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The Swiss bankers and the Roman Catholic Church were complicit in the Nazi regime. These were not terrible people. They were normal people. They closed their eyes to evil or justified it, for the sake of peace or gain or national loyalty. I sometimes wonder (and fear) whether I would have done the same if I had been in that society at that time. It is so easy not to see, not to hear, not to understand, when one’s own peace or prosperity is involved. There have been times, after all, when I have allowed blatantly racist statements to pass unchallenged in the name of good manners, or of just keeping the peace. For so little of one’s soul, or at least a little piece of it, is on the auction block.”

The Reverend Kathleen Damewood Korb

I have been distressed lately by the volatile nature of conversations, especially conversations involving our president.  Some of us, did not vote for him or voted for him reluctantly, some wholeheartedly, and some voted for him due to his apparent superiority over his opponent.  I find myself defending him and a few friendships have been strained.  I cherish those friendships and find that coming here is often the needed release.   So what is the right thing to do?  Stop talking, stop listening, stop reading, stop caring?

Cap and Trade is one issue that causes heated exchanges to surface.  If manufacturing moves to another country that values economy more so than the planet, then what we have achieved is a worsening of the global warming process.  Those giant ships that bring our stuff across the oceans are spewing more toxins than the plants that made the stuff in the first place.  What is the solution?  Some believe we need to drive a stake into our evil president’s heart.  I believe we need to stop subsidizing fossil fuels and instead subsidize the retooling of manufacturing plants so they’ll stay here and get green and give tax incentives for doing so. Even if you don’t believe that climate change is caused by human intervention, the climate is changing and we need to keep this little planet as clean and pristine as possible.

Certain persons in the media have made Mephistophelean bargains for power and fame using fear and greed as their catalyst.  A few of them have marketed themselves as chosen.  Chosen to teach us what God wants us to do.  People blindly believe their utterances and it is becoming impossible to sit idly by or “close my eyes for the sake of peace”.

My mother raised us to never talk politics or religion at the dinner table.  I have adhered to that rule and have enjoyed many a peaceful dinner with friends who I know don’t agree with my politics or my religion.  Once the plates are cleared and the wine and chocolates or coffee and cheesecake starts a few fists have pounded the table. There are times when it needs to be talked about though.  Not informing ourselves, not talking at all is useful for the “owners”, as George Carlin referred to the media and the companies that pay them to tell us what they want us to know.

The economy and what is best for the economy isn’t always the best solution, still, it is the solution “the owners” love.  They create or enhance or close their eyes to hate in order to improve their own economy.

It is always important to challenge hate; challenge it’s source and find it’s solution. When you don’t like the way things are, there is always a chance for a different outcome.  Our conversations need to look at all sides and possible outcomes. Are we better off doing nothing vs doing things differently?

When fists are pounding or all capital letters are being typed, chances are a point is being made.  Hopefully the point is to liberate us from hate.

Please don’t let Dupont, ExxonMobile, and Monsanto buy our next President.

Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post wrote…

In opening the floodgates for corporate money in election campaigns, the Supreme Court did not simply engage in a brazen power grab. It did so in an opinion stunning in its intellectual dishonesty.

It was unnecessary for the court to go so far when there were several less-radical grounds available. It was audacious to seize the opportunity to overrule precedents when the parties had not pressed this issue and the lower courts had not considered it. It was the height of activism to usurp the judgments of Congress and state legislatures about how best to prevent corruption of the political process.

Nina Totenberg of NPR wrote…

“It will undoubtedly help Republican candidates since corporations have generally supported Republican candidates more.”

Freedom of Speech

“Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt

I read an article in the New York Times about a lady named Marlane from the town of Eleanor West Virginia.  The town was named after Eleanor Roosevelt.  In the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency the government created towns with jobs for folks that lost their jobs and couldn’t feed their children. The government project was called the New Deal.  Obviously there was immense opposition to this blatantly socialist endeavor.  Some  commended the government for stepping up to the plate and addressing the needs of hungry Americans whose children had never tasted milk or flushed a toilet.

