7/5/11

The right is busily trying to get a cornner on patriotism

The right is busily trying to get a corner on patriotism to convince the gullible that our President opposes the values of our Founders.  But increasingly this is seen for what it is - a sham.

The President is a centrist.

His values are consistent with those of the broad range of Americans.

He is also a constitutionalist.

Those who cotton to the wingnut hypothesis that he can do no right are perhaps fortunate to have the Web's comment areas which echo the like minded.

At the polls in 2012, we may hope common sense will prevail. Patriotism is everyone's right as is criticism. But the attack on the President is a sign of something more than criticism.  It is closer to hate. The first cousin of fear. Rhetorical bullying is one result.

Seeing through that, the solution is to gently prove day by day that the President is a centrist to whom we owe considerable thanks following the W debacle.


Global Online Privacy

Afghanistan is a killing field - leave now

Afghanistan is a killing field - leave now
Afghanistan must solve its problems by itself
It is a lonesome valley none can walk
With weapons poised to make a nation bow
Afghanistan is a killing field - leave now


Peace Video

Internet renewable energy 3-d printers as forces for moving forward (Video)

There is a world where peace resides

There is a world where peace resides
Inside all those who see
Abba within the spark of life
Abba who sets us free
There is a world of peaceful tides
A world within a world outside
A world we build it step by step
Where Abba's way abides


Rupert's rag sued for libeling DSK rape victim

DSK accuser sues NY Post for prostitute report | Reuters: "The hotel maid who accused former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault sued the New York Post and five of its journalists for libel on Tuesday for reporting that she was a prostitute." If I were her I would sue Vance for tapping her phone, but I supppse we are ax on that matter these days, when even our vaunted President seems inclined to throw rights to the wind. I am not sure where protection of us is anymore.

Global Online Privacy

If you ignored the Anthony case, here it all is

Casey Anthony trial: Not guilty verdict | Mail Online: "NOT GUILTY: Casey Anthony grins at most controversial verdict since OJ - but daughter she was cleared of murdering is still dead" This headline is false if you read the whole story. And I am inclined to think that the degree of public involvement in this case reflects the prevalence of abuse and dysfunctionality in our society. A society that can pass the sort of laws states are now passing against immigrants seems to me inherently abusive and bullying.

Global Online Privacy

There are no accidental wars including World War One

Secret British Navy Video: Is It Firing On an Iranian Speedboat? - The Daily Beast: "Is this the British Navy firing on an Iranian speedboat? Michael Adler reveals the recent face-off that has American commanders worried about an accidental war with Iran." The world has been prepared for a world war for more than 100 years. This preparation virtually assures that it can be touched off somehow. The preparation is the cause. The answer lies in the gradual reduction of the cause. That means disarming. Reducing the size of the military. And rejecting war as the hellish and immature reality that it is. We can do better.

There are now two Gently Moving Forward Sites

Guided Mini – Meditation : Present, Grounded and Refreshed | Gently Moving Forward: "This is for those days when you have too much going on and/or may be having trouble focusing. "

There is this one and the site noted at the link above. I came to this name independently today while walking and meditating. Had I not returned and established the availability of the title on Blogger, I might consider a change. But there can be no better proof of a fundamental truth of living than that we arrive at similar words independently and that both point to the same reality which is simply that of the eventual unity and coalescence of all things. I have however moved to create a dofferential in the title that will assist each site to present itslef independently without conflict.

Do something good for you each day

Do something good for you each day
You are your mind
You are your soul
You are your body
All are one
Do something good for you each day
Begin again
Do something good
Enjoy reach out and grasp the life in you

No one can know what lies beyond no one

No one can know
What lies beyond
No one
Save what one guesses
On this side
From what life yields
And what one learns
From living

Ultrasound and Prenatal Genocide

Where Have All the Girls Gone? - By Mara Hvistendahl | Foreign Policy: "Western advisors and researchers, and Western money, were among the forces that contributed to a serious reduction in the number of women and girls in the developing world. And today feminist and reproductive-rights groups are still reeling from that legacy." Add this to the file on benign genocide and sens a memo to UNICEF.

Global Online Privacy

American Working Class Under Water (Image)

And then Came the Floods — BagNews: "Sure, it’s a vivid snapshot of the havoc wreaked by the Midwest’s disastrous floods. Perhaps even more so, though, it reflects the American working class underwater."

Global Online Privacy

Atheists Are Hardly Vilified These Days

How Atheism Can Make the World Better By Tearing Down Religious Irrationality | | AlterNet: "Few groups are as vilified as atheists. They tend to be viewed as party poopers bent on dismantling the cherished beliefs of 'people of faith.'"

