The Independence Party

The Music of the Waterfall

2010-10-17T20:24:00.004-04:00

Buried in photos left to me by my father, relinquished to him by my mother at her death, bequeathed to her by my grandfather, and with few annotations whatever, are photos of him and his first bride, sometime after 1911 I believe, on their honeymoon to celebrate their marriage in that year. As hundreds of thousands of young couples then and now, they traveled the flat upstate of New York to see Niagara Falls. There are photos of him and his wife, another young couple, and my great grandmother, ... What was she doing there? A different era perhaps, or perhaps she had never traveled from Schenectady to see that wonder when it was her turn. No one needs a chaperon on their honeymoon, least of all a mother in law.

But that is not the purpose of this essay. The focus for now is upon the waterfall itself, and the realizations that came to me when I saw the photos from that trip almost 100 years ago.

Twenty years ago, in my backyard, ... my wife and daughters pointed to a patch of ground beside our deck and in full view of the family room windows, for me to create a water garden, a Koi Pond. My father was an engineer, and my mother a pianist, ... and the essence of the concept of the pond I hoped to create was a wonderful and durable garden for fish and plants, Summer and Winter, ... and a waterfall to play music for us and our children, and theirs someday.

The dig was daunting, with gneiss boulders, some 50 or 60 pounds, ... and in the end I lined a "quarry" of orange stone with a rubber sheet to retain the water for the life it would contain. It was plumbed, of course, ... a pump, and a succession of replacements, drawing water through a filter to sift leaves and twigs, and breakdown waste from fish and plants, ... and pump freshened water up a hill of about three feet, to a stone lined water course, over stones and slate plates, ... to splash into the pond once again. Anticlimactic, ... but hopefully enjoyable to the ear.

There was no sound, ... not even the splash you might hear when you draw a tub of water for a bath! I was destroyed, for more than any other feature of this pond, I wanted to hear the sound of cascading water, ... and could not fathom why I did not.

When it came to me in my sleep, I realized something I would understand confirmed in the photos years later, ... there was no sound, for there was nowhere for the sound to resonate.

Waterfalls are no different than a guitar, or a jaw's harp, or a mandolin. The sound occurs in a limited space, a vibrating string or spring, ... a splash of water against a stone. It is the space behind the vibration that causes the sound to resonate and refocus the sound for our enjoyment. Without the box we know as a guitar or mandolin, ... the sound would dissipate in space and be lost. Without a chamber behind the splash of water, the sound absorbs into the ground, and air, in all directions without any amplification.

And so, beneath and behind the last level of the water that cascaded down the stones in the waterfall, ... I created a box, a space, ... in which the sound of the splashing water could collect, and focus toward the porch, the deck and the windows. A "guitar" made of stone and strung with strands of splashing water. Only then did the waterfall sing to our family, at last. And then, ... the frogs came to sit in that box,.. to sing to us and taunt our dogs, ... and the Koi would slither up into that space on a skid of water, enjoying the splash and air and water together. Important to let the water meet the water, so the life can enjoy it too, ... I later realized. Suddenly life focused at the waterfall, which runs even in the dead of winter to aerate the pond, and keep the fish healthy. The failure of water flowing in the waterfall is a calamity that calls me in short order to repair.

Years later, I realized that Niagara, as many falls do, has carved out its own "sound box" with the rushing wash of water, and the erosion behind the stones at the base of the falls. The incredible rush of sound is the natural consequence of the "mandolin" shaped cave the falls themselves have carved behind the place the rushing waters splashed, ... carved over millenia.

I hope to build more waterfalls in my life, ... and tune them to play beautiful music from the water that traverses their steps. More than that, ... I hope to share the appreciation for that sort of understanding and the musical accompaniment they provide, ... as part of being Human, and understanding the gifts that are all around us.

Perhaps it is our best purpose not to splash and dash through life, but to reflect those things around us as they occur. Others may be the perfect object of that for us, ... their sounds amplified by our facing them as they live their lives. And in that reflection, we become a place where life is attracted to shimmer and tinkle in glimmering joy. Simply reflecting the joy around us.

Man in the Moon Image from the BP Robot Probe

2010-05-06T22:44:00.008-04:00

This interesting expression is a sort of "Man on the Moon" face, a la Jules Verne, image from the BP probe which was assessing the oil gusher beneath the ocean seems to sum it up nicely! It is a cropped frame from the linked video.

My impression was exactly the same as the expression on the still shot, as the video continues to come in from the spill. That is , ... "WTF?"

2010-01-22T16:11:00.003-05:00

No Anonymous Donations Allowed

Yesterday's Supreme Court Decision to remove all limitations on corporate expenditures in politics will have ramifications across the governance of our nation that can scarcely yet be imagined. That fact, while undeniable by supporters or detractors of that decision, does not in and of itself portend whether those effects will be positive or negative, and, as can be imagined, no corporations have released news of how they will use or abuse the new opportunity to twist American Politics back upon itself under their newfound ability to outspend all parties, and all donors.

And so, if you are a person reading this, ... and you are, for corporations are truly insensate organisms, ... the imagined reality of one or more human minds, who already had a right to donate and speak or not (foreigners are not allowed in American Politics except through this loophole provided by five justices), and absolutely without emotion, ... save, that is, for the stockholders and employees, who always had the right of other persons to speak politically, ... no more and no less.

This fact, ... that a corporation is an entity created not to replace its owners, but to protect them personally, isolate them from identification, and organize them collectively into a business venture, means that owners who were citizens already can speak twice, and without limit on the expense in doing so. Yet the funds would not come from their own assets, ... rather from the assets of the corporation, ... with its special tax treatments, and protections from individual liability. Score one advantage the corporation has over the person in American politics. To be clear, nothing precludes the creation of a corporation for the sole purpose of political action, ... nothing.

And what of the liability? It would seem the corporation can speak from behind the corporate veil of limited liability, and say almost anything it would like against a political opponent, ... far more than it is allowed in business. "Free Speech" is free for all in the public place of ideas, while it has severe limits in commerce. Where will the limits be placed, and how will we know when a corporation speaks "politically" and not "commercially". Could that one right become a defense against the other limitation? Score two points for the corporation, who may just have escaped the shackles of commercial obligations and regulatory limits, ... by being brought to life by Scalia and Company. If you doubt the risk, ... imagine how a firm like Pfizer will spend its campaign dollars to avoid settlements with the government for alleged misbehavior in the market. How much influence could be bought with even half the $ 427,000,000 they paid in settling a single complaint for selling beyond the approved uses for only one medication! How do you think the FDA will act in the future, when similar complaints are lodged against this or other corporate behemoths?

It becomes clear that, just as we person voters and donors must register to vote, or disclose our identity when we donate or advertise, corporations MUST be made to do the same. There can be no facade or charade allowed by these entities who have been granted access to the political landscape by this farcical, and disastrous decision.

Just as anyone can see that I gave $ 50.00 to this candidate, or $ 100 to that party, ... we must know the highest and truest identity of every corporate political donor, the specific amounts they have given, to whom, and when. The penalties for perpetrating identity fraud, ... E.g. Pfizer donating as "Americans for Healthcare Freedom, Inc.", or some other corporate subsidiary, and should be directly proportional to the total donation amounts given under that name. So, ... if I gave $ 50, and lied about my identity, ... I would face a fine of, say, 10 times that amount, or
$ 500. If "Americans for Healthcare Freedom, Inc." gave $ 100,000,000 under that identity, when they were principally owned by Pfizer, and the entity was used to obscure the fact that Pfizer gave that money, ... then the parent corporation would be liable for $ 1,000,000,000 in fines. Ten times. Fair is fair, as they say.

And how are we to know?

A good friend had an ingenious idea as we absorbed this disastrous news of yesterday over a glass of wine last evening. As she suggested, there are "crawls" at the base of almost every news or business channel on TV, moving streams of text that alert the viewer to important information. Every political ad should be made to carry a crawl which details the donors and advertisers in support of any politician's campaign, ... not as part of the ad, ... but from a database provided at the FEC (Federal Elections Commission) at the time of broadcast. This would be mandatory, and would, by law be applied to every ad broadcast over the air, on cable, satellite, or internet advertising. In print advertising the same would apply, ... and should require 10% of the advertising space or copy, to be reserved for the top 10% of donors and advertisers on behalf of a candidate's campaign, ... again to be downloaded by the publisher so as to be current at the moment of print. Radio and audio advertising should be required to allocate the last 15% of broadcast time to name the top donor or advertiser, and the amount of donation or cost of advertisement, ... E.g. "As largest advertiser on behalf of the candidate, Pfizer Corporation has spent $ 225,000 toward this candidate's campaign for this office."

Why be concerned with all this?

Truly, Gulliver has come to our political Lilliput. Not some benign giant who traveled to our shores to bid us well and learn our ways, ... but rather to change everything about our political way of life. The analogy is apt as well for there appear to be no limits on what foreign Gulliver owns the corporations who are allowed to speak in our elections. Anyone anywhere in the world who owns a corporation may speak, it seems. Place of registration? Nation where shares are traded? Those appear to mean absolutely nothing to the five majority justices on the bench in DC. If so they need to speak very quickly to avoid an avalanche of ads from overseas.

Corporations here who are owned by the governments or citizens of Dubai, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, England, France, China, Viet Nam, ... you name it, ... have the same right now to advertise on behalf of US politicians as do you or I, and far more money than we have to do it. Is that truly what American Corporatists imagined when they let loose this zombie Gulliver upon our body politic?

Why would foreigners want to advertise in support of one American Politician over another?

I can't imagine!

Bright Days, Dark Thoughts

2009-04-24T22:11:00.003-04:00

When the election of 2008 arrived, and its result became known, ... the world was passing into darkness, ... at least the Northern Hemisphere. The economic world was only beginning to grasp that its fate was sealed by men who had sapped it of every asset it had, ... and destroyed the very mathematics of its accounting, ... in such a way that some of them pretended to be the only people on the planet who understood how to unravel its intricate and perverted weavings, ... evil geniuses who had placed our own worth beyond our reach by investing them in trash heaps of securitized crap, ... instruments only a mortician could love. Worthless, ... or worse, ... for they could draw down the value of other assets by association, ... like losing your job because your college roommate sold drugs once upon a time.

And now the rest of us, the ones who did nothing but work, and work some more, at one job, or several, ... we struggle to make our payments. We angrily answer "Opt-outs" from credit card lenders when they raise rates, and drop our credit lines, ... and they hope, ... believe, that we will not remember their practices. In the end we who pay our bills did nothing but make them money, ... dollar after dollar! When the rates of return to their depositors dropped deep into single digits, they raised our credit card rates from 9, to 11, to 19,and then to 30 percent. Over and over. Miss a due date by an hour and you are trash, ... in default.

We know their names. Bank of America, ... Citibank, ... Chase, ... American Express.

There will come an end to this economic madness. We will find credit from some source when we need it to buy a home, a car, the necessities of life, and the exigencies we have not planned into our budgets. For those these banks come to us, and our leaders in Washington. For our part perhaps we seek their help when we should seek each others' help. I will bank at my Credit Union from here on out.

The banks, ... these megalithic money machines, ... seem hell-bent on self-immolation and destruction. My experience convinces me that I should never again use them for my business or my personal finances. Let them die, I say. I'll settle my accounts and then I will be done with them forever. They serve no purpose that I can see.

Sears, ... Penney's, ... other retailers, ... I'll do business with you directly. Only, that is, after you dump GE, and Citibank and BofA. Cut out the middle man. They are the reason I will not buy from you or borrow to do so. THEY are the reason our credit system is fouled.

Perhaps another day we can discuss where your goods are made. For now, ... I need your credit again to help me buy what I need. Dump the banks, and let's you and I talk!

A Case of Identity Theft

2009-01-21T09:03:00.002-05:00

On this Wednesday after the Tuesday, the paperwork will be filed away. The principals have been identified, and their names made public. The attention during the culmination of this case, was directed toward the victims, as it should be. Those who perpetrated the theft of the identity of so many were placed on public display, even confronted with a degree of public disdain, and then silenced. They were dispatched, and denied the power to commit that same crime again.

The man who then stood before us, the People whose identity had been stolen, and then defiled repeatedly, spoke kindly, but directly. The recovery from these crimes would be lengthy, but certain, he said. We ourselves were complicit by our permissiveness, even by our naivete. We must remain vigilant, and committed, went his advice. Our identity was a bequest, ours to guard and to partake in, but not to own outright.

This Nation, We the People, have received what may be a reprieve. Our reputation and standing is diminished. Our purposes are suspect. Our history is stained and unfamiliar on the pages we have lived for many years now.

But in this theft of our identity as a People, we were witting accomplices. There were, and remain signs that our election processes was subverted. We handed money to corporations who were unaccountable for their services, for serving our soldiers putrid ice and water, electrocuting them in their showers, and diverting our national wealth to purposes even now undiscovered.

A few spoke out, and then more. Our law-makers stood mute for the most part, or shook their feeble fists in the air, only to let them drop to their sides and claim there was nothing they could do. Our judges gave us rulings, none heeded by the King. Every norm in our society was at risk of breaking down.

We will not carry our wallets in our baggy pant pocket, nor carry it dangling in a purse upon our outstretched arm. We know these men who prowl the public walkways in search of claiming to be "We the People", but who are truly "We the Powerful". Will we know them when they are on the sidewalks again, looking to overcome a trusting people?

Perhaps. For now we stand wary of them. May it ever be so.

Melamine, and Merill Lynch

2008-10-10T19:14:00.004-04:00

In the 1960's, BBC television produced a program, "That Was The Week That Was", known by its acronym at the time as "TW3". That programme paid a particular tribute on the day after our President, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, was assasinated in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. That broadcast, with its absence of satire, and commemorative notes, was reknown for its respect, of civility, and propriety, not for its own British audience, but for Humanity, and for America. To Britain, I belatedly send my thanks after what has also been a difficult, though ultimately material, week.

This week in which the world collectively shuddered at the effects of human greed, of irrational judgement, of the impropriety of governance, and the effects of toxic offerings, seems typical of our times. While images of infants in China with intravenous lines in their foreheads pronounce judgement upon the deception about simple staples such as milk, images of America's elderly being stripped of their retirment savings cross our screens and fill the pages of the internet. Iceland stands on the brink of financial collapse, simply due to her dependence upon banking as commerce.

For a moment let me turn my concern to the loving parents of children who were intoxicated by melamine in their milk supply. It seems many if not most of the children are in China itself. I send their parents, the siblings and the children themselves, my love and prayers. I pray they recover their health, and enjoy life playfully engaged in childhood, and not in being treated perpetually for organs that failed because they received a poison in their milk or formula. Perhaps the introduction was inadvertent, .. or supposed to be inconsequential. It is a tragedy that our children reveal our adult failures, ... even when it is on a global scale.

So what of the global economic collapse? What connection could I possibly draw to melamine and babies on dialysis half a world away? Perhaps simply that some concepts of finance, and some instruments to conduct investment, can in and of themselves be so distantly separated from the economic metrics they are meant to reflect, that they are in and of themselves dangerously deceptive, both for their safety and for their risk.

What do I mean by this? Let me draw an analogy. If you went to drive your car, and instead of a straight forward choice of R, D, D2, and D3 or D4, ... you were confronted with a choice of "R1d1, R1d2, ... D1r1, D1r2, D2rr1, d2rr2, ... etc.", and so you see the complexity of an absurd collection of investment options.

Some are simple, based upon market ups and downs. Others are more complex, ... based upon wagers that things will go down, and buying on a promise or margin. Then others are based upon derivatives, ... you remember, calculus-type relationships of ups and down over time and such. Nothing human beings can intuitively understand, and therin lies the rub. No clear-cut winner or loser, for the terms are such that you can not know directly the result. The result of the "market" is derived from the many factors that were direct results, and then determined indirectly, as a derivative, of what occurred. You know, ... like "magic"! , the sort of thing that we are meant to not understand, and to simply accept.

The new sorts of financial instruments that have been marketed by American Investment Bankers are toxic, no less than melamine is to infants. They abuse the trust of investors, both professional, institutional and personal. They are confusing and deceptive. They are indirect, and so they might have seemed inviting. The effects of their failure, however, seem now to be extremely direct, no less than a bullet through a dark curtain.

A severe retrenchment is inevitable. Liars and thieves are like seventeen year locusts. They strip the leaves, kill some trees and disappear for a while. In their wake We, the survivors must assess what we are to do next. The deaths, ... the families destroyed through panic and despair, are a lesson once again that we are not what we own. We are who we are. I will wave to you, and offer to share with you what I have and can grow, in order that we all know we will make it through.

Others will hunker down in their homes, shotguns in hand, protecting thmselves against the unkown. In the end, there is no one there outside, of whom you should be afraid. What you seek to protect inside, ... the things you love the most, and would guard with your life, have sadly been rendered worthless by the men you asked by your vote to govern us all.

They have failed us all. There remains only you and I. We will begin again. When you have grain and I have vegetables, ... and there is some wood close by for heat, ... we will all begin to recover.

I am so thankful that you are my neighbor and my friend. Your children are my treasure, and mine yours. That simple truth is what we forgot, and that which once upon a time had made us Human.

I am so thankful this dark week is ended, and a brighter week begun. Nothing has changed, of course, except my thinking, and my realization that we are all together, and all alive.

Prospects for a Politcal Loose Nuke

2008-04-26T17:16:00.003-04:00

While the Democratic primaries are weeks from being over at this writing, the prospect the election and caucus outcomes that remain will resolve the nomination for the Party is virtually nil. For the young, that is anyone alive since the MSM have homogenized our nation into a quasi-monolithic political entity, albeit with two "parties" to represent our "diverse" differences, this prospect, that there might remain a degree of indecision about the outcome until the convention in Denver in August of 2008, may feel unnerving.

