Looking For That Kinder, Gentler world

EVEN AS WE SPEAK, we are well armed, practicing hard, and ready to go. All of us, the world over. The Russians are conducting extensive military "exercises", which means practicing making war, very near the Ukraine, which is hardly surprising, since Vladimir Putin the Great obviously intends to reqoncuer that sovereign nation in honor of people like ivan the Terrible, Ivan the Great, Catherine the Great, Joseph Stalin, and all the other gentle souls who have ruled the motherland with an iron hand for centuries. Meanwhile, the United Staes and her flunkies, aka "N.A.T.O" are doing the same thing, sharpening their killing skills, nearby, on the other side of Ukraine. In other words, the kindling, the fire, and the gasoline are all laid out, in close proximity to each other, ready to detonate. And who knows what the Chinese are doing; over the past few years they have made a point of conducting a nearly constant display of naval exercises in the South China Sea, just to remind us all that they can, and that they are in charge in that region, and fully intend to remain so. The south Koreans and the Americans have been having similar practice sessions off the coast of Korea, which the North Koreans have dutifully acknowledged by firing nine missiles into the pacific Ocean, within shouting distance of the American navy. Exciting times. Many arrogant, aggressive, imperialistic, well armed countries, paranoid as always. and just think, a mere fifty years ago, back in the halcyon sixties, many of us had the stupid audacity to suppose that by the time the twenty first century was well underway, we'd be beyond all this, and well ensconced in a kinder gentler world. So much for pleasant dreams.

To School, To Home School, Or To Unschool

SCHOOLING, IF YOU REALLY think about it, is a form of indoctrination. If fact, its nothing but indoctrination, a great power structure from above, with the most important decisions being made by faceless all powerful bureaucrats at the state and sometimes federal level, local school boards at the next level down, followed on down by administrators and teachers, and last, but least, the poor students themselves, essentially held captive by a system over which they have little or no control. Particulalry when it comes to American History and culture, public schools in America are pure indoctrination, teaching, decade after decade, the bizarre fantasty that ours is a country which is fundamentally a shining city on a hill, a beacon of virtue for the entire world. And that, as anyone with a brain knows or at least senses, is simply not true, or at least, not the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Then too, there is the matter of sitting in neat rows with rigid restrications on individual behavior, often extending even unto one's personal attire and hair style. Indoctrination. Most of us of course experience twelve years of this without much complaining, because part of the indoctrination is the passive acceptance of indoctrination. Nowadys, however, people are starting to rebel from it, and home schooling is more popular than it has been since the nineteenth century. Home schooling often entails much the same rigorous discipline and structure embodied in public school, only on a personal, family level. Now comes the concept of "unschooling". ON first thought it is tempting to imagine "unschooling" as nothing other than chaos, willful ignorance and anarchy, with children free to play video games all day, or to do nothing all day, or whatever thy choose. IN fact, unschooling seems to work rather well, report the parents who have tried it. Kids tend to be naturally curious, eager to learn, and if only given an environment and opportunity conducive to it, they seem to learn with a vengeance; on their own terms. And what better way to learn! Maybe we should all experience a little bit of all three techniques; there is obviously great value in being forced into a building with many other people, and being forced to learn how to get along with them. Most Americans live their entire lives attending class reunions regularly; there must be a reason why. As Aristotle said: we are social animals. But, as Abraham Lincoln proved beyond a doubt by reading himself into being a lawyer; a human mind can educate itself better than anyone, if given the chance.

