Global Warming

I just thinking about the right-wing argument to global warming: “We’ll adapt.”  But they don’t believe in evolution. So how do they figure we’re going to adapt? It’s a fundamentally fallacious argument. And I didn’t even notice it until now because I never questioned evolution – yet they do. So they can’t make that argument. It is off the table for them to use as an answer by their own logic.

It’s kind of their same crazy argument: “Government bad,” while they’re running for positions in the government. If they hate government so much and they think its so ineffective why do they want to be a part of it?

Just some thoughts and some points to make with your right wing family members and friends…

Best wishes,

Denise

The Mosque Debate… Dr. Laura & Sarah Palin

Being of Jewish origin during the revival of the Nazi movement the whole Mosque debate stirs up great emotion for me. When I was a 3 year old my mother put me in a cooking class at the local JCC (Jewish Community Center – which is very much the same as this proposed center which will be primarily a community center with Muslim religious affiliations) and while I was taking the class there the Nazis actually lit a bomb at that center. Luckily, no one died. However this act of terrorism took me out of my connection to my roots and made my mother fearful of having me and my brother participating in our culture of origin.

I actually lived in the area where the Nazis in the 70s marched through, a mini-series of the event was called “Skokie.” The same polarization that exists now between the Muslims and the Tea-Bagger McShaggers, are the same sort of people who participated in the anti-Semitism I experienced as a child against the Jews in the Chicago area where I grew up. Those idiot Nazis where actually given a permit to have a rally and parade through Skokie (an entirely Jewish area of Chicago at the time.) However, back then, during my childhood it appeared we as Americans knew what our forefathers had fought and died for – the rights that are part of our constitution. The 2 great wars were but a couple of generations away and we seemed generally to tolerate one another in a way we don’t anymore. Those who were the Nazis back then were marginalized and given no power and were the butt of people’s scorn and jokes – there’s actually a reference in the Blues Brothers movie which sums up the general feeling people had for those sorts of intolerant jerks, it goes something like, “Nazis, I hate Nazis” and they run the Nazis parading on a bridge off and into the water.

We have always had those who were scared sick of the “pinkos,” or the anarchists, the witches or whatever other version of silliness people felt threatened by. This mentality leads to the believe that all people who participate in the Muslim religion – a giant organized religion (1 of the 3 largest in the world) are all terrorists. It’s as stupid as thinking  Catholics are equivalent to all Christians, and they are all evil tortures due to the abhorrent and evil deeds done during the Spanish Inquisition by the Catholics (who killed about 25% of all women during the middle-ages, serious genocide there.) If one were to say that would be beyond absurd, yet it seems to be the mantra of the extreme right. All organized religions have different sects and operate under a generic umbrella.

Christianity for example can be preached to by someone who has no formal education about the bible and has been ordained through the mail, drinks poison and lets snakes bite him while talking in tongues oppose that style with a Christian who sits tidily in a row of austere wooden benches and is preached to by a minister (with a doctorates degree in religious studies) about the abstract meaning of some remote passage of the bible. Those are pretty different experiences of the “same” religion. The same could be said of the orthodox or Hasidic Jewish people compared to those who uphold the religion as more of a cultural experience and/or are reformed Jews.

I personally am not fond of any sort of religious zealotry no matter what color or shape it comes in, as it always seems to include violence – the natural antithesis of spirituality.  I believe the enemy of any religious or spiritual system is intolerance of others belief systems as this leads to hatred, violence and ultimately away from God.

If I were the people who were starting the community center however my fear would be that some horrible zealot would do what happened to my JCC back in the early 70s in some sort of bizarre retaliation for 9/11 – despite the fact that there is NO relationship. This property isn’t actually even that close to the actual site, the whole thing is just a bunch of right-wing racist, fascist scare tactics and we as Americans should stand against this disgusting behavior of the far right nut jobbers.