In the end there can really be only one of two outcomes. Either Barack Obama will face John McCain for the office of President, or Hillary Clinton will do that. It is the strategic prospects for each that require consideration by the Democrats, and in particular, the Super-Delegates who are likely to face the decision which candidate deserves the nomination, and more importantly, which candidate can deliver the Nation the stated objectives of their personal candidacy and the Party Platform.

For today, I will conjecture on the prospect of Clinton returning to the White House. Not Hillary by election, but Bill, on her coat tails, or would it be proper to describe them as "apron strings"?

Many Hillary supporters discount any concerns about him returning to the White House because they are truly more enamored of Bill than of Hillary. It is his return they seek, and a restoration of what they believe was the last period of conscientious governance over our Nation. They yearn for the 1990's once again, and for the opportunity to replay the "9th Inning" again. Hillary's campaign alludes to such a prospect, albeit cautiously.

Others in her camp contend that she deserves to run, and stand on her own merits, and be elevated to the office without any consideration whatsoever about Bill being her spouse. It makes no difference in their minds, and connotes sexist bigotry toward her, they argue, to concern ourselves with his effect upon her candidacy, or the prospects of her presidency.

Both notions are naive, and each is fraught with the risk of self-delusion in defiance of simple political pragmatism. The graver concerns, however, come of Bill Clinton's engagements since leaving office, as a speaker, an investor, a partner in various businesses, and as a paid lobbyist.

The number of hypotheticals that can be raised from such a person being spouse to the President of the United States are nearly infinite in number. The law, it should be noted, has never been written which would address many of the possible legal concerns.

For example, if a legal case were brought, that by accepting fees for supporting a foreign entity's interests, say Colombia, that the First Gentleman had been paid a fee, say $ 800,000, which then had accrued to the joint interest of the President, Hillary, ... would she be able to testify against him if some impropriety or conflict of interest were to be alleged against him, ... or against her? Would she be able to claim immunity against testifying against him as his wife?

At a more basic level, should his access to the White House and his wife's ear, particularly in light of his previous occupancy of the office, preclude him from continuing to speak in public on governmental issues, and being paid to do so? Would this, or could this, continuing occupation as a speaker for personal gain, be seen as a conflict of interest in his role as spouse to the President? Should it be left at the door to the White House if his wife is elected, ... and remain out of bounds until she has left office? I would argue it should. Bill would argue, ... I presume at $ 150,000 an hour, that he should go his merry way throughout the coming administration and be allowed to speak anywhere, and at any price, about almost anything.

I believe it is these sort of heady and knotty issues which would inevitably arise in a second Clinton White House. I've not heard anyone raise them publicly. I hope we don't wait until November to ask them for the first time in a political forum of some kind!

My barber, Sal, had more practical concerns about the Clintons coming back when we spoke earlier today. He wondered whether the Clintons would "steal more stuff from the White House when they leave office again the next time"! My guess is, come November, ... that will sway his thinking even more than some convoluted concern I might bring up about man and wife, and Common Law, and honoraria.

It is strange what drives politics in the end. The experience of power in office seems to drive a sense of almost unlimited entitlement. "Pay me what I ask, and I will tell you what I know!" Or maybe a quiet conversation with staff member to " ... slip that ashtray with the Presidential Seal into that box over there." Strange indeed!

Wal-Mart and Freddy Krueger

2008-04-01T19:41:00.002-04:00

While I do have a contract with my employer, I have no contract with Wal-Mart to purchase from them, nor even to visit their stores.

Corporate defenders argue that poor Wal-Mart was subject to terms of their coverage contract with their "health insurance company". Really? Perhaps this mindless behemoth of retailing could stand up for its employees and tell their (many) insurers that they could "shove" the terms of their contract, ... or even spot their former employee the $ 470,000 the suit sought to recover. After all, it was all about the money from the beginning as far as the insurance company was concerned.

In the end, the taxpayer covers Wal-Mart's sad butt on this one, ... for their former employee falls onto the MedicAid rolls. I am pleased to pay taxes to care and provide for their former employee since they would not. Who made out in their deal? The insurance company and Wal-Mart? No, ... for Wal-Mart lost customers permanently, as you can read above. How many more new customers will Wal-Mart need to replace us in a deteriorating economy? Or do you think you will become the Woolworth's of the coming depression? Be careful, Wal-Mart, what you wish for!

Who was the insurer? Was there a contractual provision to recover costs paid, ... or is this just another specious argument to defend a corporate misdeed? "Misdeed"?, you Wal-Mart shareholders might screech, as if assaulting a corporation is akin to the permanent bodily injuries sustained by this woman, this mother.

In the end, a corporation is a human invention created solely to avoid the inconvenience of having a soul. For Mankind to maintain a semblence of control over its existence, it must, on occasion, take these mindless devices to the precipice, and throw them into the abyss. The "chapters", "11", "13", and so forth, read like Freddy Krueger novels, and allow corporations to be reincarnated in ways we mortals can only envy.

I've owned a corporation, worked for them, and invested in them. They are harder to kill than roaches, and spread more misery among us than the plague. Our fascination in them is based upon the greedy notion that if we strip our conscience from its "unholy" effect upon our investment dollars, ... we will succeed where our conscience would otherwise fail us. We will grow wealthy, and excuse any ill-gotten profits by this cognitive dissociation we call "the corporation". What a sick premise for how we should interact upon the Earth with one another.

I will buy from my local hardware store, ... the one I worked for as a kid. I will buy from my locally owned dairy and convenience store. I'll shop smaller and wiser, ... not "big box". I'll shop local and live local.

Wal-Mart will never know I am gone, for I was never there. But in the depths of their market research department, there is a database swelling with a number of American Consumers whom they can not touch, ... not with their schmooze, nor advertising, nor public relations. They know, ... somewhere in the bowels of the corporate offices in Benton, Arkansas, ... that some of us feel closer to this brain-damaged mother of a dead soldier, ... than we do to our 401K and 403B investments in their corporation. And that, ... in the end, will cost Wal-Mart Billions of dollars. Because, you see, ... I'd rather rather pay taxes and rest assured this mother is cared for, than buy from Wal-Mart, knowing they did not give a damn!

In the end, I was not born to fuel Wal-Mart's profits, ... but to understand what it means to have a friend, a mother, or a neighbor need my help. In the midst of an economic slump, ... a "recession", ... or whatever we find ourselves in, ... it is all the more important that I side with people, ... and not corporations. We are, you see, at the precipice again. Every hand I have held or shaken is worth far more to me than a slip of paper granting me a "share" in a corporation. No matter whjat the shares traded for today, ... they are always worth less than the people behind the corporate veil.

When did we forget that?

This Is How We Begin Again

2008-03-18T18:49:00.002-04:00

At its beginning, the appearance was delayed, with technical false starts, and hesitations. Then, he came to the microphones, ... adjusting them, fidgeting a bit with them, ... and it seemed in that moment his comfort and purpose and stature returned.

Barack Obama spoke to us all today. He is, coincidentally, running for the nomination of his party to become President of the United States. I say "coincidentally", because today's moments before us, in which he voiced truths he understands clearly and personally, to the American People, had less to do with his run for the presidency, than about us all. It was as if he asked us all to pause, in essence saying that unless we decide upon the basis of our relationship as a people, we can not even go ahead to the coming primary elections, let alone the general election in November.

Why did he discuss race at all? Why bring up this all too apparent attribute which so apparently stands in his way on the path to the White House? The answer to that, ... is the very essence of his speech today. He was forced to do so as a result of personal affiliations with a minister. As the son of a white woman, raised by a white grandmother and grandfather, ... what could stand in his way? Was it simply his father? Was it the fact that his "race" was determined to be "less than white" because his Kenyan father was Black? The "appearance" that Barack Obama presents to the world in the light of day, is that of a man whose parents had different skin colors, hair texture, height and ethnic origins. Ironically, the gift he gave to America today was based upon his clear understanding of the experiences of both his mother and father, his grandmother, his fellow Americans, Africans and Asians.

I have heard politicians speak when cornered. This was not that sort of speech. This was a lesson in civics, and genetics, ... in political science, and social science, practical and liberation theology. This was a gift, in the middle of a long road, from a person who has, despite prejudice and denunciation, retained a positive and optimistic view of what America must become, should she wish to survive much longer. These are the words of a person who views his experience as one of privileged opportunity, but will not, and can not, ignore the fact that his elders, his mother, and his sisters and brothers have not fared as well. At the same time he understands the view of immigrants and White middle class America, when it feels that the deck is marked against them, if they are allowed to play at the economic game at all.

The clamor will start now. The pundits will not know what to make of these sorts of words, and of this message. If they have heard such a message before, they have likely forgotten it from their childhood. If they personally espouse its meaning and fully comprehend its import, ... they might fear their owners' position, and worry about fashioning too fond a review.

I am young at heart. I am chronologically middle-aged, some 57 years old. I grew up in Iowa, Kansas and Pennsylvania, among lily-white suburbanites. By March each year, I am so pale I appear as some sort of green ghost. I am a male who has worked in many industries, corporate CEO, sales, marketing and management, ... pacemaker and heart valve sales, ... bedside healthcare, real estate brokerage, computer software consulting, ... hardware retailing, and restaurant work.

I suspect I will not hear such words again in my lifetime such as Barack Obama spoke today. I know, ... for I have never heard such words before, nor expect to again before I die. The scarcity of such words as these is their very purpose, I suppose, and that is what makes them inescapably important. They are about race, ... but they are also about anything which casts one person against another for something so arbitrary as "race", or gender, or ethnic origin, or eye color, or shoe size, ... or ... whatever one person may forcibly apply as a difference to their advantage over another human being. The purpose of such words as we heard today is to place us all upon notice, that the failings they expose in us are not enough to justify our practices of cruelty and power over others ever again.

Such messages, when we receive them, are a form of spiritual "checkmate". We must confront them with a bolder move, a more inclusive solution, ... or relent, and declare ourselves the loser, once again, only to begin over from scratch.

I worried this morning. I did not want to hear Obama apologize for his pastor's words, and wilt beneath the klieg lights of the glowering political press. Hillary had not done that for Geraldine, nor McCain for Hagee, ... but this was different. The hatred and enmity against Pastor Wright had a weekend over which to fester and grow. It was intended to sway old white men such as myself.

That was not what I received today, no matter how it might be construed by the pundits. What I saw and heard, was a message that was clear and inclusive, and respectful of every single person with a stake in the outcome, ... in the election, and in our nation who would be willing to hear him out. That, in the end, was every American willing and able to listen.

America received a wonderful gift today. Hillary and John and Barack can now begin again, and so can we. Any reason to count upon race or gender to divide us is past, ... or it is prologue to a political loss in the Fall, no matter whom might be elected in the end. Is it behind us then? No, ... for most assuredly it is more before us than in many, many years past. Now, we have admitted that our leg, this racist limb from the past, is gangrenous, and must be addressed. It has sickened us for far too long.

We, The American People will never view our racial differences in the same way again. That makes this a winning day for the American People indeed. What we will do next remains undiscovered. By pulling away the blood-stained sheets, and facing this sad legacy for what it was, and remains, ... we can begin again. How much of it can and should be saved, is ours to decide. It will not be simple, but it is necessary. We will not survive as a People unless we begin again at this very moment.

Thank you, Senator Obama.

John McCain - The Real Risk of A Trojan Horse

2008-02-10T13:24:00.000-05:00

The primaries have swept aside Romney's dreams of the Oval Office, at least by election. The Paul and Kucinich, Dodd and Edwards campaigns have all, despite the valiance of their purposes, fallen prey to the challenge of popular opinion, or the process, or both.

The Republican Party is left with the prospect of a McCain majority and nomination. Some in the theocratic wing of the party hold out hope, instead, that there is a stealth consituency of sufficient size and conviction, that Mike Huckabee, ex-governor of Arkansas. and ordained Christian minister, might sieze the moment, and the party's nomination away from the clutches of the likes of John McCain. It is difficult enough to read the tea leaves at the bottom of the cup, let alone those which float unsupported in mid-air, and so I will concern myself with the realistic likelihood that McClain will be the Republican nominee, no matter how grudgingly the Ann Coulters and Rush Limbaughs of the world find it to admit. That crowd, as genuine as they may attempt to seem about supporting Hillary and sending her contributions, is universally adherent to a Rovian committment to subterfuge and lies. It is their stock in trade, a philosophical weapon they felt would entitle them and their spawn, however unholy, to reign over America for one Hundred Years!

Certainly if McCain is hated by these, then as a Progressive or Democrat, I should set aside my concerns and consider, even at this early moment, voting in November for McCain! After all, at the time of his nomination he will be 72 years of age. He stands for what he has always stood for, correct? Quite the contrary! There is no "maverick" left in McCain. Perhaps he has lived so long under the banner of the right, of the Reich, that he knows he would never see the inside of the Oval Office, except as an unwelcome invitee of opposing forces in his party, of those of the opposition.

There is the suggestion that a Romney might be selected as candidate for VP, ... certainly someone to the right of McCain, in hopes of pandering to the right one more time, ... feeding the bloodthirsty, war-mongering, speendthrifty Reich. And so you hear ridiculous trial baloons, ... John Bolten for Secretary State?, that cause Independents and Democrats to not only question McCain's political orientation, but even truly, his sanity.

Observing this aging public servant, ex-service member, and yes, POW, ... causes me to question the effect of that time in a cage in Hanoi, ... the effects of age alone on this political animal. He seems to reach for hands to shake that no else sees, reacts to the swarm of political gatherings as if surrounded by ghosts, or apparitions. In short, I see a candidate who, in my opinion, is obviously aging, and losing the ability to discern truth from fiction, imaginings from reality. There is no spunk left in him, except when he threatens Iran, or commits himself to our armed forces staying in Iraq for generations to come, certainly long after he is long gone and forgotten.

Behind McCain, the Republicans will place a vice presidential candidate who will wait in the actuarial wings, ... hand-picked, bought and paid for. And sadly, there might come a day when their nominee, if he were to miraculously claim office as our president, would succumb to the sheer mathematics of aging. The chances in his first term would rise to above average. And so this candidate poses a greater than average risk of presenting America with a replacement, not of our making, but of the minority party.

Beware the Republican Party bearing gifts. Even more, beware the party as they draft an unholy compromise and substitute their candidate as Vice Presidential candidate, having clearly lost the majority of his party's voters. And so the man behind "the man" will be selected to pander to the minority of the minority. God save us from the day that person, and his adherents, are likely to pray for. God save us from a succession in office that brings us, perhaps sooner rather than later, more of the Rovian nightmare, unbidden.

More importantly, God save us from becoming accessies to that crime at the voting booths.

The Stature To Lead

2007-12-15T19:01:00.000-05:00

Whenever I have the desire not only hear its sizzle as it hits the skillet, or to savor its flavor, and smell its familiar aroma, ... or even to see its greasy remainder in the suet can out back, ... I sometimes click C-Span on to see the gritty process of American Political Sausage Making at its best in our Congress. And so, this Friday afternoon, on a whim at reading in HuffingtonPost that there might be something there to be seen, I tuned in to the proceedings in the United States Senate.

At first I felt certain that HuffPo had it wrong, and that there would be no news here today ladies and gents, ... Move along, nothing to see! The Farm Subsidy Bill, with all its Christmas trimmings was birthing after what was described as a five year gestation. The Writer's Strike did not impact this event, which more resembled the Golden Globes of the Conglomerate Grain industry than anything else. A string of "I want to thanks ... " longer than a freight train in Illinois fell forth for an hour at the podia. People's names were entered into the record, with no greater claim to fame than that they had once again propped up a system long outdated, and misdirected, ... a system for using the land to do, and not to do things which would be the province of some market, open or otherwise, were it not for the fact that the pork this bill assures the constituents often includes, ... well, Pork! In the flesh.

And then in the next moment, a disheveled, slouching, aging man came to the podium and asked to be heard. The president recognized him, and allowed the Majority Leader of the Senate, ... "Senator Reid of Nevada", as opposed to the other Senator Reed from Wherever, ... to speak. At first there was a mumbling of sorts, ... as if he were reciting an ancient liturgy , " the third reading of S666 , ... and so it is placed on the table, ... " and then again, and then a comment, ... Amen. I move to bring forth S444 from the Committee of the Whole and the Parts, for the second reading, ... Amen!"

Then he spoke in an even more hushed but spontaneous way, (In a mumble, slouched, with hesitancy and reservation, ... paraphrased) " Next week I will do something I don't want to do, but feel I need to do, ... and withdraw my request to ... blah, blah, FISA, blah blah ... ". Is this confession? ... the Homily, ... Common Prayer, ... What? And so he had introduced the fact that he would again render to our Caesar what he demanded, ... a FISA bill that allowed federal criminals to run free after tapping, and continuing to tap our communications illegally.

And then began the liturgy once more, ... "S777, which protests Chinese monopolization of the shoelace aglet industry, etc. and for other purposes, ... Ah-Men!", ... and with little more fanfare, the acolyte mumbled that the Senatorial Services were ended (adjourned), and that all should go in peace or some such. Who would put this mumbling acolyte in charge of the benediction? What was this whimpering dismissal, ... certainly in place of the PooBah Maximum! But no, ... this was the "Majority Leader" of this august body. The Cardinal of this part of Congress, ... the leader of the most numerous among the gathered.

In a similar display of wavering only the day before, the High Priestess of the House, Nancy Pelosi, had pronounced that the "Republicans Like this War (in Iraq)". Then in a feint to acquiesce to her opponents, or was it real? ... she said that she should not have said that. It is a stratagem from childhood that we should not say that which we should not. It is a truth among adults that we should speak the truth. In neither childhood nor adulthood should one apologize for stating a fact. Yet there was Speaker of the House Pelosi, in essence apologizing for stating what is clearly the truth, unwilling either to place her weight behind her words, nor let them stand to be considered.

