Where We Are Going Now?

I have no idea what the results will be of the forthcoming election beyond my home state -- NY. The Stewart and Colbert event in DC yesterday was a powerful motivating influence for younger voters and others, but it was barely covered by the main TV networks and one had to watch it on the comedy channel -- not available to many TV watchers. Fragments picked out here and there in news reports did not do it justice. The NY Times report cited below treated it as a joke and not a serious political event with perhaps 150,000 present and deeply moved by it.

Here we have an emblematic instance of the TV news coverage of politics from which most voters draw bits and pieces of info mainly designed to enhance ratings and, thus, profits. The replacement of Rick Sanchez is a joke -- an ex-NY Governor forced to resign when it was disclosed that he was using prostitutes?

The U.S. is in bad shape and things will undoubtedly get worse if the Republicans can block any and all reforms. More banks will fail as those homes from which they are evicting people are trashed. People are not buying now. I just got rid of a two family house in northern Vermont where I had been carrying without rent payments two older women -- one dying and who finally died and the other's husband in jail for unmentionable crimes. We were able to assist the other's move to one of her sisters and will be spending hours figuring the tax loss expenses of about $1000.00 each month for more than a year.

I wonder how many others are either jobless or carrying friends and relatives who are on their backs. Needless to say China and other nations exploiting their workers have taken jobs away from Americans whose benefits make them too expensive to compete in CostCo and Wal-Mart where people hard pressed buy what they can.

Let us not go into the profit makers -- drug manufacturers, profit-making medical insurance, oil companies here. But they symbolize an America being divided between the extremely rich and the rest of us. There is cheating everywhere. The BP oil spill happened because those running that show were out to minimize costs. Our former VP was CEO and an investor in what may be the responsible sub-company for that disaster.

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"Dick Cheney hadn’t had any experience in the oil business when he became Halliburton’s CEO in 1995. But he did have experience in government – as George H.W. Bush’s Secretary of Defense. And those military ties were invaluable to the company. Under his reign, Halliburton rose from 73rd to 18th on the Pentagon’s list of top contractors, and the money garnered from government-sponsored agencies (such as the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and the Export-Import Bank) soared from $100 million in the five years prior to Cheney’s arrival to $1.5 billion a few years after."

http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Robert-Reich-s-Blog/2010/1029/Vote-Halliburton-and-Goldman-Sachs

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WASHINGTON —Part circus, part satire, part holiday parade, the crowds that flooded the National Mall for Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” on Saturday made it a political event like no other.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/us/politics/31rally.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)
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Ed Kent [blind copies]

Grim Life for African American Men!

Along with police harassment as reported today by Bob Herbert, African American men are facing a number of other deficits in our social justice system: unemployment, prison conditions, declining quality of U.S. education -- in short racism is returning as manifested by the current election campaigning by the Tea Party Republicans who are appealing to whites who fear being outnumbered by minorities.

The selections posted below give some of the stats on African Americans in jail (and with prison records therefrom) and employment difficulties resulting both from a prison record and white Tea Party racism.

Having worked a good bit in Harlem I well remember the discrimination there in the past. I could get promising Africans into Yale who were being turned down by CCNY before CUNY opened its doors finally to minorities. I was proud of Yale for taking the initiatives in this direction which became a model for the other Ivies, etc. But where things will go with the imminent elections and suspiciously racist attitudes towards Obama, I cannot guess. The nation is in bad economic shape thanks to Bush/Cheney and our banks selling housing to people who could not afford increasing interest rates -- many minorities, incidentally.

It is almost a badge of honor for African American men having served time in jail -- and some of those have been innocents misidentified by whites who cannot distinguish one African American from another.

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WASHINGTON - Come the new millennium, the number of African American adults behind bars will hit the million mark for the first time, according to an analysis of Justice Department statistics. That represents nearly an eightfold increase from three decades ago, when there were only 133,226 blacks in prison.

http://ronmull.tripod.com/racism.html

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The U.S. economy added 162,000 jobs in March, but the unemployment rate held steady at 9.7 percent, according to new figures released by the Labor Department Friday.

[“We’re seeing a whole set of things happening in the recession that are making the inequity worse,” said Seth Wessler, a researcher at the Applied Research Center, a racial justice think tank in Oakland. (AFP/Getty Images/File/Justin Sullivan) ]“We’re seeing a whole set of things happening in the recession that are making the inequity worse,” said Seth Wessler, a researcher at the Applied Research Center, a racial justice think tank in Oakland. (AFP/Getty Images/File/Justin Sullivan)
On the whole, the economic news was mixed, but for African Americans, it was particularly troubling. The unemployment rate for whites held steady at 8.8 percent compared to February and went down for Asians from 8.4 percent to 7.5 percent. But it rose to 16.5 percent for blacks from 15.8 percent. Hispanics showed a slight increase as well from 12.4 percent to 12.6 percent.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/04/03-1
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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. Heading Downwards Whatever the Election Results

I despair more than Krugman's grim concluding comments (below). Our economy is in a terrible mess. Our nation is more divided than I have ever seen it. We shall presumably see the Republican/Tea Party attacks continue unabated on Obama. Things needing to be done will not happen. Racism seems to be thriving. Education is being degraded. Our global competitors will win out over our failing capacities. We are stuck with 'wars' which we cannot/will not resolve. We are being left behind to molder in our own debris.

As a retired legal philosopher, I have watched our nation moving ever deeper into dark waters. Top income people used to pay up to 90% in taxes. Now they pay a smaller amount than their secretaries. Our unions have been crippled as active forces in supporting their members -- or are selling out to their natural enemies. Our standard of living is dropping and our original ideas are being grabbed away from us by spies and the internet.

Wikileaks tells us what we have been doing to our young soldiers and what some of them have been doing to innocent civilians. We are pals with the Saudis and blocking Cuba from contacts that would move it in a more democratic direction.

