Election after election we follow the same pattern doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Actually, this is the definition of insanity. If someone from a different party other than the two major parties enters a race and that person is superior in every respect, it is like war has been declared. All ammunition comes to the fore; one example is the mayoral challenger in San Francisco, Matt Gonzalez in the 2004 mayoral race. Now some in the local Democratic Party establishment (the Milk Club for instance) is unenthusiastic with current Mayor Newsom that it refuses to endorse him for Lt. Governor.
We switch from Democrat to Republican administrations, both locally and nationally and we now find ourselves going backward. There are some incremental victories along the way surprisingly by some Republican administrations but overall when it comes to major systemic changes, we have failed miserably.
We could not make it better even if we had the will. Our environment is rapidly deteriorating, water quality, a finite resource, is being polluted even with the manufacturing of cheese, two examples is Idaho Cheese manufacturer Sorrento Lactalis Inc. and California’s Hilmar Cheese which destroyed drinking water for thousands of residents.
Our oceans food supplies are being drastically diminished to supply our addiction to oil and exponential use of plastic packaging now chocking sea creatures. Our air quality is going downhill especially with emerging nation’s loving cars so much as to be stuck in traffic for days at a time and still inured to the inconvenience and discomfort of using automobile to get around. In fact, there are now 600 million cars on the road worldwide with an estimated doubling of car use by 2030.
If we think we can somehow escape the consequences of air pollution caused by 600 million cars all dependent on fossil fuel, well maybe we should determine the state of our cognitive abilities to absorb this information and start to dramatically change our lifestyles and thinking on what it means to have a truly happy and satisfactory life style – material comfort or comfort in our environment and others with reasonable use of the world’s resources.
O, yes, I started with our insanity of expecting the two major parties to save our butts. How about listening to reasonable voices from other than the two-party corporate duopoly. Or better still get out on streets as they do in France and other countries and say, “We Won’t Take It Anymore.”
Monday, September 27, 2010
Saturday, September 25, 2010
CHANNELING BUSH
We have a president who is a great rhetorician. We have an electorate that refuses to acknowledge that Obama is not only a manipulator of words but of our emotions. Instead of holding him accountable we make excuses. There can be no excuse for a man who has the power to end wars (after all he is the Commander and Chief) yet blatantly continues a war that is killing hundreds if not thousands of innocents, including our troops. When is a war crime not a war crime?
THE WAR CONTINUED AT HOME AND ABROAD
"The hope that came with the election of Barack Obama has faded as his policies have indicated nothing more than a reconfiguration of the basis tenet of the Bush Doctrine – that the US’s national security interests supersede any consideration of due process or the rule of law. The only difference – witness the rising civilian body count from drone attacks – being that Obama’s doctrine is even more deadly”, guardian.co. uk, April 11, 2010. The article continues claiming a completely new trend has emerged that, in many ways is more dangerous than the trends under Bush. Extrajudicial killings and targeted assassination will soon become the main point of contention that Obama's administration will need to justify Although Bush was known for such polities, the extensive use of drones under Obama have taken the death count well beyond anything that has been seen before.
SOCIAL SECURITY PRIVATIZATION
He is doing what many of us fought Bush over, privatizing Social Security. He set up a Commission to study how to reduce the federal deficit eschewing the study of our trillion dollar war funding. The Commission is charged with blaming Social Security and Medicare for our deficit problems despite the fact that Social Security is pay as you go and presently has $1.5 trillion surplus.
MORE FINANCIAL SHENANIGANS
How this for Chutzpah! Obma just appointed a former top executive at Citigroup, Jacob “Jack” Lew, to lead the Office of Management and Budget, Lew participated in the deregulation of Wall Street during the Clinton administration. Lew told a Senate panel that deregulation did not lead to the recent financial crisis.
Now come the rhetorician skills of Obama: during an October 20, 2008, campaign event in Florida, candidate Obama, told a crowd of his then-opponent, Sen. John McCain, that: “Twenty-one times just this year John McCain has said we need to deregulate the financial industry, right at a time when we know that because of deregulation that Wall Street was able to engage in the kind of irresponsible actions that have caused this financial crisis."
PRESIDENT HOPE SAID NOPE
In November 2009, Judge Stanwood Duval ordered the federal government to rebuild homes and compensate families of the dead in the Katrina disaster. This because he angrily discovered that the Army Corps of Engineers was ultimately responsible for disaster due to their catering to the oil companies for a passage way through the gulf for their product - oil. The passage way led to the destruction of a green wreath of cypress and mangrove, Nature's protection of the Crescent City. Our compassionate president, Obama, had Attorney General Eric Holder appeal the court's ruling.
