Individual Liberty—Progress—Humanity—Ethics—Rule of Law
"...if by a liberal they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people—their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, their civil liberties—if that is what they mean by a "liberal," then I am proud to be a liberal."
HOWARD ZINN EXPANDED OUR VIEW OF HISTORY
by Randolph T. Holhut
American Reporter Correspondent
Dummerston, Vt.
DUMMERSTON, Vt. --
"Who controls the past controls the future," George Orwell once wrote. "Who controls the present controls the past."
History, contrary to what most believe, is not static. It is constantly changing as new heroes are discovered, old heroes are debunked and past events are reinterpreted and reevaluated. To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places-and there are so many-where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory." - Howard Zinn
That Orwell quote was a favorite of radical historian Howard Zinn, who died of a heart attack on Jan. 27 at the age of 87. "(It) is a very important observation that if you can control history, what people know about history, if you can decide what's in people's history and what's left out, you can order their thinking," Zinn said in a 1992 radio interview. "You can order their values. You can in effect organize their brains by controlling their knowledge. The people who can do that, who can control the past, are the people who control the present...who would dominate the media, who publish the textbooks, who decide in our culture what are the dominant ideas, what gets told and what doesn't."
I have long ranted on about how Israel seems to operate with impugnity, riding rough shod over the Palestinians, and yet, when something happens it is the Palestinians that bear the heat and take the blame. The most recent move by the Israelis, to build more housing in occupied Palestinian territory has created protest and yet they will undoubtedly continue with no consequences for their illegal behavior. This editorial from the Charleston W.VA. GAZETTE tells about this new proposed settlement. Our Secretary of State weighs in on this as well.
Again we are acting surprised that there are those who reside here who would do this country and their fellow citizens harm. Why is this such a surprise? We have had shootings galore, we have a tremendous number of disillusioned people running about, and until we solve some of the inequities in our society the problem is only bound to get worse. Here we take a look at "Jihad Jane".
I am glad this morning to hear that Landra Reid, wife of House Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is in good condition following her horrific car crash yesterday.
"Ask the first man you meet what he means by defending freedom,
and he'll tell you privately he means defending the standard of living."
Reverend Martin Niemoeller(1892-1984)
German Lutheran pastor, was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Dachau in 1938. He was freed by the allied forces in 1945.
I sincerely hope that someday this idiot needs an attorney for something. The problem is that he will be able to get the best that money can buy...but he will have representation.
The question is do we honor what our justice system preaches, that each and every one of us, no matter the crime, deserves to be represented in court or do we simply say oh that's only if xyz applies?
Finally someone has spoken out about the ridiculousness of Glenn Beck. This time he has really taken that giant step beyond rationality...or is it, as Jim Wallis suggests just so much blather aimed unfortuinately at the lowest common denominator as a way make money? It seems the more outrageous some of these characters are the more money they generate. Limbaugh is a prime example athough he has yet to reach the depths of Beck's idiocy...I think.
So turn off FOX Noise and do nus all a favor by helping to remove Beck from the airways. No audience, no market, no money. Then maybe someone will have him committed or at least get him on some medication.
Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more.
Bush had Carl Rove and Dick Cheney, Barack Obama has Rahm Emmanuel who has managed to create hate and discontent within the Obama administratioon. While my colleague has some very strong opinions about Emmanuel's place and influence in this administration I have reserved judgement.
Is he at the heart of the failings of Obama's first year in office or rather has the President not paid enough heed to that advice? Is he really the master of the dark arts?
Paul Harris, the UK OBSERVER'S New York correspondent has this piece. There always has to be a fall guy.
If you are not familiar with Doris "Granny D" Haddock, and her exploits, the following article will give you a glimpse into the life of this extrordianary woman. A wife, mother, grandmother and widow, not until her sunset years did she become a political activist, walking across America at age 89 and running for the US Senate at age 96.
If you would like to see more of Granny D you can go here.
Rest in peace "Granny D", yours was a race very well run.
I will never truly understand the "it's ok because we are doing it" rationale when what was done to a group of persons and gasped about and condemned is then perpetrated on another group. The torture and totally inhumane treatment that was meted out to the Jews by the Nazis was grotesque beyond words and yet this country who, it seems, is always the first to condemn such acts of violence and terror turns around and thinks nothing of using torture methods to get the information that they believe is hidden in the hearts and minds of a supposed enemy.
We have known about waterboarding for some time and that it was employed as a favorite brand of torture. We have known that it was given the previous administration's blessing and yet did we actually know just how far reaching and despicable this brand of torture went? Mark Benjamin in his p[iece Waterboarding For Dummies has written about internal CIA memos which show a much darker and meticulously thought out protocol than Dick Cheney's "dunk in the water".