I could go on at greater length, but our nation has not yet adjusted to a global economy and is in deep trouble -- no matter what the election results. I am deeply saddened to see our highly intelligent and caring president ensnared in the mess that we have become.

Help! I, too, am deeply afraid.

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"But we won’t get those policies if Republicans control the House. In fact, if they get their way, we’ll get the worst of both worlds: They’ll refuse to do anything to boost the economy now, claiming to be worried about the deficit, while simultaneously increasing long-run deficits with irresponsible tax cuts — cuts they have already announced won’t have to be offset with spending cuts.

"So if the elections go as expected next week, here’s my advice: Be afraid. Be very afraid."
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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 American Fantasy Elections

Never in my lifetime have I seen an American election so largely distorted by lies and fantasies. Where it will go no one can really predict at this point. But we know that much of the public has been fed a distorted world of facts and fictions. Imagine what will happen if the Republicans prosper: reforms will be blocked; those in need (including many former middle class) will be evicted from their homes and jobs.

We have been fed what polite language cannot post here. The Republicans have been running to defeat Obama since he was elected -- he is not born in American, his medical plan will bankrupt the country (even if saving lives), it is his fault that the Chinese have stolen our jobs by cheap and abused labor and currency games; taxing the super rich will bankrupt us -- their tax rate used to 90%. Now they can hide their untaxed monies in Switzerland and through unregulated tax games. Our drug companies are making out like bandits as are profit-making medical insurance. Oil is similarly both profiting and putting our nation at risk. BP does not mean British petroleum -- most of its wells are run out of small countries that take its pay offs but have no powers to regulate.

In short our greedy corporate CEOs now own and operate the U.S. -- with help from the Supreme Court. God help our middle class -- about 50% or more of us slipping down the rabbit hole. Sadly they may learn what the Republicans have in store for them -- shelters for them and their children rather than their homes and possessions.

Help!

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As the fragments below from Gail Collins' Op-Ed today suggests, we are living in a fantasy world here in the U.S.

"My own personal worst campaign moment came at the New York gubernatorial debate, when the lights went up to reveal seven contenders vying for the right to lead the state, one of whom was famous only for her claim to be the madam who supplied Eliot Spitzer with prostitutes.

"This was possibly the worst debate I ever saw, and while some of that was due to the fact that the Republican, Carl Paladino, was preoccupied by his need to go to the bathroom, the big problem was all those third-party candidates clogging up the stage. I’m beginning to think we make it too easy to clutter the ballot with names of people who want to run for office only because they lack the money to achieve their true objective, which is to have a large poster of their face looming over Times Square year round, or at least get a continuing part in a reality TV show".
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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]

Friedman's Op-Ed Today Hits the Republican Propaganda Lies and Foresees U.S. Imminent Disaster

The Friedman fragment below more or less captures our American disaster in the making. Our TV media are out for ratings rather than reporting the most critical facts and too many Americans are being conned into self and national destruction.

We have the expertise in this country to be the best, but our TV and radio media are misleading too many Americans with snob appeal and misdirected blame for our national disaster in the making. The rest of the global economies are moving along while we waste time and energies on hopeless wars.

As a retired legal philosopher with many good sources of the real facts and awareness of the betrayals of our best figures from early history -- the compassion of Jesus and truth seeking of Socrates -- both executed for telling things as they were. We still see the greedy super rich on the move to stifle care and truth in their own interest. This seems to be an all too common human pattern. Perhaps Satan exists in us after all?

I am not a religious believer, but I fully see how our religions have tried to fill a terrible gap in human motivation. Few will not kill if trained to do so and few are the real saints among us.

The truth is that the U.S. is falling behind its peers. Hope has been replaced by hate.

Help!

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[Friedman's Op-Ed concluding paragraph]

"A dysfunctional political system is one that knows the right answers but can’t even discuss them rationally, let alone act on them, and one that devotes vastly more attention to cable TV preachers than to recommendations by its best scientists and engineers."
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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]

Solving America's Employment Problems

As the fragment below from Bob Herbert's column suggests, our national infrastructure is in a mess. A way to begin to fix it and to provide much needed jobs would require our borrowing money to repair our ancient and failing water systems.

Budget cuts are the last thing we need now -- although they seem to be the program of both parties. In the meantime we risk pollution of our water supplies by private enterprise abuses and lack of public intervention. The disasters in Pakistan and Haiti should be lessons for us. People are dying from flooding and pollution. Ours is less obvious, but it is there. Here in NYC our sewer and water drains are a single system. Whenever we have heavy rains our latest sewer treatment operation in West Harlem dumps all but solid junk into the Hudson which we may need somewhere along the line to supplement our water supplies from upstate, should we be hit by a drought or pollution of them!

Needless to say we have wasted our monies on pointless wars rather than fixing our problems on the home front. We shall all suffer from the consequences -- even our super rich taking over our nation now.

Help!

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[From Bob Herbert's Op-Ed today]

As Charles Duhigg reported in The Times last March: “For decades, these systems — some built around the time of the Civil War — have been ignored by politicians and residents accustomed to paying almost nothing for water delivery and sewage removal. And so each year, hundreds of thousands of ruptures damage streets and homes and cause dangerous pollutants to seep into drinking water supplies.”
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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]

The Elections?

Krugman's despair over our forthcoming election (See fragment below) may not be warranted, but Republican gains in either house will bring to a halt many reforms much needed in the public interest of millions of Americans -- particularly those hungry children and those evicted from their homes to the streets. Only in America of the developed nations are such horrors occurring!

