tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83340451428324443272021-12-13T22:06:59.856-08:00Joe Blow ReportEverything Is About Something Different. If you don't see the difference, that's your problem.Joe Blowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06128478097362231779noreply@blogger.comBlogger455125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8334045142832444327.post-39408554635870648592018-11-19T11:21:00.001-08:002018-11-19T11:37:07.308-08:00Communities Make Police Obsolete<div data-ft="{"tn":"H"}" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><div class="mtm" style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; margin-top: 10px;"><div style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; position: relative;"><div class="_1ktf" data-ft="{"tn":"E"}" style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; margin-left: -12px;"><a ajaxify="/BingPLOT/photos/a.262591950531255/979809332142843/?type=3&eid=ARBnc6FP2Gxg4T_kYCSSmA1fjm96ssKx54YSV61nIsfSqQKjd3vDOmkUVHgkAwIkB5KxdO7mCi719XWW&size=720%2C966&fbid=979809332142843&source=13&player_origin=unknown&__xts__%5B0%5D=68.ARCQPAVA9_n-nJmrQRgotd1rsJx4rxTrLq0nhCH52hxpKjVRTjiGr4cUyX-bqmMIMjdp3DCjshE8nKW5OjEcICvTmerVYI0yEOknUM8WczJaLDnRGC1XyT0ya4FEJVbKsvpRb5WY2zcayiHMg53_8BBVKuKxNmDzTSsdh-33MkEDw2UX3Mm3qInAztBCSDpOzHPijwHcax9kuk8U93uWtmTMgrya3f0JCBDyM5V1rl9zD_rBmboSu5uGByLeB22z-AefQNXBysdNqsLIxuIAcVOJ7XMpR2PzUwkbSpv0p_FNFSR4tsYW70emzIeZSSkjrT8ttMB5RkUSarK_FfqjRwoaLFphL3ho46BX6_8GNIdR7E4W6EpekiKfE1IoIWn2vndjskxKU5IkyzLwkoaucogeWZGlmDHN3lgtU7qo5PpDEOP4mu_La2y-RR6iXliYIASwUBYTHD4ugjm5soBj3GG-h2jpQaewCRAmh38Ss8Ze2RkAYO8Cn7vZL_NJVsY-C95uV11JRQSiLyzQP6o&__tn__=EEHH-R" class="_4-eo _2t9n _50z9" data-ft="{"tn":"E"}" data-ploi="https://scontent-sjc3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/46456058_979809338809509_5252728377189597184_o.jpg?_nc_cat=1&_nc_eui2=AeEi39ZFU99RsZa7e_5IlhBzqs2n1NBuHGxEmYty8l1nTRZ8imwMY9XXZN1gqWckNAnI9kf3ALjI9ZF-lX6Ost1WaN_5npEJk2XQT8nGN0MMCw&_nc_ht=scontent-sjc3-1.xx&oh=0d015db5645700977369fe8ff7563362&oe=5C6E4F0D" data-plsi="https://scontent-sjc3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/46493723_979809335476176_8688762025704161280_n.jpg?_nc_cat=1&_nc_eui2=AeEoRb_z_3xIVskSq_ek-nYLsLQkM_jXetkbKB0cdr5SGVSckvBRX8Egjx_imiZKt0PfY1L9nxlBhU_79qkEVX8rQQAPawED97gMCzOD-DtkOw&_nc_ht=scontent-sjc3-1.xx&oh=b89ab68de13c86749edbc25065a94cf2&oe=5C7C9CD4" data-render-location="newsstand" href="https://www.facebook.com/BingPLOT/photos/a.262591950531255/979809332142843/?type=3&eid=ARBnc6FP2Gxg4T_kYCSSmA1fjm96ssKx54YSV61nIsfSqQKjd3vDOmkUVHgkAwIkB5KxdO7mCi719XWW&__xts__%5B0%5D=68.ARCQPAVA9_n-nJmrQRgotd1rsJx4rxTrLq0nhCH52hxpKjVRTjiGr4cUyX-bqmMIMjdp3DCjshE8nKW5OjEcICvTmerVYI0yEOknUM8WczJaLDnRGC1XyT0ya4FEJVbKsvpRb5WY2zcayiHMg53_8BBVKuKxNmDzTSsdh-33MkEDw2UX3Mm3qInAztBCSDpOzHPijwHcax9kuk8U93uWtmTMgrya3f0JCBDyM5V1rl9zD_rBmboSu5uGByLeB22z-AefQNXBysdNqsLIxuIAcVOJ7XMpR2PzUwkbSpv0p_FNFSR4tsYW70emzIeZSSkjrT8ttMB5RkUSarK_FfqjRwoaLFphL3ho46BX6_8GNIdR7E4W6EpekiKfE1IoIWn2vndjskxKU5IkyzLwkoaucogeWZGlmDHN3lgtU7qo5PpDEOP4mu_La2y-RR6iXliYIASwUBYTHD4ugjm5soBj3GG-h2jpQaewCRAmh38Ss8Ze2RkAYO8Cn7vZL_NJVsY-C95uV11JRQSiLyzQP6o&__tn__=EEHH-R" rel="theater" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(54, 88, 153); 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cursor: pointer; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;" target=""><abbr class="_5ptz" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(97, 103, 112); border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; color: #616770; text-decoration: none;" title="11/17/2018 6:20pm"><span class="timestampContent" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">November 17 at 6:20 PM</span></abbr></a></span></span><span aria-hidden="true" class="_6spk" role="presentation" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"> · </span><a aria-label="Public" class="uiStreamPrivacy inlineBlock fbStreamPrivacy fbPrivacyAudienceIndicator _5pcq" data-hover="tooltip" data-tooltip-content="Public" href="https://www.facebook.com/#" role="button" style="color: #616770; cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: middle; zoom: 1;"><i class="lock img sp_ko1-s7ut-V0_2x sx_21a22d" style="-ms-high-contrast-adjust: none; background-image: url(https://static.xx.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/v3/yR/r/vuSGn0XgI4v.png); background-position-x: -13px; background-position-y: -369px; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: 53px 406px; bottom: -1px; display: inline-block; height: 12px; margin-bottom: -5px; position: relative; vertical-align: top; width: 12px;"></i></a></div></div><div class="mtm _5pco" data-ad-preview="message" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" style="color: #666666; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-top: 10px;"><div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_5bf306a771d958851642309" style="display: inline; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><div style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 12px;">"12 THINGS TO DO INSTEAD OF CALLING THE COPS:</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 12px;">1. Don't feel obligated to defend property—especially corporate "private" property. Before confronting someone or <span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">contacting the police, ask yourself if anyone is being hurt or endangered by property theft or damage. If the answer is "no," then let it be.</span></div><div class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><div style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 12px;">2. If something of yours is stolen and you need to file a report for insurance or other purposes, consider going to the police station instead of bringing cops into your community. You may inadvertently be putting someone in your neighborhood at risk.</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 12px;">3. If you observe someone exhibiting behavior that seems odd to you, don't assume that they are publicly intoxicated. A traumatic brain <br />injury or similar medical episode may be occurring. Ask if they are OK, if they have a medical condition, and if they need assistance.</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 12px;">4. If you see someone pulled over with car trouble, stop and ask if they need help or if you can call a tow truck for them. If the police are <br />introduced to such a situation, they may give punishments and unnecessary tickets to people with car issues, target those without papers, or worse.</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 12px;">5. Keep a contact list of community resources like suicide hotlines. When police are contacted to "manage" such situations, people with mental illness are sixteen times more likely to be killed by cops than those without mental health challenges. [Note: Some suicide hotlines call police and rely heavily on law enforcement. Check local hotlines and make sure you ask about their protocols.]</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 12px;">6. Check your impulse to call the police on someone you believe looks or is acting "'suspicious.” Is their race, gender, ethnicity, class, or housing situation influencing your choice? Such calls can be death sentences for many people.</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 12px;">7. Encourage teachers, coworkers, and organizers to avoid inviting police into classrooms, workplaces, and public spaces. Instead create a culture of taking care of each other and not unwittingly putting people in harm's way. If you're part of a group that's holding a rally or demonstration, DON’T get a permit or otherwise cooperate with the police.</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 12px;">8. If your neighbor is having a party and the noise is bothering you, go over and talk to them. Getting to know your neighbors with community events like block parties is a good way to make asking them to quiet down a little less uncomfortable. Or find another neighbor who is willing to do so.</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 12px;">9. If you see someone peeing in public, just look away! Remember, for example, that many homeless people do not have reliable access to bathrooms.</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 12px;">10. Hold and attend de-escalation, conflict resolution, first-aid, volunteer medic, and self-defense workshops in your neighborhood, school, workplace, or community organization. When possible, donate to these initiatives so they remain recurring.</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 12px;">11. Don't report graffiti and other street artists. If you see work that includes fascistic or hate speech, paint over it with friends.</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 12px;">12. Remember that police can escalate domestic violence situations—especially those involving people of color. You can support friends and neighbors who are being victimized by abusers by offering them a place to stay, a ride to a safe location, or to watch their children. Utilize community resources like safe houses and hotlines.</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 12px;"><span class="_5mfr" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 1px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="_6qdm" style="background-image: url("https://static.xx.fbcdn.net/images/emoji.php/v9/f59/2/16/1f44d_1f3fe.png?_nc_eui2=AeE7K8HYDlUKhZdGuUjQFsCbqKNheo5cTbA3nith3jzhK-UNowUqeAkJCutUAt9f3FPYiNym0jxVbmKV4VJRpkMuBxgHtIPf-pm4PfzHHPJbRw"); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: contain; color: transparent; display: inline-block; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; height: 16px; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; vertical-align: text-bottom; width: 16px;">👍🏾</span></span>Calling the police often escalates situations, puts people at risk, and leads to violence. Anytime you seek help from the police, you're inviting them into your community and putting people who may already be vulnerable into dangerous situations. Sometimes people feel that calling the police is the only way to deal with problems. But we can build trusted networks of mutual aid that allow us to <br />better resolve conflicts ourselves and move towards forms of transformative justice, while keeping police away from our neighborhoods."</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 12px;">Source: May Day Collective, Washtenaw Solidarity and Defense, & PLOT</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 12px;">RSVP: <a class="profileLink" data-hovercard-prefer-more-content-show="1" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/event.php?id=1865576440227929&extragetparams=%7B%22source%22%3A3%2C%22source_newsfeed_story_type%22%3A%22regular%22%2C%22action_history%22%3A%22%5B%7B%5C%22surface%5C%22%3A%5C%22newsfeed%5C%22%2C%5C%22mechanism%5C%22%3A%5C%22feed_story%5C%22%2C%5C%22extra_data%5C%22%3A%5B%5D%7D%5D%22%2C%22has_source%22%3Atrue%2C%22__tn__%22%3A%22%2CdKH-R-R%22%2C%22eid%22%3A%22ARDU5pmRmgj4n4evDG3s5Hh5Dn7dUBWso5oZM_Yv4sRoMNRq3fofLvNvIGc51XT6y-qEdMxwcpS-uf6x%22%2C%22fref%22%3A%22mentions%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/events/1865576440227929/?acontext=%7B%22source%22%3A3%2C%22source_newsfeed_story_type%22%3A%22regular%22%2C%22action_history%22%3A%22%5B%7B%5C%22surface%5C%22%3A%5C%22newsfeed%5C%22%2C%5C%22mechanism%5C%22%3A%5C%22feed_story%5C%22%2C%5C%22extra_data%5C%22%3A%5B%5D%7D%5D%22%2C%22has_source%22%3Atrue%7D&source=3&source_newsfeed_story_type=regular&action_history=%5B%7B%22surface%22%3A%22newsfeed%22%2C%22mechanism%22%3A%22feed_story%22%2C%22extra_data%22%3A%5B%5D%7D%5D&has_source=1&__tn__=KH-R&eid=ARDU5pmRmgj4n4evDG3s5Hh5Dn7dUBWso5oZM_Yv4sRoMNRq3fofLvNvIGc51XT6y-qEdMxwcpS-uf6x&fref=mentions&__xts__%5B0%5D=68.ARCQPAVA9_n-nJmrQRgotd1rsJx4rxTrLq0nhCH52hxpKjVRTjiGr4cUyX-bqmMIMjdp3DCjshE8nKW5OjEcICvTmerVYI0yEOknUM8WczJaLDnRGC1XyT0ya4FEJVbKsvpRb5WY2zcayiHMg53_8BBVKuKxNmDzTSsdh-33MkEDw2UX3Mm3qInAztBCSDpOzHPijwHcax9kuk8U93uWtmTMgrya3f0JCBDyM5V1rl9zD_rBmboSu5uGByLeB22z-AefQNXBysdNqsLIxuIAcVOJ7XMpR2PzUwkbSpv0p_FNFSR4tsYW70emzIeZSSkjrT8ttMB5RkUSarK_FfqjRwoaLFphL3ho46BX6_8GNIdR7E4W6EpekiKfE1IoIWn2vndjskxKU5IkyzLwkoaucogeWZGlmDHN3lgtU7qo5PpDEOP4mu_La2y-RR6iXliYIASwUBYTHD4ugjm5soBj3GG-h2jpQaewCRAmh38Ss8Ze2RkAYO8Cn7vZL_NJVsY-C95uV11JRQSiLyzQP6o" style="color: #365899; cursor: pointer; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;">PLOT: Bystander Intervention Training</a></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 12px;">PDF: <a data-ft="{"tn":"-U"}" data-lynx-mode="origin" data-lynx-uri="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fdrive.google.com%2Ffile%2Fd%2F1BZhBZu1oN3VdbVz23lQga2DCyT6y5VEt%2F%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR3u7_UoJ4y3K3l6C79XcR3kks3KD_1VBJN1fmrmcx8gllzEfq2kYNCGAUA&h=AT0Rc7egow4lX_kyZQ_8vflLfEQUp0ZhQSrWLRzNDpdSXFwXSB7Iri-ri4iIqSzjmfqeNdMi3I0uzHgOHqhRUn4wCc2HY_9E7xLMLaAsVYoPvB9jdM3CVf6h3ofDfpanxqy9N2f__-oBcisqSFmZnKmvvZtywB0HZxYVMAIw0_FI2cHUpUDCeD-DhSiLzsLorOeY64IG5yjCOBEypxcTKapFn6hBnxJ459lNxAcRIhfokPyENiWVhd0NjVyz4Ef9IJCC11gpn89Giwet3XpjnblsAnokNeVQbiCN89jlQWCAIe4udO0rMxmhvusq4xCt3WcYHCegYFRVlM7ouvWPw0Grgtqz3dqu8Z8HcWsmajuZBN1P8MqZQZTngrSVibtg7nmEmyIxY0rH2sWkDS4lfOxDrIBtonhXE3T64_poC6g9ZuRMm_a0S1KMePQ-XILpyi19WruVYWsHdYYJtHV_VxQo1SS8xBXPnRrPLt9uMi-Hwe3SJSFFciz5pG8XMWV75h1_vZuabvRHnc3rJqDyailzHdX6oM4VJLcagnBl4OU4V9y2NUr1Ya9m9TvSSndPK3btqb_1Bv3DIjbblp8qGuITC62PtIfd_kO44E0i3tsHOcFYN7_WRhqbg8vsqrPzcAHM4vnBndXS1mGK6eYh_X_l8EgIRXwzWx9o1LQHoOOAtl103ase-Io8XzXXAItcDjneDN3dMphJUZPy9pYlWYTRfISj773pPM66AVUCyWpoPpvLPomKjbZ0swivFD5abuAN84SOxhslGslq0-E_a0Yg0RvQkED-08U5LebFFKZSPyKZ38PWZ_lCwFe45o_sc0zsT4P94r2MVpdGEVj7PSTGsh_TsTn5xQ_sKrj8isVTPw" href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BZhBZu1oN3VdbVz23lQga2DCyT6y5VEt/?fbclid=IwAR3u7_UoJ4y3K3l6C79XcR3kks3KD_1VBJN1fmrmcx8gllzEfq2kYNCGAUA" rel="nofollow" style="color: #365899; cursor: pointer; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">https://drive.google.com/…/1BZhBZu1oN3VdbVz23lQga2DCyT6y5V…/</a></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 12px;">Note: These are (intentionally) not "one-size-fits-all" solutions. Looking for one-size-fits-all solutions is (in part) how we ended up with excessive reliance on the police. How we intervene or respond to harm is dictated by each specific situation, risk assessment, what resources and privilege are at our disposal, and the community. Community building requires nuance, open-mindedness, and work. This resource is merely one, non-conclusive tool among many. </div><div style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 12px;">In solidarity,</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 12px;">PLOT</div></div></div></div></div><b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><br /><br /><hr /><div style="text-align: right;"><i><b>--Joe</b></i></div>Joe Blowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06128478097362231779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8334045142832444327.post-91195691558951880212018-06-29T12:05:00.002-07:002018-07-04T16:41:57.933-07:00You Get The Government You Deserve<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/--a30_ZYwzHw/WywR3LULsJI/AAAAAAAAB-I/Oa0f3N_KY3klp96uB57DOdLSojqRNx5DACLcBGAs/s1600/440px-Jmaistre.