FIGHTING YOUR ENEMIES ONLY MAKES THEM STRONGER
Even in the midst of tragedy, there is a spiritual law of surrender: when you let go and accept whatever is happening in this very moment — when you stop worrying, stop stressing, start appreciating and start giving more than you receive — magic begins to happen in your life. No matter what is going on, there is always something to be grateful for. Sometimes you have to lose your life to save it. Sometimes you have to lose everything to gain what's really valuable.
It's a spiritual law: the more you give, the more you receive. Wayne Dyer, in his bestselling book You’ll See it When You Believe It, says that the magic of giving actually is a law in the universe and works like clockwork. Every single time he sent out 10% to charity of any income that came in, his income doubled, tripled and rose exponentially.
All sorts of wonderful things opened up when I started giving, tithing, caring about others and giving things away. In the debauched 80's, I even offered to drive a friend to the airport — an unheard of gesture in L.A. during that time. No one drove anyone to the airport; it was considered a huge imposition. But everytime I would give time or money, both time and money would expand. Soon, an abundance of riches flowed into my life. I love Oprah's new show THE BIG GIVE.
This is how we can change the world. It will happen on a community level. The other day I heard a woman on the radio say that she was at Trader Joe's, and just as she was checking out, she realized she had forgotten her wallet. Instead of sending her away, the cashier offered to pay for her groceries — and when she gushed apologies, he refused to let her pay him back. It wasn't that much, she had only purchased a few items, but still — this kind of generosity in "paying it foward" could change the world. This is how we'll win over corporate greed.
What has always, always seemed wrong to me is excess consumerism. It has never seemed natural to have so many stores, so much pavement, so many products. The other day I was driving back from Palm Springs where I did a wonderful TV show and I wandered into an outlet mall. People were shopping mindlessly, staring at "things" and never looking at each other. It's so bizarre, this shopping mentality — as if "stuff" can really fill you up. We have been programmed to be shoppers, always searching for something material to fill us. But it never does.
We are snowballing toward chaos and excess for one purpose -- to force us to look within.
Finally.
LESS IS MORE
By the way, what's wrong with downsizing, simplifying and living with less? Less is actually more. Thom Hartmann said, “Why are we so hell bent on ‘economic growth?’ Why not ‘economic stability?” If economic growth means even one more cancer death, then I am for stabilizing the economy, not growing it."
If the economy slows down, won't prices drop? Isn't necessity the mother of invention? I have long believed the emerging green economy will save American industry. But we have to stop thinking of ourselves as separate and superior to the rest of the world. Germany is excelling in solar power, and we should learn a lesson from their solar model.
As home prices drop to human levels, wouldn't it be great if the average American could actually afford to buy a home without killing himself — without holding down two jobs, or having his spouse bring in the second income while the children stay in day-care until 7 p.m. after a harrowing drive in rush hour?
This got me to thinking about Ted Knight’s favorite expression: “less is more.” He used to advise us not to mug for the cameras — and that there was more power in underplaying a scene. These were his acting tips in the beginning of Too Close For Comfort. I was too scared to look into his eyes, so I'd look at his forehead instead. He kept standing on his toes to get into my line of vision. Ted thought I was doing this on purpose, and the National Enquirer sent spies down to check out the tension on the set.
GROW YOUR OWN
I believe that less really is more when it comes to quality of life. In fact, lately I’ve been longing for a country life or "pastoral life" ( without the sheep.) I'm obsessed with HGTV and all the shows on fixing up houses, painting, cooking and gardening. Growing our own herbs and vegetables, building furniture, downsizing, shedding excess... I've actually been making my own hand lotion and face cream (olive oil & glycerin) because I'm sick of the chemicals the big brands put in there. Who knows what we're putting into our bodies with 'Aluminum Silicate, Dimethicone, Triethanolamine, Methylparaben, DMDM Hydantoin... (partial list of ingredients in a major label hand lotion.)
JOY IS CONTAGIOUS
It is also true that abiding by principle really pays off: if you treat your employees well, they will strive for you; they will be more loyal and more dependable. Trader Joes, CostCo, Starbucks, Best Buy and Google all pay great benefits and overtime; they have proven that companies who really do the right thing, are rewarded by the laws of the universe. To me this proves there is “goodness in the universe” – and that the Golden Rule works! Honestly, when I walk into Trader Joes or Costco, the employees seem to love their jobs. They are incredibly happy. Joy is contagious. On the other hand Circuit City keeps wages low, somehwere around $8 dollars an hour, just above minimum wage. they fire employees in order to hire new ones at lower wages. Guess what? Circuit city is failing. WalMart uses similar tactics; though they brag they donate more money to charity than any other company, they are not fooling smart people. Charitable donations are tax write-offs; why don't they put all that money into employee health care instead?
I love Stephen Covey’s book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” which basically proves that in business, if you abide by certain fundamental principles of justice, honesty and kindness — and seek to understand rather than to be understood (in other words, if you do the right thing) everyone is happy, wealth is created and harmony prevails.
To me this principle is most clearly and mysteriously propelled by “giving to the poor” or tithing.
As Obama says, "Pain trickles up." In a country such as ours, where corporations are given huge tax breaks and executives get million dollar bonuses, hoarding wealth at the top levels does not "trickle down." The government must step in and help the middle class and the poor. We can’t leave it up to the churches and synagogues to take care of the "least among us," as The Great Peacemaker admonished.
The day I started seeing the world through other people’s eyes and feeling other’s pain, is the day I can honestly say I became more progressive, inclusive, democratic, less fearful of the "other." In other words, I was a Republican and then I got sober. As I shed my old selfishness, I began to suspect other people existed in the universe — and not just to serve me.
By the way, LIBERAL IS NOT A DIRTY WORD; it's a beautiful word! It means "generous, bounteous, freedom loving, protecting of civil liberties."
Courtesy of Carl at SimplyLeftBehind "Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did Conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things...every one! So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, 'Liberal,' as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won't work, Senator, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor." -- Matt Santos, The West Wing
Despite thirty years of 'liberal-bashing as blood sport' on AM Talk Radio via Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, etc — I believe GOOD CONSERVATIVES ARE LIBERALS AT HEART. Obviously, anyone who's paying any attention knows FOX News should have its license revoked for being a propaganda news network. I don't mean Fox Primetime or Fox Entertainment Network, but Fox News Division. Billionaire owner Rupert Murdoch admitted he tried to use his news channel to sway public opinion for a rush to war. Why isn't it a crime to pretend to be are a "fair and balanced" news broadcast, whose sole purpose is to deceive and manipulate viewers? My radio co-host Doug Basham said something very wise: "If Fox News thinks the media has a liberal bias, why aren't they showing us all the good news out of Iraq and the Bush administration? Why aren't they showing any other pictures, taken by their own "news" team?" BECAUSE THE TRUTH HAS A LIBERAL BIAS, that's why. It's hard to camoflage the truth, but they sure are trying.
The very idea of “conservatism” is antithetical to the Christ idea of loving ones neighbor as oneself, not judging others, blessing ones enemies, turning the other cheek, giving to the poor, giving one’s cloak, washing the feet of the lepers... in other words, 'love conqering fear.'
Conservative means "cautious, restrained, opposed to change." Sounds fear-based to me. And Christ said, "Love casts out fear." If the definition of God is Love, doesn't this mean that if you have faith in God you have nothing to fear? So tell me again, why are we at war with terror if we have faith in God? (The fundamentalist Christian right-wing agenda according to George Bush, Tony Perkins, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James D. Kennedy, Ann Coulter, Dick Cheney, James Dobson, Ted Haggart and the most dangerous pastor in America - John Hagee - who is advocating war with Iran! (Please read my expose on Hagee in the archives.)
Charity begins at home. Here are a few of my favorite sites to begin helping others.
ONE.org
The Hunger Site.com (one click feeds the hungry. It's free!)
Do One Nice Thing.com
Good News Network.org
CHANGE YOUR THOUGHTS, CHANGE YOUR LIFE
When I read the newspaper, I look for the good news because every thought we think changes our biochemistry. Your hormones are all affected by your thoughts. Pay attention to things that bring you joy. - Dr. Christiane Northup
"Enthusiasm and courage actually change your brainwaves, which means that your thoughts can physically change your reality. This also means you can be attractive even if you're not good looking because if you radiate love, you attract people." - Lydia Cornell
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The FBI has a new way of tracking terrorists. They are now able to see every click they make on the internet. Privacy advocates say this is bad. Let us know what you think. Click on this link: http://users.chartertn.net/tonytemplin/FBI_eyes/
Great article, everything you just wrote i'm in complete agreement with..........except that prices will automatically go down because of a recession..........when you have inflation AND recession thats stagflation.........and adjusted for inflation and economic pain that can be worse than the Depressions.......statisically the 1970's stagflation was worse economically than the Great Depression BECAUSE prices rose while in recession.
ReplyDeleteStagflation means the economy is grossly mismanaged, and there is usually a war involved........normal recessions are nornal and healthy...........the Fed and GOP war and decades of economic and regulatory mismanagement have greated great imbalances that can only be worked through by great pain and sacrifice.
Recessions are normal and healthy just like Winter is normal after Summer and global warming is a distortion of the natural cycle, so is Bush's war and the Fed's welfare to walstreet and the Banking clan at the expense of working class taxpayers.
You dont know how right on you are about economic stability being the future rather than economic growth...........the last 20-30 years of growth have been predicated on several things, namely cheap oil, and credit and debt fueled growth...............ALL of those factors are over and are part of our past.
ReplyDeleteWe've reached peak oil and other forms of energy will NEVER be cheap again..........people cant take on any more debt because debt levels are higher than 1929 pre Great Depression levels and credit is no longer cheap or available as interest rates are not coming down on credit cards or fixed rate mortgages and many banks are unwilling to loan.