Needless to say Obama has had more burdens facing him than even a brilliant lawyer can begin to heal. And the Republican "No" game plus wary Democrats have blocked or crippled necessary reforms. The 'wars' are now also a mess as well as our economy and infrastructures. Borrowing more money and taxes to pay for things is the way we should be going. There is no free lunch as the other major nations have learned and acted upon. Medicine is paid for by taxes in them. Our drug and for profit medical insurance companies are driven by greed which defeats the public interest. My wife spent hours demanding and getting medical pay outs at first denied by our insurance companies prior to my retirement. My heart goes out to the widows who simply pay the bills as they come in. Even our back up insurance for Medicare plays games with us, pretending that it did not get the Medicare pay out details when they were made several years ago.

Whoever wins the election will leave us in trouble -- more if it is the Republicans who have no plans but to make the super rich more so and to kill off the poor. I see both in my neighborhood -- the beggars and the super rich who sometimes give something to them.

I guess I share Krugman's despair. This nation is in bad shape and likely to be facing far worse. Those guys training out there with guns may start shooting at government agencies and make the terrorists look like puppies.

Help!

[Fragment from Krugman. See Website for remainder:

"And if they take one or both houses of Congress, complete policy paralysis — which will mean, among other things, a cutoff of desperately needed aid to the unemployed and a freeze on further help for state and local governments — is a given. The only question is whether we’ll have political chaos as well, with Republicans’ shutting down the government at some point over the next two years. And the odds are that we will."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/25/opinion/25krugman.html?_r=1&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)
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Ed Kent [blind copies]

Republicans Lose the Future If They Win Both Houses

So far as I can, see the Republicans have no policies apart from cutting taxes and freezing our budgets. Needless to say both spell disaster for our economy. Obama and his team will be there to point out these obvious facts to an increasingly disenchanted public.

The Republicans will be held accountable for each new falling bridge, extended blackouts, gas line explosions, expanding violent crimes, sewer and water line failures -- our failing infrastructure where we should be investing monies and creating jobs. And then there are all those soldiers and innocents being killed and wounded by our pointless wars and Iraq deteriorating into chaos. Wikileaks will be telling all and the public will get to know the facts as they, friends, and relatives are hit by them. Poverty is already becoming a middle income reality.

The Party of "No" will become the party of NO MORE -- hopefully for the rest of this century. As the Baker article fragment below indicates Republican wins are really losses. I see absolutely no leadership in that party. It strives to justify its past (Bush/Cheney) financial and military fiascoes, but looks ready now simply to expand them.

This is going to be a rough time for all of us, but perhaps there is light at the end of this tunnel. Let us hope!

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[To see whole article by Peter Baker access website below. Ed Kent]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/weekinreview/24baker.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

The reality of presidential politics is that it helps to have an enemy. With Democrats controlling the White House and Congress, they shoulder responsibility for the country’s troubles. No amount of venting about George W. Bush or the filibuster rule has convinced the public otherwise. But if Republicans capture Congress, Mr. Obama will finally have a foil heading toward his own re-election battle in 2012.

A version of this article appeared in print on October 24, 2010, on page WK1 of the New York edition.
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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 Are Hell!

The internet has made it impossible to cover up the harms to innocents in the course of waging wars. Wikileaks' latest on Iraq tells the sad tale how we divided a nation with three conflicting tribal groups -- Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis -- who look ready to return to yet another civil war. Many thousands have been driven out of their homes where another Muslim group is dominant. The Sunnis fear being cut off from the oil profits.

Afghanistan is currently a mess. The government of Karsai is corrupt and the Taliban is free to strike and withdraw as it chooses. Most Pakistanis dislike us. Money to buy any and all of these contenders is a waste of funds we need at home. God forbid that the Republicans take one or both of our Congressional houses and exacerbate the above conflicts.

Once again we are involved in global economic competition, not a war against the Muslims to replace that against the old Soviet Union. The hurts we inflicted around the world and attempts to dominate with military regimes -- the School of the Americas where we trained the military regimes of Latin America -- are now coming home to to haunt us in South America where some natives are now ruling things.

Africa is an on and off situation for us. It is coming alive with its rich resources that we have previously exploited. China is taking our jobs, creating terrible emotional stresses in this country which may destroy us yet as a world power.

Where we go from here I cannot guess. Obama has a long term view of things. The Republican super rich want to grab what they can now regardless of our public interest and growing poverty rates.

Things do not look good for us.

Help!
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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]

As The British Conservatives Mess up, So Do Ours!

In his OP-ED piece today, British Fashion Victims, Paul Krugman warns that their new conservative government's plan to slash budgets and lay off 490,000 workers will produce economic disaster there -- and elsewhere that this new fad is employed. History tells us that this has happened in the past.

In Krugman's words: "What happens now? Maybe Britain will get lucky, and something will come along to rescue the economy. But the best guess is that Britain in 2011 will look like Britain in 1931, or the United States in 1937, or Japan in 1997. That is, premature fiscal austerity will lead to a renewed economic slump. As always, those who refuse to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it."

Needless to say the U.S. looks to be heading in the same direction. We desperately need to allocate public monies to our dangerously deteriorating infrastructures. But both Dems and Republicans are unlikely to do this and China lurks in the background with its abused workers forced to produce at low wages and without supporting health and unemployment benefits. Costco and WalMart become our favorite buying places of cheap Chinese goods, putting Americans out of work.

Let's face it. The U.S. is in bad economic shape and will probably see worse whoever is elected in November. We, too, seem to have bought the British conservative budget fad. Where we need to put our money is not in big banks who profit from secretive hedge funds, etc., but are not lending to businesses eager to expand -- so workers are not hired by
them and the Tea Party thrives with all its lies and distortions unchallenged by our TV media -- main source of information for overworked ones who have little time to do more than watch ball games and NASCAR races.

Too many Americans are living in such fantasy worlds and we risk being known as the 20th century nation that lost its way in the 21st. Let us not forget the Bush/Cheney disasters that Obama inherited -- Iraq and a Depression threatening. And he had lousy economic advisors who halted obvious moves he should have made to extend public funds to those who needed them -- the poor and our country's infrastructures at large.
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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]

Losing Wars!

