Avoid Political Ideologies, Urges Biblical Scholar
‘The 7 Commandments For Happiness and Prosperity’ Tells How
Exclusive Interview With Shari Sharifi Brown, Author
By W. Leon Smith, Publisher
Shari Sharifi Brown
LOS ANGELES – Shari Sharifi Brown, author of the new book The Seven Commandments For Happiness and Prosperity, has identified common denominators in the messages provided by the founders of the three Abrahamic religions – Moses, Jesus, and Mohammad – that she says if followed guarantees prosperity and happiness.
Brown, a Harvard-educated mathematician, nuclear scientist, biblical scholar, and successful business woman, over three decades has plowed through centuries of superstitions and political ideologies to better understand the progression and evolution of religion and how it can either work for the benefit or decline of mankind.
In an exclusive interview with The Iconoclast, she explained that the masses should adhere to the messages expressed in the original texts as a pathway for happiness and prosperity and not be misled by those who misinterpret these texts and use them for political gain, dominance, and control over others.
In her book, Brown details how rulers defined their own religions to gain personal power and along the way misinterpreted the original texts in order to control the masses, how Roman Catholics and the Crusades wrecked lives for dominion, and how Islam is being misinterpreted today for similar reasons. The end result, she says, are battles among the religions that have veered from the straight and narrow.
Brown said that everything we seek lies on the other side of fear, but historically and even today religions manufacture fear to prevail and hold hostage the masses. Throughout mankind’s history, religion has often played a role in persecuting those who are different, she explained. It has been used as an excuse for genocide, slavery, segregation, and war. “It’s impossible to understand how an all-powerful God who created mankind can hate any of his own creations.”
In her book which concisely traces the messages from Moses, who provided 10 commandments; Jesus, who provided two; and Mohammad, who listed seven in the Qur’an, Brown was able to eliminate repetition and redundancy and combine them into seven essential commandments. She said that too often people are quick to consider only one or two sources and not look at the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Qu’ran through the same lens.
The three are compatible, she said. “Understanding the similarities of the three outweigh the differences. The Qu’ran and Islam regard Jews and Christians as Muslims since the word Islam means submission to the higher power, first the Hebrews through prophet Moses and then to the followers of Jesus.”
“They recognize many of the same biblical prophets, in particular Moses and Jesus,” she added, “as those are Muslim names. Another common Muslim name is Mary. In fact, the Virgin Mary’s name occurs more times in the Qu’ran than in the New Testament. Muslims also believe in the virgin birth of Jesus. However, they believe that over time the original revelations to Moses and Jesus became corrupted.”
“There are, of course, great similarities among these religions,” Brown said. “They all call for high moral standards and serious personal commitment. All share common traditions, since Muhammad learned from Jews as well as Christians, and all have a vision to spread their faith around the world.”
Brown was born a Shiite Muslim in Isfahan, Iran and came to the United States to study, where she earned a B.S. in engineering. She returned to Iran for work as a structural engineer, but after the Iranian Revolution, she returned to the United States and has now lived here for over 30 years.
Although being born a Muslim in pre-revolutionary Persia, she converted to Christianity in school and married into a Jewish-American family. She has lived all three religions and studied them deeply, which led her to understand their innate compatibility. It was through her lifetime of study and practice of these philosophies that she came to the important conclusion: we must follow the key elements of all three major religions to make us whole and secure. This resulted in her going back to square one, the beginnings of God’s word, and then painstakingly capturing in print the history of religion as it moved toward the present and to explain how deviations from the original texts by those who altered them for political purposes have caused wars and conflicts.
Shari Sharifi Brown
She explained that adherence to one religion should not create a bias against the others. “They are different with similarities or similar with differences. We can and should acknowledge both and not make what is different, difficult. True Christians and Muslims are not a threat to each other.” In the book she notes that quite frequently power-hungry politicians take these religions and “change” the meanings to elicit fear, which more recently has led to bias against Muslims in America after original texts had been changed to encourage violence, for political reasons – the opposite of the messages in the original texts created by Mohammad, Moses, and Jesus.
She explained that the basis of her formula to mathematically encourage the seven commandments was determined by using the Gospel of Thomas that reveals the sayings of Christ, and the book written by Rashad Khalifa, an Egyptian biochemist in Arizona, who proved the significance of the number 19. Khalifa was aware that some elements of the Qu’ran focused on the number 19, like Muslims pray 19 times, so he decided to perform an analysis of the Qu’ran, which was accomplished by entering the Qu’ran into a computer to analyze whether there were any mathematical correlations.
What Khalifa discovered was that the Qu’ran was characterized by a unique phenomenon. The frequency of numbers and words, unique spellings, and number of words consistently conformed to a common denominator, the number 19, the complexity of which some biblical scholars have labeled as a miracle, unattainable by a human, providing proof of God’s existence. By consolidating the 19 total commandments from all three major world religions into seven commandments that embrace all three, Brown created her “faith formula.” Here, she explains, the focus shifts from perceived spiritual and religious differences onto what we have in common, and how focusing on these seven commandments along with the habit of positive praying begets happiness.
Numerologically speaking, Brown says that there is no coincidence that the number of Christ’s sayings in the Thomas code totals 114 and the Qur’an has 114 surya (chapters) and 114 is dividable by 19 with no remainder. “When Moses instructed Joshua at the brink of Jordan, he said follow the Commandments and you will be successful and prosperous.”
According to Brown, “It is not the clothes we wear or the cars we drive, or a dry empty rhetoric we belch, nor is it the churches we attend that gives us spirituality, happiness, and prosperity. In the pendulum of existence, spirituality gives us a oneness with God that will lighten the darkest of days. Without spirituality and faithfulness to prayer, we erect an iron curtain around the soul.”
She told The Iconoclast that in todays’ world religion has become so corrupt that “people are afraid to call themselves religious. I wouldn’t want to be called a Muslim because of how Muslims have been portrayed. I was born a Muslim. After reading all these three books cover to cover, I compared them and learned of their vast similarities.” So she decided to apply numerology to all three religions.
“What happened, with all my studies, I wanted to put my thoughts on a piece of paper. People are reluctant when you talk about numerology. People become skeptical. So I wrote this book explaining the history of how all this came to be and how we are where we are. Although I did include the numerology aspect of it, nobody could really relate to it. I added the 10 commandments of Moses and the two commandments of Jesus – that you have to love your God and love your neighbor –and the seven commandments of Mohammad. Mohammad actually said I am not bringing in religion. I am following Moses and Jesus. Islam really doesn’t mean anything than believing in one God. Christ was following Moses, Mohammad was following both of them.”
Brown’s concern is that in today’s world where corruption has captured most religions and re-written the texts to fit politics, people are simply not studying the truths in the ancient texts. “They really, really take advantage of the fact that people are not very astute about these three books. Nobody reads all these three books. So what I came up with was a simple way to explain it all.”
She said that after Moses’ ten commandments, Jesus simplified it in his generation. “There was no Christianity before Christ died. There were no Sunnis before Mohammad died. These were all man-made because of politics. So the simplification that I made was when you go to my seven commandments, it is actually all 19 commandments summarized. So if you abide by these seven commandments, you have done your duty to God.”
Brown told The Iconoclast that through the ages many of the original texts were edited to fit new interpretations, which quite often took away from original intent and were used politically. However, the original commandments have not changed and they are spelled out by Moses, Jesus, and Mohammad. “The only thing that has not changed in any of these books are the commandments,” she said. “One bible is different from another bible. Even preachers improvise and add something. The only thing is, as I said, is the commandments, and I summarized that. That’s what my aim is, for people to become acquainted with this fact.” She noted that she doesn’t want people to go to war over things that are completely untrue. Instead they should communicate directly with God, frequently, through prayer. “You have to be conscious of God and have faith,” she said, “this is the most important thing. If you have faith and know that God will hear you, then you connect.”
“You have to have faith not to be miserable, not to fight, not to go to war and follow things that are totally untrue, such as what we hear today, that all Muslims are violent. That’s not true. God told Mohammad, I want you to go show them the right way, not to have the word reinterpreted to cause violence for political reasons. I went to churches and synagogues and in two minutes they would read something and ask for money,” she said, adding that this is not the purpose of true religion.
The Seven Commandments for Happiness and Prosperity is available in paperback and consists of 216 pages and was published by Veronica Lane Books.
As explained on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Seven-Commandments-Happiness-Prosperity/dp/1544842260, “The Seven Commandments takes the reader on a journey through the history of religion to discover the key principles for achieving happiness and prosperity. Our journey begins in prehistoric times when men worshipped multiple false idols, and sacrificed animals, humans and even children to please these gods. While the great Commandments of Moses were a revolutionary act of liberation, the Israelites did not always follow them and suffered the consequences. The simplified Commandments of Jesus made them easier to follow, but wickedness in the name of Christianity by the clergy and average Christians supervened. The Arabs were still worshipping multiple gods when they came in contact with Jews and Christians. Muhammad learned of their sole God and brought these Commandments to his people but many Muslims went astray. The Seven Commandments illustrates the fortunes of those who decide to be inspired by grace to follow the Commandments and achieve inner and outer peace … or the misfortunes of those who flout the law and suffer the consequences.”
How To Abolish Unpayable Medical Debt
Must-Read New Book Reveals Actual Causes, Possible Cures
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW with Co-Author Jerry Ashton
By W. Leon Smith, Iconoclast Publisher
NEW YORK – End Medical Debt is the definitive and new 196-page book by Jerry Ashton, Robert Goff, and Craig Antico, founders of the national charity RIP Medical Debt, which has eliminated numerous instances of the medical debt that ruins families in America. RIP Medical Debt is a 501 (c) (3) charity that buys long-term and debilitating medical debt for about a penny on the dollar and then forgives it, releasing the torment that too many Americans face.
RIP (rest in peace) first came to America’s attention in 2016 when HBO’s “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” used the charity to abolish $15 million in medical debt. By the end of 2018, RIP will have abolished a half billion dollars in medical debt for 250,000 people in communities nationwide. Associated Press calls RIP End Medical Debt the “Secret Santas.”
The real national crisis for a growing number of Americans is healthcare debt. A person becomes ill and suddenly his life saving are destroyed, and oftentimes, even worse than that illness, he accumulates a debt load that will haunt him the rest of his life.
The founders of the non-profit and the authors of the book are industry insiders who wanted to bypass political posturing to look clearly and realistically at the actual causes and possible cures for more than $1 trillion in unpayable medical debt in America, a figure that is growing. They believe that medical debt causes hardships for individuals, families, communities, and the country. To enact a cure, they decided to take action, which prompted the publication of their book which tells the all-encompassing story of how the medical profession, with its offshoots like insurance companies and big pharma, have changed the landscape.
Jerry Ashton (Kevin Sturman photo)
In an interview with The Iconoclast, one of the authors, Jerry Ashton, explained the mission of the charity, how it works, and the importance of people reading the book End Medical Debt to become educated in what has happened and how it can be corrected. As a show of dedication to the cause, the authors are donating all royalties from the book toward paying off medical debt for individuals throughout the country. The sale of one book, they say, will eliminate $500 in medical debt.
According to Ashton, “The charity has as its sole mission that of accepting donations from people to go out to the debt market to locate and buy unpaid and unpayable medical debt, generally for about a penny on the dollar, and then once we get that debt in our possession we eliminate the credit report mark and then we forgive the debt so never again will that person be called by the bill collector.
“As far as getting out the word, one of the things we decided to do, the three people who started RIP Medical Debt, myself Jerry Ashton, Craig Antico, and Robert Goff, was to write a book because everything that we’ve learned, both in our careers as well as in this process of forgiving medical debt, has taught us that people don’t know enough about this disaster that we call the healthcare system and the roadkill that it creates in families’ lives – we had to get that down in print. So that’s what the book called End Medical Debt is all about.”
When The Iconoclast asked if everything is going as planned, Ashton said, “Look at RIP Medical Debt as a charity. In December we were finishing off our year. We had a pretty good year of donations, but it ended up spectacular. We had one anonymous donor family step up because they wanted to bring attention to the inequities of the healthcare system and get it into newspapers, get it publicized. They donated enough money for us to abolish a quarter-billion dollars of medical debt before the end of December 31st, 2018. A quarter billion dollars, and $50 million of that was for unpaid medical debt for military veterans.
“Now since that time, we’ve had many different organizations that have stepped up that want to be able to make a difference in their local communities,” explained Ashton. “Faith-based organizations are favorites of ours. These are the people, the churches, that call us and they say, ‘We want to be able to make a difference in our communities, and have programs, campaigns which for as little as $15,000 we can abolish almost $1 million worth of medical debt. Now, when you think about the return on the investment, every penny is a dollar, every dollar is a hundred dollars, every thousand dollars is $100,000, and being able to actually abolish a million dollars’ worth of medical debt for your neighbors, your community, that’s pretty exciting action to take.
“And then there’s also nurses. Who doesn’t love a nurse? We’ve had nurses associations come to us just recently who want to abolish all the debt that they can find in the state of South Dakota. And they’ve already done that in Minnesota and they’ve already done it in Michigan. So does that give you an idea of the enthusiasm and the importance of this work?”
The Iconoclast asked, “If someone from a small rural community wants to raise the barn for people in that area who have extreme medical debt, can RIP Medical Debt work a specified region?”
Ashton answered, “You’ve heard the statement ‘charity begins at home.’ We are able to locate that within any geographical area down to the zip code. If there is enough debt that is available to buy, what we do is they approach us and we do the research to find out what debt is available and then we go back to the donors and we say, ‘Well, this is what’s available and this is what we can buy it for’ and then they decide if they can come up with the money, and most of them do.
“There are also special groups of people that are designated as recipients of this generosity. Veterans, for example. Very few people understand that our veterans are under a significant burden financially for medical care. No one would guess that I am a former Navy man myself and I go to the VA, but I never realized that a lot of veterans and a lot of military are, by some hook or crook, not able to get medical expenses paid. My partner Craig Antico and I went down to D.C. and we met with a House subcommittee on Veterans’ health and what we learned there flabbergasted us. We learned that there’s $6 billion worth of unpaid ambulance and emergency services that are on the backs of veterans that have been unpaid for the past 10 years. Is that horrible?”
When asked if his charity has a position on high pharmaceutical prices, he said that the charity is, by statute, “politically agnostic” and as such it “sweeps up after the parade.”
However, he explained that “as authors of a book that intends to educate people, to alert them to the inequities that the system creates, there’s nobody safe, whether it be hospitals, physicians, big pharma, insurance companies that delay and deny – when you consider that 60 percent of all bankruptcies in the United States are related to medical debt that that 65 percent of all the people declaring bankruptcy actually had insurance, that gives you an idea of how moth-eaten our safety net is.”
