Iraq

America’s Mistreatment Of Veterans Continues, While Military Industrial Complex Prospers!

Ronald 1 Comment

It is well known that we live in the midst of a Military Industrial Complex that has seen swelling budgets in the past decade, supposedly due to the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

However, even Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has admitted that there is waste in defense, and that any further introduction of ground troops in other nations would be crazy in the future, both strategically and budget wise!

But while there is always a major push for MORE defense spending while cutting education and health care and other human needs, we fail to see equivalent concern for America’s veterans who have fought courageously in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The reality is that large percentages of veterans of those two wars have suffered PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and that suicides have occurred on military bases and in private life in alarming rates, plus murders of wives and children by veterans.

This is in addition to the horrific physical injuries visited upon our courageous troops by improvised explosive devices, and yet little attention is paid to this in the news media. Since Americans are not paying taxes for the wars, most are unaffected, since there is no draft, so it is easy for the average American to wave the flag, claim they are patriotic, and yet go about their business undisturbed!

We do not see a ground swell of support for INCREASED funding for veterans programs, and many Republicans, who love to claim they are patriots, have never served in the military, and have no interest in dealing with the reality of the lives of veterans after they return from war!

Better treatment of veterans, and efforts to cut the murder and suicide rate, MUST become a priority of our government, at the same time that major cuts in defense projects that enrich corporations must be implemented!

President Obama Comes Out Swinging: It’s About Time!

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Many liberals and progressives have been frustrated by President Obama’s desire to come across as moderate and to cooperate with the Republican Party opposition, despite their concerted campaign to oppose him in every possible way in the past two and a half years.

Obama’s willingness to compromise on the budget deal in December and again this month has made many wonder if Obama had the “cajones” to come out swinging against the GOP agenda to take us back to the 1920s, or even the Gilded Age of the late 19th century!

Obama’s speech this Wednesday resolved that issue, as the President came out in an assertive manner against the Paul Ryan plan to gut Medicare, and promote a ruthless cutting of the social safety and economic regulatory network that the Democrats set up under Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society!

Obama declared that he will not allow the destruction of Medicare, in favor of a voucher system which would put senior citizens and disabled people back into poverty, as was the case before Johnson pushed through a way to promote dignity in old age by providing what every other industrial nation has, not only for older and disabled people, but all citizens in their nations!

Obama declared that he would not abandon the needs and security not only of senior citizens and the disabled, but also the young, the poor, and the average working man and woman, who is being victimized by a tax policy that has created more stratification of incomes than ever in American history, and greater than any other democratic nation in the world!

While there is a need for reforms within Medicare and Medicaid and other government programs, Obama said he would use a scalpel rather than a machete to deal with necessary changes.

He defended the rights of working people and the middle class, who have borne the burden of taxes, while the elite upper classes have been gaining tremendous tax breaks for the past decade, at the same time that the Bush Administration put us into tremendous national debt growth due to two unfunded wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a Prescription Drug Plan not paid for by taxpayers!

Obama emphasized the importance of investments in education, transportation infrastructure and energy research, and cuts in wasteful defense spending, of which there is much evidence, and the need to stop thinking of all defense expenditures as sacrosanct.

Obama also said what is going on is part of the perennial battle over the role and size of government, going back to the Founding Fathers (meaning the struggle between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson). We must understand, he declared, that this is a country which has a social compact to care about others, not just oneself, and that the concept of ME must be transformed to WE–that when some are victimized, the rest of us should be seen as lessened in our commitment to human dignity! The “American Dream” must be kept alive for future generations!

The Republican reaction was to say that Obama was overly “partisan”, as if they have not been such since Day One of the Obama Presidency!

The problem in reality is that Obama has not been partisan enough, and finally seems to have woken up to that fact, that this is a battle over the future of the country, and we cannot allow the extreme right wing of the GOP to win control of all branches of government!