The U.S. has lost or nearly lost every war in which it has engaged since WW2. We had to get out of Vietnam, MacArthur nearly lost us the Korean was and was fired by Truman for disobedience. First he insisted on losing lives attacking Japanese held islands that could have been bypassed. Then he ignored the Chinese threat to attack if we approached their border which he did and they did. We barely held on to preserve South Korea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_MacArthur

Needless to say Iraq was an illegal disaster and may revert again to civil war. Afghanistan is a mess. All these losing wars have cost us dearly in monies and the lives of our brave military men. More are now committing suicide than the national average!

Will we never learn? I hope we get all the way out of Iraq and let them settle their own disputes. The same is true with Afghanistan.

Our main misconception is that the world if still controlled by military force. It is not! We are living in a global economy in which China is making out like a bandit and threatening to cut us off from the metals necessary for computers of which they control 97%!

The Muslims are not our new Soviet military enemy. They are being turned off the U.S. by our negative attitudes. Let us not forget that Saudis made up all but four or five of those who committed 9/11! Saudis are our main Muslim ally?

And so we head towards national disaster on all fronts.

Obama takes the long view -- we must keep Muslims our friends. The Tea Party Republicans support short term racism. If they win one or both houses of congress, we shall see the worst at last.
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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]

Does Israel want peace or to play the blame game?

With all due respects there is no way that the Israelis will allow the Palestinians to have a decent life. It has many of them in its jails. One of its major parties would like to expel all Palestinians from its thousands of years old original borders. The U.S. does not want to lose the pro Israel vote and so protects Israel from Muslims attacks. The Iranian potential to develop a nuclear weapon leaves all in the area ill at ease.

The subject title above more or less tells the story. Israeli peace gestures are a game to stave off interference. Gaza is its Hell which where it feels entitled to kill or destroy at will. The upshot of this abuse is growing contempt for the U.S. as the patron saint of Israel.

I see no good end in sight for Israel. It is stimulating anti-Semitism and silencing both Israeli and Palestinian peace makers. Needless to say there are other WMD apart from nuclear ones -- diseases of horrendous kinds. Probably all that has prevented their use already is the hostage Palestinians who would suffer from them too.

Lest I be accused here of being an anti-Semite, I have been fighting for the human rights of Jews since my college days when as Chairman of the Yale Daily News I wrote an editorial blasting Yale's restrictions on Jewish admissions -- particularly those from Eastern Europe who did not have either Anglo or German last names. As a legal philosopher I continued with this concern for Jews and others at my 'port of entry' Brooklyn College. I am appalled also by the anti-Muslim sentiments being spread by the Tea Party/Republicans.

Were Israel not dominated by its conservatives, it could be making wonderful contributions to human rights and social justice. But it is no longer the Zionist nation with such concerns that it started out to be.

And so bad things flourish. Perhaps there is a devil after all?

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[From today's Haaretz -- Israel's more liberal newspaper]

Does Israel want peace or to play the blame game?

by Nabil Sha'ath Does Israel want peace or to play the blame game?

Is the government of Israel engaged in the negotiation process to reach peace, or is Israel engaged in this process to advance a public relations campaign and buy time to continue its colonial enterprise on our occupied territory?

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/does-israel-want-peace-or-to-play-the-blame-game-1.320141
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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 Nation Is Losing It!

As the Bob Herbert's fragment from today's NY Times Op-ed below suggests, Americans are running scared -- they are afraid both for themselves and the nation. Who knows what the outcome of the November elections will be? If the Republicans win one or both houses, they have no policies to solve our problems -- more money blown on wars rather than creating jobs directed at repairing out deteriorating infrastructure. The rich will get richer and the rest of us will sink lower than we already are. Obama tried to reconcile our national interests with the Republicans, but they would have none of it. And they don't look to have policies beyond buying the elections and smearing Obama and the Dems generally.

Were I younger, I would consider migrating to Canada where some of my students were driven when their visas ran out. How lucky they were!

We are in bad shape and as Herbert's headline suggests: "Our Nation Is Losing It."

How very sad and unnecessary. We are always living in the present moment and -- unlike Obama -- not seeing the long term consequence of our greedy ones' short term grabs. We are being called now a "plutocracy."

Check it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy

Such is far removed from a democratic republic designed to promote social justice for all.

Help!

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[From Bob Herbert today]

The voter unrest that is manifesting itself in myriad (and often peculiar) ways reflects a real fear that not just family finances but the country itself is in a state of decline. “I don’t know where we’re headed,” said a businessman named Chuck Carruthers, who chatted with me in a coffee shop in Atlanta last week. “But I’ll tell you the truth, I don’t think it’s anyplace good.”

Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have come to grips with this fear, although the Republicans have done yeoman’s work exploiting 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)
--
Ed Kent [blind copies]

China Is Outrunning U.S.

The Krugman Op-Ed in today's NY Times tells it as it is -- fragment of which is below. China is becoming the world's #1 superpower and outrunning us as did Western Europe after WW2 when we also dawdled while our competitors modernized and produced cheaper products, e.g. steel.

Our nation is increasingly being run by our super rich who care for CEO profits while downing stock holders and losing jobs and homes for those most in need -- not just traditionals in poverty but our previously prosperous middle class as well.

The forthcoming elections may accelerate our decline and China's take over of our global economy. We have been wasting money on pointless wars rather that repairing our dangerously deteriorating infrastructures where monies would have created jobs. We may even be paying for the weapons that are being used against us in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Japanese towards the end of WW2 sent their planes out on Kamikaze suicide missions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze

There is certainly a deadly echo of such killings by the radical Muslims today. None of these, however, are directed towards China which exploits the chaos created thereby for which we take the blame!