Looking at those factors we need to embrace green industies that will create good paying jobs and give us affordable renewable clean energy and focus on stability rather than growth as many mature economies do...........i'm sure the knuckledragging fascists will screech that is communism and not free market capitalism ............but what they CALL freemarket capitalism is nothing more than crony capitalism and predatory capitalism and them preaching lies and dishonest Conservative rhetoric and babbling failed mantras coupled with them being in charge of our economy for most of the last 30-40 years has gotten us in the position we are in today.
Thanks Mike! You make some great points.
ReplyDeletexo
Lydia,
ReplyDeleteMany of the things you would like to see done, will surely be done. I believe that the era of Mao-mart "Big Box" stores is just about to end, and the cost of transportation will be the death knell. One of the things that fascinates me right now is that the Walton family doesn't appear to be even trying to prepare for it. Mr. Sam, he would have been.
Not only will we need to do things like grow our own food (which a hillbilly from the sticks like me knows a little bit about,) but we will soon learn to be far more discriminating in our tastes. "Do I REALLY need to throw that pair of jeans out because the knees are a little frayed?" "Do I NEED to drive to the store when its only at the end of the street?" A challenging time is coming, and those who rise to the challenge will, I believe, ultimately be all right.
I destroyed all but one of my credit cards some time ago, and I am excited about the coming end of both my car loans. If my health and my mind hold out, I have much to teach my little ones about raising food plants (I've shown them a lot already about how to raise flowers.) I hope that I can impart a mentality to them that will leave them well-prepared for the challenges that they, too, will surely face.
Lydia, the principle is simple, infinite-forever growth in a finite world is either insanity or dishonesty.
ReplyDeleteHowever the infinite growth-everyone can get rich crowd of charlatans will never admit that.
What we are facing is the limits the planet has in resources, like oil, arable land, other energy resources, some metals even.
With the growth and modernization of large population countries like India and China trying to achieve American living standards and lifestyles, this is becoming very apparent.
The question I have is given that even the IEA and EIA and most oil corps already admit by 2050 Oil will peak, what do we do then when the worlds population has risen to about 9 billion people, but the resources are falling not rising?
The question is one that needs to be asked now because the closer we get to the time when everyone agrees we will be in peak oil with other resources also becoming harder to acquire and much more expensive when we get them ..... the more urgent the need to find solutions for energy resources and raw materials we need for the style we live in.
If we fail to find a solution to the needs we have, we face the problems the Romans faced, they couldn't grow any bigger, but couldn't manage the needs of "the empire" unless they grew bigger. But like I said, an empire based on growth to meet the needs of the empire is doomed to fail on any limited finite planet.
Like the British Empire before us, we now have the distinction of having enough military outposts so that the sun never sets on all of them at the same time. So like the Romans, British and Spanish empires before us, we face the dilemma they all faced .... we are trying to control too much of the planet with the limited resources we have, but unless we control more of the planet we lack the resources we need.
We are going to have to live with a smaller foot print on this planet, both in the resources we take and use up, and the way we as a empire are trying to make the rest of the planet do as we say.
We can do it with by accepting the reality growth isn't a forever intelligent choice, .... but sustainability and equity is a good plan for the long term future, .... or like every other empire we can be forced by both circumstances beyond our ability to control them.
Circumstances like our fiscal and economic imbalances combined with harder to get more expensive resources in coming smaller amounts, which with our over extended military, will escape from our grasp to others who are better suited economically to exploit them.
This is not to say that they won't waste the resources like we have done in the second half of the twentieth century, but just that when the resources are becoming more and more scarce, and harder and more expensive to develop, we will no longer be the one to dictate who is allowed to get those resources......
Either we go back as listen to what Jimmy Carter was trying to tell us in 1979, before Ronald Reagan said we could be like pigs at the trough as long as we wanted, or we get forced to do most of what President Carter was telling us we would have to do.
Many Americans are already starting to be forced to make those choices, but all that means is Americans are getting forced to accept what the rest of the world has had to do, live with less, because more is either too expensive or limited for them.
The question is no longer will we eventually change our life styles from massive consumerism and extravagance, but how will we do it, by our choice or resisting until we have no choice at all, and wasting the time in between when we could find a way to live on this planet with less, but doing much less damage to the planet and the other inhabitants on it.
Mike,
ReplyDeleteMy dad grew up in the Depression. If he were here, he'd assure you (as he assured me many times) that the stagflationary 70s, and even the early 80s, were paradise in comparison to the 30s.
What has always, always seemed wrong to me is this excess consumerism. It has never seemed natural to have so many stores, so much pavement, so many products. The other day I was driving back from Palm Springs where I did a TV show, and I wandered into an outlet mall. People were shopping mindlessly, staring at "things" and never looking at each other. It's so bizarre, this shopping mentality -- as if stuff can really fill you up. We have been programmed to be shoppers, always searching for something material to fill us. But it never does.
ReplyDeleteWe are snowballing toward chaos and excess for one purpose -- to force us to look within.
Finally.
Jolly Roger said...
ReplyDeleteMike,
My dad grew up in the Depression. If he were here, he'd assure you (as he assured me many times) that the stagflationary 70s, and even the early 80s, were paradise in comparison to the 30s."
JR allow me to qualify my statement........the Depression was better for those who had jobs than the stagflationary 1970's, of course with 25% unemployment vs 10% plus there were MANY more enemployed in the Great Depression than in recent memory
Lydia,
ReplyDeleteThat's what draws me to the Peninsula. It's a place largely devoid of the strip malls, and even the pavement. General Stores still exist, in the same buildings they've existed in for over 100 years. Just the architecture in a place like that is fascinating; it's worth paying more for stuff just to be able to go in and look around.
Mike,
Don't forget about the safety net that existed in the 70s and 80s, courtesy of that evil horned-beast of dirty librulism, Roosevelt. People who lived without it had a precarious existence. Thanks to Chimpy, many are doomed to find out exactly what living without the net is like.
The biggest difference between this economic crash and the previous one in 1929, is we were rising economically in 1929, getting ready to replace the British as the worlds economic engine, now we are facing being replaced by China.
ReplyDeleteWe no longer have the growing industrial base to get the economy going, and the fact that energy is getting a little harder to find and much more expensive, means this crunch could be a little harder to grow out of for most.
Also the ability of many people to "live off the land" like they did during the great depression is much more limited both because of the much more complex society we have, and the much larger population. The differences will make finding a way to reset the economy and grow it, will be a much more difficult problem as long as the free traders and globalists are doing fine, because they don't want things to change like is required to make sustainability the primary driver of the economy instead of growth fueled by cheap labor and resulting in large profits for a few.
Truth Vs. 'Trash Journalism': McCain's Weak Rebuttal to Damaging Allegations
ReplyDeleteBy Cliff Schecter,
John McCain is not a very nice man. I have made that abundantly clear in my new book The Real McCain: Why Conservatives Don't Trust Him And Why Independents Shouldn't. When I wrote it, I endeavored to write about the actual man, not the myth or the media legend. Perhaps that was where I crossed the line.
McCain spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker accused me of trading in "trash journalism." Me! Can you believe it? But that was not enough, apparently. The McCain folk then decided they would smear me to try and prevent the truth from setting their man free from the all-encompassing grip of his faux "straight-talk" persona.
Another spokeswoman, Crystal Benton, dissuaded a major European newspaper from writing a review of my book, by accusing me of possessing a "a hate streak," and proffering that I was "known to make outlandish comments." For example, that time I said that we should be in Iraq for 100 more years. Oh wait, that was Senator McCain.
Ok, how about the fact that in earshot of others I have hurled expletives at Senators Domenici, Cornyn and Grassely, called my wife an unspeakable term for a female body part and have physically assaulted another Senator (the late Strom Thurmond) and a congressman (Rep. Rick Renzi). Oh, that's right, that was also Senator McCain.
I just don't get where all the "outlandishness" and "hate" comes from on the McCain side. I am only a humble author trying to do my job, sharing facts that are 100% sourced. It's not like I included in my book the account of a former AP reporter who recounted to me seeing John McCain wander off into the Red Light District of Hanoi in 1996 when he was there to normalize relations with the Vietnamese. Or that it was known among reporters that he used to disappear into that part of town alone at night. I never said that in my book. And why would I? That would supposedly be "trash journalism."
Or let's just say that a few reporters told me that the McCains don't really live together anymore, and that until the presidential campaign Cindy McCain was spending much of her time in San Diego with their daughter Bridgette, because her husband was just not Johnny-on-the-spot anymore. I'd never report such an unfounded charge, if those few sources could not provide any more concrete details. The New York Times stoops that kind of reporting, but not me.
You see, Mr. McCain, I have purposely chosen to rise above any "outlandishness." And instead, I relied upon pure, 100% all-American (at least pre-Bush) facts. I would think a "straight-talker" like you would have at least a modicum of respect for my taking that tack.
Consider at least that U.S. News And World Report didn't find my work to be trash journalism:
A new book by liberal writer and political consultant Cliff Schecter lays out a detailed blueprint for how Dems can mine presumed GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain's political and personal past -- including already well-documented incidents of his temper -- to defeat him in the fall.
Poor Lunatic Johnny: He just can't be "Johnny on the Spot" with his "Plastic Princess" anymore.
Jolly Roger - thank you! Great to hear you.
ReplyDeleteClif and Larry - great thoughts, thank you...
The thing that nobody seems to realize is that this economy, and the conditions around it, are poised for nothing but decline. People like to point out what happened in this country post-WWII, but nobody wants to acknowledge that we were the only game in town back then.
ReplyDeleteFor those of you who thought we've only lost 4000 soldiers to the Iraq war, this will shock you.
ReplyDeleteDid you know that in 2005 alone, there were over SIX THOUSAND, FIVE HUNDRED veteran SUICIDES?