We must fight back and give the Republican Party “hell” as Harry Truman did in 1948, and speak for real change as Franklin D. Roosevelt did with his New Deal in the 1930s and Lyndon Johnson did with his Great Society in the 1960s!

This is a battle to retain the political, social and economic reforms of the past hundred years, and to move into the future with optimism, and a belief that all citizens must play their role in the future of the nation, rather than the obsessive gathering of wealth at the expense of society at large!

So a salute to the President, and we look forward to a year and a half of active, aggressive campaigning by him as he seeks a second term in the White House, and a repudiation of the anti labor, anti women, anti children, anti elderly, anti poor, anti environment, anti science, anti health care, anti consumer regulation, anti financial regulation, anti education, anti Hispanic and Latino, anti African American, and ultimately anti middle class agenda of the Republican Party, and the Tea Party extremists within and outside the party establishment!

The Donald Trump Phenomenon: It Can Only Hurt The Republican Party And Help The Democrats!

Ronald 1 Comment

Real estate mogul Donald Trump is on a tear, exploiting the “Birther” conspiracy theory about Barack Obama, and he has now surged in some polls to a lead in the race for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2012.

Despite his multiple business bankruptcies, his three marriages, and his tendency to “shoot from the hip” with ridiculous and reckless statements and assertions over many years, Trump is suddenly taking all of the oxygen out of the air in the Republican Party.

Trump is becoming more ridiculous and even stupid as he marches on, now claiming, much like Congressman Ben Quayle of Arizona, son of former Vice President Dan Quayle, did in his campaign for Congress last year, that President Obama is the absolutely worst President in American history!

For Trump to make such a claim, and say Obama has now surpassed former President Jimmy Carter as the worst President ever, shows his absolute ignorance, as if he had studied history, he would well know that there is a long list of Presidents, mostly before and after Abraham Lincoln’s Presidency, that are FAR worse than either Carter or Obama! In fact, in the first estimate of Obama a year ago, he was rated in the top fifteen of the Presidents, while Carter was rated above at least twelve Presidents, putting him in the second tier of three rankings of the Presidents! And Carter seems certain to move up over time, not down to the bottom five or ten, as some like to state, which shows their total lack of knowledge and understanding of the history of the Presidency!

Also, when Trump was asked how many members there are of the House Of Representatives, he was annoyed and refused to answer, a sign that he did not know, putting him in the same camp as being stupid and ignorant as Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Santorum, all of whom have shown they have no clue about any facts or details of our nation’s history!

Why should Donald Trump be expected to know anything other than how to make money, fire people on his television show, and look for constant publicity, since, after all, he inherited his wealth, and has never known what it is to be an ordinary American, who has to worry constantly about staying above water economically?

Rather than study and know the issues, Donald Trump would rather talk about telling China off, seizing Iraq oil revenues, and create constant controversy with his loose mouth?

And get this: Trump is now threatening that if he does not win the GOP nomination for President, he might run as an Independent in the 2012 election, and that with spending up to $600 million of his own money, that he could win the White House! In other words, he would buy the job, much like Rick Scott did in Florida”s Governorship race!

But the difference is that the Electoral College, often much maligned, prevents such a possibility, and NEVER has and NEVER will an Independent be able to win the White House! Ross Perot spent $62 million of his fortune, received 19 percent of the vote, but won no electoral votes in 1992! And Theodore Roosevelt, the much beloved former President, ran as a Progressive in 1912, and won only six states and 27 percent of the votes, and 88 electoral votes, an all time high, but nowhere near winning the Presidency! And this was not just anyone, but rather Teddy Roosevelt!

So stay ignorant and stupid, Donald, and spend your money on your own ego, help the economy in so doing, get your publicity and attention that you constantly need, destroy the Republican Party which is doing a good job by itself in doing so by flirting with the Tea Party, and help Barack Obama, supposedly the worst President ever, to win reelection and continue his great leadership of the nation for another four years!

Paul Krugman And Robert Reich Challenge Obama: Stop Giving In To Opposition Republicans!

