It's a Jungle out there!

Forget about using the link below to reach MSNBC!   I tried it, it took me to a page where you could choose which program you were commenting on.   I chose "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" and sent in the letter below.  Five minutes letter it was returned to me as being "undeliverable."   So evidently they've already taken down  box for his program at MSNBC.   I  forwarded a petition from BoldProgressives.org via email to some family members and friends, and it didn't make it to anyone ... don't know what is going on there.   Anyway, here is a link to a petition that worked for me:

http://act.boldprogressives.org/sign/petition_olbermann/?source=auto-e&referring_akid=2630.297888.O-yvi8

The whole thing is passing strange, and for once the overused term "outrageous" applies precisely.   What ever is going on has me flummoxed and greatly upset.  Keep your eye on this piece of news and see what develops.   If I can post from where I will be visiting, I will.   Otherwise ... see you December.   Meanwhile, keep the faith!   

My parting shot:  A pox upon Faux News and all their cohorts!

Write to MSNBC ... Facebook correction

Here is my note to MSNBC.   There is a feedback page:... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10285339


"Reinstate Keith Olbermann immediately with an apology.  It is within his constitutional right to make political donations in the forthright manner in which he did so, with full disclosure and no indication on the air as to who he supported.   If his show is not back on the air within one week, I will boycott MSNBC forever and I had been viewing it nearly 24/7.   What in the world is wrong with you?   Comcast won't want to merge or buy a channel with no viewers, which is what you will have if you don't rectify this unconscionable action immediately."



The Facebook petition is under "Let's Bring Back Keith."

AVENGE KEITH OLBERMANN!

According to Alternet, MSNBC has suspended Keith Olbermann without pay for making personal political contributions to three democrat candidates.    Two Republican broadcasters on the same channel have been making contributions to Republicans (Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchannan).   Comments on Alternet suggest that MSNBC is getting ready to merge or sell out to Comcast and is pruning their "tree" in preparation.   What a "revolting development."   I tried to post the following on Alternet, but couldn't get it to work, so am adding this blog before leaving on our trip tomorrow.   Whatever you can think of to do in Keith's behalf, please go for it.  This is just terrible!   They say there is a "Bring Back Keith" site already up on Facebook, so try that for starters.   Here is my comment to Alternet.  I will be going to Facebook next and will be watching for petitions, etc.   Write letters to MSNBC.  I fully intend to do that ASAP.   Turn off the TV (after seeing what, if anything, is said about this on MSNBC tonight).   This is Friday, so we will only get one chance to watch the evening programming.  Turn on your DVR if you're going out.

"The Comcast takeover prospect is extremely frightening.  If MSNBC is prepared to give up Keith, then I am more than prepared to give up MSNBC.   Are there no democrat billionaires to set up a new broadcasting network?  Perhaps the airwaves are already "bought up" by the corporatocracy.   Perhaps it's time to considering emigrating.  If I were younger, I would do just that.   This country could collapse overnight if malfeasance like Keith's suspension is allowed to stand.  This action demands the strongest reponse it is possible for progressives and democrats to deliver to MSNBC!  Avenge Keith!   Demand his reinstatement.   BTW, between NPR and MSNBC's recent actions, it looks like our fair and relatively truthful, if not totally unbiased, media outlets are in grave danger of extinction.  Unbiased news is already down the tubes.  Freedom of the press ... ??? ... the Constitution is being shredded before our eyes ."

GO WEST, GRANDMA, GO WEST!

Headed that way (by air) for the month of November to visit my oldest daughter, Danna, and her partner, Denis, in Las Vegas, and then to Albuquerque (Rio Rancho) to spend Thanksgiving week with my youngest daughter, Dawn, her husband, Mark, and granddaughters, Jordan and Ingrid.  Taking the AmTrak back to Newton, KS where my husband, Lou, and I will be met by a "middle" daughter, Delaine.   Will spend a night with her family in Derby, KS, and then driving the van back home to pick up our little dog, Doc, at the vet's B & B.   Probably will not be posting anything during this  "planes, trains, and automobiles" hiatus, but will get back to the "washtubs" in December.   Have a wonderful, beautiful November ... one of the most glorious months of the year (if you don't include the election) !!!

