"America is NOT Broke." So says Michael Moore in Wisconsin--I knew about the 400 richest people's wealth equalling half of the rest of the population's. I just never heard it expressed as well as in Moore's speech:
"...400 obscenely rich people, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer "bailout" of 2008, now have more loot, stock and property than the assets of 155 million Americans combined."
Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, on the fall of the US Food and Drug Administration from the old days of real oversight to modern times of rubber-stamping:
"Is the motto of the Food and Drug Administration "safety last" when it comes to the Lap-Band?" --
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2011/02/michael-hiltzik-the-fda-and-the-lap-band.html
U.S. Supreme Court Betrays U.S. Consumer: Big Pharma Given Total Liability Shield for Vaccines -- Read more from Barbara Loe Fisher of the National Vaccine Information Center: http://www.nvic.org/NVIC-Vaccine-News/February-2011/NVIC-Cites--Betrayal--of-Consumers-by-U-S--Supreme.aspx
Besides the Superbowl hoopdedo and Ground hog's day, not to mention the impending meltdown of the thugs who run Arab countries in the Mideast...there is the non-story of dead President Ronald Reagan's 100th birthday.
I have 63 year old 16mm Kodacolor movie my dad shot of Ronald Reagan judging a local beauty contest at the pool of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel.Reagan was a 2nd-rate washed up actor in 1948, and if it weren't for his lead-ins to the TV show "GE Theater" in the 1950's, most of us wouldn't know about him today.
It was that presence, plus an ability to read other people's words and sound real sincere, and a measure of political ambition fueled and flourished by wife Nancy, that is the reason so many jaw-droppingly ignorant republicans still love his legacy.
Did I miss something amongst the commentaries about his 2-term slosh as the "Great Communicator," in that he was party to, and possibly even initiator of, crimes against the State as well as utterly abrogating his presidential oath of office to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution?" This morass became known as the "Iran-Contra Affair," of which few citizens understand or care about.
The history of US Presidents abounds in scandals too numerous to mention. Some were political for the sake of power, like Nixon's Watergate.Others were awash in historical events that no one cares about anymore--Harding may even have been poisoned in office. Grant's appointees were so blithely money grubbers that he stood aside and let the chips fall where they may--which is why even his hands-off not knowing what's going on get him listed often as one of the worst presidents in history.
After Watergate, there was a feeling in the land that subsequent laws enacted to provide more vigilance of our elected leaders--politicians after all, the least noble of professions--would prevent another scandal, at least, or attempt to take over the government at most, from happening again.
While the conspiracy-mongers among us, or at least the wink-wink cynical know-it-alls, understand that politics by definition breeds duplicity and deceit--in order to provide the uppity-word version of that, which is "compromise," on a day-to-day basis most of us non-paranoiacs don't see the government as trying to subvert the law on every level in every minute.
So, 10 years after Watergate, when the winds of "The Iran-Contra Affair" started blowing across the country, it was a little bit harder to believe that the Great Communicator Ronald Reagan was involved in anything corrupt or dirty--like selling arms to Iran, which was against the law, in order to provide funds for the Nicaraguan rebels--Contras--whom again by law the US government could not openly support or of course, give them any money.
Big scandal. People should have gone to jail:
"In the end, fourteen administration officials were indicted, including then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. Eleven convictions resulted,
some of which were vacated on appeal. The rest of those indicted or convicted were all pardoned in the final days of the George H. W. Bush
presidency; Bush had been vice-president at the time of the affair. Some of those involved in the Iran–Contra affair who were convicted of felonies
and subsequently pardoned, later became members of the administration of George W. Bush."
Every time I see that sound bite "Mr. Gobachev, tear down that wall," I imagine the Soviet Premier with trowel and pick in hand yelling back at Reagan, "I've been working on this for awhile but no one seems to care anymore."
Reagan wasn't just a bad President--he was a non President.
Still, it was fun to take the kids to see his library and trudge through the actual Boeing 707 that he used in office. Boy can you cover up a lot of manure if you have enough money!
Ever since the outbreak of whooping cough among vaccinated children in the early 1990's in Laguna Niguel, it's been obvious that the shot doesn't work.
Now new studies show even greater cases of pertussis, or whooping cough, among the vaccinated groups, and "experts" claim it may be due to a new strain. But these experts receive funding from the manufacturers of the shots:
Public officials around the world rely heavily on two groups of pertussis experts when setting vaccine policy relating to the disease. Both groups, and many of their members, receive money from the two leading manufacturers of pertussis vaccine. [http://www.watchdoginstitute.org/2010/12/13/whooping-cough-epidemic-california/]
Bottom line: stay healthy; avoid all vaccines.