Ashton said that the public must come to realize that “everybody’s gaming us and that there are no saints among us, that you have to follow the money. Once you follow the money and find out who’s on the take you will never look at your local congressman in the same way again. Who are they working for? Are they working for you and me as citizens or are they working for someone who is going to fund their next campaign?
“Look at these people that are funded by big pharma. Take a look at the ones that get big donations from insurance companies. Look at the ones that hospitals support. Just follow the money.
“And then get real about it and realize that unless people get educated and act on their education, we’re not going to have anything different for years to come.
“As authors of the book, we’re just plain sick of it. Each one of us, by the way, in case you think the book is some form of a diatribe or propaganda machine, all three of us see medical debt differently. We see the industries differently and we are even of different political persuasions, so it’s not like we’re telling people something that we want to spoon feed them. We want them to be just as curious as we are and just as inquisitive as we are and respect us for what we are. Even though the three of us may not agree about particular directions or programs to follow, all three of us believe that we need to make a change and it has to happen soon.”
Co-Authors Craig Antico and Robert Goff
Each chapter of the book was written by a different author on a rotational basis and based on their own historical perspectives. Jerry Ashton has more than 40 years of experience in the credit and collections industry. Robert Goff recently retired from 40 years in healthcare administration management. Craig Antico has 30 years in collections, debt buying, outsourcing, and consulting.
When The Iconoclast asked what’s next, Ashton said that his charity’s mission and the publication of the book is a wake-up call. “You talk about a national emergency. It’s within the four walls of a hospital, with medical debt hanging over our population.”
Ashton explained that building a wall where a few illegals slip through is a “perverse misdirection of time, attention, and money. One trillion dollars’ worth of medical debt. Do you know that 15 million Americans will exhaust their life savings to pay medical debt? Do you know that people have to make decisions as to whether or not as they are sitting at the kitchen table, do I pay this bill collectors’ bill for medical, for the doctor, or do I have my prescription filled?”
Ashton’s message to the public to spur involvement included reading the book End Medical Debt as a start.
“They also need to learn how to protect themselves. We wrote an earlier book, The Patient, the Doctor, and the Bill Collector, a medical debt survival guide. The more that people are educated, here are the steps that have to happen.
“Number one – awareness. And thanks to you and the work you are doing people will become aware of this that’s happened before.
“Now, once people are aware of things, then in our particular case, it has to resonate.” Regarding medical debt, “some would be compassionate enough to step up and say, ‘This isn’t right and I want to help,’ if someone wants to be politically oriented and start rounding up the community, get out the pitchforks, we’re going to storm the castle.
“If it touches people like that, that’s great, but the next most important thing is education. The more people educate themselves as to this system and how horrible it is, how dangerous it is to our health, that we are the only industrial nation that will allow its population to go bankrupt as individuals just because they got sick or because they got injured, so get yourselves educated.
“And lastly, action. And that action could be people who call you up and ask you for a donation, who they need to talk to locally, which legislator should be talked to about this, at this hospital was there a policy about charity care? That’s action.
“That would be my wish. If people would educate themselves and get active, I will feel that all the time we spent in putting out the book was worth it. And another thing about the book. It has a $15.95 price tag on Amazon. All three authors are donating our royalties. Every single purchase will abolish $500 worth of medical bills. How is that for bang for your buck?”
The Iconoclast asked how do people get involved or make donations. Ashton said that to make a donation to the charity go to RIPmedicaldebt.org. “We have plenty of directions there for people who want to either create a campaign or just want to do a random act of kindness.”
In the book, the authors lay bare the inner workings of our healthcare system. They show how it produces medical bills that people cannot ever pay, including insured middle-class people who think they are covered. They tell how the early hospitals that focused on patient health evolved into today’s healthcare conglomerates focused on patient revenue. They dissect the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) to show where theory and reality do not match. They expose how veterans get laden with medical debt that effectively tells them, “No thank you for your service.”
The book provides a glimpse into the big picture:
Medical debt destroys financial stability among large segments of America’s most vulnerable communities: The sick, the elderly, the poor, and veterans. It mostly targets the middle class, driving into poverty too many families already barely getting along, who cannot afford any unplanned illness or injury. An unexpected $500 out-of-pocket medical bill can cause hardship. One in five U.S. adults have medical debt on their credit reports, some with tens or hundreds of thousands in bills Medical debt on a credit report prevents one from buying or renting a home and vehicle, or even getting a job to pay those medical bills. Millennials at age 27, who often carry little or no insurance, carry more medical debt on their credit cards than any other age group. Patients with medical debt tend to avoid adding more debt by ignoring health problems, which worsens their health and increases their costs for care. The doctor of last resort becomes the expensive emergency room, which just compounds medical debt.
Flip to the other side of the picture. For health care providers, “uncompensated care” or bad debt drives doctors away from private practice. Almost half of all U.S. physicians are now employed by hospital-owned practices, where business margins often overrule health missions.
Unpaid and uncollectible medical bills threaten the fiscal viability of community hospitals, chiefly those providing charity care. A local hospital with massive medical debt may be saved by a community bailout, but taxpayers foot the bill. Higher local taxes make any community less desirable to businesses. Less local affluence attracts fewer talented care givers. Medical debt contributes to both urban and rural communities turning into “healthcare deserts” without affordable care.
Ashton believes that medical debt permeates American society and has become a crisis. “We cannot ignore it. We need to talk about medical debt. Voicing decades of experience in debt collections, debt buying and healthcare management, the authors of End Medical Debt bring deep expertise to the problem of medical debt.”
12 MEDICAL DEBT FACTS
- The United States spends more per capita (per person) on health care than any other nation on earth.
- The USA is the only industrialized country reliant on commercial insurance instead of universal healthcare.
- At least 20 percent of all working-age Americans with health insurance have trouble paying medical bills.
- An unexpected $500 out-of-pocket medical bill is too much for many people to pay or pay in a timely way.
- More than 60 percent of all insured Americans will deplete most or all of their savings to pay medical bills.
- About 10 percent of adults delay or skip medical care due to costs; worsening health costs more to treat.
- At least 43 million Americans have about $75 billion in past-due medical bills on their credit reports.
- Medical debt on a credit report generally prevents people from buying or renting homes and cars.
- Medical debt on a credit report can keep people from getting a job to pay off their medical bills.
- Only ten percent of all unpaid medical bills appear on credit reports; at least $1 trillion exists.
- Medical debt drives middle class and lower-income families into poverty or homelessness.
- Medical debt is the number one cause of personal bankruptcy in the United States.
RELATED MEDIA COVERAGE:
New York Times: (December 5, 2018)
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/05/nyregion/medical-debt-charity-ny.html
NBC4-TV Los Angeles (November 2, 2018)
https://www.nbclosangeles.com/investigations/RIP-Medical-Debt_Los-Angeles-499468981.html
Becker’s Hospital CFO Report (November 8, 2018)
NBC Nightly News (May 21, 2018)
KIRO7-TV Seattle (February 18, 2018)
HBO Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (June 5, 2016)
“Debt Buyers” Segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxUAntt1z2c
Partial Clip: https://www.ripmedicaldebt.org/#whatWeDo
‘End Medical Debt’ Tops 2018
The Trenchwalker has read several excellent books during the past year, from authors like John Grisham, Lee Child, Lisa Sweetingham, and J.L. Bass, to name a few, but perhaps the most intriguing and helpful in the real world was the informative and inspiring book End Medical Debt by Jerry Ashton, Craig Antico, and Robert Goff. Utilized were three writers with slightly different takes on the devastating American crisis of indebtedness caused by entities connected with the practice of medicine. The book provides the evolution of medicine when its mission was good health and how it step-by-step turned into a conglomeration of corporations whose mission is now good wealth – for them.
I had trouble putting down the book and would describe it as brilliant! Weirdly, while reading it I thought of a certain comparison of medicine to furniture. I suggest you watch the old black-and-white movie Executive Suite that starred William Holden, Frederic March, Barbara Stanwyck, and June Allison, among other greats. The last quarter of the movie illustrates how a particular furniture business went from providing quality items to instead marketing cheap copies while attempting to bolster stockholders’ profits, its new end-all goal, which destined the company to failure if changes were not made immediately.
Another thought that came to mind while reading End Medical Debt was in reference to a television program in the 1960s and early 70s, Gunsmoke, which starred, among others, Milburn Stone as the elderly physician in the old west township of Dodge, Doc Adams, who made both house calls and conducted in-office visits and quite often asked for little or no pay, depending upon the financial abilities of his patients. His main goal was their well-being. Then move forward to today where dollars and cents usually dictate the type of care that is given. This often results in saddling the sick or injured patient with mountainous debt and in many cases ruins their lives about as badly as the disease would have. As you throw insurance corporations, big pharma, and major medical facilities into the mix, each chaired by a profit-driven board of directors looking out for stockholders instead of patients, you have America in 2019, a far cry from the promises of the past.
The book delves into historical points such as the start of Blue Cross and Blue Shield. It explains why they were created and how this eventually impacted healthcare today, as have sign-offs by Congress and law-makers that gradually shifted medicine toward corporatism.
In an interview with The Iconoclast, co-author of End Medical Debt, Jerry Ashton, explained why he and the other authors founded a charity, RIP Medical Debt, whose mission is to raise money to purchase horrific medical debt owed by patients who cannot pay, and then to credit these parties and forgive the debt, to extinguish bill collectors’ pursuits of these individuals. Ashton said that quite often the charity pays only a penny on the dollar to collect this otherwise uncollectible debt, a system that is seeing remarkable success. He suggests that people, by reading his book, will become educated about this trillion-dollar national crisis and be given the tools to correct it – to take action.
One of the problems lies with Congress. The Iconoclast recently spoke with a higher-up at the Federal Drug Administration and learned that its mission is hampered by Congressional loopholes that demand that the agency not do its job properly, which officials there say is extremely frustrating. Congress is banishing good sense in order to silently provide money for stockholders of major drug companies by providing these loopholes. After all, drug companies fund these officeholders’ election campaigns. If you call and ask the FDA if drugs that are approved are thoroughly tested there, you will likely be told by the lower echelons that they are. But if you work your way up the chain of command, you soon learn that the FDA does not test, but that drug companies “pay” independent companies to do it for them or they do it themselves. So much for objectivity and reliance on science, which to them is coded with dollars and cents.
The mainstream media will not tell you this because, well, they depend upon pharmaceutical advertising to survive. It’s nearly impossible to watch an hour of TV without at least a dozen drug commercials, some that go so far as to, for instance, offer a drug for a skin problem, but mention at the end the potential side effects that could include death. Death, to clear up a skin problem? Drug companies base their marketing theory on the belief that millennials are not mature enough to know any better.
Pharmaceutical companies, by and large, are simply take-offs on the old snake oil, elixir, and tonic remedy hawkers of old who sold their goods atop brightly painted covered wagons. Now they prompt you to govern your doctor, as though he or she is ignorant. “Tell your doctor to prescribe our drug. Of course, you might get a dozen terrible side effects. But then, we can provide meds for those too, and so on and so on.” Ca-ching, ca-ching, ca-ching.
A recent “confidential” conversation with a pharmaceutical braggart puts it into perspective. He said, “That vial costs us less than fifty cents to manufacture and produce, including packaging, but pharmacies sell it for $180. They get a small cut. Multiply that one vial times thousands of customers and our stockholders love it. They clean up without having to lift a finger. This also gives us money to contribute to political campaigns. We own just about every Congressman. They don’t dare go against us because they know we can ruin them. And we can afford to advertise like nobody’s business. TV spots are not cheap, but we get a special deal in bulk. Best of all, it allows us to own their news departments. There’s not a reporter out there who will badmouth us, much less investigate us.”
“But what about the customers who are being ripped off?” I asked.
“We just tell them it’s for research. Besides, they are desperate. They will do anything. So I guess you could say that we own them, too.”
The Iconoclast totally agrees with Ashton that healthcare is a major crisis in the United States and we encourage you to read our feature story about this remarkable book and the charity, RIP Medical Debt.
Arbor Music Video Aimed At Saving Dreamers
By W. Leon Smith, Iconoclast Editor
SAN FRANCISCO – Don Arbor, with assistance from filmmakers and noted musicians, has created a music video, “Everyone Comes from Somewhere,” that encourages the welcoming of immigrants into the United States. The video includes the tracking of his own immigrant roots.
Arbor says he was inspired to write “Everyone Comes from Somewhere” to counter a disturbing tide of anti-immigrant sentiment that is in opposition to U.S. history. He says that although “we have our faults, we have mostly kept the doors open and the light of liberty shining, and that’s what truly makes us great. Today’s Dreamers are tomorrow’s citizens, just as our parents and grandparents became the patriotic Americans of today.”
San Francisco Bay Area filmmakers Charles Koppelman and Irene Young assisted in weaving a tapestry of images that portray America’s immigrant history, past and present, along with live footage from a 2017 live performance. The track includes musical performances by Barbara Higbie (of Windham Hill fame); lead guitarist Stef Burns; and Huey Lewis and the News.
Early reviews of the musical video have been positive, such as “a powerful statement in an unforgettable form” and “pristine vocals and a heartfelt message.”
The link to the musical video is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AAAHX5w7S0
Arbor consented to an interview with The Lone Star Iconoclast, which follows:
ICONOCLAST — I have watched your music video several times and find it very persuasive. What I find interesting is that your personal story forecasts today’s Dreamer issues. When composing “Everyone Comes from Somewhere,” what came first, the lyrics or the tune?
ARBOR – The first thing that came was the title and a conversation with an immigrant who was actually my mother’s caregiver when my mother was 90 years old and in her decline. Her personal story of the animosity she was feeling as an immigrant struck me as unfair, unsafe, and inappropriate, and triggered for me that everyone comes from somewhere as a way of saying we’re all kind of the same.
Common humanity was the theme I was trying to express to her. She said, ‘You should write a song about that.’ She knew I was a songwriter. I thought that’s a good idea. So, that title came without any melody. It just came as a thought. I was trying to express a common humanity as opposed to divisiveness that was affecting her personally and was affecting our society as a whole as the divisions are exacerbated by harsh rhetoric.
So then after that, it was a long period of time, really a year-and-a-half of writing. Whenever something struck me about the difficulties of coming to a new place, I would keep a file and I had a very hard time trying to narrow it down to the things that finally made it into the song.
I would say that the first verse came out pretty much whole. “Let me be the very first to welcome you” came out with the melody and the lyrics at the same time. The others I wasn’t sure that all fit into the same song or not, but it works.
ICONOCLAST — How long did it take to write and what was your methodology, and did you envision a video version from the start?
ARBOR – I didn’t envision a video exactly, but I am a very visual writer, so oftentimes when I am working on a song I do see images in my mind, but what happened with that, going back to your question about how long it took to write and what was my methodology, I basically set a deadline for myself for a show my band was doing. That was in the spring of last year, April of 2017.