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Leading liberal, progressive voices such as NY Times columnist Paul Krugman, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics and Professor of Economics at Princeton University, and Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary under Bill Clinton, and Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, have called upon President Obama to stop giving in to Republicans, as they claim he did in December’s and this month’s budget deals.

They call upon the President to work against the temptation to copy the Republicans on the budget issue, and instead call for tax increases on the top two percent, and support the Medicare and Social Security system by recognizing that we must all have shared sacrifice and expect the closing of tax loopholes and the raising of taxes on the middle class, which should have gone up during the Bush administration to cover the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the prescription plan for seniors, all of which was paid for with borrowed money.

This is a bold statement by both, and one awaits Barack Obama’s reaction to the Paul Ryan plan to change Medicare to a voucher system and avoid any new taxes.

The Obama speech will be made public today, and it may have a great effect on united backing of Obama within his party for the 2012 election, and certainly will frame the debate over the budget and the raising of the debt ceiling, challenges the country faces before the year ends!

Disappointments With Barack Obama: Guns, Labor, And Bradley Manning

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President Obama is overwhelmed with one problem after another, and with no break in stress and tension, as the world and the nation seem to be going from one problem to another.

Already, we have seen four major issues arise in 2011, which are bound to be among the top ten news stories of the year: the guns issue, after the attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona in January; the uprisings in the Middle East, particularly Egypt and now Libya, leading to American involvement with NATO, the UN, and the Arab League, and Obama’s decision to intervene militarily against Moammar Gaddafi; the Wisconsin battle over organized labor, which has spread to other states as well; and the disastrous Japanese earthquake, ensuing tsunami, and the nuclear power plants emergency that followed those natural events.

So the ability of Barack Obama to do and say everything that one might feel he should, is, of course, unrealistic, but still there are three key issues that need to be addressed at some point soon by our President.

The first is to take strong leadership on the issue of the need for some greater regulation of guns, as since the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords, and the killing of six others and wounding of thirteen, we have seen the murder by gun of close to 3,000 people. If this is not a national crisis, and with the additional murders of young black youths that we see in Chicago and elsewhere, then what is? It is hard to fight the gun lobby and the National Rifle Association, but the President MUST not sit on the sidelines as gun violence escalates, and the growing danger of political assassination of himself, or some other office holder grows by leaps and bounds as the economy continues to create a crisis atmosphere in regards to jobs and housing.

Secondly, Obama had said during his Presidential campaign in 2008 that he would march with labor if there was ever a threat against the rights of workers, but he has hardly spoken up, and certainly has not gone to Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, or Florida to speak up on the issue and to confront the “Bully” GOP Governors, including most infamously, Scott Walker, John Kasich, Rick Snyder, Mitch Daniels, or Rick Scott, who are destroying the rights of public employees, making them the scapegoat, as these governors favor the rich and the powerful, and set out to destroy collective bargaining. Obama will have to campaign on labor support in 2012, but he has been slow to react publicly with adequate words and actions!

Finally, there is the issue of Private Bradley Manning, who is accused of releasing and disseminating Wikileaks information on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and who is being held in inhumane conditions in the military brig at Quantico Naval Base in Virginia, stripped naked, not allowed to sleep normally, kept in solitary confinement, being mentally destroyed, all on the basis of accusations, but not yet coming to trial.

President Obama made a reference to Manning when asked at a news conference, that he had been assured that what was being done with Manning was totally appropriate, but that is clearly the furthest from the truth. It is clear that his mistreatment is an outrage that the President needs to stop immediately, and it is a tremendous disappointment that he seems up to this point to be totally insensitive to what is happening to Manning.

Urgent action on all three matters is needed, and hopefully, the first will be to relieve Manning of his inhumane treatment NOW!

Mr. President, we believe in you, but you need to take immediate action on all three of the above matters!

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels: The “Phantom” Republican Candidate For President

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Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels has been gaining a lot of newsprint lately, hailed by George Will and David Brooks as the “best” candidate that the Republican Party could run for President.