Thats in ONE year!
So CBS News did an investigation - asking all 50 states for their suicide data, based on death records, for veterans and non-veterans, dating back to 1995. Forty-five states sent what turned out to be a mountain of information.
And what it revealed was stunning.
In 2005, for example, in just those 45 states, there were at least 6,256 suicides among those who served in the armed forces. That’s 120 each and every week, in just one year.
Dr. Steve Rathbun is the acting head of the Epidemiology and Biostatistics Department at the University of Georgia. CBS News asked him to run a detailed analysis of the raw numbers that we obtained from state authorities for 2004 and 2005.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/13/cbsnews_investigates/main3496471.shtml
Here's the link to the true story if that ones broken.
ReplyDeleteSoldiers Committing Suicide
The VA has been lying to us, as has the White House. 6500 GI suicides in ONE year means we've lost over 30,0000 since the war began.
120 GI's "KILLING THEMSELVES", each and EVERY WEEK.
ReplyDeleteAnd Bush hasn't said WORD ONE about it, or them, in over 5 YEARS.
Yea, keep voting republican you inbred braindead bastards.
Keep voting republican because they care about the troops.
It boggles the mind how ANYONE could buy the repugs p[articularly Bush/Cheney and McSame's rhetoric that ONLY they support the troops and are patriots and the Demacrats hate the troops and are unpatriotic .........when the repug chickenhawks are the ones sending the troops to die and get maimed in a war they crave but are too elitists and gutless to fight or have their kids fight........further they are the ones denying the troops and vets decent payraises, proper equipment and proper medical care on their return yet they dishonestly CLAIM sole position of being patriotic and supporting the troops.
ReplyDeleteWhat kind of Bizzarro worlddo we live in when the party sending the troops to die and denying them adaquate medical care upon their return and proper equipment and payraises while fighting is "supporting" the troops.
Bush and his cronnies stated a 3 1/2% pay raise for the troops was "unneccessary" yet supported a double digit pay raise for the generals to buy their silence and support.
BTW, that 4000 dead number does not only not include the suicides it also doesnt include those maimed, permanently disabled or suffering for mental illnessess and PTSD.........those numbers are projected to be in the hundred thousands and the costs of caring for those soldiers is billions and possibly trillions when other costs for the war are factored in.
ReplyDeleteBartlebee - those are horrifying statistics.
ReplyDeleteJim Jubak says oil could go to $180 a barrel and gasoline could hit at LEAST $5.50
ReplyDeleteBy Jim Jubak
ReplyDeleteYikes! Oil at $117 a barrel. It has to go down from here, right?
Wrong. In the short term -- say, the next two years or so -- we're looking at bad news about global oil supply that could take the price of a barrel of crude to $180.
Needless to say, today's $3.50-a-gallon gasoline would look cheap if oil prices hit $180 a barrel. At that price for a barrel of oil, gasoline would cost somewhere north of $5.50 a gallon.
They sure are Lydia.
ReplyDeleteWe're experiencing an average of 120 Suicides PER WEEK!
120 SUICIDES PER WEEK from US soldiers.
I'm not making it up.
120 SUICIDES PER WEEK
From CBS News;
ReplyDeleteSo CBS News did an investigation - asking all 50 states for their suicide data, based on death records, for veterans and non-veterans, dating back to 1995. Forty-five states sent what turned out to be a mountain of information.
And what it revealed was stunning.
In 2005, for example, in just those 45 states, there were at least 6,256 suicides among those who served in the armed forces. That’s 120 each and every week, in just one year.
Why haven't we heard about this till now? This is nuts.
As you can see, that figure, ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY SUICIDES EACH AND EVERY WEEK, is only in 45 states.
ReplyDeleteSo we know the actual number is even HIGHER!
We're failing them again.
ReplyDeleteBye Bye Rusty, you say something?
ReplyDeleteI cant seem to hear you.......
What we REALLY need Bart is for Obama to wrap up this nomination so he can take McSame to task on these issues..........McSame will try to CLAIM he and he alone is the ONLY one who is patriotic and supports the troops, and i really believe Obama cares about the troops and this country and will expose McSames empty rhetoric and phony talking points and will bring the state of our military, our soldiers and the economy to the forefront rather than in the shadows unless phony repug talking points are being spewed by phony patriots.
ReplyDeleteYes, where is Rusty? Wouldn't he like to come tell the GIs that they're being hysterical liberal crybabies?
ReplyDeleteWhy Americans Are Bitter
ReplyDeleteMary Pitt
The mainstream media is making to much of the remark by Senator Barrack Obama about the residents of small-town America being "bitter". Actually, I believe that most Americans are "bitter" by now and with good reason. We can begin with the fact that the last two presidential elections have not been decided by the good common sense of the voting public but by the arcane machinations and dirty tricks of the political party machinery. First, let's explore the term, "bitter". On the scale of unhappiness, it is to be found somewhere beyond "disappointment", "disillusionment" and "desperation". Those terms have been common in recent years and with very good reason. However, as the situation of working America continues to deteriorate, we have certainly become "desperate" as nobody in government appear to truly know or care. however, being bitter does not denote surrender.
In the elections of 2000, the winner, who promised to be "a uniter, not a divider" undertook policies which created the widest division in the United States since the Civil War, not between states but between classes Instantly, he began choosing "enemies" throughout the world of whom we should be aware and fearful. After the second and highly successful bombing of the World Trade Center, he immediately plunged the nation into a total war against an amorphous and disconnected "enemy" by attacking Afghanistan which appeared to be the home base of their leadership.
As it appeared that we were winning that war, though much was left to be done, we were bombarded by the fear machine regarding the other arch-enmity, the dictator of Iraq who was, we are told, prepared to attack us with nuclear weapons at any moment. When we invaded and found no "weapons of mass destruction" we were told that the dreaded Al Qaida was there and we had to destroy them, (truns out that Saddam hated Al Qaida and we found none), then we had to "establish democracy" and, despite our having killed a million or so Iraqi civilians and lost a couple of thousand more American troops. we are now told that we may here there another generation or two since Iraq is, by nature, tribal nation rife with sectarian rivalry and do not want to become a united nation. (That, by the way, is why it was placed under a brutal dictatorship when the British left Mesopotamia.)
The President keeps telling us that our economy is going through a "rough patch" and we should suck it up while our jobs continue to go off-shore, our homes being foreclosed, and children and elderly are dying needlessly for lack of medical care. Those who still have work are paying double for gasoline to get to work and retail prices are reaching for the sky because of the increased cost of getting merchandise from the factory or the docks to the stores. Meanwhile, the oil barons are being enriched beyond imagination by their windfall profits and the world is running out of fuel.
Recently we have been made aware of the fact that there are more hired mercenaries in Iraq than there are American troops. These hired guns are paid at a much higher rate than are our own soldiers and the corporations who direct them, largely Halliburton subsidieries or spin-offs, are pocketing huge profits, not only for that but also for their no-bid "reconstruction" work. Kellogg, Brown & Root, a "former Halliburton" firm, are providing rotten food and contaminated water for our troops courtesy of their slave-wage laborers from all over the world. We have no idea how many of these "civilian employees" have been killed, I suppose because the hired help don't matter.
Meanwhile the leaders of Al Qaida are no longer in Afghanistan but have crossed the border into Pakistan but we can't go there because our leaders tell us that "Pakistan is our friend". However, the Taliban, the "extremist" organization are battling us in order to return that nation to the old, traditional ways of governing by tribal rules. The titular leader who was installed by us, Pervez Musharraf, is so hated by the people that he is virtually a prisoner in the capital city and, even there, can move only with armed guard.
To the citizens of a nation that, a few short years ago, was a "shining city on a hill" it is a revolting development to find that we are hated throughout the world and can only find "allies" with the payment of sufficient amounts of money. And, yes, there is the problem of money! The entire cost of the Bush misadventure has been charged to our children, grandchildren, ad infititum, and the American dollar is no longer an advantage on the world markets. Tourists from all over the world can come here to find bargains in our stores, but Americans cannot share in their pursuits because Americans have no money!
We lose our jobs, we lose our homes, we lose our sons in the war without end, and now many of us are losing our tempers! Some are old enough to remember the miseries of the Great Depression and we feel another one coming on as history is repeating itself. It seems that Herbert Hoover was also unconcerned about the plight of the ordinary American and intent on following his own Pied Piper. When the world-wide drought and food shortage hit, the United States was virtually destroyed. Now we are reading about food riots and shortages in other nations and the scientists are warning that another drought is in the making. I don't know about Pennsylvania, Senator Obama, but I know about America and we are not only bitter. We are also sick and tired of elected officials who are lying to us as they betray our trust and their oaths of office
We're mad as hell and we're not gonna take it any more!
The Evil of a Bush and the Insanity of McCain make one very bitter.
Mike said...
ReplyDeleteBye Bye Rusty, you say something?
I cant seem to hear you.......
Oh did Rusty say something?
:\
odd, I can't seem to hear him either....
Perhaps he's got laryngitis.
ReplyDeleteHey everyone, please click on these two sites to feed the hungry and give a free mammogram to an underprivileged woman: IT'S FREE. Just one click per day on the hunger site feeds several people.
ReplyDeletewww.thehungersite.com
www.thebreastcancersite.com
Lydia, another excellent post. I would add that the greatest gift we can give is not our money, but ourselves.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great moment in time to be a progressive.
ReplyDeleteBy Matt Stearns
ReplyDeleteYOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — Standing before a nearly shuttered factory pocked with broken windows in a city devastated by the erosion of its industrial base, John McCain on Tuesday urged Americans to reject the "siren song of protectionism" and embrace free trade.
He used his own recent political fortunes — a dramatic fade followed by an unexpected comeback to secure the Republican presidential nomination — to illustrate that depressed Rust Belt cities such as Youngstown can rebound.
