WHAT DOES LOVE LOOK LIKE?

BEAUTIFUL MUSIC: Nickelback

Brandi Carlile
My son turned me onto "Smallville," and the opening theme song is beautiful. GREAT MUSIC is one version of love in action. The current top 20 is surprisingly good. Linkin Park ("What I've Done!") Snow Patrol ("Chasing Cars"); Plain White Ts ("Hey There Delilah"), The Fray, Maroon, Fergie, Gwen Stefani, and my current fave artist today is Brandi Carlile. Her second album, The Story, was released in April 2007. It was produced by T Bone Burnett and includes a collaboration with the Indigo Girls on "Cannonball." The album was recorded in an eleven-day-long session with Carlile , the twins (Tim and Phil Hanseroth) and drummer Matt Chamberlain to capture the raw intensity of Carlile's live performances.

What you resist persists; what you fear is what you draw to you. Whatever you fight, fights back at you. If you fear growing up, if you are afraid of evolving, you are doomed to be an immature adult. There is nothing more unattractive than an immature adult. These are the people whose lives have gone off track because they are foolishly chasing their youth instead of accepting change. But life is a flow, and we must follow it wherever it leads us. The happiest people are those who can put this into a positive perspective. Everything you think you have lost is really your opportunity to gain. It's looking at the glass as half full instead of half empty.

GOOD is the underlying, invisible, spiritual language of the universe. Harmony, good is the underlying structure of all things. It's the genetic code of the universe. All things work toward good, toward the light when you are in faith. In other words, when you activate your "faith" in the goodness of people and the universe, that's when people and events respond accordingly. That's when things go your way. You are in the divine flow, working together with good.

Another word for good is God. Another word for love is God.

I know one thing for a fact that prayer actually changes things in the physical universe. But prayer is not what religion teaches it is: it's not begging some anthropomorphic God for favors. It's acknowledging the good already there. Underlying everything are the laws of the universe and you cannot really break these laws: truth, honesty, goodness, right action, principle, order, harmony, love, liberty, equal rights, etc

Prayer is holding to the GOOD so solidly, holding good in your thoughts so powerfully, evil has no room to grow; it is drowned out, extinguished by our lack of attention to it. That's what Christ meant when he said: bless your enemies, resist NOT evil. Evil cannot thrive in an atmosphere that doesn't acknowledge it. When you think constructive thoughts about someone, and direct the highest good toward your fellow man, his behavior can change.

What does love look like?
Eric Nelson

It looked like a pack of sweaty bike riders, appearing out of nowhere, speeding down a lonesome road in 100-degree heat. At least that’s what it looked like to me. But there was more to it.

I was perhaps 130 miles into an all-day 200-mile bike ride through the foothills of California’s Eastern Sierra when I began to run out of steam. Not having much else to think about, I wondered why I was feeling this way.

Had I eaten the right food last night? Had I gotten enough sleep? Was I taking in plenty of fluids? Had I trained hard enough? Even though the answer to all these questions was an unequivocal “Yes,” I still felt pretty exhausted.

The only answer I could think of was love.

This led me to ask a different question: “If it’s not food and water, not the amount of rest or training, then what is it that propels me forward? What is the source of my strength?” The only answer I could think of was love. My love for the spectacular scenery surrounding me. My love for biking. My love for the freedom, flexibility, harmony, and joy I experience each time I ride.

“That’s nice,” I thought. “But what does love have to do with strength? What does love feel like? What does love look like?” You’ve guessed it. As if on cue, there appeared, almost out of nowhere, a pack of sweaty bike riders, speeding down this lonesome road in 100-degree heat.

One of these bikers invited me to join his pace line. (This is when riders line up directly behind one another as closely as possible so as to take advantage of the lead rider’s wind break or “draft,” with each rider taking a turn “pulling” the line.) The effect was a decrease in the amount of energy I had to expend while, at the same time, increasing my speed. Not a bad deal!

This sense of the sustaining power of love stayed right with me.

A few miles down the road, feeling refreshed, I broke away from the pack. But this sense of the sustaining power of love stayed right with me. At one stage this love looked like another solo rider and me keeping one another company on a long uphill stretch.

Later on it looked like a gloriously long downhill with nary a car in sight. And for the last 30 miles or so, love looked (and felt) like a steady tailwind gently pushing me across the finish line.

So what exactly was this “love” that appeared seemingly out of nowhere, this love that looked like many different things? Was it simply positive thinking, some happy thought that had the effect of taking my mind off my body just long enough to finish the ride? No. As I see it, each instance described was confirmation of the love of God, the love of Love itself.

The strength I experienced that day didn’t come from my body.

The strength I experienced that day didn’t come from my body. It didn’t come from the pace line or the tailwind. It came from my acknowledgment of the presence of God, the presence—and power —of divine Love.