I thought if I set a deadline that’ll make me come up with how to make these ideas fit together, and that worked, and then at the show one of my good friends who’s a filmmaker was there and he came up after the show and told me how much he liked the show and I said that maybe we could work up a video together.
Once we met and talked about that, a lot of the images that were already brewing in my mind started to come up to the foreground instead of being way in the back.
ICONOCLAST — Songs are written for different reasons, some merely to entertain and others to enlighten. How would you categorize yours?
ARBOR – I have written some songs that are mostly just to entertain, but it’s really not the main goal I have. Even when I’m writing songs that are lighter in subject matter I’m usually trying to say something that’s true. I’m not writing to fill four minutes or three minutes of air space.
If you go to my website there’s a recent song I did. It’s called “It Should Have Been Me.” It’s very lighthearted. I wrote that after my wife told me about a great trip she had taken many years ago with an ex-boyfriend. I just thought it’s a great story, but it should have been me. That song was a true feeling and everything that I put out there I try to make it a true feeling and not just entertainment.
With a song like “Everyone Comes from Somewhere” there’s a more over-arching awareness of the world around me. I’m trying to make a personal statement that reaches other people in a way that communicates how I’m feeling and what I’m thinking and hopefully their reaction will be encouraging, positive, thoughtful and it communicates something to them.
ICONOCLAST — I once interviewed classical pianist Van Cliburn who said that classical music is not to entertain, but to nurture and expand the mind. Do you feel that your song falls into that category, as well, what with the political issues that are ever-present today?
ARBOR – I almost have to laugh that I am included in the same sentence as Van Cliburn who I admired growing up. I knew that he was a world-renowned, prize-winning prodigy. I don’t consider my musicianship being in that category, but I appreciate the sentiment and I do hope that my songs will open some avenue of thought and experience that the listener hasn’t had before or that gives them a new perspective on.
ICONOCLAST – One thing about Cliburn is that he didn’t write his own songs.
ARBOR – No, he didn’t.
ICONOCLAST – I asked him if he had ever considered doing a score for a movie, and he said no, but he might think about that, but he never did.
ARBOR – How long ago did you interview him?
ICONOCLAST – It was in 1995.
ARBOR – I have this memory of him back in the 60s, getting recognition for winning some prize in a competition. Was that part of your interview?
ICONOCLAST – I think the competition was in Moscow. The reason I interviewed him was that his grandfather founded the newspaper that I was publishing, so he had family history that went back. We had a centennial edition and he invited me to his mansion in Fort Worth. We were there about two or three hours.
ARBOR – That’s quite an experience.
ICONOCLAST — You noted that your family immigrated to the United States, which compares to the founding of our nation, made up largely of immigrants. Do you think the description of America’s being a melting pot is a viable argument for the Dreamers?
ARBOR – Another very complex question. The simple answer is yes.
The more complicated answer is that in our history as a nation of immigrants, we’ve gone through historic tensions between the instinct to welcome strangers to our shores on the one hand, and competing instinct to protect what people feel as their homeland against the same immigrants and we’re experiencing that on a magnified level currently because of our president and what he has to say.
So, the idea of building a wall is a waste of money and won’t be effective. I think of the wall as a physical symbol of division, which is much more relevant on a social and psychological plain by the tweets and the insults, using expletives to describe certain countries and looking for immigrants who are from white Nordic countries the negative stereotypes that are blatantly false, about immigrants from Central America and Mexico.
I’ve done some research on this and the fact of the matter is that immigrants are less likely to be involved in criminal activities than native-born U.S. citizens and that’s been documented by our own National Academy of Sciences.
When someone in leadership comes up and compares immigrants to rapists and drug dealers, that’s just so wrong and it’s not true. It’s intentionally divisive to create a voting block among those who feel they want someone else to look down on.
The idea of a melting point that you are asking about suggests that everyone goes into the same stew and comes out in one bowl. But there are people who are trying to make that not happen, so yes, I do think that overall America is a great melting pot and that example is why you have a reputation as a magnet for people from other cultures who think that America is a shining beacon, but once you get here, the reality is that there’s going to be a lot of feelings going both ways and the people in leadership really should be encouraging what Abe Lincoln called the better angels of our nature and not the worst demons.
ICONOCLAST — I assume that the big question lies in the influx of immigrants who did not follow laws set forth for immigration and will perhaps now be deported, leaving children behind. Do you think that illegal aliens who have ignored these laws should be provided the same rights as legal aliens?
ARBOR – I don’t know if you want to talk about the Dreamers, who came as children when they had no choice in the matter and have already been granted some form of legal status. I do think it’s a good starting point because 80-90 percent of the country thinks that those Dreamers should be allowed to stay. They didn’t come by choice, they didn’t break any laws. They were children.
The Dreamers have to be either in school or have a diploma. They can’t have any serious criminal records. They are teachers and doctors and ministers and they are in the military and there’s no reason that I can see to be deporting or ending the semi-legal status of the Dreamers. We should be looking for a way to solidify what is already a strong contribution to the fabric of our society.
So the idea of using them as a bargaining chip – we’ll give you the Dreamers if you give us reducing the immigration quota by 50 percent and if you give us no more family unification – to me, those are not fair trade-offs.
That being said, I do acknowledge that there is a logic to giving some preference to people who have come into the country legally, but if you look a layer back from that, you have to look at what are the laws and why are those laws in place and are we enforcing them in a selective or fair manner.
If, for example, you have immigrants that are being targeted for deportation if they are people of color or they are from Central America whereas, as a prime example the President’s in-laws, Melania’s parents, are here on a green card, as far as what I read in the papers, although they don’t answer all the questions.
I do think there is an issue of fairness the selectivity of enforcement, so I wouldn’t want to see the idea of deporting undocumented immigrants as an excuse to exacerbate those tensions I was talking about earlier.
ICONOCLAST – I recently read that the top three surnames in Texas have changed from Smith, Johnson and Jones to Garcia, Smith, and Martinez, due in large part to illegal immigration. Do you think this is a good thing?
ARBOR – I don’t know all the details you’re talking about. Certainly California also has a lot of immigration, both legal and illegal and I don’t want to claim knowledge of statistics that I’ve never read about. One thing that I did read about recently is a book by Dennis Carroll. He is a seminarian from Colorado with a Guatemalan parent and an American parent and one of the things I read there, I’m pretty sure, is that there are a very large number of legal citizens of Spanish language descent.
So, I would want to know before assuming too much about that which you talked about, how many people named Garcia or Martinez are already legal citizens from generations past. The balance could be a very large number of illegal immigrants or could be just a very small number that happens to be on top of those who are already here legally and some from generations past. So I can’t comment whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing in absolute terms.
ICONOCLAST – Do you think your movement on behalf of Dreamers will ultimately impact a positive outcome, given lawmakers who want to build a wall?
ARBOR – I think that the answer is going to depend on November 2018. We have a minority government. We like to think of ourselves as a democracy and in some ways we are because we get to vote, but when you look at the fact that every branch of the government was elected by a minority of the United States population, that’s a problem.
Every state gets two senators. We have 37 million people like California or 600,000 people like Montana or Wyoming. I’m sure they are actually larger now, but I have a memory of driving through Montana when I was 11 years old and the Chamber of Commerce had put an ad on the radio that says Montana is Big Sky Country and we’ve got 600,000 people and room for 600,000 more.
The point of it is that it takes 20 states to add up to California and those 20 states have 40 senators and 30 of them are Republicans and 10 are Democrats. So when you look at the map of it the senate is a 51-seat majority of Republicans who represent a minority population-wise.
When you look at the President, it is well known that he lost the popular vote. When you look at congress, you have gerrymandered districts, for example Pennsylvania where the vote was 50-50, the result was 13 Republicans and five Democrats because they pack the Democrats into a small number of districts and get fewer representatives. So the Democrats have some tough walls to climb – that’s just a metaphor – some obstacles to get over to get into a position where they can either set policy or swap the policies that are currently being promoted.
Now how that affects the wall is that Trump is trying to use the Dreamers as a bargaining chip to get the wall that he thinks somehow would help us. There’s pressure on the Democrats to agree to that because they are so supportive of the Dream population being admitted that they might give something up, something like these walls. If the Democrats prevail in the House of Representatives in the fall of 2018, I think that’s history for the wall.
ICONOCLAST – Your music video is somewhat like an “anthem,” just like “The Star-Spangled Banner” was an anthem based on immigrants settling in the new world. Do you see “Somewhere” and its message catching on among the millennials and perhaps aiding in awareness and ideologies that support the Dreamer population for future generations?
ARBOR – I have had a lot of very popular response to the song and the video. Some of it is from younger people, some of it is from older folks like me. I didn’t aim it at the millennials. To the extent it reaches them, I’m very happy about that. I do like the songs that communicate. I do write because I feel strongly about what I’m saying, so whatever group responds to it I’m happy about it and I have two millennial sons, a 21-year-old and an 18-year-old, and certainly they are very much more open to immigrants than some of the older population. I do think that is the wave of the future.
ICONOCLAST – Are there any other comments you would like to make?
ARBOR – I guess I’d like to say that one of my inspirations is a poem by Maya Angelou called the “Human Family” that has a great line in it where she says that we are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike. “I note the obvious differences between each sort and type, but we are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.”
That is how I feel. No matter what policy we wind up with, we should administer it with an eye toward our common humanity instead of divisiveness, even if the policy is to enforce the immigration laws to the letter or more strongly than they are currently. It shouldn’t be done selectively and with hatred. It shouldn’t be done in a way that promotes division. To the extent we can focus on our common humanity, the prospects for a better future will be increased.
USS Liberty Started A Trend
Dying for Israel: Apparently, the USS Liberty started a trend
By Jane Stillwater
https://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2018/03/dying-for-israel-apparently-uss-liberty.html
Author’s note: If you haven’t already noticed by now, I truly do dislike Israeli neo-colonialists and Saudi neo-colonialists. Hell, I don’t even like American neo-colonialists. Why can’t everybody just stay home where they belong! And also how come everyone gets on my case for calling out Israelis and Saudis — but if I were to lie through my teeth about Russia, Syria, Iran or North Korea, I’d get all kinds of applause? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziAK91AEEl8&feature=youtu.be
According to Lt. General Richard Clark, U.S. ground troops are now “prepared to die for the Jewish [sic] state”. https://www.mintpressnews.com/israel-us-operation-juniper-cobra-a-harbinger-of-war-on-syria-hezbollah/238768/
Too late, General Clark! Lots of American soldiers have already died for Israel.
For instance, just ask Joe Meadors, a survivor of the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty back in 1967. After nine hours of surveillance on the hapless ship, Israeli fighter jets then continuously bombed and strafed the USS Liberty while Israeli torpedo boats opened fire on it. This deadly bombardment lasted more than an hour, killing 34 American military personnel and ripping two rather large American flags into shreds. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/deadly-attack-on-uss-liberty-gets-new-attention/
And then there’s Iraq. 4,424 American soldiers died there. According to US Senator Ernest Hollings back in the day, “With Iraq no threat, why invade a sovereign country? The answer: President Bush’s policy to secure Israel.” https://theshalomcenter.org/node/621
And then there is Syria. American soldiers have been keeping Israeli neo-colonialists’ irons in the fire there since 2011. We’ll never know how many American soldiers have died there. And we’ll never be allowed to know either. https://www.thenation.com/article/bulking-up-on-special-operations-forces-in-2018-will-not-stop-terrorism/
So, yeah. American soldiers have already been dying for “the Jewish state” — or at least for Israeli neo-colonialists’ lust for power in the Middle East.
Civilian Americans have also died recently when a pedestrian bridge collapsed in Miami. America seems to have no money left to repair its infrastructure — but there’s still lots of money left to get American soldiers killed in the Middle East. Israeli neo-colonialists must be totally happy that this is still a thing, still a trend.
So. What does all this “Dying for Israel” fad have to do with little old me? Am I being anti-Semitic? Nah, I’m just still pissed off that Israeli thugs threw me out of Palestine last September. “We are trying to keep Israel safe,” they said. What? Huh? Safe from ME? https://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2017/09/grilled-my-experience-at-israeli-border.html
PS: When I toured the Senate and House chambers on Capitol Hill the other day, I forgot to ask all those war-mongering lawmakers if they too were willing to “Die for Israel”. But apparently not. Apparently it’s okay for others to “Die for Israel” — but not them. They gotta stay alive and well so they can still get their dark-money campaign contributions from the Israelis and the Saudis (not from the Russians BTW). https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/03/15/iraq-death-toll-15-years-after-us-invasion
********
Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world.
And while you’re at it, please buy my books: https://www.amazon.com/Jane-Stillwater/e/B00IW6O1RM
How To Actually Drain The Swamp
President Trump is draining the swamp – of his own appointees – and doing nothing to disfigure the political crime-wave that has astounded the American populace with governmental ineptitude for many decades.
Actually, the ineptitude belongs to the voting public for allowing greed-borne officials to attain office in the first place and to build upon their ill-gotten wealth to assure success in re-election after re-election, flouting the power of incumbency.
But it is not entirely their fault, either, because political parties tend to limit their picks to career politicians or their families as the most horrible choices from which to choose. It is not a positive, but a huge negative in the general elections. “Who will do the least harm?”
Political parties think it’s easy to control nitwits with highly questionable backgrounds, so that’s what they give us.
The Iconoclast has taken “draining the swamp” to task and with the help of two experts who have studied governance for many years has developed a workable plan to make it happen in less than 10 years, maybe as few as five.
The basic purpose is to remove the influence of both Democrats and Republicans from American culture, to take away the power of political parties that dictate when grid-lock occurs, and to order all elected officials to stand on their own two feet.
The author of this editorial is a former small-city mayor, elected to three two-year terms, whose aldermen did not run based on political party and were not influenced by party politics. Its members were individualists who made decisions on their own, standing on their own two feet, and voting in a manner that they felt best represented their constituents.
It was not a matter of Republicans vs. Democrats, or right vs. left, or liberals vs. conservatives. The concept was more in league with that great statesman of yore William Jennings Bryan and his humanitarian approach to progressivism which many cities have long embraced because it involves dealing directly with the masses.
In a meeting of the minds with two very reclusive subjects who are experts in political dissection, The Iconoclast has not only developed an outcome but also a game plan designed to rid the swamp of maggots while in the process to build bridges that will re-institute the vim, vigor, and growth of the middle classes.
The first individual who offered input goes by the name of Lowell McIntyre, a rancher who was the subject of a book entitled “Epitaph” about his Bee Rock Philosopher days. He has studied the ramifications of politics his entire lifetime, its ups and downs, its malady for greed, and how political parties are like murderers who keep interjecting themselves into the crime-solving process to screw things up.