"A person learns along the way that if you hold on — if you don't quit no matter what the odds — sometimes life will surprise you," McCain said in a speech at Youngstown State University after meeting the five remaining workers at Fabart, a steel-fabricating factory that had more than 100 employees a few years ago.
Continuing a weeklong tour of what he calls the "forgotten America," McCain called for increased use of community colleges to retrain workers and investment in alternative energy technologies to replace the manufacturing jobs that have gone overseas, in part because free trade agreements made it easier for companies to move where production is cheaper.
"The American Midwest is more than a Rust Belt, and its economy is more than the sum of past hardships," McCain said, even as he acknowledged that a comeback "won't be easy."
The hardships are all too real in Youngstown. The city has lost more than 40,000 jobs since its signature steel industry collapsed in the 1970s and '80s. Its population is less than half its peak of 170,000 in the 1950s. About 25 percent of those who remain live below the poverty line.
To preach the virtues of free trade in such a place is risky even for a candidate who prides himself on "straight talk."
McCain lost the Michigan Republican primary in part because he told workers there that their "jobs aren't coming back," a claim then mocked by the victor, Mitt Romney.
Sensing political opportunity as the economy teeters, Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have sought to outdo each other in lambasting free trade agreements such as NAFTA, which they call a prime cause of job losses. That could be a winning argument in crucial states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania in the general election.
During a town-hall meeting in Youngstown, former local labor leader Jack O'Connell stood to denounce NAFTA as a "bad four letters."
McCain jokingly pointed out that NAFTA in fact is composed of five letters, though O'Connell seemed to be equating it to a "four-letter word," as in a curse word.
In response, McCain said again that those jobs were gone forever and he defended NAFTA as an overall plus for the U.S. economy, even as he conceded that wage discrepancies and product dumping have hurt U.S. workers.
"I've met too many people who've been displaced as a result of free trade to say, 'Aww, it's all been good for our economy, don't worry about it,' " McCain said. "But I think the adjustment is not to erect barriers and protectionism.
The Senile Old Reprobate stands in front of a factory whose jobs have been sent to China, and says "Nafta has been good for our economy."
This is senility at its worst.
Republican Sen. John McCain, campaigning through poverty-stricken cities and towns, said Wednesday he opposed a Senate bill that sought equal pay for women because it would lead to more lawsuits.
ReplyDeleteAs usual for a Senile Old Republican: He Hates Women.
Think Progress:
ReplyDeleteHagee Says Hurricane Katrina Struck New Orleans Because It Was ‘Planning A Sinful’ ‘Homosexual Rally’
On September 18, 2006, Pastor John Hagee — whose endorsement Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said this past Sunday he was “glad to have” — told NPR’s Terry Gross that “Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans.” “New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God,” Hagee said, because “there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came.”
On his radio show yesterday, right-wing talker Dennis Prager asked Hagee to respond to “the various charges made against him” in a fact sheet put out by the Democratic National Committee. Asked about his comments on Hurricane Katrina, Hagee said “the topic of that day was cursing and blessing”:
HAGEE: Yes. The topic of that day was cursing and blessing. … What happened in New Orleans looked like the curse of God, in time if New Orleans recovers and becomes the pristine city it can become it may in time be called a blessing. But at this time it’s called a curse.
Prager followed up by asking if all natural disasters are a result of “the divine hand” and if there is “any natural disaster that is not the result of sin?” Hagee responded by saying “it’s a result of God’s permissible will” and “that there was going to be a massive homosexual rally there the following Monday,” which he said “was sin”:
PRAGER: Right, but in the case, did NPR get, is this quote correct though that in the case of New Orleans you do feel it was sin?
HAGEE: In the case of New Orleans, their plan to have that homosexual rally was sin. But it never happened. The rally never happened.
PRAGER: No, I understand.
HAGEE: It was scheduled that Monday.
PRAGER: No, I’m only trying to understand that in the case of New Orleans, you do feel that God’s hand was in it because of a sinful city?
HAGEE: That it was a city that was planning a sinful conduct, yes.
Unconvinced by Hagee’s explanation, Prager said “frankly” that critics “can get you” for those comments “because people don’t like to hear that sort of thing.”
And this is McCain "Religious Right" Crony.
Johnny doesn't hate women. If they play their cards right, he even supports legislation for them!
ReplyDeletePity the woman who has to "work" McCavein to get THAT job done, however.
McCain gets tax-free disability pension
ReplyDeleteThe disclosure of the Navy benefit for injuries incurred as a Vietnam POW may raise fitness questions.
By Ralph Vartabedian
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
Sen. John McCain has long said he is in robust health and is strong enough to hike the Grand Canyon, but he also is receiving what his staff Monday termed a "disability pension" from the Navy.
When McCain released his tax return for 2007 on Friday, he separately disclosed that he received a pension of $58,358 that was not listed as income on his return.
On Monday, McCain's staff identified the retirement benefit as a "disability pension" and said that McCain "was retired as disabled because of his limited body movements due to injuries as a POW."
McCain campaign strategist Mark Salter said Monday night that McCain was technically disabled. "Tortured for his country -- that is how he acquired his disability," Salter said.
Certain types of military and veterans pensions are either partially or completely tax-exempt, depending on the seriousness of the disability. In McCain's case, the exemption is 100%.
If McCain had to pay taxes on the full amount of the pension, it would have increased his tax bill by about $18,000 based on the percentage of his income he paid to the federal government.
McCain spent 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war in Hanoi. After he was released in 1973, he returned home on crutches and began a painful physical rehabilitation. He later regained flight status and commanded a Navy squadron before retiring from the service in 1981.
McCain would be the oldest man to enter the White House if he is elected president, and questions have been raised about his health.
McCain has twice developed melanoma, a potentially deadly form of skin cancer.
The fact that he is legally designated with a disability pension may raise further questions.
"It is a legitimate question to ask about the commander in chief: Is he fit to serve," said Robert Schriebman, a senior Pentagon tax advisor and tax attorney who recently retired as a judge advocate for a unit of the California National Guard.
If McCain can hike across the Grand Canyon, then why should he be getting disability payments from the government that are tax-exempt, Schriebman asked.
McCain shattered his knee and broke both arms when he was shot down over North Vietnam in 1967.
In his autobiographies, McCain said that his knee still bothered him in cold weather and that he was unable to raise his hands above his shoulders.
Elmo Baker, a retired colonel and president of a Vietnam War POW group, said many former POWs were receiving some type of military pension that was partly or fully tax-free.
Baker said he was receiving payments that were 70% tax-free, but that he "didn't have as many injuries as McCain did."
Many of the Vietnam POWs are receiving payment under a program known as "combat-related special compensation," which provides benefits and tax exemptions under a complex system, based on such factors as the type of injury and the years of service.
Paul Galanti, another former POW in the group, said that while McCain's injuries were serious enough to qualify him for disability, it would not affect his performance as president.
"I don't know of any physical requirements to be commander in chief," Galanti said. "He would have a nice car to drive around in and a nice airplane to fly in."
Doesn't being Senile and Deranged make the old war-lover unfit to serve.
'War hero'
ReplyDeleteBy Charles Derber and Yale Magrass
"624787." In his first national campaign ad for president, Sen. John McCain is shown reciting his rank and serial number as he lies in a Vietnamese hospital bed as a prisoner of war. The ad describes him as "a real hero."
Let's be clear: Senator McCain is running for president as a war hero who plans to win the campaign based on character and honor.
On the surface, it seems churlish to critique the idea of a war hero. And criticizing a tribute to courageous and self-sacrificing soldiers would be disrespectful.
But inextricably tied to the idea of the war hero for president is a discussion that goes beyond individual soldiers or prisoners of war, such as Mr. McCain, to the wars they fight and what their role in the war says about their moral merits as national leaders. This turns out to be surprisingly problematic.
We need to distinguish the war hero from the war. Fixed ideas about war heroes get into what we call "morality wars," crucial struggles about which values should prevail, who should be admired and for what qualities.
When we call Mr. McCain a war hero, we engage in moral discourse about the Vietnam War - and now, Iraq. We also give Mr. McCain - currently the country's most celebrated war hero - the ultimate political weapon: power by virtue of heroism and the ability to discredit opponents as weak or unpatriotic.
The public has treated Mr. McCain's record in Vietnam and his status as a war hero as something unchangeable. But placing his sacrifice beyond the pale of criticism also implicitly places the cause he served beyond the pale, and that hushes important dialogue.
Mr. McCain's heroism stems entirely from Vietnam. Mr. McCain was brave in captivity, but he and his fellow pilots dropped more bombs on Vietnam than all those dropped in World War II, leading to the conclusion that "we had to destroy Vietnam in order to save it."
He did not acknowledge the war itself as immoral. If he had engaged in such "straight talk" about the war, or if we had a more enlightened concept of heroism, he might not be getting so close to becoming the next president.
This language of war heroism is used unfairly to confuse unjust wars and their architects with the honor of brave soldiers. By promoting the idea that Vietnam was an honorable war and denigrating anti-war Democrats as too weak to "stay the course," Richard Nixon won the presidency in 1968. He then kept the war going for another five futile years.
Playing the war hero card has long been a political strategy to elect Republicans, legitimize imperial wars and portray Democrats and peace activists as weak, cowardly or traitorous. Sen. John Kerry, also a courageous soldier in Vietnam, was "Swift-boated" as a traitor because he became a peace activist.
Republicans even did the same to Daniel Ellsberg, a real hero of the Vietnam era. Mr. Ellsberg was a war planner who turned against the war and in 1971 released to The New York Times the "Pentagon Papers," the military's internal and damning history of the war. But as there are no peace heroes in the American moral discourse, President Nixon tried to indict him, and many still brand him as a traitor.
