There is also the fear of the unknown that is driven into our minds by the media, which is paid by speculators and gamblers.  I won’t even get in to the religious zealots that feed their line of garbage that plays on faith.  They are yelling, because if they yell loud enough people can’t hear the truth.

Meantime, 19 year olds are aiming bullets at each others heads in some sandy venue in the name of religious zealots, media hype, speculators, gamblers and that coveted Kardashian lifestyle.

Step away from the yellers and reflect in silence.  Listen to your heart and mind and seek truth.

Can a Muslim be a good American

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A conversation with a co-worker led to this inquiry.  This response from a regular American who happens to be Muslim explained plenty.  I apologize that I don’t have her name.

Ronald Reagan quoted movies and he loved his wife.  GOP/ Religious right folks love quotes and the appearance of monogamy.  No one really cares if you love your wife or if you are faithful.  Many men who say grace before dinner have or at least intend to have sex with a women who is not their wife.

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Women are sluts if they have sex and don’t intend to have children.  I guess we should just get used to the word because almost every woman I know has used birth control in order to have sex without the desire to have children.  I’m so grateful to live in modern times.  Women can give birth without intense pain thanks to epidurals.  Women can decide not to get pregnant by taking birth control.  What a wonderful world!  I’m guessing most men agree.

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It is disingenuously misleading for the Catholic Exchange to claim that Obama’s Healthcare package mandates birth control for all women.  What it does state is that all insurance companies and employers need to allow birth control for women who want it.  This is “Huge Caroline”.

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A huge difference that is.  The GOP is so opposed to our president they are shooting themselves in the foot with this one.

If the catholic church or any church for that matter wants to instill the doctrine of the church within the laws of the United States, doesn’t that go against the constitution?  Shouldn’t they pay taxes if they are so involved in healthcare law and its policies?  Isn’t the provision of birth control for women who want it a good thing for America?

I wonder if Nancy used birth control?

—————————————————————————————————————————————————— The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)  passed through both houses and was recently signed by President Obama. The Act allots $662 billion, “for the defense of the United States.”  This defense involves military health care costs, counter-terrorism, military modernization, as well as establishing economic sanctions against Iran and refocusing the strategic goals of NATO towards energy security. The part that is being hotly opposed is the counter-terrorism part and it’s detainee laws.

The entire Bill can be read if you copy and paste the link below.  Careful, there is also some really graphic stuff about sexual misconduct.  Scroll down to sections 1031 and 1032 to read specifically about the new detainee information.  

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112s1867pcs/pdf/BILLS-112s1867pcs.pdf

The military is required, through the passing of this law, to detain those thought to be tied with al Qaeda.  “ For foreign nationals accused of being members of Al Qaeda, military detention is mandatory; for U.S. citizens, it is optional. This section does not exempt U.S citizens from the presidential power of military detention: only from the requirement of military detention.”

The death of Anwar al-Awlaki involved a decision made by President Obama to kill an American citizen without a trial.  There was much discussion about the legal aspects of killing an American citizen accused of being an al Qaeda operative.   Doctrines and previous supreme court judgements deemed it permissable to kill him if capturing him was not feasible.  Another American named Sam Khan was also killed but was not targeted.  He was “collateral damage”.  Mr Khan’s family is petitioning a law suit.   Awlaki and Khan were killed by a missile strike in Yemen.  The Yemeni government secretly gave permission to the United States military to do so.  This secret permission was revealed by wikileaks. 

So there are sound reasons congress and the President might seek the ability to detain, capture or kill persons tied with al Qaeda.  They would like to be able to stop people like Awlaki before the bomb gets on the flight to Detroit or the car bomb is discovered in a SUV in Times Square.  They would like to be able to detain people like Awlaki who are plotting, but are currently protected by the rights of being an American. They want to take these people out before they take more innocent lives.  This is a good thing eh?