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="579" data-original-width="440" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/--a30_ZYwzHw/WywR3LULsJI/AAAAAAAAB-I/Oa0f3N_KY3klp96uB57DOdLSojqRNx5DACLcBGAs/s200/440px-Jmaistre.jpg" width="151" /></a></div>How many times have you heard that in your lifetime, "You get the government you deserve" or "you get the police you deserve"? Not many, I'll bet.<br /><br />Funny how great minds work. I catch hell every time I post this in a comment on the Internet. I wondered who else had come to the same conclusion, so I did a search. It seems a Frenchman by the name, Joseph de Maistre (1 April 1753 – 26 February 1821) was a Savoyard lawyer, diplomat, writer, and philosopher, beat me to it by more than 200 years.<br /><br />He also said, something else close to my heart: "False opinions are like false money, struck first of all by guilty men and thereafter circulated by honest people who perpetuate the crime without knowing what they are doing." So attributed to a majority of Liberal Type Americans today.<br /><br />And his premonition of America's future, providing there is no accountability brought to bear upon the Democrats and their Media accomplices for their assaults on the Law and the end of Democracy. "All grandeur, all power, all subordination to authority rests on the executioner: he is the horror and the bond of human association. Remove this incomprehensible agent from the world and at that very moment order gives way to chaos, thrones topple and society disappears."<br /><br />Here is a good example of what he is talking about that I got from Facebook.<br /><br /><b>Maxine Waters is Crazy:</b><br /><b><br /></b><b>ALERT: Maxine Waters fires up Leftist mob to attack Trump Administration officials, one year after Leftist activist attempted to assassinate Republican lawmakers during Congressional baseball game.</b><br /><br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="315" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fdailycallout%2Fvideos%2F2070628206538552%2F&show_text=0&width=560" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="560"></iframe><br />This is what happens just before neighbors start killing one another. Everyone has the legal right to defend their family from these kinds of threats and assaults. This woman is fomenting insurrection, plain and simple. A few are beginning to see the light.<br /><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><div dir="ltr" lang="en">What's on TV is a political tactic but something else terrifying is going on. Formerly responsible ppl suddenly sound like extremists. Left's no longer working to convince those who disagree. They’re trying to destroy those in the way. It’s not a pose. They're sincere. It's war.</div>— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) <a href="https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1009238727057649664?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 20, 2018</a> on Facebook.</blockquote>Another:<br /><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><div dir="ltr" lang="en">I really truly hope this is just a horrible joke. Sick sick stuff. <a href="https://t.co/VggjNhkYbw">https://pic.twitter.com/VggjNhkYbw</a></div>— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) <a href="https://twitter.com/PrisonPlanet/status/1012755472737275904?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 29, 2018</a></blockquote>More than sick. This is the ultimate of evil. America is on the cusp and needs to decide: Live by the Law, defend, protect and honor the U.S. Constitution - Stop at stop signs - Full Stop. Or die by lawless corruption, anarchy and chaos. We are in the midst of the most deadly assault on Democracy since its inception and it comes in the guise of a harpy.<br /><br /><b>You Really Do Get The Government You Deserve.</b><br /><br /><b>FOURTH OF JULY UPPDATE </b><br />We should all understand, I would think, that our American Constitutional Democracy is predicated upon three legs, Legislative, Executive and Judicial. Destroy one leg or branch and the legal system of government fails. Yet a few days ago tens of thousands of well-intentioned, ill-informed and misguided people were doing just that all over the country: Demanding the Executive (President Trump) stop enforcing the law. These so-called demonstrations were a direct seditious assault on American Democracy. Here is a link to one of a local demonstrator's website posting: <a href="https://kunsoo1024.wordpress.com/2018/06/30/some-shots-from-todays-keep-families-together-march/" target="_blank"><b>Some shots from today’s Keep Families Together march</b></a> in Eureka.<br /><b></b><br />The Founding Fathers may have formulated the Revolution's successful government on an idea, I'll guarantee you that idea was not the corrupt, wanton idea of freedom we see enforced today in all facets of our lives with absolutely no accountability. Neither the law nor the Constitution gives anyone the freedom or right to harass, intimidate or threaten by act or voice. We do have the right to defend ourselves and our families. We can start by complying with and demanding every law be enforced. -- A good way to celebrate the Fourth. Even though, the truth be known, we're in the throes of a civil war right now.<br /><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script> <br /><hr /><div style="text-align: right;"><i><b>--Joe</b></i></div>Joe Blowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06128478097362231779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8334045142832444327.post-12725939094351503812017-08-22T11:02:00.000-07:002017-08-22T11:02:55.880-07:00<h2>Name Them One By One </h2>By <a href="https://ronniemcbrayer.org/2017/08/21/name-them-one-by-one/" target="_blank">ronniemcbrayer</a> August 21, 2017 <br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TrEVnN-yn9g/WZxuLhFAJxI/AAAAAAAAB9o/JxPsFTb4YCQatUmY1iiZwXtCp5gLSgYcQCLcBGAs/s1600/blessings.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="340" height="158" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TrEVnN-yn9g/WZxuLhFAJxI/AAAAAAAAB9o/JxPsFTb4YCQatUmY1iiZwXtCp5gLSgYcQCLcBGAs/s200/blessings.jpg" width="200" /></a><span class="s1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">Dr. Robert Emmons of the University of California and Dr. Michael McCullough of the University of Miami, asked participants in a months-long experiment to write down a few sentences each week. A third of the group was told to write about things for which they were grateful. A third of the group wrote about daily irritations, the things that made them mad. The last one-third wrote about general events with no emphasis on the negative or positive. </span></div><div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;"></div><div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="s1">After a few months, those who catalogued their gratitude were more optimistic and generally felt better about their lives and the world than the other participants. And the “thankful” group exercised more, had fewer visits to physicians, and experienced less anxiety. Active gratitude, the researchers learned, is good for people: Spiritually, emotionally, psychologically, and physically.</span><br /><br /></div><div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="s1">There’s an old hymn we sang in the churches of my youth that could serve as supplemental material to the above research. It is entitled, “Count Your Blessings,” and a stanza of it goes: “When upon life’s billows you are tempest tossed, when you are discouraged, thinking all is lost. Count your many blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done.”</span><br /><br /></div><div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="s1">You have so much for which to be thankful, and while naming these blessings “one by one” might prove to be a list impossibly long, it would do you good to make a start of it. Consider your restful night of sleep and a good mattress; the roof over your head; for strong coffee in the early morning – and even the easy access to cream and sugar – to make that coffee the way you want it. </span><br /><br /></div><div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="s1">If you have clean clothes and transportation; for safe travels along the way when so much could go wrong; for a welcoming house of worship; for close friends with whom you share life; for the people who serve you at restaurants, change the oil in your car, teach your children, keep your lights on, and who look after your safety on so many levels.</span><br /><br /></div><div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="s1">There is the technology to easily communicate with your loved ones; for air conditioning, bug repellant, and cold beer; for home-cooked meals, music that moves your soul and speaks to your heart; for the beauty of art, the sustaining rain, and the glorious sunsets.</span><br /><br /></div><div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="s1">And I haven’t even gotten to “the biggies” yet! Your spouse; children and grandchildren; your health; your ability to make a living; for the unconditional love of a child or a dog; for the senses of sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch; for having this chance – this one marvelous chance – to be fearfully and wonderfully made.</span><br /><br /><span class="s1">Meister Eckhart, a German mystic from seven centuries ago, said, “If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is ‘Thank you,’ it will be enough.” I think that is right, for gratitude is the truest act of worship. That, and it is good for you in almost every other way conceivable, as well.</span><b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></div><hr /><div style="text-align: right;"><i><b>--Joe</b></i></div>Joe Blowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06128478097362231779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8334045142832444327.post-63024338772649005922016-11-07T09:16:00.000-08:002016-11-07T09:16:57.981-08:00Voting as "a Citizen of the Kingdom of God"<b>The value of being a real citizen is not your worthless vote. How many time have I been down this road in my lifetime?</b><br /><br /><hr /><h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://ronniemcbrayer.org/2016/11/07/i-cant-vote-for-him-and-wont-vote-for-her/" rel="bookmark">I Can’t Vote For Him And Won’t Vote For Her</a></h1><div class="entry-meta"><a class="entry-author" href="https://ronniemcbrayer.org/author/ronniemcbrayer/" title="View all posts by ronniemcbrayer"><span style="color: #607811;">By ronniemcbrayer</span></a> <a class="permalink" href="https://ronniemcbrayer.org/2016/11/07/i-cant-vote-for-him-and-wont-vote-for-her/" rel="bookmark" title="5:00 AM"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2016-11-07T05:00:42+00:00" pubdate=""><span style="color: #607811;">November 7, 2016</span></time></a> <br /> </div><!-- .entry-author --> <br /><div class="entry-content"><div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://ronniemcbrayer.org/vote/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="vote" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-2718" height="225" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" src="https://ronniemcbrayer.