Most of the presidents in the decades after the Civil War were Republicans, the majority of them generals who ran as war heroes. In the 20th century, Republicans continued to serve up war hero candidates such as Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and George H.W. Bush. And now we have John McCain.
If the Democrats are to win elections in the 21st century, the key is to finally engage in straight talk about war and war heroes.
First, they must renounce the morality of militarism. Second, they must be clear that the architects of unjust wars are not honorable or heroic but immoral moralists, those who wage evil in the name of good. Third, they must create a new language of heroism. Brave soldiers in just and unjust wars may be heroes, if we refer purely to personal courage and sacrifice in battle. But it is critical that we recognize that those who oppose dishonorable wars are also heroes. Surely, their courage should also qualify as a character virtue for the highest office in the land.
The peace hero - even more than the war hero - should be the ultimate moral force in the world we now inhabit.
Global Food Crisis Hits United States: While everyone is busy pretending Hillary Clinton can win the Democratic nomination and while everyone is busy pretending John McCain is qualified to be president, global food crisis arrives in the US almost completely unnoticed…
ReplyDeleteThe global food crisis reached the United States yesterday as big retailers began to ration sales of rice in response to bulk purchases by customers alarmed by rocketing prices of staples.
Wal-Mart's cash and carry division, Sam's Club, announced it would sell a maximum of four bags of rice per person to prevent supplies from running short. Its decision followed sporadic caps placed on purchases of rice and flour by some store managers at a rival bulk chain, Costco, in parts of California.
The world price of rice has risen 68% since the start of 2008, but in some US shops the price has doubled in weeks. …
The price of staple foods has been rising at an accelerating rate across the world, driven by what the United Nations has called a "perfect storm" of rising demand from developing countries such as China and India, the impact of climate change and policy responses by governments.
The Bush-McCain economic plan: Bringing Famine into America's Heartland.
Check out this piece on how Obama was treated at a recent press function.
ReplyDeleteFreedom Rants
This reminds me of George Carlin's skit about "stuff." Timeless:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.wimp.com/carlinstuff/
Lydia,
ReplyDeleteWhat you say here is truly inspirational. Compassion is really a liberal value and conservatives may find they are actually much more liberal than they allow themselves to believe.
You are helping to remove the tarnish of the right wing propagandists.
It's time for the message of real liberalism to shine. Thanks for illuminating the truth.
I should have provided the live link:
ReplyDeleteGeorge Carlin's Stuff
As this Hillary and Obama slugfest continues its interesting to watch the different media outlets treatment on the candidates.Its a given that ratings are the main issue for them and I'm sure they would like to keep this fight going as long as possible.It appears to me that the NBC affiliates are strongly in Obamas corner while the rest are either neutral or somewhat pro Hillary.Either way they want this to continue.
ReplyDeleteWe Want Healthcare NOT Warfare--NOW!
ReplyDeleteSubmitted by davidswanson
Under threats from George Bush that he will veto any war funding legislation that contains domestic spending and potential layoffs looming within the Defense Department if the legislation is not immediately passed, Congress is now considering appropriations for the Iraq occupation.
Apparently, that’s not their only consideration. House Democratic leaders are also considering the general election. In a patently political move, leadership is considering adding an additional $70 billion to the $102 billion outstanding from Bush’s FY2008 request in order to remove the funding issue from the electoral debate.
That’s crazy-thinking. To continue the war just to end it later is not a long-term winning political strategy, nor does it address our critical needs:
* An estimated 9000 Americans have died since the beginning of the Iraq war because they lack health insurance.
* Millions are losing their homes because of our economic crisis brought on in large part by war spending.
* Roads, bridges, and schools are crumbling.
* We’re losing far more jobs than we are creating as gasoline profits and prices soar.
Withdrawing our troops and mercenaries and addressing these pressing human needs is a long-term winning electoral strategy. The American people want our military involvement in Iraq to end and our resources directed to meeting our needs at home.
It is crazy-thinking to give this irresponsible and dangerous administration a blank check worth $70 billion to spend without a clear plan for a swift, safe, and orderly withdrawal of the military, accompanied by an economic recovery plan that works for all of us.
Take Action Today! Please call Speaker Pelosi at (202) 225-2847 and Rep. John Murtha, Chairman of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee at (202) 225-4965. Tell them:
* We want Healthcare NOT Warfare!
* $172 billion more on top of the estimated $3 trillion Iraq price tag is unacceptable.
Killings in Iraq and Killings in America: This is the Bush policy.
Sales of new homes plunged in March to the slowest pace in 16 1/2years as a two-year housing downturn extended into the start of another spring sales season. The median price of a new home in March compared to a year ago fell at the fastest clip in 38 years.
ReplyDeleteAnd Crazy, Old, Senile, Deranged McCain says the economy is doing so well.
Life Expectancies Dropping, Wages Falling, Food Rationing Reported -- What the Hell is Going on?
ReplyDeleteBy Joshua Holland,
For years, we've been financing our consumption with debt, offshoring our manufacturing base and living large -- at least some of us -- off of one speculative bubble after the next.
We can talk about stagnant wages and how dramatically inequality has increased, but that frames it passively, as a sort of natural phenomenon. But that obscures the fact that it's been an active process, with the wealthiest Americans gaming the system for a bigger piece of the pie at everyone else's expense. Meanwhile, we've been investing bupkis in our future, expecting, perhaps, to remain on the top through nothing more than raw American exceptionalism.
It's a model that was never sustainable. As the GAO once put the obvious, famously, "By definition, what is unsustainable will not be sustained." And it appears we're paying the piper, although nobody knows how much the bill will be, exactly.
A few signals of what's shaping up to be quite a crisis ...
According to the New York Sun:
Many parts of America, long considered the breadbasket of the world, are now confronting a once unthinkable phenomenon: food rationing.
Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks.
International Herald Tribune:
The $20 hourly wage, introduced on a huge scale in the middle of the last century, allowed masses of Americans with no more than a high school education to rise to the middle class. It was a marker, of sorts, but it is becoming extinct.
Americans greeted the loss with anger and protest when it first began to happen in big numbers in the late 1970s, particularly in the steel industry in western Pennsylvania. But as layoffs persisted, in Pennsylvania and across the country, through the '80s and '90s and right up to today, the protests subsided and acquiescence set in.
The high point came in the 1970s, just as the United States was beginning to lose its controlling grip on the economies of the non-communist world. Since then the percentage of people earning at least $20 an hour has eroded in every sector of the economy, falling last year to 18 percent of all hourly workers from 23 percent in 1979 - a gradual unwinding of the post-World War II gains.
The decline is greatest in manufacturing, where only 1.9 million hourly workers still earn that much. That is down nearly 60 percent since 1979, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports.
The shrinkage is sometimes quite open. The Big Three automakers are buying out more than 25,000 employees who earn above $20 an hour, replacing many with new hires tied to a "second tier" wage scale that never quite reaches $20. A similar buyout last year removed 80,000 autoworkers. Many were not replaced, but many were, with the new hires paid at the non-middle-class scale, and with fewer benefits.
Wages are stagnant while food prices are skyrocketing and oil is at an all-time high of $118 a barrel. I don't know about you, but I lead a pretty humble life, and I'm having a harder time making ends meet right now than I was a few short years ago.
The longer-term effects of the systematic dismantling of the New Deal are becoming evident as well. As I wrote last year ...
America's core infrastructure has been falling apart in very visible ways during the past few years. It's a predictable outcome of the rise of "backlash" conservatism; we've swallowed 30 years of small-government rhetoric, and it's led us to a point in which our infrastructure, once the pride of the developed world, is falling apart around us. We're reaping what we've sown.
It's all part of a larger picture. We have a crumbling power grid and are falling behind the rest of the world in broadband infrastructure. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) talks of "congested highways, overflowing sewers and corroding bridges" that are "constant reminders of the looming crisis that jeopardizes our nation's prosperity and our quality of life." Every year the engineering society issues a report card grading 15 categories of America's once-premier infrastructure. In 2005, that "core" infrastructure collectively got a "D-," slightly worse than the "D" it received in 2000.
As a nation, our physical health appears to be declining as well. We were once the tallest people in the world, but citizens of all the social democracies have been out-growing us, on average, and we now have the shortest average stature among all the countries with highly advanced economies.
The latest news on this front comes via the Washington Post:
For the first time since the Spanish influenza of 1918, life expectancy is falling for a significant number of American women.
In nearly 1,000 counties that together are home to about 12 percent of the nation's women, life expectancy is now shorter than it was in the early 1980s, according to a study published today.
"I think this is a harbinger. This is not going to be isolated to this set of counties, is my guess," said Christopher J.L. Murray, a physician and epidemiologist at the University of Washington who led the study. It is being published in PLoS Medicine, an open-access journal of the Public Library of Science.
The study found a smaller decline, in far fewer places, in the life expectancy of men in this country. In all, longevity is declining for about 4 percent of males.
The phenomenon appears to be not only new but distinctly American.
"If you look in Western Europe, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, we don't see this," Murray said.
The authors attribute much of this to increases in smoking-related illnesses, obesity and their sequelae, including diabetes and kidney failure. All preventable diseases, but we don't do prevention well. Our bottom-line-driven health care system is geared towards treating diseases once they spring up as opposed to keeping people healthy in the first place.
Recently PBS ran a doc called "Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick?" According to producer Larry Adelman, "a growing body of evidence suggests there is much more to our health than bad habits, our meds or unlucky genes."
The social, physical and economic environments in which we are born, live and work can actually get under our skin as surely as germs and viruses. Because these conditions are distributed unequally--in the jobs we do, the wealth we enjoy, the schools we attend, the neighborhoods we inhabit, the power we have to manage our lives--so are our patterns of health and disease, particularly stroke, heart disease, asthma, hypertension, diabetes, kidney disease and even some cancers.
