13 Zooey and Joseph Goeden-Levitt - New Years Eve

2011-12-30T13:44:00.001-06:00

New Years Message

2011-12-30T12:20:00.001-06:00

We are coming a New Year. A year when we have one less War. Yet there are rattling of sabers in the Straights of Hormuz. Below is a poem I wrote in Vietnam.

I was at LZ Uplift. It was quite there but there was a lot of activity in the Bong Song Valley just south of us. One night a young RVN Soldier was brought in to our Aid Station. He did not look seriously injured.

It was raining. There was nothing we could do for him, he needed to go to the next Hospital. There were two Helicopter services, Dust Off which was regular Army and MediVac which was the Ist Cav group. They were under different Command but had specific dutues. Medivac went from field to aid Station and Dust Off went from Aid Station to MUST Hospitals.

One of the MediVac Pilots was pacing and shouting. These men are some of the real heroes of the War. The pilot wanted to take the kid to the nest Hospital, but he could not. Dust Off had regulations about flying in the rain that kept them from taking the young man.

I went on to bed. In theh moring I went to the aid station and asked about the soldier. He died during the night caught in a Kafkaesque bureaucratic trap. I was devastated. The absurdity of war began to sink in. In less that a month we moved up to Quang Tri and I was working then in the aid station during the 1968 Tet Offensive. During that I did not have time to really take in the horror of what was around me, we were too busy jsut trying to keep these kids alive.

But back in the transquiltity of LZ Uplift, I had the time to reflect. It is called Winning.

Winning

Two souls unite in God's sweet vows
And Bodies in His Plan.
A new creation starts to grow
In her a newborn man.

From Sperm and egg to births first Cry
The careful plans unfold,
As cells divide and specialize
Into their perfect mould.

All Love and Care pours in that soul
As day by day he grows
And Father's strength and mother's gentle touch
His life begins to show.

The years pass swift and soon time comes
When he is full a man
And Country calls upon this lad
To give it all he can;

To March to wars he didn't start
And that he will not end
And on some foreign soil
Far from the sheltering womb
That nurtured him for better things
Than killing other men.
One damned impersonal shot is fired
One bullet finds a home
Into his flesh it rips and tears
And stops no more to roam.

Still, Deadly still , he lies
as blood pours out his flesh so torn.
A battlefield of "hims" lie out,
A feild of murdered men.

Two different uniforms they wear
Two tongues they probably speak
Two Countries mourn them now and many mothers weep.
Who from this has won?

I had my antiwar wall over my bunk in my barracks. No one ever said a thing about it. The work I am putting togerher and dispayed above was also put on my wall.

Here is a prayer that we may remember next time, to NOT go to war.

Faith and Politics

2011-12-12T07:25:00.003-06:00

Preach it sisters.

My only comment to add is that the two most Christian like Presidents are two of the Three Presidents in the last 40 years that were smeared and demonized by Republicans - namely "Conservative" Republicans. The Sisters addressed this in their comments but I wanted to point that out with Bold Letters.

Undoubted Jimmy Carter lives as much like a follower of Christ as a man can and reached the pinnacle of power with his faith in tact. He is everything these girls describe. He suffers the barrage of barbed tongues but his faith keeps him strong.

I also believe that President Obama is one who follows his faith in God. It is hard to know because he does not really make a display of his faith. IT is early yet and he is young but from all I see...

Elizabeth Warren - Plain Speaking

2011-09-21T16:17:00.000-05:00

Health of the United States

2011-08-31T23:50:00.000-05:00

Created by: Medical Billing and Coding

Contract for the American Dream

2011-08-08T22:36:00.001-05:00

Reality Injection

2011-07-25T08:59:00.001-05:00

Egypt, Islam, and the Will of the People.

2011-02-13T09:46:00.000-06:00

As the people of the United States watch the events unfolding in Egypt this week, several issues arose that, if fully realized, can turn the US away from the perilous course it is on.

It is important not to over draw any parallel between the US and Egypt. However there are some rather universal truths here that could help the people of the US to regain their footing and learn to stand against corrupting forces in their country as the Egyptian people did in theirs.

In the US there is still a frail structure of Democratic institutions. All we have to do is re-inhabit those structures. But there are other issues of promise that can be seen from the events in Egypt.

1. Islam is not necessarily the Boogie Man that the people of the US are being led to believe it is. The people of the US have always been susceptible to buying into a false Boogie Man and then allowing that to distract them while internal forces mute and diminish their hard won freedoms and rights.

Egypt is an Islamic country with a secular government, just as the US a Christian country with a secular government. The people of the US want Islamic Governments to be secular while at the same time they are running toward a theological Government. This contradiction must be resolved in the US. Various sectors of the US have blatantly used theological or "Moral" issues to blind people to the real issues and choices they needed to make for their own good.

A Prime example is the reelection of George Bush in 2004. One of the major issues was the failure of US policy in Iraq, namely the War. If that had been the issue, we would have had President Kerry sworn in on January of 2005.

That did not happen and the war drug on for four more years until the corruption of the Party in Power could no longer be disguised in distractions like Gay Marriage. The Republican disinformation machine made moral issues seem more pressing the bankruptcy of our economy as well as our souls by continuing a War that was noting but destructive to the US. A large enough segment of our electorate was duped by their Religious Leaders to vote for Bush to stop "Moral Decay" in the US.

We did not win the War and we soon will have Gay Marriage in some form.

2. One of the things that the Founding Fathers attempted in writing the Constitution was to keep power from being held by a single group of people. It was hard for them to foresee a time when money held by a small group of people would in such quantity to erase the intent of the Constitution by purchasing people do this group of people's will and bidding.

That is now the case. We have a functional Dictatorship of the Wealthy disguised as a Democracy. That was the case also in Egypt.(and elsewhere around the world)

Democracy has become a Shell that conceals authoritarian aspirations.

3. Just as in India in the early 1900's and the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950's and 60's, the Egyptian Revolution was a peaceful revolution. This undercuts another misconception of Islam that has been perpetuated by the same forces that seeks to "own" the Government of the US. Muslims are not a violent people. People of all faiths and political beliefs have urges toward violence.

I can not imagine a more violent action than those against the Iraqi people. Violence in the streets of Iraq, violence in the prisons of Iraq, and violence against people merely suspected of being aligned with "Terrorists". The latter was not confined to the citizens of Iraq and took place in many countries across the world in a program of secret "Renditions" many of which took place in Egypt by the corrupt regime of Mubarak.

Violence is justified only when no other option is available and when the threat is so dangerous and immediate that there is no other option. That was not the case in any of the major Actions of Violence the US has engaged in since the end of WWII. It was certainly not true in Iraq.

While we praise the people of Egypt for their rejection of Dictatorship hidden in a democratic shell, we need to be a bit introspective and begin to turn away from the forces that allow us to yield without a fight the Freedoms and Rights so bravely fought for throughout our History.

Ron Paul Speaks Truth

2010-12-11T10:23:00.000-06:00

This is my Congressman. I am a Liberal Democrat, an outsider down here in Texas even among Democrats (who are at best conservative at worst incompetent) but I vote regularly for Ron Paul. I do so not because I agree with many of his more extreme Libertarian idea, but because at every turn he has proven to have the greatest quality a man can have - integrity.

You may not agree with his more extreme ideas either, but you know where is on policy and he is as consistent as a person can be. He is an honest man in a den of liars and thieves.

I hope this speech is not buried by the Corporatist Media. He calls out his fellow Republicans clearly and the questions he poses should keep the people of this country awake at night.

In the slow move to authoritarianism the people of the US have been numbed to its increasing reach against our freedoms. It is not socialism or liberalism that has been the threat to this country and the freedoms it gives, from the Sedition Acts right up to day it has been the Militaristic Right Wing of American Politics that have always been the greatest threat.

Thank you Ron Paul for speaking out on this important issue. This Country Belongs to the People, all the people, not to just a few that value their interests above the interest of the many, and that is the rest of us.

Transcript: (from Huffington Post)

WikiLeaks release of classified information has generated a lot of attention in the past few weeks. The hysterical reaction makes one wonder if this is not an example of killing the messenger for the bad news. Despite what is claimed, the information that has been so far released, though classified, has caused no known harm to any individual, but it has caused plenty of embarrassment to our government. Losing our grip on our empire is not welcomed by the neoconservatives in charge.

There is now more information confirming that Saudi Arabia is a principal supporter and financier of al Qaeda, and that this should set off alarm bells since we guarantee its Sharia-run government. This emphasizes even more the fact that no al Qaeda existed in Iraq before 9/11, and yet we went to war against Iraq based on the lie that it did. It has been charged by experts that Julian Assange, the internet publisher of this information, has committed a heinous crime, deserving prosecution for treason and execution, or even assassination.

But should we not at least ask how the U.S. government should prosecute an Australian citizen for treason for publishing U.S. secret information that he did not steal? And if WikiLeaks is to be prosecuted for publishing classified documents, why shouldn't the Washington Post, the New York Times, and others also published these documents be prosecuted? Actually, some in Congress are threatening this as well.

The New York Times, as a results of a Supreme Court ruling, was not found guilty in 1971 for the publication of the Pentagon Papers. Daniel Ellsberg never served a day in prison for his role in obtaining these secret documents. The Pentagon Papers were also inserted into the Congressional record by Senator Mike Gravel, with no charges of any kind being made of breaking any national security laws. Yet the release of this classified information was considered illegal by many, and those who lied us into the Vietnam war, and argued for its prolongation were outraged. But the truth gained from the Pentagon Papers revealed that lies were told about the Gulf of Tonkin attack. which perpetuated a sad and tragic episode in our history.

Just as with the Vietnam War, the Iraq War was based on lies. We were never threatened by weapons of mass destruction or al Qaeda in Iraq, though the attack on Iraq was based on this false information. Any information which challenges the official propaganda for the war in the Middle East is unwelcome by the administration and the supporters of these unnecessary wars. Few are interested in understanding the relationship of our foreign policy and our presence in the Middle East to the threat of terrorism. Revealing the real nature and goal of our presence in so many Muslim countries is a threat to our empire, and any revelation of this truth is highly resented by those in charge.

Questions to consider:

Number 1: Do the America People deserve know the truth regarding the ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen?

Number 2: Could a larger question be how can an army private access so much secret information?

Number 3: Why is the hostility mostly directed at Assange, the publisher, and not at our governments failure to protect classified information?

Number 4: Are we getting our moneys worth of the 80 Billion dollars per year spent on intelligence gathering?

Number 5: Which has resulted in the greatest number of deaths: lying us into war or Wikileaks revelations or the release of the Pentagon Papers?

Number 6: If Assange can be convicted of a crime for publishing information that he did not steal, what does this say about the future of the first amendment and the independence of the internet?

Number 7: Could it be that the real reason for the near universal attacks on Wikileaks is more about secretly maintaining a seriously flawed foreign policy of empire than it is about national security?

Number 8: Is there not a huge difference between releasing secret information to help the enemy in a time of declared war, which is treason, and the releasing of information to expose our government lies that promote secret wars, death and corruption?

Number 9: Was it not once considered patriotic to stand up to our government when it is wrong?

Thomas Jefferson had it right when he advised 'Let the eyes of vigilance never be closed.' I yield back the balance of my time.

Link

Hope or Final Clash for Limited Resources

2010-12-06T02:34:00.002-06:00

One data point that we do not see is the population increase due to increased health. I suppose you could create a similar display for the growth of cancer cells. Does not make cancer a good thing.

Maybe a Little Hope for Sanity?

2010-10-30T10:10:00.000-05:00

It is Done

2010-10-26T12:10:00.002-05:00

The United States of America no longer exists in any real sense. We are now the Corporate States of America and the Government is of the Money, by the Money, and for the Money.

The people of the CSA, are mainly ignorant of what the Constitution means and have little ability to discern propaganda from probable reality.

The USA is still on life support but it clearly looks like by November 2, it will have passed into History. Fasten your seat belts, it is going to be a bumpy ride.

Over the Cliff

2010-10-17T22:24:00.002-05:00

While the story of the Pied Piper would seem to be a better analogy for the Election on November 2, 2010, I do not like the idea that the people poised to vote against their and their countries best interest are Rat Like. It is the people in the role fo the Pied Piper - Corporate America - that are the rats.

However a four legged creature still is the best model, the Lemming. The Tea Party people along with a number of independents and a few Democrats are heading for the cliffs. While the legend that Lemmings commit mass suicide is untrue, it is not untrue for the November Elections.

Frustrated with the Economic situation and the dead locked, seemingly broken Congress, the electorate having nowhere to run, seems headed for the cliffs.

Rand Paul is not Ron Paul

2010-10-16T22:20:00.003-05:00

Ron Paul does not seek higher office. Rand Paul wants to be Senator and has shown himself willing to sell out to the Republican Corporatist Party. Ron Paul, his father is an honorable man who has spent his political career standing up to the Republican Establishment.

Rand Paul is not Ron Paul.

I question the tactics in the first Ad, but when dealing with lying jackals, sometimes you have to push the limits of reason a bit.

The ad below, however, is spot on. Indeed, accidents do happen, like Rand Paul being considered a viable candidate for the Senate of the US. Well when there is an accident the people need to know how to limit the damage from the accident. Having a Senator Paul would be an accident that can be prevented at the ballot box if real ballots are the ones that are going to be counted.

Gilbert and Sullivan Redux

2010-10-14T13:55:00.004-05:00

The Very Model of a Modern U S President

I copied this from Jack and Jill Politics

Monkeys Trials

2010-09-26T07:33:00.002-05:00

It is hard to believe that there are still people - lots of people - that still don't think that evolution is a highly probable method for the development of varying species. There are tribes on this earth that are so removed by geography that they have not seen any other human beings in many years and are not aware of modern ways of life. The Evolution Deniers, however have been in the midst of modern theory and thinking, but rather choose to rely upon a text at least 4,000 years old for their education and thoughts. It took the Catholic Church till the 1600's to accept the concept that the earth rotated around the Sun not the other way around.

For most of my life I have felt that Humans were not God's plan but and error. Maybe the reason God tries to communicate with us is because we are the only ones that need supervision.

I fear for my country and the people I love that I will leave behind to the what seems the eminent Rule of the Ignorant and Ill-informed.

Support Muslims in the US and Their Religious Freedoms

2010-09-07T18:13:00.007-05:00

I am tired of people who claim to be Christians, acting like fools and giving all the rest of Christians a bad name. Jesus said Love you neighbor and he said Love your enemy. What part of that teaching do the fanatics in the Christian Community not understand. There is not interpretation or wiggle room there.

1Corintians Chapter 13 describes what Love is. I do not find anything there about Burning the Holy Book of people you Love. Pastor Terry Jones has lost his way. Now Pastor Robert Jeffress of the First Baptist Church of Dallas says that Islam promotes pedophilia.

Maybe intead of burning other's Holy Books these men should re-read their Holy Book, the New Covenant Part, prayerfully and with Humility and Obedience to God.

God forgive them.

We Love You Rand, But....

2010-08-09T17:32:00.003-05:00

Ron Paul is my congressman. I vote for him every two years. I would not vote for him for the Senate. I don't agree with much he believes but he is an honest man and can't do much harm in the House.

Rand, Ron's son is a bit different. He is running for the Senate and seems all to willing to cozy up with the Republicans to just get elected. Rand, like his father is a libertarian. Republican and Libertarian are not the same.

So Rand, I think you might want to write a Book, "Forward to the Past".

Ignorant - Stupid line AGAIN!

2010-08-05T06:39:00.002-05:00

Spoke too soon. Now a majority of people in the US are "not sure" that President Obama was born in the US.

Can you say Germany 1933. Remember Adolf was elected to the office he then took total power from. We have been here before, in the late 1940's and early 1950's.

Just think about it. Hillary Clinton would have used anything she had to defeat Obama in the 2008 primaries. If in fact Obama had been not qualified to be President by the fact that he was not Born in the USA wouldn't she have used this?

Time to wake up if you like your Freedom.

Blurring the Line Between Ignorant and Stupid.

2010-07-09T14:29:00.001-05:00

A new poll out says that 55% of likely voters think that Obama is a socialist. Need I say more?

Getting Oil out of our Gulf and our Lives.

2010-06-21T23:45:00.005-05:00

Time to get on getting it done. Call your congressperson and tell them to vote for an energy policy that places emphasis on Alternative Energy Sources.

Kudos to Vote Vets:

Handwriting on the Water

2010-05-14T09:29:00.003-05:00

When the people of the US saw the images of New Orleans during and after the landfall of Katrina, there was a sense of repulsion as we saw what this land of opulent self-obsession has rendered upon the "least of these".

Now from the earth' great waters we see a final warning. If we do not heed this warning and turn away from our self-indulgent squandering of the resources of the planet we live on, we may find ourselves being given an eviction notice - if indeed this is not it.