HEY, DR. SEUSS!

This is a good week for friends.  Another friend, Toni, a teacher in the Chicago area, sent me an email which she gave me permission to "hang" on Grandma's Clothesline.

It seems she'd received a "right-wing" propaganda piece written in the verse-form popularized by Dr. Seuss.  It's short, so here it is:

"I do not like this Uncle Sam, 
I do not like his health care scam. 
I do not like these dirty crooks,  
or how they lie and cook the books. 
I do not like when Congress steals, 
I do not like their secret deals. 
I do not like this speaker  Nan , 
I do not like this 'YES, WE CAN'.   
I do not like this spending spree--- 
I'm smart, I know that nothing's free. 
I do not like your smug replies,  
when I complain about your lies. 
I do not like this change and hope. 
I do not like it. nope, nope, nope!"

                                                                                                                                                                

Toni's email included her message in rebuttal:

"Hey Dr. Seuss!

If you do not like lies or scams where were you when we were lied to about the weapons of mass destruction? That only put us a trillion dollars or so in debt.

Talk about cooking the books... that was a war that was never funded.

Hello!  Why didn't you speak up then?  We wouldn't be in this mess that was passed to our current president.

Oh,  Yeah ... Free.   Free to GOP!   Billions in bail-outs to the banking industry that continued to pay their head honchos multi-million dollar salaries (some in stocks), while those whose pockets the Banksters picked were lucky to get a 2% raise.  Most people were told "the economy's too bad, so you get no raise" and too many workers  heard  "Your position has been eliminated."   

The rich want to stay in power and keep the middle class down.
 
   GOP you never did nothing for me

   All I see is how greedy you be

    For the people is what America's about

   In Hebrews 13.16 lets all shout

    Do not forget to do good and share with others

  Obama's health care will save the lives our brothers 

   Yes, we can!  And we will keep at this time

   America healthy and strong in this rhyme"

 

Very cool reply.

I've found out Toni has a keen and clear mind plus an astute grasp of the issues. (As well as a top-drawer poetic streak.  :)

You will be hearing more from her!
   
                        

THE 1% SOLUTION **

I was lunching with a longtime friend of exceptionally high integrity today when our conversation turned to politics.  Imagine that!  

She hastened to warn me about a frightening new federal tax law crafted to put all of us ordinary folk in the poorhouse.   I asked what the source of her information was, and she replied "I saw it on the internet."   I suggested that the internet was not a "source"  in itself, and asked about the author or site where she'd seen it.  She thought that I should "Go check it out."  Which, of course, I hastened to do.

So ... If you've been reading or hearing about a 1% "transaction tax" put forth by Nancy Pelosi and/or President Obama's "financial team", just put your mind at rest.    They did no such thing and it isn't going to happen. 

 What did happen is that a Representative from Pennsylvania by t he name of Chaka Fattah has been pushing for a transaction fee system to replace the federal income tax and reduce the national debt since 2004.  In 2010 he submitted the Debt Free America Act (H.R. 4646) which has attracted zero sponsors and had "about as much chance of passing as a snowball"  in you-know-where.*  

Also, if you've seen a video or quotes of N. Pelosi supposedly recommending it, that is a deliberately misleading piece of propaganda.  She was actually speaking about  an entirely different bill, H.R. 4191 introduced by Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon  in 2009 called the "Let Wall Street Pay for the Restoration of Main Street" which, incidentally, went nowhere.  It might not have been such a bad idea, as it was supposed to fund creation of more middle-class jobs by applying a small %age value tax on the buying and selling of stocks and other securities.

Just another example of conflation and misrepresentation  by right-wing propagandists bent on scaring the daylights out of us and trying to make our President look bad.  