It’s really getting old our tolerance for allowing these idiots to have such a huge cultural impact on our America. Their America resembles Nazi Germany and if I could build a time machine and send them back there, I’d do it. They seem to think the past was where the glory days lie. I think they’d find that it was really not too glorious, especially for the moronic women of the right who would find their collective voice of stupidity silenced, relegated to the jobs that perhaps befit them best, being home makers and child bearers and nothing more. I think this is where Dr. Laura (Dr. of physical education that is) should be, she should go back to being a mean gym teacher and practice the BS she preaches. Why are we listening to what she has to say? Or the narcissistic, quitter Sarah Palin?  After all they have lady parts which make them inferior according to the line they supposedly tow.

One can not be a patriarchal woman of power without being a hypocrite and a moron, both of which disqualify them for giving advice. Oh, and Dr. Laura is Jewish and I doubt very much she’d like it if someone repeated the word Kike repeated over and over again at her while the other person pretended that they didn’t understand the difference between trying to take the piss out of a word by those who are called that name and those who say those words with hatred and violence in the context of a history of murderous hatred. And if she doesn’t get that, I just feel sorry for her inferior intellect.

We all know Dr. Laura is a “morally inferior person” (by her standards) who yells at other people for her own perceived weaknesses – being that she’s had at least one known affair while married and has herself been divorced and I believe has been estranged from her mother and has done everything she has railed on against on her show while presenting herself as if she were an expert on morality and a trained psychologist. She is a despicable human being whom I’m happy to see leave the public specter.

But going back to the debate about the community center several blocks away from ground zero. If I were in the position of running that organization my main concern would be for the people who would be serviced by my organization. Frankly, I would be worried about their safety which is ironically a form of terrorism! And I would point this out in the public sphere, explaining in the most rudimentary way how the right-wing crazies are stirring the hatred pot and are in effect doing the very thing we were supposed to be against – terrorism.

The right-wing are trying to block people’s rights like gay marriage, blocking this community center and taking federal law into their hands in Arizona illegally – kind of like having to wear a star of David on your outfit at all times, and countless other insane and uncompassionate policies, including trying to make it seem like “taking back America” is anything more than an anachronism for having only white presidents, or the evil thing of trying to disallow a person’s right to citizenship when they were born on this soil.

And where were all these right-wing fruit cakes when the boarders were opened and they could exploit the truck loads of illegal immigrants, creating a new slave class? Oh, yeah they were all for that. They’ve used propaganda, hatred, racism and all the awful things we supposedly have fought for, and turned it back around onto other innocent people.

Who is going to use that community center? Primarily children and are they expected to be responsible for what some idiot zealot did before they were even born? We have to stop the madness of grouping human beings together as a unit based on color, creed or religion – because we are all individuals – isn’t THAT the AMERICAN WAY? And how can one fight for pulling oneself up by their own bootstraps if we can’t even agree that we are individuals with the potential to think, feel and move apart from our class, race, color, creed or religious affiliation? It’s all just so insane and ridiculous.

I ask only this – When will we evolve into human beings? Because right now those who show no tolerance or empathy are nothing more than shadow people.

May the light prevail through our darkness,

Denise

An Open Letter to President Barack Obama

Dear Mr. President:

Most of us wept with joy when you took the oath of office. It was an amazingly moving day, one we won’t forget. Not because you are the first African American president, although that’s a beautiful thing to see, but because you represented the hope of getting our country back.

You see, we don’t want to be an imperialist nation acting as dictators to other cultures. We want all people to get the chance to choose whatever form of government they want, even if its something we don’t understand or agree with. But most of all, we want the tyranny of multinational corporations to end. We want them to stop the exploitation of the earth, her resources and people for the sake of a few CEOs and shareholders can get ridiculously wealthy.

In you we saw our idealism reflected. A hope that we could get out of the mess the Bush administration had tied us in and we could do it with dignity, reclaiming our democracy in the process, and righting the wrongs which had been foisted upon us over the last thirty or so years.

Many of us did things we never believed possible of ourselves to get you elected. I have friends who went to different states and campaigned for you. I myself started a blog partially to inspire people to the call of change you sang out.