All of this is a snapshot of the big picture, but nobody really knows where we're really headed. A couple of years ago, economist Dean Baker told me that he could see average incomes falling by as much as 40 percent as the housing bubble bursts.
I sincerely hope I'm being an alarmist here, but it's not unrealistic to be worried and there's little reason to have a lot of faith in our political leaders' ability to come up with a new and sustainable economic paradigm, as it's becoming clear we must do sooner or later.
It's the Bush-McCain policy of economic destruction.
Wesley Snipes called on famous friends to vouch for him, highlighted his clean criminal record and even wrote the government $5 million in checks _ all in an effort to convince a judge that his conviction on tax charges should cost him nothing more than home detention and some public service announcements.
ReplyDeleteNone of it worked. The "Blade" actor was ordered to do hard time.
Snipes was sentenced to three years in prison Thursday for failing to file tax returns, the maximum penalty _ and a victory for prosecutors who sought to make an example of the action star.
Snipes' lawyers had spent much of the day in court offering dozens of letters from family members, friends _ even fellow actors Woody Harrelson and Denzel Washington _ attesting to his good character. His attorneys recommended he be given home detention and ordered to make public service announcements because his three convictions were all misdemeanors and the actor had no previous criminal record.
But U.S. District Judge William Terrell Hodges said Snipes exhibited a "history of contempt over a period of time" for U.S. tax laws, and granted prosecutors the three-year sentence they requested _ one year for each of Snipes' convictions of willfully failing to file a tax return from 1999-2001.
"In my mind these are serious crimes, albeit misdemeanors," Hodges said.
Snipes apologized while reading from a written statement for his "costly mistakes," but never mentioned the word taxes.
"I am an idealistic, naive, passionate, truth-seeking, spiritually motivated artist, unschooled in the science of law and finance," Snipes said. He said his wealth and celebrity attracted "wolves and jackals like flies are attracted to meat." He called himself "well-intentioned, but miseducated."
Snipes surprised the court before Hodges handed down the sentence by offering the government three checks totaling $5 million in unpaid taxes over several years, money the government first denied but then accepted. Prosecutors called it "grandstanding" to avoid jail time, and a mere down payment on the actor's still-undetermined multimillion dollar tax bill.
The action star of the "Blade" trilogy, "White Men Can't Jump," "Jungle Fever" and other films hasn't filed a tax return since 1998, the government alleged. Snipes and the IRS will work in future civil proceedings to determine his full tax liability, plus interest and penalties.
Snipes was the highest-profile criminal tax target in years, and prosecutors called for a heavy sentence to deter others from trying to obstruct the IRS. The government alleged Snipes made at least $13.8 million for the years in question and owed $2.7 million in back taxes.
John McCain is a Liar
ReplyDeleteBy Frank Schaeffer
I've tried to figure out what is so insidious about Senator McCain's stubborn support for the misbegotten war in Iraq. I've tried to figure out why -- as the father of a Marine who fought in that war, and as an ardent supporter of our military who believes in the justified use of force (say, in Afghanistan after 9/11), and as a former lifelong Republican, and as a former McCain supporter -- I now find myself so revolted by McCain.
It's this: McCain has changed for the worse since 2000, because defending a lie leads to bigger lies. McCain, like Bush, is now resorting to fiction: We're in Iraq "to fight al Qaeda."
The newly diminished McCain also suffers by comparison because in Senator Obama we have a real alternative, the most inspiring person to run for the presidency in my lifetime, not to mention someone who (unlike McCain and Clinton) was right about -- and told the truth about -- the Iraq war from the start. Obama is the authentic pro-military candidate, not McCain.
(Disclosure: In the 2000 Republican primaries I went on various conservative and religious talk radio shows to root for McCain against Bush and later McCain wrote an endorsement for a book I coauthored AWOL-The Unexcused Absence Of America's Upper Classes From Military Service and How It Hurts Our Country)
The war was initially justified by the faulty claim that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and that he would use them on us. Even at the time that contingency seemed remote. It turned out to be a lie. The real reason (if you want to call it that!) that we went to war was because a very silly little man -- Bush -- wanted to appear big, tough and in charge and revenge 9/11 by hitting an "easy" target to teach "those people" a lesson, even though Iraq had nothing to do with the attack on America.
There is no other reason. But instead of acknowledging this and telling the truth McCain is rehashing the Bush lie: We are in Iraq to "fight al Qaeda!"
McCain knows that al Qaeda wasn't in Iraq before we opened the door to them. McCain also knows that being in Iraq has put our actual war against al Qaeda in Afghanistan in jeopardy. So what is McCain's new, improved updated "reason" we are in Iraq?
The reason for continuing the war is that... we are at war! We're still fighting in Iraq... because we're still fighting in Iraq. That's it!
This way lies madness.
McCain has changed from talking about the war to being defined by it, from telling a lie to becoming the lie. And the Bush/McCain lie matters. If McCain becomes president his lies will get many more of our men and women in uniform killed. His lies will wreck our economy as our national debt goes stratospheric. McCain's lies will send our standing in the world to a new low. They will also invite more terrorist attacks on our country by further weakening and distracting our military.
McCain knows perfectly well that who we are fighting in Iraq is a disparate enemy united only in their hatred of the United States, ranging from Shiite militias to homegrown Sunni resistance, with a sprinkling of foreign terrorists who have come into Iraq under cover of the chaos we created. He knows we unleashed the civil war that he now says is yet another new "reason" we must stay in Iraq, to "avoid a bloodbath."
McCain knows he is lying but he thinks it is for the greater good to do so because otherwise we will "lose" Iraq. McCain rates pride of arms ahead of national good. He is not the first failed American leader to do this.
McCain is ready to do what Robert McNamara describes in his book on Vietnam: continue a war for political reasons after he knows it is lost. Measuring "victory," against our originally stated aims for going in, has become impossible because those aims have changed again and again. How can a war be "won" when no one can even identify what "winning" means and/or when that definition keeps changing?
The reason McCain is willing to knowingly lie about the war in Iraq is this: McCain worships at the shrine of military sacrifice for its own sake.
McCain's is the religion that turned the First World War into a needless bloodbath, because no one would admit a mistake and "honor" had to be served. It is the religion of old soldiers who send young men to die. And it is (or should be) un-American. It is also the religion that searches for "who lost" Vietnam, or Korea and now, Iraq.
As Frank Gruber writes:
It all boils down to the phrase "Who lost... (fill in the blank).
It started with China. Someone "lost" it when Mao's Communists overthrew the corrupt and ineffectual Kuomintang of Chiang Kai-shek... At about the same time that the Republicans were looking for who lost China, they were blaming Franklin Roosevelt for the 'loss' of Eastern Europe to Russia... All this 'losing' provided the rationale for Republican attacks on Democrats as being 'soft on Communism.'
Fast-forward 20 years to the lost cause of my generation: Who lost Vietnam? It was the same dynamic...
And now, Iraq.
You can feel it in the spin from Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, but it's quite explicit in everything that John McCain says about Iraq. We can have victory in Iraq if we don't 'lose' it, notwithstanding that there is no evidence that the U.S. military can occupy or impose our will on the country...
In a McCain presidency the United States faces disaster. The new Bush/McCain, as opposed to the old "straight talker" MccCain/McCain, will turn eight years of Bush/Cheney into twelve to sixteen years. This is something our country might not survive economically, politically or in terms of our standing in the world.
Sixteen years of Bush/McCain risks our military capability. Our overstretched military will become our ruined military. This will be an open invitation to our enemies. McCain's America will be a weakened America at risk and with fewer friends than ever.
The fact that McCain has -- in the course of one campaign -- turned from an honorable American legend into a compromised shill for the far right, the religious crazies, the neoconservatives, the warmongers and corporate America --he even wants to lower corporate taxes in wartime while the middle and working class serve and die! --is astonishingly sad. Some future Shakespeare will write the play about McCain's tragic fall.
John McCain: A worthless old liar.
Sales of new US homes plunged to their lowest level in over 16 years in March despite hefty home price declines in response to a glut of unsold homes, Commerce Department data showed Thursday.
ReplyDeleteThe grim monthly snapshot on sales of newly built homes came two days after a key industry survey said sales of existing homes had slid further in March, underscoring the worst housing sector slump in decades.
Most analysts say the market has not yet reached bottom after the collapse of a boom market two years ago that has weakened the economy and cost banks billions of dollars in losses.
The Commerce Department reported March new home sales fell 8.5 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual pace of 526,000 units, well below analysts' consensus forecast for a rate of 580,000.
The March sales pace was the weakest since October 1991 and 36.6 percent below the March 2007 estimate of 830,000.
The median sales price of new houses sold in March was down 13.3 percent year-over-year at 227,600 dollars.
That represents the largest 12-month decline since 1970, and leaves median home prices at their lowest point since September 2006.
The average sales price of a new home was 292,200 dollars, down 11.3 percent over the last year, a new record 12-month decline.
Builders cut 1.1 percent off the actual number of unsold homes to 468,000, but with the slowing sales rate they were left with an 11-month supply, the largest inventory overhang since an 11.3-month supply in September 1981.
"Excess supply remains significant, suggesting that the downward adjustment will continue in the months ahead," said Marie-Pierre Ripert, analyst at Natixis.
Ripert added that median prices are "likely to remain on their downward trend."
And McCain says the economy is doing well.
After struggling with soaring heating costs through the winter, millions of Americans are behind on electric and gas bills, and a record number of families could face energy shut-offs over the next two months, according to state energy officials and utilities around the country.
ReplyDeleteAnd McCain says the economy is good.