The narrator of this video says our Government must step up. He misses the point. We the People are the Government. It is our endless lust for thing to indulge ourselves that require us to give over our sovereignty to those who we expect to act in our self interest when we are too lazy to do that for ourselves. We want someone to blame. We make derisive remarks about those who set before Congressional Committees and obfuscate and seek to blame others. The reality is that is exactly what we are doing.

We have replaced God with our own inflated sense of power. I do not care what God or Higher Source one believes in, we must have a humility to understand that we are finite in an infinite world. We are limited. That which is of most danger to us is that which we can not yet imagine.

We flatter ourselves in thinking we are intelligent creatures. We are creatures that can gain knowledge, but intelligence requires the ability to use that knowledge in a way that does no harm. We have a lot of arrogance, but little intelligence.

BP said a spill like this was not likely. It was not, but that is not what was important. What was important was the likely ability of man to fail, so we should always assume that what ever we do will fail. We should prepare - when possible -for that failure. If something can go wrong (dead batteries) it will.

This is not just about Oil and Greed. It is about our willingness to assume we are in any way in control of anything. We may have periods of control, but our Earth is raging at us, screaming to us that we are not in control. We should listen.

We look to the heavens for our destruction when in fact, I fear, it may be much closer to home. Will this slick slow water evaporation? Will oil rain down upon us when what water is evaporated condenses?

We should never use what we know without the humbling awareness of what we do not know. If you need a picture of that, then in this video the boats trying to clean up the spill represents what we know. Then massive uncontrolled oil slick represents what we do not know. What we do not know might kill us all.

Black on Beck

2010-05-13T10:45:00.000-05:00

The Arrogance of the Monied

2010-04-28T09:45:00.003-05:00

In their article on the Congressional Hearing into the inner-workings of Goldman Sachs, Talking Points Memo points out that there seems to be a tactic of delay.

They show a video (below)of the hearings, showing the delaying tactics, but when I watched the hearings what also came across is an attitude that not are they just delaying, but then seem to know that and enjoy that the Senators questioning them know that they are delaying.

It is the arrogance of these people that they feel that it is they that are the ones who are smartest and the ones who are the rightful power to do what they think is best for the country. It is after all they who create wealth for the rest of us and they are entitled to share the the largest stake in that wealth.

It seems that they feel that it is hardly their fault if they offer junk for sale and people buy it and loose money.

What undercuts that argument, however, is the ways that these creators of derivatives use a language that masks the true nature of these instruments. Ways that come from the notion that life can be a harm free zone for the privileged. In other words, risky business need not be risky for those who conduct the risky business if they create instruments to "protect" them by betting against themselves so if they loose they win.

Steven Colbert also joins the fun with this segment from the Colbert Report.

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We laugh, but no, it is not funny. These guys will drive us all over a cliff if they are not stopped.

Changing the Law

2010-04-14T23:50:00.002-05:00

There is not a much better way to say it. If you think this is dumb or stupid you are probably getting an echo off the walls of you anal cavity when you talk.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Consumer Protection Agency

2010-03-03T11:03:00.003-06:00

Pretty funny bit about a serious topic. If we the people are to take back control of our country from the Big Money Corporations and Financial Institutions we must step up and speak up.

Funny or Die's Presidential Reunion from Will Ferrell

Your life and your freedom is your responsibility.

It Is Very Complicated

2010-02-12T17:44:00.005-06:00

Very complicated not to see that is a good idea. Unfortunately British Bankers are more civilized and truthful that US Bankers. No US Banker would ever give in to agreeing that this was anything less than Radical Socialism.

But the Bank Bailout was just good old American Private Enterprise.

Response To "Where Does a Democrat Go From Here" At the Huffington Post

2010-01-08T17:00:00.002-06:00

This is a response to an article, Where does a Democrat Go From Here, and its many comments on Huffington Post

"got any bright ideas for a brand new structure for this democracy?...one that works and will be well used?.....anybody?.....anybody?....."

We do not need a new structure. The one(s) we have are just fine. We just need to use them, and use them better.

The main problem I see is the generalities used in this discussion. Ms. Williamson talks about "immense unnecessary suffering in the world". And the quote that seems to resonate with you uses the same generality; "they're" "underlying forces" and "suffering". In real, practical terms what does that mean.

You can not address in a meaningful way an amorphous conglomeration of ills. I can say, "My life sucks." That may represent my feelings of frustration with the direction of my life, but it does not help me do anything about it.

Of course, Ms. Williamson is frustrated if she "...see(s) all things political in light" of that generalized conglomerate of ills.

One needs to address issues where one can realistically make some difference. Martin was focused on Civil Rights, Gandhi was focused on Indian Independence. Their approach was simple, you deal with what is immediate.

Leaders of movements have the luxury of focus.

That is what is required here. Our structure of governance has served us well, kind of, for over 200 years. It will serve us well if we use it and take control of our lives rather than waiting for someone else to give us control back.

If I take my money out of a Big Bank and put it in local bank or credit union, it does not do much. If many people do that it has an effect. If I look at my life and see where they money I spend goes and what suffering is caused by the people I give my money to, it does not do much, if many people start to do that it makes a difference.

If I feed the hungry in my town with programs like "Meals on Wheels" or Ms. Williamson's Angel Food, it does not have much of an effect. If many people do them it makes a difference.

One of the forces that brought down Apartheid in South Africa was the push to get major institution to divest in South Africa.

To solve problems on must be clear on what the problem is first. Then figure what people can do to in their daily lives to change the way they do things so the problem is fixed.

We use six times our share of the world resources. Immense suffering can be effected positively just by reducing our use of so many resources. First you have to know where your money goes when you buy certain products. We use too much water and way too much energy.

Finally, get involved in your local politics. If you are a Democrat, find out who the Chairperson is for your political division, for me it a Country Chairman. Then find out who the Precinct Chair is and ask them what they are doing. It is an election year and you can have an influence. If you are not a Democrat most local governments are less party oriented, find out what the problems are in your city and get involved. You will meet people with similar interests and you can work with your town to reduce the resources you use.

There are a thousand ways to make a difference where you are, in your political system and maybe even in the world.

People need leaders. Don't just complain about others not leading, become a leader yourself. All you have to do to be a leader is figure out where you are going, get a plan to get there, and ask others to go with you. Pick one suffering you want to address. Learn about that suffering and find a way you can make a difference while you live your life.

There are may existing programs you can start a chapter for in your community. Homelessness is a huge problem and it affect many areas.

"Family Promise" helps out the transitional Homeless by Churches coming together to house and feed temporary Homeless families by opening up the Church Buildings several weeks a year. It also provides other services to help families get back up on their feet.

The chronic homeless are a major threat to our health care system in that they go to Emergency Rooms in Hospitals. They come in sick and get medication that they do not not take until their condition is cured. They then return to the Emergency Rooms with a more virulent strain to of the original illness.

Just having people to go out and deal with the homeless and help them eat and find shelter goes a long way. If they have volunteer people who deal with them on a regular basis then they are more likely to be able to finish medications, get well, and not become breeding grounds of antibiotic-resistant organisms.

One major problem is that we want someone else to fix our problems. That is not the spirit that built this country.

Gandhi said if you want change, become that change. It will take sacrifice on our part, but it is, after all, our lives, our children's lives and all of our futures we are talking about.

Moving your Money

2009-12-30T11:09:00.002-06:00

It can be a wonderful life. But remember moving you money is just one out of many ways to bring control of you life back home where it belongs.

Shop local at individually owned stores and restaurants. Buy Local produce or grow your own. If you have a patio plant a container garden. If you have nowhere to plant, start a community garden.

If you want control of your life no one else is going to do that for you. It is up to you.

Holding Families Together by PFLAG San Diego

2009-12-21T22:32:00.002-06:00

Part one:

Part two:

Part three:

Part four:

Existence

2009-10-14T10:54:00.000-05:00

When I was young struggling with the glaring inconsistencies of the Bible and behavior of men I started down the road of rejecting God.

I used at that time a phrase that I still hold to, that in the beginning was man and man created God in his own image. I believe that phrase to be true quite apart and separate from the belief that, in fact, God does exist and mostly exists outside of the ability of man to comprehend Him.

When I hear/read people talk about Heaven and Hell, I can only think to ask where we were before we were on earth? There is this thing about the illusion of being that we think that once we exist we will always exist without ever giving a thought about our state of existance before we were born.

One of the idea I hold to it that infinity is just that, infinity. It does not go just one way. So if we will be here forever, forever includes before as well as after. So one can not have infinitely big without infinitely small. So that opens the question of where were we before being born into this three dimensional world.

One really has to have a concept about who and what God is before we can determine our relationship to Him. We are trapped in reference to a three-dimentional linear world. That is our experience and our vocabulary. So we have to expand our use of a limited vocabulary to shape non-linear, non-three-dimensional ideas and concepts.

We have to deal with idea that do not fit the rules of our world and that create large contradictions, viewed from our sense of existence.

When we hear the words that describe God as the Alpha and Omega, what does that mean? Beginings and Ends are part of our finite world not God's infinite world. God exists in a timeless expanse where everything happens at once. In His Timeless expanse he made a universe that has fixed dimensions. In our world it is three dimensions.

It is my belief that this three-dimensional world exists only for us, that in fact it is an illusion of existence. I think that there is evidence in our own sciences that point to non-existence in the way we use the word.

I use an example called the "Incredible Shrinking Man". There was a movie in the 1950's about a man who went through a radiation cloud and began shrinking. I take this story past the movie and wondered about what would happen to that man as he shrunk if he lived a very long time.

So, I put this shrinking man on the palm of my hand. If he stays there he will eventually get so small that he will fall through my skin and into my hand. He would continue to land on and then fall through surfaces forever, if he were able to live forever. If he were to fall at a specific rate he would fall inside my hand forever never falling out the back of my hand.

There are many implications of this idea. If this is true then there is as much space in my hand as there is in all of the universe. We have no problem understanding going forever in to space and never reaching the end of space. We can understand that because we can see out into space and it is bigger than us. It is hard to understand that there is infinite small because it is hard to visualize.

It also means that there is no smallest particle, hence nothing real in our existence. We "exist" becasue of a electromagnetic force that holds things in place to create the appearance of existence.

So to get back to heaven and hell, if we do not exist physically, a non-existing physical birth does not create a spiritual being that does exist. A spitiual being that exists forever, needed for being in heaven, does not have a begining or it can not be infinite. So where were we before we were born? Are we not still there and is that not where we will be when this non-existing physical illusion dies?

The spirit that we identify with being "us" in fact a part of God. I view creation as God taking a part of Him, a being that is one, undivided, and ripped a tear in Himself creating a duality that we "exist" in.

I am sure you have at sometime played with magnets. If you get two properly chaged magnets together and pull them apart there is force between the two magnets that can affect things around that force. That force is a yearning to be one. It is part of God. But for us to exist God had to place an opposite force into the mix to counter the stronger force to be one. One is the "natural" state.

So strong are these forces that they affect everything, even the way we non-existing people think. We live a "existence" that is dualistic. It is in all we do.

Finally we and all we know was with and part of God prior to being part of this three-dimensional existence and we return to being with and part of God when we leave it

Philosophy, Theology, and Economics and God

2009-09-21T11:19:00.000-05:00

God's purpose for us on earth is to serve Him. How we deal with our lives each day has to be a function of Serving God. God calls us each to Him from a different path with the same destination. There is but one "door", the example set by Jesus, but Jesus is not a bottleneck where all roads meet, He is a portal that opens along any path, at any place, when a person calls upon Jesus to open that portal.

Once that portal open and we freely pass though that portal, just as we are by yielding our lives to the service of God, we accept his Love, given freely through Grace, and God begins lead us toward his plan for us to have a fulfilled life. He with us changes what we need to change in our lives and strenghtens what is unchanged. His work in us is a process that does not end until we leave the worldly state and unite with Him.

As we build, with God, we this fulfilled life on earth, deal with worldly things in a spiritually controlled body that has worldly duties and obligations.

One of the great influences upon me in college was a book, "The Worldly Philosophers" by Robert Heilbroner. It was a simple but profound book that treated Economics as Philosophy. It treated Economic as it was in its formative stages, about ideas of how man handled the production and distribution of scarce resources. That is about as good a description of Economics as there is.

In regard to Theology, I will use my definition of Theology as man's attempt to understand, and most often over-understand God. We have a great tendency to make that which is simple, very complicated. There is good reason for that.

Principles are simple, the application is complicated. When we turn to Matthew, among others, we read that there are but two commandments. Those are to Love God totally, and Love your neighbor as yourself. How much more simple can it get?

The problem is how do we Love God, a being that is larger and more powerful than anything we can conceive. How do we Love our neighbor when our neighbor wants and is working to get what we have. How do we love another being that we can never really know when we have to live in a shell that has immediate needs and wants that we can not ignore. (the later can be a description of both God and our Fellow Man)

The answer is to over compensate. We do it all the time. We have a problem in one of our temporal challenges and we create a "God view" that is designed specifically to to deal with that one issue. That "God view" is most often rigid and ultimately causes great conflict.

God has over time revealed Himself to us as a father would to a child. When you are talking to a 4-year-old about why one doesn't take off their clothes in the middle of the street, you don't go into great detail about the human body and its functions, the ramification of viewing the naked body, the dangers of people who might hurt them, the danger of being in the street, the highway systems, highway laws, and how cars work.

No, you tell them, "Don't take off you clothes when you are out in front of everyone, and don't play in the middle of the street." You may even attach a punishment to that instruction. When a child is 12 they have different issues and different understandings of the world, and as we age those issues and understandings change. What does not change is the "Law" as stated above. We change, the law does not. Our relationship - as a person and a species - with God changes, God does not.

Economic and Money are things of the world. Capitalism is a form of running an economy. I do not intend here to get into a prolonged discussion about Capitalism. It is not important. While we are on this earth we will have to work to feed ourselves and our families. This is clearly God's will.

As man has gone from nomadic tribal life to city-states, states, nations and national alliances, our needs in respect to feeding ourselves and our families has changed. The forms of running an economy have changed as we also changed how we organized our political systems. We (the western world) decided in the 1700's that the people were better at governing their lives and their economy than were Monarchies and Theocracies. Capitalism provided a system that worked with a free people that governed themselves. (As you can read in my other writings I am no great fan of Capitalism in the Post-War United States)

It does not make a difference if I am a Capitalist, a Socialist, a Communist, or a follower of any economic "ism", there are two overriding requirements to be Christan and that "ism". First, that system has to serve God and God's will for man. That includes providing for man what God wants man to have. Second, man must serve God and yield unto God what he asks.

God has no need for money or production, but he does have a need for us to follow him. Jesus gave us that model. Jesus says repeatedly in the four Gospels to leave behind work, family, and the lives people were living and to follow Him. That is what God wants for us, and He will guide us to what we need to leave behind.

Jesus told us that if something distracts us from His will then we should get rid of it. Some people can deal with private property and profit motive just fine; some can't. Some people can deal with Socialism or any of many collective ownership systems just fine; some can't. It is not up to man to decide what others can and can not deal with, He has a hard enough time just determining what he can or can not deal with.

When we make such judgment based upon our understanding of how the world works, we assume a wisdom that is possessed only by God. God know each of us and accepts us where we are. It is His responsibility to determine with us what we can do and can not do.

The question "Can one be a Capitalist and a Christian" is not a useful question. A more useful question might be "What are the dangers to a Christian's Faith in being a ___________________" . Fill in the blank with what ever economic or political system the world can offer. They all have dangers for they are all of the world.

Wall Street needs Revolution not Reform

2009-09-14T13:14:00.008-05:00

In 1969, forty years ago, I had above my bed in the barracks at Fort Hood, Texas the quote below.

"Revolution in its essence means precisely the rearrangement of a society."

Of course, revolution in 1968 and 1969 was all about the Vietnam War, Unjust Civil Rights issues, and a rigid Social Structure. Most of those who talked about the coming Social Revolution became the "Them" that they were going to "overthrow". The Revolution came but it was the Reagan Revolution and we still suffer from that.

Quite often Revolution requires a future that is predicated on an abandoned past. That is the case now with Wall Street.

Wall Street must return to being a place where people invest in the Production Economy of the United States. Money should be invested with the notion of being part of a growing economy with the hope of sharing in the wealth that grows as the economy grows. Today, considerations of wealth based upon economic growth based upon production rarely exist.

Focus is on stock prices which can very easily be manipulated. Accounting Managers can move assets and liabilities around to make a failing business look good. That is part of the cause of the crash that occurred last year.

Elizabeth Warren said in an interview that "Until we have a credible liquidation threat, we don't have capitalism in America. It just doesn't work without that."(cite) While she was talking about Investment Companies, which have much greater problems than lack of risk, it is true more generally about Investment in general. Banks and investment companies have centralized investment opportunities in fewer and fewer hands, so manipulation and myopic economics policies are more easily carried out and hidden.