“‘God is Love.’ More than this we cannot ask, higher we cannot look, farther we cannot go,” said Mary Baker Eddy. While everything about my ride — the scenery, the camaraderie, the sense of accomplishment — was great, it was this enlarged understanding of Love as the very source of my strength that really put the icing on the cake. As it says in the book of Psalms, “It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect.”

I realized that if God is Love and God is infinite, then the expressions or proofs of Love’s presence must be infinite as well. God’s wisdom and health and supply and compassion—and, yes, strength—must be reflected everywhere, in everything, and in everyone.

It’s nice to know that when you are in need of strength, encouragement, inspiration, you can acknowledge God’s presence, the presence of Love, and ask yourself, What does Love look like?

The mental picture you hold of someone is the picture you create. We are all according to the law of the universe -- that what you picture in your mind, that what you hold in your thoughts becomes your reality.

THE OPTIMISTS CREED

Promise Yourself....
To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.

To talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person you meet.

To make all your friends feel that there is something worthwhile in them.

To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.

To think only of the best, to work only for the best and to expect only the best.

To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.

To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.

To wear a cheerful expression at all times and give a smile to every living creature you meet.

To give so much time to improving yourself that you have no time to criticize others.

To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

To think well of yourself and to proclaim this fact to the world, not in loud word, but in great deeds.

To live in the faith that the whole world is on your side, so long as you are true to the best that is in you.

A somewhat different and shortened version of this was adopted by Optimist International, which publishes it on the Web, with the following statement:

Many have found inspiration in The Optimist Creed. In hospitals, the creed has been used to help patients recover from illness. In locker rooms, coaches have used it to motivate their players.

Optimist International adopted this creed in 1922. It was originally published in 1912 in a book titled: "Your Forces and How to Use Them." The author was Christian D. Larson, a prolific writer and lecturer who believed that people have tremendous latent powers, which could be harnessed for success with the proper attitude.

Charles S. Braden, in his definitive history of New Thought, Spirits in Rebellion: The Rise and Development of New Thought (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1963)

ARMED MADHOUSE Take 2 * BOOB GATE

ARMED MADHOUSE Take Two ... NOW WE KNOW WHAT "CAGING VOTERS" MEANS... Greg Palast's bestseller is now out in paperback. It has vital new information and updates on the corruption in the administration.



SATURDAY MORNING TUNE IN LIVE FROM LAS VEGAS and LOS ANGELES to our show BASHAM AND CORNELL PROGRESSIVE TALK
from 9 - 10 a.m. We broadcast live -- or go to our website and click on the link to hear the entire show in the archives.
On Saturday June 9th, award-winning investigative journalist Greg Palast will be the guest on the Basham and Cornell Radio Show at 9 am PST on AM 1230 KLAV in Las Vegas.

Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, “Armed Madhouse” (Penguin Paperback 2007). When Palast, an investigator of corporate fraud and racketeering, turned his skills to journalism, he was quickly recognized as, “The most important investigative reporter of our time” [Tribune Magazine] in Britain, where his first reports appeared on BBC television and in the Guardian newspapers.

Author of another New York Times bestseller, “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy,” Palast is best known in his native USA as the journalist who, for the Observer (UK), broke the story of how Jeb Bush purged thousands of Black Florida citizens from voter rolls before the 2000 election, thereby handing the White House to his brother George.

His reports on the theft of election 2004, the spike of the FBI investigations of the bin Ladens before September 11, the secret State Department documents planning the seizure of Iraq’s oil fields have won him a record six “Project Censored” awards for reporting the news American media doesn’t want you to hear. “The top investigative journalist in the United States is persona non grata in his own country’s media.” He returned to America to report for Harper’s Magazine.

Palast’s Sam Spade style television and print exposes about elections manipulations, War on Terror and globalization, have been seen on BBC ’s Newsnight.

Of Greg Palast, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said “Greg Palast is one of my heroes. The last investigative reporter in America. In Armed Madhouse he has the best inside story of the war inside the White House over the war in Iraq, the battle between the neo-cons and Big Oil.” The Baltimore Chronicle said “Greg Palast is investigative journalism at its best. No one has exposed more truth about the Bush Cartel and lived to tell the story.”


U.S. Attorney Tim Griffin, right hand man to Karl Rove, resigned Thursday after BBC Television reported that Congressman John Conyers requested the network’s evidence on Griffin’s involvement in ‘caging voters.’ Griffin, a former protege of Karl Rove, was formerly research director of the Republican National Committee. In 2004, BBC News published a report showing that Griffin led a “caging” scheme to suppress the votes of African-American service members in Florida. Over 70,000 black soldiers were on the list.