Our nation is in deep trouble and quite likely the Tea Party Republicans will finish us off.

Help!

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"I don’t know about you, but I find this story deeply disturbing, both
for what it says about China and what it says about us. On one side, the
affair highlights the fecklessness of U.S. policy makers, who did
nothing while an unreliable regime acquired a stranglehold on key
materials. On the other side, the incident shows a Chinese government
that is dangerously trigger-happy, willing to wage economic warfare on
the slightest provocation."
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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]

Big Profit Makers Hit Us Where Our Needs Are

Obama has been powerless to curb these violations of our interests -- the general public. He inherited an economy on the edge of collapse, was blocked by Republican vetoes from major reforms. If the Tea Party Republicans now take over the country as well as our media we may see a total collapse of an outdated national mentality. It is no longer post WW2 when we had the upper hand as Europe rebuilt its shattered industries which it modernized. Suddenly our dated steel industry to use one example could no longer compete. And the Chinese have us trapped with debts and low paid labor that is taking our American jobs.

And what is worse is that tax payers are subsidizing such as the Petroleum industry as indicated below. Health care is on the same track with U.S. funded research and drug companies profits there from.

And so we are going down hill fast.

Help!

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Petroleum industry profit-making is funded by US taxpayers – the gas companies profit by 300% and we pay to underwrite their research and development, overhead and expansion costs – then we pay at the gas pumps and we pay again, as diesel trucks fill up to transport goods then pass that cost along to us, too
Posted by cricketdiane under Alternative Energy, Alternative Fuels, Real Time Crises, Real-World, Reality-based Analysis, Save The Sea, Systems Analysis, US Government | Tags: Alternative Energy, Alternative Fuels, Energy, gasoline, Petroleum, state governments use of tax pools of money to fund gas - petroleum profits, transportation, US government use of tax money |

https://cricketdiane.wordpress.com/2009/07/16/petroleum-funded-by-us-taxpayers-they-profit-by-300-and-we-pay-to-underwrite-their-research-and-development-overhead-and-expansion-costs-they-we-pay-at-the-pumps-and-as-diesel-trucks-fill-up-to-t/
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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]

Banks Stealing Your Home?

My mortgage has bounced around several times -- now to a bank with a reputation for cheating here and there. It looks as though our mortgage/house seizures are an ungodly mess. I am waiting to hear that a property of mine without a mortgage has been seized -- as was the Florida man mentioned in Krugman's piece below.

Needless to say with the job market a mess, unqualified people are grabbing what jobs they can and making innumerable errors. I spend much of my time straightening out particularly hospital charges that have been paid or should have been by our medical and backup insurance for the 20% not covered. I was sent by a doctor to deliver a prescription to an office a few floors down from his. Fortunately they would not take it because they were short of staff. When I checked next I discovered that no way would they accept my 20% additional insurance coverage. I am debating whether to continue without surgery on the old wrist that had been hit with arthritis which seems to be healing enough to use the hand carefully with a splint for heavier things. Fortunately I can use my right hand for most things -- the left wrist is the problem hit by arthritis half a century after my high school football injury.

But back to the primary issue. With all the moving around of mortgages, errors seem to abound. One must watch closely to be sure one is not being had either intentionally or by staff inexperience.

Good luck with this crazy American economy! I thought retirement would be a dream. How wrong I was. My heart goes out to those who cannot spot errors and fight back.

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

Krugman's Op-Ed on Today's Times

But do they actually have the right to seize these homes? Horror stories have been proliferating, like the case of the Florida man whose home was taken even though he had no mortgage. More significantly, certain players have been ignoring the law. Courts have been approving foreclosures without requiring that mortgage servicers produce appropriate documentation; instead, they have relied on affidavits asserting that the papers are in order. And these affidavits were often produced by “robo-signers,” or low-level employees who had no idea whether their assertions were true.
--
"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]

Student Concerns? What a Hell of a Life!

My children felt free to study what they really enjoyed and did well at them. But I wonder how many are now choosing job directed things? Those who have been there and experienced job (money) success know that it does not bring happiness. The numbers of divorces are indicative and heart-breaking in such cases.

Caring human relationships are what make life worth living. One could see that with the emergence of the Chilean minors. They loved and were loved by both their children and wives despite an horrendous job situation.

I am not a religious person, but learned much from two of our greatest caring people -- Jesus and Socrates. Both were executed for speaking out -- one for humanity and the other for truth. I have tried to model my own life on the examples of both which I could do as a college teacher. I am basically a loner. My dear friends -- one from childhood and the other my brave and highly effective wife have died. She was honored in a mass ceremony for her work in preservation of buildings as well as her training in 17th century English where she was an officer of one of her academic organizations and attended it regularly despite fighting cancer for 9 years. She was unstoppable because she was doing what she valued.

I fear for the present generation of our students. Teaching is declining here and the best leadership too often dumped, e.g. Michelle Rhee who headed the D.C. schools.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/10/13/dc.schools.chief/

The same happened in NYC under Giuliani. Our guy went on to do good things in California. And Rhee will do something comparable somewhere. Each was happy with doing a productive and humane job.

When I was a student near the the Great Depression, my Yale classmates avoided Wall St. like the plague.

Where our students will go now, I do not know. They are stuck with college debts and few if any jobs to pay them off or to live a normal life.

Help!
--
"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]

Happy News! Miners Getting Out!

Amidst all the grim suffering going on in the world, we occasionally have some fantastically great things, too. The miners are now being pulled out, one by one, from the mine in Chile. This is truly an amazing tale. It is incredible that regular guys could survive first by sharing small bits of food left in their shelter. Then that they be located. And now a quicker solution has been devised for getting them all out of danger. It is said that each wanted to be the last rescued from their overheated hell hole.

This story illustrates that there are really caring people in our world despite our wars and murders of civilians.