Among Progressive Democrats and among those of us with Independence in our affiliations, these shows of whimpering deference to the demands of the Right are perplexing. The experience Mrs Pelosi and Mr Reid brought to their respective offices should have steeled them for the road they each faced. The stature to lead is not given, but found in oneself. It is an admittedly rare quality. It is perhaps most doubted by those who possess it, for it is evident often only from a distance. It is never instilled by the wishes or demands of others. It emerges by providence only in the times when it is needed. As in the case of Winston Churchill, ... it is as quickly dismissed when that need has waned. It is, however, never forgotten.

We can not fault anyone for not being other than themselves, for failing to meet our expectations for their lives. And so we can not fault Mr Reid or Mrs Pelosi for failing to stand against the Regime of George Bush and the Fourth Reich. It seems they were ill-suited to defending the Constitution, the Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Conventions and the Magna Carta. The manipulation of our Justice system, the election system, and even the ownership of the media from whose glossy products we are supposed to remain abreast of our nation's news.

I believe we have every right, on the other hand, to question Reid and Pelosi why, at this time of most critical need in our Nation's History, they have decided to stand in the way of all those who see, as they must, that the hour for our Republic's recovery is growing late. How far we have come from the early days when a few men placed their names for all to read, in defiance of a man, King George, to say that they would not allow themselves or their neighbors to continue under his sort of government any longer. How very far backward we have come.

It is becoming clear that the two political parties we have come to depend upon have failed their respective constitutents, one no more and no less than the other in my estimation. It is even more clear that neither provides an option for leadership so long as the one always acquiesces to the other. What is needed at this juncture is leadership of such a stature that it can stand on its own merits, with the express purpose and intent to restore the American Republic NOW. No other agenda is more urgent. Without an abrupt restoration of the Constitution, our standing in the World, Civil Liberties and our Economy, it will little matter for whom we vote a year hence.

Open Letter to Senators Feinstein and Schumer

2007-11-03T00:40:00.000-04:00

Dear Senators Feinstein and Schumer,

While I must first convey my general support for your courageous past actions, both in committee hearings and in your roles in overseeing the actions of the Executive and its departments, I am forced to strenuously object to your announced decisions to support, however reluctantly, the nomination of Michael B Mukasey to the vacant post of Attorney General of the United States.

The position to which he has been nominated is critical to the preservation of our civil liberties, compliance of the Executive with Federal Laws and Treaties, and the observation of fundamental rights for our People, including the integrity of the ballot, equality and safety in the workplace, and the separation of religion from influence upon public policy and governmental actions.

Judge Mukasey, in his testimony before the Senate Judicial Committee seemed, despite his judicial experience and otherwise ample qualifications for the position of Attorney General, not to be able to clear one single simple hurdle, ... namely the public denunciation of torture as a permissible practice by our military and the Executive Branch vis a vis the Intelligence Agencies, whether applied to foreigners or American citizens designated by the Executive as enemies of the state. Torture, whether waterboarding or the many other flavors this Administration has employed, would not be tolerated as a means of interrogation in a domestic legal setting, ... except that it was, in the case of Jose Padilla. It would not be tolerated as punishment under the Constitution by any measure. Yet before being charged with crimes, before being arraigned or presented with legal infractions against which they are able to mount a defense, ... Judge Mukasey seems to indicate he would allow a suspect to be placed in a position in which he might believe he was at imminent risk of being drowned, ... because our President wants, perhaps even likes, that tool! That same tool has been repeatedly repudiated by professional intelligence officers as useless, ... for any victim of that sort of torture will say anything, do anything, ... to avoid being drowned, and to end the torture.

One must wonder how many suspects have ultimately been fatally drowned by these "non-lethal" interrogation techniques in the last 6 years, or more. That we do not know, and will never be told, is a clear sign that these techniques are considered "TORTURE", even by those who order their use,... even by this President, who claims no one is harmed, and that the next day, the victims of these techniques feel fine.

I do not know your personal or political connections to Judge Mukasey, Senators, and I must admit that in these perilous times for our Nation, I do not care. I do know that if you both vote Judge Mukasey out of Committee to the full Senate vote, you will have assured the continuation of criminal enterprise at the highest level of our government, and to the greatest extent ever seen in our Nation’s History to this time. Two Senators alone could have stood against it, ... But chose not to! That you will be blamed for becoming an accomplice to torture is a travesty, but deserved, and a black mark on your otherwise admirable public records.

Please, Senators Feinstein and Schumer, ... Take the more difficult but more ethical and American approach. Vote down Judge Mukasey in Committee, ... And stand up for America’s Judicial Integrity, before it is too late!

A New Way - Rationing To Support The Troops

2007-09-29T10:56:00.000-04:00

This is the sixth of a series of articles
exploring the creation of
The Independence Party ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For six years we have heard an endless stream of lies and misrepresentations emanating from the White House concerning virtually every aspect of American life. From 9-11 to Afghanistan, from photo free zones in Dover, Delaware, to "Free Speech Zones" in New York and Seattle. President Bush is described as a sociopath, even a "Psychopathic Liar". Certainly a man who lies as frequently as does our president does so either as a result of deep psychological disorders, or as an intentional ploy to achieve a political end game of some kind.

It is clear that the candidates for both parties, at least those who can plausibly claim a chance of election to the presidency, have raised the horizon for re-deploying our troops out of Iraq. This week it became clear that even the Democrats decline to commit to a timeline, ... any timeline for quitting that nation.

The People of America spoke in November of last year, but the pols seem to feel they know better, ... about Iraq, about Habeas Corpus, about our Constitutional protections of free speech, from illegal search and seizure, and freedom from the imposition of Religion upon the State.

And so, it seems we must speak first to those who have the ear of the politicians, namely corporate and special interest lobbyists. I do not expect Big Oil, or Pharma, or Insurance to listen to me directly, ... why should they? We need to speak a language they will understand, clearly and unequivocally. I will speak to them by denying them my money.

Let me explain a bit. This approach was suggested to us all a while back by our president when he said "... I encourage you all to go shopping more" as the best way to conduct ourselves in the wars he had entangled us in. Many have since called upon our leaders to request sacrifices of the American People, akin to those of our parents' and grandparents' generations, ... rationing, victory gardens, ... self-denial. No such requests have come in the end, and it occurred to me that the major reason that was true is that the wars and entanglements in which our president has engaged us require cash, ... taxes, donations, ... a steady flow, billions every month. The domestic war in which the president is engaged, the destruction of the middle class, requires even more of our hard-earned cash, ... as inflation, fuel, housing interest costs, healthcare costs, and tightening credit all clamp down upon our stagnating incomes.

The corollary to Bush's cynical suggestion that we can buy our way into victory, is to save our way into reclaiming our government. We can ration ourselves, buy only essentials, travel only as absolutely necessary, and consume only that which we require, rather than desire. In another time this might have been called a Boycott. In the spirit of our parents, I prefer to think of it as Rationing to Support the Troops! It is for their safety and the security of our Nation that we will undertake this change in how we live our lives.

What effect might this have on government? After all, ... taxes feed the "Beast" that the Neo-Liberals and Neo-Conservatives cynically claim to want to kill. And yet they ARE the government. Like a ten year old behind the wheel of a Semi-Trailer, these imbecilic children are driving us headlong over a cliff, both political, legal, and economic.

The engine of that truck, by nature of the fools behind the wheel, and those behind them, is the corporate base in America. Without the constant feeding of our cash to corporations, the truck would stall, and be forced away from a worse fate.

And so my car will stay parked. I will buy my needs in bulk. For the Holidays, I will give my children and grandchildren simple things and cash. My thermostat will be set low, as will the lights, ... not to black out our neighborhood against an imagined enemy overhead, but to send a clear message to those who have seized our Nation that they MUST and WILL be forced by the American People to give it back. I will send their corporate lobbyists to deliver the message, with empty pockets.

And when the troops come home again, only then will I open my pockets to buy frivolous things. When I hear that we have spent our money in Iraq to provide light, and fresh water, rather than to pay murdering mercenaries, I will spend my money again on trinkets. And when I hear candidates assure Americans that they will NEVER strike another people again who have not attacked our People first, ... That is when I will take part in the economy to which these Corporations are so addicted.

And so it maybe that the best way to save Our America is to make her leaner, and at least mean enough to lay seige to these criminals who are leading us to destruction. We are, America, a drunken glutton, ... staggering through the World, taking what is not ours, and laying waste to People and Lands who posess what we desire, ... but should not require, to survive ourselves. The reputation of America is in ruins, Her economy in peril, and Her future is dark. There is no one who can nor will save Her, except the American People ourselves.

And so it begins.

Interview with A Father of the Fourth Reich

2007-08-21T22:34:00.000-04:00

A Conservative website ( Family Security Matters) is said to have published an article or blog condoning the use of nuclear weapons to rid Iraq of Iraqis, allowing America to inhabit it as a new State. In follow up to this recommendation, The Independence Party conducted an interview with a founder of the Fourth Reich here in America, (we will refer to him as Der Reich Meister, "DRM") who is, for the moment, anonymous. Readers are encouraged to stay tuned for further interviews, as the electioneers and the Reich aproach critical junctures in the coming year!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TIP: Can you give our readers your impression of these comments from the website I just read to you?

DRM: You have to hand it to the Reich, … I mean, the Right. They gather together to share thoughts, spawn their young, and conduct science experiments to determine if a disembodied head can still think and a mindless body still speak. The latter is a given. (sips his bourbon) One strike for the Reich.~In the end there is such cool, calculated economic logic to the use of nukular weapons by the Fourth Reich. Kind of like when GI’s would kick back on patrol and say, … “Smoke ‘em if you got’em!”. They are paid for, … just sitting in tin cans on the Bay of Pigs, … whoa, flashback, sorry Pappy Bush! I mean the Persian Gulf, … They’ll never be any fresher than they are, … right, … now! Right Dick? Now there’s a man’s man, defibillater and all! Never let’s reason stand in the way of action, … see somethin’ flashin’ in the Bush, … just shoots at it for cryin’out loud, … asks questions later, … Oh, Sorry Bud!~Anyway, gettin’ kinda quiet around the White House, with Karl gone, and Tony packin’ up. ‘Bout time for the old turdtoaker himself to come back from clearin’ brush and set a few fires of his own, I think. Glad the Woolly Mammoth pulled that silly blog about nukin’ Iraq. There’ll be plenty left over after we blow the hell outta Iran, … Yuk, Yuk, … cough, sputter. Yeah, this makin’ war is a young man’s game. Where’d I put my oxygen cylinder, … hate that ,,, when I, … lose, ,, track ……

TIP: Are you well, mein Herr?

DRM: Can you still hear me clear? Sometimes the mask makes it hard, ... worse'n that damn canala, ... whatever the hell it is, ... well, it makes my damn boogers whistle if you know what I mean. I hear Rehnquist whistled up a storm when he was cranked up over them Damnedocrats fightin' over Katie Harris' Florida bullshit, ... 'member that. Not surprisin', ... damned one vote election in the end, to tell the truth! ... Old fool howled like a ghost, just knowin' it was his single vote shut that Florida recount down cold! 'Spect he thought that's his biggest gift to the Republic in the end, ... to deliver the votes from the state of Florida, where Georgie's brother was gub'nor to his even dumber brother running for presnet!

TIP: What were your impressions of that campaign?

DRM: Gotta ask y'self what the hell these guys wuz smokin' and drinkin' that ever gave them an inkling they wuz fit fur office, .. Sorry, ... 'D'I spit on yur sleeve there, frein'? I mean, ... DEr Pappy wuz a stand up guy, ... named every plane and ship after his wife when he was in th service and the agency, ... jus' so body'd know it wuz him, ... He's cool dat way about the secret stuff, ... kinda casual and elegant at the same time, oder Barbara would beat den Scheiss outta him, ... and she would too, ya' know?

TIP: Shouldn't that mask be on your face at all times, sir, I mean, ... for your health?

DRM: Nah! There's a certain high ya get when your oxygen drops off, ... kinda like it on bad days, ... when my memories come back too much, ... too fast. Ya' know, ... like when I heard that Dewey lost. Can't remember nothin' for a week after that, 'til I woke in a flop house in Albany beggin' for a statehouse job. Sucked to be me, know what I mean, kid?

TIP: Do you need a minute?

DRM: No I need an hour, asshole. Getthefuckoutahere you! I know you from PBS now that I look at ya closer! Who the hell let you in here, ... Nurse, ... Nurse! I need a rub!

TIP: We concluded the interview abruptly due to DRM's agitation and congestion, but feel that there is much more to explore with him another day. Stay tuned to the exploits of the Founder of the Fourth Reich!

Disclaimer: Everything contained in this publication is possible. None of it is, however, proveable beyond reasonable doubt. It is provided as entertainment and should not be confused with astrology, horoscopy, endoscopy, sigmoidoscopy or soothsaying. Any "-oscopy" with which you are personally unfamiliar, should be avoided without a full and complete explanation fro the practitioner thereof. Don't come here again if you can not smile or laugh. Life is too serious to allow yourself to become so as well. None of us leave here alive.

A New Way - Adherence To The Laws

2007-06-28T18:11:00.000-04:00

This is the fifth of a series of articles

exploring the creation of

The Independence Party ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Every political decision and every political campaign in our Nation's history occurred not in a vacuum, but among the many occurrences of the times. And so this article comes next, simply because the Vice President, Richard Cheney, demanded it. He demanded it not as he does most things, ... by imperial edict, but rather by the high-handed and near-hilarious assertion that he was somehow, and somewhere, above and beyond any other branch of our government. Someone has apparently redoubled his medications, or perhaps his implanted defibrillator fired at last, and provided the side benefit of "Electro-Convulsive Therapy" to rearrange his otherwise deranged thinking of his own importance and role, and bring him closer to the view of his predecessors; Namely that his role is to attend funerals of state, ... at least one more perhaps on his own behalf, to kiss babies who would not object, ... failed on that count, even perhaps in the case of his own grandson born of late. You know, ... the sort of crap that gets slung to the runner-up in any contest in America.

Adhering to history is not the same as adhering to the law, however. The law, as it is laid out, requires a degree of independence of the judiciary, and the attorneys general, from the legislative and from the executive branch, ... at least during the functional range of the regimes that come into power in our Nation. Nominating the attorneys is a "kite-building" operation. They are selected to be competent, and even politically sensitive, for it is designed in that way. As with kites, however, their air-worthiness depends upon, or should depend upon, their abilityto meet the needs and requirements of the Department of Justice, and its overriding role in our legal life as a Nation.

Therein, in the the case of Bush and Company, lies the rub. The intention to interfere, or at least to intervene, in current legal cases, is, I fear but also believe, de Regeur in the DOJ. What has never been the rule, on the other hand, is the use of DOJ to interfere with the rights of citizens to vote just before elections, ... nor the deliberate denial of the vote to active service people in the combat theater.

We are not talking about whether our service people in harms way around the world can buy a beer, or drink legally in their own homes stateside, nor whether I have served you illegally, perhaps. We'll save that for another day.

We are specifically talking here about whether these soldiers, those who have sworn an oath to protect and uphold the Constitution, and to safeguard the United States of America, will have their votes counted even as they served at war on behalf of a President and Nation, whose chief political aide, Karl Rove, swore a similar oath to theirs, ... but fulfilled it in an entirely different manner. He is suspected of defiling your right to vote, by the way. It is suggested he felt we could build the vote for his president by denying you the right to vote while you were overseas. Within the bounds of decency for all who might read these words, I must say that I am more disgusted by that possibility than I would be by a bloated dead possum found dead in the road with a tattoo of Dick Cheney's face along the flank of its ass.

If Rove is found to have sought to disenfranchise the enlisted people in service around the world while he was reinforcing his handlers slimy empire, I assure you all that I will seek his indictment and conviction of the crime against our service voters for the balance of our lives, ... mine and Karl's.

There are many crimes I feel they have committed that they can chalk up to politics. This is a crime that can not be forgiven.

A New Way - Peace and Prosperity Are Our Right

2007-06-13T17:13:00.000-04:00

This is the fourth of a series of articles exploring the creation of

The Independence Party

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It seems the time is growing short once again for the opportunity to promise peace any time soon to our children and our grandchildren. I know what you are thinking, ... when has peace ever been a priority in America, certainly not since after World War II. When it had seemed we ran out of the big fights, we created some smaller ones in Grenada, and Panama, and Somalia, ... just to keep the "saw sharpened" so we'd have it to use when we needed it, as in the case of Iraq, ... twice, ... and Iran, ... next perhaps.

Let me begin by saying that the Cold War, those many years of practicing for our own demise in the hallways of our schools, with our heads bent between our knees, kissing our asses goodbye, ... the Cold War was, at least from the vantage point of children in America, a peaceful time. Actually, the 1963 murder of our President, John Kennedy, was the beginning of the endless violence we have experienced in the last forty-four years. It is imperative for our children's and our grandchildren's sense of safety that we disavow our society's addiction to the violence of war, and violence as a solution to any international or interpersonal differences. Whether that would fall into the realm of a Public Health concern, or an International Peace concern, ... is, in the end, of no particular consequence whatsoever, to me, nor should it be to the law-makers in our Nation. It should be an objective of EVERY Congress, and EVERY President, and EVERY Supreme Court, that for Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness to ever become a practical promise to every life of every citizen in the Nation, we MUST invest in the notion, ... in the promise, that PEACE is a promise to every citizen under the Constitution of the United States of America.