Life has risk. The Current Policy makers are rather like adolescent bikers that believe every jump over a hill can end with a soft landing. The people of the United States have a history of feeling invincible, which sort of worked toward building a country, but does not do so well in running an economy. When Adam Smith talked about the Invisible Hand that helps along the economy, he did not talk too much about the back of that hand that makes it presence known through recessions and slow growth. That hand is attached to an invisible arm that, like seasons, moves forward and backward. Investors must be as wise about the downs of an economy rather than just the ups.

Current Investment thinking is centered around the notion that you can have a recession free economy. That is false. For a short period of time you can manipulate a constant upward cycle, but when it begins to collapse it collapses hard, as evidenced in 2008.

This thought trend had its origins in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. When the inability of the United States to win a war against a third world country showed the United States vulnerability to economic aspirations of emerging economies. Oil was the first Crisis. But in that crisis were lessons that should have been learned, but the United States still suffered from the Post-WWII idea that we were, yes, Invincible. We are not.

In the 1980, one school of economics looked into the future and saw place where Production would be out-sourced and the United States would be come a large bank. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Their vision was based upon several assumptions that were false.

First was the fore-mentioned Illusion of Invincibility. There is an old story about Vietnam. A villager was asked about all the different people who had invaded and occupied Vietnam and about how Vietnam survived. The Villager said it was the Jungle. He was then asked about the Americans in Vietnam.

He said, Cambodians come, meet jungle, Cambodians go; Chinese come, meet Jungle, Chinese go; French come meet Jungle, French go; Japanese come, meet jungle, Japanese go; Americans come, meet Jungle, Jungle go.

That is the American way of expressing their Invincibility, but we did great damage to ourselves with the Agent Orange and while the jungle went, so did we.

The hubris of Wall Street is their notion that they are what makes the United States Economy work. Clear to all other eyes that is not so. The consumer is has been choked out.

American Ignorance - Failure to Compute

2009-08-23T07:31:00.003-05:00

I went to Alvin High School in Alvin, Texas, from 1961 to 1964 (then 10th through 12th grades). One of the things I was taught in English was all about propaganda. False Analogies, Glittering Generalities, and Guilt by Association were made part of my thinking process. Education then was not just knowing what was true but knowing what not true. We were not educated to just get a job, we were educated to be a good citizen.

This is not to say that everything was Idyllic, far from it, I was greatly dis-served by the process of education, but I had good and honest Teachers that were allowed even rewarded to do the job of providing the materials guidance to get an education. Becoming educated was the responsibility of my Parents and me.

We in the United States are face with an unparalleled crisis that I fear we will not be able to survive.

Providing Health Care for all of our Citizens is a no-brainer. We will only continue to deteriorate in our ability to fund health care by any means and fall further behind in our ability to have a decent standard of Health Care.

This is no secret. Our Hospitals are infested with infections. Today you are just as likely to have complications from infections that you did not have going in to the hospital as you are of the problem that brought you to the hospital.

We must a have a sane and positive Foreign Policy that keeps us engaged in the World and a participant in shaping the future of the emerging third world countries. Theses Policies need to be predicated on the idea that a people need to determine their own destinies while acknowledging that centuries of Colonial and Geopolitical meddling has rendered many of these countries from being able to even feed themselves mush less determine their own future.

We must acknowledge that much of what we have that we think is because we are so great and that God Loves us more, was really obtained on the backs of these emerging third world countries. Then we must resolve to undo what we can of what our predecessors did and make our country safe and stable by helping do the same for the rest of World.

But none of this is possible unless we have a sound educational and philosophical basis for our political and social structures.

In 1776 when the signers of the Declaration of Independence pledged their lives and fortunes, it was as much to a Philosophy that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator to have and maintain life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as it was to developing a Country.

Today we do not embrace philosophy. We do not value thinking and discussing thoughts. Our Spiritual World is inhabited by small minded men that talk of Love and Punishment in the same Breath. These theological Pied Pipers claim to be ridding of us rats when they are really taking our futures and locking them in a cave of ignorance, hate, and despair. These charlatans tell us that God does not want us to think too much, when it is they that fear their listener's God given ability to think.

Our Economy, once based upon the notion that any man can work, either for himself or others, and by saving and proper management of his assets can live a good life, has now become a gambling casino where men and government alike believe that wealth can be obtained without work or much investment.

The people of the US are manipulated by a media owned by the wealthy to let the wealthy keep their ill-gotten wealth at the people's expense. As long as the wealthy can keep the people ignorant they get to keep all the money until that money has no value any more, like the trillions of dollars lost in 2008. That money was not lost it never existed.

So we go along, sicker, poorer, less able to have our will expressed by the people we elect. Yet we have a failure to compute. We are not able to come to the logical conclusion that our lives are based upon very faulty input. In Computer talk it is Garbage in - Garbage out (GIGO).

It is time to start refusing to take Garbage into our lives anymore. How? Get educated, and that will never happen watching Fox News. There are libraries that have great wisdom in them. Find a philosopher from before 1900 and start reading.

There is a book that all the people of the US should read that will introduce you to some amazing philosophers, The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times And Ideas Of The Great Economic Thinkers by Robert L. Heilbroner.

Print out this guide to propaganda, How to Detect Propaganda.

Now, get up out of that chair and get educated. Come back when you can tell the truth from all the lies that you are told everyday.

Do Not Let Christians Turn You Away From Christ

2009-07-23T22:20:00.002-05:00

Christians do not represent Christ on Earth, it is the other way around. Christ Represents Christians in the after life.

Christians are people and have no authority or commission to represent Christ or God on Earth. Christians are people who have faults and recreate God in their image everyday.

Christ taught of Love and Acceptance, a teaching that turned Judaism on it head. Jesus spoke for and as God on earth and spoke of unity and peace.

So remember, God is about Love. When people who call themselves Christian talk hatred and bigotry, that is not Christ that is Christians. So some groups have started calling themselves Christ Followers. They do not represent Jesus either. If they do not live Love, or at least try to then, don't judge them but don't think that Jesus is defined by them. They are defined by Him.

Religion, Superstition, and God

2009-07-20T09:43:00.004-05:00

Religion combined with ignorance equal Superstition. God created the universe and did so in an orderly way. At one time in Human Development just about everything in the world and heavens was not understood. In these times superstitions grew and as man's understanding of the world grew the superstitions still remained.

Not only did the superstitions and false beliefs remain they fought against what was plainly obvious to most people. The example of the Catholic Church's refusal to acknowledge that the Earth rotated around the Sun, this undercutting their instance that the Earth was the center if the universe. So difficult was it to change beliefs not based in clear reality that it was just recently that Galileo was officially absolved of wrong doing is stating that the Earth revolved around the Sun.

Clearly when God made the universe he made it with certain characteristics and principles that are the work of rational "mind".

So when the Moon travels around the Earth it will with great probability come between the Sun and the Earth. It is a normal event and in terms of the universe is not much different than a person crossing in front of you when you are watching TV.

There may be some slight gravitational pull variation but nothing of significance, yet people who are Superstitious are in great fear of such events. Ignorance is at the core.

"In Hindu mythology, the two demons Rahu and Ketu are said to "swallow" the sun during eclipses, snuffing out its life-giving light and causing food to become inedible and water undrinkable.

Pregnant women are advised to stay indoors to prevent their babies developing birth defects, while prayers, fasting and ritual bathing, particularly in holy rivers, are encouraged." (source: Yahoo News)

Religion, which is created by man not God, is often burdened with great amounts of residual superstition and false beliefs. Most of these survive because it is in the interest of Man.

The Catholic resisted the Sun as the center of our solar system because they believed it threatened their rational for being center of Power on Earth. It was in their interest to keep their subjects ignorant.

So it has been. In the days of slavery the Southern Baptist Church preached slavery was of God because of the "Curse of Ham" or "Curse of Canaan". Over time people have used Religion to shut our the Deaf and Blind from God's earthly fellowship and today is used to shut out Homosexuals.

Creationism is equally based in ignorance and fear.

So when we are looking at other's folly in believing superstitions, we might first ought to look into our lives for the superstitions in our lives.

Hope you have a great time during the Solar Eclipse. Myself I will be hiding under my bed.

Moral Absolutes

2009-07-19T20:38:00.002-05:00

The worst enemy Christianity has is christians. If there were a devil, he would not need to do much because christians are trying to work him out of a job.

This is not new for hundreds of years christians killed other christians over slight shades of differences in belief. Muslims do it, too. But I am a Christian, and my concern is people who claim to believe in Jesus as the Son of God and who represent Him very badly.

They judge people instead of behavior. They shut out people from what they call "God's House" when God welcomes all who seek Him. They deny basic physical realities just because they want their religion to be absolute. The Bible is God's word and disputable, yet there are many different christian faiths all who claim to be the correct interpreter of that infallible word.

These christians do not own Jesus or God. God and Jesus own them. They have a worldly right to deny admission to their clubs they call religions, but the have no power granted by God to do so.

Most people who see these glaring deficiencies just throw up their hands and become agnostic or atheist. It is a natural impulse. I myself spent some time in that limbo, but now I see.

If you are a Christian then you believe that when Jesus was crucified, died, and rose, that he instructed his follower to preach and that the Holy Spirit would be there to guide those who sought to follow Jesus, who is God.

The unasked question is if God send part of Him in the form of the Holy Spirit, why the need for a rigid doctrine outlined in an infallible book. The reason that it is unasked is because the answer is a threat the all Religions control over their converts. The answer is that there is no need for such a book.

The Bible is important to document as nearly as we can what man's relationship with God has been. When read prayerfully and in obedience it serves as a focal point to allow God to speak to us.

If a church claims to be followers of Christ, then they have no Authority to turn away anyone who seeks Christ. If you want an absolute, you can have that one.

Absolutes and Intolerance

2009-07-12T08:17:00.002-05:00

I am always amused and often feel a bit abused when people who know me tell me I am being intolerant. Of course, I am being intolerant. That does not make me Intolerant. God requires us to be intolerant of some things and he requires us to be tolerant of others. With people, I am tolerant, with behavior I am not tolerant.

I got an email from a member of a Christian group I attend. It is below:

WALK NAKED IN AMERICA DAY

Don't forget to mark your calendars. As you may already know, it is a sin for a Muslim male to see any woman other than his wife naked. He must commit suicide if he does. So next Saturday at 4 PM Eastern Time, all American women are asked to walk out of their house completely naked to help weed out any neighborhood terrorists. Circling your block for one hour is recommended for this anti-terrorist effort. All patriotic men are to position themselves in lawn chairs in front of their house to prove they are not Muslims and to demonstrate they think its okay to see nude women other than their wife and to show support for all American women. Since Islam also does not approve of alcohol, a cold 6-pack at your side is further proof of your anti-Muslim sentiment. The American government appreciates your efforts to root out terrorists and applauds your participation in this anti-terrorist activity.

God bless America!

It is your patriotic duty to pass this on. If you don't send this to at least 5 people, you're a terrorist-sympathizing, lily-livered coward and are in the position of posing as a national threat.

A good joke? No. The number of things that are wrong with this are many. First of all today these emails are frequent and are propaganda. They have decreased dramatically since the change of administrations, but clearly they are still there. All this technique requires is for otherwise well meaning people to pass them on as a joke, and they do. But it is not a joke. False impressions are established and perpetuated by these emails. Impressions that are later used to sway public opinion toward support of policies that would otherwise find little support.

First, Muslims are not the enemy of the United States. At best, all we can say is that some people who are Muslim are enemies of the United States. A classic form of Propaganda - formal and informal - is the glittering generality. It is basically generalizing a trait of one member of a group to the whole group. Osama Bin Laden is nominally a Muslin, Osama is our enemy, so all Muslims are our enemy. This is also a false analogy - another Propaganda technique.

Next, the sender of the email to me is a Christian and knows I am a Christian. Jesus taught that we Love our enemy. So sending an email saying we want to make our enemies commit suicide is contrary to Christ's teachings. If we say such thing without disclaiming them then we endorse them.

Last, this was intended to be a Patriotic message for the 4th of July. It thus violates not only tenets of Faith, it violates principles we hold dear in our political Faith as well. Muslims are natural citizens of the United States and also patriotically celebrate our Independence and freedom as well. In fact, they should be all the more appreciative of their Country because on of the basic tenets of the United States is Freedom of Worship if all religions no matter how many or few follow a religion. Too suggest behavior in our country that would offend our fellow citizens and force then to kill themselves of unacceptable.

So yes, I am intolerant of such emails, I will not pass them on and will respond to the person sending it my feelings about the email. It is then up to the person who sent the email to me to act accordingly to their views.

Intolerance is not an absolute. Intolerance is not universally Good or Bad. It requires discernment. The German people tolerated Hitler and soon found themselves in an intolerable situation. When we tolerate the intolerable we always end up in an intolerable situation. The difficulty is know what is tolerable and what is not. But that is another post for another day.

News Flash - Truth IS Relative.

2009-07-05T14:28:00.000-05:00

One stands on the bank of a canal. A barge floats from your left to your right. A man on the barge moves from your right to your left on the barge. How fast is the man moving and at what speed.

It is absolute truth that the man is moving from right to left on the barge, but if the speed of the barge is faster than the speed the man is walking, the man is actually moving from left to right. That is absolute truth. So how can a man be absolutely moving in opposite direction? It is due to relative views of each action.

Thus two true things can be in opposition. Truth is absolute only within a given environment. So in our world, there are few, if any, absolute truths.

Freedom and Moral Absolutes

2009-07-04T07:24:00.005-05:00

picture above ©David Sacks
This post is written in response to a comment left anonymously to my last post. I rarely get comments and welcome the exchange of ideas. It is important that there actually be an exchange. In a short post it is near to impossible to cover all facets of an issue.

This is not so much a rebuttal as an expansion. The post "Post-Birth Abortions" was in response to a killing of a Doctor who provided abortions, legally. My post was cased in language that the Killer used to justify the killing. Anonymous gathered due my post that I am also a moral absolutist. I am not and the whole post is against Moral Absolutism. The world is not Black and White, it far more complex than that and requires a more complex reasoning.

Part 1

"To say that falsifying your income tax is as immoral as murder is incredibly wrong."

First that is not what I said. You use immoral, I used "sin". Sin is a very specific word. The Killer mentioned above was a Christian and was acting in what they wrongly perceived as Christian justice.

The Killer's thinking is wrong in so many ways that one could write a small book about it, but I addressed the Christian concept that there is no "greatest sin". I stand on solid ground there. Morality is more fluid and generally a secular concept. Even in the discussion of sin there is no suggestion that the consequences of an act of sin are equal.

In our secular world there are levels of acceptability in killing. That is a moral discussion. We say when you put on a uniform and go to war that killing is "moral". I fully support that as a secular morality. For me personally, my faith informs me that all killing is "sin". There is an important distinction there that is critical to having an Free Society. That distinction is between my faith, which is between me and God as absolute Law, or societies Law which is between me and Society.

It is fitting that today is the day we celebrate our independence from England and our dependence upon other people of the United States. We did not fully formalize that dependence until 1789. It is that formalizing of our dependence in the Constitution of the United States that established the rule of Man's Law.

Unique to that document was the recognition that there was a higher Law than Man's and all people in the United States had the right to exercise their belief and allegiance to that Higher Law. Implicit in that Right was that the Constitution was the Highest Worldly Law and that an individual's Right to believe and adhere to a Higher Law was limited when it came to interfering with another person's Rights.

So when Anonymous talks about morality and the fact that in Civil Society Murder and Tax evasion are not equal, I have nothing but agreement with that. The Killer however was not following Civil Law, he was following his perception of the Higher Law. I think it is a misconceived perception and that was what I was addressing in my post.

The Killer was not using Civil Logic so there was no need for me in this post to address those concepts.

Part 2

Your Christian view of Morality is seriously flawed. I would be afraid to be around you because of some other crazy Moral absolute you would come to based on a narrow reading of an ancient middle eastern religious book.

This just seems to be an attack on Christians, and I have nothing to say. You are free to think that all Christians think alike, which they do not. You are free to think that I adhere to some crazy Moral absolute, which I do not. You are free to think that I read the Bible, which actually is not some Middle Eastern Religious Book as it was compiled in Europe by the Catholic Church and based in part on Middle Eastern texts, in a narrow way.

You are also free to be wrong. Nothing in this paragraph is borne out by anything I wrote in the post it addressed. I was discussing someone who does seem have a very narrow reading of the Bible. My reading and the Killers reading are two very different things.

Part 3

Also I find it funny that you decry people for reaching back to the old Testament and yet your post talks about Abraham, Sarah, Adam, Eve... Pot meet Kettle.