Once again Roger Schank cuts to the chase better than lesser experts in his field of how people learn:
When you think about education, think about this. We have made people so stupid through our absurd system of memorizing nonsense and repeating it back on a multiple choice tests that we have set the stage for FOX News to simply say what it wants to say, and having millions of people believe it, because no one ever taught them how to construct or refute an argument...
...the problem is that school is boring and irrelevant and all the kids know it. They know they will never need algebra, or trigonometry. They know they will never need to balance chemical equations and they know they won't need random historical myths promoted by the school system. When all this stuff was mandated in 1892 it was for a different time and a different kind of student.
My daughter is a top student in a class of 650. She is taking advanced algebra in order to not have to take it at some future time in high school or college when there will be other, more important subjects she wants to put her mind to. She drives herself down that road to her goal regardless of the burdens and problems in the way.
I'm not so lucky--I hate automatic authoritarian rules that require school children to have to master any subject which not only may not be necessary for them at any point in their lives, but for anyone's life. But I am lucky that my daughter will get through this morass and prevail--I only hope it happens without her losing her divine right to question.
Want to learn something about which you thought you already know? Watch Jimmy Carter's interview on Tavis Smiley from October 25, 2010:
Issues covered included the Supreme Court decision earlier this year that paved the way for unlimited corporate contributions. Carter succinctly details the results of huge secret contributions to candidates that the law allows to be hidden; US dealings with China as the world economy shrinks--Carter's been there and has a better understanding than anything you'll hear in the mainstream media.
He reminisces about working with congress on a bipartisan level that is gone in our times. If the republicans win back the House, it might be OK after all because then blame can't fall on the democrats for everything wrong in our society.
Not that the dems don't do it--use huge amounts of money to buy ads to win elections. But since Watergate, there were supposed to be some controls on this system of who donated what funds to whom...
“It creates all the appearances of dirty dealings and undue influence because our candidates are awash in funds the public is ignorant about,” said Roger Witten, a partner in the New York office of WilmerHale, who served as assistant special prosecutor in the Watergate special prosecution force. “This is the problem that was supposedly addressed after Watergate.” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/weekinreview/17abramson.html?_r=1
Does the average citizen care? Does he or she vote? Think of all that money going to charities, like Haitians who are struggling because of the earthquake, or the mess left over from Katrina...or bailing out homeowners who want to make mortgage payments but can't because of the wrong choices of their elected representatives.
But this isn't new news:
"In 1907, direct corporate donations to candidates were legally barred in a campaign finance reform push by President Theodore Roosevelt. But that law and others — the foundation for many Watergate convictions — are all but obsolete. This is why many supporters of strict campaign finance laws are wringing their hands."http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/weekinreview/17abramson.html?_r=1
(Very nicely researched and written by JILL ABRAMSON of New York Times.)
The meaning of the title of this post is up for grabs in the Supreme Court in a vaccine case against drug company Wyeth, now owned by drug giant Pfizer. It's a complicated case in legalities, and which court should be hearing the arguments, and more jargon and nonsense.
What it's really about, is that a little girl was severely harmed by a vaccine years ago, and several years later that vaccine was removed from the market because it was so dangerous. Yet the courts say the proof is not there that the vaccine was at fault.
"...case turns on the text of the federal law, which bars ordinary lawsuits “if the injury or death resulted from side effects that were unavoidable even though the vaccine was properly prepared and was accompanied by proper directions and warnings.”
Much of the argument concerned the meaning of the word “unavoidable.”
“The language that they used is certainly, to say the least, confusing,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said." [NY TIMES]
The Obama administration sides with Wyeth. The record of the FDA in coming to the aid of US public health is so abominable, it makes the reference to it in the following quote worse than any Comedy Central punch line:
"The U.S. government filed a brief and argued on behalf of Wyeth, with assistant to the solicitor general Benjamin J. Horwich telling the court that the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control make determinations about which vaccines are safe and effective, and it should stay that way.
'It would be extraordinary to institute a system where juries would be second guessing a decision' by federal experts, he said." [Post-Gazette]
As they say in the movie business, "What a throw-away line!" Any jury would have the benefit of input from various experts from all sides--and in this age of skepticism of government oversight, from Katrina on down to the recent multi-million-egg recall, who wants to have the sole last word on vaccine safety be the FDA and CDC? Hands please?
"Justice Sonia Sotomayor, meanwhile, seemed to sympathize with the argument that manufacturers could keep less safe vaccines on the market without a legal incentive.
'What is the motivation for manufacturers to continue testing [vaccines] and voluntarily stopping [sales] if a better design is found somewhere else?' she asked. 'I don't see why they should stop before they cause as many injuries as they need to before the FDA tells them to stop.' " [Post-Gazette]
--A voice of clarity amidst the dense fog.