**  http://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/debtfree.asp

"You Worry Me" Too ... considering an email about American Muslims

Recently I received an email-forwarded open letter about Islam that at first glance seem to be well-written  and "sensible."    (see link below)   It definitely IS well-written, but it uses persuasive logic to accomplish the very same results as a far more obvious piece of inflammatory propaganda.  Its craftily disguised purpose is to increase fear and suspicion of people perceived as "different," in this case Muslims.  Remember, there ARE Muslim American soldiers fighting and dying in our military service in Afghanistan and other places.   "Saturation" of the internet, (as recommended in the email) with fear, suspicion and hate, no matter how appealingly couched in superficially-reasonable wording, will accomplish nothing toward resolving differences and building trust with our  neighbors, whether they are Muslims, Jews, Bhuddists, Christians, Hindus, Urantians, or what-have you.  

Americans are Americans until proven otherwise are they not?  

Why don't some people question the sincerity, patriotism, and "religious" ethics of those who lie and pander to whoever will listen to their ranting over the air waves and TV, (or the owners of same)?  Or those engaging in misrepresentation in the halls of Congress  in order to further their own personal interests in acquiring money, fame, or power at the expense of the rest of us?   Or those who apply their strategic and fund-raising abilities to dupe our people in to believing that those who would do us harm  are really our saviors?  To wit:  Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin,  Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Rupert Murdoch, the Koch Brothers, John Boehner, Tom Coburn, Michele Bachmann,  Jim Inhofe, Jim DeMint, Mitch McConnell, Dick Armey, Karl Rove, etc., etc., etc., to name but a few.    They would divide us as Americans in order to conquer their political opponents using almost any means they can conceive of to drive us apart and sow suspicion and fear among us.  (I would concede that there are some Democrats who also bend the truth and opt for personal interests over the common good, but I have seen or heard of nothing that compares to even one of Beck's tirades or DeMint's reality-twisting
pronouncements.)

Responding to another point made in the email (link below), it seems to me that it seldom occurs to some Americans to consider the astounding number of innocent lives lost in other countries because of our actions in pre-emptive war and highly questionable tactics and practices during Wartime, such as in the Gulf War (some of which cost many innocent American lives as well, both during and after the war.  I spent several years researching the effects of occurrences during the Gulf War on returning veterans and discovered many, many disturbing aspects of our military activities in Iraq.). 


 I admit to having the same qualms  any other relatively normal person does about people and things I don't know much about or understand.   But I refuse to contribute to further division within our country by forwarding  email that fails to at least attempt to promote goodwill.    Somewhere I read something about a "Golden Rule."   Would that apply here?

---------

If you wish to read the email in question, follow this link:   http://www.snopes.com/rumors/soapbox/worryme.asp

Risk-taking in Old Age -- An Open Letter to a Friend "Across the Aisle"

Is it worth it?   At what point do you risk a valued friendship by speaking your mind?
I've had that experience this year and the consequences so far are not  much fun.   Below is the letter I wrote nearly three moths ago to a particularly cherished friend doing just that,  "speaking my mind"  (such as it is).   At what cost I am not yet sure.   An explanation of why it was written follows the letter.

________________________________

"My Dear Friend,

How about you?   Did you go to snopes.com and read about this?  Yes, the flyover was denied.  But ... It had nothing to do with  President Obama, as the regulation prohibiting flyovers at religious or primarily religious events was passed in 2001, and the Air Force makes the decisions on this issue, not the President.

 And what in hell does this have to do with the President or his religion?   He is NOT a Muslim, and the "right" had better wake up and take a cue from Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, who is one of the few with the balls to stand up for "Freedom of Religion" as set forth in our Constitution, which the "Right" is so eager to uphold so long as it fits in with their strategy of "taking back our country" by outright lying to the people!

 Now I am the one who is "scared" ... of people who forward crap like this and who suspend their critical thinking and Christian beliefs (recall the Golden Rule) in favor of emotional stimulation by the likes of Beck, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Palin, Hannity, Bachmann and other radicals who have taken over the party my father once proudly belonged to all his life.