Daniels has been coy about such a candidacy, saying that his family is not thrilled about his running, and that he has an important job facing him, as he continues as Governor of the Hoosier State.

But let’s look at Daniels and see what his positives are, to an outside observer.

Daniels has correctly brought attention to what he calls the new “Red Menace”, the term used in the struggle against Communism in the past. The new “red” is red ink, he declared, at the Conservative Political Action Conference, in what was called the best speech given by anyone at that gathering.

Daniels also suggested that the Republicans stop pursuing their social agenda on gay marriage and abortion, and focus on the economic crisis the nation faces, an idea which turned off social conservatives.

Daniels came across at that conference, and has otherwise, as rational and reasonable, and has avoided controversial statements and actions, unlike many of the other potential GOP candidates for President. He is, obviously, an intelligent, thoughtful man, which is a definite plus.

However, he has negatives as well as positives, including:

1. He lacks charisma, is not photogenic, and is only 5 feet 7 inches tall, none of it really important, but can be perceived as negatives for a Presidential candidate.

2. As Indiana Governor, as far back as 2005, he ended collective bargaining in the state by executive order, an action which is now seen as a negative in the middle of the controversy going on in several Midwestern states, most notably Wisconsin, but which has created new problems in Indiana, with demonstrations and demands for change on that issue.

3. As Budget Director under George W. Bush, the budget went through the ceiling because of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus an unfunded Medicare prescription plan, so his credentials on budgetary matters is compromised, when he speaks out on that issue now.

This whole discussion may be just an academic exercise, if Daniels decided not to run. In any case, were he to enter the race, it would, at the least, raise the level of intellectual discussion in the Republican Party, which right now has a list of potential candidates who seem more interested in controversy and confrontation than serious discussion of the important issue facing the nation, with the exception of Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman!

The Westboro Baptist Church, The Supreme Court, And Free Speech

Ronald 2 Comments

What the author feared would happen has indeed occurred!

The Supreme Court of the United States has, by an 8-1 vote, decided that the hateful, anti gay Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, headed by the Reverend Fred Phelps, and consisting of about 50 people, almost all his relatives, have the right to disrupt military funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan to protest the fact that gays have rights, and that America is going to the devil because gays are allowed to exist in America!

The fact that a military funeral is a time of mourning and stress for those connected to the dead soldier apparently had no effect on the Court, except for Associate Justice Samuel Alito, who, somewhat surprisingly, was the only dissenter.

So the Westboro Baptist Church can continue its evil deeds and disrupt funerals and promote hate, and the right of privacy of funeral attenders, including the family of the deceased, does not matter!

This despicable group not only has done this dastardly deed to families of soldiers, but also were present at the funeral of the nine year old girl murdered when Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was seriously wounded in Tucson, Arizona in January. The only difference there was that a large group of sympathizers of the parents of the young girl formed a wall of resistance to these characters, and kept them much further away from the funeral procession.

This is not, in the author’s mind, freedom of speech, or freedom of religion, or freedom of assembly. To call the Westboro Baptist Church a church is a mockery of the whole concept of religion!

All decent people will deplore this decision, and be embarrassed that Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined with Chief Justice John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, and even the ultimate swing vote, Anthony Kennedy, in writing this reprehensible decision!

This is not a victory for free speech, but rather a victory for hate, and insanity, and lack of respect for the dead, and lack of patriotism regarding the military, who sacrifice themselves every day in far off lands!

Surprising, but the author must commend Samuel Alito for having the courage to go against the tide, a man that the author has not highly admired. So I salute Alito for his brave stand for decency!

Defense Secretary Robert Gates And Future Land Wars In The Middle East, Africa And Asia

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A few days ago, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, speaking at West Point, made a very interesting observation regarding land wars and the American future.

He stated that if any future Secretary of Defense was to suggest to a future President that the United States engage in a massive land war invasion in the Middle East, Africa or Asia, that he should have his head examined!