I know it’s only been a few months since you’ve taken office and you have done many remarkable things except the one we are all desperate for you to do; change the flow of the river of our democracy. The change you talked about, the change we envisioned along side you. Instead of the trickle up (disguised as the trickle down theory) of economics which has engrossed our land with unabashed greed, relentless ruthlessness and complicacy in the depravity of other countries who take full advantage of their people to the point that even Dickens would shudder at how dark the human soul could blacken in the search for the dollar. And which has drug us into a pit of debt and dependency on governments we should be more than weary of yet like a beaten down prostitute we get back on the street corner and do business with the same John who almost killed us last time in the name of a few bucks.

Perhaps it is a myth that we were once a nation better than this; a nation where the bottom line, bottom dollar and corporate robber barons were not looked upon with tender compassion but reviled for the filthy, money grubbing thieves they were. Where the people had pride in their work, were paid a fair wage, and we expected our corporations to abide by common laws of decent behavior.

That era has certainly died a slow painful death since the Reagan administration. We are now a nation of debtors who make nothing but intellectual property and export only culture to the world. A lot of good that would do us in a war! We are like the slacker kid who has been spoiled by his parents showering him with expensive gifts and when he comes of age to go to college there is nothing left for him to better himself because his parents had no foresight, only to please him in the moment so he would not complain.

Let us complain!

Don’t be afraid of critics or the idiot talking heads on the right. The only thing you have to be afraid of is leaving this planet in peril for your children, letting America fall the way of a Banana Republic, allowing each succeeding generation to do worse than their parents (which has already begun) and allowing corporations to continue their exploitation.

I am an American and in earnest I ask of you this question; if I can’t move to Europe, work and live as I please then how come an American corporation can set up here and export all its jobs? How can, in essence, a corporation not be restrained by the same laws of the land that govern me? If our country will allow people to manufacture wherever they want then I want to move to France and work there. It seems only fair. Why should I pay taxes when corporations find loopholes and get welfare? Why should I, or any of my fellow Americans, labor in their cubicles, solving problems so our jobs can be sent to a country that’s pay scale verges on slavery?

We can all lie to ourselves and say that these companies are helping to develop these countries, but the truth is these people work for nothing. They live in abject poverty and only a few people develop a fat wallet, those who skim the most off the top by exploiting them. This is more than absurd it is disgusting, an abomination – a moral outrage.

I beg of you to pull the plug and make some real laws that constrict these corporations to realistic growth and to realistic profits that include bringing back jobs or risk being taxed to the point where they can’t make a profit by exploiting foreign people. And for those countries that we do want to help develop, lets do so by opening divisions that service only their part of the world, allowing them to have jobs and grow their economies, pay them a fair wage for their work there and let their middle class bloom as ours did when we used this model. The model of making things here in America, by Americans and paying them a living wage.

If we don’t do this we will be a fallen empire and you the last elected president before a series of revolutions. I know some are worried about deflation with the Chinese and other developing countries who have lent us lots of dough, wanting to change the standard of currency. Some are saying our country will be like the Weimar Republic. I think it will be more akin to what happened in the Soviet Union after their fall. A world run by black market hoodlums, were crime is so out of control there won’t be enough police to find all the cracks, thieves, slave traders and pimps.

Please realize that you have a mandate. We voted for change. Change away. Change so big we can’t even imagine it! Be the Shiva of a new world order and destroy all the idiocy that has been built up in Washington so we may remake ourselves in our ideal image. If you don’t we have a million times more to loose than if you find the strength to take these horrors head on and fight them.

I don’t envy you. Your job is extreme, difficult, perhaps verging on impossible. But we all believe in you. We know better than you know yourself, that you can do it if you choose to fight for us and your children.

And I am begging you to please fight for us, our planet, our children and life itself. We are at a cross roads on this planet. I’m sure you know this better than most. Your job is vitally important to solving this and reviving the world from her current heart attack.

Peace and kind wishes,

Denise Siegel

Answering Readers…

The first from Marlene:

 

Marlene

I have had it with that windbag Rush Limbaugh! Exactly how does a failed DJ from Pittsburgh who has never ever even attended a political science class, a drug addict and a bigot end up being treated as though he is some authority on the US? Every day in the news I am treated to Rush’s latest outrageous comments? Is anything being done behinde the scenes to shut him up for good (searching for scandals perhaps?) or can we expect some skeleton in his closet to put an end to his bloviating? Any chance he will eventually be marginalized by the GOP?