The Reclining Secret Service

THE SECRET SERVICE just isn't what it used to be. What it used to be was an elite group of darkly well dressed young men who did their jobs quietly. What it seems to have become is a gang with a gang culture and mentality, soliciting prostitutes in Latin America, drinking heavily, crashing motorized vehicles into the fence surrounding the White House, changing directors like diapers. Abraham Linclon, who with indredible unwitting irony signed into law thus creating the Secret Service only several hours before his own preventable death, could definitely have used the agency's protection. And, he might have been appalled at what the agency has, or seemingly has become, in the darkly humorous, sardonic manner in which only Abraham Lincoln could express the great state of appallment. Back in the early seventies, my brother-in-law was in the army, in the media department, and his job one fine day was to photograph President Nixon. The very moment he removed his camera from a pocket of his full dress military uniform, out of nowhere materialized an S.S. goon, who tackled my brother-in-law, who wasn't yet my brother-in-law, to the floor, landed square on top of him, and said, quoth: "don't move, you son of a bitch". My brother- in-law didn't move a muscle, or a single piece of polished brass, and is thus among the living to this very day. Even his army uniform didn't make a difference. Lesson learned; keep your hands out of your pockets while in the company of el presidente.But, gee, did the bastard actually have to call my brother-in-law a "son of a bitch"? A bit unprofessional, wasn't it? So, perhaps boorish behavior among our chief executive's protectors is not such a new thing after all.

Indicting Senator Tom "tall" Cotton, As a Treasonous Traitor

FRESHMAN U.S. SENATOR Tom "cottonmouth" Cotton, Repub, Arkansas, certainly knows how to stir the pot. He went to Harvard, which, after all, is where pot stirring is taught. Senator Tom "shitting in tall" Cotton is terribly ambitious, wants to be President, and, given the bizarre proclivities of the American people, one day might be. Cotton is one of this new crop of quite young, quite consrvative republicans now prominently self displaying on the political scene, all of whom, it could be argued, are quite insane. (see Noam Chomsky for details, use google). Cotton has yet another attribute; he may be a traitor, guilty of treason. Writing a letter to the Iranian government, telling them that President Obama is a buffoon and has no power to make treaties with anybody, while Obama is directly engaged with attempting to sign a treaty with that country is, it can be argued, treason, punishable, according to the U.S. Constitution, by death. Even as we speak, Secretary of State John Kerry is intimating that Cotton's letter, which was signed by 46 other respublicans of questionable loyalty to their own government, may well have already damaged chances for a treaty. if he decides that the letter has very definitely caused said damage, who knows? Is it possible that Attorney General Eric Holder will do a bit of research, and issues indictments? I wouldn't entirely rule out the possibility. the republican Senators are brushing off the notion, naturally; what else would you expect them to do? that might change, soon enough. Better laywer up, fellers. America's conservative radio talk show hosts, demonstrably insane, are calling Cotton's letter to Iran a "public relations statement", and "an informative communication, not a formal letter to a foreign government". Yeah, sure. Whatever. Press releases don't begin with "to whom it might concern, dear sirs": do they?

Missing Saddam Hussein, Badly

REMEMBER SADDAM HUSSEIN? Those of a certain age surely will. Ruggedly handsome guy, with a penchant for discharging rifles during formal speeches, author of the scaled down, simplified-for-your-convenience, one candidate per ballot electoral system. In a word, a helluva guy. And give credit where credit is due; Saddam Hussein hated islamic jihadist terrorist groups, and he knew exactly how to defang them: round 'em up, string 'em up. The fact that he did this only for the consolidation of his own power does not alter the fact that under Saddam, extremist Islamic terrorist groups had not a chance. Saddam wasn't too terribly gung go about religions of any sort; he preferred to dress in secular, formal western attire, after the fashion of an all-business modern secular ruler, which he was. But he knoew handle to handle groups like I.S.S. and Al Qaeda. Where is Saddam when we need him the most! Oh, the things we Americans could learn from that man, such as how to apprehend criminals. And how well organized, efficient, and stable was Iraq under the rule of Saddam I, the great all powerful king. The dirty little secret, of course, is that the best form of government is a dictatorship, a benevolent dictatorship, the key word being "benevolent", which, most assuredly, Saddam was not. Oh well, you can't have everything! Back in the days of Saddam Hussein, there was no, or practically no extremist Islamic terrorism, no I.S.I.S. or Al Qaeda, no Islamic State of iraq and Syria and north Africa and God knows where else, and, best of all, there was a world trade center, the original version. And, of course, there were several thousand American teenagers who have since died in combat in wars engineered by the United States of America, corporate office.