These are the initiating paragraphs of the article…

Early spring, in the Depression year of 1935. A poor girl from coal-mine country, a dark-haired girl of 4, rocks beside her mother and two sisters in a car moving through the rain-swept night. Soon they will join her father, a Great War veteran who pads his shoes with cardboard. He has been working for months on some distant government relief project.

When the car finally stops, the sleepy girl can see only a blur of mud and midnight. Not until morning does she take in this government project: a new American town, raised from a field by her father and other men with families caught in the stalled gears of a broken economy.

The girl is told: You’re home now, Marlane.

I had to read on and as I did I thought about how this would turn ugly in today’s America.   The Chicago Tribune and the New York Times were 1935 versions of Fox and MSNBC.  Then, like now, a lot of people didn’t like government interventions but there wasn’t a television to throw it in their face.  So the New Deal carried on and enriched some lives during the Roosevelt administration.

Some of it was disturbing.  The creation of all white communities, cod liver oil for all children, toys brought in government trucks for Christmas, and you could be evicted for not complying with the rules. According to Marlane, the rules were easy, and the home, the job, the milk, the indoor plumbing and the toys were gifts from the Roosevelts.

Jobless folks like Marlane’s parents probably did not vote, they were busy looking for a job.  Yet, the Roosevelts did everything they could think of in the time they had to create a better life for the jobless.  This upset many of the Americans who did vote.  They did not want to pay for what may have been considered the lazy and the uneducated.

There are politicians who really do want to help people.  Hard to know which  politicians are really trying to do good things for not-so-fortunate Americans.  If the the not-so-fortunate Americans get a job, a home, breath clean air, and obtain some health care,  the fortunate will not lose their fortunes?

Lately I’m thinking all political sides are ruled by corporations.  I think corporations love money and their money God creates hate and fear, which also happen to be the two key ingredients of war.

Television, which is a huge corporation, provides information.  TV is paid for by huge corporations that tell them what to tell us.  These same corporations have caused us to lose our jobs.   They told us to buy American, now they tell us it is a global economy.  I tried to buy American made products for Christmas.  I had to give everyone money — that is the only thing I could find that it is made here.  They tell us what to buy — and we do what we’re told.  Are we losing our drive, our moxy, our innovation?  Don’t be afraid of government, be afraid of corporations and television.

When I finished reading the article I wanted to comment on how well Dan Berry captured the town and Marlane’s frustrations.   Marlane loves her town and it’s history and the innovation it’s very existence represents.   I learned from the history that Dan Berry covered so well in his article.  I learned to care. Half the country cares Marlane.  The other half is watching TV and doing as they’re told.

To read the NYTimes article go to

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/25/us/25eleanor.html

I turn on news, or tennis, or golf, or whatever is watched at home  for my patients and it quite often calms them better than any medication I can provide.  They are comforted by the various personalities confirming their beliefs.  A doctor I know said, he likes to go to the Methodist church every Sunday to be surrounded by “like minds”.  It is comforting.  My friend feels the same way about the Catholic church.  We form ourselves into groups of like minds and label ourselves as conservatives or liberals or Methodists or Catholics.  We like to be around people who think like we think.  Otherwise, you feel like a freak who doesn’t belong anywhere.  We think thoughts and find people who agree with our thoughts and we hang out.

Understanding “like minds” is important.  Learning from the mistakes of history is important.  Free-thinking is important.  Freedom of religion is important.  When too many like minds get together and blindly oppose contrary information than you have “mob rule”.  When you look up liberalism in Wikipedia, you’ll find the 17th century again and some names like Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Ben Franklin and John Adams. You’ll also find  George Washington argued that a strong federal government was necessary to prevent mob rule. (AKA: town hall meetings where folks show up with guns) .  It is hard to define liberalism in one sentence; it would seem intellectual liberty, including freedom of conscience, and economic liberty, the right to have and use property, and religious freedom are in the forefront. I like all those things so yeah, I guess I’m a liberal.

I had a Facebook member accuse me of being French when I stated that no one should show up at wars.  Accused me of being French? What does that mean?  I guess the French don’t like war either.  Are there groups of like minds that like war?