The other was a scientific recruit who has intensely studied the effects of reverse “suoicodilaipxecitsiligarfilacrepus” and its impact on embryonic political behavior as the fetus loses its ability to detect the difference between chivalry and ethical deficiency. Dr. Manfred Meriwether does not normally offer his expertise, but felt that the nation is at a tipping point and it is crucial for immediate action.
He said, “Doors are quickly opening and closing, and generally not in favor of the American public. The choice of which doors to open and which to close is, in today’s world, of extreme importance.”
He, too, favored a resurgence of the middle classes and offered this quote from a movie, “There now, you see how more people be. That there’s what you might call a doorway to a place of enchantment.”
THE GAME PLAN
According to the Bee Rock Philosopher, a man known for his down-to-earth savvy, the first step is to think outside the box and do something that at first sounds like attempting the opposite to gain the proper finished product.
“Join with the Democrats and Republicans,” he explained. “It does not matter which state you are from, but all states need to participate for the needed numbers. We need to form a group that is linked nationally. In stealth mode, run a Democratic and a Republican candidate in each statewide and national race, each of these candidates popular and electable who shares our concept and is secretly willing to do something unheard of upon being elected.
“It does not matter which of the candidates finally wins in the general election, but one of them must. Let them ride and do their usual service when they win. But in the next election, in which the original candidates are still in office, do the same thing, loft a Republican and a Democrat as candidates and get one of them elected. Run the numbers in the House and Senate, and when enough of our constituents are elected to be able to change policy and override a presidential veto, set a date. It is now time for all of our elected group to resign from their political parties and vote to change the law whereby you don’t have to be a Republican or Democrat to get elected. Independents and individuals will now have a chance, too.
“Change the way politics works, whereby elected officials cannot run for re-election. They serve just one term. They cannot get involved in the endorsement of and the campaigning for other candidates.
If it is a four-year term, the final two years are no longer spent trying to get re-elected or going on lavish vacations funded by taxpayers. They are, basically, full-time officials with only one chance to do what’s right.
Ban intervention from political parties in the creation of policy. The elected official stands on his own two feet and can vote however he wishes, knowing that he has only one shot in that position. There are millions of people who are qualified for each position, so let’s give them a chance.
“He can run for a different office, but not while he is serving his current term. Political contributions by corporations will be outlawed, as will contributions from think-tanks and 501-C 3 entities, along with lobbyist groups. If an office-holder violates this trust, he will be immediately removed from office.”
Dr. Meriwether explained that this concept would force lawmakers to reassess their positions. “Republicans and Democrats could still offer candidates, but upon election the winner would be forced to immediately resign from the party and serve as an individual, free from the shackles of the party machine. The psychological impact would be immense.
“It would also serve best to do away with run-off elections, instead having voters rate candidates, 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. as to their preferences. If a candidate falls short of 50 percent, step down to the second choice and recalculate both sets, and so forth, until a candidate attains enough votes. If an officeholder is removed from office, the appointment to fill an unexpired term goes to the second-place candidate, eliminating special elections or political appointments. The appointment is therefore being made by the voters.
“Basically, for this plan to work, you would be finding like-minded candidates who crave this type of change and are committed to it, get them elected based on the highly corrupt old-style format currently in place, and then abruptly, when enough are elected, sweep in and force party resignations and make changes to the electoral process. Do away with the electoral college and base all elections on popular vote, since the electoral college essentially makes many votes not count and provides the likelihood of a government by the minority. If you vote, you want it to count. It doesn’t matter where you are from,” offered Dr. Merriwether.
The end result of this type of change as voiced by our two experts would deflate the power of the minority few and would bring new power to the middle classes, while really putting America first, not just with lip service to falsely make us comfortable.
We agree with Trump in that the swamp must be drained. When we learn that someone in national or statewide office is running for re-election, we automatically cringe. They have become career politicians who embrace their political parties as their rulers. When elected, they are not subject to the populace, but are being controlled by big corporations, big money from lobbyists, greed, and of course, their party.
Because of their lack of interest in having changes made in the electoral process, for it will not favor them and will shroud them with transparency, they have become maggots feeding on the highly partisan antiquated system that put them there.
This plan is a workable way to truly drain the swamp and must be done to bring integrity back to government and to revive the vanishing middle class citizenry.
It will take leaders to pull this off and individuals who are willing to actually do something to make it happen, which is also the proverbial roadblock, for few people have the guts to do it. They are quick to belch whines, but are dainty and timid when it comes to action. We hope we are proven wrong about this.
Trump says he is going to drain the swamp.
He won’t.
The Iconoclast sent him an e-mail prior to his taking office suggesting that the first thing he should do upon filling Obama’s seat was to resign from the Republican party and become a president of all the people and distance himself from the minority elite.
You know what his answer was, quite the opposite on all counts.
It is therefore now incumbent upon ourselves to drain the swamp for him.
–W. Leon Smith
See Something, Say Something
See something, say something:
“Those idiots in Washington are gonna get us all killed!”
By Jane Stillwater
https://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2018/03/see-something-say-something-those.html
“Hello, Homeland Security? This is Jane Stillwater. I’m in Washington DC right now and just overheard someone plotting to blow up the whole freaking world. If you don’t stop them right now, America could be end up as a NUCLEAR WASTELAND!” I screamed into the phone. https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/02/18/us-is-executing-global-war-plan.html
“Calm down, lady. Just tell us what you heard.”
“Some dude who identified himself with the obvious code name of ‘Lt. General Richard Clark’ was talking about plans for a false-flag operation that involved blowing up parts of Syria, Lebanon, Iran and Gaza — murdering children, targeting civilians! It was horrible! You MUST do something to stop him!” https://www.mintpressnews.com/israel-us-operation-juniper-cobra-a-harbinger-of-war-on-syria-hezbollah/238768/
“Ma’am, we have no control over what happens outside of America. Plus you could be just imagining all this.” Calling me crazy, is he? Well, I’ll show him!
“The dude actually said with his mouth that the intention of all these attacks was to vilify Russia and China, enough to get them all pissed off and into a shooting war. But it’s not NICE to piss off Mother Russia! Then some other dude talked about being in cahoots with Ukraine neo-Nazi bad guys with a plan in place to blow up Russian-speaking Donbas! You’ve got to stop these people before Russia finally loses patience with the idiots in Washington and drops nuclear bombs on us in return! Please!” https://www.globalresearch.ca/russia-warns-us-against-attacking-syrian-forces/5631930
I also tried to tell DHS how I overheard the king of Saudi Arabia plotting to send whole planeloads of gold bullion to buy off Congress (again) so that the Saudis could continue to massacre Yemeni babies at will — without any tiresome meddling by stupid American busybodies still tied down with the lead weight of conscience. And also how the evil Saudi neo-colonialists were in league with the evil Israeli neo-colonialists in their plot to steal everything in the Middle East that wasn’t tied down and then become a super-power themselves — with America in the role of the red-headed stepchild. http://therealnews.com/t2/story:21264:Gideon-Levy:-The-Zionist-Tango:-Step-Left,-Step-Right
But the Homeland Security guy hung up on me.
So much for “See something, say something.” Humph.
PS: Other than the fact that Washington DC is the home of a bunch of feral idiots who risk American lives daily in their insane quest for diabolical power, the District of Columbia itself is a wonderful place. I got to tour the Senate, the House of Representatives, the International Spy Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the Library of Congress and the Supreme Court — and also attended a hope-inspiring rally and march staged by Hasidic Jews in protest of Israeli corruption and war-mongering. https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2018/03/13/instead-of-being-in-jail-haspel-is-cia-director.html
The National Portrait Gallery had an excellent and intimate exhibit of the writing of Sylvia Plath. Fascinating and tragic at the same time. And I almost got thrown out of the Gallery itself by some irate docent when I tried to cut in line to see the new portrait of Michelle Obama. But I got my revenge. I bought the postcard instead and took a selfie with it..
“150 people are standing in line to see Michelle’s portrait right now,” I said to one of the guards there. “I wonder how many people will stand in line to see a portrait of Melania.” The guard and I both laughed. But actually, it’s not Melania’s fault that Americans are more interested in Stormy Daniels than they are in her.
Hell, Americans are far more interested in Stormy Daniels than even in the fact the the power-mad idiots in Washington are trying to blow us all up. But at least some of the DC Metro stations I rode through are far enough underground to serve as bomb shelters. I wonder if I should start building a bomb shelter too when I get home. Couldn’t hurt, might help.
********
Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world.
And while you’re at it, please buy my books: https://www.amazon.com/Jane-Stillwater/e/B00IW6O1RM
‘Getting Life’ A Must Read
Texans need to read Michael Morton’s new book, Getting Life, An Innocent Man’s 25-Year Journey From Prison To Peace.
The memoir details his life in prison after being erroneously convicted of killing his wife, and the ordeals that pervade in a justice system that has again failed.
The horrible murder occurred on Aug. 13, 1986, in which his wife, Christine, was savagely bludgeoned to death in the couple’s bed after Mr. Morton had gone to work. His son was an eyewitness who said that it was not his father who committed the murder, but law enforcement politics dismissed this and pompous officers aggressively pegged Morton with the killing anyway. It wasn’t until DNA evidence became available and the testing of a bandanna with the killer’s DNA on it that Morton was finally released. It was also learned that the same murderer had killed another woman in a similar fashion near the Morton house.
As has happened frequently in other Texas cases, evidence had been collected just a few days after the murder that was never investigated. The rush to convict even an innocent person was the paramount goal of authorities.
The book includes information logged by Morton as a prisoner – recollections, court transcripts, and journals he penned during the two-and-a-half decades of incarceration where he was stripped of his freedom and was subject to the real dangers and hellacious ineptitude of Texas prison life.
Morton describes the inner workings of the prison system in great detail and the heartbreaking mental conflicts that he went through. For instance, a truly innocent person in Texas does not qualify or parole, since the inmate has to admit the crime and show remorse. Do you lie about your innocence in order to qualify and forever possess the label of confessed murderer even if you didn’t do it, allowing a free pass to the real killer who can continue to murder, or do you remain steadfast in the truth that you are innocent and perhaps spend the rest of your life in prison? There were also conflicts regarding family members who knew he was innocent but felt incapable of proving it because of dramatic flaws in the justice system that is fraught with roadblocks for those wanting truth to prevail.
DNA testing was not available 25 years ago. Now it is, which has caused the release of many innocent victims whereby law enforcement personnel have protected the guilty parties and gone after the wrong man.
Recently it came to light that personnel in the DPS labs have for years lied about results in order to obtain convictions, which throws into question whether their trust is ever warranted. One lab individual had over 3,000 such cases that came into question, where errors were purposely made. This has caused backtracking on cases and the release of several innocent people. However, some had already served their full term. Again, the powers that be protected the guilty in accomplice fashion, allowing the guilty to continue to commit crimes while destroying the lives of the innocent.
We highly recommend Morton’s book Getting Life. It is an adventure nobody should ever have to take. His writing style is compelling, his descriptions moving, and the story itself one of a kind. It’s a book that you won’t be able to put down.
Two endorsements on the back cover are noteworthy:
Dan Rather wrote, “A true Texas story of how our system of justice can itself be criminal. Michael Morton’s powerful take will take you with him into mourning, into prison, and finally, thankfully, back out into the light.”
David R. Dow, founder of the Texas Innocence network, wrote: “Imagine spending 25 years in prison for a murder you did not commit. Imagine the murder victim was your wife, the love of your life. And imagine it all happened because prosecutors and law enforcement officials cooked up a case against you and hid evidence that would have identified the real killer. Michael Morton doesn’t have to imagine, because he lived it. It’s usually a cliché to say someone has been to hell and back, but in Morton’s case that is exactly what happened, and his stunning and lyrical account of the journey will break your heart, then make you mad, and finally fill you with hope.”
The book can be ordered on Amazon, http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Life-Innocent-25-Year-Journey/dp/1476756821. There is also a DVD version entitled An Unreal Dream – The Michael Morton Story, which also gets high praise. It is a documentary film by Al Reinert and can also be ordered from the same Amazon link previously provided.
— W. Leon Smith
‘Call To Mind’ Returns…
As Uncle Hugh used to say, “Never get into a piss-fight with a skunk.”
I am back.
Only occasionally, mind.
I had retired to devote full time to decades of losing the struggle to write a novel. I say losing because I finally wrote it. Some people might like it. I don’t.
In the age of Trump, I have been forced back among the columns.
Not that I should join the cacophony of outrage that we have elected an amoral, ignorant clown. (You just don’t get it, do you? They voted for him because he’s and amoral ignorant clown, for gods’ sakes! Polls showed people though he was more dishonest and less qualified. We have come to revere dishonest and incompetent. It reminds us of us.) But the offended news shows have responded in kind. Instead of letting the big tent catch fire with dignity and reason, news people simply cannot resist the invitation to join a bad act in the center ring. Madness in self defense.
Worst thing you can do to an newsie: accuse him or her of being unfair.
The news business will give you publicity you never dreamed of trying to prove they’re not prejudiced.
Attack the news business, however, and they throw away the rule book.
So, I do not return in the name of Trump.
Not that I don’t think he’s a New York real estate salesman, an amoral ignorant clown with the uncanny ability to sell a dream state, Ozzie and Harriet with real cultured pearls, to people who have gotten a pretty poopy stick-end in this country.
Those who would rescue the downtrodden in the United States are among the country’s most enduring purveyors of racism.
We see the long-suffering as some shade of brown.
And we have assigned colors to a universal struggle and argue for those we deem most pitiful.
Middle income white people struggle with less success for their efforts than any other ethnic group: less likely to fully educate their children, ever own their homes or cars, and die with any reasonable kind of care and comfort.
Poor people get public help with everything from illness to tuition.
Middle income white people simply can’t afford such gratuity. They are unworthy of sympathy because they live in a state of comparative comfort. Comfort mortgaged to the eyeballs.
They are condemned to work for banks all their lives not because they must resort different solutions. Their conception of public policy is that their lives don’t get any better unless they go over to the self-serving dark side: Reaganomics.
We have all ignored them.
Until the real estate hustler promised to.
Yet, we continue our ignorance.
If we would all stop watching the show, we might make those who so desperately believe him aware that he hasn’t.
And won’t.
He doesn’t know how.
NOTICE: It is now legal to hunt wild hogs from hot air balloons in Texas. Can’t imagine anything that could go wrong with that.
Younger than Kennedy . . .
Senator, I knew Blake Farenthold. Blake Farenthold was my congressman. Blake Farenthold’s staff helped me resolve a Social Security problem. Blake Farenthold takes care of crap like that for people in his district.
Senator, you are no Blake Farenthold.
For which I’m sure you are both grateful.