Read the full story in Greg Palast’s Armed Madhouse: Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales from a White House Gone Wild. check out www.gregpalast.com

We hope to have Palast on the Basham and Cornell Progressive Talk Show this Saturday at 9:00 AM PST. Just click on to the show page at Basham & Cornell Progressive Talk

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BOOB GATE

Pink's new video is seductive but scary. I feel so sorry for young girls these days. I just watched the top 20 music videos on VH-1 where the message is, "It’s important to always look like a thin slut with big tits." No wonder ten-year-old girls are increasingly suffering from depression, eating disorders and suicide! Valued for nothing more than how "hot" they look, and how many pornographic poses they can strike, women today can't win.

Let me just get this out of the way: I’m in withdrawal from cleavage; it’s hard to quit cold turkey. I’m not spiritually evolved enough to stop dressing like a hooker, but at least I tried on a turtleneck the other day. Somehow wearing death-defying cleavage is supposed to make women more employable or marriageable. It’s hard to keep calm when you know there’s a government plot to keep us thin and insecure. Since the only valuable women in our society are teenage, wombless, buttless, mutants, you can’t get a job in Hollywood without “lap-dancer” on your resume. And I’m talking about the writers, nevermind the actors. So when the religious conservative movement wiped Howard Stern off the public airwaves, I was cheering.

I want to be a woman of substance — a deep intellectual like Ann Coulter — but I don't want to wear that black cocktail dress she always wears. But I might keep the cleavage awhile longer since the bigger the boobs look, the smaller the butt looks in proportion. Unless you’re completely buttless like Terry Hatcher.

Anyway, sex is sort of losing its appeal, don’t you think? I mean death is becoming sexier than sex lately. Not to be perverse, but there are a lot of things worse than death: — like performing standup comedy and forgetting all your jokes.


This is the hardest time for women. We’re supposed to casually accept multitudes of unfathomably gorgeous women everywhere, making out with each other, half-naked on TV and Yahoo and in magazines —and not feel inadequate. Women in a bikini lineup on a reality show smile as if nothing bothers them. If you leave them alone without the cameras on them, catfights would break out, men hope. What boggles the mind is the way women are letting themselves be depicted as money-grubbing gold diggers and shallow, slutty bitches. If I were one of preteen sons today, I’d run for the hills. I believe it’s a plot to distract us and dumb us down. Without trash-TV and porn, whom would religious right-wingers have to fight against? Nothing except liberal values like education, equal rights and health care. By the way, corporations are the ones who profit from all this soft-core mainstream porn. Not liberal intellectuals and environmentalists.

From the Christian Science Monitor: The religious right has long promoted criticism of "secular, liberal elites," whom they hold responsible for unbridled individualism and moral decline in schools and society. But there are critics who insist those positions hold dangerous contradictions. For example, while religious conservatives enthusiastically champion free-market capitalism and corporate tax cuts, such critics say, who is it that promotes the Hollywood values and pornography they so vehemently oppose? Not the liberal political leaders, but corporate interests most benefiting from those policies.

I shouldn’t complain; being a woman is wonderful if you’re lucky enough to thrive on humiliation. But it’s pretty hard to win a fight with your husband while he’s reading a Victoria’s Secret catalogue that pretends not to be soft porn! I was hoping we’d go back to covering up our ankles like Victorian piano legs.

Have you noticed more boobs in America lately? And I’m not just talking about our political leaders. But it does seem that the larger the boobs, the more narrow-minded the politicians. The two seem to go hand-in-hand. As the fixation with cartoon-blondes such as Anna Nicole Smith and Pamela Anderson proliferated — so did the number of conservatives in Washington. Could it be a plot to distract us?

I don’t mean to go on and on about this but the economics of the breast rules women today. Okay, so I may be able to give up under-wire bras, but the hardest thing to let go of is high-heels because they make you look taller and thinner. Do you know the historical purpose of high heels? To raise women up for easier insertion! It’s true. It started in the Middle Ages with Catherine de Medici. She was standing on a footstool on her wedding night, and as her husband was approaching her from behind, and she probably looked down and had an epiphany, "Hmm... this footstool would make a nice pair of shoes."

The world seems upside down, doesn’t it? I started dating this guy. We were on the couch kissing and suddenly he gropes my breast. He asks me: “Are your breasts real?”
I said proudly, “Yes.”
He gets this disappointed look on his face and says, “Oh. I like fake ones better, they feel more real.”

The other day I picked up a typical woman’s magazine with the headline: “How to get a smaller butt.” Another one had the title “Six Inspired Moves to a Better Butt.”

Would somebody tell me, whatever happened to the Feminist movement? You don’t see men’s magazines talking about their butts. My friend said to me, No, they’re talking about women’s butts.
No, actually they’re talking about little girl’s butts. Why can’t they fantasize about the butts we were born with?
Oh; those would be babies’ butts. Nevermind.

By the way, very intelligent people run this industry. If you give producers or casting directors an actor’s photograph, a “headshot”¬— and you are smiling in the photo, they usually think you can’t play a serious, dramatic role. If you give them a serious headshot, they think you can’t play comedy! That’s why whenever I go out in public, I wear the expression they are casting for. This makes for a very “other-centered” life.