I hope these guys will be given a long paid vacation to make up for the days they were lost to their families. And needless to say mines must be constantly checked for safety. Some thousands of miners have died in China of late where profits outweigh persons. And the same is true in the U.S.

Here, however, we have a dramatic lesson as to human compassion at work when young people are not trained to kill first and ask questions later. Friendly fire apparently just killed one of our own being held as a hostage as an over eager soldier tossed a grenade where she was along with her captives.

Such training is stupid in an era when the global economy, not military power, is determining major events. We are in big trouble in this country if we don't learn from the Chileans.

Let us hope for REAL HOPE for the future, President Obama. The Republicans care not a whit for those in need as their votes have proved beyond doubt.

At least hurray for the rescue in process of the miners.

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

Chilean Miners: 9 Rescued, 24 Waiting
As the rescue operation for 33 trapped Chilean miners begins, The Times is tracking which men have been rescued and which remain below, waiting to surface. (Related: Latest Updates on the Rescue of the Chilean Miners)

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/10/12/world/americas/20101012-chile-miners-gallery.html?ref=americas
--
"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]

American Racism Endures

The fragment below from Bob Herbert's op-ed today tells us what was not so long ago. But let's face it. Racism endures in the U.S. -- those police shootings of innocents, spying on protesters, conning blacks into thinking of crimes for which they face life sentences, etc.

The current job pressures are simply reinstating the racism from which the Obama election seemed to imply the end. But the current attacks on Obama as well as Tea Party posters tell a different tale.

I recall one of my students complaining that he had been discriminated against to favor an African American. I asked for details and he said his scores on a test for the job were too low, but a black who passed them got the job. This was totally irrational, but that is the way people can be. And I see it spreading with the anxieties about employment that so many are now facing. The facts are that our corporations have been exporting jobs to countries which abuse their workers with low wages and no benefits. But that reality does not get through to those scared about their living. The fact that they were conned into buying a home with the threat of increasing mortgage rates does not get through to them as they are evicted for non-payment of the increased rates.

We Americans have been exploiters of others, e.g. in Latin America. Now that we are on a downward spiral that leaves too many ready to blame the traditional victims for somehow setting them up for their losses.

Where we go from here I cannot guess. But I fear the worst with the Tea Party types and Sarah Palin's pitches and Fox news distortions of basic facts.

Looks to me as though our nation is in big trouble with worse to come with the elections. Were I not so ancient I might consider a fresh start in Canada?

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

You have to believe that somebody really had it in for the Scott sisters, Jamie and Gladys. They have always insisted that they had nothing to do with a robbery that occurred near the small town of Forest, Miss., on Christmas Eve in 1993. It was not the kind of crime to cause a stir. No one was hurt and perhaps $11 was taken.

Jamie was 21 at the time and Gladys just 19. But what has happened to them takes your breath away.

They were convicted by a jury and handed the most draconian sentences imaginable — short of the death penalty. Each was sentenced to two consecutive life terms in state prison, and they have been imprisoned ever since. Jamie is now 38 and seriously ill. Both of her kidneys have failed. Gladys is 36.
--
"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]

Juvenile Detention Facilities in New York State: The Ghetto Dynamic at Work

I was horrified to read of the number of juvenile 'prisons' in NY this morning. Most of these are located far from the homes of the offenders and so from family support. Needless to say there is racial bias at work in locking up kids. I know from the experience of a close friend who provided medical care in one such facility that these kids are all too often brutalized -- either by staff or each other. There are undoubtedly some bad apples by nature. But most kids in trouble either have mental disabilities or abuse or neglect by parents.

Apparently state authorities are beginning to check things out per the report below. But our Governor is cutting budgets now and where this problem solving will end is uncertain. The school drop out rate is horrendous for minorities in particular and without education there is no viable future these days for most people. Public employees are being cut back and working with troubled kids is a nightmare for caring people.

I have heard nothing further about public examination of this disaster area since the piece below was posted February 19th, 2010. And with the elections in process, I doubt much attention here from either party. Needless to say the Republicans are killers so far as troubled people are concerned. And if they do well in the elections, we can only expect worse things to happen with these kids' lives. Who cares about 'criminals' when one's own situation is shaky? Freezing or lowering our budget allocations will be the name of the game, whatever Obama tries to do. One has the sense that his Chicago experience alerted him to what is going on and he has tried to be a conciliator as President as he was when working there.

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

Juvenile Detention Facilities in New York State: The Ghetto Dynamic at Work

Posted By The Editors | February 19th, 2010 | Category: Criminal Justice

In the past six months two separate bodies investigating New York State’s juvenile prisons – one a federal agency; the other, a state-appointed commission — have produced scathing reports of a system beset by longstanding calamitous problems.

Both reports documented the existence of significant violence among the facilities’ youthful inmates, excessive use of force by guards against inmates, and a chronic lack of adequate funding and staffing of the facilities that has led to a seemingly complete inability to address even the most basic needs of the youths in their care.

[More at this site]

http://www.thedefendersonline.com/2010/02/19/juvenile-detention-facilities-in-new-york-state-the-ghetto-dynamic-at-work/
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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]

Poverty and Compassion?

I cannot understand where American compassion for those in need has gone. I guess when people are scared, many put their own interests ahead of others. Thank God we have some heroes out there and that some of us give a damn about others.

I worked on property theory when doing my dissertation. Back in those days in the mid sixties we had a balance between three interest groups -- businesses, unions and government. And our political decisions were generally worked out between the first two with government serving as regulator and referee. But starting with Reagan things began to change. He cut back on regulation. Bush cut taxes -- particularly for the super rich. And without regulation corporations, could do their thing of making profits and feeding millions to greedy CEOs. Teddy Roosevelt back when warned of such things as we are seeing once again -- particularly monopolies which displace the public interest with their greedy pursuit of profits -- not even for stock holders but for their management.