That said, Senator, yeah, he is pretty unattractive little guy, who you would expect should be one of those unnerving, sort of puffy guys from IT who keep hanging around your office long after he’s fixed your network problems, and then you find out it’s because he wants to proselytize about being born again or decry UFO non-believing heretics or assure all comers that Obamacare will propagate the global realization of the last 20 minutes of Cecil B. DeMille’s “Samson and Delilah”.
Actually, Hedy Lamar would almost be worth it.
Blake’s just a nice person with the politics of a Gobi Desert warlord.
And who hasn’t seen that silly picture, for gods’ sakes.
As a public service . . .
But in case you’re a fan of the Farenthold Fatal Arbitration Method. Here’s a link to the Code Duello , the rules for dueling. Irish version, of course.
Po’ Texas . . .
Arguments about improving health care or education in Texas are senseless.
The state can’t afford either.
Unless, of course, we do something about the franchise tax, and I don’t mean repealing it, as the Necktie Know-Nothings are wont. (In case you don’t get that tie reference, see, Texas legislators have to wear neckties in session, unless she is one of the rare feminine fascists of the breed, at which point you may substitute a can of Spray Net — Walmart aisle display giant economy size — for a Windsor knot, and back in the 1840s and ‘50s the American Party, known as the Know Nothing Party because they refused to answer any policy questions, promoted a platform decrying immigrants, Catholics and any government policy not ending with at least one lynching, so I made up this obscure word-funny about ties and . . . oh never mind.)
Back to the franchise tax.
Big corporations in Texas don’t pay taxes.
There is no state income tax, so partnerships and corporations, i.e., law firms, stock market brokerages and Walmart, pay no taxes other than the franchise tax, which no one with gross receipts less than $1.1 million per annum (adjusted for inflation) is required to pay. Even then, it cannot amount to more than .5 to one percent of the adjusted gross receipts margin, which is roughly defined as some difference between the net and the gross denoted in terms that only a CPA in an incomprehensible argument with the state comptroller can divine, usually determined to be a sum somewhere between diddly and squat.
That means the state has to live on the eight percent sales tax, giving public services the income akin to that of a rheumy fry cook with a wooden leg.
And Order Up Texas has a lot of hungry mouths to feed, such as paving companies, state fund investment brokers, Alcoholic Beverage Commission party hosts and all those Rick Perry job holders who rely on public assistance to supplement our full employment.
Let’s face it, if Texas levied taxes to keep pace with its needs, we’d still be a republic.
Which it didn’t, and we aren’t.
And we’d probably never have found out that Jim Crow paid better than slavery.
And we’d still have a health care policy for the African-American community.
Granted, slavery was only marginally better than the health care policy advocated by Congressional Republicans.
At least slaves got a regular semi-monthly visit from the vet.
“Oh, she said she had pneumonia, Colonel, but one can hardly rely on the word of a slave! That’ll be four bits and a ham.”
Now there’s a health care plan only a true Republican could love.
We live from crisis to crisis in Texas government simply because we don’t have enough money.
Actually, to amend that, we have plenty of money in Texas.
The state government doesn’t have much of it, but it’s there.
In the hands of we, some of the people.
But then if there were anything to you, you’d have exercised your Texas-given right to con, weasel or covertly steal your way into a position to hate the franchise tax and all that goes with it, altruism out with the bath water.
Which is the ultimate reality of income distribution.
Oklahoma exists because early Texans needed someplace to flee.
Couple of decades, you could flee back.
All said, we don’t have enough money to take care of all the sick people in Texas, or teach children much more than one sees from the inside of a bubble.
Besides, most of them don’t vote.
Because we have a state constitutional amendment prohibiting an income tax, the franchise tax is about all we have.
And that sucks.
It’s sparsely levied, complicated to collect and almost certainly unfair.
For example, if I had a Texas business with a bunch of capital letters after its name, and I grossed a grand more than $1.1 mil, I guarantee my granddaughter would be getting braces, immediately after becoming a named partner.
Regardless of whether she wanted braces.
And regardless of whether the franchise tax is the second worst way for a state to collect money — sales tax being the worst, of course — it is the most likely tax that the political climate won’t go Category Five on.
We can expect political climate change in Texas after the iceberg sinks Kansas.
Naturally, with traditional forethought, at this writing the legislature is likely to do away with it.
The only reasonable political move would arise from the fact that it’s easier to amend the Texas Constitution than kick a cat. But it does have to be approved in a general election cycle.
No reasonable person likes an income tax, but it’s the only sensible way to afford corruption, bloated bureaucracy and a civilized standard of public service.
So the population of Texas is as likely to vote for an income tax as Black Sabbath highlighting a Baylor halftime.
Late bloomer . . .
Stephanie Quinn has found the Lord!
The New Braunfels public school teacher, who professed to vote Republican most of her life, faced with the prospect that Texas teachers are paid like field hands with benefits reminiscent of the horny toad sealed in the Capitol corner stone, launched a petition this week to demand health insurance like other state employees and better compensation for Texas teachers, active and retired.
She has, at this writing, sparked around 70,000 signatures.
God loves a Republican come to his understanding.
Now, if we can only convince the Democratic Party of Texas to come on down the the alter and rededicate its life . . .
Those who remember the Democratic state government will recall that the Big Pink was, perhaps, a bit more civil, but no less mendacious.
In all seriousness, thank you, Stephanie Quinn for convincing Texas teachers to stand up for themselves.
Head call . . .
Finally, even rich old pirates know that people who would hit on other people in restrooms have a problem, and it has nothing to do with gender.
That behavior should be against the law.
Oh, wait!
It is.
But as I say, that has nothing to do with gender.
The vast emotional wasteland that lies between who you are and who you were born is a trek most of us never make.
Those who do don’t need any more grief than comes with the territory.
But none of that matters.
If you profess to be a Christian, don’t be mean to people.
If you don’t profess, at least not in public, don’t be mean to people.
Seems pretty straightforward.
Frankly, I have no idea whether I’ve ever been in a public convenience with a transgender person.
I guess some public officials spend more time observing other people in public conveniences.
However, not-the-real-Dan Patrick, before you start wasting everyone’s time, at least find out whether your fears are really everyone’s problem.
‘Politics: Another Perspective’–The Black POV
Lecturer Wilmer J. Leon Traces Government’s Impact On African-American Life
By W. Leon Smith
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Wilmer J. Leon III, a political scientist who for 11 years served as a lecturer in the Political Science Department at Howard University in Washington, D.C., has written a new book that examines the “80 shades of black” as they pertain to the African-American point of view. Politics: Another Perspective is a collection of 80 Op Ed’s that reveal, in devastating detail, issues that have influenced the American geopolitical landscape.
The author re-examines the U.S. Constitution as the starting point for slavery and the document’s alterations that have occurred in words but not necessarily in deeds. Dr. Leon provides an incisive analysis of the formative influences of slavery on America’s very identity, noting that “it was free slave trade labors that enabled the economic foundation of the republic to transition from a feudal system to a capitalistic system” and concludes with the author’s insistence that a moral revolution is needed. He predicts that without a fundamental transformation, America will implode under the trifecta of racism, materialism, and militarism, and he provides current-day examples to prove it.
According to Dr. Leon, much of the population looks at tragic current events through a narrow prism, isolated from a broader historical content, which Politics: Another Perspective provides. He says that there are no just solutions to problems unless they are understood within an historical context.
As he connects the dots from the past to the present, Dr. Leon examines the reactionary politics of the millennial and baby boomer generations that have contributed to the “political abyss” faced in America today and delves into the lack of action by office holders, such as former President Obama, whose administration failed to articulate an effective counter narrative and employ effective countermeasures to bring about true equality to many African-American citizens.
In his book, Dr. Leon’s opinion-editorial series follows wars, various administrations, and the efforts of heroes such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who made an impact decades ago, but whose efforts never actually reached fruition. Dr. Leon offers a translation of the U.S. Constitution from a Black point of view since much of it deals with slavery and the act of considering African-Americans as not human, but material possessions. This, he implies, is a taint handed down generation to generation which tends to put Blacks at a disadvantage for employment and as an unfortunate target for criminal retribution when none actually exists.
Dr. Leon hosts the nationally broadcast talk radio program “Inside the Issues with Wilmer Leon” on Sirius XM Satellite Radio, channel 126. He is also a nationally syndicated columnist with the Trice Edney News Wire and a regular political commentator on national and international news programs. His constitutional activism has been covered and profiled extensively in the print media, including numerous national and international newspapers and periodicals. Dr. Leon earned a BS degree in Political Science from Hampton Institute, a Masters in Public Administration (MPA) and a PhD in Political Science from Howard University.
INTERVIEW
In an interview with Dr. Leon, Lone Star Iconoclast publisher W. Leon Smith, who about 40 years ago wrote a novel entitled Epitaph, about a young African-American man who started a newspaper in a small all-White community, asked several questions about Dr. Leon’s book and his thoughts on current-day strategies to improve and “make right” the problems of race that continue to haunt America:
ICONOCLAST – Dr. Leon, on page 71 after you explain the The Federalist Papers, you quoted Justice Hugo Black as saying that free speech “is the heart of our government” and that it promotes the discovery of truth. Earlier, in analyzing The American Thinker, you note that its perspectives play into and perpetuate the stereotypes that the African-American experience, culture, and perspectives are monolithic, devoid of substance, myopic, shallow and emotional, basically the assignment of simplistic answers to very complex problems, events, and circumstances. Do you see any way that the field of journalism can bridge this impasse now that the mainstream media is fully corporatized and operates on a sound-bite philosophy?
DR. LEON – Merriam- Webster defines journalism as “writing characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation.” In too many instances our traditional journalistic outlets have gone away from the craft and moved into the more profitable “infotainment” or talk, entertainment, opinion, assertion, advertising and propaganda. I say on my radio program all the time that talk without substantive fact-based analysis is just chatter and there’s way too much chatter in mainstream media today.
Those who practice the craft need to get back to the roots of the craft. Investigative journalism and presenting facts in as unbiased a fashion as possible. The audience has to demand more of the sources that it chooses to access. Too many people have become comfortable and only seek out sources that validate their existing “realities” instead of reading and listening to sources that will challenge their beliefs.
Our middle and high schools have to get to helping students understand the value of critical thinking. Parents have to engage their children in dialogue and get their children to understand the value of “why”.
I think the realities that Americans will find themselves faced with as a result of this new administration will begin to force a discussion about the value of true journalism and critical analysis and danger of sound-bite politics.
ICONOCLAST — Do you think the Three Fifths Compromise should be taught in schools as a matter of bringing the full scope of the African-American experience into focus, or should it be relegated as “old history,” no longer relevant to the millennial generation and therefore cast aside? In the same vein, does the teaching of African-American history in schools provide greater understanding of where we have been and where we are headed as a country, or does it perpetuate the idea that the social standing of African-Americans will always be tainted by the years of slavery suffered by their ancestors? Is there a psychological breaking point?
DR. LEON – My piece “We Must Look Back in Order to Move Forward” #70 on p. 284 speaks to some of your question. Yes, the 3/5th’s Compromise should be taught in schools but the discussion should begin with the Virginia Slave Code from 1669 that read –“ “if any slave resist his master…and by the extremity of the correction should chance to die, that his death shall not be acompted felony, but the master…be acquit from molestation, since it cannot be presumed that prepense malice…should induce any man to destroy his own estate.” Today’s translation, white police officers can shoot unarmed African American citizens with impunity.” This was the beginning of the dehumanization of enslaved African’s being codified in Colonial and later American law. Yes, the realities and history of Africans, enslaved Africans and African Americans should be taught in schools as an integral part of American history since this country would not have become the world economic power that it became without the uncompensated sweat equity of African Americans and their ancestors. Douglas Blackmon’s book Slavery By Another Name is a great example of this.
ICONOCLAST – You mention in your book the writings of Dr. Jeremiah Wright who has made statements that many consider problematic, such as the government providing drugs to African-Americans, building bigger prisons, passing the three strikes law, and treating its citizens as less than human; however, you then provide examples that show his accuracy. As each day passes, do you see this predicament worsening or improving?
DR. LEON – Many consider the statements by Rev. Wright as problematic but there is enough evidence such as the incredible journalism of Gary Webb and the San Jose Mercury News to support his claims. The predicament is worsening. Statistics show the disproportionate level of incarceration between AA’s (men and woman) and Whites has remained steady. When we look at the current administrations proposed budget and how social programs are going to be cut; the problems will only get worse.
ICONOCLAST – Prior to most elections, the candidates say that under their rule things will get better for people who have lost jobs to a tanking economy or who were never able to find jobs. But this promise is never fulfilled and frustration sinks in due in large part to party politics that tend to result in gridlock. We are basically relegated to a two-party system. Do you think it is time to demolish all political parties and have candidates stand on their own two feet?
DR. LEON — I don’t think we need to demolish the political parties. We need to expand the system not blow it up. Sen. Sanders is a great example of what can happen when progressives understand their power. We would have been better off if he had won the Democratic nomination and lost to Trump because we would have been left with a viable movement. Hilary saying, “I’m now with the resistance” means there’s no resistance. Professor Guinier’s analysis of proportional representation should be reexamined.
ICONOCLAST — President George W. Bush trashed the U. S. Constitution and got the country involved in illegal wars. When Obama ran for president, he promised change and hope, which did not happen. He is often referred to as Bush Jr. Then, in the last election, it became a matter of electing the lesser of evils, both corporate-chosen candidates with a lot of money and both with horrible track records. In your studies of political science, which often considers trends and tipping points, can you forecast the future for the African-American population based upon presidential politics or is this an impossibility?
DR. LEON – I will try to answer your question this way. I can’t forecast the future. I will say that with the candidacy of Sen. Obama too many in the AA community got caught up in the politics of pigment and phenotype and ignored the politics of policy. Politics is about the equitable distribution of limited resources and policy output. Too many in the AA community want to give President Obama a pass with excuses such as “you don’t understand what he was up against….” Failing to understand that he was a corporatist and more conservative than liberal as evidenced by his bailing out the banks at the expense of the homeowner and cabinet appointments. I don’t believe that the politics that he ran on were really his politics.
ICONOCLAST — On page 268 of your book you quote Dr. Ronald Walters as saying that conservatives are using the political process to “enact a new regime of social control” over African-Americans and other poor people in this country. I assume that you consider this a step backward, one that validates that “the colored American lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity,” quoting Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Do you think President Trump will reverse this trend or make it worse, and what kind of mission is required to delete social control of the populace when the slate of candidates usually offers no option?
DR. LEON – I don’t think it’s a step backward. I believe it’s where America has always been. President Trump won’t reverse the trend. He’s just clearly articulating it where as others such as Nixon, Bush, Reagan and even Bill Clinton put a “kinder and gentler” spin on it. Conservatives don’t dislike Trump because of what he’s saying. They hate him because of how he’s saying it. African Americans need to understand the concept of sovereignty as articulated by Ezrah Aharon in his book Pawned Sovereignty and start operating from a position of power and self-interest not weakness. We have spent too much time worrying about being like and not nearly enough time focused on being respected; let alone, feared.