There should always, and forever, be a United States Department of Peace created under the next President in order that the attainment and maintenance of Peace, ... the sheer practical conviction on the part of our Nation that We the People are intended and committed to live in Peace forever and always as a part of the Community of Nations as defined under the United Nations Charter, might have a chance to become a reality at last. More importantly, the commitment of the greatest nation currently on the earth to the assurance of Peace as a critical pursuit of Mankind, is in the end, the essence of the true meaning of the purpose of the United States of America Declaration of Independence.

This critical new Cabinet-Level Department of Peace must be enacted and staffed before Peace itself will ever have the chance to be reborn in the World, and certainly at American hands. This suggestion has been endorsed for many years by US Representative Dennis Kucinich, and was first suggested, it is widely believed, by renowned International Peace Advocate and Spiritual leader, Marianne Williamson.

A New Way - Safeguarding the Constitution

2007-06-12T17:21:00.000-04:00

This is the third of a series of articles exploring the creation of

The Independence Party

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Life and Liberty depend upon more than the good wishes of our fellow citizens, and upon more than the promises of their safekeeping by our governmental officeholders. The former has never been a strong assurance, for we have seen riots, and lynchings, and private corporate armies set loose upon labor organizers. We have killed one another in fits of anger and disagreement. The Founders held little confidence in comity among our populace. Laws were required, but they also knew that laws set loose upon our People without clear limitations on their scope were, and would always be, a far greater risk to the Nation than anarchy. Their words are clear, and have been reaffirmed in public oaths of allegiance to uphold them, by every Federal officeholder since the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified as the Founding Law upon which all our laws are based. George Bush's defiling comment that It is a "God-Damn piece of paper" notwithstanding, the Constitution will withstand him as well, though the time frame is open to question. On May 9, 2007, the President signed a document titled "National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive" which purports to convey special powers and responsibilities upon persons under him in the case of a "catastrophic emergency", ... to be defined by him at the time. It feigns concern that the underlying Constitutional foundations of our Nation would be at risk in times of such a designated emergency. The document then goes on to convey special over-reaching authority upon executive branch designates, and assures "comity" among the designated branches laid out in the constitutional founding of our nation will be upheld. The lower case "c" reference, in itself, to the Constitution puts the lie to what this document sets out to do, or attempts to do. It attempts to lay to rest any concerns that the Legislative and Judicial branches might be rendered worthless and toothless, when in truth they are rendered lifeless of any resemblance to the Balance of Constitutional Powers as set forth by its authors.
What the "NATIONAL SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE/NSPD 51" does at its heart is to grant license to George Bush as the first dictator of the United States of America, without Legislative authority or Judicial oversight of any kind whatsoever. He says when it begins, and he says when it ends. During his "catastrophic emergency" he could lock the Senate doors and ban the House of Representatives from even meeting in session. He could preclude any actions by the citizenry, and there is nothing whatsoever in it that precludes the suspension of elections across our Nation. Nothing in it precludes him from declaring an emergency of his own making, either, such as an unprovoked attack upon Iran, and the aftermath which would follow.
It is typical of the Right Wing in American politics these days to exaggerate the threats to the American People which exist at this moment in our history. As much as they love to cling to the Founders' pant legs, they seem to have ignored the sacrifices which were, and have always been, made by our generations of forebears.
Before the Constitution was the law of America, The Declaration of Independence was an overt collective act of Treason against the Crown of England. The 56 signers placed every life they loved, and all the property they owned in peril by writing those words, and placing their signatures and seals to them. For those who survived, there would come other wars. In 1812 our Capitol and the very White House, which Bush calls home until he ends his term, were burned during the occupation by the British. The American Civil War raged across wide swaths of our Nation, costing over 600,000 American lives, more than all wars to which our Nation has ever been party, all lost on our land and waters among and between our fathers. World War I, World War II, the Korean War, The Viet Nam War, and the First Persian Gulf War, ... all left cleaving marks across our land in loss of life, disruptions of lives and families, and the rendering of our political beliefs across our Nation to this day. Every one of these wars, ... EVERY one, ... caused America to bleed. More importantly, every war visited upon America or caused by Her, in the 220 years since the Constitution was adopted, have been "catastrophic emergencies". Nothing will occur in Bush's final months that we can not survive as a Nation, as long as the Constitutional Balances remain intact! Nothing this Homo de minimus could achieve, even if given another 8 years, could ever give him a run at historical importance or achievement of anything approaching a Coolidge, let alone a Lincoln, stature in the history books. It will be highly unlikely that historians will fully distinguish one Bush from the other, in the end, so to speak.
Sadly, George W. Bush could never withstand a calamity the scope or size of any, or even part, of the disasters this country has already often survived, long before he was anointed President by the Supreme Court. The Constitution for which he holds so much childish disdain was MADE to survive just such misadventures and misdeeds as these, and more. In fact, It was made to survive HIS PRESIDENCY in particular; this is not because It grants him or his contemptible clan special powers, but because it does not. George W. Bush has saved us from NOTHING in his time in office, except perhaps from the truth.
In the end, every President of the United States has worked for the People of the United States, and never the reverse. That this President has done nothing for us in turn, is our own fault, but should never, in the end, become our undoing as a People, unless we allow that to occur. While there are risks in the world, and some would do us harm, that is not something our fathers and mothers did not face in spades. Perhaps now is the first and only time that the greatest risk came from within, ... from our own officeholders rather than from enemies abroad. We know, and must face, that this man will never be a true President to our People. What we must guard against more than any other risk, is that as time grows short on this man's time in the White House, that he will not lay ruin to something which cost our parents so much to create and protect! Our parents and our grandparents are no longer here to assure he will not take away what many of them have died to protect for us. It is our turn to act as Americans and to protect what we have been given as our birthright. I do not yet know what form or force that protection will require of us. I fear that we may all be about to discover that in ourselves, as our parents did in their own lives.

Protecting ideas requires understanding them. Protecting your rights demands that you know what they are. Go here for a start!

A New Way - Life as A Constitutional Right

2007-06-05T21:21:00.000-04:00

This is the second of a series of articles exploring the creation of

The Independence Party.

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Roe vs. Wade, decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1973, provided for the legalization of abortion across the United States. That decision is debated across our land to this day, not simply as a moral consideration, but also as as a political issue which seems further from resolution with each passing election year. There was a certain irony in the prohibition of capital punishment for the first time in our nation's history in that same era that abortion was approved. Conservatives gained association with casting their fate against abortion, and yet for executions, and Liberals the reverse. Some thirty years later, that dichotomy persists. What is clear is that the United States Declaration of Independence sets forth "Life" as an essential Human right.

Without addressing either extreme, ... abortion, or execution, the right to life for all Americans has been eroded, or at the very least, subjugated to other interests, whether they are corporate, governmental, legal, or institutional.

If we think of employment as a contract between an employer and en employee, on the surface it appears to have many of the usual features of any contractual relationship. One party, for consideration, performs or provides a service or product to the other party. The mutuality of a contract arises from the willingness of the parties, who enter into it without coercion, and do so with their eyes openo all consequences which may arise. Employment, in my estimation, never quite rises to that level of mutuality, despite the legal decisions to the contrary.

Employment agreements typically assure a number of things, ... pay for services, sharing of important business information, and other things. Training may be provided by the employer. Profit sharing, if there is to be any, may be assured to the employee by the employer based upon a certain level of performance. Often, there are confidentiality agreements required of the employee, and Agreements not to Compete if the employee leaves the employment situation. But many states in the US operate with an understanding of "Employment at Will". In those states, an employee may be terminated for cause, or without cause altogether, and has virtually no recourse whatsoever to question the firing, nor to recover promised bonuses, performance incentives, and other perquisites of the "agreement" to do work. On the other hand, the employee, should he leave for other opportunity, or due to unmet implied or explicit promises by the employer, may be required to forego working for a competing employer for a specified period after terminating his or employment. That is, the employer has a right, under "non-compete" agreement provisions, to ask the court to deny a former employee work at their established profession or trade, after they have quit their job.

Some argue that this is fair, saying that an employer offers trade secrets, training, literature, and support to an employee during their tenure. In exchange that employer gets six months, even a year, of "protection" after the employee leaves employment.

If we look at the situation more closely, we often see that employees leave because employers have not met the commitments made to employees. For many companies, the income stream created by the employees continues long after the employee leaves. Customers reorder based upon a pattern of use, and the good will developed by employees can sustain itself by sheer force of habit.

What of the employee? Often she or he must take interim work until the "blue line" period has passed. Employers can malign and criticize the employee to former customers during that entire period when the customer is legally prohibited from contact with the customers! In the end, the employer has a distinctive legal advantage that is integral to the laws in many states, over the rights of the individual. What has this to do with Life? Meeting our basic needs through work and earning is of lower importance in the eyes of the law while the employer's right to preserve its business advantage is higher.

But the right to life for those of us already walking the earth does not end in the workplace, fortunately. The right to life includes the right to share our space and ideas with others, to love and live with those we choose. We have the right to write, and think, and pray, and speak our minds. I will address that concern in another essay.

We also have the right to a "healthy life". What does that mean? I believe it means that we have the right to expect the medical knowledge of our age will be brought to bear upon our conditions, as they occur, and we will all benefit from the cumulative knowledge that medicine has gathered about our "cumulative ailments", as we Humans have incurred them. It was once the standard of medical care in America that Physicians were revered, and responsibly paid. Hospitals were run as charitable institutions, and beds were donated by estates "in perpetuity" to the charitable care of patients. What did that mean? Did it mean that the beds would be available to charitable patients until the money ran out? Who checked to be certain that there was no money left for the care of other needy patients? Who sold the charitable rights to the profit-making company that bought out the non-profit hospital? Why didn't the community reinherit the rights to the failed investment? These were, after all, gifts to the communities in which these hospitals reside. These were sites of care and comfort which have been replaced by clinics and hospices at the expense of the community and providers, and were, at their essence, an irrevocable gift to the communities in which they are located. They should, in every case, revert to the community they serve, for the perpetual care of the members of that community. These are not, and never have been, legitimate "Corporate" assets! They arose on land in local communities, often as gifts from residents, and entrepreneurs, to assure the medical care of their fellow citizens, "in perpetuity". The disconnection between our forebears' gifts to us, ... hospital, parks, museums, and open land, ... can be reversed. These community assets should never have been deeded along with the businesses which stood on those lands.

What does this have to do with "Life", as it is assured in the Constitution? Everything, as it turns out, since the business of healthcare arguably arose in the United States at the hands of Benjamin Franklin, ... in the founding of the Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia. I suspect this best of businesspersons never imagined that healthcare should become the source of great personal wealth. Certainly the care of the dying should never fill the coffers of the living!

In the end, if that is where we find ourselves now, the assurance of "Life" under the Constitution has little practical effect or value. Hospitals dump their indigent patients under bridges to avoid the expense of their continued care and concern.

There must be a new way to rethink what we do with the insane, ... and the sick, rather than Ronald Reagan's approach of loosing the gates of the asylums, and hospitals, and declaring the patients "sane" and "healthy".

A New Way - Corporations are Not Persons

2007-06-04T23:39:00.000-04:00

Most Americans have taken at least passing interest in the early "debates" among the plethora of self-declared Republican and Democratic candidates. In deference to those readers who have truly prepared and debated in their lives, ... these are pitiful excuses for debates, and truly do not rise to a level where they deserve that name. What they have truly revealed, I am sad to say, is that the two parties with which we have lived for so long, can not, or will not, allow a reasoned public discussions of the true issues which face us. I believe they will not, because the very issues they should and must address are of great interest to the American People. That in itself would not keep them from discussing them. But the interests of politicians and their clients, differ from the interests of America and Americans.

This is the first of a series of articles to address the many disconnects between what America must be about, and what American politicians seem driven to do instead. This is the first of a series of articles exploring creation of The Independence Party.

Corporations, mere abstractions of business thinking, ... relationships between investors who are persons themselves, were granted "personhood" even before the argument of a case before the Supreme Court of the United States, SANTA CLARA COUNTY v. SOUTHERN PAC. R. CO., 118 U.S. 394 (1886) . The year is noteworthy as roughly the beginning of the Gilded Age of the Robber Barons in Big Oil, Big Railroads, Big Banks, and Big Steel.

The ruling is interesting for declaring that corporations deserve the Constitutional protections as persons; indeed the arguments for and against were never presented. Supreme Court Justice Morrison Remick Waite pronounced from the bench, according to the court record, that "The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does." And so, without so much as a Constitutional amendment, nor Congressional legislation, nor Executive order, corporations attained the same rights that American Citizens, Human Beings, ... had died so often to achieve.

Did corporations toast the occasion? Did they run into the streets and hug one another to celebrate? I know, ... ridiculous! Corporations are not persons, but rather constructs created by persons to effect ownership of interests and assets. "No!", some would say, ... "A corporation can own a corporation!" True, ... but at the end of the trail of droppings and documents which corporations leave and require to survive, there are investors who are, or were persons! Let's look at these two types of people separately with regard to their ownership of corporations.

Living persons who are owners of corporations and otherwise citizens

benefit personally from every aspect of the United States Constitution and its amendments. Owners' rights to vote, and speak, and associate, accrue to them as persons under the Constitution. Indeed the right to associate could be said to give rise to that person's ability to even participate in the ownership of a corporation. That a corporation could be recognized as a "person", would, in its most ridiculous iteration, ... make a single corporate shareholder the equivalent of two persons, under the SCOTUS ruling of 1886. Nothing, of course, would prohibit that owner from creating other corporations, and leveraging his money into the equivalent of many persons, avoiding the care and feeding, the housing, the education that accompanies true "persons" as you and I recognize them. And how, in the case of misdeeds, is a corporation to be punished? Jail, execution? No, ... fines are all that a corporation can yield. Persons pay the highest punishments, after all.

Even more obscene is the effect upon citizen standing under the Constitution that arises from Justice Waite's pronouncement. Much has been written about the three-fifths provision in the Constitution that diluted the personhood of slaves in particular. In a very real sense, this judicial precedent and its adherence in succeeding cases has performed an even more sinister dilution of the rights of citizens who are persons. While persons alone can vote, corporations can contribute to political campaigns in open and insidious ways that persons can not.

Therein arises the concern with corporations owned by dead persons. In truth, the dead, even the wealthy dead, must leave their possessions behind as they cross the river Styx . But a surrogate to the dead, a corporate trust, can be created to contain the assets of the dead, with instructions to contribute to causes and political interests long after the bones of the person whose intentions are expressed, have turned to dust. "So what!", say adherents to the "corporations as corpse" crowd. "Trusts drive the museums, and the arts, and municipal parks, and grants, and , .... ", they say, and they are correct.

But in the world of politics, which is a temporal pursuit, and affects only the living, I believe it is wholly inappropriate that the dead should rule with their remainders, ... for where is the end to that? In the end, ... the money they leave could build forever, and rule over us forever! While they relinquish their vote, it could be argued that they could select the only politicians from whom we could choose our elected representatives, by controlling the funding of elections.

And if you believe this is not possible for the dead to achieve, ... I assure you that it is already occurring. The disembodied corporations of the pharmaceutical and chemical and oil and financial industries already rule over who has the opportunity to run for office. There is no body, no corpse to be found, ... just groups of monied owners and officers who vote early, ... and then go to the office to forward donations to the politicos the corporations support. In effect, corporations allow shareholders and officers to vote twice, thrice, or even more times. And while they can not collaborate in their pricing of products, ... they are allowed under the law, to form non-profit trade organizations and support lobbyists and politicians whom they collectively believe serve their collective interests. Their industries grow as a result, and their boats all rise on the tide we taxpayers fund for them through their influence over our politicians.

Independents Are The Largest Political Party in America!

2007-04-14T20:07:00.000-04:00

So as to appease the press, or at least to throw them off our scent even before they begin the search for our party office, and our party officers, the nature of Independents in America is our Independence! We are hard to find, and even harder to define. I will not attempt to do so here, at least not for now! I might invite that in the future.

I will, however, venture out onto a short limb and state some observations and beliefs that caused me to declare my independence as a voter in America.

First, the appeal of any candidate to American Independents is inversely proportional to the money that PACs and Corporations give to their campaign to be elected. We Independents believe first and foremost in the People of America. Our work has allowed corporations to be built, and organizations to prosper. In the end, corporations and unions are barred at the door of the polling place, ... and a lone American Voter enters and casts their ballot.

Second, the sanctity and surity of the ballot is served only by a polling process that gives both the voter and the state written and reconcilable evidence of the vote cast. The ability of any political interest to affect or interfere with the clear and irrefutable counting of the polls must be disallowed by law, with the most severe consequences. Assurances of political independence in the counting of ballots should be a consititutional assurance in every state and federal election.

Third, and perhaps most important, We Independents would return to a time and a practice which might seem "quaint" to you in the political realm, but seems an improvement nonetheless. We'd like you to pick the best person available for the work to be done once you are elected by us to serve. We have seen a parade, ... a veritable cavalcade, of fools who came to Washington and to virtually every state capital, to grab onto the coattails of some candidate because they donated to some campaign, or their parents did, ... or they went to a school emotionally tied to a candidate, ... or, ... you name the tune and there is some fool who foots the bill! Don't you see? Of course you do, ... but you candidates choose to cater to the money at the end of the campaign bandwagon. If you did not catch the drift of our "Drift" toward Independence it is truly simple:

Independents are not owned by ANYONE!
Independents sacrifice a great deal to retain our INTEGRITY!
Independents always know we are the THIRD and Largest American Party!
Independents believe EVERYONE is Independent when they enter the Polling Booth!
Independents Believe in the ability of the American People to Chart Our Own Course!

38% of Americans consider themselves to be "Independent", based upon a poll released this morning on CNN. I have never felt so comfortable with my political affiliation as now!