I met an interesting Guatemalan yesterday. He spoke English very well, with a noticeably excellent vocabulary, and a Spanish accent. He was picking through my recycle trash barrel trying to secure bottles and various plastic items to bring to a recycle center in return for a small amount of cash.
I walked down the driveway with 2 more bags to see if he could use anything more--gallon milk cartons and empty cleaning bottles. He was very thankful, and then I asked where he was from.
He has three children who are not US citizens and he said it's too dangerous to bring them here without documents. He himself has papers so he's not in fear of deportation, but he said he must return home to Guatemala because of his family.
He had a job as well as picking through trash, but every little amount helps. I asked him about life in Guatemala, and he said it has bad sections, like parts of Los Angeles--maybe not that bad--and good sections, like where he goes to find recyclables.
It was very hot standing in the 90 degree afternoon sun, so I broke off the conversation to get him a bottle of water. I offered him $5--in my mind it was a token confirmation that at least one American citizen doesn't believe all immigrants are lazy drones sponging off the rest of our immigrant-descended society.
He refused my handout! So I explained it was a small payment for a short interview that would go into my book about bigotry in this country. Then he thanked me.
Frank Rich really is the eternal hopeful optimist. I haven't heard an "encouraging word" from any Democrat recently about Obama's chances for re-election, let alone the mid term congressional seats coming up. Among my top favorite columnists, Rich sites varying polls and trends to show that, with a good "oomph" from Obama, as opposed to the steady monotonous teaching speeches, the President could change the course of what seems to be looming--Republican takeover of the House at least.
Then again, if you think back two years from right now, with Obama about to be elected President and the country turning against the incumbent Republicans--the atmosphere sure feels different.
In fact, based on historical statistics, it's entirely possible Obama and the dems will hold their own in the upcoming elections:
"...examples of 1962, 1990 and 1998 demonstrate that an incumbent president can in fact lose ground in Congress without being "shellacked."
Simon Wiesenthal spoke at a huge temple in Los Angeles in 1978. I paid the fee and bought one of his books in order to see him speak in person. He was said to be in poor health at the time--he was 70 years old--and I wanted to see the man who I thought was the figurehead of the mantra of the Holocaust--of the Jews murdered by the Nazis in WWII--to "never forget," and thus never repeat, such atrocities.
Mr. Wiesenthal signed my copy of Sails of Hope, his book that concludes that Christopher Columbus was Jewish, which Mr. Wiesenthal wrote, among many others, in order to raise funds for his Jewish Historical Documentation Center in Austria. I wonder if I had known that he was to live another 26 years, if I would have gone to see him speak that day.
I remember what he said to this day, 32 years later. I was stunned by his ferocity, and his profound and unfamiliar ideas!
Wiesenthal was known as a Nazi criminal hunter. That was the simplistic explanation for his documentation of thousands of Nazis who escaped Germany after the war and whom Wiesenthal methodically tried to bring to justice, in order to keep the memory of the crimes alive.
I even remember a period in my youth when people, including Jews,said "enough is enough--let's put all this behind us and move on." Wiesenthal never heard that. He only knew that the memory of the holocaust would prevent it from happening again.
But I could not have imagined that he would have an idea I hadn't already heard, in his speech the day I saw him. And to this day, what he said has not been heard enough.
I can remember the basic premise, not the actual words--Mr. Wiesenthal said that the Jews of the world, the world Jewish community, lost so many friends after the war, because the common cry, the universal appeal for humanity, was that 6 million Jews--civilians, not soldiers--were systematically killed by the Nazis in WWII. Mr. Wiesenthal said that the world Jewish community, trying to gain support for their cause as a misplaced people, and as a beaten-down people, lost empathy from other non-Jewish groups by repeating this number: 6 million murdered--because in Europe, under Hitler's Nazis, there were also 5 million non-Jewish civilians murdered--11 million total non-combative innocent men, women and children--murdered by the Nazis in Europe.
I have heard the number of 6 million Jews killed in the holocaust all my life--but I always correct that if I can to say that an additional 5 million were killed by the Nazis in Europe--political dissidents, Gypsies, homosexuals, clerics, handicapped--11 million total.
The other point Mr. Wiesenthal made, which should have been obvious but was not, was that most of the Nazi war criminals he had in his files were not old men--they were younger than I am today which is 60. Why was this an important and shocking statement? Because my generation considered World War II to be ancient history, and it wasn't. It had happened as recently back then, as the Vietnam War seems to us today--35 years. So, people of my generation, children of the 50's--Clinton's fellow baby-boomers--should be able to relate to events such as Wiesenthal describes with an equally objective point of view.
Guess again!
Mr. Wiesenthal left out of the calculation of 11 million killed, additionally the Russians who were non-combative personnel. Who can tally the tens of millions of Russian people killed by Hitler's army, as well as by the dictator himself, Stalin?