Fighting Real Wars, For Real Reasons

FORMER TEXAS GOV, failed presidential candidate, and possible future failed presidential candidate Rick Perry, yelling a speech, screamed: "we didn't start this war, but we sho do aim to finish 'er." Or, something to that effect. He was referring to the alleged 'war on terrorism", which arguably is not an actual war, since it is a war against a concept, not a nation or identifiable human entity. Rather remindful, in fact, of America's other great conceptual wars, the one against poverty, the one against crime, and the piece de resistance, the war on drugs. It turns out that wars against activities and concepts do not succeed as well as wars against other countries, particularly weak and disorganized nations with plenty of natural resources, and opportunities for potential foreign corporate investment. All it takes is a pretext, a provocation, a reason, and, if all else fails, an entirely fabricated excuse, such as those employed variously by the United States in 1846, 1898, 1964, and 1991, to name just a few. This current war of the month against terrorism began in earnest, not by coincidence, shortly after the United States attacked Iraq on February 15, 1991, which in turn began a few months after Saddam/Iraq conquered Kuwait, which in turn happened one week after the American ambassador to Saddam/Iraq told Saddam, face to face, that the United States did not care whether Iraq attacked Kuwait. That's when the war on terror, a war on a vague concept, began, with a conversation between American ambassador April Glaspie, and the now dead, along with hundreds of thousands of other people, Saddam Hussein. google: April Glaspie, scroll down, click on "transcript of conversation with Saddam, 7/25/90". So, In the great fun house that is American foreign and domestic public policy, where nothing is ever as it seems, we can convince ourselves that "they started it", while going about our merry, self righteous, and ever so prosperous corporate controlled way.

Missing Sam Simon

SAM SIMON DIED the other day, and the world lost a renaissance man. And somehow, the loss was especially shocking for those of us who are either close in age to Sam, or, slightly, ever so slightly, older. He was basically a director, producer, and writer, in no particular order, and his flagship project was the Simpsons, involvement in which netted Sam millions if not billions or trillions. Most importantly of all, Sam was a great philanthropist, a lover of the oftten unlovable human species, and all others as well. It is not yet certain how much money he left for the rest of us, but its gonna turn out to have been quite a bundle, all bundled into neat packages to be distributed straight on to those who need it most. Kinda like Bill Gates or Warren Buffet, two other great American heroes whose generosity is already helping untold numbers of needy folks. People in need are not always victims of their own laziness or stupidity, contrary to standard conservative doctrine. And by the reverse token, extremely wealthy people are not always greedy ogres, who ascended the ladder by pushing others back down. So hat's off to anyone who transcends stereotypical, categorical thinking, and hat's off to Sam Simon, who is already missed.

Hillary, Unthinkingly Risking all

HILLARY CLINTON RIGGED UP her own system, whereby all her email, personal and professional, took place on one machine, her personal one, not the government one. God, what an idiot. Doesn't she know that anytime she looks at somebody cross eyed the republicans are going to be out to get her? Which is more likely, that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was secretly using her own personal cell phone to secretly conduct American foreign policy and possibly engage in secret scandalous conspiracies to undermine America, or, that she simply did not want to carry two cell phones around? What we see here is another, yet another , conservative-republican-christian witch hunt, after the fashion of Salem, Mass., 1692, or Senator Joseph mcCarthy, republican ca 1952. The witch hunters are, take a bow, boys, none other than our conservative republican christian jesus guns and money boys. and its been going on a long time. Big Bill stains Monika's blue dress (ca 1993), and its off to the races! Witchhunt! Now cometh Hillary. But still and all, Hillary should have had enough sense not to do that, even though she did it only for her own personal convenience. One's personal convenience is not as important as appearances, up here in the realm of high and mightly politics and political backstabbing. by now, one would think that the Clintons would be able to see their target on their backs, at least in the mirror. For some reason, big beautiful people often have eyes, but see not. (see JFK, Dallas, 1963) Too big to fail? Maybe, but why chance it?