The concern is that this ability will be abused.  Where will the definition of al Qaeda activity begin and end?  If I wrote a book or a magazine highlighting stories about people who enjoy Taliban rule would I be considered an al Qaeda loyalist and therefore a terrorist?  Would I be an enemy of the state if I wrote such a story?  Does anyone enjoy the Taliban’s rules? –> why?   My sitting here in my American home writing my free American thoughts, could I be deemed supporting terrorism?  Could I be detained? 

This is the concern of many Americans.  Does this new law take it too far?  The President should be concerned about taking a life especially an American life without first considering whether the information he’s been given is factual and not just hateful.  Awlaki probably needed to be dead and I think the President made a good decision as did the Yemeni government in assisting that decision.  Maybe the Yemeni government wanted him dead, maybe the arms dealers wanted him dead, maybe the oil barons wanted him dead?

If  we let the dirty deeds of the bad guys destroy our free American life then the bad guys win.

The United States government pays companies to build tanks and jets to provide security and to protect the nation from bad guys.  But if the government pays a corporation to build solar panels, high speed rail, or windmills to provide energy independence  (which is a better source of security) than it is called socialist government intervention or “Big Government”.   Why isn’t it called socialist government intervention for us to subsidize the building of war machines?

Socialism is when the state owns the tank building company.  Capitalism is when the tank building company is owned by the corporation.  Subsidizing is when the state pays the corporation to build the tanks.  We have been doing this subsidizing for years.  The Federal Reserve loves it and so do the folks who build the tanks and especially those who own the tank building company.

Everybody is happy until the state says it would rather subsidize high speed rail.  The tank builder doesn’t know how to build high speed trains and therefore shouts SOCIALISM.  Corporate backed media gets on TV news and separates us.  Before you know it Americans are telling other Americans to leave the country if they’d rather have trains then tanks.

Did you know Tanks are only useful for war?  Tank builders therefore need war.  Good tanks protect our soldiers.  So here we are gladly subsidizing tank building to protect our sons.

Why can’t we also subsidize weapons of peace that contribute to energy independence?  Things like high speed rail, and Renewables.  Things that keep the planet clean and alive, and we get to live out our 70 to 80 years in peace?  Unfortunately, some people just don’t get peace.  Maybe a nice long clean peaceful life is just too boring to be enduring.

Trickle down economics isn’t causing that drip you hear, its drool.  Who cares what S&P thinks?  Except, “after the Dow Jones Industrial Average,  the S&P 500 is the most widely followed index of large-cap American stocks.”

We should all be listening to Fred.  The news is full of Standard and Poor (S&P) credit downgrade of the US’s borrowing worth.  I say, OK, so lets not borrow from them.  Lets revoke their use of ratings as a political weapon. I’ve read and read and read and can’t really find an answer.  Numbers, economics, and resources all seem to play a part.

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It may be disturbing to some to find out that not all good comes out of the wealthy corporate interests represented by the S&P’s 500.  Japan is pulling themselves out of their natural and man-made financial woes.  How?  Innovation.  It also helps that they don’t have a tea-party or christian fundamentalists standing on their drowning heads.  OK, with that sentence, I’m guessing I’ve lost about 25% of you.

Economics is nothing more than realizing that all the Earth’s resources are scarce and the study of Economics is how those resources get allocated amongst people.  A comparison of 1961 to today was made that sparked more research.  I asked my smart friend Fred  If our tax rate were the same as it was is 1961, would our deficit get payed off quicker?

and like a true economics guru he gave this reply…

Your question about the tax rate being what it was in 1961 would eliminate the deficit is a good one. The math is correct but ignores what has happened to the dollar since 1961. The top tax rate today is 35% on $357,500 of taxable income. In 1961 it was 34% on $8,000 and went as high as 91% on $200,000, $400,000 joint filers.  See http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/federalindividualratehistory-20080107.pdf for historical rates.

Reagan fixed inflation and brought us trickle down economics, which did not work, by the way. (It just brought a lot of drooling)

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Bush jr brought us cheap efficient wars, which do not end, by the way. (Cheap and efficient?  Fred, I believe your stabbing at humor here.)

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Unions built America after their military service fighting to preserve it.

Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.