It's no secret that today the American quasi Jewish community harbors such difference of opinion and outlook that an article which describes this appeared in the New York Review Of Books under the title The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment. There are young liberal Jews, Jewish Zionists who support Israel, liberal secular Israeli Jews--on and on.
There are Jews around the world who are poor--hundreds of thousands in New York City alone--to counter the "rich Jew" stereotype. There is also a highly persuasive, mega-rich, powerful Jewish lobby which has openly been able to steer US pro-Israel policy since that country's inception 62 years ago. While many people have voiced concerns about a skewed US friendship with Israel due to disproportionate influence from the affluent American Jewish community, who can blame Jews for concerns about protection and betrayal?
After 2000 years of anti-Jewish hatred in the western world culminating with the systematic killing of half of the Jews in the entire world in WWII, any remarks made in a public forum which reinforce old negative stereotypes, or make up new ones, raise a tremendous response from many Jews and their friends.
Oliver Stone's recent remarks about Jews in a newspaper interview are an example of how crackpot statements can cause trouble, and also how over-reaction to someone who happens to be in the public eye can add flame to a fire that should be put out, not fanned on.
Stone is an award-winning filmmaker who is very good at his craft. His forays into politics, both in his films like the conspiracy in JFK, and his friendships with unsavory Latin American despots, show him to have an open mind, but not necessarily more than a superficial one.
Some of what Stone said were,
"...that Hitler caused more damage to the Russian people than to Jewish people, but that the American focus on the Holocaust stems from the "Jewish domination of the media."Stone immediately apologized for these remarks, lest he insult the "Jews who dominate Hollywood" and lose funding for a future project. The most stunning and fascinating thing is that Stone was basically right about what he was saying, except his facts and presentation were wrong if not goofy. He still got pilloried by, among others, the Anti-Defamation League ("This is the most absurd kind of analysis and shows the extent to which Oliver Stone is willing to propound his anti-Semitic and conspiratorial views.") and The American Jewish Committee ("By invoking this grotesque, toxic stereotype, Oliver Stone has outed himself as an anti-Semite," David Harris, the group's executive director, said in a statement. "For all of Stone's progressive pretensions, his remark is no different from one of the drunken, Jew-hating rants of his fellow Hollywood celebrity, Mel Gibson.")
"Hitler was a Frankenstein but there was also a Dr. Frankenstein...German industrialists, the Americans and the British. He had a lot of support...
"Hitler did far more damage to the Russians than [to] the Jewish
people, 25 or 30 [million killed]."
The reason few people know this, according to Stone?
"The Jewish domination of the media," he said. "There's a major lobby in the United States. They are hard workers. They stay on top of every comment, the most powerful lobby in Washington. Israel has f***** up United States foreign policy for years."
"Milo, my grandson, will enter first grade in September 2011. I find this news so frightening I hardly know where to start." --Roger Schank's web site.
Will add more later...
Is it a coincidence that the same day Tom Hayden writes about The 'Long War' quagmire, Obama pops up in Afghanistan on an "unannounced trip?"
Probably--but the implications of Hayden's op-ed piece are dire: in the absence of an ongoing "Cold War" to stoke the fires of unbridled defense expenses, the neocons will need to promote 80 years of undeclared war against "insurgent groups from Europe to South Asia."
Of course, along with defense contractors keeping in business--big business--there is the untold correlating hardship of casualties of Americans in the field.
So is Obama in Afghanistan today to reassure troops on their mission, to discuss options for the long haul with his generals? Or is he developing a way to sell the taxpayers on why they need to pay for 100,000 ground forces in a country who's biggest export is based on the opium poppy seed?
The Catholic Church is mind boggling to me. Most formal religions' teachings are pretty far-fetched, but my exposure for most of my life is to the basic tenets of Christianity, some of which are man as God, virgin conception, rising from the dead--not to mention innumerable miracles, more like magic tricks, that we haven't seen the likes of since--are simply...mind boggling.
And I am surrounded by people who call themselves Christians, and I have learned through the years that some of these people actually know what beliefs they are following, including the ones mentioned above.
I'm really not trying to start a discussion of religion--I'm more interested in how far from any concept of morality and grounded spirituality the Catholic Church has strayed. Granted there was the Inquisition, among dozens of other historical transgressions across the centuries. But now in the middle of mass media and internet scrutiny, the Pope himself is turning his back on the victims of sexual abuse caused by his own flock under his own nose--right there in Europe, even Italy, where the tourists flow to the Vatican to get back to the origin of the religion. And he's done it before--
Christopher Dickey puts this bit of monumental hypocrisy in trenchant perspective -- Newsweek on line: When Death Came For the Archbishop.