I did not decry people for reaching back to the Old Testament. The statement was "These "men of god" reach back into the Old Testament so often to justify things that are not justifiable in the New Testament ". I decry the use of teh Old Testament by Christians to justify things that are not justifiable in the New Testament. Again very different things. The Pot and I are good friends, and I have not to my memory ever called him Black.

My quotes from the Old Testament are not for justification of any Theological point, but as an example, in the language of the people whose actions I am addressing, of how they repeating behavior similar to that "documented" in their Sacred Texts. Adam and Eve in the Story in Genesis did know that they had sinned, just as these justifiers of the Killer seem to know that they are justifying sin. These men do, in my opinion, hold their opinion higher than God just as Abraham and Sarah held their desire for a son above God's Promise to them. These are examples from stories in the Old Testaments that are there to describe man's interaction with an unseen God.

I do believe in Jesus's teachings, I do believe that Jesus was speaking as God's representative on earth. I believe that God is a God of Love and is in fact Love. That narrowly makes me a Christian. It does not make me a Moral Absolutist and I do think that you can find anything in my writing in the last post or anywhere else that justifies that classification.

Post-Birth Abortions

2009-06-02T07:54:00.006-05:00

When a life is ended it is aborted. For the record I am an anti-abortion, pro-life, pro-choice person. That is very possible and is the only rational position to hold. I believe simply that Life is given by God and God alone can take it. Period.

Those who seek Governemnt to act against killing one class of human life while asking it to take another class of human life are irrational and hypocritical. That twisted logic gives way to actions like killing Doctors who perform abortions, such as George Tiller. It is God's provence and only God's provence to pass judgment upon those who sin.

Those who put themselves above God face a very uncomfortable Judgement. It does not just mean the person who pulled the trigger, but also those who spoke hatred against a fellow man when God, through Jesus Christ, calls for Love. John tells us that God is Love. If God is Love, then who is hate?

The Evangelicals that have focused with a narrowness of vision on the aborted fetuses while turning a blind eye on all the other ways that man chooses to abort life after conception.

God gives us Himself, in the form of Jesus and in the form of Love. All we have to do is accept that Love and allow it to live in us. We do not need PACs and Foundations and all the other devices of earthly political action to work God's will. We just need to keep Him as our focus.

The self-righteous like Rev. Rick Scarborough who I single out because I know and have talked to the man. On this issue we talked, and I asked him if he was not acting outside of God's will and he replied that sometimes it is OK to Push God's will. He placed himself above God and was blinded by his own self-righteousness. He knew better than God.

Abraham and Sarah new better and begat Ishmael and the Middle East Conflict that still rages today. When man takes the position that he knows better than God bad things happen.

"Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, 'Where are you?'

"He answered, 'I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.'

"And he said, 'Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?'

"The man said, 'The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.'"

So the fall of man is reenacted. Men who claim the Mantle of God like Richard Land, Tony Perkins, Troy Newman, and Randall Terry among many others are hiding among the trees in the Garden, but their concern seems to be more for political cover than fear of God.

These men and others like them know, as did Adam and Eve that judgement was soon to be upon them. I do not, nor any man or press organization, have the power or right to Judge these men, but their actions broadcast their knowledge of their sin, even of they do not.

Land said. “If we’re pro-life, we’re first and foremost about saving babies, not punishing abortion providers.” That is wrong. If he is Pro-life he must first and foremost be about creating a Faith that embraces all phases of life so that man might have Life more abundantly in God's Love.

Abortion is horrible, but so is political War, sanctioned killing by the state, destruction of the spirit by Christians casting away people because of lifestyle rather than bringing them in and showering them with God's Love.

There is no greatest sin. Falsifying ones Income Tax is just as Bad in God's Judgement as Murder. The thing about killing is that it does not just violates God's Law, but it also stops a life for which God had other plans.

These "men of god" reach back into the Old Testament so often to justify things that are not justifiable in the New Testament that they now need to do as the fallen under the Old Covenant, put on sack cloth and sit in ashes in public view to show their humility before man and God. This can not be in some self-serving ritual, but on the sidewalk in true sackcloth only and covered in ashes.

The Beast is alive and well in all who place themselves above God. Pray that this Beast is never fully unleashed upon the United States. It roams now within the walls of man's Churches finding fertile places to grow in the hearts of those who think that God needs a little push sometimes.

Life, meet Logic; Logic, Life.

2009-06-01T13:06:00.003-05:00

Huffington Post featured an article, "The 31-Year-Old in Charge of Dismantling G.M.", about Brian Deese who is 31 and in charge of, among other things, the Bankruptcy of GM.

The facts seem to warrant great hope because Mr. Deese is young, NOT an Economist nor a Business Grad. In this time of great financial disruption, the last people we need to get us out of the problem is Economist and People in the Financial industry. If you make a mistake, repeating the mistake rarely fixes anything.

There are several facts, I repeat Facts, that we need to get clear in our minds. Economics is not a Science.

1. When we drift in to the labyrinth of Financial instruments and try to mathematically find the Holy Grail of zero risk, we are no better than the alchemists who tried to turn lead into gold.

2. Money has no value on its own, it is only a representation of an undetermined value that fluctuates with no more rationality that the average human possesses.

3. There is a fixed amount of value at any given time and all money created in addition to that value either does not exist or devalues all money. Model may be fine a guessing what that actual value is, but like in Horse Racing a model can make fair predictions but it always the unknown that can wipe a gambler out.

4. Investment and Financial Manipulation are two very different things. When one puts money into a company directly that is an investment. That is capitalism. When one buys a financial instrument that is linked to the performance of a stock, that is not investment that is gambling. Such gambling clearly has some purpose in the market but never should be rewarded when the risk rubber band pops. Risk is risk and those who take it deserve the losses if they deserve the rewards.

5. Adam Smith talks about the Invisible Hand of the market, but as most hands that hand has a back to it. That is the normal swing in life, if you want the forehand lift you must deal with the backhand drag. The idea of no more recessions is an idea of fools and charlatans.

Good Luck Mr. Deese, maybe you might want to encourage Universities to change their text books in Economic. A lot is taught there that is just out wrong. Economics is more about Philosophy than about Science.

McDonalds, but Not Just McDonalds

2009-05-21T08:49:00.003-05:00

I am officially off McDonald's. The have asked me if I want cheese with the only Breakfast Sandwich on their Menu that does not come with cheese for the last time. The "Cheese" they use is Kraft American Cheese and the FDA will not let Kraft call it Cheese. It has to be labeled Cheese Product because there is not enough real cheese. Yes, rather than "Would you like Fries with that" it is now "Would you like cheese with that?"

So Kraft can not sell their concoction that has some cheese in it as Cheese, but McDonald's can?

So some company can make a food product out the least amount of the actual food, add God knows what, and then run the end product by the FDA. The FDA shakes it finger at the company and allows them to sell it as "Food Product" but not as "Food".

Fine good the company just finds a food chain to sell it and they can sell it to unsuspecting customers are "Food" as long as they do it verbally. The American Consumer is so apathetic that it just goes along and never wonders why they get Heart Disease, Cancer, and all kinds of other illnesses.

You know you are what you eat. We have become swelled fat unhealthy People Products because we do not eat Food we eat Food Products.

Because we are People Products instead of People we have higher health issues and thus Higher health costs.

And then to top it off the way The Corporation Cabal which includes McDonalds uses completely inhumane methods to prepare all of the Meat Products that require real Meat. I as a rule do not like all of PETA's fanatical take on animals, but a lot of the time they are right.

This is one.

McCruelty: I'm Hatin' It--Learn More.

Go Home, cook for yourself. Get to know your family again. If you are single invite someone over to eat. Buy local when possible and when you eat meat try to know how they produce it. Take back your life and slowly take back control of it.

The Devil You Say!

2009-05-19T01:17:00.000-05:00

I got an email from a good friend that was a "Letter from the Devil." I did not even read it. Of all the absurd things that Christianity has clung on to from past incarnations of belief, the Devil is the most destructive and illogical.

For those of you who choke on the word logical when speaking of Faith, you can go back to listening to your Religious TV shows, or penning hate mail to people who think are possessed by Satan.

If you are a Christian, there is one God. I know that is very confusing since we have two personifications and one ghostification of Him, but there is just one. There is no rival power, no separate being that ponders all day on how to keep God from winning all the marbles before he ends this game and goes home.

There are a lot of reasons why the idea of Satan as a being is absurd.

First, If God is the one and only God, which I believe he is, then everything else is not only made by him but is part of him. When God decided that in just seven days he could make a Universe and catch a nap, too, where do you suppose he went to get the materials for the universe? He made it. OK, out of what was it made?

Well as in the beginning there was God, and that is all there was, he must have made "everything else" out of Him. It certainly would set the president for making a woman out of a rib from Adam, I mean should God be a chauvinistic prick that places woman in relation to man as man is in relation to God.

I digress, God took part of Him and made it into this thing that we fly around in called a universe. So when we walk out and see a beautiful sunset and we mutter in our minds something about this proving that there is a God, just step back and remember what you are standing on is not only a creation of God, it is God. Just the fact that there is a Sun that rises and sets upon our narcissistic perception of its movements should be enough to tame ones feral ego and realize that something outside of their ability to make or even understand exists, and that is not just made by God, it is God.

Have they Cloned Barrack?

2009-05-15T13:29:00.001-05:00

I know the military is full of scary people. I was in the military. Given the occupants of the White House for the last eight years I am sure those scary people have had a chance to establish a base camp and are reluctant to yield their ground to a new President.

Given the growth of private contractors that have less loyalty to the traditions of the US than to their own self interest, I think it is prudent that the President keep his friends close and his enemies closer. I certainly hope that you have this under control as you have in the past when it looks that you are caving.

The Gay Interpreter thing just looks real bad. Loosing the ability to communicate with our enemies or people who we think are our enemies truly does harm our national security. That is important.

Beside that is the fact that the illusion of US puritanicalism needs to give way to the real world in which people in the US are obsessed with sex and equally obsessed with denying their obsession. Is there anyone who really thinks that preachers, non-catholic preachers are sometimes Gay and that having to be secret about it helps no one. Or that event the most squeaky clean of are very likely to slip out of our morality pretensions for a quick one on the side. That is not just men.

It is time to get over it. Gays exist and they have in every culture since the beginning of man. When God put His hand to creating the Universe he allowed for the Universe to be the Universe, which means that he allowed for variations in the evolution of the Universe. To those who say that Evolution is a theory, fine it is and it is a very good one that we have not figured out the details yet, but it beats the heck out of all other theories. So you have right to believe in Creationism and you also have the right to be silly.

Gays are here for a purpose and they are here because God put them here. If you think that someone other than God put Gays here then don't pretend to be a Monotheist.

So Mr. Obama, my President, please make sure that as you placate the Military, that you do not undermine that for which the Military is here to defend.

Let gays openly serve in the Military.

Tea Party: "Some of the People"

2009-04-15T02:22:00.007-05:00

I read that the reason for the Tea-Bagging going on today, April 15, 2009, is "arguing for an end to deficit spending, lower taxes and a reduced government role in the economy."

That is priceless. It was deregulation of the Financial Industry that got us into this economic mess we are in. So let's just deregulate more. It makes sense in a way, because the top 5% of the population that hold 90% of the nations wealth still need to suck as much of the other 10% of our money off to their tax free offshore accounts as they can. And then when they get all that, they will want to own us as well. That is what this Tea Party is about.

There are always going to be a fringe on either edge of the political spectrum that have more passion than reason. These people will always be able to be fooled and manipulated. It is Lincoln's "some of the people" that can be fooled all of the time.

That is largely who will be out protesting. They want lower taxes, but never protested under the Bush administration, whose taxes they are paying. The Dumbing Down of America is finally having its effect.

In the fall of 2008 the stock market lost over a trillion dollars in a few short days. There have been more losses since. I do not disagree with the opposition to the Bail Outs of the Big Three Auto Companies and the Financial Institutions in theory, but we do not live in the rarefied air of theory. We live in the real world.

When 1 trillion plus dollars just vanishe4s over night, something has to be done. My solution is deflation, dropping prices and wages and revaluing debt on the books of financial institutions accordingly. There would need to be long term agreements with foreign lenders to pay back full value of the loans they hold, but that is easy enough if we can restore our economy.

That is, of course, heresy in the hallowed halls of the Economic Gods. They seem to be real sure about what you can't do, just not real sure about what you can do. So they are trying to pump the money lost back into the financial industries. That is a real bad idea, but there you are.

Either way, the Lame Tea-Bagging protests have no solution. These protesters are the same people who shouted threats against then candidate Obama at McCain rallies. These rallies are not about Taxes, or Deficit Spending (which none of the seemed to worry about from 2001 to 2008.)or even Big Government (which increased dramatically under Bush). It is about two things.

First is about a Black Man in the White House. To the "joe the plummers" of society that is the real issue. These are the people who are hurting because they followed Good Ole Boy Bush and now they are paying, but denial prevents them form admitting they made a mistake. So only 12 weeks into the new administration, it is President Obama's fault. I remind you that for almost two years into the Bush Administration everything that was "Bad" was Clinton's fault.

President Obama is barely off the blocks in the fourth lap of a relay race and it is his fault the team is behind. Complete lunacy.

It appears that about 60% of the people in the United States are still with President Obama, so while there may be a lot of sound and furry, mostly on right wing talk radio, there is little credible substance to these protests. Taxes, Deficits, and Big Government are the old reliables for the Right Wing when it comes to whipping up a furry among that old "some of the people", but how do they really explain any of this to more thoughtful people? They don't.

The rest of the people are living in the real America where times are hard and it is not because of High Taxes, and Big Government, but it is in part due to Deficits of the Bush Administration who chose to spend .66 Trillion on a futile, needless war. The other part of the Pre-Recession deficits were loss of income due to tax cuts, not to the "some of these", but to the wealthy.

What these demonstrations will show, if they show anything, is the result of the failure of the US Education system to teach people how to think. The mess we find ourselves in is a complicated mess, and there will be errors - like trying to recapitalize the banks and financial institutions. At least something is being done and the truth is in times like these even when you put money into the economy from the wrong point, the economy still gets the benefit of the money eventually.

So tomorrow we are going to be told the sky is falling. Maybe for these folks it is, but for the rest of us, it is just another tax day, and just a short 14 days after April Fools Day. Hard to tell which is which.

The Incredible Shrinking Man

2009-04-06T14:10:00.000-05:00

In the 1950's there was a Movie named "The Incredible Shrinking Man". It was part of the Nuclear Paranoia Cinema. The theme of the movie is the dangers of Radioactivity. A man is out in his boat and encounters a thick cloud of Radioactive materials. He then begins to shrink.

The subtext in all these movies involves the unleashing of Nuclear Power at the end of World War II. The Red Menace, The Yellow Menace, and the unknown dangers of Atomic Materials it self, are ever present threats.

The idea of man being able to shrink has reoccurred several times in the Movies. It also has become an easy way to describe one of my theories about existence.

Imagine that the Incredible Shrinking man stands in the palm of your hand. Say he is at the point of just barely visible he is so small. As he shrinks in your hand he will eventually shrink to the point where he begins to "fall" through your hand.

As he diminishes to the size of a skin cell and then so small that he falls through the outer wall of the cell. He falls and lands on the next smallest thing that makes up the matter in your hand. Of course at this point he would die because he would not have anything to breathe, but we will let him live in our example.

The idea here is that the Shrinking Man will shrink until he falls through whatever he lands on. This will happen forever. He will never land on a solid object that is not made up of smaller objects.

The idea of infinity in smallness is not part of our common thoughts. We all know that if we launch a rocket into space that it will go forever and never hit a wall. Thus our common perception of infinity. It is, however, also true inwardly. As the Shrinking Man falls, if he falls at a sufficient rate, he will never fall out of the other side of my hand. He can fall forever inside my hand. Thus there is as much space in my hand as there is in all of the space outside of my hand.

We have difficulty with that idea because we are of a fixed dimension. We can look into the depths of outer space, but we can not look into the depths of inner space.

The implication here is that nothing exists. There is no smallest solid particle. If there were then infinity ends. If here is a starting point there must be an ending point and infinity and all our understanding of the world and universe collapses.

Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth on the Right

2009-04-03T15:30:00.005-05:00

Cigarettes are healthy for you and everyone has the right to cheap tobacco, right? No. The right wing radio shows are kicking up dust trying to damage President Obama because there has been another pretty large tax placed upon tobacco to pay for Child Health Care.

So they play then Candidate Obama's pledge not to raise taxes on people making less than 250,000.00 a year. As it turns out low income people smoke more than high income people. Hence, President Obama has completely retreated form his pledge and is a horrible person.

But lets look at the other side of this story. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention the health risks from cigarette and tobacco are high.