STAY TUNED - MORE TO COME
THE WAR CONTINUED AT HOME AND ABROAD
"The hope that came with the election of Barack Obama has faded as his policies have indicated nothing more than a reconfiguration of the basis tenet of the Bush Doctrine – that the US’s national security interests supersede any consideration of due process or the rule of law. The only difference – witness the rising civilian body count from drone attacks – being that Obama’s doctrine is even more deadly”, guardian.co. uk, April 11, 2010. The article continues claiming a completely new trend has emerged that, in many ways is more dangerous than the trends under Bush. Extrajudicial killings and targeted assassination will soon become the main point of contention that Obama's administration will need to justify Although Bush was known for such polities, the extensive use of drones under Obama have taken the death count well beyond anything that has been seen before.
SOCIAL SECURITY PRIVATIZATION
He is doing what many of us fought Bush over, privatizing Social Security. He set up a Commission to study how to reduce the federal deficit eschewing the study of our trillion dollar war funding. The Commission is charged with blaming Social Security and Medicare for our deficit problems despite the fact that Social Security is pay as you go and presently has $1.5 trillion surplus.
MORE FINANCIAL SHENANIGANS
How this for Chutzpah! Obma just appointed a former top executive at Citigroup, Jacob “Jack” Lew, to lead the Office of Management and Budget, Lew participated in the deregulation of Wall Street during the Clinton administration. Lew told a Senate panel that deregulation did not lead to the recent financial crisis.
Now come the rhetorician skills of Obama: during an October 20, 2008, campaign event in Florida, candidate Obama, told a crowd of his then-opponent, Sen. John McCain, that: “Twenty-one times just this year John McCain has said we need to deregulate the financial industry, right at a time when we know that because of deregulation that Wall Street was able to engage in the kind of irresponsible actions that have caused this financial crisis."
PRESIDENT HOPE SAID NOPE
In November 2009, Judge Stanwood Duval ordered the federal government to rebuild homes and compensate families of the dead in the Katrina disaster. This because he angrily discovered that the Army Corps of Engineers was ultimately responsible for disaster due to their catering to the oil companies for a passage way through the gulf for their product - oil. The passage way led to the destruction of a green wreath of cypress and mangrove, Nature's protection of the Crescent City. Our compassionate president, Obama, had Attorney General Eric Holder appeal the court's ruling.
STAY TUNED - MORE TO COME
SECOND GO AROUND
The relentless destruction of the earth goes apace. The biblical second coming is translated into second chance for exploitation and the ruinous of planet earth. Plans are afoot to take advantage of global warming. This time to exploit the riches and passage ways open due to the ice melting in the Artic Circle. Surrounding countries are planning stationing troops to protect what they presume is their area of control. Of course, they never heard that unsullied nature is for the benefit of all people and nations and not just a few powerful military.
Wars, ostensibly to bring democracy to backward people when in fact they are for exploitation of resources and peoples, will continue under a similar guise to exploit the riches of the opening up of the Artic due to the diminishing of ice.
Unfortunately, we never seem to learn from our past and continue in the same mode, to satisfy our selfish and self-indulgence nature.
Wars, ostensibly to bring democracy to backward people when in fact they are for exploitation of resources and peoples, will continue under a similar guise to exploit the riches of the opening up of the Artic due to the diminishing of ice.
Unfortunately, we never seem to learn from our past and continue in the same mode, to satisfy our selfish and self-indulgence nature.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
A BIT DELUSIONAL
Lauding Pelosi’s role in pushing through a health care bill that entrenches the very cause of our healthcare disaster is well…Ludicrous.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
THE GOSPEL OF WEALTH
SPIRITUAL WEALTH
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/opinion/07brooks.html?emc=eta1
The author neglects to mention that in our rush for material wealth, we destroyed countless cultures and humans. We transformed a near paradise based on spiritual connection to earth to a near toxic dump, our own USA.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/opinion/07brooks.html?emc=eta1
The author neglects to mention that in our rush for material wealth, we destroyed countless cultures and humans. We transformed a near paradise based on spiritual connection to earth to a near toxic dump, our own USA.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
PELOSI HYPERBOLE
Her continual funding of both wars and the murderous loss of life mar Pelosi’s few legislative victories (Her house divided by Sasha Abramsky, Aug 25-31.) These two things alone seep into the bone and marrow of our society causing a slow death to our ideals and democracy. The Tea Party critique of the health care reform maybe hyperbolic by calling it socialism while in reality it is hyper-capitalistic, it still resonates on both ends of the spectrum as a disaster in waiting. Pelosi may have operational abilities admired by Harry Britt but does she have ability to cure the moral and ethical morass she has caused in her long career?
(A front page article about Nancy Pelosi praising her for her legislative accomplishments.)
(A front page article about Nancy Pelosi praising her for her legislative accomplishments.)
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