I’m answering Marlene first because I’ve been thinking a little bit about Limbaugh and his legion of suckers. I’ve been having this strong feeling that his antics are going to get old soon.  People are starting to figure him out. I’m sure he’ll have his die hard cult like fans, but the economy being in ruins, while Limbaugh gets rich shouting off his mouth about stuff he hasn’t half a brain cells worth of information about, isn’t going to fly.

And I don’t think people are going to believe its great for the rich to get richer anymore while they worry about losing their homes and/or family and friends losing their homes because the “greed is good” motto which Rush ascribes to has shown its true nature and its not good.

Greed is actually one of the seven deadly sins and there is a reason for it. Hording resources all for your self, wanting to be bigger and better than everyone else because you have a defective ego and need to see others suffer so you can feel better about your lame self, is disgusting. And these people call themselves Christians. I don’t think Christ would agree.

I really feel that we are just beginning to see the swing to the left. And I’m hopeful we’ll be able to undo a lot of the damage done by the right. I feel Americans are learning a big lesson here. Number one is, we are all in this together for and two, we all need help sometimes. That whole “pull yourselves up by your own bootstraps” motto doesn’t work so well when you have no boots, let alone straps. The assumption that we should all just worry about ourselves and screw everyone else is not only anti-Christian but anti-moral, anti-human, anti-compassionate.

Not everyone is born with Paris Hilton’s money, Einstein’s vision, Billy Jean Kings back swing, or even an average IQ. Some people struggle to read, some people are deaf or blind or have severe depression or have physical ailments that impede their ability to do most jobs. So we’re all suppose to just die homeless, on the street while starving to death if we can’t find a job, or get a job that pays enough to live on or work enough hours at the low paying job to make ends meet? This was the basic philosophy of life they sold us. I could never understand how anyone could believe it. It’s absurd.

I watched an episode of Super nanny the other night where the family was English and the dad supported his wife and three kids working at a fast food restaurant. I honestly couldn’t get over that. It was like looking back at 1950s America when people made a living wage here. It blew my mind. Here this guy would have to have 2 crappy jobs and his wife would also have to have 2 and be working 80 hours a week just to survive. And they still wouldn’t have health care! And their kids would have no real chance to go to anything but a community college and they’d never be able to retire. It’s so awesome being an American. We should really be proud to be one of the richest places in the world for those 1 percent who control all our wealth! Good for them, they make us special!

This country in the past 20 years became so barbaric in its capitalism I hardly recognized it as the same country I was a child in during the 70s. I wondered where all those open minded people who were smoking pot and going to rallies and rock concerts went. What happened to all those people who wanted peace and love and were anti-commercial, anti-materialism? I think a lot of them became Yuppies during the 80s and instead of smoking pot started snorting cocaine and their world view went up their nose!

We got lost there. Our country disappeared up its own bottom with all the crazy double talk, crazy making ways the Right wing sold their agenda of making the rich richer. They sold it under the guise of, “anybody could do it,” when they were actually rigging the game the whole time in their favor. It was such an enormous Ponzi scheme. The biggest dupe ever. It feels like we just got done with an era of criminals running the government, you know like what happens in other countries, not places like AMERICA, nothing like that could ever happen to us! That’s exactly how it happened to us! We stopped paying attention, believed all the crap those with a mic in hand said was the truth and lost interest in participating in our government.

I actually remember arguing with people about voting back when I was in high school. I was excited to get to do it at 18 and I had friends who could have cared less. I was appalled. When I confronted them they said things like, “It doesn’t matter. It’s just one vote.” They were so confident in our system of government they actually believed we as a nation were impervious to real corruption, abuse of power and politicians with agendas meant to serve only the wealthy few who supported them. Talk about naive.