I was on the set of Baywatch a few years ago. There was a beautiful girl in a bikini standing on the beach, looking out to sea, her back to the camera. She was built like a pencil. I could hear the producer screaming at the girl’s manager: “We can’t hire her unless she has a boob job!”

Then the manager screamed back: “But she’s only nine years old!”

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

From the Christian Science Monitor: "There are profoundly important and precious values that liberals stand for that are central to the founding of this country - liberty, human rights, and human dignity."

Any values debate, he says, must involve Americans considering more deeply how values are reflected in the country's actions. "Abu Ghraib is a deep moral crisis. Some 100,000 civilians have died in Iraq - that's a profound moral crisis involving religious values," Wolfe adds. "That this doesn't register with so many Americans is disturbing and difficult to understand."

While Americans greatly differ over which values deserve priority, it's also true that societal values are continually shifting. Despite the overwhelming approval of marriage amendments in the states, 63 percent of Americans now support either civil unions or legalized gay marriage. In a Gallup poll this summer, 58 percent of conservatives said divorce is "morally acceptable." Divorce is as common among Evangelical Christians as among other faith groups.
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In my view, without often knowing it, Liberals actually advocate for all the things Christ cared about: peace, diplomacy, caring for the poor, tolerance for others, creating equitable solutions, caring for the environment. The religious right often talks non-stop about Christian values, but do not act on the values of Christ. - Lydia

Note: In her videos, Pink borrows heavily from the work of well-known New Zealand artist Martin Emond.

The single “U + Ur Hand”, to be released in Europe at the end of August, features Pink wearing clothing and posing as several of Emond’s characters, including BabyRedKnuckles, RockerBikergirl and HardCandy.

FELONS IN THE WHITE HOUSE: ROVE and GRIFFIN

NOW WE KNOW WHAT "CAGING VOTERS" MEANS.... read the story below, but first this message from Basham & Cornell Progressive Talk:

The Basham and Cornell Show is the fastest rising show in talk radio, combining comedy and entertainment while interviewing the biggest names in politics and media.

The Basham and Cornell Show has a regular lineup of guests such as Democratic Presidential Candidate Mike Gravel, former CIA agent Larry Johnson, Congressman Charlie Rangel, Air America Owner Mark Green and many more.

Just who will be the guest on this week's show? Will it be a member of Congress, a Presidential candidate, or will it be a very special "Surprise Guest?" Tune in to find out. Saturday morning at 9:00 AM PST for the most informative and entertaining talk radio program on the air today.

Don't forget to listen to the Basham and Cornell Progressive Talk Show this Saturday at 9:00 AM PST. Just click on to the show page at Basham & Cornell Progressive Talk

FELONS IN THE WHITE HOUSE... continued
U.S. Attorney Tim Griffin, right hand man to Karl Rove, resigned Thursday after BBC Television reported that Congressman John Conyers requested the network’s evidence on Griffin’s involvement in ‘caging voters.’



BBC Television had exposed 2004 voter attack scheme by appointee Tim Griffin, a Rove aide. Black soldiers and the homeless targeted.
by Greg Palast

There’s only one thing worse than sacking an honest prosecutor. That’s replacing an honest prosecutor with a criminal.

There was one big hoohah in Washington yesterday as House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers pulled down the pants on George Bush’s firing of US Attorneys to expose a scheme to punish prosecutors who wouldn’t bend to political pressure.

But the Committee missed a big one: Timothy Griffin, Karl Rove’s assistant, the President’s pick as US Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas. Griffin, according to BBC Television, was the hidden hand behind a scheme to wipe out the voting rights of 70,000 citizens prior to the 2004 election.

Key voters on Griffin’s hit list: Black soldiers and homeless men and women. Nice guy, eh? Naughty or nice, however, is not the issue. Targeting voters where race is a factor is a felony crime under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In October 2004, our investigations team at BBC Newsnight received a series of astonishing emails from Mr. Griffin, then Research Director for the Republican National Committee. He didn’t mean to send them to us. They were highly confidential memos meant only for RNC honchos.

However, Griffin made a wee mistake. Instead of sending the emails — potential evidence of a crime — to email addresses ending with the domain name “@GeorgeWBush.com” he sent them to “@GeorgeWBush.ORG.” A website run by prankster John Wooden who owns “GeorgeWBush.org.” When Wooden got the treasure trove of Rove-ian ravings, he sent them to us.

And we dug in, decoding, and mapping the voters on what Griffin called, “Caging” lists, spreadsheets with 70,000 names of voters marked for challenge. Overwhelmingly, these were Black and Hispanic voters from Democratic precincts.

The Griffin scheme was sickly brilliant. We learned that the RNC sent first-class letters to new voters in minority precincts marked, “Do not forward.” Several sheets contained nothing but soldiers, other sheets, homeless shelters. Targets included the Jacksonville Naval Air Station in Florida and that city’s State Street Rescue Mission. Another target, Edward Waters College, a school for African-Americans.