Cancer:

The risk of dying from lung cancer is more than 22 times higher among men who smoke cigarettes and about 12 times higher among women who smoke cigarettes compared with never smokers.

Cigarette smoking increases the risk for many types of cancer, including cancers of the lip, oral cavity, pharynx, esophagus, pancreas, larynx (voice box), lung, uterine cervix, urinary bladder, and kidney.

Rates of cancers related to cigarette smoking vary widely among members of racial/ethnic groups but are highest among African-American men.

Heart Disease and Stroke:

Smoking causes coronary heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States. Cigarette smokers are 2–4 times more likely to develop coronary heart disease than nonsmokers.

Cigarette smoking approximately doubles a person's risk for stroke.
Cigarette smoking causes reduced circulation by narrowing the blood vessels (arteries). Smokers are more than 10 times as likely as nonsmokers to develop peripheral vascular disease.

Smoking causes abdominal aortic aneurysm.

Respiratory Health:

Cigarette smoking is associated with a tenfold increase in the risk of dying from chronic obstructive lung disease.

About 90% of all deaths from chronic obstructive lung diseases are attributable to cigarette smoking.

Health Consequences of Smoking:

In 2001, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) was the fourth leading cause of death in the United States, resulting in more than 118,000 deaths. More than 90% of these deaths were attributed to smoking. (p. 500)

According to the American Cancer Society’s second Cancer Prevention Study, female smokers were nearly 13 times as likely to die from COPD as women who had never smoked. Male smokers were nearly 12 times as likely to die from COPD as men who had never smoked. (p. 500)

About 10 million people in the United States have been diagnosed with COPD, which includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema. COPD is consistently among the top 10 most common chronic health conditions. (p. 499)

Smoking is related to chronic coughing and wheezing among adults. (p. 490, 509)
Smoking damages airways and alveoli of the lung, eventually leading to COPD. (p. 498)

Smokers are more likely than nonsmokers to have upper and lower respiratory tract infections, perhaps because smoking suppresses immune function. (p. 425, 447)

In general, smokers’ lung function declines faster than that of nonsmokers. (p. 482)

One other fact that the Talk Radioheads spout is that people who make up the vast majority of smokers are people who make under 250,000.00. It just so happens that the majority of people who do just about anything make less than 250,000.00 a year. That is because 90% of people make under 250,000.00 a year. If all classes smoke equally then it would seem that 90% of smokers make less than 250,000.00 a year. That is not a problem of the Cigarette Tax it is the problem of income distribution.

That said, then heath complications of cigarette smoking cost money that the people whose behavior causes the complication can not afford. Some one has to pay for their medical needs. As it is now without the cigarette tax, taxpayers pay for that additional cost, if they smoke or not. Where were the funny ads and outrage when taxpayers faced increased local taxes and increased hospital and heath care costs because of the preventable health complications of cigarette smoking.

Also are we to say that Children that are to be covered by SCHIPS are to not get care so smokers can have cheaper cigarettes.

This is just a cheap ploy by Talk Radio people to try to gain political advantage by trying to paint President Obama as going crazy taxing people after promising to not tax anyone that makes under 250,000.00 a year.

But that is what Republicans and the right wing do. If they were serious in their concern for the economic welfare of smokers or anyone other than themselves then would work toward a more equitable distribution of income.

Krugman has it Half Right

2009-03-22T08:20:00.003-05:00

As I have said here often, trying to replace the non-existing wealth that vanished last year is futile and damaging, but not the disaster that Krugman describes.

What he and Geithner have in common is that neither understand the need to write down on the books our economy's worth. We are right back to the basic concept of what something actually is worth and what we say it is worth.

A foreclosed house that is "worth" less than what owed on it does not increase in real value just because we pump money into the institution that holds the debt. Nor does the worth increase when the market price increases. Value and worth are not determined by accounting, but by function. The questions are, "Is the house able to serve its function?" and "Does it shelter adequately those who might live in it?"

That is the real value. As long as the house is not allowed to deteriorate how much it cost is irrelevant to its real worth.

(photo credit- art.lebedev)

The reality is that the US economy is over valued and needs to be devalued or deflated. Banks and financial institutions need to have the assets on their books written down and wages need to be brought down as well. Wages need to retain a bit more of their value to make up for losses in earning power since the 80's but every thing needs to come back down.

Once we do that we will be on the road to stability. It will be an economy that has less, but less is good in this situation. The US has squandered too much of the worlds resources for too long. We need to learn to live within our means and with our share of the worlds resources. Before it was a moral imperative, now it is a survival imperative.

The financial sector of the economy has to be re-regualted and investment instruments need to go back to investment in creation of real things. If people want to gamble and call it investing that is fine, but there needs to be heavy controls and disclosure provisions. No asset that is used in "gambling" (derivatives and futures) can be guaranteed or ever "bailed out". Risk needs to become Risk again.

No company or financial Institution can ever be "too large to fail". Corporations are a creation of Government (we the people) and can be reigned in by the same.

The trillions of dollars that vanished, never existed. The Emperor did not loose his clothes he was always naked. So is our financial system.

Progressive Moves by Obama

2009-02-20T11:41:00.002-06:00

5 Great Progressive Moves by Obama That You Might Have Missed."

Hey liberals, that is directed to you. The left leaning Alter Net has rightfully conceded that maybe President Obama is not the turn coat they seem to think he is.

I am a liberal and have know all along that President Obama was going to do what he said he was going to do. So welcome to the table of Adults who know that you don't get your way all the time.

Saying It Like It Is

2009-02-09T02:55:00.002-06:00

There is a scene in the movie "Amadeus" where the King comes back stage to congratulate Mozart on his symphony. Mozart confidently asks "Best ever?" to which the King took exception. Mozart asks what is wrong with the music and the King says that there are too many notes. Mozart hits back that if the King will tell which are the offending notes he will be glad to delete them.

Too much spending? The words of the incompetent critics.

President Obama has it right, Spending is what a Stimulus is.

Time to Get Moving

2009-02-07T15:16:00.003-06:00

President Obama recorded a video to speak directly to you about his economic recovery plan.

America is facing an urgent and unprecedented challenge. The economic crisis requires bold and immediate action.

Governor Tim Kaine answered questions about the Recovery Plan now in Congress. Below are the bullet points he outlined about the state of the Economy and the elements of the Recovery Plan.

It is vital that all citizens contact their elected Representatives and Senators to tell them to pass this bill. There is a lot of clamor about the deficit. In ordinary times that might be a concern, today it is not.

We have all seen movies and pictures of the Great Depression. Today we face similar times. The Economy is in a downward spiral that is escalating. As people are laid off, they stop spending, and more jobs are lost. The only way to stop this downward momentum is to put money directly into the economy in ways that create jobs and projects that add real value to our economy.

Listen to Governor Kaine below:

Send these videos to you friends by going to: my.barackobama.com

FInacial Interests Need toUnclinch Their Fists, Too.

2009-01-26T07:56:00.003-06:00

Mr. President, the Republicans and their masters the Financial Interests need to unclench their fists, too. You ahve showed respect and courtesy, and they have viewed it as weakness.

They do not understand the concept of the earth moving beneath them, You must now show your steel and politely pull back part of what you have ceded and move on.

Do this by telling them what is on the table has a deadline and then you will go it on your own, as you want it. They can either join in and get part or balk and get little.

Show your ateel. We the people will follow if you ask.

Stimulus Package HR 1

2009-01-24T12:42:00.003-06:00

No excuses any more for not knowing what your Government is doing. President Obama is determined to make all information about what is being done by your public servants transparent. In the Bill that will be before the House next week there is provision for all contracts involved in the spending authorized by HR 1 must be posted on the site Recovery.com for all to see.

If you don't know what is happening, it is not because no gave you the info. Of course this is the beginning. No one knows what it will look like at the end, but the begining is a very good place to start.

Click here for HR 1.

Obama, Republicans, Blue Dogs, and Money

2009-01-23T14:01:00.002-06:00

First:

One of the things that really irritates me is the illogic in American Capitalism that say that if you need money it is hard to get but if you don't need money you can get all you want.

I do not really ever want to hear that people with money are less of a risk than those without money. Not after the events of the last 24 months in general and the last six specifically. The whole top down myth is part of a larger fallacy that was elevated to political normalcy by the Reagan Era.

All you people with money, it is NOT your money. When you can print and stand behind the money in your pocket, it is yours. The money with the Presidents faces on it is OUR money. That does not mean that one does not have temporary ownership of part of that money. That ownership is defined, and defended by the issuer of that money, the United States Government.

In 1893-1897 our forefathers entered in to a social and economic contract. Each generation has upon birth or by naturalization accepted the conditions of that contract, as modified, and by default agreed to live within its rules and laws.

When a person has a lot of money, that does not mean that can do anything they want with it without consequence. They have been able to do so, and have almost driven the country off a cliff and into the depth of the sea.

It is not your money, it is OUR money and use of that money is not less a sacred privilege that bears great responsibility.

Second:

Republicans have had no problem when they were in Office, 1980 to 1992, and 2000 to 2008, running up enormous deficits. Now when we really need deficit spending they want to put the brakes on. I have one phrase for those Blue Dogs and Republicans who worship selectively at the altar of fiscal responsibility: Wrong side of History. For Republicans your aversion is not deficit spending, it aversion to having the deficits go into someone other than your pockets and the pockets of those whose bidding you work.

I will give the Blue Dogs an out and say they just don't understand economics as well as they understand pandering to obtain office.

In the 1980's we did not need Deficit Spending for the economy to grow. In the Bush administration we did not need the deficit spending that the administration chose.

Yet there it was massive deficit spending in both Republican periods. Cut Taxes and Borrow Republicans does not have the same ring to it as Tax and Spend Democrats. Both can be very bad for the economy, but the first Cut and Borrow is deadly. Tax and spend can be deadly if the spending is on things that do not create useful value.

Last:

As President Obama, get that President Obama, said today in so many words, He won. He won by a significant margin and now has better than significant support. Republican spent the last eight years squandering what should have been a 20 year lock on government by greed and ineptitude. Now you want to block the Recovery plan. Do so at your own risk. If you do block or even delay the stimulus package, and the economy sinks further do not expect to blame it on President Obama. Take a long look at the last four years and then ahead to the next two.

Want to really understand risk, go ahead, Block the Presidents Plan.

Spending and Stimulus

2009-01-22T08:36:00.003-06:00

CNN had a poll yesterday that asked how people would use the money from a tax cut.

The breakdown was close to 21% spend it, 30% would save it, and 40% would pay of debt with it. Then there was something else. The assumption was that a tax cut would not stimulate the economy.

Wrong. Where the tax cuts are used, or spent, is not the issue with tax cuts. Tax cuts are slow simulators because they are time release. They give a small reduction in take home pay for consumers so the stimulus is slow, but it is still stimulus.

The idea that debt/savings would consume the largest part of the spending is a great thing. Savings and Debt are essentially the same thing, debt just being negative savings. The people of the US need to learn to save again. By saving we enable the interest or gain made from lending to be paid to ourselves and kept in the closed loop of our economy. Paying off debt increases money available for investment just as saving does.

So lets keep in mind, money from any source that enters the economy on the spending side (CNN should have used the consumption label instead of spending for the 21%) stimulates and grows our GDP.

The only questions for effective recovery are where the problem is and how fast is the solution needed.

Israel is a Terrorist Organization, Too.

2008-12-29T00:43:00.003-06:00

"Hamas is a "terrorist organization," he opined, "responsible for the deaths of many innocents, and dedicated to Israel's destruction, as evidenced by their bombarding of Sderot in recent months." President Elect Obama

There can be no solution to the Middle East Turmoil until outside parties quit taking sides. Israel is no less a terrorist Organization than is Hamas or any other organization that kill for political purposes.

Israel's claim of being the victim is ridiculous. They out arm any of their neighbors and have a stronger economy. It is in Israel's interest to drop their emotional responses to their neighbors and seek peace by not occupying land that is not theirs. Also they must quit treating non-Jews like inferior people.

If you can reach out to Rick Warren, you can reach out to Hamas and the Palestinians.

Dangers of Believing the Myth

2008-12-27T20:36:00.004-06:00

"As Buffett told us in August, 2007, (and repeated throughout 2008): 'We've got a wonderful economy... There's never been anything like that in the history of the world. We live seven times better than the people did a century ago on average... We've had problems all along. If you look at the last century, we had that Great Depression and World War Two, we had the Cold War, we had the atomic bomb, but the country does well.'" Interview with Warren Buffet

Of course we have a wonderful economy, but it is slipping away. This entire statement is the musing of a man wise in the way of US Capitalism but deluded by the myth that some how we have earned this beautiful excess.

After WWII the power elite in the US took a peace dividend out of the hides of the poor and downtrodden of the world and with Hubris declared it a product of Their, and our by association, superiority.

It was and is a mirage. Yes we live seven times better from a material standpoint but we are less happy and our social fabric is torn and frayed. We consume six times our share of the worlds resources, much of it for frivolous non productive activities and products.

Well, I have a prediction. 2009 will be a bad year and in 5 years we will be living with 1/6 or less of the resources we have now. We can make decisions now that will allow a pretty good standard of living with those resources, but we can also make choices that will place us in third world status.

We need to live on less and should reassess our priorities. What of what we take for granted do we really need. Does everyone in a house really need their own television? Don't we need to spend time sharing with the members of our families. We have so much stuff that we can not use, that we have a thriving Storage industry.

The rest of the world wants their share of the worlds resources and are not willing to let us monopolize their futures any more. Twice we have shown that a lesser power can resist us and get by with it. Twice we have needlessly used our wealth and position of power to bully the weak.

It is time we stood up to the power elite whose wealth comes at our expense and require that we share more equally in both the wealth and decision making. The American People have always had a pretty good head for what is right and wrong and it is only by lies, deceit, and misdirection that the Power Elite have done horrors in our name.

We have the opportunity to trust in something larger than ourselves for the collective good of all citizens of the US. It is up to each of us to become the change we want to see.

No Room In the Inn for Peace.

2008-12-27T20:10:00.002-06:00

Jesus was a Jew. The narrative says that Jesus was the Messiah, but the Jewish people rejected Jesus, the Prince of Peace. Today that rejection continues. To make the Israelis the victim in the current struggle, thus justifying their oppression and abuse of the Palestinians and other Arabs is absurd. No party in the Middle East conflict is innocent, but Israel is the best financed and armed of the guilty. For that alone they bear more responsibility for restraint. The current action in Gaza is flat out inexcusable by any civilized measure.

It is not an Investment Recession/Depression

2008-12-16T11:42:00.002-06:00

The Economists at the Fed think that because the Recession is now seriously affecting the Investment Class that it is their recession. They just did not know or care that the Consumption Class have been in recession for a full year or more.

It is not an Investment Recession (supply), it is a Consumption Recession (demand), so interest rate cuts will not work. For investors to be convinced to invest they must believe that the consumers are ready to start buying. As a result you can get to negative interest rates and have no real effect. Supply Side economics are not applicable here.

If anything needs to be done with interest rates, it would be to raise them to encourage savings. Funds are already moving to money assets. That trend needs to be reinforced. When Obama takes office and begins putting money into the hands of the consumer, either directly, or closely indirectly (jobs projects), savings must be a part of the solution. When the economy begins to recover we need a consumer that spends but has developed savings habits that allow the US to fuel investment through domestic funds rather than foreign funds.

Say it isn't So - Back to 1980

2008-12-15T08:02:00.003-06:00

In the Mid-1970's, the United States of America lost a war. The Vietnamese who had resisted all comers prior to 1954, and the French had become the latest to fall not to an stronger army as such but to a stronger political will. But, it was 1954 and the United States was in he throes of Anti-Communist Hysteria.

Russia had sent aid to Vietnam, so the Vietnamese were "Communists". Never mind that the Vietnamese had supported the Allied Forces against Japan and that Ho Chi Minh had lived and studied in New York. The US new better and boycotted the Geneva Peace process and began the way to become the last "imperial" force to fall to the indomitable will of the Vietnamese people. Twenty-one years later the US left Vietnam just as France had, in defeat.

1975 began the Post American Era in the world. In 1978 Revolution in Iran began ending in the overthrow of the US supported Shah in February of 1979. THe US then became hostage to oil. Prices of oil rose rapidly. In 1973 action by OPEC had caused a rise in prices and shortages of gas, but the Iranian Revolution shot prices even more dramatically higher.

This increase in price was a political act more than an economic act. After 1945 and the end of WWII the US had pretty much full reign over the world. US businesses used leverage with the US Government to set up puppet Governments all over the world so the US could take pretty much what resources they wanted from anywhere in the world. These puppet Governments were not very nice to their people and and anyone who resited the plans of the US Corporations were eliminated.