Stargazer51

... "The Truth Is, ..." Almost Never The Truth!

2007-03-21T19:42:00.000-04:00

Perhaps I have been spending way too many hours listening to interviews lately, or perhaps there is a new school of oratory out there that is teaching a more modern style of speech-writing. However, I am encountering a phrase ubiquitous to political speech, and even the comments of experts on radio or TV interviews, ... a peppering of the speech with ... "The truth is ... " , inserted before some point the speaker desires the listener to believe. It is meant, I suppose, to lend validity to the argument being made. It is also, at times, meant to close the mind of listeners to the opposing point of view.

To me, it comes off as proof of the widespread belief among many "leaders" in our nation that they have special access to the Truth, writ large, that the rest of us do not enjoy. Their relationship with the Truth is a gift they bestow upon us lesser types, ... too foolish to recognize it when it comes our way. "For those of you too unschooled to know, ... the truth is, ... that is an elephant in the main ring there before you!" Some condescending circus master! One ring, ... one act, ... show over! Now go home, bestowed with the "truth".

So when you hear the phrase "The truth is, ... ", and I assure you that you will, you can almost be certain that truth is the furthest thing from what you are about to hear. Truth is, more lies begin with "The truth is, ... " than any other phrase I know. No lie!

Thank You, Valerie Plame Wilson, For Your Service!

2007-03-16T19:41:00.000-04:00

I must admit I do not know much about Nuclear Proliferation. A baccalaureate level understanding of physics and chemistry does not make one adequate to the task. I follow some of the technological discussion of isotope enhancement through centrifugation, ... and even some of the writing about Uranium versus Plutonium based weapons. Even at my deficient level of understanding, I was suspect of the "aluminum tubes" that conveniently appeared to justify our attack upon Iraq. It seemed ridiculous to me that tons of yellow cake ore had been purchased by, let alone transferred to, Iraq with the many intercessions in place to enforce our sanctions on that nation over the previous decade. That our representatives in Congress could have believed the misrepresentations is preposterous to me to this day, and I am suspicious of their individual motivations to vote for the war. They must be asked such questions before we ever again allow them to lead us in any capacity.

I know President Carter understands these matters, for it was his specialization as an officer in the Navy after graduation from the USNA with my father. What all of that inspiring but insufficient understanding meant to me today, was that when you, Valerie Plame Wilson, appeared before a House Committee, you brought credibility, and honor to a place generally known for its stench of partisanship and stupidity of purpose about a subject that few comprehend, and I assure you none in the room could fully grasp.

And so, as an American, I offer my thanks to you as a former officer of the Central Intelligence Agency for your service. You are a hero to me for having carried off your assignment with grace and style, with intelligence and purpose. I also extend my thanks to those you worked with in the Agency and abroad, and hope they are safe and out of harm's way, clearly caused by the despicable acts of our current Executive Administration.

What I am loathe to admit, and grieved to comprehend, is that America is probably more blind now to nuclear proliferation threats than we have been in many years as a result of this political abomination. Cheney and Bush will rot in the basement of American political history in any event, ... but even moreso if there is someday a nuclear attack upon America that you, and your networks, could have prevented on our behalves. In that event, there should be criminal hearings to call them to account for the attack, and the network these men have destroyed for personal political cover and gain.

I am afraid to admit that the America you took an oath to serve has been betrayed by others above us all, but who take no stock in their oaths whatsoever. That truth, ... the irrefutable treachery at the highest level of our Nation, is a threat against which neither you, the CIA, nor our Nation are truly prepared. To the extent that your testimony of today might reverse that course for our Nation, I thank you a second time.

Be well.

High Time To Impeach the President of the United States

2007-03-14T19:08:00.000-04:00

Kahlid Sheikh Muhammad's guilt, ... the purported and, apparently, confessed "Mastermind of 9/11, ... WTC 1993, and even Richard Reid's bizarre, 'I can't light the damn thing' shoe bombing attempt aboard a Trans-atlantic flight" has apparently been resolved, according to a late release from DOD today. In a secret hearing at Gitmo sometime in the past or future, ... although I will be damned to hell forever if I reveal when the hearing was or will be heard, ... the Sheikh (I'm confused if that is a title or a nickname) willingly, ... well, at least personally, admitted that he had done everything that he was accused of ever, since the time he was a 12 year-old kid back in the old country. I forget what that country is, ... but will leave it to the MSM to assure us we knew if he had ever lived in White Sands, Wichita Falls, or elsewhere he might have become trouble to the local leaders, Christian or otherwise.

Do I like this man? Nope, ... He's ugly to the eye and to the mind, and I suspect that if photos we love the best were taken with "smellivision", we would have recommended a different sort of "rendition", ... maybe a rendering, ... as in "take the old horse and render him!". I can't be certain, unfortunately, what he actually did. Should we release him in Central Park, I suspect we'd find him mumbling to himself at the base of a tree after the first 24 hours.

We seem to have a special skill at Gitmo, ... according to reports, to addle the brains of our captives, ... as if they were unwanted goose eggs along the shore of a public reservoir. I guess if we had proven beyond doubt, that they should be addled, I'd agree wholeheartedly, ... but it might be me someday whose brain they feel the need to addle. For my part, I've not yet finished using it, thanks very much, Alberto Gonzales!

(BTW Didn't we invade that little Nation yet?) and don't let him out if you can prove to the judicial system of the US that he had a part in any Federal Crimes of any sort. If not, ... keep him a little longer, if you feel that is certain.

As for the rest of our illegal captives in Gitmo, ... The US Government must make a case in the courts! If you can not, or will not, then at the very least acknowledge that the Commissions decisions are, and will be, subject to Federal Court review. You know they will be, ... don't you, George II?

If not, ... then why not go ahead, ... and draw and quarter them. What does it matter, and who the hell will care, Mr. President? Just do whatever the F**K you want to, fool.

In the end we are either a Nation of Laws, or we are not. It is up to each of us ultimately, and our representatives, to decide what we believe the Constitution assures to us as our assured protections. But I worry as much about the woman sitting next to me in the train station as I do about myself. Oh, ... I'm sorry, I did not know she is considered by you to be "an enemy cambatant". Who says so, ... Alberto? I'm sorry, ... is he still the Attorney General? Barely? Really? Sorry, ...

In the end I trust she is a fellow American more than I trust the President, His VP, or his AG. Sorry, ... the Constitution allows me to decide, ... and I like the looks of my neighbor far more than the looks of you shiny-suited scumbags.

And that, in the end, is the only hope I have that we can save America.

Let's agree to disagree, Mister President! (And let's just say for the moment that I agree just to let me identify you to be an "enemy combatant" of the United States of America, based upon your conradictious actions to the Constitution of the United States of America. ) That in itself is gracious of you, Sir.

The things you say and do amaze me, Sir. Were you a comic, or a guest on SNL, I could excuse your inept and stupid actions and comments. I can not excuse them as President of the United States. Your actions have cost too many American lives, both military and domestic.

You must, Mister Bush, be excused from office by Impeachment.

Hazelton Fights Back, ... A Workplace Tsunami

2007-03-12T19:09:00.000-04:00

First let me say that I am blessed to have visited Hazelton, Pennsylvania, and to have done business there for years, calling upon the State Hospital there, serving the patients there, and even camping with my daughters not far from there in the Pocono Mountains. Suffice it to say that I love Hazelton, and Pottsville, and Centralia, and Scranton and Wilkes Barre.

Each of these beautiful communities depended not long ago upon coal mining and/or clothing textiles. The people that still live in these communities are the bulwarks of American manufacturing families of a while ago. They are the parents and grandparents of America's newest generation, ... who have nowhere to work in Hazelton, nor almost any of the other towns of which I write here.

It is not a matter of where our kids work, ... but who will work in our own hometowns? Who wants to move to Hazelton, or Pottsville, or Centralia, or Scranton to work? Our parents need caretakers, and janitors, and restaurant workers, ... and every other form of service worker. If we outlaw them, are we willing to pay more? Is there anyone else we truly trust to do that work for us?

I have no answer to these questions, and can not answer whether Hazelton, ... this beautiful bright spot at the top of a mountain, can fend off the need for helpers and service workers who can take the place of grandchildren who know their services will draw better pay elsewhere.

One municipality's argument with immigration policy will not solve the dilemma of an older nation disconnected from the services they will require, ... and I include myself among that population.

Tonight I made potato and onion pierogies, pork chops and sauerkraut, ... and wish I could share them with my older friends in Hazelton. I am a believer that the comfort of familiar foods is a part of what life is meant to be as we become older and depend upon others to care for us.

I don't believe they have to look like us, or speak like us, ... but they can learn to do pork, sauerkraut, and pierogies, ... and I promise you they would love to do that. I promise!

I want your home to be "home" but I also know that there are not enough loving children left to care for those Hazeltonians who still live atop the mountain there in Pennsylvania. Your neighbors will not be pale-faced Polish Americans. They will be darker faced Hispanic Americans, that you will come to cherish this land and you fellow citizens just as your neighbors came to love your families long ago.

It is not my place nor my position to worry about the elderly in Hazelton. I hear the Mayor complaining about the influx of immigrants, but he can do nothing about the loss of kids from that wonderful community.

How about you Hazelton Kids? Any ideas about who should care for your folks back home? I just want your folks to stay close to home, ... even in their own homes. Maybe a lady with three kids at home is willing to take care of your parents since you moved away. Maybe she speaks Spanish as her first language. And if you think about it, ... maybe this is just about the best place you would want her to be in America, especially if she loves to be here. She might be just the sort of person you'ld want in your stead, to make a warm dinner dinner for your folks. I think I would!

Check with your Mother and Father, ... Does the mayor speak for them? Or do your mother and father know better after all? I'll hold cooking lessons if you would like!

The Worth of an Oath

2007-03-04T21:48:00.000-05:00

I have struggled recently with the meaning of "supporting our troops" versus questioning the escalation of the war, and I have come to an understanding I am ashamed to say has eluded me for almost forty years.

Among my friends who have served, and lost their limbs, and minds, and more in wars since 1968 to this very day, I have been adverse to not give them every thing, ... everything! I have been angered that they did not receive proper medical care, proper housing, proper VA health benefits, ... and respect to allow themselves self-respect.

And when the ballyhoo about Walter Reed Army Medical Center came to our attention this past week, my ears perked up once again. You see, I used to go to Walter Reed and Bethesda Naval as part of my many jobs, ... and as long ago as 35 years, there were long lines of our enlisted, waiting in the outpatient areas to be seen, to be treated, perhaps to be cured. That on top of the lengthy wait they should return to sub-standard housing, ... then to return day after day, or wait month after month for an opportunity to be treated at all, is more than I can imagine.

I received a deferment for college in the 60's and 70's, ... no different than many. No special consideration, ... just a college kid, ... then a high number in the draft lottery. I worked in hospital work every weekend, beside Army docs in a civilian setting, ... with GI's working at my side as security guards, in a community hospital near an Army base hospital.

And all of that, so many years later, has come home to help me understand why the privatization of the military, and the care of our soldiers, and the preservation of balance between civilian values and the requirement for a civilian military are at the very heart of our Republic.

A corporation is a most self-interested beast. It exists and persists out of a devouring appetite for its competitors and its own young. Efficiency and profit are all it is about. It does not care for continuity, for tomorrow it might sell out to the highest bidder, ... indeed it will! It is its birthright, its edict. It is its only law of survival, even when it is a monopoly. It is the most blind of beasts for it has no past, and aspires to no future. The closing bell is its call to dinner, and the quarterly returns are its only aspiration.

In the age of Halliburton's monopolization of military services, I am wont to distinguish my admiration for the military, the grunt private still wearing out the initial starch of his uniform issued Stateside just last week, and the Lance Corporal in Anbar Province who has not seen a fresh shower in three weeks. Oh, ... did I leave out the shiny silk-suited KBR Corporati in Suburban DC? Yeah, ... I think we all do.

Therein lies the difference! I love the kids in khakis, and I would carry soup to the front line for them, and will when the need arises. But those kids, and their elder commanders all took an oath on my behalf, and my kids, ... and my grandkids. The muscular and devoted Marine Lance Corporal that I have seen grow from a kid to a beloved killing Marine machine still had to promise to take care of America, ... from the get go. Before we handed him a pair of socks and boots, he swore to take care of you and me, ... and America.

Ah, lets ask ourselves what Halliburton, the Corporation has sworn to do on our behalves, ... no We will go there another day. For now, ... let me only say that there is nothing that Halliburton or KBR will do for America before it takes care of its shareholders, ... and my guess is that there is nothing it will do for its shareholders before it takes care of its officers.

Therein lies the difference, my fellow Americans. I'd choose a kid who swears allegiance to the Constitution any day over a corporate type who promises a profit to shareholders foreign or domestic. And is that not, after the last contract signed, the sole difference? Isn't it Mr. Cheney?

A soldier who pledges his solemn honor to defend the United States is a sure as hell better bet than a corporation that promises its shareholders a bigger cut of the pie. Sorry Dick, ... I'll bet on the Lance Corporal I know than the Veep I distrust as a corporate shill anytime.

And in the end, it might just be that I trust an honest kid with a rifle more than I trust a shaky old fart with a shotgun! Sorry, Dick

The Must Do List To Save Our Republic

2007-03-04T20:00:00.000-05:00

With a sigh of relief, I feel at least a few Americans, and perhaps the first publication in America that is widely read enough to matter, have now stated what must be done to bring us away from the brink of social ruination. It depends upon what you do next, and what the New York Times does in follow up to the editorial they published today, ... and what I do as well. I need to get off my sorry old ass and make my voice heard to achieve what the NYT has demanded, ... and they need to make it a purpose for more than an editorial headline. Generations before us have rioted and picketed and died for far less that what the NYT demands on our behalves in today's editorial.

What the NYT proscribes today is no matter of social nuance, nor some socieconomic stratogem. What they mandate in this editorial is the essential restoration of basic rights within our nation, and by our nation within the world at large. At its heart, its strongest advocates should, but will not, be the NRA, and CPAC, and latter day Goldwater Conservatives, ... for there will be no reason to own a gun if you can not speak your peace. The true conservatives in our nation and in our history were those who understood that privacy, and a right to life and liberty, in all their full richness and meaning, are what we have always fought and died for in America.

When we have fought as a nation beyond our shores it has always been to preserve these rights within our shores. We support our troops in order that they can defend our way of life, and then return from the battlefield to enjoy its full benefits when their wars are finished.

Walter Reed and the scandal developing around its mismanagment and desecration by the Executive Branch is simply another reminder that it is time for Americans to reclaim full ownership of our Nation by every means available to us under our Constitution. Privatization in the name of capitism has proved to be a bastardization of our national purpose. Halliburton and KBR don't get it, and never will, ... for there is no commitment and no oath behind any corporate interests. Give me a young private with a crew cut and a new uniform anyday over a slick suit, bald headed old fuck. I trust a young woman just out of boot camp to take care of our lifestyle, and I love a hard muscled Marine Corporal who will know that when his "Unitary Executive" commands him to arrest and imprison his fellow Americans that the Executive will have gone way too far! These men and women will be our best hope in the end, if we can not reverse these illegal and unconstitutional insults to the American Republic. The notion that citzen soldiers are our best defense to a military coup in America was something Thomas Jefferson understood that we might have forgotten.

Perhaps it is time to tighten the belly, and harden the spirit to protect what we have been granted by our mothers and fathers.

==================================================================

In the event you do not receive or can not view this editorial from the New York Times from today, ... I copy its contents for your consideration and appreciation, with full and complete attribution to the Editor in Chief of that fine paper, who, in this instance, has spoken clearly and forthrightly on our behalf.

The Must-Do List
The New York Times Editorial
Published: March 4, 2007

The Bush administration’s assault on some of the founding principles of American democracy marches onward despite the Democratic victory in the 2006 elections. The new Democratic majorities in Congress can block the sort of noxious measures that the Republican majority rubber-stamped. But preventing new assaults on civil liberties is not nearly enough.
Five years of presidential overreaching and Congressional collaboration continue to exact a high toll in human lives, America’s global reputation and the architecture of democracy. Brutality toward prisoners, and the denial of their human rights, have been institutionalized; unlawful spying on Americans continues; and the courts are being closed to legal challenges of these practices.
It will require forceful steps by this Congress to undo the damage. A few lawmakers are offering bills intended to do just that, but they are only a start. Taking on this task is a moral imperative that will show the world the United States can be tough on terrorism without sacrificing its humanity and the rule of law.
Today we’re offering a list — which, sadly, is hardly exhaustive — of things that need to be done to reverse the unwise and lawless policies of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Many will require a rewrite of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, an atrocious measure pushed through Congress with the help of three Republican senators, Arlen Specter, Lindsey Graham and John McCain; Senator McCain lent his moral authority to improving one part of the bill and thus obscured its many other problems.
•
Our list starts with three fundamental tasks:

Restore Habeas Corpus

One of the new act’s most indecent provisions denies anyone Mr. Bush labels an "illegal enemy combatant" the ancient right to challenge his imprisonment in court. The arguments for doing this were specious. Habeas corpus is nothing remotely like a get-out-of-jail-free card for terrorists, as supporters would have you believe. It is a way to sort out those justly detained from those unjustly detained. It will not "clog the courts," as Senator Graham claims. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the Democratic chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has a worthy bill that would restore habeas corpus. It is essential to bringing integrity to the detention system and reviving the United States’ credibility.

Stop Illegal Spying

Mr. Bush’s program of intercepting Americans’ international calls and e-mail messages without a warrant has not ceased. The agreement announced recently — under which a secret court supposedly gave its blessing to the program — did nothing to restore judicial process or ensure that Americans’ rights are preserved. Congress needs to pass a measure, like one proposed by Senator Dianne Feinstein, to force Mr. Bush to obey the law that requires warrants for electronic surveillance.