If these voters were not currently at their home voting address, they were tagged as “suspect” and their registration wiped out or their ballot challenged and not counted. Of course, these ‘cages’ captured thousands of students, the homeless and those in the military though they are legitimate voters.

We telephoned those on the hit list, including one Randall Prausa. His wife admitted he wasn’t living at his voting address: Randall was a soldier shipped overseas.

Randall and other soldiers like him who sent in absentee ballots, when challenged, would lose their vote. And they wouldn’t even know it.

And by the way, it’s not illegal for soldiers to vote from overseas — even if they’re Black.

But it is illegal to challenge voters en masse where race is an element in the targeting. So several lawyers told us, including Ralph Neas, famed civil rights attorney with People for the American Way.

Griffin himself ducked our cameras, but his RNC team tried to sell us the notion that the caging sheets were, in fact, not illegal voter hit lists, but a roster of donors to the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign. Republican donors at homeless shelters?

Over the past weeks, Griffin has said he would step down if he had to face Congressional confirmation. However, the President appointed Griffin to the law enforcement post using an odd little provision of the USA Patriot Act that could allow Griffin to skip Congressional questioning altogether.

Therefore, I have a suggestion for Judiciary members. Voting law expert Neas will be testifying today before Conyers’ Committee on the topic of illegal voter “disenfranchisement” — the fancy word for stealing elections by denying voters’ civil rights.

Maybe Conyers should hold a line-up of suspected vote thieves and let Neas identify the perpetrators. That should be easy in the case of the Caging List Criminal. He’d only have to look for the guy wearing a new shiny lawman’s badge.
******

Conyers, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee investigating the firing of US Attorneys, met Thursday evening in New York with Palast.Rove-Protege Tim Griffin Resigns As U.S. Attorney

The U.S. Justice Department has notified Arkansas’s congressional delegation that Interim Eastern District U.S. Attorney Tim Griffin is resigning effective Friday, June 1.

Griffin, a former protege of Karl Rove, was formerly research director of the Republican National Committee. In 2004, BBC News published a report showing that Griffin led a “caging” scheme to suppress the votes of African-American service members in Florida.

OVER 70,000 black soldiers were on the list.

Griffin became the poster boy for the politicization of the U.S. attorney process. Former Justice official Kyle Sampson noted that getting Griffin into office “was important to Harriet [Miers], Karl, et cetera.” The traditional 120-day term for “interim” U.S. attorneys had expired for Griffin on April 20, yet the Justice Department continued to allow him to serve.

*** Read the full story, “Caging Lists: Great White Republicans Take Voters Captive” in Greg Palast’s Armed Madhouse: Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales from a White House Gone Wild. The new edition, with a new chapter on Theft of the Election, will be released April 24th (by Penguin/Plume in paperback).

Catch our original BBC Television story here - on Palast’s brand new YouTube channel

Memorial Day, Freedom and the Right Path

Memorial Day, Freedom and the Right Path
Guest Blog By Mike

This past weekend was Memorial Day Weekend, and I couldn't help thinking what Memorial Day meant to me as a child, as well as what it likely means today to both Children in America as well as children in other countries.

I think the main focus of Memorial Day is to honor the brave soldiers who gave their lives to protect our freedoms and liberties, I think the overwhelming majority of our country DOES honor and respect our soldiers and veterans, but I think Memorial day is also an occasion to remember the presidents who sent those soldiers to war -- and in some cases to their deaths. The majority were honorable men who sent our soldiers to war for honorable and legitimate reasons.

Unfortunately this president, George W Bush, has not; he has sent our soldiers to their deaths for a lie and caused much of the world to despise rather than respect our country and our soldiers. For that reason, although I greatly respect and honor our brave soldiers, (many of which are friends and co-workers of mine or relatives of the former) who are being sacrificed and used as cannon fodder for a self serving lie.....I choose to focus on our president since speaking out against a culture of corruption that CHOOSES to put our soldiers in harms way for no justifiable reason and with no finite plan for a solution is in my opinion one of the best ways to truly support our soldiers.

When I was a child, Memorial Day used to evoke images of both our brave soldiers who died to protect our freedom and liberties, as well as great presidents of the past who were great men, good men, wise men,respected by everyone; after much contemplation, I wondered how does the world look at Memorial Day now after 6 years of George W Bush's treasonous reign of evil.

Better yet how does the world look at America now?

America was always a bastion of goodness, a symbol of freedom, a land of opportunity, where hard work was rewarded.

What have we had under Bush's reign: we have become a world bully that attacks pre-emptively like a common street thug. We take what we want and do what is best for us without listening to other countries needs or wants. Diplomacy and peace have become a sign of weakness and a dirty word to the Bush Administration.