Republicans, Undermining America, Like Traitors

AS YOU KNOW, if you don't live on Mars, Obama is trying to negotiate a treaty with Iran to get them to stop making atomic bombs. And good luck with that, right? Meanwhile, forty seven Obama-hating republicans in the U.S. Senate sent a letter to the Iranian government, explaining that Obama is a comeplete joke, and that nothing he does holds water, or will ever last beyond his sorry time in the White House. OK, fine. They're entitled to their opinion, but are they entitled to try to sabotage negotiations being conducted by the Presiddente' del Americano? The President makes foreign policy in the United States, right? And Congress gives advice, reaction, and, in the case of treaties, an up or down vote. (in this case, congressional approval is NOT required, contrary to what our Repub-cong-cons claim) But are these republicans interfering with the actual MAKING of foreign policy, illegally? Gee, what a tremendous thing to do! Can we say "treason"? Or, perhaps, "prison"? To the gallows with them all! (joke). Crazily enough, all this got started by a freshman Senator from the great state of Arkansas, a youngster about forty or younger, with short neat hair, and the weird belief that society would be better off were we all to carry Bibles and firearms on our deeply religious and patriotic persons. Hilariously, the perceptive Iranians took one look at the republican letter, and told the conservative Senators exactly where to put said letter, namely, to fold it five ways and put it where the moon shine, to quote Tolstoy. All because the letter is complete garbage, nothing but propaganda, which is what the sharp Iranians called it. and of course they are quite correct. The Persians have been around for thousands of years, and they know a thing or two, they by God know propaganda when they see it. Hatin Obama is one thing, but usurping and undermining the office of the President is quite another. Conservative republicans of America: it is not necessary to commit treason in order to register your disapproval of Obama. You can use social media, which, after all, is where all the other garbage is stored.

Baiting and Switching Saddam, and the Fruit it Bears

WELL, LET'S SEE IF we can get all this straight. The Islamic State has obtained a new ally: the terrorist group in North Africa, which has pledged allegiance to the flag of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria... Al Qaeda, meanwhile, is not allied with the Islamic State, but formerly was allied with the group in Libya. This is already getting too confusing. We are talking about at least three different entities here, none of which existed before the first of our many made in America wars with Iraq, and heaven forbid that all these many entities should begin to cooperate. The Islamic State is doing well enough already, don't you think? On July 25, 1990, the United States ambassador to Saddam in Iraq, April Glaspie, the first women to ever serve as ambassador to an Arab country, appointed by Bush the forty first, told Saddam that the United States did not care whether the Iraqis invaded Kuwait, did not care about anything or any disputes between Arab-Arab nations. When Saddam heard this, he smiled. Eight days later, he cashed our blank check, and invaded Kuwait. Suddenly we the United States got all bent outta shape, copped an attitude, forced Saudi Arabia to accept our army as it prepared to launch, and then we the people of the U.S.A. attacked Iraq, and the rest, as they say, is history. And what a mess Iraq is now! If you wish proof of this, simply go to google, and type in "April Glaspie", then scroll down to where it says "transcript of conversation with Saddam". And there it is. Available for all to see, because the State Department knows that nobody will care, so why not put it online? Just like Viet Nam, just like the Mexican War of 1846, just like the Spanish-american war of 1898, bait and switch, say one thing, lure a tantalizingly weak enemy into war, for them into war, by attacking them under false dishonest pretenses. This is the American empire, which Thomas Jefferson knew well. Jefferson said: "I fear for my country when I reflect that God is just". And so should we all. We should hope that God is either not just, or that he is not paying attention. I fear that neither is the case.