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/vote.jpg" width="300" /></a><span class="s1">I have never made a political endorsement, not in the conventional sense. This is because Christendom has committed a great many sins in its insatiable thirst for power over the centuries. In fact, the quest for power is the church’s most heinous sin. So officially aligning a congregation with any political party – left, right, or populist – only perpetuates this transgression. </span><span class="s1">However, as this unprecedented election season comes to a merciful close, I am making my first endorsement: I can’t vote for “him,” and I won’t vote for “her.” Neither will I vote for any of the half-dozen candidates on the presidential ballot. </span><br /><br /></div><div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="s1">My faith, shaped as it is by Quakerism, the Anabaptists, and what historians call the “Radical Reformation,” leads me to live life based on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. This “manifesto,” found in Matthew 5-7, describes how Jesus’ followers are to live as citizens in what he called, “The Kingdom of God.” </span><span class="s1">Per the Sermon, those in this Kingdom value humility, meekness, mercy, justice-seeking, and peace-making. Jesus’ followers are to be wary of lust, dishonesty, and anger. He instructs us to love our enemies, to do good to those who don’t deserve it, to resist violence and its escalation, and “to turn the other cheek.” </span><br /><br /></div><div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="s1">He warns us of unbridled greed and how chasing after more wealth only leads to greater anxiety. Then he sums it all up with what could be called an Oath of Citizenship: “Treat everybody the way you would want to be treated, love God, and love your neighbor as yourself.”</span><br /><br /></div><div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="s1">It’s not inaccurate to conclude that our political candidates and national leaders have intentionally modeled and organized themselves in the opposite fashion of Jesus’ instructions. Our entire political-societal complex is constructed on dishonesty, arrogance, violence, indignity, rage, vengeance, and getting ahead at someone else’s expense. I can’t achieve the cognitive dissonance required to reconcile these inconsistencies.</span><br /><br /></div><div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="s1">“Believe me,” I know the objections: “You have to choose the lesser of the evils!” But what if I consider the whole nationalistic system as evil? “People died to give you the privilege to vote!” Did Jesus not die for the principles he taught and lived? “It’s irresponsible not to participate!” Can faithfulness to conscious ever be considered irresponsible? </span><span class="s1">“If you don’t love it, leave it!” Do you now see why the language of exile, wandering, and being “strangers in a strange land,” was so common among Jesus’ earliest followers? “But if you aren’t involved nothing will ever change for the better!” Why can’t I be involved on the margins, as Jesus and the prophets of old were, pointing to how life could be if only we would have it?</span><br /><br /></div><div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="s1">Simply put, the American Way and the Jesus Way are not always compatible. And when they are not, I must aspire – failing as I often will – to show my primary allegiance to Christ. For I am an expatriate: A resident of the United States, but a citizen of the Kingdom of God.</span><b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></div></div><a href="https://ronniemcbrayer.org/2016/11/07/i-cant-vote-for-him-and-wont-vote-for-her/" target="_blank"><b>Ronnie McBrayer</b></a><br /><hr /><div style="text-align: right;"><b><i>--Joe</i></b></div>Joe Blowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06128478097362231779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8334045142832444327.post-54955404844559987712016-10-10T12:01:00.001-07:002016-10-10T12:07:52.152-07:00An Old Zen Story - An Apt Lesson For Donald Trump<h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://ronniemcbrayer.org/2016/10/10/unwanted-gifts/" rel="bookmark">Unwanted Gifts</a></h1><!-- .entry-author --> <br /><div class="entry-content"><div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://ronniemcbrayer.org/gift/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="gift" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-2685" height="156" originalw="812" scale="4" src="https://ronniemcbrayer.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/gift.jpeg?w=812" width="200" /></a><br /><span class="s1"></span></div><div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;"></div><div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;">There is a Zen story about a young, impetuous warrior who sought to defeat a great Master in battle. The young man was certain he could dispatch the old sensei with great fanfare and boost his reputation. The Master’s students begged the old man not to accept the challenge, but he resolutely agreed to the fight. The entire village gathered as the young warrior began the contest by striking at the Master with a staff. Skillfully, the Master deflected every blow, and every kick or punch that followed. Yet, the Master never made an offensive move. Frustrated by this, the young warrior resorted to nasty tactics.</div><div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;"><br />Throwing rocks, spitting in the Master’s face, shrieking insults, and defaming the great teacher’s ancestors: After hours of such provocation, the young warrior finally gave up and left. The Master’s students hurried to him, confused. “How could you not retaliate?” they asked, and “Why did you allow him to insult your honor without consequence?”</div><div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;"><br />The old Master answered, “If someone offers you a gift but you refuse its acceptance, then to whom does that gift belong?” One of the students answered, “To the one who tried to offer it.” The Master smiled. “Yes,” he said. “And the same goes for anger, misery, and insults. If you refuse to accept these, they will be carried away by the one who tried to burden you with them.”</div><div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;"><br />There could hardly be a more truthful lesson than this; and there could hardly be a more timely lesson for our own day. We are so eager to blame the words, actions, and emotions of others for our own behaviors. We readily accept the “gifts” of anger, insult, and disrespect that are dished out, and are then forced to unload their heavy burden. We are made miserable, and thus, mete out misery. We take the hatefulness spewed in our direction, internalize and personalize it, and in turn become hateful. We accept, rather than deflect, hurt and conversely become hurtful people. Paraphrasing Father Richard Rohr, he believes more pain is inflicted in this world by those who TAKE offense rather than those who GIVE offense. We are enthusiastic acceptors, taking whatever is directed at us.</div><div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;"><br />As old as this Zen story is the Hebrew proverb, a proverb with the same lesson: “Do not say, ‘I will do to him as he has done to me;’ no, wait for the Lord.” This is picked up multiple times in the New Testament: “Repay no one evil for evil, but so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all,” the Apostles said. And no less than Jesus told his disciples, “Do not try to get even with a person who has done something to you.” </div><div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;"><br />A bumpersticker may sum up this lesson best: “No one can drive you crazy unless you give them the keys.” Amen. You – and only you – are the one responsible for your own feelings, actions, and reactions. Otherwise, you are bearing the weight of an unwanted gift.<br /><br /><b>[</b><a href="https://ronniemcbrayer.org/2016/10/10/unwanted-gifts/" target="_blank"><b>Unwanted Gifts</b></a><b>] - </b><a class="entry-author" href="https://ronniemcbrayer.org/author/ronniemcbrayer/" title="View all posts by ronniemcbrayer"><span style="color: #607811;">By ronniemcbrayer</span></a> <a class="permalink" href="https://ronniemcbrayer.org/2016/10/10/unwanted-gifts/" rel="bookmark" title="5:00 AM"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2016-10-10T05:00:36+00:00" pubdate=""><span style="color: #607811;">October 10, 2016</span></time></a></div></div><hr /><div style="text-align: right;"><b><i>--Joe</i></b></div>Joe Blowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06128478097362231779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8334045142832444327.post-15630593850881066402016-10-10T12:01:00.000-07:002016-10-10T12:03:33.109-07:00An Old Zen Story - An Apt Lesson For Donald Trump<h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://ronniemcbrayer.org/2016/10/10/unwanted-gifts/" rel="bookmark">Unwanted Gifts</a></h1><div class="entry-meta"><a class="entry-author" href="https://ronniemcbrayer.org/author/ronniemcbrayer/" title="View all posts by ronniemcbrayer"><span style="color: #607811;">By ronniemcbrayer</span></a> <a class="permalink" href="https://ronniemcbrayer.org/2016/10/10/unwanted-gifts/" rel="bookmark" title="5:00 AM"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2016-10-10T05:00:36+00:00" pubdate=""><span style="color: #607811;">October 10, 2016</span></time></a> <br /> </div><!-- .entry-author --> <br /><div class="entry-content"><div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://ronniemcbrayer.org/gift/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="gift" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-2685" height="156" originalw="812" scale="4" src="https://ronniemcbrayer.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/gift.jpeg?w=812" width="200" /></a><br /><span class="s1"></span></div><div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;"></div><div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;">There is a Zen story about a young, impetuous warrior who sought to defeat a great Master in battle. The young man was certain he could dispatch the old sensei with great fanfare and boost his reputation. The Master’s students begged the old man not to accept the challenge, but he resolutely agreed to the fight. The entire village gathered as the young warrior began the contest by striking at the Master with a staff. Skillfully, the Master deflected every blow, and every kick or punch that followed. Yet, the Master never made an offensive move. Frustrated by this, the young warrior resorted to nasty tactics.</div><div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;"><br />Throwing rocks, spitting in the Master’s face, shrieking insults, and defaming the great teacher’s ancestors: After hours of such provocation, the young warrior finally gave up and left. The Master’s students hurried to him, confused. “How could you not retaliate?” they asked, and “Why did you allow him to insult your honor without consequence?”</div><div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;"><br />The old Master answered, “If someone offers you a gift but you refuse its acceptance, then to whom does that gift belong?” One of the students answered, “To the one who tried to offer it.” The Master smiled. “Yes,” he said. “And the same goes for anger, misery, and insults. If you refuse to accept these, they will be carried away by the one who tried to burden you with them.”</div><div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;"><br />There could hardly be a more truthful lesson than this; and there could hardly be a more timely lesson for our own day. We are so eager to blame the words, actions, and emotions of others for our own behaviors. We readily accept the “gifts” of anger, insult, and disrespect that are dished out, and are then forced to unload their heavy burden. We are made miserable, and thus, mete out misery. We take the hatefulness spewed in our direction, internalize and personalize it, and in turn become hateful. We accept, rather than deflect, hurt and conversely become hurtful people. Paraphrasing Father Richard Rohr, he believes more pain is inflicted in this world by those who TAKE offense rather than those who GIVE offense. We are enthusiastic acceptors, taking whatever is directed at us.</div><div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;"><br />As old as this Zen story is the Hebrew proverb, a proverb with the same lesson: “Do not say, ‘I will do to him as he has done to me;’ no, wait for the Lord.” This is picked up multiple times in the New Testament: “Repay no one evil for evil, but so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all,” the Apostles said. And no less than Jesus told his disciples, “Do not try to get even with a person who has done something to you.” </div><div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;"><br />A bumpersticker may sum up this lesson best: “No one can drive you crazy unless you give them the keys.” Amen. You – and only you – are the one responsible for your own feelings, actions, and reactions. Otherwise, you are bearing the weight of an unwanted gift.<br /><br /><b>[</b><a href="https://ronniemcbrayer.org/2016/10/10/unwanted-gifts/" target="_blank"><b>Unwanted Gifts</b></a><b>]</b></div></div><hr /><div style="text-align: right;"><b><i>--Joe</i></b></div>Joe Blowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06128478097362231779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8334045142832444327.post-30344723416688106592016-08-18T13:05:00.001-07:002016-08-18T13:07:36.809-07:00IF<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4GOb5GnCggw/V7YUrc9Fc7I/AAAAAAAAB8s/lQE0FARDBnIwHbMSGy5fGf7cQgSf6_yzQCLcB/s1600/Kipling.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4GOb5GnCggw/V7YUrc9Fc7I/AAAAAAAAB8s/lQE0FARDBnIwHbMSGy5fGf7cQgSf6_yzQCLcB/s200/Kipling.png" width="150" /></a></div><i>If you can keep your head when all about you<br /> Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,<br /> If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you.