Obeying and defending the Constitution and protecting our cherished freedom and privacy has drawn scorn and derision from this Administration, freedom of speech is abhorred by the overwhelming majority of Republicans when it dissents from their talking points. They use fear and safety as talking points to destroy freedom, to undermine and destroy every bit of goodness that has been a symbol of our country and to seize more and more power and push their self serving agenda.

Our Country is slowly being transformed into an evil police state run by a cabal of megalomaniac dictators. The poor and middle class are losing more ground economically to the ultra-wealthy, good-paying middle class jobs are being outsourced overseas while the rich "robber barons" and white collar criminals manipulating the laws and our tax dollars to steal money from working class people become ever more rich and powerful — just as the "robber barons" like Jay Gould did in the Gilded Age.

What do kids think of now on Memorial Day? ("Hot dogs and hamburgers, says Lydia.") It's obvious they honor and respect our soldiers regardless of whether they believe in the soldiers mission, which is dictated by Bush and his cabal of Neo Con cronies, but I'm wondering when kids think of the Presidents behind the wars, do they think of good men like Lincoln and Washington, men they respect and aspire to emulate, or do kids today both in America and around the world associate it with evil men, Bush, Dick Cheney, Hitler etc.......

Hitler is the leader whom the Neo Cons have been emulating — from his rhetoric to instill fear in the masses, to discredit the opposition, to destroy freedom in the name of safety, to attack other countries preemptively, from his giving the masses a common enemy to fear and hate, and a patriotic cause to rally around etc...

I marvel at how in six short years the Republicans have turned Presidents Day into a dirty phrase, just as they have with America or the word Liberal, which are both symbols of freedom and goodness.........hopefully they have NOT done the same with Memorial Day which is a day to honor our dead soldiers, hopefully the world still honors and respects our soldiers as the overwhelming majority of our country does.

George W Bush NEEDS TO BE IMPEACHED AS SOON AS POSSIBLE before he can do anymore damage to this country or our soldiers.

But on a positive note, we can still turn things around. We need to work toward solutions instead of fear mongering and war mongering. We need to put aside partisanship and work together to create a better country and a better world, we need to put more effort into peace and diplomacy rather than war and hatred.

We have been on the the wrong path for most of the past three decades, we need to get on the right path, the last time we had Presidents work toward energy independence from the Middle East and diversification away from oil was in the 1970's and this is not, nor should it be a partisan issue. The ONLY two Presidents who did anything substantive to make us less dependent on foreign oil imports were Gerald Ford who mandated increased fuel economy in cars and Jimmy Carter, who promoted a variety of technologies to make us less dependent on Petroleum imports, Carter promoted solar, wind, nuclear, natural gas etc.....the sad thing is that the Presidents that followed did not emulate their forethought and long term thinking but instead fell victim to the group think and self serving interests of big oil. Jimmy Carter installed solar panels on the White House to symbolize his commitment to energy independence and his successor Ronald Reagan subsequently had them ripped off after ascending to the White House.

We need a President who is smart, who thinks strategically and longer term, rather than what is best for him politically, or what is more palatable at the moment, or how to best save face. We need a President who is selfless and puts the good of the country and the good of the many over the good of the powerful few. We need a President who is wise, and has character and integrity and honesty and speaks truthfully rather than promoting self serving agenda's or demonizing and smearing his opponents, or using fear and half truths to influence and deceive the weak minded and fearful.

The Founding Fathers and the Great Presidents of the past normally thought of on Memorial Day, believed in freedom and justice for all so vehemently that they were willing to die for it, to get back on the RIGHT PATH and become that shining symbol of freedom and land of opportunity the world has always associated with America, "The Land Of The Free and Home of The Brave", we need stop being ruled by fear and hatred and start acting like we value freedom and bravery, we need to remember and honor the great and brilliant men who fought for our freedom and liberties and wrote that timeless ageless symbol and protector of freedom the US Constitution, we need to hold the Constitution and the sacred freedom it symbolizes above ANY President or Any enacted legislation. Any President or any Legislation that defies, challenges or contradicts the Constitution needs to be repealed or impeached ASAP.

Our Founding Father's and our first President fought for our freedom from a King named George who was deemed insane, Once again we have a man named George who deems himself a king that many claim is insane and is the enemy of democracy and freedom.

To get back on the Right Path, we need to focus on freedom rather than fear, peace rather than war. We need to work to make the world a better place for the next generation, we need to take care of the least among us and, put the good of the many over the good of the few powerful wealthy elite!

(This guest post is by Mike.)

It's Those Little Things

by Larry Every relationship has its ups and downs. Every experience has been filled with a series of mishaps and milestones. It's those little things both good and bad that add up. Perhaps Bobby Goldsboro spoke best of love with these lyrics.

Little things that you do make me glad I'm in love with you.Little things that you say make me glad that I feel this way.The way you smile, the way you hold my hand,and when I'm down you always understand.You know I love those little things in my ear, that you say when there's no one near. Little things that you do, let me know that your love is true.