 Do you really want Social Security to be "privatized."   Where would those funds be now if  George Bush had managed to do that 8 years or so ago?   You really want everything to be deregulated and run amok like the gambling bankers of Wall Street during the "housing bubble" with their stock-market hedge funds and derivatives manipulations?    Do you really want 10 -year-old girls to be giving birth to deformed babies fathered by their own dads, or rape victims forced to carry the fetuses of their rapists to term because their rape was "part of God's plan.?"    Do you really want to see stem cell research that holds so much promise for Type I diabetics like my grandson, or Alzheimer's patients like a best friend, or ALS sufferers doomed to a premature lingering horrible death like my friend's husband, or the  young cousin who died at 19 from muscular dystrophy, what about Jerry's kids?   .... just so an "embryonic" cell which would have been disposed of anyway can't be used to improve the lot of living people?  Do you really think you will enjoy living in a country where the middle class has disappeared and slipped into poverty just so the top 2% or so of rich people in our country won't have to go back to the tax rate they were paying prior to the "unpaid for" Bush tax cuts?  Some of us on Soc. Sec. and Medicare may not be able to afford to go visit friends and loved ones any more and will probably lose our homes if all the things Sen. Boehner wants to legislate become effective.  And it is not because we didn't work hard all our lives .... we can't all be entrepreneurs!   The Repubicans who passed those tax cuts had a reason for imposing a 10-year limit after which they would expire.  It was because they realized you can't keep up that kind of inequitable practice too long without compensating for it.  And then blame the deficit on the next President?   What are these people thinking?   Shall we have only corporate farms, Wal Marts full of Chinese-made goods, banks too big to fail, multinational corporations, off-shore oil wells and polluting chemical companies unregulated, etc. in this country?    The ocean is dying, the skies hazed over with smog and God only knows what else, the fresh water brimming with antibiotics & hazardous chemicals from ag and industrial runoff.  .... state-sized chunks of ice are calving from the ice-shelves ... the weather is becoming more and more calamitous in its effects ... but, of course, there is no such thing as "global warming."   And let's just throw out any of the Constitutional rights that don't serve our purpose, or worse yet invoke them when they fit in with our motives and ignore them when they appear to interfere .... bad-mouth or terrorize all the peaceful Muslim citizens of the United States, deny them their rights,  and pretend that the rest of the word won't notice ... that Al Qaeda will not use these latest practices of the radical right as propaganda to recruit whole armies of would-be terrorists ... more than likely some of our own hounded US Muslim youth among them! 

 Mr. Messenger, I'll tell you what I would like to know.   I would like to know facts     ----      NOT lies, omissions, misrepresentations, out of context quotations, innuendo, hate-filled opinions, tasteless jokes, disrespect for our President in every imaginable form.  Mindless forwarding of that kind of thing just to get people too lazy to check things out for themselves (but eager to believe anything that stokes their irrational fears and intolerant beliefs) worked up and ready to "take back our country."    You can't go back.  The 50's are gone forever.   Our country was never like what it will become if the likes of John Boehner and Mitch McConnell fronting for the banking industry and the corporatocracy  take over under the tutelage of Rupert Murdoch and the Koch brothers. 

 I would never shoot you.  More than likely someone from the NRA would be glad to shut me up.   Hell, I don't favor taking away guns ... and I believe in a strong military with our soldiers' and veterans' needs at the top of the list for receiving well-deserved benefits.   Pay our soldiers what they are worth instead of hiring "privatized" contractors like Blackwater/Xe and Halliburton so the mercenaries can be paid three times more than our soldiers.   We would have plenty of quality volunteers for the Armed Services if we did that.   Our military should be for our own defense and coping with disasters and in some cases protection of peoples incapable of doing it themselves. Waging war for fun and profit is a despicable, expensive and ungodly practice, IMHO.

 All rants lose their steam eventually, and mine just did.   I am trusting that our lifelong friendship can withstand a verbal blast of my pent-up political views.   I love you.   But I can't for the life of me understand why my dearest friends are so caught up in spreading dangerous opinions and distorted information without regard for the possible consequences.   Remember Pogo "I have seen the enemy and he is us."   Some truths remain self-evident.   Please, please ... arm yourself with factual information that has not been tampered with or colored all over with bias, and that can be substantiated.  Think about the real facts that you uncover and look ahead at the possible consequences of all courses of action being considered by our leaders.  I guess I am about "forwarded out."   It's not fun anymore to open an email and behold such messages.

