Press with the realization that he has lost it. Perhaps as the interview was taped last Friday, he had not yet taken in the fact that our essential ally against the Taliban -- Pakistan has been totally devastated by the flooding there and is in no position to help us with anti Taliban efforts.

The American public is way ahead of our good general in its awareness that we are needlessly wasting American lives and monies while winning increasing hatred of us by the killing of civilians -- more by the Taliban, but more resented with us -- drones and all.

There is no way to win this game. It is Vietnam reiterated. We should make all the moves we can to get out with as little loss of lives as possible -- ours and Afghans. These people are going to have to settle their own disputes. We cannot do it for them. I cringe at the treatment of women, but this is scarcely unique to the Taliban. Check out some of our other Muslim 'allies' on this score. Killing and abusing women is all too widespread and women are going to have to win their own battles -- we can perhaps bring some here or send them to our allies to protect those who have been most outspoken. Most of our associates are far more open to refugees than we are at the moment.

Why Petraeus can't sell it:

"As Gen. David Petraeus kicks off an extended media blitz intended to make Americans feel better about the war in Afghanistan -- or at least give him some more time to fight it -- he faces a foe more implacable than al Qaeda, or even the Taliban: Reality.

"That reality, increasingly obvious to national security experts and the general public alike, is that no amount of good intentions or firepower is going to advance our fundamental interests in Afghanistan -- and that as much as Petraeus might be able to achieve in the next six months, or a year, little to none of it is sustainable and most of it is, even worse, counterproductive."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/14/why-petraeus-cant-make-th_n_681733.html
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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]

Cost to Our Stressed Out People

Most of my family is spending the weekend upstate. They told me this morning that when they contacted the person who does repairs and maintenance for us with his son that he could not help because he was devastated by his son's recent suicide.

I fear that we shall see far too much of this with current conditions here in the U.S.

This nation does little or nothing to assist its citizens in desperate need. I live in an increasingly prosperous Morningside Heights -- dominated by Columbia which owns and leases much of it. We have watched our low cost living and small business sites being replaced by co-ops and expensive restaurants and stores. We have homeless people wondering our streets. My next door neighbor works with same 6 days a week and for about a decade spent several months each year setting up such programs in Uganda with the support of its president's wife.

I wish I were well enough to get out there and help, but am pretty well stuck at home with several limiting health conditions. Now that I am no longer teaching, I blog under the name of Ed Kent (which you can find on Google and share concerns with friends. The poverty and hunger stats here in the U.S. are a national disgrace as the rich get richer and the rest of us struggle to survive. Google is on the blink this a.m. or I would offer stats. But about 10 to 15% of Americans are living in poverty and hungry -- and many of those are children.

Where this nation is going I hate to guess. Greed seems to be the name of the game and people be damned.

And so we went!
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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]

Obama's Message to Muslims

Had Obama not defended the Mosque to be built near the World Trade center site, the global message to Muslims -- many our friends and supporters -- would have been that Americans view themselves as being at war with Islam in general:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10973837

Such a conclusion would have spelled disaster for our policies -- foreign and economic -- throughout the Muslim world.

For the record -- of the three major Western religions, Christians have been the major killers with their wars, pogroms, crusades, expulsions of Jews and Muslims. See Ferdinand's and Isabella's ousting of both Jews and Muslims to make theirs a 'pure' Christian country.

http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/articles/article/Spain/King-Ferdinand-&-Queen-Isabella-Spain/1012

And let us not forget the thousands of Christian burnings at the stake of even their own of different persuasions.

And what nation has been killing Muslims with its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? And those on-going drone attacks?

So we now face tensions from the establishment of Israel and (and its constant expansion into Palestine). The U.S. support of this process makes us suspect for anti-Muslim policies and attitudes.

Let us thank the gods that Obama has spoken out loudly and clearly here, defending the Mosque.
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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]

Wars Breed Hatred

I all too well remember as a child our glee with the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Our last thought was the hundreds of thousands of civilians being slaughtered. We were at the time killing even more citizens of Tokyo -- a paper and wood city -- with incendiary bombs.

Why are so many of our troops returning to the U.S. as psychological basket cases and committing suicide at a rate higher than our national one? I suspect that guilt at killing innocent people has something to do with this. Most Americans are not by nature murderers, but they have been launched into wars where hate and killing are the game.

The globe cannot afford our traditional military approaches to 'enemies'. We are now engaged in global economic competition which hopefully will not set going yet more killing games. Already we have military regimes here and there that are horrendously abusing their populations for power and profit.

I am glad at long last we sent a representative to the Hiroshima anniversary event -- 65 years late:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-10888571

We could have targeted some location in Japan with few people rather than sizable cities. But wars inspire hate and hate murders people.

May Wikileaks tell it all!

Wikileaks - WikiLeaks
Publishes and comments on leaked documents alleging government and corporate misconduct.

http://wikileaks.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]

Marriage Between Ethnic and Racial Groups Banned Until Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967)

I am surprised that most commentators when mentioning same gender marriages omit the Loving v. Virginia case which allowed jailing intermarriages between racial and certain ethnic groups in some states until 1967. Those who now attack the First Amendment are pursuing a precedent which was outlawed more than 40 years ago.