Ban Torture, Really

The provisions in the Military Commissions Act that Senator McCain trumpeted as a ban on torture are hardly that. It is still largely up to the president to decide what constitutes torture and abuse for the purpose of prosecuting anyone who breaks the rules. This amounts to rewriting the Geneva Conventions and puts every American soldier at far greater risk if captured. It allows the president to decide in secret what kinds of treatment he will permit at the Central Intelligence Agency’s prisons. The law absolves American intelligence agents and their bosses of any acts of torture and abuse they have already committed.
•
Many of the tasks facing Congress involve the way the United States takes prisoners, and how it treats them. There are two sets of prisons in the war on terror. The military runs one set in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay. The other is even more shadowy, run by the C.I.A. at secret places.

Close the C.I.A. Prisons

When the Military Commissions Act passed, Mr. Bush triumphantly announced that he now had the power to keep the secret prisons open. He cast this as a great victory for national security. It was a defeat for America’s image around the world. The prisons should be closed.

Account for ‘Ghost Prisoners’

The United States has to come clean on all of the "ghost prisoners" it has in the secret camps. Holding prisoners without any accounting violates human rights norms. Human Rights Watch says it has identified nearly 40 men and women who have disappeared into secret American-run prisons.

Ban Extraordinary Rendition

This is the odious practice of abducting foreign citizens and secretly flying them to countries where everyone knows they will be tortured. It is already illegal to send a prisoner to a country if there is reason to believe he will be tortured. The administration’s claim that it got "diplomatic assurances" that prisoners would not be abused is laughable.
A bill by Representative Edward Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, would require the executive branch to list countries known to abuse and torture prisoners. No prisoner could be sent to any of them unless the secretary of state certified that the country’s government no longer abused its prisoners or offered a way to verify that a prisoner will not be mistreated. It says "diplomatic assurances" are not sufficient.
•
Congress needs to completely overhaul the military prisons for terrorist suspects, starting with the way prisoners are classified. Shortly after 9/11, Mr. Bush declared all members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban to be "illegal enemy combatants" not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions or American justice. Over time, the designation was applied to anyone the administration chose, including some United States citizens and the entire detainee population of Gitmo.
To address this mess, the government must:

Tighten the Definition of Combatant

"Illegal enemy combatant" is assigned a dangerously broad definition in the Military Commissions Act. It allows Mr. Bush — or for that matter anyone he chooses to designate to do the job — to apply this label to virtually any foreigner anywhere, including those living legally in the United States.

Screen Prisoners Fairly and Effectively

When the administration began taking prisoners in Afghanistan, it did not much bother to screen them. Hundreds of innocent men were sent to Gitmo, where far too many remain to this day. The vast majority will never even be brought before tribunals and still face indefinite detention without charges.
Under legal pressure, Mr. Bush created "combatant status review tribunals," but they are a mockery of any civilized legal proceeding. They take place thousands of miles from the point of capture, and often years later. Evidence obtained by coercion and torture is permitted. The inmates do not get to challenge this evidence. They usually do not see it.
The Bush administration uses the hoary "fog of war" dodge to justify the failure to screen prisoners, saying it is not practical to do that on the battlefield. That’s nonsense. It did not happen in Afghanistan, and often in Iraq, because Mr. Bush decided just to ship the prisoners off to Gitmo.
Prisoners designated as illegal combatants are subject to trial rules out of the Red Queen’s playbook. The administration refuses to allow lawyers access to 14 terrorism suspects transferred in September from C.I.A. prisons to Guantánamo. It says that if they had a lawyer, they might say that they were tortured or abused at the C.I.A. prisons, and anything that happened at those prisons is secret.
At first, Mr. Bush provided no system of trial at the Guantánamo camp. Then he invented his own military tribunals, which were rightly overturned by the Supreme Court. Congress then passed the Military Commissions Act, which did not fix the problem. Some tasks now for Congress:

Ban Tainted Evidence

The Military Commissions Act and the regulations drawn up by the Pentagon to put it into action, are far too permissive on evidence obtained through physical abuse or coercion. This evidence is unreliable. The method of obtaining it is an affront.

Ban Secret Evidence

Under the Pentagon’s new rules for military tribunals, judges are allowed to keep evidence secret from a prisoner’s lawyer if the government persuades the judge it is classified. The information that may be withheld can include interrogation methods, which would make it hard, if not impossible, to prove torture or abuse.

Better Define ‘Classified’ Evidence

The military commission rules define this sort of secret evidence as "any information or material that has been determined by the United States government pursuant to statute, executive order or regulation to require protection against unauthorized disclosure for reasons of national security." This is too broad, even if a president can be trusted to exercise the power fairly and carefully. Mr. Bush has shown he cannot be trusted to do that.

Respect the Right to Counsel

Soon after 9/11, the Bush administration allowed the government to listen to conversations and intercept mail between some prisoners and their lawyers. This had the effect of suspending their right to effective legal representation. Since then, the administration has been unceasingly hostile to any lawyers who defend detainees. The right to legal counsel does not exist to coddle serial terrorists or snarl legal proceedings. It exists to protect innocent people from illegal imprisonment.
•
Beyond all these huge tasks, Congress should halt the federal government’s race to classify documents to avoid public scrutiny — 15.6 million in 2005, nearly double the 2001 number. It should also reverse the grievous harm this administration has done to the Freedom of Information Act by encouraging agencies to reject requests for documents whenever possible. Congress should curtail F.B.I. spying on nonviolent antiwar groups and revisit parts of the Patriot Act that allow this practice.
The United States should apologize to a Canadian citizen and a German citizen, both innocent, who were kidnapped and tortured by American agents.
Oh yes, and it is time to close the Guantánamo camp. It is a despicable symbol of the abuses committed by this administration (with Congress’s complicity) in the name of fighting terrorism.

America's Cardinal Richilieu - Dick Cheney

2007-02-22T19:29:00.000-05:00

Ornithologists teach us that the goose who appears at the lead of a flock in flight at the point of its classic "V", is in fact taking its guiding instruction from the goose just off the peak to one side or another. That is more or less a matter of aerodynamic and ergonomic necssity, for staying in the lead position for a Canada Goose, and being the navigator at the same time is not a position that could be sustained, and indeed other geese rotate into that position when the lead is exhausted. Would that our Republic were so lucky to have succession occur at the very moment when our leaders fatally falter!
Mankind fashions itself apart from all Nature, ... certainly better than birds, and yet it seems we repeat those patterns our feathered friends use to survive. The punishing pressures of the Presidency are such that, even had there never been a 22nd Amendment, physical and psychic limitations would have generally interceded to avoid a third term for almost every president. That would, however, never discourage the hangers on, and the controlling sorts who aspire to guide our leaders.
In the shadows of our history and that of other nations there has always been a distinct breed of political operatives who, rather than fly at the point, prefer the draft, and whisper the way to the lead. Some have done so in lieu of opportunity. Some to avoid the risk and cost of publicity. And some due to the sheer reality that they are so dark and unlikeable that they could never have been raised to a significant level of leadership of any historical interest.
For Cardinal Richilieu, the coattails of King Louis XIII were enough to satisfy his appetite for office by proxy, power by proximity. In a political parallel to that engagement by the French cleric in 16th century France, Dick Cheney and all who were encouraging the radical extremes we have seen in America over the last six years, achieved a very similar aim by having Cheney nominate himself as Vice Presidential candidate to run with George W. Bush, the Republican candidate for President. While there are flaws in the manner of our primary elections, they pale in comparison to the abuse in this instance. George W. Bush certainly received the required votes from primaries across the nation to submit the electors to achieve the nomination as Republican candidate for the presidency in the year 2000.
Dick Cheney was, on the other hand, never a contender for the Presidency. He could never be, for his extreme views, radical Republican past, and history as CEO of Haliburton during a period of highly questionable Corporate ethics, would have made him unpalatable to any rational voter. Camouflaged behind the Good Ole Boy candidate, Dubya, ... he could, and did, anoint himself, candidate for VP in the run-up to the election of 2000, without ever having received a single vote from the people to whom he would be called to swear his oath of office, except on the coattails of George W Bush. While I can and do quibble with the nature and means of Bush’s appointment to the Presidency by the Supreme Court in that election, ... I accept that in the face of unresolveable issues, a rational excuse for the course of events since had to be made to place a candidate into the office.
What can not be denied, and should never be forgotten by any legitimate political party in our nation, now nor ever, is that the annunciation of Richard B. Cheney to be the candidate for Vice President, was a ringer job. Bush was never, and could never be, the competent and compassionate candidate he set himself forth to be. He had not the political credentials, the intellectual capacity, nor the ethical integrity to be that. But someone had to be the "Lead Goose" in the formation the Republicans set forth for the election in 2000. And some other goose had to be at his right ear all along the way, ... To steer right, ... And then right again, ... Yes, ... More right. Lord knows the lead goose had no clue which way to fly on his own.
Now we find ourselves flying in circles in America. We say to our friends that we do not know why that is, ... But we are, or seem, unwilling to dump the guiding bird just off the right wing of the lead goose. Yep, ... Dick! You!
Analogies and metaphors go only so far in seeking a true understanding of difficult subjects. Much as I’d like to say this is a weighty subject only the cogniscenti should be able to comprehend, ... It is a simple matter. It is "Time to shoot the Goose"! No, ... Not the lead one, but the one just to the right of him. By that I mean and intend that we need to draw up and introduce Impeachment Proceedings against the second goose, Dick Cheney. (Disclaimer: I am not referring to a literal ‘shooting’, but rather a metaphorical presentation of impeachment proceedings to remove Vice President Cheney from his current office).
George Bush is a clueless, seemingly brain-damaged individual, who finds himself flying at the lead long after his strength is gone, and trust in his guidance among the electorate has disappeared. Cheney is, on the contrary, a demonically purposeful individual, with an inveterate and pathological belief in the need that the Presidency be restored to the level of monarchy, with the commensurate belief that any US monarch should be led by a phantom cardinal, perhaps as VP, ... Who knows what the Republic needs and must have, ... Even better than do We the People.
Oh Dick, I pray that God, ... The one I love and pray to, finds mercy on your soul for the demonic predispositions you think should be enacted by Executive Order. You seem to me to be a maniac, whom your children love despite your flaws, and whom we, your enemies, must watch forever until you breathe your last natural breath. I thought Richard Nixon personified my fears, until I met you. Rumsfeld at least had the decency to disapear until we will indict him for war crimes. You, on the other hand, pop onto my news links and TV screen incessantly!
Cardinal Cheney, I pray you will resign. You are poisoning the presidency of your underling lead goose, George the Second. You are destroying the purpose of America around the globe. You are, thereby, destroying America!

A Lack of Feith

2007-02-10T20:14:00.000-05:00

I mouth off every so often, ... you know, venture along a line of thought where my brain has never really lived, and then, ... offer an unfounded opinion of the way the World should be, from my specious point of view. I awaken feeling stupid in the morning, as should we all when we take those steps into the unknown and try to play God. There are those things I know a lot, and a little, and not at all.

Let's you and I, for sake of argument here, assume that the most secret intelligence information is not even accessible to either of us. You know, ... the number of nukes held by Israel, the sites of our black hole CIA prisons overseas, The silverware count for the kitchen at the White House, or even who cleans it, ... and things like that. There are folks who know those things, but I don't. They are paid to know and learn those things, and I am paid for other things.

Follow me here then as I take you to a time and place, in late 2001, or perhaps early 2002, when there was a focused assessment of what we knew about Saddam's Iraq. We needed to and wanted to know what they had and wanted to have, what they did and wanted to do. We cruised freely in the Northern and Southern No-Fly zones, ... closer and closer to the margins of them, seeking to light up their radar stations, ... looking for excuses to take out site after site. There never seemed to be a shortage of them.

Even these events were not enough, never enough, to justify positioning the last Super-Power against a restrained has-been dictator, stitched tightly into geographic boundaries of our making in 1991, and then declaring war, ... No, I mis-spoke, for there was no declaration of war whatsoever, just the empowerment of a President to prosecute what would in any other age been known as "War". So much the easier to allow Congress the luxury of avoiding guilt in the end, I suppose. What a tragedy that a body so large, yet so unrepresentative and irresponsible, could or would dispense so hastily with their duty to discuss and debate the reasons for taking our Nation and our Forces to war.

Into this time, when our Nation and our People sought redress for attacks on our soil and against our people, it was easy for men to second guess the reasoning of others. Why had the FAA and the Armed Forces done what they had (or not done what they should) on 9-1-1? In the times of such events in our history, we learn after the fact that there is a flood of intelligence, difficult to gather and worse to understand, which flows among and toward our leaders. Why had the government not investigated the debris, to determine the true causes of the catastrophic failure of these huge buildings to a cause they were designed to withstand? And when the war was begun, ... why were there still doubts that Iraq had any part in these provocative attacks two years before?

And that, sadly, is the consequence of the Pentagon IG's Report this week. In the DOD, there existed a department specifically created, it seems, to set policy before understanding, to question the findings and wisdom, and the very foundation of our intelligence against our worst enemies around the world. They contend, at this late date, in their positions as "professors" (of what, I ask?), that they only "questioned and challenged" the intelligence. Those of us in the lower ranks of American governance, the voters, believe they filtered every bit of intelligence which reached the top of our Government. Without additional information, ... and one has to ask where they would receive that information in the best restaurants in Georgetown, how could they be convinced the CIA had it wrong. And in that instance, how can they still defend George Tenet's information to our President. Was he not the Director of CIA? Were his Analysts not the best we could obtain, and were they not given the best information available to discern the intentions of our enemies? If not, why not? Can we award the Director and disdain his reports?

No, ... For in the schism between George Tenet's falling on the sword of disinformation, and Rummy's resigned corpse at the ass end of the skewer, like some Schizophrenic Schiskobab, there lie the impaled careers of our most capable intelligence officers,... some of whom we know, and most of whom we do not. As with every Schiskobab, we must look to the inside to find the best morsels. Even these devoted and invisible servants have abandoned the cause of our People in the aftermath of the War on Terror.

I believe "Disinformation" is, nonetheless information. If you are responsible for filtering, amplifying, inventing, or distorting intelligence which rises to a level in our government where it influences, or is likely to influence, the decisions made by any branch, be it the Executive, the Judicial, or the Legislative, then you should, by virtue of the authority of the role assigned and ascribed to that subordinate by the branch which appoints them, be responsible for the content of the information you report for action by your respective branch.

Just my take on it, of course. But it seems to me that Rummy, and Feith, and Wolfowitz, and Perle, should all step up and answer for their reasoning in the lead up to the War in Iraq. And to distinguish one war from the other, ... Afghanistan was, and still is, considered a legitimate war by the World, and most Americans. I feel we had no choice but to take it to the Taliban, and Osama, and those regions in Afghanistan and Pakistan that harbor terrorists of whatever stripe. We abandoned that war at the worst possible time, for reasons which remain to be explored.

The question, in the end, is whether ignorance leads wisdom down a path of perdition based on its blindness, predelection, and perfidy.

If that be the case, ... then hang the bastards, as long and high as is required to end their influence on our Nation.

2007-02-09T18:49:00.000-05:00

So, I wake up every morning, ... not at the first ring of my clock, nor the second. I kind of drag it out a bit. I worry that if I jump out of bed, and turn on my radio, or, God forbid, my television, ... I will discover that George has pulled the trigger on Iran after all.

He will appear on "Prime Time Television" (What the hell is that in this day of TIVO andDVR's?) to explain why he could not postpone a pre-emptive bunker-buster strike with weapons ("Nukular"?) that were required to take out Iran's imminent nukular somethings, ... that are now vaporized and wafting across the deserts of the Middle East. He intends to seek the support of Congress as soon as he gets around to it, ... almost any day now. But his dyslexia allows him the unique and unitary executive luxury of claiming that he misunderstood the spelling of "I-R-A-Q" in the authorization for aggression four years ago. The tape is clear, ... "Go North from Kuwait, ... then turn left, ... , no Right! , ... no Left, and then attack Iran, ... no "Iraq". ("Dick, ... did I get that right?, ... Oh good, I was afraid I really screwed that up big-time! Thanks for your vote of support all along the way! If it weren't for you and Rummy, and Condi, .. this job would just be like taking my leg off with a chain-saw, ... I swear! Wait, ... I gave up swearing when God told me to attack Iran, ... I mean IRAQ, ... Hope I don't screw that up during the SOTUS! Love that kinda talk, ... Makes me feel so 'Predsidential'(sic)! "

So, as a result of a disability overlooked by both parents and teachers alike, we suffer now from the wrong war! We will correct that pretty soon here, ... given the clearly understandable similarity between the spelling and pronunciation of Iraq and Iran. Who wouldn't excuse our Commander in Chief of what any reasonable person (legal term) would understand to be a simple mistake in speaking his commands to the troops as they cascaded across the desert?

For starts, ... I would not, ... excuse Bush, that is. I love disabilities. They are Human and they are understandable, ... but in the Commander in Chief, this is particularly inexcusable. But what I find even more inexcusable, is Dick Cheney, ... with his vasopathic tendencies, ... egging on his "dumb and dumber" friend, the President, to take on the lightest weight dictator first, ... as if he thought Iraq was a great training ground for a bigger war with Iran!

I do not know what remedy the Constitution provides for a President who takes this Nation into an unauthorized war. I suspect that impeachment is the only remedy, as slow and tedious as it might be. ... And who enforces the outcome of impeachment, ... and extricates us from the hypothetical war I suggest might come to pass? Who knows, until such disasters are created for us by our leaders?