<br /> But make allowance for their doubting too;<br /> If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,<br /> Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,<br /> Or being hated, don't give way to hating,<br /> And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise: </i><br /><i><br /></i><i>If you can dream - and not make your dreams your master<br /> If you can think - and not make your thoughts your aim<br /> If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster<br /> And treat those two imposters just the same;<br /> If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken<br /> Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools.<br /> Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,<br /> And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools: </i><br /><i><br /></i><i>If you can make one heap of all your winnings<br /> And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,<br /> And lose, and start again at your beginnings<br /> And never breathe a word about your loss;<br /> If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew<br /> To serve your turn long after they are gone,<br /> And so hold on when there is nothing in you<br /> Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!' </i><br /><i><br /></i><i>If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,<br /> Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,<br /> If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,<br /> If all men count with you, but none too much;<br /> If you can fill the unforgiving minute<br /> With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,<br /> Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,<br /> And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!</i><br />--Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><br /><br /><hr /><br />Not many of these kind of people around.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><b><i>-Joe</i></b></div>Joe Blowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06128478097362231779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8334045142832444327.post-75885017363795999922016-07-31T14:05:00.000-07:002016-07-31T18:02:35.756-07:00Settle Down. Lighten Up. Carry On<a href="https://ronniemcbrayer.net/author/ronniemcbrayer/" target="_blank">By Ronnie McBrayer</a><br /><br /><hr /><br /><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-I6Qz8jDZMqM/V55mn-RTJPI/AAAAAAAAB8c/uXtHmvOhAc08FM8Wfl3-SjWiNhQ5FPg0ACLcB/s1600/073115_AppleSeeds-2c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-I6Qz8jDZMqM/V55mn-RTJPI/AAAAAAAAB8c/uXtHmvOhAc08FM8Wfl3-SjWiNhQ5FPg0ACLcB/s1600/073115_AppleSeeds-2c.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://ronniemcbrayer.net/2016/07/28/a-farmers-advice/" target="_blank">“A Farmer’s Advice”</a></span></div>July 28, 2016 <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">I shared part of an excerpt this past Sunday entitled, “A Farmer’s Advice.” It is printed below. For a variation of the full quotation, see the “Appleseeds” website at: http://www.appleseeds.org. Enjoy!<br /><br />“Your fences need to be horse-high, pig-tight, and bull-strong…<br /><br />Life is simpler when you plow around some stumps…<br /><br />Hornets are considerably faster than a John Deere tractor…<br /><br />Words that soak into your ears are whispered, not yelled…<br /><br />Meanness don’t just happen overnight…<br /><br />Forgive your enemies not just because Jesus said so, but because it messes up their heads… </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Never corner something that you know is meaner than you are…<br /><br />A dog can whip a pig most every time, but in the end, both will be dirty and the pig likes it that way…<br /><br />Most of the stuff people worry about ain’t never gonna happen…<br /><br />Don’t judge folks by their relatives…<br /><br />Sometimes silence is the best answer…<br /><br />Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll enjoy it a second time… </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Don’t interfere with somethin’ that ain’t botherin’ you none…<br /><br />Always drink upstream from herd…<br /><br />Good judgment comes from experience, and a whole lot of experience comes from bad judgment…<br /><br />Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.”</blockquote><hr />Ronnie McBrayer had a weekly column in the Times-Standard Newspaper.<br /><div style="text-align: right;"><b><i>--Joe</i></b></div>Joe Blowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06128478097362231779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8334045142832444327.post-17953615905398137982016-06-25T15:47:00.000-07:002016-06-25T15:47:30.018-07:00Take A Deep Breath Eureka<b>... the air is sweet.</b><b><br /></b><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-c8wbQfZt3lU/V28F2q9_u0I/AAAAAAAAB78/GhLi--pXGzQM5bbC799N2uCVt_sdKn1MACLcB/s1600/062516-Sotomayor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-c8wbQfZt3lU/V28F2q9_u0I/AAAAAAAAB78/GhLi--pXGzQM5bbC799N2uCVt_sdKn1MACLcB/s320/062516-Sotomayor.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><b><a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2016/6/21/headlines/justice_sotomayor_cites_ta_nehisi_coates_michelle_alexander_in_powerful_dissent_on_police_powers" target="_blank">Justice Sotomayor in [a] Powerful Dissent on Police Powers</a></b></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">The Supreme Court has ruled evidence of a crime can still be used in some cases even if police obtained it illegally. While the 5-3 ruling deals a blow to civil rights in favor of police powers, it is likely to be remembered largely for the powerful dissent penned by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latina justice on the court. In a ruling that cited Michelle Alexander, James Baldwin and Ta-Nehisi Coates, Sotomayor wrote that "it is no secret that people of color are disproportionate victims" of police searches. She concluded her argument: "By legitimizing the conduct that produces this double consciousness, this case tells everyone, white and black, guilty and innocent, that an officer can verify your legal status at any time. It says that your body is subject to invasion while courts excuse the violation of your rights. It implies that you are not a citizen of a democracy but the subject of a carceral state, just waiting to be cataloged. We must not pretend that the countless people who are routinely targeted by police are 'isolated.' They are the canaries in the coal mine whose deaths, civil and literal, warn us that no one can breathe in this atmosphere. They are the ones who recognize that unlawful police stops corrode all our civil liberties and threaten all our lives. Until their voices matter too, our justice system will continue to be anything but. <b><i>I dissent</i></b>." The words of Justice Sonia Sotomayor. [Emphasis mine.]</blockquote></div><hr /><b>As do I.</b><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><b><i>--JB</i></b></div>Joe Blowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06128478097362231779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8334045142832444327.post-45753492188895505452016-04-30T16:00:00.003-07:002016-04-30T16:00:28.727-07:00The Importance of Being a Person of Value<b>Or becoming self-actualized - the difference between me and you.</b><br />[Self-actualized people are those who were fulfilled and doing all they were capable of.]<br /><br /><hr /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-07IR6MwZfgk/VyUx0AQ248I/AAAAAAAAB7s/P_6u6l_j_5ITe-ZZgCIXYkzxch0n25fhACLcB/s1600/simply-psychology.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-07IR6MwZfgk/VyUx0AQ248I/AAAAAAAAB7s/P_6u6l_j_5ITe-ZZgCIXYkzxch0n25fhACLcB/s1600/simply-psychology.gif" /></a></div><h2><span itemprop="keywords">Self-actualization</span></h2><br />Instead of focusing on <a href="http://www.simplypsychology.org/abnormal-psychology.html">psychopathology</a> and what goes wrong with people, Maslow (1943) formulated a more positive account of human behavior which focused on what goes right. He was interested in human potential, and how we fulfill that potential. <br /><span class="pull-left" id="calloutImage" style="margin-right: 15px;"> <span id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-602"></span></span> <br />Psychologist Abraham Maslow (1943, 1954) stated that human motivation is based on people seeking fulfillment and change through personal growth. Self-actualized people are those who were fulfilled and doing all they were capable of. <br /><span class="pull-right" id="calloutImage2" style="margin-left: 15px;"><span id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-621"></span></span><br />The growth of self-actualization (Maslow, 1962) refers to the need for personal growth and discovery that is present throughout a person’s life. For Maslow, a person is always 'becoming' and never remains static in these terms. In self-actualization a person comes to find a meaning to life that is important to them. <br /><span class="pull-right" id="calloutImage2" style="margin-left: 15px;"><span id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-622"></span></span><br />As each person is unique the motivation for self-actualization leads people in different directions (Kenrick et al., 2010). For some people self-actualization can be achieved through creating works of art or literature, for others through sport, in the classroom, or within a corporate setting.<br /><span class="pull-right" id="calloutImage2" style="margin-left: 15px;"><span id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-623"></span></span><br />Maslow (1962) believed self-actualization could be measured through the concept of peak experiences. This occurs when a person experiences the world totally for what it is, and there are feelings of euphoria, joy and wonder.<br /><br />It is important to note that self-actualization is a continual process of becoming rather than a perfect state one reaches of a 'happy ever after' (Hoffman, 1988).<br /><br /><a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="quote"></a>Maslow offers the following description of self-actualization: <br /><br /><div class="notice">'It refers to the person’s desire for self-fulfillment, namely, to the tendency for him to become actualized in what he is potentially.<br /><br />The specific form that these needs will take will of course vary greatly from person to person. In one individual it may take the form of the desire to be an ideal mother, in another it may be expressed athletically, and in still another it may be expressed in painting pictures or in inventions' (Maslow, 1943, p. 382–383).</div><br /><hr /><a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="self2"></a><br /><h2>Maslow (1968): Some of the characteristics of self-actualized people</h2><span class="pull-right" style="margin-left: 15px;"><span id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-618"></span></span><br />Although we are all, theoretically, capable of self-actualizing, most of us will not do so, or only to a limited degree. Maslow (1970) estimated that only two percent of people will reach the state of self actualization. He was particularly interested in the characteristics of people whom he considered to have achieved their potential as persons.<br /><br />By studying 18 people he considered to be self-actualized (including Abraham Lincoln and Albert Einstein) Maslow (1970) identified 15 characteristics of a self-actualized person. <br /><br /><h3><strong>Characteristics of self-actualizers:</strong></h3>1. They perceive reality efficiently and can tolerate uncertainty;<br />2. Accept themselves and others for what they are;<br />3. Spontaneous in thought and action;<br />4. Problem-centered (not self-centered);<br />5. Unusual sense of humor;<br />6. Able to look at life objectively;<br />7. Highly creative;<br />8. Resistant to enculturation, but not purposely unconventional;<br />9. Concerned for the welfare of humanity;<br />10. Capable of deep appreciation of basic life-experience;<br />11. Establish deep satisfying interpersonal relationships with a few people;<br />12. Peak experiences;<br />13. Need for privacy;<br />14. Democratic attitudes;<br />15. Strong moral/ethical standards.<br /><br /><h3><strong>Behavior leading to self-actualization:</strong></h3>(a) Experiencing life like a child, with full absorption and concentration;<br />(b) Trying new things instead of sticking to safe paths;<br />(c) Listening to your own feelings in evaluating experiences instead of the voice of tradition, authority or the majority;<br />(d) Avoiding pretense ('game playing') and being honest;<br />(e) Being prepared to be unpopular if your views do not coincide with those of the majority;<br />(f) Taking responsibility and working hard;<br />(g) Trying to identify your defenses and having the courage to give them up.<br /><br />The characteristics of self-actualizers and the behaviors leading to self-actualization are shown in the list above. Although people achieve self-actualization in their own unique way, they tend to share certain characteristics. However, self-actualization is a matter of degree, 'There are no perfect human beings' (Maslow,<span class="st">1970a, p. 176</span>).<br /><br />It is not necessary to display all 15 characteristics to become self-actualized, and not only self-actualized people will display them. Maslow did not equate self-actualization with perfection. Self-actualization merely involves achieving ones potential. Thus, someone can be silly, wasteful, vain and impolite, and still self-actualize. Less than two percent of the population achieve self-actualization.