This is why we are in the mess we are in. We as whole were a band of naive school children being led by FOX news and the newest versions of Herst that came in the form of Rupert Murdock. People actually used to believe what they read in a newspaper when I was a young adult. I think most people have seen enough slant from one paper to the next that we all know at this point there is no such thing as “objective” journalism which is why bloggers have become so popular.

At least a blogger doesn’t have to pretend to be objective about anything. You know the person’s slant and you can take their view point with a grain of salt, and you’ll now how much and what kind of salt to take it with because they will be very clear about their bent, making no apologies for it. At least this forum eliminates the gate keepers who have an agenda and it allows for enough variety of opinion for a person to make up their own mind.

The Internet has liberated our minds and has radically changed how we see and obtain information. I have a grand and strong feeling that the Limbaugh’s of this world will end up being no more popular than the biggest of the big bloggers.

In Limbaugh’s case, if we ignore him. He will go away! He’s the Courtney Love or Madonna (back in their days) of radio, always doing something to keep himself in the news. Same with that freak of a free loving, giant Adam’s apple (makes you wonder a little) skinny, googly eyed freak, Ann Coulter. I think she literally stole Courtney Love’s playbook after she made a xerox of Madonna’s while adding in a few extra zesty crazy ideas in to take it one step further.

That Coulter I think is by far the most out of control of all of them which is why people like her. I kind of feel like they love looking at the crazy, googly eyed nut job whose always on the verge of losing her sh*t because she’s got some kind of serious emotional problem and seems almost like one of Freud’s hysterics. She’s a carnival ride.

I used to think she knew it and was playing people, but recently I’ve started getting the feeling that she actually believes she’s some genius which she will (sadly for us) probably never get how very wrong she is as I’m sure she equates how much money she’s made with some kind of IQ score. It’s been my observation that often people of very average intellect are the most successful as their tastes and intellect connect with the masses in ways super brainics do not. I think Coulter actually has lost touch with reality and is like a crazed rabid pit bull. All of those people should be IGNORED. It’s exactly the one thing they don’t want. And the only thing that will stop them!

Best wishes, 

Denise

Readers Questions & Comments…

Sorry I got carried away there with conversing with Jahavahaa. He is obviously a very intelligent man with a lot of insight.

Anyway, there have been some really interesting posts that I haven’t gotten to. Also I’ve noticed more and more overlap in the dream journal. Have you guys noticed this as well? 

OK, so here goes. The first from:

I dream of Israel too

Hi Denise, well written. I too am Jewish and cannot believe Israel’s mismanagement of world opinion by its behavior in Gaza. I’ve seen more antisemitism this winter than I have ever witnessed in my life. Will there be any sympathy when the cards fall karmically in Israel? I kind of tend to doubt it. Instead people round the world will be cheering, “Good! Filthy Jews, die!” It is almost as though non-Jews are writing the policy in Israel and attributing it to us in order to get us all killed! Hitler in his wildest dreams could not have come up with a more efficient plan to make Jews and Jewry look bad 😦 I too have dreams of Israel before she misbehaves in the world theatre. Tell me what this dream from four nights ago means, because it has me terrified: I was here in New York, among tall buildings, and the sky was a very deep, strange, unreal twilight blue. People were pointing with smiles of wonder up at the sky, so I looked. Odd military aircraft were streaking by overhead and all had the Mogen David symbol on them. These were firing missiles down at America. I saw F16s appear and fire back, but deliberately off-target so as not to hit any Israeli aircraft. I asked, “What is going on, why are Israeli jets firing at America?” And a voice from someone in the crowd yelled, “Israel is attacking America!” People began to run screaming in all directions. I continued to look up at this bizarre sight of Israeli jets firing odd streaming missiles through the sky, and American jets either deliberately missing them, or having their return fire shunted aside almost supernaturally. Nothing the US fired touched so much as one Israeli warplane. It was like the US had its hands tied behind its back. Now: a large bridge was prominent in the dream, and among the people fleeing, I saw a man who resembled Ted Kennedy, and thought to myself, “Senator Ted Kennedy; what is he doing here?” I woke up having a very bad feeling off this dream. PS, any commenters who call me a self-hating Jew, Israel is now a shanda fur die goyim. If you really are Jewish, pro-IDF folks, you know exactly what the phrase means. Read it and weep.