You know, ... I have smoke alarms, Carbon Monoxide alarms, security alarms, and safeguards against almost everything but the stupidity of my President and his Vice. Wait, ... wasn't that why I voted in November?

Hope so!

SG51

Cheney, Rumsfeld, ... The Bitters, to the Bitter End

2006-11-02T18:03:00.000-05:00

Like most concerned citizens before an important election, I feel a bit nervous that the outcome of the election will change my life and the lives of those I love and care about. Fear would have me worry those changes will be for the worse, and the optimist in me calls upon me to hope that our society will benefit from our collective wills, expressed at the polls. We may know something about that direction come next Tuesday evening, barring calamities in the counting of our ballots.

These thoughts you are reading are directed not to those potentialities, but to the certainties we have been given this week by our President. Two of those, the assurances from the Principal Problem on Pennsylvania Avenue that his veep and his Secretary of the DOD will have his unwavering if not wholely deserved confidence until the inauguration of his replacement. Cheney and Rumsfeld, short of the Divine's intervention on our behalf, will be with us another two years.

Thank you Sir! We were gravely concerned that when you said we were not doing the "Stay the Course" thing, ... that you meant we might sack these hacks who, along with your lies and those of your other thugs, dragged us into Iraq, trashed our standing in International Affairs, plundered the Bill of Rights, and committed heinous war crimes in our name. I have so little time here to describe the full range of other crimes against the planet and its people you have found time to commit in your six years in office. There will be time after you leave the confines of the Oval Office to address all of those concerns.

What defies all logic to me is why you chose this week in the run-up to the mid-term elections, to slap a "Good Ole' Boy" seal of approval on the shoulders of these bobble-headed nincompoops! Do you honestly believe that the assurance to the troops or the electorate that you have confidence in these fools, after all they have done to put our nation and our troops at risk, will garner votes for the RRR? The Reichpublican Party, and you, both know that before you ever announced those accolades for these idiots, that the absentee ballots were long ago mailed by our courageous soldiers to their respective boards of election. Did you actually think those Americans who are still undecided about the sort of Congress that we need in the next two years will truly be drawn to vote Reichpublican because they know it is a package deal with you and the other stooges you brought to lead our nation's government. I, and every other parent or friend of a soldier in Iraq, put you on notice, Sir, that you are a fool to choose blind loyalty over wise leadership in the waning years of your "Reign of Error"!

Perhaps today, more than any time in the last six years, I see that there is hope that America will abandon its infatuation with the foul sort of folks that the Bush Reich has sicced upon our country. In my heart I have to believe that a military mother or father, or spouse, who, for reasons I can fully understand, might want to keep a cohesive policy to safeguard their most precious child or spouse. The Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld train to Hell in Iraq has, however, long since left the station. That Bush wants to take his underlings into purgatory with him for the next two years, is understandable. That anyone voting next Tuesday is persuaded to vote Republican because Cheney and Rumsfeld are to be retained, is a preposterous notion, ... Even Bush himself, in his most deluded moment, could not possibly believe that to be true.

That possibility is the most frightening of all. Does this man who pretends to lead actually believe these are the best we have in our nation, ... to perform these critical roles, at this crucial time? I suspect he does.

And that brings us to the ultimate question. What does our nation do with a man in the Presidency, who is deluded, possibly even brain-damaged, and unable to perform his duties, ... and sustains his minions simply to support himself, and his own self-delusions.

We must, first and foremost, depose the Congress that enables this alcoholic and delusional man who is Chief Executive. The voting record on the Military Commissions Act is a great starting point. Any member of Congress who approved the MCA has committed him or her self to suspending vital guarantees to personal liberties for Americans. They existed for us all even before the Constitution. That document assured their continuation, at least until the MCA. It will be years until the MCA is overturned by the Supreme Court.

So, ... much as I have concerns that will need to be dealt with in the Democratic Congress to come, I would recommend voting straight Democratic, ... or preferably selecting each Democratic candidate for Congress. Sorry, ... no exceptions. We'll sort out the victims after the election.

So, ... Today we begin again!

SG51

Buying Amerika for a Quarter, a Nickel, and Three Pennies

2006-10-18T11:58:00.000-04:00

When I was a kid in Kansas, things were simpler. I went to school, played baseball almost every day, and swam in the summer. I searched for fossils, studied Darwin, and rode my bike everywhere I needed to go across that endless plain. In my travels on my Schwinn I bought an occasional coke from a machine for a nickel. Penny candy was, ... well, a penny. Mcdonald’s burgers were 15 cents a piece, but you ate them in the car, for McD’s had only the drive-in stores at that point.

Karl Rove is younger than I, ... Though I personally believe he looks far older. Yet he seems to hearken back to my childhood era in some ways. I hear he has opened his coffers, at least those of the Republican National Committee, to fund a Blitzkrieg of attack ads across America in an attempt to sway public opinion back in favor of the Radical Republican Right (RRR) who govern us in Washington.

Somewhere in America this week a baby was born that make the mathematics of Karl’s political strategy transparent for what it actually is, buying an election on the cheap. Karl reportedly will spend $ 100,000,000 to buy into the good graces of the 300,000,000 Americans alive today. Granted. the baby, and other young people under 18, and convicted felons in some states, and those disenfranchised by discriminatory election laws, minorities and immigrants, and those confused with illegal immigrants and felons, ... and the list goes on and on, ... Those folks can’t be counted for they can’t vote to maintain the status quo. But, for purposes of simplicity, ... And Karl appeals most to the simple-minded, he is willing to ante up only 33 Cents per American to buy the RRR continued control over our lives.

To be fair, Rove is not, to my knowledge "buying" the election in the old time sense. He might not even be paying execs at the voting machine companies to hack the results, ... much more difficult in this case than the fiascos in the 2000 and 2004 Presidential Elections. No, ... I’m guessing he’ll try to Swift Boat his way into our hearts with 33 cents worth of scary pictures and comments, ... Making the opposition to the RRR look like the enemy at the gate, ... Collaborators in the demise of our democracy.

In the end how far can 33 cents go? You can’t buy a pack of gum with that any more, for gosh sakes. But if you receive a call from someone who says they got your request for an absentee ballot, ... And you didn’t request one, maybe Karl called just to stir the pot! Or if you see an intimidating group of dark suits at your polling place, ... Maybe Karl gave them gas money to "monitor" the polls, and scare you away from even trying to vote.

I have no clue how Karl will spend his, ... I’m sorry, ... the "RRR’s", campaign funds. Hell, I thought he’d be appealing a sentence or two by now. No such luck, eh Mr. Special Prosecutor? But my guess is that Karl’s pudgy handprints will be all over my TV, my radio, and my newspaper in the next few weeks.

In the end it is my vote he’s after, or perhaps wants me not to exercise. And if he wants to spend 33 cents in a futile effort to try and cover up the RRR’s crimes and sins and sway me in their dirction, ... I say "Go for it Karl!". The way I see it, ... If he blows $ 100,000,000 that foolishly now, he won’t have that money for legal defenses after the election is behind us. And when I vote in November, ... That is where my heart is.

You see, America is not "Amerika" simply because Karl thinks he owns it. I have long since abandoned hope that Rove would be cuffed and hustled out the servants’ entrance at the White House for the CIA outing. I am willing to settle now for him taking a swift trip back to Texas, or almost anywhere else at the end of 2008.

It is typical of the RRR that they would pay bottom dollar for something as valuable as an American’s vote. What might have once gone for a dollar in the sixties, ... Is now worth only 33 cents! Only in "Amerika", right Karl?

Guana Beah Helluvanah Lexion

2006-10-05T18:58:00.000-04:00

So, ... if you could not keep a sense of humor about the Party at the Helm, ... the Rabid Reichpublican Right, (RRR)... you'd have slit your wrists years ago, right? I've often subscribed to my younger brother's advice, ... "It is a good day when you awaken on the right side of the sod!"

But this morning it dawned on me that perhaps as my politics have recovered to a more progressive side, that I have taken myself, and the world of politics, way too seriously. So I confess that I made a point today, ... as nature wanes toward Winter, to take my political perspectives more "Spring-ward". I don't need to take life so seriously after all.

For example, ... Newt Gingrich stands today before an invited public and states that the release of information about Representative Foley, ... and its timing, seem to smack of political work afoot on the Democratic side. This less than a week since Karl Rove ("Bush's Brain"?) indicated he was working on an "October Surprise" to assist Republicans with the upcoming mid-term election results. Guffah, guffah! Wait, ... is Newt sending me a coded message?

Might Karl have taken a "double spin" approach? Let's say he wants to portray the Democrats as conniving, demented, Machiavelian, and sick in their manipulation of the media at a critical juncture just before an election, ... you know, like in 2000, 2002, and 2004 when the Republicans pulled that same sort of sick crap? You know, ... steamboat, swiftboat, tugboat, shitboat, or what have you?

So, ... stick with me here, I don't know that Karl had anything to do with the "Fall of Foley", ... but I do know it has sucked up a bunch of time on the MSM, and Hastert is blaming the deepest darkest parts of the Democratic Underground for the release of information, ... but still denying that they knew anything more than twenty minutes before the release of information on Friday last.

Meanwhile, at least thirteen of our soldiers have died in Iraq since Foley checked himself into rehab for an unrelated medical issue (Alcoholism) and claims it all was a result of his being molested as a child(?), although he refuses to name the church of the molesting cleric, nor the name of said cleric. So the good Congressman refuses still to protect other children, parishoners, or clerics who might be exposed to the sort of pedophile the Congressman then became himself.

Sorry, ... I seemed to have digressed in my efforts not to have taken too seriously the transgressions of the RRR.

Yep, ... this is the sort of stuff of which our times are made.

Sucks to be us, ... yes?

SG51

The Reign of Error Continues

2006-09-29T20:10:00.000-04:00

With Iraq relegated to the status of a "comma" in a typical fascism, and his place in American History described in his own words, ... "I don't really worry about my place in history. I don't believe Â I believe history can only truly judge a presidency after a number of years have gone by." The here and now be damned, it seems King George II is set to exit stage far right and never look back. But as I attempt to foretell the remaining years and months of his reign, it seems King George has removed almost every obstacle in his path to continuing his "Reign of Error".

The Senate removed today all doubt that he can continue the detention and even perhaps, one day, the prosecution of the countless souls he has secretly seized in the course of his Reign of Error since 9/11. The terrorists, and cab drivers, messengers, ...Andd those with similar names to terrorists, cab drivers, messengers, ...Andd you get the idea. Oh, ... I forgot, ... King George II needs to sign the deed granted him which effectively reverses the Magna Carta with respect to the detentions of accused criminals. God willing, ... Bush will diveheadfirstt into a bottle of Jim Beam, ...Forgett to sign the damned bill, and thereby render it meaningless.

God willing, I say, ... for there is a chance that even in the face of a Democratic sweep of the races in November, and a reclamation of our nation from the Radical Reichpublican Right (RRR) which seems to have seized control of the Republican Party of every stripe, that King George II will continue his Reign Of Error for another two plus years, with the cover of Federal Statute enacted by the RRR and their sheepish brethren, both Republican and Democrat, who voted for this legislative piece of trash.

I have read many eulogies for the American Republic today. As is so often the case, these words, conflated and pompous as they may be, do not convey the tragedy of the moment of death as they should. They describe the loss to Mankind, and the risk to the sublime, ... but I want to know what it felt like for the Senators to stand before their brethren as the RRR drove a sword into the flank of our Republic today. How did you feel to see George W Bush drive a short sword through Her back, into the very spine of her laws, inherited as they were from our mother country so long ago?

Did he smirk as he so often does? Then did Dubya turn away, ... or did he watch as She bled from his first strike? Who was the first Senator to pile on his stiletto blow, ... Was it Frist, ... or did McCain, Graham, and Warner twist their musketeer blades into Her ribs to show their obedient acquiescence to the King? C-Span can be poetry, except at times like these when the Blood of Our Republic flows at the hands of criminals and assassins! Et Tu, Chafee? Et Tu Specter?

I can not tell you how disgusted I am by any Senator who stood watching within the chamber as this murderous vote was consummated against these States, and did not react, ... did not rebel!

I will memorize before my death the names of all those who signed the Declaration of Independence, ... and I will memorize the names of all those Senators who voted to pass this bill today. In a sense they are the beginning and the ending of a most beautiful mystical and musical work in Human History, ... for they define the beginning and ending of the democracy we have enjoyed.

I may not have properly marked the death of our Republic. She may linger in intensive care for a while. Make no mistake, however, ... she was mortally wounded today, more than perhaps any other day in Her Life.

Stargazer51

War Crimes Exonerated, ... Shame on Us!

2006-09-28T18:01:00.000-04:00

When there still seemed to be a sliver of a chance that the sanctioning of Bush's torture regime might actually snag on the United States Senate's Three Military Musketeers, former Secretary of State Colin Powell waded into the political discussion, not realizing he was stranded once again into the sickly Home of the Mountain King, ... George II, when he spoke of his concerns about wantonly violating The Geneva Conventions, and the impact that legislation might have upon GI's who might fall into POW status in future or current wars.

God have mercy on Powell's soul, ... Bush, McCain, Warner and Graham led him once again to slaughter, ... only again to ignore his seasoned advice, and make a fool of him for standing up for his convictions. Colin stands alone this time, ... falling to the body fake of politics in our time, ... the false conviction of experienced legislators, ... a pass to the right just before they all head out of bounds.

Little do they think or know that the world has every reason now to count the House of Representatives and (given the recent trend toward a vote by week's end) the United States Senate as accomplices after the fact to the war crimes George Bush has already committed and intends to commit in the future. Exonerating him after the fact is a little known, but essential Republican feature to the bills in the legislature. Legislating his dissolution of Habeas Corpus makes it a domestic crime as well in my opinion. One has to wonder why any legislator who hopes to run for office again for Federal office, would yield to the imbecile child king who rules us now. Two plus years from this evening he will recede into ignominy. Today, you exonerate him from crimes against Humanity? What are you thinking???

The war crimes tribunal against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, et al. was to be a small affair up to this point. But if you insist, Gentlemen and Ladies, upon making it a huge party, then so be it. If you are willing to sign your sacred honor to this fool's crimes, then I pity you more than I pity Colin Powell for once again surrendering his honor for a cause that left him long ago at the curb. I trust he will have the good sense to retire into retirement. Bless him!

The rest of you who will vote or have voted for Bush's War Crime Exoneration Bill should be ashamed, ... but even more so, you should be afraid. You can not now willfully say that you did not understand that Your President had committed War Crimes, ... if you absolve him of the crimes he committed, ... right?

I did not think so.

Shame on you all who voted in the House and might vote in the Senate!

We record your votes. For we are better than you, or will be again soon. We will vote for or against you based solely upon your record and your promises, ... whatever they might be. What, ...? Did you think we would forget? What did you think the Internet was for?

As I wrote before, ... Shame on you!

Stargazer51

The End of Rule By Law

2006-09-23T18:43:00.000-04:00

In the nearly six years of King George II's reign over America, it can be argued this Administration has heavily abused it Constitutional role. President Bush and the phantoms who stand behind him in the shadows have issued signing statements which declare his unwillingness to abide by the letter of many laws passed by this Congress. He created "enemy combatants" from whole cloth so as to deny such designees any legal safeguards, either Domestic or International. He created a gulag on Guantanamo to provide them no tenable jurisdiction on American or foreign soil. He committed and continues to commit illegal espionage via wiretaps against American citizens without the requisite warrants, whether or not they fall under foreign surveillance laws. And in all these things, King George II has been rebuffed in court rulings and legislation at the local, state, and Federal levels, and even in the Supreme Court of the United States. He has been told repeatedly that his actions violate the laws of this land, provisions of international law, and of treaties such as the Geneva Conventions, which the Constitution assures the stature of American Law.

The Three Military Musketeers of the Reichpublican Party, Senators McCain, Warner, and Graham, stepped forward last week to challenge the most recent demands of the President that he be allowed to continue with his policies of illegal torture and interrogation of our enemies, illegal kidnappings, or “special renditions”, of suspects in this and other countries, and adherence to the provisions, long understood by rational minds here and abroad, of the Geneva Conventions.

While but a few weeks or months remain in the political life of this worst of American Presidents, these three stalwart Senators, supposedly so convicted to the assurance of a strong and prepared military, seem, after their sudden fury and challenge to the White House, to have wholely caved to pressure from President Bush and his keepers.

McCain, the Lion of Oz, … courageous in the face of his experience as a POW, … Warner, … the Tin Man, … the heart of experience at the zenith of US Navy Commands, … and Graham, … the Scarecrow AG attorney, a clear and learned advocate for adherence to the Geneva Convention and Laws of War.

The Three are the perfect smokescreen for the Reichpublicans to advocate passage of laws to approve what this President demands that this Congress say we must do under Geneva. It will not change what Geneva means to our allies, nor our enemies, … nor our Courts. So in this sense, the legislative compromise the Reichpublicans structured among themselves (when did ‘compromise’ cease to include more than a single political party?) is meaningless, and there should be a “signing statement” attached to any acts by Democrats, Independents, Libertarians, and the Green Party, to assure the Reichpublicans that the law they will attempt to pass and have signed by this President, … to his assumed benefit, will not dissuade future Americans from prosecuting Him and all his co-conspirators for destroying the safeguards of the Constitution, violating International Laws and Treaties, and committing War Crimes in our Nation’s name.

So what is the difference between Bush’s behavior to this point, and the “compromise” with the three musketeers of OZ? To this point, Bush had committed his crimes alone for the most part. Now, he has solicited accomplices in Congress to permit him to commit future crimes, and absolve him of his past crimes, … all in one filthy backroom deal. Damn them one and all, … for from this point on, nothing prohibits these same men from charging you or me with crimes written “after the fact” into law.