Honkies, Honking On

BACK WHEN THAT BIG DUMB black kid was gunned down in Ferguson, Missouri by an understandably frightened police officer, and the African-American community took to the streets with placards, our right wing European-American brothers and sisters wondered, or pretended to wonder, exactly what all the fuss was about. Conservatives are often and easily confused; after all, most of them never attended college. College instills thinking skills. They (conservatives) even waxed a tad angry and self righteous over Ferguson, just like they did back in 1964, when Congress was furiously debating and fillibustering whether to treat African-americans like human beings, for the first time in American history. Those damned ungrateful darkies! Don't they know a good sharecrop when they weed one? Hell, we done give 'em their damned freedom, what else do they expect? Acceptance? Equality? The very nerve!.....Meanwhile, a new Department of Justice study proves, using only facts, that Ferguson, Missouri is a racist community (white racism vs. blacks), racism of the usual American sort, subtle and largely unseen, well disguised, with crackers cracking down, ever so indirectly. Arrest and conviction records clearly prove the point. Black man gets stopped by cops, white man drives on down his privileged road. Dark brown dude goes down, locked up, light brown upper middle class dude walks. What we're talking about here is not any proclivity for people of dark pigmentation for criminal activity; we're talking about same crime, same circumstances, vastly different outcomes. Over and over again, all across this great nation, decade after racist decade. My brilliant brother-in-law (caucasian, conservative) offered the brilliant theory that our modern American version of racism is nothing other than pushback for having had racial equality shoved down our societal throats by an overreaching federal government. Oh, those damned civil rights laws! I responded that perhaps its merely of matter of old habits being hard to break. After all, the first slave ship dropped anchor at Jamestown in 1619, only twelve years after the good ship Susan Constant dropped anchor, filled with fortune seekers whose only purpose was to enslave native Americans and steal their alleged gold. (that scheme never worked out). A mere two hundred and forty six years later, the African slaves were "freed", left on their own to fend off great white hatred for another one hundred years, until 1964, then left to fend off petit white hatred for another fifty years, unto the present day. Every sociology department at every major American university has conducted research which clearly indicates the lingering persistence of a fundamentlal feature of American life; white racism against African-Americans. And yet our right wing patriotic American honkies keep honkin' on, like silly geese, that the trouble all began with affirmative action.

Epitomizing Arrogance, the Senator Inhofe Way

HOW MANY MORE TREES would it take to absorb the millions of tons of carbon that humans have injected into Earth's atmosphere, and replace it with fresh air? One per person (7 billion)? A trillion, perhaps? The carbon in the air is easily measurable. Its there, all right. Its there twenty four seven. Carbon absorbs heat. What part of that do we not understand? Every high school chemistry teacher in the world acknowledges global warming/climate change, because every high school chemistry teacher understands basic chemistry. And every high school biology teacher knows the same thing, that the extra carbon is there, doing its thing, and that as long as we keep putting it there it won't go away, and that the more trees we plant, the better our chances of survival. Senator Inhofe (R Oklahoma) says that global warming alarmists are arrogant, arrogant because they have the audacity to think that we puny little ole humans can possibly, with our weak and puny activities, have an impact on the environment. Perhaps the good Senator should consider the effect that simultaneously igniting every atomic bomb in the world would have; namely, nuclear winter. In theory, we puny humans can do a lot of damage. In practice, that's exactly what we;re doing; a lot of damage, possibly too-late-to-be-reversed damage. What if we started spraying tons of sulphuric acid into the atmosphere, using hundreds of cargo planes, spewing twenty four seven, for years? Again, human imposed permanent winter. (but if we did a little spewing on purpose, it might block out just enough heat to remedy climate change) You wanna see arrogance, Senator Inhofe? Arrogance is living in a world in which every high school chemistry teacher, every high school biology teacher, and every trained scientist who isn't being paid by some corporation or conservative political action committee tells us, decade after decade, that we are seriously harming this planet - and not believing them. You really think you know more about environmental science than the environmental science scientific community? That, Mr. Senator, is the epitome of arrogance.