 May you stay safe, healthy and happy... and find peace in your heart."

--------------------------------------------
There are few things in life I value above a friendship, especially a nearly life-long one, and more especially if one's been lucky enough to have lived a full life blessed with many amazing and wonderful friends.  What I despair of most in our current political scenario, next to the downfall of our beloved country, is the divisiveness that  political partisanship is wedging between our personal relationships. 

Coupled with the misinformation, double-speak, rumor, innuendo, and outright blatant lies almost consistently present in right-wing emails, this polarization may be splitting ties that have bound folks together for decades, if not, as in my case, a relatively long lifetime.   I hasten to mention that I am well aware all the blame does not lie with one party or the other, but I have received very few (none that I actually recall) derogatory  forwards from my Dem friends reviling Republicans.   Of course, this blog is admittedly biased, but then I am not sending it directly to anyone's e-mailbox ... they have to come and get it.  :)

Back to the case in point.   I received a comparatively mild forwarded email from such a beloved friend, bearing this personal message:  

   "Hey, don't shoot the messenger just included my Liberal friends too cause I thought everyone would like to know and look it's already been to snopes. " 

 I read it ... it was a piece I had seen before bemoaning the fact that a military flyover had been denied for a group function which had enjoyed that distinction in the past.   Of course, the piece blamed our President, personally, for such a horrid turn of events.    Following is the text of the email ... so you can relate it to the torrent of thoughts that welled up in me as I read the clincher ... that last line in RED CAPITAL LETTERS. 

"Subject: Fwd: Flyover denied

 Unbelievable, isn't it!!! Everyone needs to see this. I foresee many flyovers by the Thunderbirds and Blue Angels will be canceled in the next three years also.  Also demonstrations by the Golden Knights and our service bands. This guy OBAMA is out of control!!!

Obama denied a military flyover at the annual God and Country rally in Idaho, where new military recruits were inducted and all military were honored.  This is the first time in 42 years that there has not been a military flyover in formation, and organizers were stunned that Obama refused to allow this.

When the lady organizing the event contacted the Pentagon to ask why this was not allowed, as it had occurred every year for 42 years, she was told it was because of the event had a Christian nature.

The video also mentions that when Obama made a recent speech, a cross and a Christian symbol for Jesus had to be covered first.

This is beyond unbelievable action by the Commander in Chief and our President, and the Americans need to know about it!

YouTube - Obama Denies Flyover of  'GOD & Country Rally'-1st Time In 42Yrs Why? Because Of Its  "Christian Nature"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zGMuN_Ep38*
Confirmed:   http://www.snopes.com/politics/military/flyover.asp

WATCH THIS BEFORE IT'S PULLED AND SEND TO EVERY AMERICAN PATRIOT YOU KNOW!
          ALL YOU LIBERALS WANTED CHANGE.  NOW YOU HAVE IT.
 DOES ANYONE STILL THINK HE’S NOT A MUSLIM??!!"
-------------------------------

 I  did what I almost always do ... went to snopes and read what it had to say.  (I also always try factcheck.org.)   My annoyance and dismay over that last line continued to act as an abrasive in my mind.  I simply can not reconcile the kind and generous person I know my friend to be with the hatred and bigotry embodied in that line.  

For months I had checked out the facts on similar email propaganda sent by others and sent the resulting info with a friendly note on to the senders of same.   Seldom did anyone comment on anything as trivial as factual information, when they had a wealth of FOX news commentators to feed their misconceptions and more forwarded hate mail pouring into their email daily.   So, I routinely deleted such forwarded emails and awaited the next batch.   Once in a while a sender would tire of getting my fact-laden rebuttals to their communiques and eventually most of them quit emailing me.  

This particular friend was not a frequent offender, but because I held him in such high regard, I guess it just hit me harder.  He was mostly trying to kid me, but by then I had just "had it" with such things, and they weren't at all funny to me anymore.   The possibility of an impending culture war loomed large in my mind, not to mention freedom of religion, equality, respect for our country's leader, and other such concepts.   So, I wrote the letter which headlines this blog.