Crude oil prices will soar to more than $200 (U.S.) per barrel over the next five years … forcing a fundamental transformation in the North American economy, says Jeff Rubin, chief economist with CIBC World Markets Inc.He said he expects crude prices – now trading at above $116 (U.S.) a barrel - to average $150 by 2010, and more than $200 by 2012. That would translate into pump prices of $7 (U.S.) per gallon in the United States, and $2.25 per litre in Canada, double the current levels.
ReplyDelete“Whether we are already at the peak of world oil production remains to be seen, but it increasingly clear that the outlook for oil supply signals a period of unprecedented scarcity,” the economist said…
Looks like Bush will get richer while Americans fall into economic oblivion.
Sam's Club, Costco are rationing rice
ReplyDeleteBY Karen Datko
Shades of World War II: Two warehouse-type retail chains in the United States are rationing rice as anxious customers stock up because of a worldwide shortage.
It's the most startling sign that the world food crisis is making itself felt in the United States. But, despite rising food prices here, we've still got it good compared with some developing countries, where food shortages and price hikes have sparked deadly riots.
"Based on a very rough analysis, we estimate that a doubling of food prices over the last three years could potentially push 100 million people in low-income countries deeper into poverty," World Bank president Robert B. Zoellick said recently. He has called for a "New Deal for Global Food Policy."
Likely because of customer hoarding, Sam's Club has imposed a limit on bulk purchases of rice. Customers can purchase no more than four 20-pound or larger bags of jasmine, basmati and long-grain white rice per visit. (A similar move is not planned for other Wal-Mart-owned stores.) Some Costco stores have imposed restrictions on bulk sales of rice and flour.
This prompted Baltimore Sun blogger Jay Hancock to write: "Food hoarding in the United States? Rice-purchase controls at Sam's Club? Get ready to unfurl your rationing coupons and plant a Victory Garden. What is the world coming to?"
The price of rice rose 10% last month in the U.S., which exports about half of its rice crop and where the supply is stable. Not so in the rest of the world.
U.N. World Food Program executive director Josette Sheeran said the price of rice has more than doubled in seven weeks. At a London conference on the world food crisis, she warned of a "silent tsunami" that threatens 20 million poor children, according to The Associated Press.
The AP says it's the "first global food crisis since World War II." Why is this happening? Experts blame high fuel costs, an emphasis on biofuels to the detriment of food production, extreme weather, and changing diets in India and China. Some rice-producing countries have also cut back on exports.
First a wave of food rationing causing discontent: Then The Implementation of Martial Law, Part of The Bush Plan.
Check out Jolly Rogers's piece on "The Trend in American Weddings."
ReplyDeleteReconstitution
Great post....covering a wide range of THINGs that MATTER....I gave you a hat tip on my Malaria post today....because you brought up issues that are all connected and need more coverage....
ReplyDeleteThank you for bringing up Free Rice again..my son and I play alot...( and I still lose to him alot....) we should all have a competition one night between all of us...could raise alot of rice ;-)
As long as we all are reaching for Something Better...Some Thing More...
better days will come...
thank you for all the news over here....and thought Food...
This country PROBABLY will not survive even with Obama as the President. This country CERTAINLY will not survive with McCavein at the helm.
ReplyDeleteWherever you may be living right now, consider if it's the kind of place you'd want to be if it was an independent entity all of a sudden. The US will end as rapidly as the USSR did.
U.S. consumer confidence fell more than forecast in April to a 26-year low as record fuel prices and rising unemployment threatened to reduce spending.
ReplyDeleteThe Reuters/University of Michigan sentiment index decreased to 62.6, from 69.5 the previous month. The measure was down from a preliminary estimate of 63.2 issued on April 11.
Credit Where Credit Is Due
ReplyDeleteBy Bill Maher
New Rule: Stimulating the economy is like stimulating your body--there are good ways and bad ways to do it. And John McCain's "gas tax holiday" is basically economic crystal meth.
There's a seemingly dry headline this week that is a lot scarier than it looks: Bank of America's profit declined 77% this quarter. They're a big bank. They're a consumer-oriented bank. And it turns out their losses are not just coming from the subprime mortage crisis. They're coming from small business loans, construction loans, and simple credit card debt. Bottom line--people can't pay their bills.
The time for arguing over whether or not we're in a recession is not only past, it seems almost quaint now--a little math game that we had the luxury of playing back when things seemed like they might improve at any moment. Whether or not the eventual numbers reveal that this is technically a recession, professional and amateur economists alike can now agree that the economy is technically "in the shitter."
All that remains, then, is the question of how long things are going to suck, and some frightening questions: Are we willing to do anything to get out of this? Will we fall for the same old tricks? Will we once again accept a couple of cheapo give-backs and dog treats and future-destroying tax cuts as a "fix?" If recent history is any guide, those answers are "yes!" and "definitely!" and "Where's my cookie?"
Inconvenient Truths About John McCain
ReplyDeleteDoug Bandow
Sen. John McCain is a man of physical courage and personal honor. He's also a warmonger, with little concern for those who would die in his military adventures. The Democrats won't say that. But it's the truth.
Earlier this year Sen. Barack Obama was appearing at a fund-raiser in Grand Forks, N.D. Talk show host Ed Schultz warmed up the crowd by calling John McCain a "warmonger." Sen. Obama distanced himself from Schultz's remarks, with his spokesman opining that "John McCain is not a warmonger and should not be described as such. He's a supporter of a war that Senator Obama believes should have never been authorized and never been waged."
Let us stipulate that McCain believes war is necessary to advance American interests. All that means is that he is a sincere warmonger. He is still far too ready to view war and the threat of war as appropriate and prudent policy tools. If McCain had his way, the U.S. would be fighting several wars at once, none of which would be in America's interest or worth the cost.
There's Iraq, of course. It was a horrid mistake, built on administration fantasies masquerading as intelligence. McCain likes to parade around as a military expert based on his naval service 40 years ago, but his vaunted expertise is never in evidence. On Iraq he ignored all of the discordant voices which disputed virtually every administration claim. He failed to ask any probing questions of an administration that clearly wanted war irrespective of the facts and saw no need to plan for any unpleasant contingencies. McCain's concern about mismanagement of the war didn't begin for months, until the administration's botched performance was evident to all. In short, McCain refused to allow his supposed experience and judgment to get in the way of a war that he evidently wanted America to fight.
At least McCain appeared to treat the decision to go to war with Iraq with a modicum of seriousness. That's not the case with Iran. When asked about the issue on the stump, he famously broke forth with his rendition of "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" set to the tune of the Beach Boys' hit "Barbara Ann." It was a funny performance, if you think the idea of unleashing death and destruction on other people is funny.
Unfortunately, McCain's little ditty appears to encapsulate his view of war: just another policy tool to employ without much concern for the consequences. Has he considered what war with Iran would be like? How Iraqi Shi'ites would respond if Washington bombed Iran? The potential of Iranian subversion throughout the Persian Gulf? The consequences of an expanded Middle Eastern war on Pakistan? If he has, he hasn't bothered to share his analysis with the rest of us. Instead, he prefers to sing about bombing Iran.
Frivolous disdain for consequences characterizes his discussion of war against North Korea. He cheerfully dismissed the concerns of South Korea and Japan, American allies that would bear the worst consequences of any attack on the North. Indeed, absent a full-scale U.S. assault that succeeded in crippling North Korean conventional capabilities, the South's capital of Seoul, presently subject to massed artillery fire and Scud missiles, likely would end up in ruins. It's an ugly picture, but apparently not one that concerned McCain.
He and Sen. Hillary Clinton shared an enthusiasm for war in the Balkans, both having endorsed the foolish attack on Serbia over control of its territory of Kosovo. The U.S. had no security interest in the outcome of one of the world's smaller guerrilla wars, but that didn't deter them from pushing war. However, McCain distinguished himself by publicly advocating a ground war against Serbia. It's bad enough to inaugurate an aerial campaign, largely out of range of Serb air defenses, for no purpose. But to guarantee casualties by sending in ground troops? His enthusiasm for having a big war clearly outran his judgment over how best to fight the conflict.
Anyone willing to go to war with Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and Serbia is prepared to fight anyone. Most people lean toward peace and believe that only dangerous necessity can justify loosing the dogs of war. Not McCain, who appears to be in permanent "yes" mode. If that famous 3 a.m. phone call came into the McCain White House, he likely would yell "bomb them" into the receiver, then wait until the morning to ask who we had attacked.
It wouldn't be quite so dangerous if he only wanted to attack small, largely defenseless nations like Serbia. But he is intent on jumping into religious and ethnic conflicts that he obviously doesn't understand, as in the Middle East. (Shia? Sunni? What, me worry?) He also wants to threaten nations that possess the ability to retaliate militarily, namely North Korea. Even worse, he advocates confrontation, if not war – right now, anyway – with major powers, most notably China and Russia.
McCain adviser Robert Kagan says that "We have made the mistake of being too passive as Putin has consolidated his autocracy." Exactly what Washington could have done to stop Putin – other than bombing Moscow – isn't clear. But McCain wants to the U.S. to back the state of Georgia against Russia over the status of Abkhazia and Ossetia, as if they mattered one whit to American security. (There's also McCain's unprincipled aggressiveness: he enthusiastically pushes Kosovo's independence, but he opposes self-determination by Abkhazia and Ossetia. In each case his only principle appears to be taking the position most likely to result in conflict between Washington and Russia.)
As for China, McCain has mercifully said less. He evidently knows next to nothing about Islam and the Middle East. He appears to understand even less about China's history and ambitions. But the potential for conflict may grow in coming years, as Beijing behaves more assertively in East Asia, which is, of course, its home region. His "bomb now, ask questions later" philosophy could lead to disaster there.
McCain's foreign policy appears to be a form of neoconservatism squared. All you have to do is threaten everyone around you, and they will kowtow. Talk a little more loudly, brandish your military stick a bit more tightly, and you'll get what you want. If you don't, no problem, just bomb away and you will emerge victorious, so long as you are determined and willing to spill as much blood and treasure as necessary. That's clearly McCain's position in Iraq and likely would govern his approach to any other conflict.