If one is super rich, one can simply move elsewhere if conditions deteriorate in the U.S. Many have alternative homes around the globe as well as investments in the global economy. Why loan money to small businesses to create jobs? Not much profit there.

I think it was David Hume who noted that humans fall along a spectrum ranging from those who really care about others to those who are happy to kill -- directly or indirectly -- to make greedy pay offs to themselves.

Most of us know both types and those ranging between them who can turn mean when scared, e.g. the Tea Party types.

I despair at what I see happening to this once great nation. Even racism is returning. The loss of teachers where particularly needed is a disgrace as we waste monies on pointless wars and military equipment such as those super jets designed to fight the Soviet Union and costing a bundle. No, there is no longer a Soviet Union, but their are pols who want to protect their own where these things are produced, e.g. Gingrich when he was in office: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newt_Gingrich

And so the U.S. Goes - Down, Down, Down!
--
"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]

China Displacing U.S. ?!

Sadly the U.S. is still trapped in a military mind set. The rest of the globe is thinking and doing economic things. Our job failure is part of this pattern. We have good military people killing or being killed -- and committing suicide. As I have said before, we seem now to be substituting Islam for the old Soviet Union.

Our pols are in disarray on both these issues. And Obama seems overwhelmed by them. No wonder. He inherited our next potential depression and has not the time or energy to take all problems in. There is no way to threaten China into treating its workers fairly so that their goods sell to Americans in the discount stores while Americans are terrified (or gloating if super rich) over our national disaster in the making.

I could say much more, but those of us who follow the facts rather than playing opinion games know what I am saying here. We should be putting our people to work repairing our infrastructures rather than wasting monies on pointless wars.

China is not so dumb. It has us hooked and is threatening doing us in -- or in fact doing that already. See Chomsky below.

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

China’s Growing Independence and the New World Order
By Noam Chomsky

Chinese leaders are unlikely to be impressed by such [U.S. warnings], the language of an imperial power desperately trying to cling to authority it no longer has.

Of all the “threats” to world order, the most consistent is democracy, unless it is under imperial control, and more generally, the assertion of independence. These fears have guided imperial power throughout history.

In South America, Washington’s traditional backyard, the subjects are increasingly disobedient. Their steps toward independence advanced further in February with the formation of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, which includes all states in the hemisphere apart from the U.S. and Canada.

[See more at website here]

http://www.readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/83-83/3534-the-new-world-order
--
"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]

The Disastrous State of Our Basic Infrastructure Systems

Yesterday the History channel ran a two hour summary of the state of our U.S. infrastructure systems -- bridges, dams, roads, electrical, water, sewage systems, etc. The upshot was terrifying! If a certain dam should be downed by a mild earthquake in California, the southern half of the state would be left without water -- 20 million people. The numbers of bridges ready to fall is in the hundreds. Our electrical supply systems are on the fringe of failure.

The terrorists -- even with WMD -- could not do as much damage as weather attacking our frail systems. Many dams and bridges were built before we knew that wood supports must be treated to avoid deterioration. Major dams lie on deteriorating foundations. Our inspection systems are radically understaffed.

If we want to produce jobs we should put our monies into repairs -- trillions will be needed to fix everything. But the cost of not spending such monies will be one disaster after another. When will another crucial bridge suddenly fall? When will our electrical systems suddenly freeze or melt us with their failures.

We are frankly not as well off as some of the nations in the Middle East where we are now wasting billions in pointless wars. We need that money here and now and it can become the solution to our employment problems. I

I imagine Obama knows all this along with his other problems, but neither many Dems or certainly Republicans will allow the vitally needed repairs before it is too late in case after case.

I was really shaken to see it all put together in a two hour program presumably seen by few.

America is committing virtual suicide by misdirecting its monies and manpower to wars rather than repairs.

I don't have many years to live, but I worry about the future generations including my children and grands as well as those of all of us.

We are rapidly becoming a third world nation by our own failures. We live now in the 21st., not 19th., century when much or the damage was launched out of the ignorance by our fore bearers.
--
"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]

Obama may meet his timeline for ending the war with Afghanistan

Obama may meet his timeline for ending the war with Afghanistan -- not at his choice but that of a combination of Americans and Pakistanis blocking our main entry route through their territory. They have had it with us killing Pakistanis and some may well support the Taliban resistance to us.

Western colonialism over the centuries has created artificial states in the Middle East (and elsewhere) combining conflicting tribal groups and religions. My brilliant Nigerian college roommate made me aware of this in Nigeria where internal war against the oil grabbers still flames. My roommate returned to this country to continue his medical research and practice.

As a retired legal philosopher and current blogger, I have watched the global economy displace our costly military domination. Too many have now replaced our Soviet enemy with Muslims in general as we can see from the attacks on this -- one of our newest immigrant groups which, incidentally, had about 80 Muslims killed on 9/11 when they were trapped in the falling towers and some are now buried in bits where we dumped the debris.

Apart from the Saudis and others being bought with our monies, we are not loved over there. I recall an excellent junior year high school teacher alerting us to our abuses in Latin American and the Middle East where Ike's CIA and British oil ended off early attempts at democratization by the Iranians.

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

Mohammad Mosaddegh (Persian: محمد مصدّق, IPA: [mohæmˈmæd(-e) mosædˈdeɣ] ( listen)* also Mossadegh, Mosaddeq, Mossadeq, Mosadeck, or Musaddiq) (19 May 1882 – 5 March 1967) was the democratically elected[1][2][3][4] Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953 when he was overthrown in a coup d'état backed by the United States Central Intelligence Agency.