The way she cooks his favorite meal, the way she makes his dreams seem real, the way she makes a dollar last, the way she always forgets his past, it's those little things.

It could also be the way he ignores her every word, the way he makes her feel so hurt, the way he spends and never saves, the way he takes but has never gave, it's those little things.

As we live another day, we can always remember that those little things always add up, both good and bad. Some little things add up to make someone love their spouse even more. Other little things add up to make the spouse learn to abhor. There are little things in all walks of life.

The way he lied the country into war, the thousands of deaths, and there will be more, the massive debt that we now owe, that we will reap what he will sow, yes it's those little things.

The way he took away our rights, the executive orders signed into the night, the way he uses the fear of terror, the way he overlooks every Presidential error, it's those little things.

The millions of jobs he sent overseas, the millions of Iraqi's just wishing he would leave, The levels of corruption that lay at his desk, the hundreds who've been tortured simply at his bequest, it's those little things.

The way he overlooks each and every law, the lives he has left so torn and raw, the military funerals he refuses to attend, the Katrina victims stranded as help he will not send, it's those little things.

Yes Mr. Bush, everything that you do, it's never me but always you, you are never wrong but always right, you say we're weak since we won't fight, you wonder why your ratings are low, we want you out but you refuse to go, it's those little things.

Maybe soon we'll have our say, that you'll be impeached everyday we pray, for all our freedoms that we have lost, those who have died at wars great cost, as we add our losses this we know, It's those little things, Mr. Bush, that make America detest you so.

THE BEAUTY OF AMERICA on MEMORIAL DAY

If you missed it Saturday, you can hear our interview with Presidential candidate Mike Gravel by clicking on BASHAM & CORNELL PROGRESSIVE TALK Just click on 'archives' and you can hear all of amazing guests, including: Congressman Rangel, Brian Katsulis; Media Matters' Paul Waldman, Eric Boehlert, Karl Frisch, Dennis Yedwab; Mikey Weinstein; Former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega; and other bestselling authors, scholars and political leaders.

SATURDAY MORNINGS TUNE IN LIVE FROM LAS VEGAS and LOS ANGELES to our show BASHAM AND CORNELL PROGRESSIVE TALK
from 9 - 10 a.m. We broadcast live on KLAV -- or go to our website and click on the link to hear the entire show in the archives.

MIKE GRAVEL, 2008 Democratic Presidential candidate and the MAN WHO STOLE THE first DEMOCRATIC DEBATE. We did a 45 minute interview with Gravel, who served 2 terms in the House and was a Senator from Alaska. He is primarily known for ending the draft following the Vietnam War, and for having put into the public record, the Pentagon Papers in 1971!

Gravel is a hero of mine; he is the only cadidate committed to telling the truth and standing for his convictions. He has nothing to lose and no one to impress — but his conscience. He passionately speaks for the majority of Americans, but the mainstream media is focused on dumbing us down with 'celebrities-gone-wild' gossip and obsessive Clinton-bashing.
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Military Coffins: The Photos You're Not Supposed to See
"Not to See the Fallen..." by mcjoan at thinkprogress.org

While memorializing those fallen today, don't forget the 143 journalists and media support workers, the most in any major conflict, who have been killed in Iraq.

If there's one thing the hapless war planners and conducters in this administration managed to do right, at least by their calculation, it's been to manage the media's access to and coverage of the actual story on the ground. Since the war began, they've made the increasingly instituted more stringent rules on what can be covered.

Since last year, the military’s embedding rules require that journalists obtain a signed consent from a wounded soldier before the image can be published. Images that put a face on the dead, that make them identifiable, are simply prohibited.

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From blogger MCH1968:
On Memorial Day, people frequently will say "Thank You" to those who gave their lives for our freedom, and certainly I give my thanks to those who perished in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, World Wars 1 & 2, and so on ...

For those who have died in this Iraqi war, thank you doesn't seem to quite fit. Instead, all I can say is "I'm sorry."

I'm sorry it came to this. I'm sorry that the president didn't value your life enough to keep you alive. I'm sorry you aren't still here to help keep us safe from our nation's true enemies. I'm sorry that those in charge treasured their pride, money, greed, and political ambitions too much that you're considered expendable. I'm sorry that lies and deceit was all it took to have you killed. I'm sorry I didn't fight hard enough or effectively enough to keep you home.

To the 3455 (and unfortunately still growing) service men and women who have died for a reason other than our freedom -- we miss you, we love you, may you rest in peace.


Here is a great article posted by Larry:

THE MYTH OF A HERO

On May 26, 1907 in a one bedroom home in Winterset Iowa, America's hero a thirteen pound Marion Robert Morrison was born. This was the same town that George Washington Carver lived and worked before he achieved greatness. This quaint little town was also a stop for the Underground Railroad.