<br /><div align="center"><span id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-642"></span></div><hr /><br /><br /><h2>Educational applications</h2><span class="pull-right" style="margin-left: 15px;"><span id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-625"></span></span><br />Maslow's (1968) hierarchy of needs theory has made a major contribution to teaching and classroom management in schools. Rather than reducing behavior to a <a href="http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html">response in the environment</a>, Maslow (1970a) adopts a holistic approach to education and learning. Maslow looks at the entire physical, emotional, social, and intellectual qualities of an individual and how they impact on learning. <br /><span class="pull-right" style="margin-left: 15px;"><span id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-654"></span></span> <br />Applications of Maslow's hierarchy theory to the work of the classroom teacher are obvious. Before a student's cognitive needs can be met they must first fulfil their basic physiological needs. For example a tired and hungry student will find it difficult to focus on learning. Students need to feel emotionally and physically safe and accepted within the classroom to progress and reach their full potential.<br /><br />Maslow suggests students must be shown that they are valued and respected in the classroom and the teacher should create a supportive environment. Students with a <a href="http://www.simplypsychology.org/self-esteem.html">low self-esteem</a> will not progress academically at an optimum rate until their self-esteem is strengthened.<br /><br />Source: <a href="http://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html" target="_blank"><b>Simple Psychology</b></a><br /><div id="calloutImageadd"><span id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-655"></span> </div><br /><hr /><b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>So, if you are still wondering what is wrong with our social system, our economic system, our judicial system, our educational system, our governmental system and religious systems I suggest you click on this <a href="http://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html" target="_blank"><b>link</b></a> and take to heart, take personal responsibility for what you are as a person and start acting accordingly.<br /><div style="text-align: right;"><b><i>--Joe</i></b></div>Joe Blowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06128478097362231779noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8334045142832444327.post-82248000610190055972016-03-20T14:32:00.002-07:002016-04-07T13:14:51.692-07:00Donald Trump's Secret Advantage<u><span style="color: #038543;"></span></u><span class="username js-action-profile-name" data-aria-label-part=""><s><u><span style="color: #038543;">@</span></u></s><b><u><span style="color: #038543;">Dictionarycom</span></u></b></span><u><span style="color: #038543;"> </span></u> <small class="time"> <a class="tweet-timestamp js-permalink js-nav js-tooltip" href="https://twitter.com/Dictionarycom/status/710723192386510849" title="12:03 AM - 18 Mar 2016"><span class="_timestamp js-short-timestamp " data-aria-label-part="last" data-long-form="true" data-time-ms="1458284588000" data-time="1458284588"><span style="color: #038543;">Mar 18</span></span></a> </small> <br /><div class="js-tweet-text-container"><div class="TweetTextSize js-tweet-text tweet-text" data-aria-label-part="0" lang="en"><b>One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.</b> <a class="twitter-timeline-link u-hidden" data-pre-embedded="true" dir="ltr" href="https://t.co/XKiCE2xobR"><span style="color: #038543;">pic.twitter.com/XKiCE2xobR</span></a><br /><br /></div></div><div class="AdaptiveMedia is-square "><div class="AdaptiveMedia-container js-adaptive-media-container "><div class="AdaptiveMedia-singlePhoto"><div class="AdaptiveMedia-photoContainer js-adaptive-photo " data-element-context="platform_photo_card" data-image-url="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cdz--ksUUAAvS8L.jpg" loaded="true"><span style="color: #038543;"><img alt="" data-aria-label-part="" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cdz--ksUUAAvS8L.jpg" style="top: 0px; width: 100%;" /></span></div></div></div></div><b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><br /><hr />Only someone of integrity would unapologetically understand who they really are.<br /><div style="text-align: right;"><i><b>--Joe</b></i></div>Joe Blowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06128478097362231779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8334045142832444327.post-81395908499737487782016-02-04T12:39:00.003-08:002016-02-05T12:32:24.973-08:00Eureka Deserves the E.P.D.<h3 class="western">Feel you’re being protected and served?</h3><h3 class="western"> </h3>By Tim Martin, Eureka Times Standard <br />Saturday, January 16, 2016<br /><br /><div style="border: none; padding: 0in;">Jim Pasco, executive director of the largest U.S. police union, recently offered a shocking statement to the press. He vowed to strike back at Quentin Tarantino for comments the movie director made against police brutality at a New York rally.</div><div style="border: none; padding: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="border: none; padding: 0in;">Pasco said he had a plan to hurt Tarantino “economically.” The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, a union representing New York City Police, the Los Angeles Police Protective League, and the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police called for a boycott of Tarantino’s movies, including his latest picture “The Hateful Eight.”</div><div style="border: none; padding: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="border: none; padding: 0in;">In other words they are blackballing the filmmaker Don Corleone style: “Nice movie you got there, Quentin. It’d be a real shame if somethin’ happened to it, ya know?”</div><div style="border: none; padding: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="border: none; padding: 0in;">After Pasco called for a boycott of Tarantino’s films, the director appeared on “Real Time with Bill Maher” to clarify his position. “The [police] unions are saying that I am a cop hater, which is slander because I didn’t say that,” he told Maher. “They’re implying that I meant that all cops are murderers, and I wasn’t. But the thing that’s really sad about it is we actually do need to talk to cops about this. We need to bring this to the table.”</div><div style="border: none; padding: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="border: none; padding: 0in;">What kind of police do you call on the police? Law enforcement has become a predatory culture in America. Cops are morphing into thugs and criminals. They beat, choke, shoot, pepper spray, and Taser unarmed citizens. Police unions have transformed into terrorist groups that threaten any and all critics. Pasco’s plan to financially cripple the “Natural Born Killers” director proves that many police departments are not interested in protecting citizens, but in maintaining their unchecked right to act unlawfully.</div><div style="border: none; padding: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="border: none; padding: 0in;">Has it ever occurred to cops that their aggressive and violent behavior is the main reason they have such a terrible image problem?</div><div style="border: none; padding: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="border: none; padding: 0in;">Since when did the police become a crime mob that issues threats and warnings of harassment and intimidation? Pasco’s gang-like threat to Tarantino was a warning so illegal and egregious it boggles the mind. It clearly illustrates the totalitarian idea that any criticism of authority is punishable by law. It also reveals how much some people want our free society to be markedly less so.</div><div style="border: none; padding: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="border: none; padding: 0in;">This is exactly what black people have been complaining about for decades. Surprise! We are all black now.<br /><div style="border: none; padding: 0in;"><br /></div>The Department of Justice needs to wake up. Law enforcement groups are becoming domestic enemies like the white supremacist groups Ku Klux Klan and Stormfront. There is too much police brutality in this country. Bullying only incites public anger. The public will tolerate unrestrained cop misconduct only so long. If police continue this current trend, they will force violence against themselves.</div><div style="border: none; padding: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="border: none; padding: 0in;">Cops have killed unarmed people using illegal choke holds and excessive force. The city of Chicago recently fired an investigator who tried to hold two officers accountable for beating a mentally ill man to death. Police need to get over themselves and address the weekly unnecessary murder of people over trivial issues. Many officers do a good job, but unfortunately, they also enforce a code of silence that protects bad cops. Until the cover-ups stop, all law enforcement will be tainted. More transparency and accountability is needed. Police should be working overtime to eradicate criminals from their own ranks instead of finding ways to censor a filmmaker’s freedom of speech. And judges must stop giving officers a free pass of “badge truthfulness” in court.</div><div style="border: none; padding: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="border: none; padding: 0in;">The Fraternal Order of Police and their over-the-top strawman Jim Pasco offer no help whatsoever. They only increase the problem.</div><div style="border: none; padding: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="border: none; padding: 0in;">I applaud Quentin Tarantino’s bravery in speaking out against criminal cops and their terroristic grip on society. Protesting injustices peacefully is what makes American great. Many police officers have lost their moral compass and are abusing the badge. Even worse, they are protected and insulated by a system that allows them to continue to do so. Cops who kill unlawfully are murderers, pure and simple. Pasco is merely trying to deflect the issue by claiming Tarantino was referring to every cop as a murderer.</div><div style="border: none; padding: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="border: none; padding: 0in;">We were once an extraordinary country where people were free to speak their minds and criticize power without fear of retribution. Those days are over. America is no longer extraordinary. With the arrival of our police state we have become just another Iran or Russia. If we continue to turn a blind eye to police violence it will only grow worse. It’s long past the time to do something about this problem. Our entire legal system has gone to the dogs.</div><div style="border: none; padding: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="border: none; padding: 0in;"><i>Tim Martin resides in Fortuna and writes this column for the Times-Standard. Email him at tmartin@sitestar.net.</i></div><br /><div style="border-bottom: none; border-left: none; border-right: none; border-top: 1px solid #bfbfbf; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0.02in;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><b>URL: http://www.times-standard.com/opinion/20160116/feel-youre-being-protected-and-served</b></span></div><div style="border-bottom: none; border-left: none; border-right: none; border-top: 1px solid #bfbfbf; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0.02in;">© 2016 Eureka Times-Standard (<a href="http://www.times-standard.com/">http://www.times-standard.com</a>)</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><hr /><div style="text-align: left;">I was catching up on my "Times-Standard" news when I came across this article from Tim Martin and just had to post it. I'm sure it took a lot of courage to write. Personally, I've refrained from writing about the lawlessness that plagues our area and the dire consequences they portend. Personally, I believe you "reap what you sow" consequently, the people (most of them anyway) deserve what they got.