Hi I dream of Israel too,

You are so right about all of it. It really is upsetting because in order for Jewish people to always have a safe haven (which is why the UN championed the formation of the state after WWII) the Israeli government really must try extra hard to peacefully co-exist. Yitzhak Rabin was heroic and if only the current group of politicians would take their cues from him and continue his work then not only would Israel be safer but the whole world would be as well. The majority of Israeli and Palestinian people want peace. And both sides deserve this, both sides are human beings who bleed, feel pain and want only to be free and safe.

From what I heard about editorials in Israel, most papers slammed the Israeli government for their actions. So you and I are not the only Jewish people who find their actions repugnant. It’s really the American people who don’t get a balanced, even handed account of things who get upset about this. And a lot of Christians because Israel figures into their final days scenario. They need an Israel so Jesus can come back. But if Israel were to continue the way it was behaving (and I’m not sure what exactly is going on there right now, it’s been out of the news) it wouldn’t be long before one of its neighbors was pushed by its people to drop a nuke on them. Personally, I really don’t want that to happen! So I think if anything you are a self-loving Jew. You want Israel to be a better place with a better government, same can be said for being an American and pointing out our flaws so that we can fix them.

Oh, and your dream! I interpret it to mean that Israel is being self-destructive and putting the US at risk by their behavior. The fact that we made a show of trying to shoot them down, but it wasn’t in earnest, illustrates well, how we’ve dealt with the crisis going on in Gaza. I think your dream may also have a premonitory warning against terrorist backlash as well — the fact that it took place in New York where the biggest attack of the kind here happened. The dream was telling you that the actions of Israel aggressively endangered the US.

As for the reference to Senator Kennedy, perhaps because he’s a very liberal political figure and is in the process of dying, he too isn’t another reiteration of the theme of your dream. (Sorry for the unintended rhyme.) 

(And for the non-Jews if your interested in Yiddish here’s a link that explains the meaning of what I dream of Israel too wrote: http://www.treppenwitz.com/2007/03/a_shanda_fur_di.html)

Next from Tranquilsleep444:

tranquilsleep444

Just as you predicted, Denise. CNN’s leading headline right now is to brace ourselves for a rough week. From cnn.com: “Market braces for ‘terrible,’ ‘awful’ news” Investors this week will face a large batch of company report cards, in what is shaping up to be the worst quarter for corporate profits in a decade, CNNMoney reports. Investors will also digest reports on housing, consumer confidence and leading economic indicators. “Everyone is bracing for the GDP number to be pretty terrible, but the bigger surprise could come with the housing numbers, which are also expected to be awful,” one analyst says.

Hi Tranquilsleep44,

Hopefully you’re having some tranquil sleep because you either didn’t get involved in the stock market or pulled out in the nick of time! I didn’t see this story, but will look for it on line. All I’ve seen so far is mostly political news about the Republican block on Obama’s proposal which I talked a little bit about before news of this came out. It was in the inauguration chart that they would try to peck him to death with stupid details and find every little way they could to give him trouble. But then it doesn’t take a psychic or a chart to figure that one out! 

From the info you posted, chances are good a chill will be sent down the spine of investors and we will see another plunge. This is just logic. The astrology showed this period through March as being particularly bad. Hopefully, it will get better.

Maybe it will take a few months for Obama to get a stimulus package through the house and senate. Or perhaps there will be a series of bills that finally change things enough for us to start seeing that the worst of the storm finally starting to clear by then.

Let’s hope so!

From Hope and a Plan:

hopeandaplan

Hi Denise, Since a corporation that reincorporates as another incarnation changes its astrological fate could a married couple renew their vows and change their relationship dynamic? Thanks!

Hi Hope and a Plan,

The answer to that is yes, if the couple legally re-marries. If it’s just a renewal of vows then it will have a chart, but more related to the 5th house, or just a sort of renewal of the romance. It won’t change the chart of the marriage.