Voltaire

Senate Republicans pledge that their first crack at repealing The Affordable Care Act (ACA) won’t be their last.  Some refer to it as Obama’s Health Care Law or Obamacare.  The ACA is about Freedom.  Some factions are adamantly drilling in the idea that the ACA is taking away our freedom to not have insurance.  They push the idea that the government is trying to control your body and kill your grandma. When our presidents wife suggests we grow our own food and get more exercise she is compared to Stalin.  It is OK for a child to grow up and die in a war to protect our freedom to not have health insurance?  Please read the truth…

Today, employers can begin submitting applications for the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program. Created by the Affordable Care Act, this program provides $5 billion in financial assistance to employers, unions and state and local governments to help them maintain coverage for early retirees age 55 and older who are not yet eligible for Medicare.

For too long insurance company bureaucrats have stood between Americans and their doctors. On Tuesday, President Obama announced new regulations that will crack down on unfair practices by insurers and change the balance of power back in favor of consumers – putting consumers back in charge of their health coverage and care.

Secretary Sebelius marks the three month anniversary of the Affordable Care Act with a live webchat where she will answer your questions.

Today, HHS announced new investments under the Affordable Care Act to support prevention activities and develop the nation’s public health infrastructure which will improve health and enhance health care quality.

To read more facts go to…

Most Americans without insurance don’t have insurance because they can’t afford it not because they don’t want it.  The gentleman who owns the small restaurant had to let his family plan go to keep the business afloat and ignored his chest pains.  The waitress let her private plan go after rates increased due to her kidney stones in order to pay for her condo she paid too much for in 2005.  Most emergency rooms are full of “self-pays”  because self-pays use ER’s as their only source of health care.  Preventative care does not exist for the average self-pay American.
Most restaurants and small businesses can’t afford to offer insurance plans and private plans are expensive, with high deductibles.  There are a those not yet experiencing problems with their health, but they have rent and weddings and cell phone plans to pay for and insurance premiums just don’t fit in to the budget.

The ACA will enhance our freedom — freedom from worry about accidents and sickness, freedom from worrying that if you use your insurance the rates will go up or worse yet you’ll no longer be covered, free from discrimination, free to provide insurance for our adult children, and free preventive care for seniors.

My favorite freedom is the freedom to have your own business because you are no longer forced to work in the corporate world to provide insurance for your family.  Many corporations don’t want us to have that kind of freedom and are backing politicians who convince us to keep things just as they are.

Just be careful what you wish for.

“…The health care law is little different from Social Security. The court unanimously recognized  in 1982 that it would be “difficult, if not impossible” to maintain the financial soundness of a Social Security system from which people could opt out. The same analysis holds here: by restricting certain economic choices of individuals, we ensure the vitality of a regulatory regime clearly within Congress’s power to establish. The justices aren’t likely to be misled by the reasoning that prompted two of the four federal courts that have ruled on this legislation to invalidate it on the theory that Congress is entitled to regulate only economic “activity,” not “inactivity,” like the decision not to purchase insurance. This distinction is illusory. Individuals who don’t purchase insurance they can afford have made a choice to take a free ride on the health care system. They know that if they need emergency-room care that they can’t pay for, the public will pick up the tab. This conscious choice carries serious economic consequences for the national health care market, which makes it a proper subject for federal regulation.

By LAURENCE H. TRIBE

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I feel that an individual whose actions are motivated by the wish to bring others happiness necessarily meets with less misfortune that one who does not. Sickness, old age, mishaps of one sort or another are the same for us all. But the sufferings which undermine our internal peace – anxiety, doubt, disappointment – these are definitely less.

Dalai Lama

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

Certain persons in the media have made mephistophelian 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”.

“Never talk politics or religion at the dinner table.”  Adhering to that rule makes for a peaceful dinner especially among friends and family with differing political values.  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 we need to discuss and debate, to provide the other side of a point. Informing ourselves, sharing what we’ve learned removes animosity and hatred and misunderstanding.  Not talking at all, not sharing likes and dislikes is only useful for augmenting paranoia. 

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

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