<br /><br />"Paranoid and delusional," and scared crapless - every encounter is a time-bomb ready to go off. The people of Eureka must really enjoy playing Russian roulette. See: <a href="https://eurekapolice.wordpress.com/" target="_blank"><b>Eureka Police - When the Police Use Force</b></a></div><div style="text-align: right;"><i><b>--Joe</b></i></div>Joe Blowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06128478097362231779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8334045142832444327.post-11421423814003550992015-08-14T11:05:00.003-07:002015-08-14T11:05:58.992-07:00The Value of Your Vote<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Donald Trump & Bernie Sanders Lining Up Clinton- Bush Success </b></span><br /><br /><div class="clearfix _5x46" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14.6181812286377px; margin-bottom: 11px; zoom: 1;"><br /><div class="_3dp _29k" style="display: table-cell; vertical-align: top; width: 10000px;"><div class="_6a" style="display: inline-block;"><div class="_6a _6b" style="display: inline-block; height: 40px; vertical-align: middle;"></div><div class="_6a _6b" style="display: inline-block; vertical-align: middle;"><h5 class="_5pbw" data-ft="{"tn":"C"}" id="js_1" style="font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.38; margin: 0px 0px 2px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 22px 0px 0px;"><div class="fwn fcg" style="color: #9197a3;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fTRls-Xj3RU/Vc4tX5I0AUI/AAAAAAAAB7E/PpjdtdeWbrg/s1600/081415_DRatigan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fTRls-Xj3RU/Vc4tX5I0AUI/AAAAAAAAB7E/PpjdtdeWbrg/s1600/081415_DRatigan.jpg" /><span style="color: #9197a3; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.38;"> </span></a><a href="http://www.dylanratigan.com/2015/08/14/donald-trump-bernie-sanders-lining-up-clinton-bush-success-the-real-ratigan/" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.38;" target="_blank">Dylan Ratigan</a></div></div></h5></div></div></div></div><div class="_5pbx userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="js_3" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.38; overflow: hidden;"><div style="margin-bottom: 6px;">Trump- Bernie Sanders equals Clinton- Bush very simply because both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are perfect for magnetizing the most radical sentiment in the democratic party and the most radical sentiment in the republican party and insuring that that sentiment is gratified emotionally and then remains behaved and orderly inside the respective parties. If Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders really wanted to confront the political establishment, they would step outside of the two party system and confront the two party system for the oligarchy that it is. <b>As is it right now, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are simply lining up the ducks to be served on a platter to Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton next spring. </b>[Emphasis mine]</div><div style="display: inline; margin-top: 6px;"><a href="http://www.dylanratigan.com/2015/08/14/donald-trump-bernie-sanders-lining-up-clinton-bush-success-the-real-ratigan/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">http://www.dylanratigan.com/…/donald-trump-bernie-sanders-…/</a></div></div><hr /><div style="text-align: right;"><b><i>--Joe </i></b></div>Joe Blowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06128478097362231779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8334045142832444327.post-13281349648125028942015-08-03T12:18:00.001-07:002015-08-03T12:24:46.997-07:00One Incredible Crisis of Faith<h1 class="entry-title" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #5c7410; font-family: Abel, sans-serif; font-size: 38px; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: -0.035em; line-height: 1.2em; margin: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://ronniemcbrayer.net/2015/08/03/in-scorn-of-the-consequences/" rel="bookmark" style="color: #5c7410; font-style: inherit; letter-spacing: -0.035em; line-height: 1.2em; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.25s ease-out; vertical-align: baseline;">“In Scorn of the Consequences”</a></h1><div class="entry-meta" style="background-color: white; color: #4d555a; font-family: Dosis, HelveticaNeue-CondensedBold, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, 'Arial Narrow', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: condensed; text-transform: uppercase; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="entry-author" href="http://ronniemcbrayer.net/author/ronniemcbrayer/" style="color: black; font-stretch: condensed; font-style: inherit; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="View all posts by ronniemcbrayer">BY RONNIEMCBRAYER</a> <a class="permalink" href="http://ronniemcbrayer.net/2015/08/03/in-scorn-of-the-consequences/" rel="bookmark" style="color: #fc5605; font-stretch: condensed; font-style: inherit; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="4:35 AM"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-08-03T04:35:02+00:00" pubdate="" style="color: #999999; margin-left: 6px;">AUGUST 3, 2015</time></a></div><div class="entry-content" style="background-color: white; color: #4d555a; font-family: Abel, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; letter-spacing: -0.035em; line-height: 1.3em; margin: 1.5em 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="p1" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://ronniemcbrayer.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/consequences.jpg" style="color: #5c7410; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.25s ease-out; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="Consequences" class="alignleft wp-image-1980" height="174" src="https://ronniemcbrayer.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/consequences.jpg?w=255&h=174" style="border: 0px; display: inline; float: left; height: auto; margin: 6px 1em 1em 0px; max-width: 100%;" width="255" /></a>“If there was one last crust of bread in this town, it would be mine.” That’s a quote from a rather pretentious member of the clergy, stating how God would take care of him should the world come unhinged tomorrow. “Everyone else may starve,” he continued, “but God has promised me that I will always have enough.”</span></div><div class="p1" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">This preacher quickly defended his statement by quoting Psalm 37:25 – “I have never seen the godly abandoned or their children out begging for bread.” This man considered himself godly; righteous; virtuous; favored by God. Thus, no harm would ever befall him or his family. They were guaranteed the divinely-charmed life with no worries about the future, for God had written them a blank check.</span></div><div class="p1" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">The spiritual mathematics of such self-confidence looks like this: “I am godly, so I will always have what I want and will never go without.” The corollary for such a statement is also true: “If you are ungodly, then you will not always have what you need, and you will suffer.”</span></div><div class="p1" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">To hear advocates of this position explain, those who please God always land on top of the heap. Their cupboards are always full, their gas tanks never empty, their table always running over, and their checks never bounce. The reward for righteous living is a full belly.</span></div><div class="p1" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">But what about the godly Christians of yesteryear who did literally starve to death? Women like missionary Lottie Moon who gave her food away to the Chinese she loved and served, only to die of malnutrition herself? There is St. Lucian of Rome, and countless others like him, who was starved to death in a prison cell because he would not renounce Christ. What about the millions of souls facing starvation and persecution in parts of Africa, the Middle East, and beyond, many of whom are faithful Christians?</span></div><div class="p1" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">And going without bread is not the only disaster to fall upon the truly devoted. Christians worldwide suffer daily under the ruthlessness of various regimes. Believers living in radicalized countries are persecuted at all levels of society. Many people of faith daily bear the economic and social consequences of living out their beliefs.</span></div><div class="p1" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Is there something wrong with the faith of these people who meet trouble? Has suffering come upon them because they are unrighteous? Are they bad Christians? Is this the explanation for their misery? No, I don’t think this position will hold up for long; this idea that righteous living always leads to the good life.</span></div><div class="p1" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Countless numbers of good and godly people have suffered, have gone without, have been tortured, have been chained in prison, and have died by stoning, firing squad, holocaust, and worse. They suffered, not because they possessed an inferior faith, a faith not big or strong enough to get them out of trouble, but because of their unwavering belief.</span></div><div class="p1" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">The writer of the book of Hebrews concludes that those who suffer this way are “too good for this world and earn a good reputation because of their faith.” So their stomachs didn’t growl because their faith was defective. On the contrary, they suffered because of their virtue. These heroes of faith weren’t standing behind a pulpit, in the midst of chaotic times, bragging about how the last bread truck in town was going to make a special delivery to their home, sent there by God himself. No, they led a life of faith, a life lived “in scorn of the consequences,” to quote the late Clarence Jordan, taking integrity as its own reward.</span></div><div class="p1" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">After leaving the man who had called dibs on the last loaf of Wonder Bread in town, I was left to wonder myself. What happens to this kind of faith when the promised bread truck doesn’t arrive? What is the outcome when the pantry is found to be empty? When the last check bounces; when life produces more suffering than satisfaction?</span></div><div class="p1" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">I imagine a chink in this armor of belief makes for one incredible crisis of faith. And it should, because faith that leads to arrogance isn’t faith at all.</span></div></div>[<b><a href="http://ronniemcbrayer.net/2015/08/03/in-scorn-of-the-consequences/" target="_blank">From Ronnie McBrayer</a></b>] <br /><br /><b>A good example of what he's talking about comes from the Republican Lite, Barack Obama and his Ultimate Betrayal: </b><br /><h1 style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #232323; font-family: 'Open Sans', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-stretch: inherit; letter-spacing: 1px; line-height: 42px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 30px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.juancole.com/2015/08/obamas-politics-sanders.html" target="_blank">Top 5 Ways Obama’s ‘All of the Above’ Politics led to Sanders & Trump</a></span></h1><div class="meta clear" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; clear: both; font-family: 'Open Sans', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; height: 50px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding: 8px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="author-meta" style="border: 0px; float: left; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 3px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div style="color: #919191; font-weight: inherit;"><span class="lion" style="background: url(http://www.juancole.com/site/wp-content/themes/juancole2013/images/ico_respon.png) 0px 50% no-repeat; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 5px 15px 5px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span>By <a href="http://www.juancole.com/author/jcedit" rel="author" style="border: 0px; color: #919191; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Posts by Juan Cole">Juan Cole</a> <span class="div" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 5px; vertical-align: baseline;">|</span> <a href="http://www.juancole.com/2015/08/obamas-politics-sanders.html" rel="bookmark" style="border: 0px; color: #919191; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Permalink to Top 5 Ways Obama’s ‘All of the Above’ Politics led to Sanders & Trump">Aug. 3, 2015</a> <span class="div" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 5px; vertical-align: baseline;">|</span></div><div style="color: #919191; font-weight: inherit;"><span class="div" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 5px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></div><span class="div" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 5px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Quote: </b></span><span style="color: #242424; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit;">The likelihood is that we will get another Establishment all of the above president, and that more Americans will become cynical.</span><br /><div style="color: #919191; font-weight: inherit;"><span style="color: #242424; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div style="border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 0px; color: #242424; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; font-weight: inherit; max-width: 505px; padding: 0px 0px 21px; vertical-align: baseline;">A democracy with a cynical and apathetic electorate is in danger of declining into dictatorship or exploding into social unrest.</div></div></div><hr /><div style="text-align: right;"><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Vote your hearts out, suckers - for all the good it will do you.