ICONOCLAST – You mentioned in your book that the traditional Santa Claus poses a confusing image for people of color. Do you think changes in American film and stage that replace White people with Black people helps or hurts the cause of African-Americans? A couple of examples are the remake of The Bishop’s Wife and the play Hamilton. Or the remake of It’s A Wonderful Life in 1977 called It Happened One Christmas where the lead role is a female instead of a male, a different twist on a traditional story. Do you think the subjects/authors would approve? I know in my novel Epitaph that I would be very upset if someone changed the race or sex of its protagonist, Shipley Fish.
DR. LEON – It’s not so much about imagery as it is about narrative, content and messaging. Replacing White folks with Black folks and keeping the same narrative is not progress. What good is a Black Republican like Armstrong Williams who tries to sell us Strom Thurman as some redeemed individual worthy of our praise? That’s what I call Minstrel Politics – Black face on White folk’s foolishness. It’s A Wonderful Life is a great film with a universal message. One of my favorites.
ICONOCLAST – For many, equality is something that is merely sought, like truth, but is often not entirely found, partially because each individual is different and interpretations vary. Regarding reparations and restitution and the “compounding moral debt” whereby African-Americans find themselves still exiled in their own land, how can these chains be broken? Let me place before you a couple of examples. When I was in high school, my Physical Education teacher was also the head football coach. In class, if you did not play football, the highest grade you could earn was a B. If you happened to be a football player, you automatically got an A, no matter what. In Texas, election ballots are printed in both English and Spanish. But what if you are French, or Japanese? Does this show bias and inequality? Is it the government itself and political institutions that weld these chains?
DR. LEON – Equality for African Americans is not abstract, it is real. Understanding that race is an artificial construct created by European colonists and later European Americans to justify or rationalize the oppression of Africans in America and later African Americans through eugenics and other false “science’ goes a long way towards understanding how to move forward. These are the discussion that need to be had and reparations, apologies and solutions can be developed from these realizations. It’s one thing to not print a ballot in French (since you need to be an American citizen to vote and a fundamental understanding of English is an asset) and another thing to develop a program like Crosscheck or Voter ID laws that are intended to disenfranchise legally registered voters voters of color, the elderly and poor.
ICONOCLAST – In my historical book Revisit The Old Mill – Its Creation Defined Texas, part of the period covered were the Civil War years, a period in which Texans were divided as to pro-Confederacy or anti-Confederacy. Bosque County in Texas was largely populated by Norwegian immigrants, who were firmly anti-slavery, but the pro-slavery forces, mainly replants from the eastern Old South regions where slavery was an integral part of the economy, were in high number. The Norwegians were intimidated to not take a stand, for fear of retribution that could cost them their lives. In Texas, even General Sam Houston, then the governor and one of the founders of the state, declined to sign his allegiance to the Confederacy and was removed from office. Texans were friends with some bands of Indians and co-existed with them well, but other Indian bands were considered deadly marauders with whom Texans fought as they settled here. Many Texans involved in the Confederacy did not like being forced to become foot soldiers, since most of their Indian battles had been on horseback, so they ultimately loathed the ineptitudes of the War Between The States and the economic hardships that followed. A hundred years later, when the merging of school districts occurred in 1965, my father had just bought the local newspaper. In short order, he published on the front page the photo of a Black football star who had provided remarkable feats on the gridiron. In his opinion, news was news and he didn’t care about the possible ramifications. The paper was boycotted, he lost advertisers, and he was nearly run out of town. He just shrugged it off and continued to publicize African-Americans just like everyone else and the photo incident was soon forgotten. These were “breaking the ice” situations. From a political science point of view, is there a “tipping point” or “breaking of the ice” possibility in the future? I realize that Obama let slip a golden opportunity to lift consciousness of equality to a higher level, but is there a movement pending that could make this happen?
DR. LEON – First, kudos to your father; his vision and strength. I don’t see a “tipping point”. What we have seen in this country since its inception is what Dr. King called “white backlash” and Dr. Ronald Walters called the “politics of resentment”. President Obama did let slip a golden opportunity. Again, when AA’s decide it is more important to be respected instead of being liked that “tipping point” will start to tip. Again, we have to look at Ezrah Aharone’s Pawned Sovereignty.
ICONOCLAST — Do you think President Obama violated the U.S. Constitution when he ruled that people must lose their ability to choose and therefore were forced to purchase health insurance from a for-profit business corporation or be fined?
DR. LEON – No. I believe it was well within his authority as POTUS. It was in the best interest of the country. Part of the problem is that due to pressure from the insurance companies he ran from the Public Option. Also, he sold health insurance reform as health care reform. Also, the ACA computer network crashing when it was launched did not help.
ICONOCLAST – In a near-perfect world, how would you design a movement to alleviate inequality? Can it be done politically or is there an outside-the-box approach that would work better?
DR. LEON – First, America has to admit that it was founded upon racism and that its vestiges are as H. Rap Brown said, “as American as cherry pie.” Second, Congressman Conyers H.R. 40 to explore/study the issue of reparations needs to be passed. Reparations needs to be paid. From there we can discuss alleviating inequality. Until then I don’t see how we can move forward. In this instance the political elements that I outlined will move the social elements since American racism was codified and sanctioned by government action and/or inaction.
Bombs Of War Impact Climate Change
By W. Leon Smith
Scientists throughout the world are emphatic that our dangerously warming climate is the result of the human beast and his emissions of petroleum gases and similar products into the atmosphere. The end result is an imbalance that thrives and grows like tumors on the heart and limbs of Mother Earth.
The escalation of these tumors became pronounced during the George W. Bush presidency, as did the number of massive earthquakes around the world that many have attributed to HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program). HAARP is a sub-arctic facility in Alaska that utilized a high-frequency, high-powered radio frequency transmitter to bounce its targeted beam off the ionosphere that is outside earth’s surface and back to earth to specific locations in search of oil, thereby allowing oil companies to excite with vibrations the earth with oceans above it in the quest for underground oil. This turmoil caused hurricanes and earthquakes. Instrumental in the development of this facility were British Petroleum and BAE Systems Advanced Technologies, a subsidiary of BAE Systems, Inc., one of the world’s largest suppliers of military combat equipment.
During the Bush II era, tsunamis, earthquakes, and hurricanes were prevalent, believed to be caused by the intrusions of “weather altering” forces, which were actually a bi-product of the vibrations put upon the earth by humans. The resultant ionospheric bounce has a domino effect. One thing causes a disruption, which causes another, and another, and another that can go on for centuries.
In a similar vein, the massive explosion of bombs throughout the world has added new tumors to Mother Earth. Take, for instance, the use of depleted uranium to make harder the texture on missiles. The depleted uranium waste product from nuclear power plants needed to be disposed of because of its yet intense radioactive nature. What better place than upon missiles, bombs, and similar military equipment, for the sake of “national security?”
Unfortunately, when ordinances are exploded, the minute particulates of radioactive depleted uranium enter the atmosphere we breathe and eventually sit upon the landscape and venture into rivers, streams, and lakes. Thus explains the exponential increase of birth defects and new cancers in regions such as Iraq and elsewhere around the world.
The Lone Star Iconoclast was the only American newspaper about a dozen years ago to investigate the impact of depleted uranium upon the world. It was learned that during the Battle of Baghdad where “shock and awe” garnered headlines, unreported in the mainstream media was the significance of vast amounts of depleted uranium being unleashed upon the world.
After further study, The Iconoclast published a series of articles under the umbrella of “Have DU – Will Travel” where scientists in London had learned of vastly dangerous spikes in radiation that occurred as a direct result of depleted uranium explosions in Baghdad, whereby these particulates had traveled en mass to other sectors of the world, crossing countries and leaving behind and depositing debris not fit for a sewer in its wake, particulates that will negatively impact the health of humans for generations to come, for it is nearly impossible to clean up.
In 2016, during the Obama administration, the United States alone dropped 26,171 bombs, according to Foreign Policy. This does not count the vast multitude of bombs dropped by other countries either in direct military action or as a means of testing. The end result is a spike in cancers and other health frailties for the human and animal populations throughout the world, not to mention the fishes of the seas. The particulates do travel, possibly and probably even to arctic regions, where their impact on global warming could be immense.
Which brings us to my point.
Studies are being conducted that relate to the manufacture of and use of petroleum products and their contributions to global warming, all the way down to people who drive a car to work. However, we are yet to find a study that links the use of bombs and other military ordinances to global warming, or the bouncing of radioactive beams off the ionosphere as a contributing factor.
It is the duty of Mother Nature to keep Mother Earth in balance. It is a tough job, one made nearly impossible with petroleum caldrons constantly emitting poisons into the air and explosions of bombs ripping the earth and distributing its own mixture of radioactive particulates into the air we breathe and upon the earth, often many miles away, where havoc is the only outcome.
I often wonder if there were no more bombs would global warming eventually correct itself, or at least not get worse?
Is this the underlying culprit that science, politics, and governments are prone to ignore? It is the “big boys” that profit from war and their greed is unquenchable.
Most military regimes are run by billionaires, psychopaths, and maniacs who lure hordes of incompetents into their grasp to kill on their behalf. Is it really safe to question their authority? So far, no one has dared to venture into that chamber of doom. The “sheeple” complex remains intact while the missing puzzle piece of war’s impact on global warming remains hidden out of sight on the floor.
Urban Shield: Doing Unto Us What We Did To Iraq, Syria, Etc.
By Jane Stillwater
http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2017/06/urban-shield-doing-unto-us-what-we-did.html
How many Americans even remember America’s brutal and unnecessary “war” on Vietnam? Even though 50,000 (fifty thousand) of our sons and daughters died in that conflict? And that said “war” went very badly for us when a bunch of determined farmers in black pajamas kicked our butts?
How many Americans even know that our military-industrial complex financed, encouraged and promoted Saddam Hussein’s “war” on Iran in the 1980s — even though that brutal and uncalled-for attack lasted ten long bloody years? And that Iraq, even though it was working hand in hand with both America and Israel and probably most of Europe too, couldn’t even manage to defeat puny Iran?
And journalist Steve Fournier also asks the same question about Russia. “Would you entrust a war to an army that couldn’t defeat some of the weakest nations on earth? The armed forces of the United States have been engaged for over a generation in warfare against governments in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Yemen and Syria. They have managed to destroy lives and property in abundance and have extinguished entire ancient cultures, but they have accomplished no discernible mission. Typically facing poorly-armed and undernourished enemies, they have been unable to record a victory since 1945. Should we trust them to take on Russia?” http://www.currentinvective.com/wp/?p=223
And then there were all those bloody and unnecessary “wars” on Nicaragua, Guatemala, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Palestine (by proxy), Syria, Yemen, Chile, Korea (twice so far) and so on — all of them now conveniently forgotten. http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/06/white-house-says-it-will-fake-chemical-weapon-attacks-in-syria.html#more
Hell, Americans can’t even remember any of the centuries of “wars” on poorly-armed American Indians or even the three or four centuries of brutal and cowardly attacks on defenseless Black people, conveniently referred to as either “slavery” or “Jim Crow”.
And now the same type of folks who brought us all those stupid and shameful “wars” abroad are now trying to bring these same stupid and shameful “wars” home here too. Does your local police department really need a tank? Seriously? Urban Shield sounds pretty much like Iraqi Shield or Afghan Shield or Syrian Shield, all of which ended badly for the civilians of those countries. Bad news for them — and now almost certainly bad news for us too. http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/how-america-armed-terrorists-in-syria/
But great news for the military-industrial complex!
And speaking of urban stuff, here’s the next chapter of my recent adventures in New York City:
Day Three, Part 1: One would think that I would have fallen asleep easily last night after taking the red-eye from SFO — but no. Maybe I got a few hours of primo sleep. But whether or not sleep was involved, my wake-up call still came at 6:15 am. http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2017/06/are-americans-even-good-people-any-more.html
And then I discovered Hudson Street Park. 20 blocks of lovely waterfront walkways going directly from The Jane hotel to the Javits Center. Birds actually sang!
Then I got in free to the Book Expo’s authors’ breakfast on my press pass. Karmic reward! Sweet. But shoulda known that the breakfast was not going to be gluten-free. Not even oatmeal or fruit cups were involved. Just orange juice and cream cheese for me.
Damn, there’s a lot of people here — and at $70 a pop. Who’s going to speak? Stephen King. Anyway, here I am, sitting right next to the Random House/Penguin VIP table. There must be at least a thousand people here. 150 tables of ten, plus a bunch of seating for groundlings in the back.
Oliver King, Stephen’s son, spoke first. “Our family sat around and pitched one-line story lines to each other at the dinner table. One of those story lines was about a world without women. Our new book ‘Sleeping Beauty’ resulted.”
Stephen King said, “I used to be a latchkey kid back before there were even latchkey kids — back in the 1950s. And my mom used to say, ‘If there’s no ring around the toilet bowl, you know that a woman is around’. Men just don’t do things like that. Women are the cooling factor in society when men run too hot.” Surely Stephen King didn’t just say that, that all women are good for is cleaning the toilet. I’m sure he meant something else. Will have to read the book to find out.
Whitney Cummings spoke next. “I wanted to write something that will last forever. Books are permanent. I’m an unapologetic book nerd. They don’t bombard you with visual chaos like social media does.” She’s funny as hell, is a screenwriter for “Two Broke Girls”.
“It’s totally hard to write a book. I thought it would be fun and sexy like when Cary Bradshaw did it on TV. But it was actually pretty frustrating. And then there’s fact-checkers. They should go over to Fox News. Fox News needs fact-checkers. Leave me alone!”
She used to be crazy. “You can’t just magically stop being crazy. I went into therapy. I was co-dependent, couldn’t say no. Busy but unfulfilled. Needing the approval of others.” She gave a really humorous presentation. Made all this terrible stuff sound laugh-out-loud funny. “Ambian and wine is not a sustainable combination.”
Her book is a manual about how to change your brain. “People only show their good sides on social media but a lot of people really are in pain. But people do want to change and grow. This book will hopefully provide healing laughs.”
Claire Messud spoke next. “My novel, The Burning Girl, is about two young girls and their close friendship as they pass through the storm of adolescence. We all remember middle school. When something doesn’t make sense just think, ‘Picture this as happening in middle school,’ and then it will make perfect sense. A week can contain a year’s worth of emotions.”
We all put together stories to make sense of our lives, Messud told us. “We fill in the blanks. Many elements are familiar, universal — what we give up to become adults, from only pieces of what actually goes on. But a state of uncertainty between knowing and unknowing is what makes us human.”
