A FINANCIAL VICTORY FOR AMERICA...

My opinion of the appointment of Elizabeth Warren... in a few years we will view here as a national treasure...

Elizabeth Warren's Greatest Hits from MoveOn.org Official Channel on Vimeo.

Main Street Folks Sound off About Social Security & Tax Breaks For The Rich...

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN AMERICA... 2010 STYLE...

I had intended to comment on the demagoguery now being vomited upon the American people by a collection of right wing self-serving creeps who have never heard of the U.S. Constitution, let alone actually believe it to be the law of the land.  These unbelievable denizens from the cess-pool that is politics in 2010, have managed to crawl up from their worm-infested lair to suggest that all Muslims are terrorists... thus it is alright for "us" to step on every legal right they have.  These are the same band of liars who would strangle their own mother for a vote if they thought it would put them back in power. 

Then, I happened to turn on the Countdown program on MS NBC and one of Keith Olbermann's Special Comments announced his intention to take on this issue.  And, take it on he did... in a measured show of outrage that this subject deserves.

I cannot say it any better than Olbermann did... so here is the video in case you missed it...



 

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Thank you, Keith... we all needed to hear that!
In 1963 I was a young man standing, with a group of other new enlistees in the U.S. Air Force, in the depot of the Kansas City train station.  I raised my hand and took the oath of allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America, and boarded the old Katy line for San Antonio, Texas and four years of service to my country. I remember clearly that, as the oath was being recited, I felt what the Hawaiian people refer to as "Chicken Skin"... we called them "Goose Bumps". You could see it in the eyes of every other young person standing in that formation... Pride & Honor. I believed in that Constitution then... and I believe it now. I would no more turn my back on the words and meaning of that document than I would urinate on the flag. It is simply unthinkable.

So, when political hacks suggest that we should just ignore the very heritage that made this nation what it is today, I get very upset. Freedom of religion, and all the other freedoms and obgligations outlined in that glorious document, are something I, and every other person who ever served in the U.S. military for the last 243 years, swore to uphold. That oath is part of me and, unless you want to see us become just another failed political experiement... it should be a part of YOU!

WE HAVE HEARD ALL THIS BEFORE... STOP THE SPIN...

The war machine and all of military/industrial complex hawks are out in force trying to gin up the Afgan War and keep those dollars flowing. 

Secrecy is the veil behind which all atrocities occur... and are perpetuated,

Mr. Assange and Wikileaks seems to have brought out all the nut jobs in the world... all calling for his head on a platter.  I look at the situation very differently...

Secrecy is the veil behind which all atrocities occur... and are perpetuated...

Those who suggest that it is wrong or "treason" to disclose this information are the same people which turn their back on the wrongs that happen every day in a perpetual war environment. The answer is not to try to silence those who reveal our shameful behavior. Instead we should be running to support them.

The sickos who suggest that WikiLeak activists should be "taken out" or killed... are the lowest form of lock-step thugs who would have us all submitting to authoritarian governments and wrong headed "public servants".

It is this same type of warped mindset that allows outside security contractors like Blackwater to run around playing cowboy... while committing murder in our name... on our payroll! 

The cockroaches of the world all scurry to cover in the sunshine. Let's celebrate those who shine the light. They are the real hero's of the world!

BP AND THE GHOSTS OF GONZO...

Not since we had to suffer the arrogance of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales have I heard so many uses of "I cannot answer that question", "I was not a party to that decision", "I am unfamiliar with the details of that", " I do not recall", etc etc etc.

BP president Tony Hayward has proven himself to be a more consummate liar than Gonzo himself. In a display of corporate arrogance so profoundly egregious that it simply boggles the mind, Mr. Hayward continues to stonewall, feign lack of knowledge of events, spins and frames his answers to his Congressional committee questioners. He is under oath. But, that oath obviously means nothing to him or the company he works for. It is simply CYA for Mr. Hayward, British Petroleum, and, by extension... every other oil company in the world.

Make no mistake... the board of directors of BP is just as culpable as Mr. Hayward and the rest of the BP corporate executive team. They hire him... and they continue to employ him. They foster the corporate culture of greed, sense of entitlement, and separation of themselves from those they refer to as the "small people".

Unfortunately for the citizens of the world, BP has no lock on this attitude. Every oil, gas, big coal, big pharma, and the corporate controllers of the worlds energy, health, and water resources have exactly the same attitude.

Let's not forget that the lack of government oversight is not lost on us here. Oversight, it seems,  means "being in bed with the corporations we are supposed to regulate"... literally and figuratively.  Effective regulation is comprised of winks and nods and looking the other way... all for a few perks.  Streetside harlots are better business people... and more honest.  What we {you and I} are left with is a cesspool of mismanagement, misconduct, flaunting the law, moral decay, and total disregard for everyone... of epic proportions.

What is unfolding to the world is an example of corporate greed run amok.  Mr. Hayward sits at the highest rungs of a corporate food chain that is very willing to put its own employees, and the health of the worlds environment, at risk... to achieve its profit goals... the public be damned.

Our own government have become the poster boys of enabler's. Regulators that do not know how to regulate. Law makers that do not act when necessary. Administrations that look the other way in order to feather their own nests. "Let them eat cake"... is the phrase that rings in ones ears... loudly and clearly.

(c)Thom Reece

"Be not ashamed to say you loved them..."

In the sincere hope that we all remember the true purpose of Memorial Day, I invite you to read a heartfelt appeal by a remarkable soldier poet... who, sadly, is one of those "left behind"...

Thom Reece
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A POEM BY:
Major Michael Davis O'Donnell

If you are able,
save them a place
inside of you
and save one backward glance
when you are leaving
for the places they can
no longer go.

Be not ashamed to say
you loved them,
though you may
or may not have always.

Take what they have left
and what they have taught you
with their dying
and keep it with your own.

And in that time
when men decide and feel safe
to call the war insane,
take one moment to embrace
those gentle heroes
you left behind.

Major Michael Davis O'Donnell
1 January 1970
Dak To, Vietnam

** Major O'Donnell was listed as MIA while piloting a
helicopter on a mission in Cambodia on 24 March 1970.
His remains were recovered and interred at
Arlington National Cemetery on 16 August 2001.
Lost for 31 years, Major O'Donnell is finally back home.

Major O'Donnell's remarkable poem was scrolled across
the screen at the end of the motion picture, "Hamburger Hill".