Entries Tagged 'politics' ↓

It is baffling that the American public has been so effectively stampeded into near-total dependence on a shoddy, crude and ineffective system of health care, paying an extremely high price for drug and surgical interventions.

Did you know that our health care system is the third leading cause of death in the United States?  In a year 2000 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Barbara Starfield, M.D., wrote that physician error, medication error, and adverse events from drugs or surgery cause 225,400 deaths per year, making this the third leading cause of death, after heart disease and cancer.  Why would anyone let themselves be put at the mercy of a hospital, when most chronic illnesses are preventable?  (Answer: Because they don’t know any better.) Continue reading →

For those of you who have been following the saga of our letters to Obama, I must report!

Today, (July 11th) we received a hand addressed envelope from the White House addressed to Adrienne and me. Inside was a 4″ by 6″ form card. Continue reading →

Imagine that one day in the not to distant future you answer a knock on your door and find that the Police are there to arrest you for a crime that you haven’t committed, but someone has identified you as having the potential to commit that crime some time in the future. Sounds like 1984 Science fiction doesn’t it. But what if it was actually happening right then and there? What would you do? More appropriately, would there be anything you could do? Or are you one of those who loudly state “That could never happen here?” Continue reading →

There is always some reason that they will try to convince you not to believe what you feel in your gut. They will try to bamboozle you
– Barack Obama

I admit I was swept up in the national euphoria of President Obama’s election. I really believed that something would be done about the economic crisis, our unjust “War on Terror”, and the creeping fascism these wars have engendered. But by now it should be clear that President Obama has no plans to change anything. Continue reading →

Obama’s Cairo speech was profoundly disingenuous, much like others past and more recently. He decried the “killing of innocent men, women, and children,” yet US forces slaughter them daily in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and supply Israel with billions of dollars and the latest weapons and technology to commit slow-motion genocide against millions of Palestinians, deny their legitimate self-determination, and right of their refugees to return home as international law demands.  FULL ARTICLE

When Obma said he would close Gitmo, I was overjoyed! Perhaps now this particular blot on our badly stained escutcheon could be erased. No such luck. I wrote the poem below in memory of the three who did escape in June of 2004. I offer it again in memory of, Yemeni Muhammad Ahmad Abdallah Salih, 31, who is the first prisoner to die since the White House changed hands four months ago. Continue reading →

Not only must our leaders convince holders of our debt not to sell what they already own, but to back up the truck and buy a whole lot more. The hope is that a dream team consisting of a charismatic politician, a skilled Wall Street banker with longstanding ties to China, and a respected Fed Chairman, can close the deal. However, no matter how slick the sales pitch, no amount of lipstick can dress up this pig. FULL ARTICLE

From time to time, events unfold that are so large in scope, so all-encompassing in their implications that one’s initial response is muted by an inability to categorize it all within the realm of experience. Previous reference points prove of little service. One’s image of oneself and one’s place in the world is under seize, perhaps even in danger of being torn away. One stare’s into the abyss, until the abyss removes its dark shades and makes direct eye contact. The mind buzzes; one’s thoughts scuttle in circles like stunned insects. Continue reading →

Featured Post for 06/05 – 06/11

Dear President Obama,

I, like many millions of Americans, voted for you in the last general election in the hope that your promise of change would be the change that we had longed for during the previous eight years.

Powerlessly, we watched our nation being run into the ground by a runaway despotic regime. We saw wars begun under false pretenses, which have cost millions of lives and trillions of dollars; we saw our natural resources being despoiled by greedy profiteers; we’ve seen our small businesses and small farms being destroyed by bureaucratic intrusions into every aspect of their lives and businesses, apparently for the enrichment of the big megabusiness cartels.

We’ve seen most of the jobs that gave America a healthy middle-class outsourced to nations where people will work twelve hours or more for a dollar or two a day, or for a cup or two of rice to feed their family. 
CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL ARTICLE

Anyone who studies even elementary psychology knows that many times the bully had been bullied as a child. The sexual abuser had been sexually abused as a child. Remember the sordid tales of all those Catholic Priests ( read Jimmy Breslin’s fine book The Church That Forgot Christ ) who sexually abused young boys?

One wonders how many of those innocent victims later on became sexual abusers themselves. Trauma is a terrible thing to experience. As individuals have to deal with trauma, so do societies i.e.: cultures and even nations. Continue reading →