Scott Kelly spoke next. 520 days in space, 340 of them consecutively. He wrote a book called “Endurance”. When he was a kid, he read a book called “The Right Stuff” and immediately decided to become an astronaut. “It surprised even me that I did this, and my book is the story of how I got there. Today is a critical day in our nation’s future. I have looked at the earth from space. You don’t see a lot of rain forests down there anymore. You can actually see the pollution. Plus all the cooperation between people and countries regarding space programs shows that we can do anything if we have dreams.”
Then Jessmyn Ward spoke about her new book, “Sing, Unburied, Sing”. “Faulkner once said, ‘To understand the world you must first understand Mississippi’. My mother was a domestic and my father was a factory worker. I never thought I would become a writer. Mississippi will hug you before it smothers you.” Mississippi also has some of the best bookstores there is. Jackson, Tupelo, Oxford. “The past bears down especially hard on the present in Mississippi. Why? It was heavily invested in slavery and then later in Jim Crow and Parchman Farm. How does the past live in the present? That’s the question I constantly ask myself. Writing is my attempt to answer this question.”
She tells us that, “Mississippi is the foundation and walls. America is the roof. Your home fails you, murders you. There is terror — and there is hope.”
Pete Souza then spoke about his new book, “Obama”. He was the White House photographer during Obama’s presidency. “So. I miss this guy. I took two million photos in eight years.” A nice selection of his photos were projected onto a big screen, and that was the end of the authors’ breakfast.
Then it was off to the main exhibit hall to see who was giving away free pens. Nobody was! I only scored three or four pens. Bummer.
But at the Soho Press booth I scored the new Colin Cotterill book! And a pre-publication copy at that! Not to mention a new Timothy Hallinan book, “The Widows of Malabar Hill” and a few others as well.
I also got a copy of the new Joe Ide book, “Righteous,” and some free macadamia nuts — but paid three whole dollars for a tiny bag of potato chips. Had to. By that time I was starving.
Bought a deli salad after leaving Javits Center and then took the 9th Avenue bus back home to The Jane. Am going back tonight to attend the Hillary Clinton School of Lies but that will be about it for the BEA for today. I think.
To be continued…
Some Famous Quotes…
By Peter Stern
Here are some good ones. These have been around for some time…
- In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.
— John Adams
- If you don’t read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.
— Mark Twain
- Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But then I repeat myself.
— Mark Twain
I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
–Winston Churchill
- A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
— George Bernard Shaw
- A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.
— G. Gordon Liddy
- Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
— P.J. O’Rourke, Civil Libertarian
- Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
–Ronald Reagan (1986)
- I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.
— Will Rogers
- If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free!
— P. J. O’Rourke
- No man’s life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.
— Mark Twain (1866)
- Talk is cheap, except when Congress does it.
— Anonymous
- The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.
— Winston Churchill
- The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.
— Mark Twain
- There is no distinctly Native American criminal class, save Congress.
— Mark Twain
- What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.
–Edward Langley, Artist (1928-1995)
- A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.
— Thomas Jefferson
The Fire Burns, The Cauldron Bubbles
By Robert C. Koehler
America serves up its news in a cauldron from hell, or so it sometimes seems. The fragments are all simmering in the same juice: bombs and drones and travel bans, slashed health care, police shootings, the Confederate flag.
Double, double, toil and trouble . . .
Suddenly I’m thinking about the statues of Confederate generals taken down in New Orleans, the Confederate flag yanked from the state capital in Charleston, S.C. . . . and the secret flag the authorities can’t touch. Ray Tensing was wearing such a flag — a Confederate flag T-shirt — on July 19, 2015, while he was on duty as a University of Cincinnati police officer. That afternoon, he pulled over Samuel DuBose because of a missing front license plate. Less than two minutes into the stop, DuBose — a dad, a musician, an unarmed black man — had been shot and killed.
This is so commonplace that, while it may be news, it’s hardly surprising. Tensing was fired from his job. He went to trial for murder, twice. Both ended in hung juries. OK, that’s not surprising either. Cops are almost never convicted in such shootings. But what I can’t get out of my mind is the T-shirt. It’s what places this story fragment within the American news cauldron: the quiet hatred of it, the implicit sense of dominance, the armed racism. Tensing wasn’t a “loner” with an agenda. He was an officer of the law; he served the public. Yet he was secretly honoring the same agenda (the same god?) as Dylann Roof, the young man who killed nine African-Americans two years ago at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C.
This is the crossing of a line. Official public action — armed action, no less — is still permeated with poison.
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
“As Senate Republicans rolled out the Better Care Reconciliation Act,” Rolling Stone reported, “. . . the halls outside the office of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell were starting to get a little crowded. Sixty disability rights activists from grassroots group ADAPT, many of whom were using wheelchairs, staged a ‘die-in’ to protest steep Medicaid cuts in the bill. They were arrested and removed by Capitol Police, with witnesses saying that some protesters were dropped by police officers dragging them from their chairs.”
A vote on the bill, as we all know by now, has been postponed because of the controversy it has generated across the country, the die-ins that have been held at senators’ offices, and the Congressional Budget Office determination that the legislation would wind up causing, ultimately, 22 million people to lose their health insurance, which translates into thousands of people dying prematurely. What T-shirts were the 13 (Republican, male, white) senators who wrote this bill wearing?
Maybe their T-shirts bore dollar signs rather than Confederate flags, but the connection resonates. Public policy emerges from what we believe to be right, perhaps without the least reflection or awareness. And there is a consensus of fear, scapegoating and dehumanization that has always dominated a portion of American policy as well as individual behavior. Some people’s lives just don’t matter. Or they’re in the way.
With the current president, reckless individualism and public policy merge, sometimes shockingly, as with, for instance, Trump’s anti-Muslim travel ban, which the Supreme Court partially removed from the oblivion two lower courts had assigned it.
According to The Guardian: “The nation’s highest court said the 90-day ban on visitors from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, along with a 120-day suspension of the US refugee resettlement program, could be enforced against those who lack a ‘credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.’”
So the chaos at airports will continue, and families from these “bad” countries can be split apart. Somehow I don’t see this as a separate, isolated piece of news but part of the big picture of what President Trump might call American greatness, which is to say, American dominance. And of course many of the people who would attempt to enter the United States from these countries are refugees of the wars we are waging or facilitating there, which are making their homes unlivable.
“The enemies may rotate, but the wars only continue and spread like so many metastasizing cancer cells,” Rebecca Gordon wrote recently.
“Even as the number of our wars expands, however, they seem to grow less real to us here in the United States. So it becomes ever more important that we, in whose name those wars are being pursued, make the effort to grasp their grim reality. It’s important to remind ourselves that war is the worst possible way of settling human disagreements, focused as it is upon injuring human flesh (and ravaging the basics of human life) until one side can no longer withstand the pain. Worse yet, as those almost 16 years since 9/11 show, our wars have caused endless pain and settled no disagreements at all.”
We condemn, we bring to trial, the armed hatred and racism of individuals, but far too rarely do we ever bring the whole system, or a serious segment of it, to trial. That’s because it takes a movement to do so. The civil rights movement and the movements that followed — antiwar, women’s rights, environmentalism — did that, and we changed as a nation. But not enough.
It will take another movement of ordinary people to continue this evolution. I know it’s underway: I feel the courage, for instance, of the disabled die-in participants. We’re at a new beginning.
Robert Koehler, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is a Chicago award-winning journalist and editor.
Does 55 Save Lives? And Gas?
AUSTIN — With a state the size of Texas, getting from point A to point B can be time-consuming.
During the Nixon years, with Arab oil embargoes in place, it became illegal to drive 70 mph, the former standard. The new speed limit was 55 mph. A common slogan was “55 Saves Lives,” which was printed and broadcast everywhere in the Lone Star State.
Another offering was that the reduced speed saved on fuel, which was the reason for the change to 55 mph in maximum speed on Texas roadways. Waiting lines were common at gasoline stations and quite often the pumps were empty. Slowing down was the patriotic thing to do.
Today in Texas, the speed limit is commonly 75 mph, often going up to 85 mph in some areas, what with an abundance of extremely expensive fuel.
According to various officials, driving at 55 mph is considered safer, although it takes longer to reach a destination and it infuriates other drivers who are in a hurry and are traveling at the speed limit or beyond. In Texas, motorists tend to exceed the speed limit in droves.
As far as fuel savings goes, several sources, including the San Francisco Chronicle, have indicated that fuel economy drops about one percent for every mile-per-hour increase in speed past 55 mph, the number increasing even more after 65 mph is reached. A lot of factors go into this broad assessment, but these numbers are commonly stated.
The Chronicle did a study in 2005 that can be found at http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Drive-55-save-gas-get-flipped-off-Trip-2600719.php.
Employing the general rule, the 85 mph speed limit in Texas can reduce the mpg rating of a vehicle by 20 miles per gallon when compared to traveling at 55 mph.
Are Americans Even Good People Any More?
By Jane Stillwater
http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2017/06/are-americans-even-good-people-any-more.html
Today’s proverb from my Franklin Planner says, “A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.” Dwight D. Eisenhower said that.
America is spozed to be a Christian nation and yet its military has murdered hundreds of thousands of women and children randomly in almost half the countries of the world — and done it for fun but mostly for profit. American “wars” on Vietnam, Iraq, Syria, Libya, the former Yugoslavia, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Yemen, Palestine, Honduras, Panama, Indonesia, the Philippines, Cuba (the list goes on and on) have been criminally-shameful and illegal rapes and slaughters of much weaker countries, based solely on American cruelty and greed. What would Jesus do? Certainly not this! http://www.worldcat.org/title/terlena-breaking-of-a-nation/oclc/76706500
And here at home, we Americans fight hard for our right to have guns so that we can protect ourselves against robbers and The Government, but only end up mostly killing our children by accident and committing hate crimes on purpose. How Christian is that?
Americans are spozed to love liberty yet we have Urban Shield and the NSA and the Patriot Act at home and the CIA and “Special Forces” assassination teams abroad, ones that support the worse kind of dictators such as the Saudi un-Muslim mafia, the Ukraine un-Christian neo-Nazis, the Israeli un-Jewish apartheid neo-colonialists and those brutal butchers in ISIS and al Qaeda who do our dirty work for us. http://21stcenturywire.com/2017/06/07/the-machiavellian-plot-to-provoke-saudi-arabia-and-qatar-into-a-blood-border-war/
America is spozed to be the Robin Hood of the free world and yet we constantly take from the Poor and give to the Rich. Counting the jobless, the homeless, those without healthcare, soldiers sacrificed to defend corporate profits, victims of yucky drinking water, victims of infrastructure failure, your aging parents, your friends and mine, etc., it looks like many more than a million Americans will die far before their time in this coming year because of the Koch brothers, the Deep State, Citizens United, the Wall Street casino where the House always wins, media “war” propaganda lies in order to sell WMDs, and the souls of the corrupt legislators that have been have been bought and paid for by these ill-gotten gains. To say nothing of shameful Jim-Crow-style election fraud by the GOP and also gross interference in our elections by, wait for it, Israel and Saudi Arabia — of which both Republicans and Democrats are blatant receivers of whole boxcars full of untraceable cash.
“Among a people generally corrupt, liberty does not exist,” my Planner goes on to tell me. Edmund Burke said that. And he was right too. https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Money-Street-American-Century/dp/1615778055
Are Americans only getting the corrupt and cruel leaders that they deserve? It certainly does look that way. And are Americans even good people any more — to have let all this evil corruption go on for so long? I don’t even want to think about the answer to that question. Let’s think about something more pleasant instead. Here’s a report on my first two days in NYC:
“Everything’s like a dream in New York City” — especially its book-publishing industry, its celebrity personalities, its amazing museums, its outstanding people-watching opportunities and its vibrant street life.
Day One: I leave for New York in six short hours and guess what? Just finished going through my usual heavy-duty pre-travel panic attacks — including the usual “I could just stay home and lose my airfare money and I would be okay with that” phase, followed closely by the “OMG, I’m so hungry and there is nothing to eat!” phase, and then followed by the “I’m gonna hide under the bed in denial” phase. And yet here I am aboard a BART train that goes to the San Francisco airport and I’m actually okay with that — and even excited.
Heading off to New York City? Who would not be excited about that? Museums and books. Museums and books. Museums and books. And hopefully not bedbugs.
And now I’m on the JetBlue red-eye flight with no problems. The service is great but the free inflight movies all seem to be at least five years old. Mrs. Doubtfire? Really? Moneyball? I played a game-watching extra in that one at least five years ago. The Sound of Music? Huh? Finally settled on 27 Dresses which was entertaining and cute.
Day Two: Well, apparently I must have slept on the plane because there are clearly two hours unaccounted for on that flight. But can’t remember falling asleep. But so what. I got to JFK airport, took the subway (the E train) to 8th Avenue and 14th Street, dragged my suitcase for seven blocks and voila. Here I am at The Jane hotel — in the world’s smallest hotel room. Even the one I had at the Tokyo airport was bigger. We shall see.
They don’t call these rooms “cabins” for nothing. Built in 1907, The Jane used to be a seaman’s hotel for when sailors were ashore. But, hey, the rate is really cheap, the staff is really nice and they don’t have bedbugs. That’s what counts. Plus I’m right near the shared bathroom. Good to know in the middle of the night. Plus the bathroom is really clean. And the cabins are wood-lined and cute.
Today was a day for walking my legs off. 30 blocks up to the Javits Center, and another 30 or 40 blocks wandering around what used to be Hell’s Kitchen and now appears to be Yuppies’ Kitchen instead. And the highlight of the day? Stopping by Soho Crime publishing house on lower Broadway and meeting one of its editors again. Seeing all those excellent books. Wow and double-wow! Plus Soho is located right around the corner from a Whole Foods market. Two birds with one stone. Mental stimulation and dinner.
“Got any recommendations for a good Chinese restaurant?” I asked the editor — the question that Henry Chang’s main character in his latest Soho murder-mystery, “Lucky,” hates to be asked. https://sohopress.com/authors/henry-chang/
“Sure,” answered the editor. “Anything on Doyer Street is great. Nam Wah, Tasty Hint, all of it’s good.” Maybe I’ll go there on Friday because tomorrow is going to be jammed — starting with getting up at 6:15 am in order to go see Stephen King and Owen King talk about their new book “Sleeping Beauties.” Apparently its a story about the consequences of having a world without women. Then I’m meeting a friend at 3:00 pm for rice pudding at B&H Dairy on Second Avenue, and then going to a talk by Killary Clinton at 6 pm. So much fun.
Bottom line: Walking around the streets of New York is a whole tourist treat all in itself and boy did I do that today!
To be continued….
TCRP Says ‘SB4 Has Got To Go!’