</b></div><b><i>--Joe</i></b></div>Joe Blowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06128478097362231779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8334045142832444327.post-27564561886724550372015-07-10T13:52:00.000-07:002015-07-10T13:52:38.593-07:00Bye, Bye America<br /><header class="entry-header" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(85, 85, 85); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px 0px 25px; padding: 0px 0px 25px;"><span class="hat" style="display: block; list-style-type: none; margin: 15px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><img src="http://beta.counterpunch.org/wp-content/dropzone/2015/06/cp5.png" style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px;" /></span><h1 class="entry-title" style="font-size: 21px; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">Putin Leads BRICS Uprising</h1><span class="entry-date" style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Posted By <cite style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Mike Whitney</cite> On <time style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">July 10, 2015 @ 2:05 am </time><span style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">In articles 2015</span></span></header><br /><div class="entry-content" style="line-height: 23.7999992370605px; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px 0px 35px; padding: 0px;"><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">There’s been a virtual blackout of news from this year’s seventh annual BRICS summit in Ufa, Russia. None of the mainstream media organizations are covering the meetings or making any attempt to explain what’s going on. As a result, the American people remain largely in the dark about a powerful coalition of nations that are putting in place an alternate system that will greatly reduce US influence in the world and end the current era of superpower rule.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">Let’s cut to the chase: Leaders of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) realize that global security cannot be entrusted to a country that sees war as a acceptable means for achieving its geopolitical objectives. They also realize that they won’t be able to achieve financial stability as long as Washington dictates the rules, issues the de facto “international” currency, and controls the main levers of global financial power. This is why the BRICS have decided to chart a different course, to gradually break free from the existing Bretton Woods system, and to create parallel system that better serves their own interests. Logically, they have focused on the foundation blocks which support the current US-led system, that is, the institutions from which the United States derives its extraordinary power; the dollar, the US Treasury market, and the IMF. Replace these, the thinking goes, and the indispensable nation becomes just another country struggling to get by. This is from the <em style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Asia Times:</em></div><blockquote style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">“Leaders of the BRICS… launched the New Development Bank, which has taken three years of negotiations to bring to fruition. With about $50 billion in starting capital, the bank is expected to start issuing debt to fund infrastructure projects next year. They also launched a foreign-exchange currency fund of $100 billion.<span style="line-height: 23.7999992370605px;"> </span></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">The two new endeavors are statements that the five largest emerging markets are both looking out for each other and, simultaneously, moving away from the western financing institutions of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.<span style="line-height: 23.7999992370605px;"> </span></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">“The BRICS states intend to actively use their own resources and internal resources for development,” Putin said, according to Reuters. “The New (Development) Bank will help finance joint, large-scale projects in transport and energy infrastructure, industrial development.”…..Birthing the two initiatives in Russia had been Putin’s top priorities.”<span style="line-height: 23.7999992370605px;"> </span></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">(“<a href="http://atimes.com/2015/07/putin-scores-points-at-brics-summit/" style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Russia’s Putin scores points at Ufa BRICS summit</a>“, <em style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Asia Times</em>)</blockquote></blockquote><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">Can you see what’s going on? Putin has figured out the empire’s vulnerabilities and he’s going straight for the jugular. He’s saying: ‘We’re going to issue our own debt, we’re going to run our own system, we’re going to fund our own projects, and we’re going to do it all in our own currency. Kaboom. The only thing you’re going to be doing, is managing your own accelerating economic decline. Have a good day.’ Isn’t that the gist of what he’s saying?</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">So can you see, dear reader, why none of this is appearing on the pages of US newspapers or on US television. Washington would rather you didn’t know how they’ve bungled everything by alienating the fastest growing countries in the world.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">The Ufa conference is a watershed moment. While the Pentagon is rapidly moving troops and military hardware to Russia’s borders, and one bigwig after another is bloviating about the “Russian threat”; the BRICS have moved out of Washington’s orbit altogether. They are following the leadership of men who, frankly speaking, are acting exactly like US leaders acted when the US was on the upswing. These are guys who “think big”; who want to connect continents with high-speed rail, lift living standards across the board, and transform themselves into manufacturing dynamos. What do America’s leaders dream about: Drone warfare? Balancing the budget? Banning the Confederate flag?</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">It’s a joke. No one in Washington has a plan for the future. It’s all just political opportunism and posturing. Check this out from <em style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The Hindu:</em></div><blockquote style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">“China and Russia have described BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) as the core of a new international order…<span style="line-height: 23.7999992370605px;"> </span></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">Russian President Vladimir Putin said… “There is no doubt — we have all necessary premises to expand the horizons of mutually beneficial cooperation, to join together our raw material resources, human capital and huge consumer markets for a powerful economic spurt.”<span style="line-height: 23.7999992370605px;"> </span></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">Russia’s <em style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Tass</em> news agency also quoted Mr. Putin as saying that the Eurasian continent had vast transit potential. He pointed to “the construction of new efficient transport and logistics chains, in particular, the implementation of the initiative of the Silk Road economic belt and the development of transportation in the eastern part of Russia and Siberia. This may link the rapidly growing markets in Asia and Europe’s economies, mature, rich in industrial and technological achievements. At the same time, this will allow our countries to become more commercially viable in the competition for investors, for creating new jobs, for advanced enterprises,” he observed.”….<span style="line-height: 23.7999992370605px;"> </span></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">The summit also acknowledged “the potential for expanding the use of our national currencies in transactions between the BRICS countries.” (“<a href="http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/brics-sco-eaeu-can-define-new-world-order-china-russia/article7407865.ece" style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">BRICS, SCO, EAEU can define new world order: China, Russia</a>“, <em style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The Hindu</em>)</blockquote></blockquote><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">The dollar is toast. The IMF is toast. The US debt market (US Treasuries) is toast. The institutions that support US power are crumbling before our very eyes. The BRICS have had enough; enough war, enough Wall Street, enough meddling and hypocrisy and austerity and lecturing. This is farewell. Sure, it will take time, but Ufa marks a fundamental change in thinking, a fundamental change in approach, and a fundamental change in strategic orientation.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">The BRICS are not coming back, they’re gone for good, just as Washington’s “pivot to Asia” is gone for good. There’s just too much resistance. Washington has simply overplayed its hand, worn out its welcome. People are sick of us.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">Can you blame them?</div></div><div class="comments" style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></div><br /><footer class="footer" style="border-top-color: rgb(85, 85, 85); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; list-style-type: none; margin: 25px 0px 0px; padding: 25px 0px 0px;"><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">Article printed from www.counterpunch.org: <strong dir="ltr" style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">http://www.counterpunch.org</strong></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">URL to article: <strong dir="ltr" style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/10/putin-leads-brics-uprising/</strong></div><div><strong dir="ltr" style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /></strong></div></footer><br /><hr /><div style="text-align: right;"><b><i>--Joe</i></b></div>Joe Blowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06128478097362231779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8334045142832444327.post-80915689622945631042015-07-01T09:52:00.000-07:002015-07-02T09:27:34.901-07:00Hypocritical "_______" -- Why honest, conscientious citizens DON'T vote.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qWkWcOh5yKg/VZQaZALvVRI/AAAAAAAAB6s/7LHSkgn2UM4/s1600/070115_Dylan-Ratigan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qWkWcOh5yKg/VZQaZALvVRI/AAAAAAAAB6s/7LHSkgn2UM4/s200/070115_Dylan-Ratigan.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><a href="http://ow.ly/P2I5M" rel="nofollow" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.1s ease-in-out; background-color: white; color: #141823; cursor: pointer; font-family: Georgia, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.1s ease-in-out;" target="_blank">Hypocritical Dennis Hastert | The Real Ratigan</a><br /><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;">"Dennis Hastert is your classic Illinois politician: pure hypocrite, pure liar, pure scumbag, okay? Not only is he a classic Illinois politician, he is a classic American politician. He is a man with a sex scandal replacing another man with a sex scandal, whose prosecuting a man who had a sex scandal. And all these men with sex scandals are walking around beating their chests talking about how immoral Bill Clinton is with his sex scandal while they're busy keeping their own sex scandal in the closet. This is why Americans do not participate in the American political system at the rate that they do not, because they validly are of the belief that men like Dennis Hastert are in charge and they are the most weasel-y, underhanded, underlying, unreliable, lying individuals that this country has ever seen."</span><br /><hr />Put any politician's name in that title; they're all the same.<br /><br />How does a moron's response legitimize anyone?<br /><div style="text-align: right;"><b><i>--Joe</i></b></div>Joe Blowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06128478097362231779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8334045142832444327.post-45213737224728390412015-06-20T14:07:00.000-07:002015-06-20T14:07:54.280-07:00Is the Joke On You?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pXWhNUPFtbE/VYXSrbmLv4I/AAAAAAAAB6Q/CTzfXyC2dy0/s1600/060915_Cop_Bingo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="261" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pXWhNUPFtbE/VYXSrbmLv4I/AAAAAAAAB6Q/CTzfXyC2dy0/s320/060915_Cop_Bingo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><a href="https://www.facebook.com/JusticeForTommy" target="_blank"><b>Justice for Tommy McCain</b></a><br /><hr /><span style="font-size: large;"><b>a·pol·o·gist</b></span><br /><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><div class="lr_dct_ent_ph" style="font-size: large;"><span class="lr_dct_ph">əˈpäləjəst/</span></div><div><div class="lr_dct_sf_h" style="padding-top: 10px;"><i>noun</i></div><div class="xpdxpnd vk_gy" data-mh="-1" style="-webkit-transition: max-height 0.3s; color: rgb(135, 135, 135) !important; max-height: 0px; overflow: hidden; transition: max-height 0.3s;"><b></b><b></b></div><ol class="lr_dct_sf_sens" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 20px;"><li style="border: 0px; line-height: 1.2; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="lr_dct_sf_sen vk_txt" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif-light, sans-serif; font-weight: lighter !important; padding-top: 10px;"><div style="margin-left: 20px;"><div class="_Jig" style="margin-left: -20px;"><div data-dobid="dfn" style="display: inline;">a person who offers an argument in defense of something controversial.