From an aristocratic background, Mosaddegh was an author, administrator, lawyer, prominent parliamentarian, and politician, famous for his passionate opposition to foreign intervention in Iran. During his time as prime minister, a wide range of progressive social reforms were carried out. Unemployment compensation was introduced, factory owners were ordered to pay benefits to sick and injured workers, and peasants were freed from forced labour in their landlords' estates. Twenty percent of the money landlords received in rent was placed in a fund to pay for development projects such as public baths, rural housing, and pest control.

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

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

Let us hope Iranian retaliation will not use WMDs. The murderous resistance movements around the world have merely followed our -- the Brits and U.S. models -- for controlling and exploiting others. Iraq was to be the Bush/Cheney center of control over there. We built the largest embassy in the world in Iraq.

Need I quote our slaughters of innocents then and now (our drones and freaked out troops)?
--
"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]

Destroying as Well as Buying U.S.

The Koch brothers (sounds like "coke") are among the nation's wealthiest billionaires. They have founded a dozen or more innocent sounding organizations that, as well as buying the current elections and attacking Obama and the Dems, are also funding destructive agencies. They are oil guys as well as owning about everything one can imagine -- including the 'charities' to which they contribute and which have placed them on their boards). The horror of a bought electorate can be reversed, but time is short to halt the destruction of our nation by resource and other abuses.

[From today's Krugman piece in NY Times today

Perhaps the most important thing to realize is that when billionaires
put their might behind “grass roots” right-wing action, it’s not just
about ideology: it’s also about business. What the Koch brothers have
bought with their huge political outlays is, above all, freedom to
pollute. What Mr. Murdoch is acquiring with his expanded political role
is the kind of influence that lets his media empire make its own rules.

[From another piece on Koch brothers:

Sep. 30 2010 - 10:18 am
By JOSH HELMIN
Arnold Schwarzenegger

Image via Wikipedia

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is hammering the backers of an effort to suspend California’s landmark global warming legislation signed into law four years ago, reports KGO-TV in San Francisco. California’s global warming law AB32 is a big part of Schwarzenegger’s legacy, and The Governor is campaigning to stop Proposition 23, the November ballot measure that would suspend AB32. KGO-TV reports:

http://blogs.forbes.com/joshhelmin/2010/09/30/schwarzenegger-vs-big-oil-and-the-billionaire-koch-brothers-plus-john-paulson-insane/

Where all this will end, I cannot say, but I am almost glad that I am 77 and a retired social-political-legal philosopher. I know too much not to worry about our children and grand children's futures -- not money but a destroyed environment!

Will the Tea Party types learn in time that they are being conned by such types? Throw in such as the Australian born, Murdoch, as well.
--
"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]

Rick Sanchez Fired?

Rick Sanchez was one of my favorite commentators. I was startled to learn that he had been fired by CNN for what were viewed as controversial statements. To put things a bit in perspective when I was a kid (WWII era), Jews were excluded from most social and business activities in the U.S. My grandfathers both protested in their times and with the Holocaust things changed. It is ironic now that an Hispanic is the one shot down. Certainly it is true that Jews have done well in this country since the bad days of WWII and they do in fact run many things -- best and worst. Our U.S. support of Israeli abuse of the Palestinians ranks with their mistreatment back when in Europe and here in the U.S. It is in slow motion, not dramatic mass murder, but it is killing kids nevertheless whenever Israel retaliates. Remember the destruction of Lebanon and the treatment of Gaza now.

Sanchez was speaking the truth. Had his target been the National Rifle Association, he would still be with us. This firing worries me because I know too many -- liberals included -- who are quietly anti-Semitic. One cannot defend Israel's treatment of the Palestinians and many caring Jews are responding to that and being accused of being anti-Semitic. Sanchez seems now to have been included among those who tell us the truth.

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

Rick Sanchez has been fired from CNN following his controversial comments on a radio show Thursday.

"Rick Sanchez is no longer with the company. We thank Rick for his years of service and we wish him well,' a CNN statement said.

Sanchez did not appear on the air Friday.

Appearing on "Stand Up with Pete Dominick" Thursday, Sanchez called Jon Stewart a "bigot" and said that CNN and the other networks are all run by Jewish people.

Discussing Stewart with radio host Pete Dominick, Sanchez said that the "Daily Show" host has a limited worldview, and called him a "bigot."

The conversation began with Sanchez decrying "elite, Northeast establishment liberals" who "deep down, when they look at a guy like me, they see a guy automatically who belongs in the second tier, and not the top tier.

"I think to some extent Jon Stewart and [Stephen] Colbert are the same way. I think Jon Stewart's a bigot," he said. "I think he looks at the world through, his mom, who was a school teacher, and his dad, who was a physicist or something like that. Great, I'm so happy that he grew up in a suburban middle class New Jersey home with everything you could ever imagine."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/01/rick-sanchez-fired-from-c_n_747607.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)
--
Ed Kent [blind copies]

No Mention of Pakistan Blocking U.S. Supply Route to Afghanistan?

I was startled to see no U.S. news reports that Pakistan has blocked the route where 9/10 of our supplies for our troops fighting in Afghanistan must pass or that 30 of our stalled oil trucks had been destroyed. We are not loved by the Pakistanis and this may mean the end of our 'war' on Afghanistan as well. It took a British paper, the Guardian, to bring this military disaster to our attention:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/30/pakistan-blocks-nato-route-afghanistan

Most of Pakistan dislikes us for our past support of military coups, killing of innocent people -- those drones and some of our troops who are murderers!

I scanned our own news sources and found nothing in such as the NY Times this a.m.

How can Americans vote intelligently in the coming election when most get their news -- opinions, not facts -- from TV owned by the super rich?

No wonder we have the sad tea party phenomenon screwing up the thinking of the scared -- out of work or worried about their jobs?

The U.S. is truly in very bad shape and all too likely facing worse with the attacks on Obama and his willingness to compromise.

We have been warned -- but not by our own voices!
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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]