AUSTIN – In a post issued on June 27, Efren Olivares, Racial and Economic Justice Director of Texas Civil Rights Project, said that “Yesterday, alongside more than 600 community members, we fought for justice, for dignity, and fought against discrimination both inside and outside of the courtroom. I was proud to be in the courtroom with the support of our community behind us.”
He said that every Texan deserves to live with dignity and that the discriminatory “show me your papers” law, Senate Bill 4, is a threat to millions of immigrants and people of color in the state.
According to Olivares, “SB4 violates several rights enshrined in our Constitution. At its core, the law violates the 14th amendment because it was adopted to target immigrants, Latinos, and people of color in Texas. The disparate impact is a direct threat to the guarantee of equal protection under law.”
He asked that Texans support the cause of the Texas Civil Rights Project by visiting www.texascivilrightsproject .org.
Building A Sustainable World – Now
The most important element for sustainability is not energy. It is building materials with vastly increased longevity which can withstand natural disasters, is hydrophobic, fire-proof, strong enough to withstand impact, and is made from natural materials occurring across the entire world. And do not forget, this material can include no petroleum products while being extremely affordable. This last is important because we need to get the job done far sooner than any one imagined necessary.
This is the foundation of the world in which humanity can find the security to realize the dreams this past century has shredded. Those dreams can become the future we share as we build a new world for all of us.
One such building material is now being patented and will be on the market shortly. It is called Metacrete.
We need your help to shorten time, bringing people and groups together to carry out a plan which speaks to the multiple injustices done to people and our planet.
The reaction of shareholders to Exxon has told us that emotionally normal people understand why we need to take action. Many also understand why the present predatory system has brought only injustice, anger, and desperation. Many are already taking action, using materials like Metacrete those efforts become a lasting solution.
Our proposal is to start rebuilding with our eyes on the centuries ahead. We must do this both in America and around the world. Once, we were a beacon for freedom and opportunity. Today, we can be an example of how we get off the grids, reject greed, and come together as one people.
We can accomplish this by putting those most at risk, first, focusing on sustainable social justice.
Let me explain what the world can be like if we ensure this happens and how we should proceed.
At present, there is an assumption the best materials are expensive. Those now in the market, which are not usually really green anyway, are expensive and made with elements which include petrochemicals. These are falsely marketed as Green. To change this, we need a standard which allows us to see the fact these new materials, beginning with MetaCrete, are less expensive and better in every way than the faux green products now clogging the market.
When MetaCrete has done its job the world will be a different place for all of us. This is the material which will be the foundation of that world.
Each of us has our hopes for the future. Think about your own hopes as you read about what is possible.
Imagine for a moment the home where you were born. It has never been painted. The pigment went in when your great-grandparents built it. Inside it is always comfortable. Home means security and comfort to you for more reasons than any of us can imagine today.
There has never been any repairs needed though storms have sometimes taken down the trees around the house. Your parents added on once, but that is the only change. Your great-grandparents included Aquaponics and you grow a lot of your own food. Your in-home computer system monitors what has going on. Seed trades with neighbors are part of your tradition and now you grow plants from all parts of the world, keeping track of these and studying their DNA routinely. There is nothing you cannot grow locally, if you want but you often trade with neighbors as well.
In your world most kids study the magical world beyond our normal human vision as soon as they can read, or even before since they can see through the electron microscope which is now standard in homes around the world. They understand this extension of their sight. It is part of their backyard. Such technologies are natural parts of your integrated comm system, which, you understand, underwent multiple changes for a long time. You receive upgrades but these do not disrupt your activities.
Your water is recycled and comes from your cistern, built into the house and replenished by rain, naturally.
With these changes came an explosion in human creativity which also lead to understanding ourselves – and how we could be manipulated.
Energy systems took time to catch up, but now you get all the energy you need from your embedded solar and wind arrays. Nothing has been needed since your grandparents were living here, and they lived far longer than had previous generations.
The world population has been dropping for 200 years. Women finally achieved the full exercise of their natural, human rights as the world was experiencing universal freedom for the first time.
The idea of recurring costs every month is a story from the past. You have none. You care for the land, nurturing it, studying it and its microcultures. You save the time and dollar credits you get from your various projects and studies and donate some of these to projects others are carrying out you want to encourage. The age of great wealth is past, along with poverty.
Right now, you are studying the layers of paint from the works of masters created during the 1600s. Each layer fills in information on the artist and the world in which he lived. You do this with friends, one local and others around the world. You can find out about projects others are pursuing and follow those which interest you. When you were younger you were into Extreme Sports. Your own focus was diving from the stratosphere while painting complex images with your diving group.
Other members of that group went to Mars, where they still live.
You had one child, now grown but still living at home. This is a common pattern. Others build their own homes. Families stay in touch and many choose to live together or nearby. Travel became sustainable long before you were born.
Tonight you are having friends over for dinner, Preparations began a week ago with the harvest of a variation of potatoes you have been working on for some time. They taste like a combination of garlic, Vidalia onions, and butter. You enjoy traveling with your husband and your friends -sometimes. Other times you go alone.
Human understanding, without violence, began growing even before your grandparents were born. Now wars are fought by agreement and with rules – but those participating generally move on to other pursuits. War and re-enactment merged into one pursuit, fulfilling the human impulse, experienced by about 10% of the male population.
Your life is filled with variety you choose. You have lived as a woman from the 1600s in simulations carried out by the venerable SCA, and as a woman from the early 18th Century living in Appalachia. Your own lineage came through there so this was especially interesting and why you chose it.
One wall of your office shows your lineage, based on the DNA analysis begun by your great-grandparents on all lines.
One of your neighbors carves real wood objects. Right now, he is working on a desk which will look like the photo of one owned by one of his ancestral lines in the 1700s. He revived the specific variety used in the original and grew it for this purpose. Other seeds are now re-establishing the forest where the original tree was cut.
Many study the past. Others look forward. Always, you are free to choose.
The First Unexpected Step
The evidence from Housing First, which began as a measure to cut costs in Utah in 2005, showed that most people who have a secure place to live will turn themselves to positive pursuits. They may want or need treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), or for Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). Or they may have disabilities. But these are far easier to handle if they have a home. Utah noticed this and the information trickled through to others.
Homes should come first as we care for everyone.
Therefore, our proposal is to begin with those in need through all causes. But first, we should provide homes, schools and hospitals. Veterans, young mothers, the elderly and disabled, college students who cannot afford a place to live, those homeless for other reasons, especially those who lost their homes to the greed of corporations, such as the mortgage fraud must come first. Also included, refugees from war and those in other countries who have inadequate homes or no home at all.
There are many out there working on these needs, for instance Habitat for Humanity and BuildOn. What if all of us began using a material, like MetaCrete, which solves the problem, demonstrates the possibility for homes which then become places for people to solve their other problems? Temporary homes wear out. These homes are permanent.
What if the celebrities among us call on recalcitrant authorities who are more interested in control than in ensuring houses are built for those who need them?
As we build we will be moving away from petroleum and toward a sustainable world where war does not motivate greed. Every house built then moves us toward a sustainable human culture and to peace with the Earth and each other.
What if we come together to help those in need and by doing so bring peace?
If you can help, contact us.
Specifications and technical information.
3D Printing fot homes is now available. The cost is tiny compared to the benefit all of us will realize. We have estimates for multiple costs, including for building, remediation of polluted land, and more. Rammed earth technologies, precast, Shotcrete and other technologies were also considered and could be used with the MetaCrete. This form of material, which utilizes Kaolin and other minerals, is believed to be ancient in human usage in less advanced forms. MetaCrete is processed to the nano level and combines
Our project geologist knows where every reservoir of appropriate minerals is located along with other essential resources.
Send this along to your friends and associates. Sign up to follow Rebuilding the World at ACP Vision & Action.
When we work together all things are possible.
Melinda Pillsbury-Foster, 805-813-7600, themelinda@gmail.com
Dave Lincoln, davelinc@aol.com
EcoAlert, A Project of the Arthur C. Pillsbury Foundation
Dorothy Day Refuses To Duck-And-Cover
On June 15th, 1955, Catholic Worker founder Dorothy Day joined a group of pacifists in refusing to participate in the civilian defense drills scheduled on that day. These drills were to prepare the citizenry in the event of a nuclear attack, and involved evacuations of city centers, taking shelter in subway tunnels, and, for schoolchildren, “duck-and-cover” to hide under their school desks. Such actions would be futile if a nuclear attack were underway, but the drills were part of a government propaganda program to convince Americans that nuclear weapons were a necessary part of the US arsenal, and that it would be possible to survive a nuclear war.
In this particular case, Operation Alert was a nationwide, mandated, legally enforced drill. Dorothy Day, fellow Catholic Workers and other pacifists informed the media that they would disobey the law, and refused to evacuate public spaces and work places for the proscribed fifteen-minute period. Instead, they sat on park benches in City Hall Park, quietly praying and meditating. All 27 – and a shoeshine man who was taken into custody by mistake – were arrested. They were branded murderers by their judge, who accused them of being responsible for the simulated deaths of three million New Yorkers.
Day said she was doing “public penance” for the United States’ first use of atom bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. She and other protesters plead guilty to the charges, but the judge ultimately refused to send them to jail, saying, “I’m not making any martyrs.” For the next five years, Dorothy Day and many others engaged in similar acts of civil disobedience, refusing to cooperate with the civilian defense drills.
In 1960, more than 600 New Yorkers joined them at City Hall Park, with simultaneous demonstrations at CCNY, Brooklyn College, Queens College, Columbia University and several New York City high schools in noncooperation with the drills. When young mothers with children joined the protests in 1960, opposition to the drills increased, and the drills were stopped after the 1961 protest. Historians point to these campaigns and many others of the time as drivers toward the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty negotiated, signed by President Kennedy, and ratified by the US Senate.
This campaign is an excellent example of the power of nonviolent action, combining noncooperation with drills, civil disobedience of unjust laws, public acts of protest and persuasion, among others. The pacifists also used letters, speeches, trials, public statements, and interviews to convey the immorality of nuclear weapons and to expose the hidden agenda of the US government. The careful strategizing of noncooperation and protests brought a halt to the civilian defense drills, demonstrating to the US government that the populace would not passively comply with the unspeakable horrors of nuclear weapons.
As we know, the work is far from complete. With one trillion dollars slated for expanding the nuclear arsenal over the next 30 years, it may be time to dust off this chapter of nonviolent history, and tackle modern nuclear challenges with organizing nonviolent action.
Author/Activist Rivera Sun, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is the author of The Dandelion Insurrection and other books, and the Programs Coordinator for Campaign Nonviolence.
Rockets’ Red Glare And Bombs Bursting In Air
By John LaForge
A June 27 Pew Research Center poll says world opinion of the United States has plummeted since Donald Trump took office. Surveying people in 37 countries, 49 percent held a positive view of the United States, down from 65 percent at the end of 2016. Maybe we could cancel the fireworks this 4th of July considering the insensitive symbolism of vicariously enjoying war.
With the Pentagon’s rockets’ red glare and bombs bursting in air smashing seven majority Muslim countries — Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen — negativity toward the United States is easy to understand. U.S. drone attacks originating in Nevada, 7,200 miles from Iraq, and jet fighter-bomber strikes launched from supercarriers in the Persian Gulf are killing hundreds of frightened bystanders month after month. At least 25 civilians were killed in Mosul, Iraq on Saturday, June 24, when US bombs destroyed four houses.
Every child killed or maimed by U.S.-made weapons inevitably creates enemies among survivors. President Obama (pronounced “Oh-Bomb-Ah”) made the point himself May 23, 2013, in a speech to National Defense University. He said drone attacks “raise profound questions: about who is targeted, and why; about civilian casualties, and the risk of creating new enemies…” And Obama warned that, “U.S. military action in foreign lands risks creating more enemies.”
Whether bombing civilians only “risks” creating enemies or can be positively guaranteed always to do so, is a matter of opinion. But one need only consider the globalized, mechanized, mass U.S. military reaction to 9/11 — and the country’s demonization of whole groups and religions — to know that demands for revenge, retribution, and retaliation always follow the deaths of innocents.
If your business is peddling weapons, you could be smugly satisfied about every civilian wedding party, funeral procession, hospital, or Sunday market hit by U.S. drones, gunships or F-18s. One StarTribune headline on April 2, 2017, directed attention away from our arms dealers. It read, “Civilian deaths a windfall for militants’ propaganda.” Never mind the windfall for war profiteers.
U.S. offers $6,000 for each dead civilian [sarcasm alert]
In the world of weapons sales, nothing is better for business than TV footage of the anguished and grief-stricken after civilians are indiscriminately attacked by “foreigners.” In the countries being bombed, we are those foreigners, occupiers, and militarists accused of cheapening human lives. You decide: when a U.S. gunship obliterated the hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan Oct. 3, 2016 killing 42, the Pentagon offered $6,000 for each person killed, and $3,000 for each one injured.
The government and munitions makers say our bombs are saving people by killing terrorists, and — being a world away from the torn limbs, the burning wounds, the screaming parents — Americans want to believe it. The U.S. dropped 26,171 bombs across the seven states during 2016, according to Jennifer Wilson and Micah Zenko writing in Foreign Policy. Each explosion is guaranteed to produce enough newly minted militants to insure steady orders for more jets, bombs and missiles.
Even with a stockpile of 4,000 Tomahawk Cruise missiles, some in the military say the store could be run low by the bombing of Syria, Iraq and the others. “We’re expending munitions faster than we can replenish them,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh told USA Today in December 2015. “Since then, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter has asked Congress to include funding for 45,000 smart bombs in the [Pentagon’s] 2017 budget,” Public Radio International reported in April 2016. And now Trump’s SecDef, Gen. James Mattis has asked for far more in the 2018 budget for what he calls an “annihilation campaign.”
Lockheed Martin Corp. was paid $36.44 billion for weapons in 2015, and $47.2 billion in 2016, according to the Stockholm Int’l Peace Research Institute’s February 2017 report. SIPRI says that half of all US weapons exports in 2015 went to the Middle East. Last May’s $110 billion US sale to Saudi Arabia alone is bound to bring peace and stability to the region. Obama’s $112 billion in arms to the Saudis over eight years certainly did. The Kingdom’s fireworks in Yemen will cause “oooohs” and “ahhhs” of a different sort than our holiday firecracker fakery.
This cheering of faux bombs on the 4th while denying that our real ones produce enemies and prolong the war is why terrified villagers, refugees and the internally displaced of seven targeted countries will go on cringing and crouching over their children as U.S. drones and jets howl overhead. But “Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto — ‘In God is our trust’ — And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave, O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
John LaForge, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is Co-director of Nukewatch, a peace and environmental justice group in Wisconsin, and is co-editor with Arianne Peterson of Nuclear Heartland, Revised: A Guide to the 450 Land-Based Missiles of the United States.