This is a very outspoken statement for a person who is highly regarded, and has served in the CIA and other delicate national security and defense positions, and has been an outstanding Secretary of Defense during the last two and a half years of the Bush Administration and the first two plus years of the Obama Administration.

Gates has been a refreshing and inspirational leader, as he has also made clear that there is waste and fraud in the Defense Department that needs to be cleaned up to save money in the national budget. After having witnessed the tragedy of Robert McNamara during the Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson Administrations and Donald Rumsfeld in the second Bush Administration, committing us to what turned out to be long, drawn out, disastrous wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, it is indeed time for this nation to realize that it is our engagement in foreign wars, trying to impose our values on alien societies, that has led to mass loss of life on all sides and come close to bankrupting us!

The answer for the future is not committing our young men and women to impossible causes in the interests of the defense industries and those who wish to spread Christian doctrines around the world. Rather, it is to work to promote our own internal security from terrorism and to advocate advancement of our society from within!

So Robert Gates should be saluted for his courageous statement, and it makes one wonder: What is Barack Obama’s plan for the future? Isn’t there enough evidence already that it is time to withdraw ground forces from Afghanistan and get out of Iraq and work on the economic problems of this country, which would be so much better if we cut our defense budget from what has become a total tragedy economically, our constant warfare on the battlefields of Asia and the Middle East?

The Tragedy Of Revolutions And Wars: Destruction Of Historical Artifacts! :(

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We are now discovering that one of the great tragedies of the Egyptian Revolution, overall seen as positive in tone, is the unfortunate destruction or stealing of historical artifacts.

This happened in Iraq after the US invasion in 2003, a real tragedy, as Iraq, of course, is the site of the ancient Mesopotamian civilization.

Now, apparently at least 17 artifacts have been found missing from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, including a statue of King Tut, and that is a tremendous loss that cannot be measured.

The problem with revolutions and wars is that it leads to lack of respect and reverence for our historical past on this earth, due to the total breakdown of law and order.

Just imagine the horror if America’s national treasures were to be destroyed or stolen, and realize the upset historians have right now that a researcher in the National Archives damaged a manuscript of President Abraham Lincoln, a pardon of a soldier with his signature, dated April 14, 1864, and changed to make it appear as if it was signed on the day of Lincoln’s death in 1865! 🙁

If all of us, both in this country and elsewhere, do not respect and revere historical documents, artifacts, and buildings in a proper way, then we have destroyed our heritage as much as damage to the environment affects the long run of civilization!

Hopefully, the stolen artifacts from the Egyptian Museum, including the statue of King Tut, will be recovered and still be in good shape to be put back in the museum to educate and enlighten future generations of both Egyptians and tourists from all over the world!

Conservative And Republican Civil War Emerging: Mainstream Versus Nutty, Loony Glenn Beck And Sarah Palin!

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It is obvious that a split is emerging in the conservative movement and the Republican party over the crazy rantings of talk show host Glenn Beck and the indecipherable criticisms of former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin!

Beck has asserted recently that the Bush family was out to promote the Muslim faith by its weak actions against the enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that it was all part of a joint plot by radical Muslims and Communists out to promote a one world order!

Sarah Palin has been critical of the Obama policy toward the revolution against the Mubarak government of Egypt, without showing any understanding of the issue or offering any positive ideas.

The result of these two extremists making crazy statements has been that Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard and Rich Lowry of the National Review have attacked Glenn Beck, and made it clear that they believe that his ideas are totally off the wall.

At the same time, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham has complimented Obama on Egypt policy and has criticized Palin for her empty statements attacking Obama on this matter, demonstrating she has no understanding of the issue.

These are signs of a civil war developing as mainstream conservatives are becoming more and more embarrassed by the outrageous and moronic statements of both Beck and Palin, who if they continue to maintain a powerful influence in the Republican party, will result in the total destruction of a party with a history of important leaders who were in the mainstream of American politics, while Beck and Palin are not in that mainstream!