Racism and ethnic prejudices run deep in this nation and raise their ugly heads again and again. I suspect the fall election will play this game with African Americans and Latinos. What else unifies the Tea Party supporters but the charge that these groups are taking their jobs when the truth is that cheaper treatment of workers globally is sending Americans to our discount stores where such goods are sold rather than buying American made products?

Hate and resentment are easy to stir up, as the Republicans are doing, to blame Obama for an economic recession which their own Bush team generated. Racism lies at the heart of the Republican game plan and will probably succeed with massive corporate funding now permitted by the Supreme Court -- to block any serious help for those in desperate need now approaching 15% of Americans and looking to get worse. Ironically, it is middle income Americans who are being murdered by our economy as well as minorities. Will they wake up and vote for their interests in the fall or put the final nail in their own coffins?

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"Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967)[1], was a landmark civil rights case in which the United States Supreme Court, by a 9-0 vote, declared Virginia's anti miscegenation statute, the "Racial Integrity Act of 1924", unconstitutional, thereby overturning Pace v. Alabama (1883) and ending all race-based legal restrictions on marriage in the United States.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia
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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]

Disaster Coming for Americans in Need

Western European nations care for their citizens in need -- free medicine, food and shelter, etc. The U.S. does not! See comments below.

Presumably the fall election will give Republicans (Tea Partiers) sufficient votes to veto any assistance to the desperate Americans who are losing homes, facing cutbacks in food stamps and food. Studies in the past have indicated that private charities can care for about 1/10 of those in need.

The Republicans are bent on reducing taxes -- budget freezes, etc.
What we can expect to see is an increase in crimes, murders, and suicides by the desperate ones. Women and children will suffer most. Already the Soundvision excerpt below shows 1/10+ of us living below the poverty line, i.e. hungry and homeless. I will not be surprised to see these figures double as our middle income lose jobs and the super wealthy hide their ill-gotten gains in Swiss banks and themselves in vacation homes far away from an increasingly desperate and dangerous U.S.

Only in America -- how shameful!

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How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America

The Great Recession may be over, but this era of high joblessness is probably just beginning. Before it ends, it will likely change the life course and character of a generation of young adults. It will leave an indelible imprint on many blue-collar men. It could cripple marriage as an institution in many communities. It may already be plunging many inner cities into a despair not seen for decades. Ultimately, it is likely to warp our politics, our culture, and the character of our society for years to come.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/03/how-a-new-jobless-era-will-transform-america/7919/

Statistics on poverty &
food wastage in America
By Samana Siddiqi

Poverty in America? One of the richest countries in the world?

Yes, poverty is a reality in America, just as it is for millions of other human beings on the planet. According to the US Census Bureau, 35.9 million people live below the poverty line in America, including 12.9 million children.

http://www.soundvision.com/Info/poor/statistics.asp
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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]

Will the Republican Con Game Work?

I am going to take the liberty of including below a blog sent out a month or so ago. Let me say here that I have never seen our country so badly divided. I was a child of WW2 when we cared about each other. I wonder these days how many really miss the Americans who have died in our senseless wars? Money seems to be the great divider here now. Those who have it securely -- with some good exceptions -- don't give a damn about those in desperate financial shape.

In San Francisco 1 child in 4 is hungry:

http://www.sffoodbank.org/about_hunger/?gclid=CLXswdyyqqMCFQhGnQodT1Na3Q

Thirteen million American kids are. And what is the Republican response -- cut your taxes? There is no free lunch in mass terms. And the U.S. is a disgrace compared to dozens of comparable nations.

As a retired philosopher with my field's respect for truth, I am appalled by the constant stream of Republican lies designed to con fellow Americans. One scarcely knows where to start with them -- there is a new one slung out almost daily. Will Americans buy? I hope not, as the suffering will expand with their "No" games. What follows is my sense of their plan in process sent out a month or so ago.

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Republican Election Plan

It looks as though the Republicans will focus on 3 things while running
for office this fall:

1) Blaming Obama for the economic crisis that they have created under Bush/Cheney -- including the jobs which our corporations have been shipping overseas.

2) Cutting taxes for the superrich upper 2% which would largely cover our budget deficits, e.g. the Walmart estate alone would do the extension of unemployment benefits.

3) None too covertly playing the racist game of blaming the shortage of jobs on Latinos and African Americans -- those who are actually suffering the most from our weak economy!

So far as their own solutions to these problems, one will hear little or nothing from Republicans. Theirs is the attack mode which Obama has faced constantly while trying to unify the nation in the face of real threats -- economics, terrorists, and a couple of nations intimating nuclear attacks on us and ours -- North Korea and Iran. A nation so divided is an easy target for hostile support from here, there and elsewhere.

I could document all of the above extensively. Unhappily the really cruel facts are rarely covered by the major sources of information for most busy Americans -- TV and radio chains largely owned and operated by our superrich. The recent attack on Shirley Sherrod was manifestly racist and launched by a known to be right wing lying political hack -- and jumped on by our media which should have sought facts rather than ratings as their goal. I appreciate CNN spending much time setting the record straight. But I suspect we shall see more of this sort of stuff. People tend to believe what they see on TV and racism is easy to promote.

And so it will go. Can the Democrats take on this c--p and get the message out to the general public how they are being had and the risks to them of Republican victories? Remember, the Supreme Court has authorized corporations to spend whatever they want on candidates and they are the ones with the big money and greedy profit motives.
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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]