Noam Chomsky

NOAM CHOMSKY began working at M.I.T. in 1955, the year I was born, and hundreds of books and thousands of lecturs later, he's still there, a professor of linguistics and philosophy, a social and political analyst, and a social activist. He has done for the science of linguistics what Einstein did for theoretical physics. Besides all that, he believes that every American president since World War Two was/is guilty of war crimes, and should be tried accordingly. And if you don't think he has a solid set of facts and arguments to back up his position, trying reading his publications, and remember; M.I.T. doesn't put up with intellectual fraud. Chomsky is lucky to have a job at all; he couldn't get hired at any public school in America, precisely because he tells the truth, he backs it up, and the truth isn't pretty. The truth does not sound pleasant or patriotic. The truth about American history is seldom taught in American public schools. Heaven only knows what he thinks about pre World War Two presidents; very little, most likely. A lot of thought and facts going into it, not much respect coming out of it, most likely. As you might expect, many people disagree with Chomsky's social and political views, which, compared with all mainstrem thought, liberal and conservative, are radical .But no one has ever successfully refuted Chomsky and all objections to his analyses are invariably emotionally and idiologically based. We need more scholars like Noam Chomsky

Turning Cemetaries Into Parks

A FRIEND OF MINE once remarked that he wished society would "pull up the rocks" as he put it, and turn cemetaries into parks. My own mother (1920-2014), since cremated and buried in an urn between her parents ( father 1891-1943, mother 1892-1971), all of whom I knew well and remember lovingly, once remarked that "we are running out of land". This is a questionable assertion, since even seven billion of us still seem to have, per capita, plenty of room, but its sound in theory, since human population and economic development are still increasing, and since land is limited, and not increasing. Actually, land area is decreasing, and will decrease a great deal more, what with climate change and the rising of the sea level. It turns out that we can have our cake and eat it too. We can bury our dead and - frolic about merrily on the ground right above them. In point of fact this is once exactly what occurred all over America, before the Civil War. Back then, cemetaries were places of love and happiness, since most people died of natural causes, whether at an old or young age. Most folks went peacefully, in their own homes, surrounded by loved ones, and were buried lovingly, near home, and were visited often, and the dead and the living shared the land. Indeed, cemetaries were parks of a sort, in pre Civil War America. There were picnic tables, and picnics. People took walks through them, and thought nothing of it, other than good thoughts. Fears of hauntings were few and far between, and not seen as anything to worry about. If one encounters one's beloved deceased in spirit, all the better! Then came the American Civil war, and hundreds of thousands of youngsters, violently murdered by - by us all. Suddenly cemetaries lost their luster, and took on a far mosre sinister aspect. They were filled with people who shouldn't be there. A sense of grief permeated the land, and the places where dead are buried in large numbers. And to this day this has never changed. World Wars One and Two only served to exacerbate the change in spirit, and really, isn't a a shame? A shame that these three hideous wars had to spoil everything, including cemetaries.

King Vladimir Putin and the Conquest of the Ukraine

IN RUSSIA, just the other day, King Putin the first's chief political rival was gunned down in the streets of Moscow, near the Kremlin. Even as King Vladimir feigns outrage, calling the incident a "provocation" (my, such strong language!), he blows smoke away from his gun, and smugly tosses it into the river, near where Rasputin nearly died several times. But of course Vladimir Putin had nothing to do with it, just as the Russian army has nothing to do with any military activity in the Ukraine. Oh, and by the way, the Russian government, aka King Vlad I, is threatening to suspend natural gas shipments to the Ukraine, for non payment. The reason Ukraine hasn't paid lately is that Russia is sending the natural gas to that part of the Ukraine which is trying to seperate from Kiev and join Russia, with the obvious assistance of what appears to be Russian (Soviet) military personnel, but is not, according to King Vlad. The Ukrainian government simply doesn't think it should be paying for something it isn't receiving. Not surprisingly, King Putin rejects this perfectly reasonable point of view, precisely because it is a perfectly reasonable point of view. Perhaps his rejection will serve as an acceptable pretext for outright invasion and conquest of Ukraine. If it doesn't, something else undoubtedly will.