Yesterday I saw this headline...Limbaugh Vows to Leave US... and I have to admit my heart skipped a beat. Could this possibly be true? Could our prayers have actually been ansewred? Apparently this thtreat was issued because of a fear that the Healthcare Bill would be passed, something which Limbaugh in his great wisdom (ha ha) believes will totally ruin the economy. Therefore he will leave and seek his healthcare in a country where presumably they have universal healthcare? There are not that many countries which do not have universal healthcare so I am at a loss as to where he might seek treatment.
I think the thought of this man's imminent departire is perhaps the added incentive needed to make sure that the healthcare bill passes as quicklly as possible!
There are people who have an appetite for grief; pleasure is not strong enough and they crave pain. They have mithridatic stomachs which must be fed on poisoned bread, natures so doomed that no prosperity can sooth their ragged and dishevelled desolation.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
American essayist, philosopher, and poet, best remembered for leading the Transcendentalist movement of the mid 19th century
There are probably more jokes about lawyers than there are about blonds and most are not very complimentary. Much as we grouse about them we still manage to elect a huge number of them to Congress and thirty-five of our Founding Fathers were lawyers or had benefited from legal training. Some had also become judges.
Now we have Ken Starr (whom many of you may remember as the attorney involved with Bill Clinton's impeachment investigation) stepping up to criticize Liz Cheney. SALON.com's Joan Walsh writes on why Starr's response to Cheney is right and proper.
"The first thing to learn
in intercourse with others
is non-interference with their own
particular ways of being happy,
provided those ways do not assume
to interfere by violence with ours."
William James (1842-1910)
The father of modern Psychology...pioneering American psychologist and philosopher trained as a medical doctor
Left , right no one is in the middle except the public.
Hillary Clinton stated that there was a vast right wing conspiracy aligned against her husband Bill when he was Presdient. Now the right is accusing the left of managing a conspiracy against them.
Here in an artcile about
Media Matters we might find some answers. At least you will learn a bit more about the opposing agendas.
Sunday. a day of rest. A day when one can kick back, relax, browse at leisure the Sunday papers and recharge our batteries for the coming week. For me it is a day when my brain likes to wander into all sorts of random territory. Some might like to say it has been lost in there for some time, however...
Let me say at the outset that I am very proud of being an American and one whose family has been here since the beginning. That also allows for them to have been part of some of the blackest periods in this country's history. The descimation of the Native American tribes, slavery, civil rights denial and presidential assasinations to name but a few, and yet each country has their black marks and ours is no different except that ours are fresher. We managed to move beyond these things, to make amends where it was possibe, and to create a great nation.
At this point in time though I see us as a country in decline. Our salad days are long past and yet we have those in positions of power who refuse to admit the need for change and are still riding that euphoric post WWII boom. That too has gone by and we need to stop pretending that we are the greatest country on earth. Our infrastructure is crumbling, we have an economy in gridlock, jobs have been moved overseas, President Obama has targeted healthcare reform as the biggest undertaking we need to move forward on and has made investment in a new high speed rail system a priority and yet we have a long way to go to get up to speed (pardon the pun). We have a poverty rate that runs between 13 and 17%...this in the richest country in the world.
As healthcare reform has been the major issue of late and we have a Senate that refuses to see what their negative position is doing to their constiuents, I think this article will point up what a mess we really are in with our healthcare and how great is the need to create a new equitable system
The "peanut gallery" has been more or less silent about David Axelrod, President Obama's chief political advisor and successful campaign manager. This commentator, yours truly, fingered Rahm Emanuel early on and mentioned Axelrod but once in eight months' worth of deconstructing the West Wing to the purpose of finding what ASIDE FROM OBAMA HIMSELF is causing the political ineptitude emanating (if leadership seeping slowly can be described as "emanating") from the Administration. In the Sunday edition of the New York Timeswe finally have an interesting article about Axelrod, and yes, it seems as if he has an attitude problem, too.
Happily, there is an excellent article in the Washington Post about the problems Toyota Motor Corporation has in finding the problems with its products, which up to now have dominated the automobile market on account of their high quality. It is an instructive essay because it very nicely points out that diagnosis is a tricky business in engineering and in medicine ... and now with a good analogy ... in politics. We cannot just rely on deconstruction of individual personalities, but must view the whole thing in action, then on the laboratory bench, then in terms of exogenous conditions, that is, the response of the organism to its environment. Key to the analysis is the notion that an "emergent" condition occurs, absent with any individual, but crucial (perhaps fatal) when the whole mechanism (or organism) is assembled. This, I believe, is the overarching problem with the Obama administration.
Vultures are scavenging birds, feeding mostly on the carcasses of dead animals.Vultures are found on every continent except Antarctica and Oceania and money vultures I suspect could also find a way to inhabit those areas as well.
The most despicable ones prey on those who have the lest to give and the most to lose. Greg Palast of the BBC has this report.