Needless to say that did not make the world feel very good about the US. Iran, when freed from the tyrannical Shah, decided to exact a price on the US in the place it hurt the worst, the pocket book. So prices of oil shot sky high.

This is where our story begins about the illusion that Money really exists. AS oil prices rose American Dollars flooded into Iran. The Money in Economic principal looses value if you do not invest it. The powers of the Middle East from Saudi Arabia to Iran were not interested in build an economy that benefited their people, so they had nowhere to invest except in Western Banks. Much of the "Petro-Dollars" went to US Banks. Economic theory again kicked in and all theses US banks had to find a place to invest all the Petro-Dollars.

US Banks looked around and saw Latin American oil fields and decided to invest there because oil prices were very high and great returns could be had. The US still had a pretty tight lock on the puppet governments of South and Central America. There was one problem however, the market.

Here economic theories collided. The sudden increase in Latin American Oil and conservation efforts in the industrial countries of the world caused an oil glut in the world by about 1982. Prices of oil plummeted.

The Petro-dollars began to vanish as if they ever existed. The Middle-Eastern countries Petro-dollars in the US banks had been sent to Latin American who could no longer pay back the money because they were making no money on the investment in oil production infrastructure. So as we saw in October of 2008, huge ammounts of money just disappeared.

Major Principle of Economic Theory: money not backed by Real Value simply does not exist.

The money that vanished is on the Books in the fictional world of the Accountant but that fiction does not translate to the real world. THe Price of Oil was over valued so the increase in price was not backed by value. So when the false price fell the dollars "made" by that increase vanished.

I proposed in the 1984 while banks were still trying to figure out how to deal with this evaporation of assets a simple solution. I called it "Say it isn't so".

The Banks would get the Middle Eastern Oil Production countries together with the Latin American Oil Production Countries. The latter were allies in OPEC. So the Middle-eastern Countries would let the banks write off Petro-Dollar assets and the banks in turn would write off equivalent Latin American debt. Things would be brought back to where they should have been along and every would be happy. The sticking point was the same sticking point we face to day, assets are hard things to get people to just write off.

It makes do difference that assets on the books have no real value, there is no mechanism to just write off assets. We can write off debt, just not assets.

The billions of dollars we are creating to pump into our economy in real terms are just trying to revalue the valueless assets on the books. We are creating fake money to bolster the illusion that the wealth we gained over the last 100 years is real.

I have often often referred to the steak dinner that in 1912 one could buy for 25 cents. Today that steak dinner costs $40.00 at a minimum. Same steak, same dinner. The value has stayed the same but the dollars have increased. The $39.75 is mostly not real.

If we are to survive in the world economy without major disruptions, we have to deflate our assets, prices and wages down to real world values in a controlled soft landing. Then our workers can compete against the workers of the rest of the world.

It will not be easy, but we and the rest of the world can do this. We just have to accept economic reality.

Does Anyone Know What They Are Doing?

2008-12-04T13:07:00.003-06:00

I am tired of dealing with the spoiled Liberal Blogging "Elites" who are already second-guessing BHO before he can even really get started. Of course this has been mode of operation for these narrow minded thin-visioned ideologues as long as they have been around.

So since I have not posted in a while, I will tell a story that I hope is not as emblematic as I fear it is.

First I am 62, and just went on Social Security. I just barely get by, but I do have a nice apartment and internet access, so I am not too bad off.

I bank at Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo was never a favorite bank of mine, but I get VA Disability and have been "homeless" several times in the last four years. The VA has a program that works with banks to offer Vets who are homeless or otherwise not able to qualify for Checking accounts to have their VA benefit check deposited in special accounts that are totally free. Good program and it keeps Vet's money safe and frees them from expensive check cashing fees.

Wells Fargo was the only Bank in my area that participated in that program, so hats off to Wells Fargo for that. As I got better established, I obtained a real checking account and now do all my business at Wells Fargo. I do not have that much banking business, but it is all at Wells Fargo.

I had a gap of income for about two and a half months between work and Social Security. I made it, but it was a day to day thing. One "service" that Wells Fargo provides is Direct Deposit Advance where one can borrow money as a short term loan against their Direct Deposit.

I took advantage of that service, though there is really no place that really explains in an accessible manner how the program works.

So our story begins about a week ago when I went to take another loan to get my bills paid. I planned to do this and one more loan and I would be able to not use the "service" any more. When I tried to make the loan I was rejected. So I called the number given to find out why. I was told that I had taken one loan in the current Statement Period and had to wait for the next Statement Period to make another. I was told that would be December 4th, today.

So I got up early and tried to make the loan and was rejected again. I called again and was told that I had been shut out because of the way I had managed my account. The implication that I had to many over drafts - which I have never had an uncovered check - or an unpaid credit card balance - I have no credit cards. As it was neither of those, they were at a loss to explain why I could not use the DDA "service".

It seems that the service us run by the computer and no one know how the system works and no one can override the system. I guess that HAL is back, (computer in 2000: A Space Oddessy, for those to young to know).

Now I have pretty High Confidence in Wells Fargo as a solvent Bank, but I am a little shaken by the "its the computer" defense.

Here was the explanation. The computer did not "see" my direct deposit that occurred between 11-4-08 and 12-4-08. Both the Service rep and I could see it, but not the computer. It was in the middle of the Statement Cycle. So why could not the computer see it. Seems like an obvious flag for a human to look to see why things are not working as they should.

I was told that there was nothing anyone could do, nor was there anyone who could explain how the system really works.

Alone it would be just another story of the tail wagging the dog, but when you put it context with a Treasury Secretary that says he has no idea what to do next, and banks that clearly do not have a clue when they use bailout money to pay dividends to shareholders and buy up other banks.

I do not want to link Wells Fargo to the Bailout abuse, but does wonder who is minding the store.

Knowing What They are Doing

2008-11-20T19:26:00.004-06:00

Lets get back to some basics.

1. Economics is not a science. We need to get back to the Philosophical basis of the economy.

2. One basic thing is that money does not naturally exist. Man creates money and it can be or do whatever we want it to. What does exist is value. Things have value dependent upon their real utility. The Government can print as much money as we want, it is borrowing from ourselves. Money just allows things to move.

3. To Peter Schiff, if you don't have a job lower taxes on a non-existent income has no effect. Get rid of your old ideas and look at the real world, it has changed. No one is spending, if the Government stops too, how do goods and services move?

4. Business is just part of the equation. Right now consumers are the most important part of the equation. No business will start unless there are people to consume it.

5. This whole downturn started with people losing their homes. The steady erosion of the middle class squeezed by a costly war and Tax Cuts for the wealthy squeezed their ability to consume. The response to this was to extend credit to consumers beyond any ability to really pay. The above mentioned Housing Crisis began to squeeze back with jobs beginning to fall around the Housing collapse. Lost jobs, credit debt unpaid.

The way out is to put income into the economy where the vacuum is, the consumer. Any Economist that can not see that needs to take their degree)(s) off the wall and go back to school and get a real education outside of the Business School.

The Big Three

2008-11-17T01:22:00.003-06:00

A lot of talk is going on about the "Big Three" automakers. To Bail-out or Not To-Bail out, that is the question.

Our Economy is like a big plumbing system with money flowing throughout the system. One of the big problems is that Banks are not lending money. If that is not forcefully addressed, nothing else will make a lot of difference.

If we are going to let the "Big Three" fail, then why not just allow banks to fail also. Deposits are guaranteed and a few banks failing would just move money to other banks. Your bank fails, your deposits are guaranteed so you get the government to put your funds in a solvent bank and move on.

The indisputable thing is that the Government needs to put a lot of money into the economy. The question is where does one put it. We are basically priming a pump.

In the Economic plumbing system it makes no real difference where you put the money in. The factor to consider is what you want the money to do. Growth is not the problem so putting the money in Business investment is not the place to put the money.

Over the last 28 years the people at the top have allowed themselves to believe that they are the source of jobs and economic growth when all along it was the Middle Class that consumes the is the real source. The Middle Class has been squeezed out to the point where they have retracted their spending.

So putting money in at the consumer level gets money every where and does it quickly. People in the middle class spend their money almost as soon as they get it.

The next problem is consumption is with big ticket items, like cars. No one who thinks that their job will not be their tomorrow is not going to spend money on big ticket items. So just as FDR had to restore confidence on the Banks, Barrack Obama needs to restore confidence in the Job Market.

FDR closed the banks, Obama needs to place a freeze on layoffs. AS we the taxpayer are bailing out the Banks, they must be required to front payrolls (specifically) to allow businesses that feel the need to layoff workers to keep them instead. The government will back the bank loans for payrolls. People keep their jobs and that payroll money will be funneled into the economy for sure rather than being misdirected to company shareholders and Executives. Consumers will feel free to spend real money again.

This slowdown is not driven by a lack of investment, but by a lack of spending and saving by workers. No matter how low the interest rates go if there is no consumption there will be no growth. Low interest rates are part of what got us into the very beginning stages of this mess. So Raise interest rates to encourage savings by consumers and flood cash into the lower levels of the economy.

Savings, Consumption, and Government Spending are three of the four things that make up GDP. These are the Big Three we need to be worried about. I am sorry to bruise the ego and delusions of the Monied elite, but they are just part of the equation and on occasion not the primary part of the equation.

No Fear

2008-11-16T17:03:00.002-06:00

"As with post- 9/11, we Americans are up to any task, anytime, anywhere.” - From Huffington Post Obama: Having Nothing to Fear, Not Even Fear Itself?

We will have to do much better than our less-than-sterling, paranoid performance after 2001. If there is an example of a "Fear" reaction, post-911 is it. Bush-Cheney played that to the hilt. We cannot begin by being willing to sell all that the US stands for to get some expensive false security.

The task now was made worse by the US jingoistic reflex to rally behind the President in times of emergency. In 2001 we had a Government that came into office with the full intent to use the first shred of pretext to go to war in Iraq. They were waiting to execute the plan of the Project for a New American Century. It appears that, as is often the case of Religion in America, the god that George Bush was listening to was not the God that he thought.

David Letterman is in my estimation as responsible for the downfall of Bush as anyone. In his "Great Moments in Presidential Speeches" segments he started with the Roosevelt Fear Speech. It was something that Americans needed to hear over and over. Once the US population stopped being swayed by fear, the Bush Administration lost influence.

We have to be brave and be willing to suffer some setbacks that are inevitable with the slowly crumbling Economy. There have been voices, mine for one, that have predicted this collapse for several years. When I told people that the US Economy would collapse people could not even begin to imagine what that meant or how it could happen.

Obama's biggest Challenge is to slowly begin to make Americans ready to having to live with much less than we have become used to by about 1/6th. He also has to make them ready them to face the fact that that we can never live the wasteful lifestyle we had drifted into by the end of the 20th Century. At the same time he has to give the US the hope of a good life ahead.

It will be a New Century for the United States, and it can be a good one. How we perform in the next 20 years will determine if it is good. We have to go into this with eyes wide open. If we cannot be honest about each of our parts in the decline of this Great Country then we can never see clearly how we fix it.

Basic Economics

2008-11-15T06:45:00.004-06:00

Economics is not a science, but the scientific method is of some use. One of those uses is to put the various factors in the economy into an understandable relationship. Once such relationship is stated in the Keynesian Formula that consists of the following make-up:

Consumption + Investment + Government Spending + Exports - Imports = Gross Domestic Product (C+I+G+X-M= GDP or Y)

Consumption is all of the purchases of Goods and Services. Investment is all the money that is placed in stocks and savings. Government Spending is all purchases by the government, and does not include "transfers". Exports less Imports means all that we sell outside of the US less that which we purchase outside the US.

This explains half of the economy. The spending part.

Gross Domestic Product is the same as income "Y". D = Y - T + t, where "D" is disposable income. "T" stand for taxes and "t" stands for transfers. So disposable income is equal to Income less Taxes plus transfers.

The two sides of economy look something like a plumbing system.

Corporate Welfare Queens

2008-11-14T07:22:00.002-06:00

If a person is on unemployment or welfare today they are REQUIRED to look for a job. If we are going to give out welfare to corporations they should be required to do what they are given money to do. Banks that paid dividends to their stock holders with that money and/or rewards to the management at the bank, need to be sent a bill for the amount spent in those actions and cut off of the Government dole. They can jolly well fail.

The least of us who look for help form the government have to live by these rules and failing for them means living on the street.

When an individual - and by law corporations are individuals - reaches out their hand for help they are all, poor and rich, the same. The rules need to be the same. I think that is pretty clear. The people at the higher income levels need to meet humility and submission like they have insisted that the lower income people do.

For all you Religious Right Republicans read Matthew 18:21-35. The Government is your earthly master. When Corporations are granted mercy, rather than squandering the mercy they need to use the mercy to extend the same to others. So quit harping about others personal failings and examine your own house.

With the Rights Come Responsibility

2008-11-09T08:09:00.003-06:00

Over a century ago the United States Government allowed corporations to be considered as individuals. This was not done so much for the Corporations, but so large businesses could continue uninterrupted by the frailty of humans. With this right comes the responsibility to act as good citizens, placing Country and the Corporate Family among the top priorities of the Corporate Identity. The Corporate Family consists of more than top management and the stockholders, it consists of workers that no more expendable than any other part of the family.

One major flaw in the way the people of the United States view themselves is that as individuals, with individual rights and privacy, are some how independent of each other. It is a dangerous lie we tell ourselves. Just as any other organism, all parts have different functions but are equal in importance.

We must as a people begin to look at ourselves and our world as being organic and interdependent. If we allow a subset of humanity to live without health care, shelter, sustenance, and education, we pay for the consequences of that in greater measure than if we just cared for all of the people in our society at the start. New stronger strains of old diseases are surfacing after growing in human petri dishes who were left untreated or under treated for these illnesses. If you go to a hospital you are as like to get sick with an infection as you are to get well. Often these infections are deadly.

This concern for all persons in society is not some issue of social justice. Justice is not organic, but a conception of man. It is a good conception but it was created because the survival of man the social animal moving toward being civilized depended upon it.

We humans, we Americans of the United States, stand at a point in time where what we do will determine our future on earth. That is no hyperbole. Resources on earth are limited, and the critical mass of use and misuse of those resources is at hand.

In a time where food is getting scarce, people in the United States carry unusable food as part of their bodies. Obesity is problem of multiple impact. IT its origin is in over eating and wasting of resources. It causes health issues for the obese that consume other resources lost in unnecessary treatments of self induced illness. In an organic world that which I consume in excess comes at the cost of someone else.

All individuals whether by birth or by creation must begin now act as a dependent being. We are individual and independent in certain rights, but dependent upon the protection of other's rights and welfare.

As we move further into this century we need to redefine who we are and how we think. All of our assumptions need to be examined. What works needs to be reinforced and what does not needs to be restructured to work.

Man can do great things. It is up to us and we can do almost anything we set our mind to if we do so with respect for Nature and Ourselves.

Get it Done with a man Who can do it.

2008-11-07T13:48:00.002-06:00

Rahm Emanuel is to be the Chief of Staff for President Obama. That is good.

President-Elect Barrack Hussein Obama

2008-11-05T09:17:00.003-06:00

Squaring Fact with Delusion

2008-10-30T05:00:00.002-05:00

“people have been very badly educated about Obama’s socialist beliefs,” - Carol Schorr, a retired teacher from Edgewood, N.M. (New York Times)

Yes, Ms Schorr, they have. Many believe he has socialist beliefs, when he does not. Somehow "Socialist beliefs" is so much more acceptable than the real difference that disturbs many in the good old USA. Muslim and terrorist just don't have the traction that Socialist does - today.

Why is there the need to have a political opponent be the devil? It seems that the human brain in some people is just not able to resolve the predominant idea of the intellectual that reasonable people can disagree.

Do not confuse intellectual with educated. A person can be educated and still not have the intellectual curiosity to grasp that truth is relative.

What makes a person able to receive an email filled with misinformation and incorporate the misinformation into their reality without question and then counter all other conflicting information as false or suspect.

Here is a rule that will serve one well. If you got your main information from an email that you did not bother to check out you are probably going to be disappointed later. We have over 4,000 dead soldiers in Iraq because people in the good old USA got the misinformation that Saddam Hussein was involved in "911". Pretty heavy price to pay for willful ignorance.

If one has email they are on the Internet and have access to unlimited information. Most people just do not bother to check out the truthfulness of a piece of information. That requires too much effort. It is just easier to be misinformed.

How Low Can You Go

2008-10-30T00:45:00.000-05:00

Double purpose title. New depths in campaign lies and more rate cuts from the Fed. Neither is good for the United States of America.

Senator Elizabeth Dole has a ad out that is just a lie. Not exageration or distortion, but a lie. It would be bad enough on its own but she had to use Faith as the base of this lie. How can you attack someone who is a Christian by saying they are a Godless Atheist and have any credibiblty in your person or your faith.