Today in Winterset, the town will show three films that the towns most famous citizen has starred in. These films will be shown free to residents of Winterset because the star of all three films is Marion Morrison.

Marion Morrison wore a hairpiece for most of his life, a tidbit very few know. He made his last film in 1976 and he died of cancer three years later. He made action adventures and war films, but he was best known for his westerns.

This maker of such hits at True Grit,(his only Oscar) El Dorado, Rio Bravo, Stagecoach and the Sands of Iwo Jima, and his last film The Shootist were classics in the days when the term hero was more than a political catch phrase. Marion Morrison was in reality John Wayne.

Many are unaware that John Wayne was a staunch conservative. Wayne was a vocal anti-communist and at one time was President of the right wing Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. Critics say Wayne was a racist.

John Wayne was also an outspoken supporter of the Vietnam War and he openly criticized anti-war protesters. Few knew that John Wayne himself was reported to have sought and received numerous deferments to avoid serving in World War II.

John Wayne was a hero to millions on screen, and an ultra-conservative off-screen. John Wayne criticized those who were against the Vietnam War, when in fact his refusal to serve himself was telling of the real Republican John Wayne.

In 1979, John Wayne released an album of narration of which two of the cuts were hits, and it is only fitting that during the weekend of his 100th birthday celebration that we remember the myth of John Wayne instead of the truth. The following prose was one of John Wayne's hits of 1979.

America, Why I Love Her
Written by John Mitchum Poet/Actor
You ask me why I love her? Well, give me time, and I'll explain...Have you seen a Kansas sunset or an Arizona rain?Have you drifted on a bayou down Louisiana way?Have you watched the cold fog drifting over San Francisco Bay?

Have you heard a Bobwhite calling in the Carolina pines? Or heard the bellow of a diesel in the Appalachia mines? Does the call of Niagara thrill you when you hear her waters roar? Do you look with awe and wonder at a Massachusetts shore...Where men who braved a hard new world, first stepped on Plymouth Rock? And do you think of them when you stroll along a New York City dock ?

Have you seen a snowflake drifting in the Rockies...way up high?Have you seen the sun come blazing down from a bright Nevada sky?Do you hail to the Columbia as she rushes to the sea...Or bow your head at Gettysburg...in our struggle to be free?

Have you seen the mighty Tetons? ...Have you watched an eagle soar?Have you seen the Mississippi roll along Missouri's shore?Have you felt a chill at Michigan, when on a winters day,Her waters rage along the shore in a thunderous display?Does the word "Aloha"... make you warm?Do you stare in disbelief When you see the surf come roaring in at Waimea reef?
From Alaska's gold to the Everglades...from the Rio Grande to Maine...My heart cries out... my pulse runs fast at the might of her domain.You ask me why I love her?... I've a million reasons why.My beautiful America... beneath Gods' wide, wide sky.

FORGOTTEN VICTIMS OF WAR

FORGOTTEN VICTIMS OF WAR: THE CHILDREN
There have been many innocent victims resulting from George W Bush's war on Iraq. The U.S troops are obvious victims, as were the brave U.S troops who lost their lives in Iraq. The thousands of Iraqi's who have been killed since Bush's invasion, are all victims of this senseless war, as are the remaining Iraqi people.

One group of victims that are seldom noticed are the children. The children's agency of the U.N better known as UNICEF says that insecurity in Baghdad and other parts have caused schools to close, and left hospitals and clinics nearly impossible to gain access to.

UNICEF reports that only 30% of Iraqi children have safe drinking water as damaged sanitation systems increase the threat of diseases such as cholera and diarrhoea, which is the second highest cause of childhood death in Iraq.

The constant bombings and kidnappings have claimed the lives of many Iraqi parents leaving the children susceptible to abuse and exploitation. Iraqi children seldom receive the help and support they need to cope with such anxiety and fear.

Of the four million Iraqi's who have fled their homes since Bush invaded Iraq in 2003, one million of those are children. Some two million of those Iraqi's who have fled have remained in Iraq. The remaining two million have fled to Jordan, Syria and other countries in the region, where they live in extreme poverty.

The Iraqi children are not alone. Thousands of U.S children whose parent have been assigned to the war lines of Iraq are also in need. Many military spouses live in poverty as the spouse is left to help make ends meet and raise their children.

Those thousands of U.S soldiers who were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan left spouses and children behind to cope with grief and life. This has brought added stress on an already heavily troubled life of a child.

It is of great question as to whether or not the Bush administration has taken into consideration how their actions have affected the children in the U.S and in Iraq. One has to wonder if the emotional devastation of a child's life was ever even a forethought.

As George W Bush shouts the servitude of sporadic altruism, he heartlessly ignores the effects of his military actions on the children of this war. Mr. Bush has decided to remake the world in his image, the very image of a man the world has grown to abhor. The life of a child is priceless, and the desires of madman are worthless. You Mr. Bush have proven to be worthless.

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

George Bernard Shaw