Unfortunately, though I have written him several times, I have not heard anything from this gentlemen yet.   I reread the whole thing today and concluded that I did not succeed in trying to convey that it was the seriousness of that kind of fomenting that upset me, and not my friend himself.   I cannot and will not apologize for expressing my feelings and opinions in the matter, and referring to such facts as I was able to muster to support my position.   However, I can and will apologize to him in case my words hurt his feelings or otherwise embarrassed him in any way.  I know the sentiments in the offending email did not reflect my friend's deep down core beliefs.  He is a person, not only of incredible and multifaceted talents, but also of honesty, loyalty, and integrity.   And I want him to know I know that.  :)   I guess the next step is to write such an apology directly to him.   Which I will do tomorrow, and I fervently hope he will accept it, but I have no guarantee.

Such is the risk  taken when one speaks out for one's beliefs and values.   Consequences are something each person should consider when deciding upon a course of action.   I will miss my friend more than I can ever say if he chooses not to accept my apology.   But I did what I felt I had to do.   Doing nothing at all would have left him thinking that the truth didn't matter to me.  Nothing could be further from the truth.


*Source:  snopes.com/politics/military/flyover.asp

Thoughts on the current political scene, by a white female senior citizen...

***   Bureaucracies are always problematic ... the human element, primarily greed, is omnipresent.   The do-gooders get carried away, too, and all of us are very territorial.   We like to hear, coming from some perceived authority or celebrity, our own ideas played back to us, which just reinforces and entrenches our positions and opinions thereby fostering close-mindedness.  Under such conditions as currently prevail, achievement by our leaders of sensible and lasting solutions has become highly evasive, due to the extreme partisanship and recent obstructionism exhibited mostly by Republicans.  

***   Neither the right nor left can ignore the common good in order to pamper special interest groups without damaging the whole society, but that flaw seems to be ingrained on both sides to the degree that both national and personal conscience as well as the masses suffer.     I have read that Einstein pondered the problem of how to establish and maintain effective,  just governance and decided it was more difficult to solve than the space/time  enigma.  

***   If the Federal Government shrinks, states will step in, and below that level it seems local politics tend to be more vitriolic sometimes than on the national scene.   One of the worst political climates I ever experienced was at a school board meeting in a town of 200 people back in 1960.  

****  Our country balances on the horns of a dilemma, and I think our success up until the turn of this century is attributable to the two (or 3 or multi) party system shifting back and forth to keep the scales reasonably balanced over time.  Unfortunately, it looks like global corporate conglomerate interests have ascended in the power structure to where many governments are, or are fast becoming, irrelevant and/or ineffective, insofar as being able to sustain one in which representation of the will of the people is taken into account, let alone being the primary force.   The only time the likes of us matter is if we unite to the point where their pocketbooks are threatened.   Such unity by liberals, progressives, and independents in the US is now critical in the upcoming election, or our cherished concept of one-man-one-vote may be forever lost, along with our middle class and the "American Dream."  The "Citizens United" ruling supported by our "activist" conservative Supreme Court Justices may have been the clarion call heralding the onset of our demise.

 
***  All credibility doesn't belong to only those who agree with one.   Right wing radicals continue to ignore common sense and pollute the internet and our email inboxes with outrageous erroneous propaganda which it seems to me a 10-year-old could see through.   Apparently their fears and biases outweigh their better judgment and impair their critical thinking abilities.   Furthermore, I  deeply resent  their vicious, disrespectful, misleading and unwarranted attacks on our duly-elected President.  The office and the office-holder both deserve  common courtesy at the very least.   I didn't care for George Bush or his policies,  and I knew Richard Nixon was mentally ill, but I would have never dreamed of vilifying either of them in brutish language like some of those far-far-right emails, radio & TV "hosts," bumper stickers and rally posters do.   I think such behavior is disgraceful, demoralizing, and unpatriotic. 

***   For the love of country and all the people and values you hold dear, get out and vote in the primary election for  people you are CERTAIN (to the best of your ability)  truly represent the best interests of our country  and all Americans.