THen to the Fed. One of the things that led us into this Econimic Trap was low interest rates. The rates need to be raised and savings rewarded. I know that the goal was to encourage Banks to loan money by reducing their cost of getting money, but they can also get money from individuals via savings accounts.

For now consumption can not be the goal for the US economy. Savings and debt reduction must be goal for Consumers. If we save that turns into investment and the interest stays here in the US. That investment creates jobs and ultimately comes back to the pockets of consumers.

Sir, Facsim is Corporate Socialism.

2008-10-10T22:18:00.002-05:00

"Questioner: I'm mad. I'm really mad. And what's gonna surprise you, it's not the economy. It's the socialists taking over our country. [applause] Sit down, I'm not done! Thank you. Let me finish, please. [laughter]

"McCain: Excuse me. [laughter]

"Questioner: Thank you. I think its so important in today's country to see what we are missing and what's really going on. When you have an Obama, Pelosi, and the rest of the hooligans up there gonna run this country, we gotta have our head examined. It's time that you two are representing us, and we are mad! So go get em! [applause, chants of USA!]

"McCain: Well, I think I got the message. [laughter] Could I just say, the gentleman is right." Huffington Post

It is not Pelosi, Reid, and Obama that are the socialists. Corporate America is the largest succor on the Government Teat there is. It is they that backed Bush and paid the hacks in Washington - both Republicans and Democrats - to do their bidding.

They privatized profit and socialized loss. There are some very unpleasant realities about why we are in the financial mess we are in right now. It has little to do with Obama.

First, we have lived beyond our means for over 50 years and the bill has come due. Our Standard of Living is more about what we took from the rest of the world rather than what we created ourselves. For those who do not believe that I can give you a reading list if you are willing to face reality.

It is not that we are bad people, it is that we are willingly ignorant people. We have a lot of help being ignorant. Anyone paying attention over the last 40 years had all they needed to be aware of what was going on.

If you have fallen for the lies of the Republicans over the last 28 years, shame on you, but you had a choice. Welfare Queens are a myth. Liberals are not Tax and Spenders. Government is not the problem. It is not your money.

You were told all of these things because they play on peoples prejudices, and you believed them because it was easier than dealing with the complex reality that is life. If you did not believe them it meant that maybe you might have to give up something which scared you because you are not sure that other people are any better than you and that when you were down you would be out like you allowed so many other to be.

Hatred is born of fear, and without God we are all afraid.

1.2 Trillion, Whence goest thou?

2008-09-30T03:48:00.003-05:00

A blogger asked, "WHere did the 1.2 trillion go?" on Larry King last night and the answer was it vanished.

That needs to be expained further. How does 1.2 trillion dollars vanish? How did all the Enron money vanish?

The simple answer is that Money does not exist. Money is an artifice that man created to keep from having to carry everything he owns with him to barter for goods and services that he needs.

On wall street "money" is determined by price of financial instruments. A share of stock is worth what people believe it is worth and are willing to pay for it. So if I hold 10 shares of a stock that normally sells for 100.00 a share I am said to have $1000.00 of stock. That is not real money or real value that is the selling price at the current time. In fact it is "potential" money. So when the "bailout" was not passed on Monday, people got scared and were not willing to hold potential money and sold stock for "current" money, or the price they could get at the current time.

So my 10 shares begin to lose potential value as people were no longer willing to pay 100.00 a share. Let say at the end of the trading day my shares were said to be worth 10.00 a share. The 900 dollars I lost were not current dollars but potential dollars, and in reality never existed.

If I sell those shares and take my 100 current dollars then I have lost the 900 potential dollars. If I however hold that stock, then if the Market goes back up, I may regain some of the potential money.

So the answer is that the 1.2 trillion was never there, it was potentially there and those who stay in the market may gain back some or all of their potential money.

Just keep in mind that there is no real valuation of money, it is always potential when you hold it and has the actual value of what you can get for it at any given time.

The 1.2 trillion did not vanish, it was never there. All that was there was the potential of it being there.

The Economic Nature

2008-09-23T12:16:00.002-05:00

"Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke bluntly warned reluctant lawmakers Tuesday they risk a recession with higher unemployment and increased home foreclosures if they fail to pass the Bush administration's $700 billion plan to bail out the financial industry." - Yahoo News

It seems we are here because we believe that we, not God, can control the natural ebb and flow of the seasons of the Economy. A British Doctor once observed that Americans are the only people in the world that view death as an option.

It is the arrogance of the powerful to loose the humility that is required of man. Only God, or for the secularist Nature, controls the events of man. What is wrong with a recession.

The markets and the government both need to find a healthy humility and survive the hard times or continue the embrace of arrogance and be crushed in the inevitable fall. The down side is that the humble will also be crushed and destroyed by the repressive contraction.

No matter how high the tower or how strong, if you neglect the base the tower falls. If the Markets neglect the working man and woman that are the foundation of the American Economy and the American Experiment the Markets will fail.

When Adam Smith talked about the invisible hand he failed to mention that that hand had a back to it. The effects of that backhand is difficult, but healthy and inevitable.

RISK - Where is it?

2008-09-23T10:09:00.003-05:00

I listen, as I write this, to Bernanke say that there is a wide divergence between "fire -sale" price and "hold to maturity" price of "complex" financial instruments.

The main problem in this whole mess is the fact that the financial instruments are so complex. There is no need for this complexity. It is an artifice that is comparable to the complex rules of gambling games of Casinos.

The role of financial instruments is not to make money, but to raise money for use in a market system based upon the production of concrete value.

One who invests in the Financial and Securities market have a reasonable expectation to have a return on their investment that relates proportionally to the return gained in the actual production market that benefited from the investment. The derivatives on those markets, should never be guaranteed the same expectation of return.

If Risk is to mean anything it has to mean that one who holds highly risky instruments must suffer and gain from those risk without interference.

Pork, the White Meat!

2008-09-11T09:52:00.001-05:00

Life Without Hope, is no Life at All.

2008-09-04T13:40:00.002-05:00

Straight people who are not familiar with Gay people should never assume that just becasue they see gays now that they are free to be who they are. Just like Racism and Sexism, bigotry against Gays shapes the way Gays see themselves. If you are told your are a horse long enough you develop a taste for hay.

The Power of Power

2008-08-16T08:57:00.002-05:00

The United States and its Allies have built a strong industrial and technological economy and social structure. That structure is based upon Oil. The major political players in our world now look to the future and see Oil as a strategic resource. The problem with that is that the location of the oil is fixed, so countries who have oil have power over countries that do not.

Additionally countries that need oil may see it worth a fight to control Oil. That means that this Century will be one that is dominated by Oil Wars.

There is an alternate solution to that bleak prediction. There is no reason why we must fund a military-industrial complex and defence industry to build weapons that have not and will not keep us safe, when we can have an equally strong economy based on alternative fuels.

Right now Russia is using its huge Oil and Gas supplies as leverage to dominate the European Theater. The future of the US is in alternative energies for both environmental and security reasons.

FOX Faux News - Stop the Smears

2008-08-14T21:07:00.002-05:00

Most thinking people know that Fox News is not news but distorted Propaganda. They say what ever they want and call it True. The people who believe them are the worst hurt, because they do not have a change to make an informed decision. When the facts are given people can make up their own minds. They may come to different conclusions form the facts, but that is the way things are. Reasonable men can disagree, but at least get the facts straight.

Fox viewers, Fox thinks you are too stupid to know the difference between the garbage they put out and the truth. I don't. Let Fox know you can handle the truth.

Russian Point of View

2008-08-14T13:03:00.005-05:00

A word of Caution. This is Russian Television, but their point of view needs to be heard as well. There is precious little of this on the MSM. I guess it is better TV to have Big Bad Russia again, but please be accurate. It is quite possible that there is instead a Little Manipulative Georgia.

Is the Dog Wagging?

Response to McCain

2008-08-09T13:26:00.001-05:00

John McCain in desperation is attacking.

Which John McCain is running?

Hands That Built America

2008-08-08T12:35:00.002-05:00

Obama's ad to be shown during the Olympics. Strong ad on a reasonable plan to heal the economy at the same time we begin to repair the environment.

There is a lot not said here but what is said is great and hopeful.

Solution Not More Oil!

2008-08-04T14:02:00.000-05:00

The solution to our dependance on foreign oil is not to trade a foreign master for a local master. The solution is to move to renewable energy that replaces most oil. Wind and solar can be used on an individual level to by pass a national grid, but a national grid that gets electricity from solar, and wind is a vast improvment over oil.

Educate yourself on what is available and how to best move toward a responsible consuption level of resources.

McCain = Bush, Part 16

2008-07-30T11:47:00.000-05:00

My description of Bush has been that he is either a liar or ignorant. Now I find that is my description of McCain. He lies, or does not understand, about Obama's decision not to visit one group of Wounded Soldiers. Now he lies, or does not understand about Obama's position on Energy.

And Obama Hits back.

Being against off shore drilling off of the Florida Coast, where hurricanes frequently are very destructive, has nothing to do with more Foreign Oil. Obama has a clear policy on Energy that features US Independence form Foreign Oil. Click Here for Obama's Plan.

In fact, Obama understands clearly the connection between energy and the environment, a fact that seems to elude Pit Bull McCain. Truth and accuracy do not seem to have any part of McCain's attacks.

Click on Title Below for Obama's Fact Sheets:

Energy

Environment

Gore Proposes 10 Year Plan for 100% Renewable Energy

2008-07-17T22:32:00.000-05:00

Read Text of Speech

Perilously Close

2008-07-01T01:02:00.000-05:00

“This comes perilously close to suggesting that whatever the government says must be treated as true,” said the panel of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Am I missing something, but is this not exactly the mind set of the Bush-Cheney Neo-Con administration? Is there much they have done that does not fit into this model? Illegal wire-tapping, lying to get an unneeded "war" in Iraq, altering at will the Legislative process with "findings", farming out functions of governemnt to private firms outside of accountablility,renditions, sanctioning torture, and suspention of Habius Corpus.

Is there much left that they could have done short of just wading up Constitution and tossing it. The whole time the establishment has set by and allowed this.

What has changed? Why are people, some select people, just waking up now?

Bush was led to believe that God chose him to be President. What absurd arrogance. Now we wait to see if this administration who believes themselves not above the law, but the law itself, will as a parting gesture - or a gesture to prevent parting - attack Iran and begin the end of the United States as it was know prior to 2001. The terrorist activity did not begin on September 11, it began on January 21.

Absolutely Amazing

2008-06-24T14:07:00.000-05:00

"Do you dance and Sing?" - Maude to Harold in "Harold and Maude"

This young man dances, and dances, and dances...

Hope he continues.

Campaign Finaces and Ethical Behavior

2008-06-20T03:06:00.000-05:00

John McCain, me thinks you doth protest too much.

Democrats have allowed the Republican attack machine to chew them up and spit them out for far too long. They claim to be High-Minded, but they have just been dumb. Republicans are backed by Big Money industries like the Gun and Weapons Makers, Big Oil, Large Corporations, and the Defense Industry. Money flows like a river. Congress passes Campaign Fiance Reform and the these Money industries and the RNC get their lawyers to figure out how to make the best use of the clear money advantage these people have.

The effect has been that while there are limits on what a campaign can spend there is no limit on the non-campaign campaign spending. The Democrats have been out-spent and mostly out-witted.

It appears that Obama has decided that in this years back-alley brawl we euphemistically call a campaign he is not going to play by the old rules.

McCain protest that Obama made a pledge and went back on it. OK. I believe in doing what you say you are going to do, but sometimes fulfilling one promise requires backing out of another.

Campaign Fiances in this country are corrupt and a farce. Obama said that he was going to bring Change. The first big change we need is accomplish is to win the Election in the fall and not get blindsided by the Republican Attack machine.

Obama talks about this campaign not being about him but being about People taking control over their lives. He say "Yes we Can" not "Yes I can". To win the opportunity to change the way Washington operates we the people have a large role to play. Obama set up the means to have the money to win, but that is only part of the equation.

The Republican Attack Machine feeds on apathy and ignorance. If Obama is going to resist that machine then we, his supporters, are going to have to get involved. When the machine attacks we need to refute the attack and let people around us know what the truth is. The media takes the attack and amplifies it, but the most effective way to counter the media is one to one interaction with the facts.

Obama is talking to us directly and not allowing the Media to filter and distort his message. We, all million-and-a-half of us, will then need to pass that message on to counter the media's filtering and distortion. The media is not going to take the diminishing of their influence lying down.

The people of this country overthrew a foreign King as ruler, tamed the wilderness, and built the greatest economy in the world. We no longer need the media or the corporate interests to tell us what we need to do or who we are.

John McCain is not happy about that, and I do not blame him. He tried to be the change and just couldn't figure it out. Now he has gone over to the Dark Side and Obama has figured it out. It is Ironic and sad, for McCain.

The Presidential Race - White Caucasian

2008-06-11T06:44:00.000-05:00

Stuck here in Alvin, Texas, I am surrounded by closet racists. The difficult thing about Racism is that we are all subject to it, and good people can be strident racists. It seems to be part of the flaw of human beings.

I know that I certainly recognize in myself tendencies to reduce people to their look or skin color. I do not think it is abnormal to have these feeling. I also do not think it is abnormal to want something someone else has and want to take it from them. It is not abnormal, but it certainly is not conducive to civilized behavior.

That is the conflict. Paul in Romans talks about the two beings that are in all humans, the flesh and the spirit. There are many other ways to describe this conflict in man, but there is something that resonates in Paul's discussion. The flesh still is conflicted with the animal origins of man. The spirit is where man finds hope and safety.

It is not that men cannot find plenty of reasons to hate and destroy. The Palestinians and Israelis are not only the same race they are the same blood. If the Bible is to be believed, the Palestinian people are descended from the union of Hagar and Abraham. Despite this they have killed each other for centuries.

So when man has a visible marker to tell them when to hate, like skin color, it is almost unavoidable. In a country that says that all men are created equal one has to find an overwhelming argument to place another human in very unequal status.

This week the Southern Baptists are meeting in Indianapolis. It was the Southern Baptist Church in the United States that gave Slavery a fig leaf of acceptability by claiming that the Negro was created by God cursing Ham through Noah (Genesis 9:20-27).

All very confusing. The bottom line is that as ration creatures we should be able to rise above our more base instincts. Do we really believe that all persons are created equal, or do we believe that all people like me are created equal?

Obama says this is our time. He is exactly right. There is a generational divide, and a philosophical divide in the United States. All the misery that my generation went through with busing and forces integration has paid off. Young people are more likely to not consider a persons race or color as a barrier to a relationship. Young people as a rule are also more open to change.

People 50 and older need to just get out of the way. People my age may not want to socialise and mix with people who are different than us, but we are going to all be dead in another 20 or so years. The reality of this century is that will not be a White Century.

If this country is to survive, our instruments of Governance need to be open to all of the people of the United States. This is not a system that one inherits. Each generation has to earn anew the promise of self-governance by being a participant in that promise.

The writers of the Constitution anticipated that future generations would face very different challenges that those of the 18th century. They were wary of volatility of the masses, but they were not adverse to change. They sought a system that made it difficult to change because easy change is disruptive to social and political order, but they left plenty of room for change because they understood a future generation could not be free if they had to live under the rules of a time long past.

Who knows the heart of another? I see actions that appear racist, but intent is not always clear. Each person must take an inventory of their lives and determine their own course. For me that course is to hold to the principles and values that are positive and let those that are negative pass away.

So this year I am going to cast a partially racist ballot. I am going to vote for Barack Obama for a lot of reasons, but one is going to be that he is not a white Caucasian. We have to live in the world and I believe in his racial and cultural diversity he is the man to finally lead the United States of America across that bridge to the 21st century. After almost eight years maybe we can learn to see the rest of the world as our neighbors, you know, those people we are supposed to Love as ourselves.

Now is the time and we have a choice.

The Rules

2008-05-21T12:22:00.000-05:00

Bill Clinton used to talk about the people who played by the rules and worked hard everyday. It was part of his stump speech. It was a statement that playing by the rules is time honored American Tradition.

Now another Clinton in Modern Republican "Up is Down" fashion seeks to make not playing by the rules some noble cause.

I know that we are supposed to be "nice to Hillary" but it is clear to me that this argument, this episode of desperation, shows a fundamental flaw in Hillary's Character. She has an ambition that blinds her to the fact that the ends do not justify the means unless the means are consistent with the values of the end.

It does not seem probable that the Democrats will change the rules at this late date, but if they should I can not help but believe it will be the end of the Democrat Party. That party has been on life support since 1968. Should the rules be changed the plug will be pulled.

That aside, the arguments made by Hillary for changing the rules sound like they have clarity and meaning until you take them and apply them to any other circumstance. Two schools competing for District Championship by two equally good teams. One will win one will lose. Do the losers deserve to have the point value changed at the last minute because of all the hard work they have put in? Is it a denial of their rights not to win?