We all need to be careful that our innate desire to seek out like minds doesn’t lead us into blind opposition. Blind opposition is dangerous and gets people killed and countries bombed and religions hated.  TV is for entertainment; it isn’t really a good source for facts, although,  it is a great source for blind opposition.  Churches and news stations can be comforting and entertaining.  Leave it at that.

If you go to this website and read the comments on President Obama’s planned speech to the kids of America you might laugh.  I did.  You can also read the President’s planned speech.  These are some of my favorite parts…

…at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.
Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.

Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, “I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

…you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/07/obama-speech-to-schoolchi_n_278763.html

An example of some of the comments…

But I’m sorry he is still the “other” guy. I would oppose anything he says.  (what makes him an “other”?  his blackness or his intelligence?)

Yet they lost. (right-wingers) And, inexplicably, continue to wallow in their loserosity

“Loserosity” what a great word.

I don’t want a crack head talking my kids.  (I think he meant “to” my kids)

Then don’t.

Geo.Bush isn’t giving the talk,  Ha

Well then put the pipe down and get into rehab ASAP.  Double Ha

Everyone in the United States gets educated whether or not they want to be, by law, and by the generosity of U. S.  taxpayers.  We aren’t always happy with public education so some of us pay for private education or we educate our kids ourselves with home schooling.  The folks who participate in private education and home schooling still pay in to the public system.  Should it be abolished?  Because it is socialized education?

I guess I feel the same way about health care.  I think everyone should have access to public health care.  I think that when I was a poor single mom raising my two gorgeous and healthy children that I should have been rewarded with some health care (at least).  I thank God that I never broke a bone or had a kidney stone.  My kids and I would have suffered as many do when a health tragedy strikes.  If I had not been able to work and go to school because of an illness or accident, I would have lost my jobs and been kicked out of the nursing program. I was really, really lucky and that is all.

This is America.  Many claim we are the most powerful and wealthy country in the world and yet we have “indigents”.  We set up free clinics for them because they don’t have insurance and their children are hungry.  Other countries ie: England, Japan, France, Switzerland, Germany; have systems where there are no health care indigents.  Everyone qualifies for health care.  Why are we so opposed to this? — the cost?

OK, so, lets define “indigent” deficient in what is requisite.  Lacking food, clothing, and other necessities of life because of poverty; needy; poor; impoverished.  (I looked it up on dictionary.reference.com)

They are really, really unlucky.  I wasn’t exactly indigent, but, damn close and if any kind of physical anomaly had befallen me, believe me, I’d have fit the description.  My nursing program required us to volunteer.  I chose the Salvation Army. We provided health care for the homeless with a retired cardiac surgeon.  We did good things for a lot of people and sometimes they were grateful and sometimes they were just wanting the free socks we gave them.  Some of these people were alcoholics or drug abusers and some were just really, really unlucky.  One fellow had a broken ankle.  We gave him a prescription to get an x-ray and have an orthopedic surgeon look at it at the county hospital ER.  He had no way of getting to the hospital to get this done.  I’m not sure the hospital would have done it after he got there.  Free clinics can only do so much.

So, then we have to define “requisite” essential, necessity, requirement.

What are the essential requirements of an American life? Food, shelter, clothing, good health and an education.  Some might add a car that runs vs. a sweet ride, a cell phone vs. an I-phone, a PC vs. a Mac — well, you see what I’m getting at.  Some of us think that access to health care is as essential as access to an education.  Some do not.

I’m doing OK now, I am able to afford insurance, and my children are insured.  I have a lovely home, a nice car, my children are adults and still gorgeous and healthy, and I have an income that provides for essential needs.

(Aren’t they gorgeous kids?  The best thing I’ve ever done in this life)

I whine like everyone else that the more I make the more they take. Who are they?  What are they doing with my money after they take it?  Isn’t that what we all piss and moan about?  What is this going to cost me?  I do not like it that my money was  spent killing Iraqi people, some don’t like the idea of their money being spent on a revised American health care system.  I believe that health care and the health of this planet is more important that killing people in other countries.  Our current President seems to agree.   I feel a little better about where my hard earned money is going.