An erroneous sentence. In fact atheism in its most public garb is acting as religion does, seeking to organize and become a brand.

Jesus qualifies as the original, iconoclastic religion-basher.  Atheists are right to challenge the orthodox, creedal distortion of Jesus.

When it comes to final things, though, neither Christians nor atheists know any more than Hamlet or Jesus did. Which is why people like Peirce are so important. To bring benign iconoclasm to the fore and say a gentle pox on all your houses.

Global Online Privacy

DSK Fracas First and Last Words

Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s Martyrdom - The Daily Beast: "He cornered her there and he ejaculated in her mouth. At some point her pantyhose were ripped and, according to her current lawyer, Kenneth Thompson, her vagina was bruised, as verified at the hospital by a trained examiner."

First, sex is a spectrum and its cruelty is many sided as are its joys.

Finally, if the world operated justly it would fault people on the basis of what they knowingly do within the time frame where the facts are the issue. This has all the appearance of the tawdry on both sides and that most of us would qualify in the realm of the tawdry is germane if generally ignored.


Global Online Privacy

Harold Bloom Draws a Blank at Peirce

While not the most copious reader, I have delved into the works of Harold Bloom. When I became interested in Charles Sanders Peirce, finding in him a philosopher well beyond the ken of Nietzsche, which is saying a good deal, I naturally assumed that Bloom, who picks the celebrated from the tree of  literary fruition, would understand that Peirce had trumped and advanced virtually everything that Bloom thinks, period. But a perusal of Bloom's indexes reveals not one reference to Peirce. I am among those who counts Peirce to be a writer of no mean ability. And a philosopher whose integrative approach, with its stupendous accents, must humble virtually every celebrated representative of every field of knowledge upon the globe. Actually, if you look at my sidebar for the Peirce note, you will see why Bloom missed the boat. Most everyone else has as well. Because the Feibleman book, introduced by Bertrand Russell, has long been out of print and MIT has no apparent attention of re-releasing it. And all we have is Brandt's moralistic and overall censorious biography of Peirce written some time ago. Sad for us. Sad for Bloom. Yet Peirce prevails. This is his world, no longer Shakespeare's alone. 

Global Online Privacy

US Cocaine Ruling A Tiny Step Forward

US: Crack Cocaine Ruling a Victory for Rights | Human Rights Watch: "(Washington, DC) - The US Sentencing Commission's unanimous vote on June 30, 2011, to make new federal crack cocaine sentencing guidelines retroactive, is consistent with internationally recognized human rights principles, Human Rights Watch said today." But if you read further ...

Global Online Privacy

We Operate as if Time Never Ends

We operate as if time never ends
Believing if we lose we'll make amends
But curtains fall for good on every one
The minute that you thought you had is done

Global Online Privacy

More on The Decline of Sean Hannity


A good reporter does not edit tape with malicious obviousness. Wright was reduced to a stupid soundbite or two, entirely out of context. Decent Republicans joined everyone else in holding their noses.First at Wright. Then at Hannity and FOX for overkill. Hannity repeated this overkill MO in his equally ineffective Bill Ayers vendetta. For a while, Hannity seemed to take over FOX. But eventually his repetitious attacks seemed like protesting too much. Now he remains, a shell of his former invidious self. 

Global Online Privacy

Citizens United Should Be Called Citizens Strangling


We have a warped idea of freedom. We believe freedom is the right to give rich people a garotte  to use with impunity by virtue of an invisible cloak. This invisible cloak allows the the Koch aka the rich to target victims with such precision that it almost equals in efficiency one of those wonderful drone attacks which are presumably perfectly alright with these freedom lovers who avail themselves of the Citizens United Strangling Machine. All this is made possible by a delightful organization known as the Supreme Court which also has the power to install anyone they like in the White House, given the opportunity.. 

Everything You Need  to Know to Boycott Koch Products

Nothing Ever Trickled Down To Me

Thus speaks the nonviolent prisoner
Thus speaks every child ignored misunderstood
Thus speaks the man on Medicaid who can find no doctor willing to operate
Thus speaks the single parent who is unemployed
Thus speak those the realtors victimized 

The goal of politics is to alter the trajectory of wealth
The President has the right idea
A nation where everyone can win
Since trickle down is seen as fantasy
Fairness seems the best place to begin

Global Online Privacy

Mildred Purse Parses Money and Celebrity


Money is missed mainly when there's none
The world is better off when all have some
Celebrity a blessing and a curse
The happiest do not seek either one
 
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RECCMENDATION Richard Gordon Quantum Touch

The Slow as Molasses Press