That sounds like a warmonger to me.
But there's more to McCain, another truth that even the Democrats don't want to speak. For instance, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) observed: "McCain was a fighter pilot, who dropped laser-guided missiles from 35,000 feet. He was long gone when they hit. What happened when they [the missiles] get to the ground? He doesn't know. You have to care about the lives of people. McCain never gets into those issues."
Naturally, the war lobby erupted, and Rockefeller apologized. Obama said that he disagreed and had "a deep respect for Senator McCain's service to this country."
It's hard to ask combat pilot John McCain, whose own life was at risk, along with those of his comrades, to worry about what happened at the receiving end of his weapons. But it is fair to expect policymaker John McCain, cheerful advocate of multiple wars around the globe, to consider what happens when the missiles get to the ground. Yet there's no evidence that he does so.
Consider Iraq. Four thousand Americans are dead, thousands are maimed, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are dead and injured, and four to five million Iraqis are refugees. Have these numbers registered with policymaker McCain as he justifies the decision to invade? Does he consider the prospect of increasing the toll in advocating fighting as long as necessary for whatever is considered to be victory these days?
When McCain sings about bombing Iran, does he give a thought to the Iranians who would die? Does the prospect of increased fighting in Iraq as a result give him even a momentary pause? Then there's Korea. Does he believe that the U.S. has any responsibility to avoid triggering a war that could generate hundreds of thousands of casualties in South Korea? Did the prospect of killing even more Serbian civilians occur to him as he was pushing for an expanded war in the Balkans? Does the admittedly distant prospect of war, and the casualties that would result, enter his consciousness as he advocates confronting Russia over such geopolitical irrelevancies as Abkhazia and Ossetia? Or in challenging China over who knows what in the coming years? It would appear not.
In short, Rockefeller might have been unfair about pilot John McCain, but he almost certainly was right about policymaker John McCain.
We are left with no good choices for November. Neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama fill most Americans with confidence. Certainly not on economics, where they have rushed to the populist Left, engaging in such silly displays of ignorance as worrying about the impact of trade with Colombia on the $13 trillion U.S. economy. On foreign policy, both appear to be conventional liberal interventionists, right on Iraq, thankfully, but untrustworthy on many if not most other potential wars.
However, John McCain is far worse. Establishment Democrats might be afraid to state the truth, but McCain is a warmonger. A sincere one, yes, but that only makes him more dangerous.
And there is no evidence that he cares about the human consequences of his policy prescriptions. That doesn't make him unique on Capitol Hill – or as president if, God forbid, the worst comes to pass in November. Nevertheless, his callous hawkishness should be a key issue in the coming campaign.
It would be nice to have a president who has suffered for his or her beliefs, in contrast to such chickenhawks as George W. Bush and Richard Cheney. But more important than courage is judgment. And the latter quality is what John McCain completely lacks.
McCain is simply a tired, senile, worn out Deranged Old Man whose entire being is bringing torture and war to the masses of the world.
Larry, my take on McConJob is that, when he broke under torture, it did something to his mind. I'm not calling him a coward. If I were tortured, I'd probably break too, but I think that, deep down, he feels like a coward and his warmongering is overcompensation for that feeling. He's clearly too unstable to be given control of bombs and armies.
ReplyDeleteDid everyone see Phil Donahue on Real Time with Bill Maher last night?
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't a good show considering it was the final show of the season, but Donahue was BRILLIANT. He had at his command exact facts, figures and even quoted a speech given by Robert Byrd in 2002 about not voting for the resolution to invade Iraq.
Maher of course cut him off like he usually does, to steal some of his fire and change the topic from the brilliant summary of events Donahue was providing, and ruined it. In fact, Donahue didn't really get a chance to say anything for the rest of the night thanks to Maher and his pot smoking buddy Gary Shandling (who was clearly stoned) who ramblied on endlessly trying to insert a few jokes.
I even noticed Donahue wasn't on "Overtime" (the 10 minute segment that continues after the end of each live show on the internet) and his seat was empty.
I'm not sure if Phil left because he was upset, (doubt it) or because he had other engagements but I wished he had stuck around.
The world NEEDS Phil Donahue right now. GOD I MISS HIM!!!!
Donahue is a brilliant man, and most critics of him are critics because their small brains can't keep up with a man with an IQ in the 150's.
Donahue is not like the other guests. Donahue is not sheepish, he has a briliant command of real facts and figures, something lacking in most of Mahers guests and he has a perfect grasp of what happened in 02 to lead us into war.
From the early 1960's to the mid 80's Donahue was the voice of reason in America. He was an outspoken talk show host who opened our minds and our hearts and got us all to ask the hard questions in the face of unreason.
In 2008, I can't think of a better man to publically summarize the events of the last 8 years. I would PAY to see a 1 hour show of his on the war in Iraq and the path that led us there.
If ever there was a time for a Phil Donahue comeback, its NOW!
Now when we need him more than ever.
Maher gets the worst guests for his panel. Arianna Huffington is good but she often quotes inaccurate figures.
ReplyDeleteI HATE THAT.
And repubuggies jump on it and she still does it. Last night she said there were a thousand GI suicides per month. She was wrong and if there had been any conservatives on the panel last night they would have most suredly called her on it.
The real number is shocking, and I wrote about it in here earlier.
The Pentagon revealed there were just over 6,000 suicided in 2005 alone in just 45 states. It breaks down to about 120 per week, or 480 per month. Less than HALF the figure Huffington quoted, but still a HORRIBLE number.
Problem is, when you misquote the number, it takes away from the importance of the acutal figure. It diminishes it, and distracts from it, assuming someone had called her on it.
Other guests like Garry Shandling are occasionally funny, but they waste half the talk time trying to set up a joke, and distract from the impact of the real issues.
When I saw that Bill had Phil Donahue on last night I said "FINALLY!". Finally a guest who will bury ANY right wing bullshit with real facts, figures and logic. And he did, but no one let him talk long enough to drill any of it home.
And when he did get going Bill Maher kept stealing his thunder.
I hope Donahue gets a show, and talks about the state of our country. I like Bill Maher, but his show could be a lot better if he'd have more intelligent guests like Donahue who can talk. Admittedly he gets some intelligent people on but usually they have nothing to say, and can't get the words out.
Donahue can say more than most in 2 or three sentences than they can in 20.
I hope Donahue gets a show.
Lydia, you should get him on the show. And let him talk. He's got a lot to say.
Bartlebee -- You're right I love Phil Donahue. I ran into Phil and Marlo Thomas at an obscure restaurant hidden in the jungle area in Barbados during Christmas a couple of years ago -- there were only a few tables and there they were!
ReplyDeleteCan you believe CNN (or was it MSNBC?) canceled his show when it was the highest rated on the cable channel -- all because he spoke out against the war right when the prez and networks were beating the war drum? We just did an interview about this on our show.
There is some event with Phil here in town, a fundraiser for Progressives.
okay I'll take it down. Sounds koo koo
ReplyDelete'I was a Republican and then I got sober'
ReplyDeletethat's a great line. i started 'going green' within the last couple of years. i live in a city- but there is still much you can do to be 1) more self sufficient and 2) more environmentally friendly. i grew veggies in a container garden, composted, and switched out my light bulbs as a start. buying locally grown, organic meats, fruits and veggies; eating at home; carpooling and consolidatinig; investing in renewable resources- all things we can do. researching the companies we buy from and supporting those who are fair trade or worker supportive- all things we can do. it takes a bit of effort- but laziness and complacency is what has gotten us into this fix to start with. namaste
OK, time to show my age here...
ReplyDeleteJohn Byner had a skit-comedy show on Shotwime (I believe) called "Bizarre" back in the late 70s-early 80s. He did this sketch called "Dullahue" where he did this high-speed imitation of Donahue's search for cameras, arms flailing, etc. that was hilarious.
"Bizarre" seems to have never even made it into syndication, sadly.
The reason Donahue does that is because of his big fat brain.
ReplyDeletePeople with big fat brains like his have dozens of facts to relay in a single sentence however the english language is not advanced enough to accomodate him.
Donahue's a brilliant man. Extremely high IQ. When others are talking in generalities he's quoting exact quotes, and accurate facts, figures names and dates.
Hey Betmo,
ReplyDeleteGlad you stopped in. Going green is long overdue by all, and I fear it may be to late to get everyone on board in time to make a difference.
Lydia Cornell said...
ReplyDeleteokay I'll take it down. Sounds koo koo
Not sure what "Sounds Koo Koo" but whatever "Sounds Koo Koo" will surely be better tomorrow.
Came here....wanted to check in with all....quiet here....Lydia I sent you some emails...let me know if they made it through,....I hope everybody had a good Arbor Day....and Passover...and maybe a little Spring...
ReplyDeleteLydia,
ReplyDeletepaying it foward...
It certainly works doesn't it. Your post was fantastic. Thank you for speaking the truth. Economic stability makes so much more sense than "growing" the economy. It, "growing the economy", actually is having the opposite of its desired outcome. One would think that this is obvious, but we must be led to it.
Peace.
Please read new post -- and leave comments on new thread.
ReplyDeleteWe're having media legend Bill Press on our show tomorrow.
Also, I want to discuss Rush Limpbotomy's insane comments.
Luv all,
xoxo
Poetryman -- thank you!
ReplyDeleteEnigma -- I have not been receiving any emails from you on that webmail - when did you send them? There are some problems with that account.
More later this week, am locked down again for a few more days, except for radio show and rehearsals for our comedy show.
Please leave comments on new thread.
ReplyDeleteEnigma -- can you send me another email? I don't think my account is working.
thanks
xo