However if the couple re-marries then the new chart eclipses their old one, and sets the tone for their future together. It’s interesting because I’ve seen people get divorced after being married a long time, and then end up getting re-married. And they definitely have a different dynamic, although of course, being that they are the same people it doesn’t erase their past. Also when it comes to couples there is also a mid-point chart that wouldn’t change. So the psychological, personality stuff remains the same, but with the change in marriage time and new chart it effects the way the couple deals with those issues.

And from Marlene:

Marlene

Hi Denise, What will become of the GOP/Ultra Right Wingers over the next decade? Will they shrivel up and blow away, become more prominent or change for the better ? Will they realize their agenda turns the majority of people away? Will Limbaugh,Coulter, O’Reilly and their ilk become less relavant or better yet, marginalized?

Hi Marlene,

This is an excellent question and one I have been asking myself for awhile. I have the feeling that they will end up being marginalized, but not immediately. It will happen more over the next couple of years.  They will end up crawling back into the holes they slithered out of, but I doubt they will go peacefully. And their zombie followers will follow them back into the minority of voices.  

I think people will get tired of their B.S. and bashing. Many people who listen to these idiots are patriotic and want the country to do well. If they see the country going in a better direction I’m sure they will loose interest in the nonsense and ridiculous theatrics of Limbaugh, O’Reilley and Coulter. And those fans who were more on the fence will fall of and see the good in this very exceptional man we have as our current president. I also feel that the rise in more centrist and left leaning media will help restore balance to those who have been brain washed by the theatrics of the Karl Rove Neo-con playbook.

There are still so many great comments and questions to get to and I promise to do so.

Best wishes and many blessings to all,

Denise

Answering Readers Questions…

I’m only going to answer one tonight because I’m under the weather. It comes from Mabochan:

mabochan
What is your take on the likelihood of martial law, the use of the expanded powers of the presidency, the FEMA concentration camps, and so forth?

This is a good question and one I’ve thought about a lot since the Reagan administration when the laws were changed. I think we’ve already seen the effect of the widening of the executive branch’s power. Guantanamo, torture, ignoring the Genova Convention, invading a sovereign nation are all perfect example of what happens when are checks and balances are not equally weighted.

It’s ironic that the Republican party claims to be the party of patriots when they have actually done the most damage to our constitution, chiseling away at the separation of church and state, the right to privacy, eliminating checks and balances, awarding veterans less help then veterans of previous wars and allowing American companies to export jobs while giving them tax breaks to do it. It is also rather ironic that they want to make boat loads of money in our economy, but not pay their fair share of taxes. That to me is unpatriotic as well.

In terms of martial law, we’ve seen it. Here in Los Angeles when the riots happened. And if we continue to be ignorant about the real agenda of the right wing, we will see this country continue to slide toward fascism. I use that term in the way Musolini meant it. He said of fascism, “Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.” It of course also has the added element of totalitarianism or dictatorship which our current president joked he’d like a whole lot better. I believe, honestly that there has been a coo going on over the past 20 years, slow and steady by this radical group of people who truly do want to take over our country and the world. I’ve been seeing that since I was a kid, (psychically I mean). We really have to be on guard because the people calling us (those who respect Democracy and want to make it better through discussion and healthy debate) treasonous, are actually the very people who are inacting treason. In psychology this is called projection. Problem is the way this coo has been evolving has been so behind the scenes until the 2000 and 2004 elections that many people didn’t see or believe it possible. Like the old saying, “never say never” once the collective consciousness feels invulnerable to treason, fascism, authoritarianism or as your question taps concentration camps, martial law, etc. we actually become open to the possibility, because we are no longer on guard against it.

If our country were to continue down the path its on (with George W) we would be nothing, but a banana republic with a third world economy. We are in a kind of war here, a war for the soul of our country. We have to win back our Democracy. Just as those right wing “Christians,” have co-opted Christianity as a shield to do whatever they want in the name of Christ, so have the right wing Republicans co-opted the word Democracy to sell us fascism. It’s a very scary time. And it is utterly important that all of us are engaged, informed and involved in the political process.

Best wishes and good luck.