The arguments are those of a person who thinks only of themselves and their rights. That is plenty common today. but we need to discourage that and call it what it is.

The pundits say that because Hillary supporters are overwhelmingly unwilling to support Obama if he wins - or anyone but their candidate - and Obama supporters are more open to voting for Hillary that makes Hillary the better choice for the fall. What it really says is more about the support each candidate attracts. The better choice for the fall is the one who calls people to be their better selves. Clearly Obama does that and Hillary attracts racists and female sexists.

As I have said in other places voting for someone because of their sex is no less sexist than voting against someone because of their sex. Sexism is sexism regardless of the gender.

Hillary brings out the worst in us and to say otherwise is sending the wrong message to young girls all over the world. Once Hillary chose to use the Kitchen Sink strategy she lost her standing as a role model.

American is still a place that needs to reward the people who play by the rules and work hard, and that today is Barack Obama.

Open Letter to Tennessee GOP

2008-05-16T00:59:00.000-05:00

This letter was sent today.

Tennessee Republican Party
2424 21st Avenue, Suite 200
Nashville, Tennessee 37212

Dear Sirs,

I am writing in reference to your ad about being proud to be an American.

I am a 61-year-old white Texan. I have never understood the Pride thing. I am a citizen of the United States of America. That is a fact that I had little to do with. There are times when I am proud of the United States and times that I regret that I can not do more to stop some actions that are done in my name by the Representatives that I and my fellow citizens elect.

I am a Vietnam veteran, 1967-68, 15th Medical Battalion, attached to the First Cavalry. It was my duty as a citizen to serve but I was not proud of my countries participation in that conflict. I am equally embarrassed, saddened, and furious that we are again involved in destroying another country for no just cause and killing thousands of our troops. I am not proud of those leaders of my country who label people like me unpatriotic when I criticize this meaningless military action. ( it not a war because Congress never so declared it as that ) I am not proud that the "leadership" of this county sent our troops into battle without proper means of protection and then tried to stop citizens from paying for and sending to the troops that protection.

I can not say I am proud of the Constitution because I was not around when it was written, but I can say that I am thankful for those who did write it. I can say that I am proud to have been able to serve in the Military and exercise my duty even though I strongly disagreed with the mission. I am not proud that the current episode of adventurism was embarked upon by men who did not choose to stand beside me and my fellow Vietnam Veterans when they had the chance. I can not say that I am proud that so many of the privileged young men and women in this country who reap the greatest benefits of our system refuse to join the military and fight for the country of which they claim to be proud.

In regards to Michelle Obama, I know what she said, and when she said it. Like me I assume that there are times she is proud of the actions taken by the people of the United States and at times she is not. There is an old Indian saying that one should walk in a persons moccasins for a mile before judging them. My great-grand-parents nor any of my ancestors were held in Slavery by my country. I have not had the chance to be black and female in what is still a very racist and sexist country. Yes, both Barack and Michele have benefited by the opportunities of this country, they have often acknowledged that fact. It is also a fact that those opportunities are still not of equal proportion for all people in this country. There are still wide disparities in the access of opportunity based upon color, national origin, sex, and economic class. But the Obama's hung in there and prevailed, because that is want we do in this country.

The preamble of the constitution reads that we are striving "to form a more perfect union", not that we are a perfect union. We are as people imperfect, but we strive toward perfection. That requires that we objectively critique our leaders and fellow citizens when they err and take criticism when we err. I can tell you without reservation that the way to a more perfect Union is not through personal attack. Jesus instructed those who judged the woman at the wall that those who were without sin should throw the first stone. Jesus also tells us that as we judge so shall we be judged. If I were you I think I would think on that long and hard; I do for I do not know when that judgment will come.

So as your party enters into this campaign, be aware that there is possibly a new day in the part of America that is the United States. It is possibly a new day when most people just ignore the politics of the past and embrace civil politics where real issues are addressed and personal attacks and the attackers are recognized as being rather "un-American".

So I will choose here to give Michelle Obama the benefit of the doubt, and I will extend the same courtesy to you.

I am sure that as good citizens who Love their country you will refrain in the future from such attacks and concentrate on policy differences that you have with the Obamas. That is fair game and a discussion to which I will listen.

Respectfuly,

Roy E Pearson

Sack the Media - Sack the Bloggers

2008-04-30T06:16:00.000-05:00

I am having a hard time keep up with things that matter recently. I am pretty certain that I am reacting to the mind numbing drivel that is provided in the Main Stream Media in exactly the way that I am intended to react. I have long since given up trying to watch any of the news channels, and now am having difficulty with the Blogosphere.

The Internet is a place where Democracy should thrive, but it reflects the United States tendency, since the middle of the last century, toward mediocrity. I understand that I am no great writer, but my ideas are excellent - just ask me.

The norm is to take a position, then defend it till the death regardless of whether there is a viable defense or not. Women who decry sexism and then defend their vote for Hillary because she is a woman. Hey, babe that is sexism. It is also intellectually dishonest. Obama is strapped to Wright, while McCain gets to cuddle with Hagge who is just as hateful as Wright ever was. But then Wright directed his anger at the White Power Structure while Hagge directed his toward "faggots". In America it is always an easy thing to kick around a Homo.

In New Orleans this country got to kick around Blacks and Homos.

So here we are and the three people that are running for President are:

An ex-prisoner of war who in VietNam gave into to his captors and confesed to crimes he did not commit and now has given in to his Corporate Captors and will sing any song they tell him to so he can be President.

A woman who feels so entitled to the Presidency that she will do anything, includuing destroying what little there is left of the Democrat Party, to get into the Oval Office.

A black man who will no doubt be in real danger from the Corporate attack machine and the radical racists if he gets elected.

Well the first two clearly are just more of the same. So I guess I have to vote the submit Obama to certain destruction either in the campaigning process or the Presidency. Oh Well, he volunteered.

Fighting Off Boredom

2008-04-18T11:59:00.000-05:00

Clinton and Obama, Yawn. ABC Debate, Yawn. Dick Cheney mouthing off, Yawn. Pope and Bush, not a phrase I ever thought I would hear, but Yawn.

It is no wonder that the people of the United States tune out. The media has so often over reported and sensationalized events of importance and otherwise that a report of an asteroid heading towards earth on a path to total destruction of the earth would seem like just another days news.

I have a sneaky feeling that most would welcome the asteroid if only to escape the overload world in which we live. We would find out who is really honest and ethical if eminent destruction lifted all the sanctions for a good life.

Soldiers depressed. Gee, with endless deployments in an unstable and futile occupation of a country half way around the world, is it not logical that they would be depressed and stressed. Maybe if the media had done its job in 2003 then we would not have to worry about the mental health of US Soldiers in Iraq. It seems a statement of the odvious.

Please let it be January 21, 2009 and we have in the White House a leader that inspires us all to be our better selves. Also give him or her a Vice President that will do the same, because when we start to awake out of our stupor that the Corporate Media have induced it is going to really make the Facismos of the US Board rooms pretty darn mad.

They Volunteered, You didn't!

2008-03-25T07:57:00.001-05:00

Dick Cheney, you sorry excuse for much of anything. This is a great way to support the troops. Do you not understand that when you say such vapid things as, “They volunteered”, you expose yourself as the elitist charlatan that you are.

Yes they volunteered, and you didn’t. George Bush didn’t. The Young Republicans didn’t. Rumsfield didn’t. Half of the administration didn’t.

Because they did volunteer, you want to dismiss the fact that you and your administration did not provide them with proper protection in gear. You sent them into harms way with no real strategy to win and a failed battle plan. You dismissed every General that told you the truth instead of what you wanted to hear. All this led to 4000 lives given honorably to a dishonorable cause conceived by dishonorable men. You lied about why we went to combat and are still lying about it.

Yes they volunteered and you should be ashamed that you have showed so little respect for that willingness to serve .

NAFTA

2008-03-07T06:43:00.000-06:00

NAFTA was a flawed agreement, and was misused by corporate powers, but it vital to have agreements such as NAFTA. Free trade is a must for the survival of a free economy in the United States (US).

The US economy is in a tailspin fueled by several things. The huge debt incurred by the Iraq Adventurism is one of the main factors. Deficit spending and consumer debt weigh heavily in the equation, but just plain ignorance of our history and how economies work is the major factor.

Man wants security. He does not want a lot of change. In the post-WWII years there was a false economy built in the US that allowed many people to have jobs essentially for life. That false economy was predicated on the fact that because we were the only major power that was not bombed into the dark ages we were able to go anywhere and pretty much do anything.

The lost opportunity to change the world for the better was lost in this period and forces with in the US sought to build an empire from the ruins of WWII. So we took what we wanted, placed slimy dictators in resource rich countries, and blamed the ensuing mess on the Russians.

This is a myopic view and was much more complex that stated, but what I say here is accurate. Trade was not an issue. We were engaged in trade, just not voluntary trade. The US economy was pretty much self-contained without a lot of outside influences. The pseudo-science of Economics developed in the US based upon these illusions.

Then came Vietnam. The US disaster in Vietnam showed that for all the nuclear power we had, we were weak against indigenous guerilla warfare. Starting with the Shah of Iran, powers that had protected the US's access to cheap resources began to fall. In the 70's in the US the rising price of oil produced shock waves in the US economy.

Inflation skyrocketed. In the model of economics the cure for inflation is to shrink the money supply reducing demand and hence prices. This time the inflation was not caused by excess demand, but increased cost. The cost was determined not by the corporate powers in the US, but my oil producers in the Middle East. So when the Fed increased interest rates it slowed the economy, but inflation persisted, creating "stagflation". Rates can control inflation and growth only if the factors causing inflation and growth are within the structures which are affected by those rates.

The 80's brought in the Reagan Administration who railed against the Welfare State as the cause of all of the economic problems. The idea that by cutting taxes one could raise more taxes was all the rage. Reagan pumped money into the economy through defense spending. Interest rates dropped, inflation seemed to slow as the oil producers slowly adapted to their new wealth and began to act as businessmen rather than idealist radicals.

The fact did not change however that the US was no longer independent of the world economy. The first disruption was over and the US went back to business as usual.

Managing a Campaign

2008-03-06T08:52:00.000-06:00

Well Hillary fails again in my eyes. Her campaign seems to have hit a snag. Her people are fighting. How will her administration act? During hard times will the fight and bicker? Who is in charge?

Clearly from the events of the past few days, there are people in Hillary's campaign that think that they are smarter than her or are frustrated that she will not give them her ear. Why would a top aide go public if everything in the campaign were going great?

Just another great doubt about Hillary and my concern that the only motivation that gears her up is being President. That is not enough for me.

Less Hat, More Cattle? McCain Platitudes?

2008-02-13T08:22:00.000-06:00

"There's a great saying in Texas, all hat and no cattle," she told a boisterous crowd of about 12,000 at a college basketball arena in El Paso Tuesday evening as the shape of the latest Obama ballot victories were unfolding. "Well, after seven years of George Bush, we need a lot less hat and lot more cattle." Yahoo! News

First of all Hillary, it is not either a hat /or no cattle. The saying refers to one who dresses or talks (hat) like a cattleman, but has no cattle or any other true designation of a cattleman. In the hot Texas Sun all Cattlemen wear Hats, it is just that they have cattle.

That minor point aside, the fact is that you do not have any cattle either. You voted for the funding of the Iraq fiasco and then turned around and told us that you just didn't have all the facts. Kind of like trying to sell 200 head of cattle and then when it turns out you don't have any and saying that you just didn't know what cattle were.

In this race cattle is the equivalent of integrity. Integrity means a lot of things, but one of those is that you take personal reponsibilty for your action. "If I knew then what I know now" is not taking personal responsiblity. People who have lives to live everyday may claim they were fooled, that is not good, but unaviodable. You on the other hand were given a job, a sacred trust, to be informed so the people can live their lives, do their jobs, raise their families. You failed to do that, and when it came time to own up, you offered only a hat - a cover.

In other news reports, John McCain displays his inability to even begin to understand the frustration that voters feel with the lot of candidates before them.

In his victory speech, McCain also included a not-so-subtle dig at Obama. "To encourage a country with only rhetoric rather than sound and proven ideas that trust in the strength and courage of free people is not a promise of hope," he said. "It is a platitude." -Salon

What exactly are the "sound and proven ideas that trust in the strength and courage of free people?" Lying? Distorting the progress being made in the "war" in Iraq? Pretending that the economy is fine and George Bush has a 45% favorable rating? The platitude, it turns out, is his own statement. The Promise of Hope is someone other than the people who have been intimately associated with the Hope-less Political System that allows the "war" to limp on, Deficits continue to bloat, and the core of the American Economy - the Middle Class - to be left dangling as the economy drifts into near depression. In the last Century there were four Presidents that came through on the "Promise of Hope", the two Roosevelts - Teddy and Franklin, John Kennedy, and Bill Clinton. Reagan offered the Promise of Hope and failed to follow trough, taking the country into the status of "debtor nation" for the first time since Teddy Roosevelt.

Obama my not be able to deliver on the Promise, but it appears he is at least offering it when McCain only offers scary left-overs.

Buy Shoes Save Lives

2008-02-08T16:12:00.000-06:00

Have not fully checked out this group, but how can I argue with this:

"We will not embrace the hate handed down to us. We will not retaliate. We will not repay evil with evil. We will use business - yes, even fashion - we will beg; we will teach; we will make film and sing our songs; but whatever we do we will do with love, because “…love never fails.” Trade and aid; commerce and charity. To give ourselves away. We choose Preemptive Love."

The Trillion Dollar Question

2008-01-19T08:02:00.000-06:00

Why are we in Recession?

There is age old wisdom that should be applied here, but the men who make up our Government now are not wise, nor do they revere wisdom. They exhaust themselves above all others and council themselves that they are by higher power above all others.

Wisdom is above all. Wisdom is found in search of humility.

A Classic Recession is part of the cycle. Have we not heard in verse and in song that there is a time for all seasons. A recession is not a thing to be avoided but a needed cycle in the economic life of a country. Recession is not a disease but a required phase. The economy will grow and then there will be rest, then the economy will grow again.

Were the idiot in the White House Chaucy Gardener, or more fitting his real name Chance.

The problem is that this is not a Classic Recession. In our refusal to accept the bounds of nature we have brought our economy to the point of exhaustion. We were not spending real money before we started to dip into recession - which was a lot longer ago than the last or current quarter. We were spending debt. Deficit spending when it is our own money is one thing, borrowing from others is quite another.

I need no grand economic models or intricate formulae to know that if I continue to spend that which I do not earn I will be in serious trouble, indebted to those who I turn to for help. The right wingers and Neo-Cons bridled when Clinton had US troops under the command of our allies, yet when their pocket book is being tapped they cozy up to people whose interest are not our interest and kiss them in an unholy embrace.

We are an arrogant, self-indulgent people, led by people that reasonable men would not follow to the store down the street. These people lie, to themselves and to us. They no longer fear our knowledge that they lie. In the "stimulus" package, which is little more than a fix to people addicted to spending, they can not even say who the the stimulus is for. Like an addict desperate for his fix they say whatever is needed to get the money to get high again.

We do not need any tax cuts. Tax cuts are on the list of the things that got us here. The Lafer Curve is having the last laugh at our expense. You can not spend your way out of debt. You can not borrow your way out of debt. Simple rule, if you want money you either have to work for it or steal it.

Work for it means that you produce or provide something of value for money or payment. Steal it means that you fool someone into giving it (money) to you for effectively nothing (definition if the current Financial Industry).

As we claim to be a Christian Nation, we need to head the words of Wisdom that our Jewish brethren have handed down to us. "He that loveth Silver shall not be satisfied with Silver, nor he that loveth abundance , with increase; this is also vanity." Ecclesiastes 5:10. We know the verses of Ecclesiastes from popular songs, but we do not know the Wisdom in our hearts . The United States' god is money and we are led astray.

"The sleep of a Laboring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much; but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him sleep." Ecclesiastes 5:12.

The stimulus this Country need is to save. Bring our extravagant hearts into the humility of discipline. We need to feel the want and devastation we have allowed throughout the world in our name, and find again our souls.

The prescription for this Recession, is as follows:

Personal:
Live within ones means.
Discipline oneself to save at least 2% of their income.
Search ones Faith, whether it be in theology or science, and find the truth that we are unavoidably bound to each other and the keeping of the same.

Government:
Raise interest rates slightly to reward savings without stifling reasoned investment borrowing.
Support the maintenance of the employment of the laboring man.
Offer the means for individuals of low income to participate in the increase of our wealth that our wealth will stay with us.

We have a clear choice, either accept discipline upon ourselves or have discipline heavily disposed upon us.