These very words you are reading, …. Even the reading of them, might, in the future, be deemed seditious, and prohibited after the fact, by law. I could do time for even thinking them, let alone writing them. My freedom to speak may have imposed on it limits hereto unforeseen, … except by this party of thieves and fools.

And so the rule of law in America dies a sad, quiet death, when and if the Reichpublicans can excuse past crimes, or future crimes with the stroke of a pen, … Laws that have served as pillars to this nation for nearly 220 years, … until now.

I am sickened, not that this has occurred, for Empire meets its end at such moments of crucial change, but that our Nation slides toward its untimely death at the hands of such an imbecile at the helm, and with such sick accomplices in the shadows behind him. The rule of law it seems, will die with a whimper.

September 24, 2006
Stargazer51

Just Before Sunrise

2006-09-21T18:42:00.000-04:00

The election on November 7, 2006 will have dramatic consequences for the American Republic. There is virtually no way I foresee that it will not, for the waning powers of a Republican Party are at risk of being called to task for years of abuse. Or, in a reverse scenario, the Republicans manipulate an electoral retention of Congress despite all predictions to the contrary.

One tool to that latter end may be legislation just passed in the House and headed for the US Senate, which requires specific ID at polling places, a move already ruled illegal in Missouri and Georgia in the runup to the election. This bill, if passed and enacted by the Republicans into law, may render this election even more contentious than the election of 2000 for President of the United States. This action is remarkable from a party that pleaded before the Supreme Court of the United States, that Florida should handle the outcome of the Presidential Election in 2000. And now, that same party proposes rules to influence the election at the states' level to the House and Senate. How conscientious on their part to be concerned about such matters from on high!

The focus of Republican efforts to skew the outcome of the election to their corporate and collective liking appears to cut along two lines. First, ... Deny as often as possible the right to vote to citizens on the margins, ... The poor, the elderly, the homeless, our deployed military, and the aged. At the same time then to demand the promotion and utilization of electronic voting machines produced largely by corporations run and owned by inveterate politicos, ... Universally, to my knowledge, Republicans by party affiliation. The demand for verifiable paper records to be produced, verified by the voter, and retained for recounts is resisted at every turn by the Republicans. One has to wonder why, if the intention is accuracy in counting the vote, and a desire to have a valid outcome to the election reflecting the wishes of the American electorate. How can a manufacturer be proud of a product whose output can be easily corrupted in such a critical environment? Does Diebold provide that same level of security and traceability to its banking customers? Do you find their ATM's are handing you more or less money than you requested from your accounts? Do you get money from other people's accounts? Do you think this is a different company, ... Or rather the same company with a different purpose?

This election will not be close. That is to say, the outcome will be clearcut, however it is legally achieved, or illegally contrived. The morning of November 8th will either be a day of rebirth and opportunity for America as a democratic republic, ... Or the beginning of an even darker chapter in our recent immersion into a gentle but sinking American Fascism.

Benito Mussolini, 'Il Duce' must beam from below at the fact that his concept alone, and neither the Deutscher Fuhrer's, nor the Japanese Emperor's approach, was the first to rise from its grave and seize the Corporate imagination in America. America does not require that all journalists be Republican, as Il Duce required of Italian journalists, ... to be fascists. As did Berlusconi, ... Republicans or Corporations own most news outlets, broadcast and print.

This Winter of the American Republic may be only about to deepen, ... Or be nearing its climax. The darkness may lift, or be lifted, to allow a sunrise toward Spring. My concerns notwithstanding, we must, each and everyone of us, vote! We can not concern ourselves whether our vote is properly counted at the moment we cast it. If you feel concerned about any circumstance surrounding your vote, ... Write down and record the particulars. Record the names of pollworkers, registrars, and election staffers. If they will not give you their names, ... Make notes to remind you of their appearance, the time of day you voted, and the surrounding events and comments made.

The battle to come may not be political, but legal. No one can know the affect their own vote, either counted or corrupted, can make for our nation of states. Remember for whom you voted. Write it down before, during, or after you cast your vote. This will be a very important vote in your life, of that I can assure you! Whatever your predisposition and persuasion, I want your vote counted. You should as well.

Stargazer51

Truthout No Longer A Place To Share The Truth

2006-09-18T22:04:00.000-04:00

For those familiar with Truthout.org, you will likely have a mental image of their recognizable format, ... predictable three column layout, and proclivity for progressive and liberal news feeds from other sources. On occasion there was original reporting, most recently when Jason Leopold used Truthout(TO) as the news outlet for his research and writing on the Plame affair in Washington. Specifically, Leopold's research on the crime of her public revelation as a CIA NCO operative led him to believe, and TO to publish, that Karl Rove was charged in a sealed Federal indictment as part of the ongoing investigation of that crime. Many TO Forum regulars defended TO's stand to publish Leopold's article, I among them. The jury is literally still out on this investigation, and whom will be indicted remains unkown and under seal to this day.

This forum will not address that article, nor the substance or lack thereof in the article published on TO. This forum is devoted to a discussion of the support TO and Leopold, ... and TO's Executive Director Marc Ash received in the aftermath of the publishing of Leopold's expose. Moreover it is focused upon Truthout's devotion, or lack thereof, to its readership and contributors.

Truthout had long hosted a public forum for fresh ideas from individual contributors (diaries) and as many websites do, TO also invited, indeed thrived, on replies to both diaries and original articles such as Leopold's, and in response to many other daily news article feeds TO republished from other sources. The exchange was lively, moderated, and voluminous. Some on every side of the political aisle would argue that it was not always "fair", ... but a quick survey of other blogs reveals that it was, in general, respectful.

I say "had", for last Friday Truthout decided, ... or at least acted upon a decision perhaps taken earlier, that the Truthout Forum was no longer a proper business pursuit for that website. A clearer definition of TO's business model, as stated to me by TO's executive director, is that Truthout is a news reporting agency. Other sites provide forums for the exchange of ideas, but TO's purpose is not that, ... it is to report the news.

Perhaps TO's readers and contributors would have been better served to have understood that from the very beginning. I, as I suspect many of TO's devoted readers and contributors, both wrote and read the many threads about TO's news feeds and its original reporting, when there was some. For my part the exchange there in the TO Forum helped me to better grasp the full meaning of the news feeds on TO.

Truthout is not the first website to be confused about its business intentions versus its true role in the new world of internet publishing. But TO stands alone perhaps for its inept timing in removing the Forum at a crucial moment in the runup to the Fall elections. If Truthout does not feel the elections are critical, then they are alone in that belief, ... and stand in stark contradiction to those readers who have flocked to TO over the last several years, and poured out their thoughts on the Forum there.

What TO was thinking in their decision to stifle the exchange of ideas this close to the election will remain unknown to the world, I suspect. The lack of a moderator, or the lack of the intention to host a forum at all, both seem pallid in comparison to the need for an open, clear and free speech forum on every progressive venue to marshal energy and participation in the vote. That TO has opted to abandon its most fervent supporters in Mid October tells us something. What that is to become is perhaps the first topic for forums here, or elsewhere that TO readers go to share thoughts again with one another.

The town meeting which was the Truthout Forum is dead, a place where reflections on the pieces of news we all read could be shared.

I will drink my coffee elsewhere and share my thoughts in other places, for I am intent to do so as part of my being Human and aware. I'll get my news from any sources I might choose in the market, ... but I will always discuss it solely with my many friends. I found many in the TO forum, and will retain at least a few from there. But I can not feel that TO itself was a friend at all, ... just a business, ... run by business types, whose intentions are inscrutable, ... and impersonal. For my part, ... I'd rather spend my leisure time with friends. We have things to do with and for one another, ... and we need a place where that can be accomplished!

Stargazer51

Surgery Is A Beginning!

2006-05-14T21:12:00.000-04:00

In these days before we know for certain whether Karl Rove will truly be indicted for any federal crime at all, we need to consider the social force of any indictment, and its potential outcome.

A patient I cared for some twenty years ago comes first to mind. She was admitted to the ER with classic symptoms of a stroke, ... slurred speech, and hemiparesis, ... paralysis of one side, characteristic of a large bleed in one side of the brain, ... or a sizeable blockage, ... usually a clot, in one of the major arteries providing blood to the brain. A CT Scan is the first way to determine if there is something awry in the brain, ... a blockage or a hemhorrage. The pictures are different, ... but the symptoms are often the same.

For this patient the news was even more grim. The CT scan revealed that the blockage of circulation was actually a tumor. She had an enlarging tumor the symptoms of which mimicked a stroke, perfectly.

For her family the question was what to do. They listened to the sage advice of the neurosurgeon, and had the tumor, ... which was not even the primary source of the cancer, surgically removed. She lived another 16 months, ... although the cancer eventually consumed her, and brought her early death at the age of 58 years old.

The cure to our American Malaise will begin soon. I am certain that Karl Rove is not the "primary" tumor of the Republican Party. That medical term indicates an original source of "cancer" that then spreads to other organs and other functions of the cancer victim. That cancer, has actiually been a part of the Republican body politic since around 1972, perhaps.

In Nixon's Swan Song election, there was, even among Republicans, a sense that the predicatable vectors of the political universe, the Toricellian twists of spirit that constitute the reckoning of the public awareness with the Political Purpose writ large, were turning against the Emperor Richard.

In short, America was ready to throw Nixon to the wolves. He had bought his way back into office by fractionating the American Parent from the American Student, ... and had lost. Boomers outnumbered Parents by perhaps 2.1:1. The Emperor's War Was Doomed!

Fast Forward America to 2006: The Children of the Revolution now own America. They are CEO's, CFO's, and Retired Directors of the Corporate Collective Wealth of America. I know a couple, ... met a few more. They do rightfully organize and direct the money their investors grant them for their stewardship. They do it well. A few of Emperor Richard's fledgelings remain, ... Cheney, Rumsfeld, ... Wolfowitz, ... God help us, they never found other gainful employment. They thought that they might someday have another opportunity to seize the powers of our government by way of the vice-presidential elective of the presidential candidate. I.E., ... Agnew was run with Nixon, ... and Cheney with Bush, so as to avoid the matter of the electorate.

Elect the attractive presidential cdandidate, ... who, under the aegis of his party's leaders, ... selectes the VP.

So, ... whither Rove? Oh, ... He will soon be dissected away from the governance by indictment. But the primary tumor(s) remain. They will until another day. For now, ... we apply the chemotherapy of public opinion and renouncement.

No one, ... NO ONE, Should believe that Rove was ever a cause of more than a night's indigestion. He was a jester of the court, ... a fool who thought himself a king. The True tumors reign to this day, ... some in both parties, who need to be excised to prevent a loss of the People's Freedoms forever.

We know their names. Throw out first the skulls and bones to clear the deck. The flesh is harder to find, ... but is as rotten as the skeltons already cast overside.

There is no reason not to begin anew! Are there left no sons of Jefferson, and Washington, of Douglas and Lincoln? I know better. They are everywhere in our land ready to serve!

I would cast my lot with any of them over the sons of Morgan and Stanley, Ford and Rockefeller! How far down the road to perdition have these latter led us?

Capitalism, ... Yours,... not ours!

When did you even give our capital a chance to compete.

No, ... Sirs.Our Nation begins again today!

Stargazer51

Who Bought The Beer?

2006-05-11T12:43:00.000-04:00

On Wednesday General Hayden, nominee to head the CIA, indicated he might be willing to modify the FISA law to accommodate the President's warrantless wiretapping program. That would be like raising the blood alcohol level retroactively to, say "0.25" instead of "0.08", to absolve the President of a DUI charge! Were it not for the fact he is chauffered everywhere, that might come next, ... who knows? The President has expressed no interest or need to change a law he disregards altogether.

The law is the law until it is changed by Congress and signed by the President.

Now DOJ says they are stymied in their investigation of the wiretaps, because they can not procure the security clearance for their investigators to view the records. NSA, of course, issues the clearance or not. NSA, Hayden and DOJ all are complicit in a cover-up, ...

It appears to me they are playing that (under)age old game of "Who bought the beer?" now that they were busted in a corn field.

When confronted by the investigating officers the first spouts "I couldn't have bought it, ... I'm under age!".

"No one here has a beer in his hands, do they?" asks another.

"We drank it all so that no other young people would get hurt or killed drinking it!", spouts one of the more feeble minded among them.

Then on the edge of the party scene, ... the host of this sad beer fest, the former Sheriff's minor son, lies amid the stalks, bathed in his own vomit. He looks up bleary-eyed at the officers' Maglites, trained on him, and pronounces, ... "It's my G**Damn Beer! I drank it! I've drunk at least 40 of 'em, ... and I'll drink again, any damn time I want! So just change the damn law about age and blood alcohol levels, and get over it!"

"What did he say?" the young officer asked his older counterpart. The senior officer had to translate for the younger policeman, as the drunkard's speech was garbled and barely comprehensible. Meanwhile the sheriff's kid threw back another long draught from the Corona in his hand, and immediately puked on the boots of the officers standing over him.

" Well, ... from now on, just drink where no one will find you!", said the officer, as he shook his leg to clear the mess. "It makes us look bad when you kids get caught doing this kind of stuff!"

"Yea, ... that's another thing, ... said the Sheriff's son, ... I want to know who tol' you we'd be drinkin' here tonight, ... jus' so I can fix their wagon good! It was s'pose to be a secret!"

"Yes, Sir, ... We'll let you know that first thing tomorrow mornin', ... when you're sober enough to do somethin' about it!", the officer finished.

And the Sheriff's son grew up to be Sheriff himself! His brother's even thinkin' about runnin' for Sheriff, ... And he and his family, and his drinking partners lived happily ever after. AS for the drinking parties?, ... Well, now, they have them anywhere they damn please!

SG51

PS: Any similarity between the characters in this story and real persons is purely intentional. Any patterns of behavior which seem to be repeated from one decade to another, or from one crime to another are, tragically, true to life.

In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. - George Orwell -
by Stargazer51 (Stargazer51@comcast.net) on Thu May 11th, 2006 at 07:16:42 AM EDT

The Press Protects The Child King!

2006-05-11T11:04:00.000-04:00

I was having a difficult time comprehending the timid responses of the press to Bush's incredible incompetence, and it occurred to me, that at its heart, Cohen and others hold a subconscious pity for this President who is so pathetic, and pathological in his actions, that he is like a mindless child. They seek to protect him as they have no other president in my lifetime!

In America we love to see a great fight! We pay to see boxing and professional wrestling, and reality shows of every sort. But to have a comedian stand in a tuxedo and assail our President with words alone seems to have crossed an invisible line for some.

Like most lines, that one more than any, needs to be erased, with a sweep of our feet! I know of no other President in our history who was so small that such jokes, whether funny or not, would demean their stature in any way. And I know of no other President in the long life of our Nation, who deserved the verbal assault more.

I would suggest to the press that you review your allegiance to this man who, truth be known, would grind you under his boot heel to quash your words in a heartbeat.

Bush was insulted by what he heard? It is a good thing for myself and others on TO that he does not read! Or maybe KBR has not quite finished building the first concentration camp to secure our nation from known risks, ... like Our Freedom of Speech!

A free press, ... not simply free to print, but free to think, is the first bulwark against extremism. Our Other safeguards are the law, freedom to assemble and associate, and rights to privacy from government intrusion in our lives. Did you think they would peel them all away at once? Colbert tested the water for all of us who choose to speak freely. Turns out the water was damn near boiling!

I suggest the press not concern itself with the offenses directed at our King. He has the NSA, DOJ, and CIA to protect him, on scales well beyond what the press can offer. The real question is who will protect the press when they have failed to protect us?

SG51

In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. - George Orwell -

Six Months and Counting!

2006-05-04T17:30:00.000-04:00

Dear TIP Reader,

Only six months remain before America has its next opportunity to exercise, or some would say "reclaim" its freedoms by electing a clean slate of representatives to Congress, and one third of the United States Senate. That time will pass quickly and the tenor of the political firestorm to come can only be guessed at this point. What is clear is that the advertising will be at unprecedented levels, and the truth will be difficult to ascertain, as incumbents sell chicken at hundreds of dollars per slice, and turn those ill-gotten gains against the public interest in the form of scurrilous TV ads and radio spots against aspiring opponents on the ballot. What is also clear, at least at this late moment, is that the Republican and Democratic Parties have no incentive to offer wholesale change to the voter, regardless that the times call for nothing less. It is not in their collective interests to upset the status quo. Even the Democratic Party, locked out of sharing their Constitutional right to governance in the Legislature, offers palid resistance, and acquiesces to the packing of our courts, and stands by at the passing of sham bills which pretend to address ethics lapses throughout the government. The Republican Party is no longer the party of Lincoln. It has been hijacked by thugs and thieves. Similarly the Democratic Party is not the party of Roosevelt, but has developed an appetite for K Street influence peddling which muddies their thinking in favor of Corporations over the People. "The Independence Party" is a concept alone. A gathering of thinkers and voters who will not identify with either major party, but will reserve to cast its votes based upon the candidates' demonstrated commitment to vote the interests of the American People. It is a home to Progressives who will not excuse absentee legislators, shadow lobbyists, or undue influence. It will recognize those who demonstrate courage in their actions in our governance. It will not be a watering trough for big business, nor their fawning puppets in our government. I will seek to share here my thoughts, but more importantly, links to those of the wisest minds in our nation, and abroad, who are also committed to reestablishing our nation as an equitable participant in the community of nations. It will expose the actions of those who seek to destroy lives and nations anywhere in the world, and those who shame this nation by soliciting and committing genocide, torture and the systematic denial of Human Rights everywhere. The Independence Party will not sit on the fence in public debate, except for its insistence upon remaining independent of political entanglement with existing parties, at least until such time as they prove themselves independent of unwholesome influences upon their judgement. And so it begins!