</div><div class="vk_gy" style="color: rgb(135, 135, 135) !important;">"an enthusiastic <b>apologist for</b> fascism in the 1920s"</div><div><table class="vk_tbl vk_gy" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: rgb(135, 135, 135) !important;"><tbody><tr><td class="lr_dct_nyms_ttl" style="font-style: italic; padding: 0px 3px 0px 0px; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;">synonyms:</td><td style="padding: 0px;"><a data-ved="0CB8Q_SowAA" href="https://www.google.com/search?sa=X&biw=1280&bih=685&q=define+defender&ei=69KFVZW9A8WpyATO2JXYAg&ved=0CB8Q_SowAA" style="color: #660099; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">defender</a>, <a data-ved="0CCAQ_SowAA" href="https://www.google.com/search?sa=X&biw=1280&bih=685&q=define+supporter&ei=69KFVZW9A8WpyATO2JXYAg&ved=0CCAQ_SowAA" style="color: #660099; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">supporter</a>, upholder, <a data-ved="0CCEQ_SowAA" href="https://www.google.com/search?sa=X&biw=1280&bih=685&q=define+advocate&ei=69KFVZW9A8WpyATO2JXYAg&ved=0CCEQ_SowAA" style="color: #660099; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">advocate</a>, <a data-ved="0CCIQ_SowAA" href="https://www.google.com/search?sa=X&biw=1280&bih=685&q=define+proponent&ei=69KFVZW9A8WpyATO2JXYAg&ved=0CCIQ_SowAA" style="color: #660099; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">proponent</a>, <a data-ved="0CCMQ_SowAA" href="https://www.google.com/search?sa=X&biw=1280&bih=685&q=define+exponent&ei=69KFVZW9A8WpyATO2JXYAg&ved=0CCMQ_SowAA" style="color: #660099; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">exponent</a>,<a data-ved="0CCQQ_SowAA" href="https://www.google.com/search?sa=X&biw=1280&bih=685&q=define+propagandist&ei=69KFVZW9A8WpyATO2JXYAg&ved=0CCQQ_SowAA" style="color: #660099; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">propagandist</a>,<br /><a data-ved="0CCUQ_SowAA" href="https://www.google.com/search?sa=X&biw=1280&bih=685&q=define+champion&ei=69KFVZW9A8WpyATO2JXYAg&ved=0CCUQ_SowAA" style="color: #660099; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">champion</a>, <a data-ved="0CCYQ_SowAA" href="https://www.google.com/search?sa=X&biw=1280&bih=685&q=define+campaigner&ei=69KFVZW9A8WpyATO2JXYAg&ved=0CCYQ_SowAA" style="color: #660099; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">campaigner</a>;<br /><div style="display: inline;"><div style="display: inline;"><div style="display: inline;"><i style="padding-right: 4px;">informal</i><a data-ved="0CCgQ_SowAA" href="https://www.google.com/search?sa=X&biw=1280&bih=685&q=define+cheerleader&ei=69KFVZW9A8WpyATO2JXYAg&ved=0CCgQ_SowAA" style="color: #660099; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">cheerleader</a></div><div class="vk_gy">"one of Eisenhower's better-known apologists"</div></div></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div></div></div></div></li></ol></div></div><hr />[à la google]<br /><div style="text-align: right;"><i><b>-Joe </b></i></div>Joe Blowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06128478097362231779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8334045142832444327.post-37383434572760644832015-06-03T11:15:00.000-07:002015-06-03T11:20:25.375-07:00Sound Familiar, Eureka?<div class="tr_bq"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZK4Rm6hTveM/VW8-_yyaypI/AAAAAAAAB54/isSXzV9Rwsk/s1600/060315_Greenwald-Boston.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="146" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZK4Rm6hTveM/VW8-_yyaypI/AAAAAAAAB54/isSXzV9Rwsk/s200/060315_Greenwald-Boston.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>It Should.<br /><br />This is the same accusatory, bigoted and biased nonsense spewed out about the <b><a href="http://joeblowreport.blogspot.com/2014/12/no-mistake-just-plain-murder.html" target="_blank">Tommy McClain fiasco</a></b>. The EPD and so-called news reporters didn't go quite as far as accusing him of being an ISIL radicalized terrorist. No, their espoused legitimate right to confront him at the point of a gun and kill him didn't quite need to reach to that level of deprivation. Either way, both men are just as dead and so are the communities they lived in.</div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/03/media-trash-character-police-shooting-victim-reporting-anonymous-smears/" target="_blank">IN BOSTON, MEDIA AGAIN TRASH A POLICE SHOOTING VICTIM BY UNCRITICALLY “REPORTING” POLICE ACCUSATIONS</a></span><br /><br />BY GLENN GREENWALD<br /><blockquote>As rampant, unjustified police killings have finally entered mainstream discussion, this has become a favored joint tactic of the police and media. <b><i>Before the killing can be processed by the public, the victim’s character is smeared by media-laundered police claims</i></b>, often anonymously. Here, the tactic had the sweetened appeal that it could be used to fearmonger over an ISIS attack in the U.S., as Rahim was not only black but also Muslim. As my colleague Murtaza Hussain put it: “14 years after 9/11 law enforcement can kill someone in the street, suggest they were part of a ‘terror network’, and media will just move on.” He added: <b><i>“Apparently all you have to do to defuse outrage over killing someone is apply the gangster or terrorist label to the still-warm dead body.”</i></b> </blockquote><blockquote>The point here is not that the police claims are untrue. The point is that nobody knows if they are true or not. Yet they were aggressively and uncritically amplified by an always pro-police media, resulting in the vilification of the dead victim as an ISIS-linked terror operative within hours after his death. Precisely as intended, that, in turn, <b><i>precluded any rational discussion of whether the killing was justified</i></b>.</blockquote>Yeah! Tommy McClain <i>supposedly</i> had a toy BB gun stuck in his belt - end of story...<br /><br /><b><a href="https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/03/media-trash-character-police-shooting-victim-reporting-anonymous-smears/" target="_blank">Read the complete article here.</a></b><br /><hr /><div style="text-align: right;"><div style="text-align: left;">If you want to read more about the police killing of Tommy McClain that's been written on this blog, just type in the search box his name : Tommy McClain.</div><b><i>--Joe</i></b></div>Joe Blowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06128478097362231779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8334045142832444327.post-75086226098090297622015-06-01T10:18:00.000-07:002015-06-01T10:18:49.884-07:00Sanctions -- The Weapon Of Fools<h2 style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: 32px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px;">Russia and China mock divide and rule</h2><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ywjwmh-U0vo/VWyMZD1o5XI/AAAAAAAAB5Y/TX3HHVmfDsk/s1600/060115_Apec.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="359" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ywjwmh-U0vo/VWyMZD1o5XI/AAAAAAAAB5Y/TX3HHVmfDsk/s640/060115_Apec.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">US President Barack Obama (left) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (right) and Russian President Vladimir Putin (middle) arrive at the APEC Summit on November 11, 2014 in Beijing, China.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="tab-pane fade in active" id="item-text" style="-webkit-transition: opacity 0.15s linear; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 40px; margin-right: 120px; margin-top: 10px; opacity: 1; text-align: justify; transition: opacity 0.15s linear;"><div class="byline" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #666666; font-size: 13px; margin: 20px 0px 10px;">By <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">PEPE ESCOBAR</span></div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">The Roman Empire did it. The British Empire copied it in style. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1608881644/counterpunchmaga" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0085bf; outline: none 0px !important; text-decoration: none;">The Empire of Chaos </a>has always done it. They all do it. Divide et impera. Divide and rule – or divide and conquer. It’s nasty, brutish and effective. Not forever though, like diamonds, because empires do crumble.</strong></div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 10px;">A room with a view to the Pantheon may be a celebration of Venus – but also a glimpse on the works of Mars. I had been in Rome essentially for a symposium – Global WARning – organized by a very committed, talented group led by a former member of European Parliament, Giulietto Chiesa. Three days later, as the run on the rouble was unleashed, Chiesa was arrested and expelled from Estonia as persona non grata, yet another graphic illustration of the anti-Russia hysteria gripping the Baltic nations and the Orwellian grip NATO has on Europe’s weak links. [1] Dissent is simply not allowed.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 10px;">At the symposium, held in a divinely frescoed former 15th century Dominican refectory now part of the Italian parliament’s library, Sergey Glazyev, on the phone from Moscow, gave a stark reading of Cold War 2.0. There’s no real “government” in Kiev; the US ambassador is in charge. An anti-Russia doctrine has been hatched in Washington to foment war in Europe – and European politicians are its collaborators. Washington wants a war in Europe because it is losing the competition with China.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Glazyev addressed the sanctions dementia: Russia is trying simultaneously to reorganize the politics of the International Monetary Fund, fight capital flight and minimize the effect of banks closing credit lines for many businessmen. Yet the end result of sanctions, he says, is that Europe will be the ultimate losers economically; bureaucracy in Europe has lost economic focus as American geopoliticians have taken over.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Only three days before the run on the rouble, I asked Rosneft’s Mikhail Leontyev (Press-Secretary – Director of the Information and Advertisement Department) about the growing rumors of the Russian government getting ready to apply currency controls. At the time, no one knew an attack on rouble would be so swift, and conceived as a checkmate to destroy the Russian economy. After sublime espressos at the Tazza d’Oro, right by the Pantheon, Leontyev told me that currency controls were indeed a possibility. But not yet.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 10px;">What he did emphasize was this was outright financial war, helped by a fifth column in the Russian establishment. The only equal component in this asymmetrical war was nuclear forces. And yet Russia would not surrender. Leontyev characterized Europe not as a historical subject but as an object: “The European project is an American project.” And “democracy” had become fiction.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 10px;">The run on the rouble came and went like a devastating economic hurricane. Yet you don’t threat a checkmate against a skilled chess player unless your firepower is stronger than Jupiter’s lightning bolt. Moscow survived. Gazprom heeded the request of President Vladimir Putin and will sell its US dollar reserves on the domestic market. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier went on the record against the EU further “turning the screw” as in more counterproductive sanctions against Moscow. And at his annual press conference, Putin emphasized how Russia would weather the storm. Yet I was especially intrigued by what he did not say. [2]</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 10px;">As Mars took over, in a frenetic acceleration of history, I retreated to my Pantheon room trying to channel Seneca; from euthymia – interior serenity – to that state of imperturbability the Stoics defined as aponia. Still, it’s hard to cultivate euthymia when Cold War 2.0 rages.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Show me your imperturbable missile</strong></div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Russia could always deploy an economic “nuclear” option, declaring a moratorium on its foreign debt. Then, if Western banks seized Russian assets, Moscow could seize every Western investment in Russia. In any event, the Pentagon and NATO’s aim of a shooting war in the European theater would not happen; unless Washington was foolish enough to start it.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Still, that remains a serious possibility, with the Empire of Chaos accusing Russia of violating the Intermediate-Range escobarchaosNuclear Forces Treaty (INF) even as it prepares to force Europe in 2015 to accept the deployment of US nuclear cruise missiles.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Russia could outmaneuver Western financial markets by cutting them off from its wealth of oil and natural gas. The markets would inevitably collapse – uncontrolled chaos for the Empire of Chaos (or “controlled chaos”, in Putin’s own words).</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Imagine the crumbling of the quadrillion-plus of derivatives. It would take years for the “West” to replace Russian oil and natural gas, but the EU’s economy would be instantly devastated.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Just this lightning-bolt Western attack on the rouble – and oil prices – using the crushing power of Wall Street firms had already shaken European banks exposed to Russia to the core; their credit default swaps soared. Imagine those banks collapsing in a Lehman Brothers-style house of cards if Russia decided to default – thus unleashing a chain reaction. Think about a non-nuclear MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) – in fact warless. Still, Russia is self-sufficient in all kinds of energy, mineral wealth and agriculture. Europe isn’t. This could become the lethal result of war by sanctions.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Essentially, the Empire of Chaos is bluffing, using Europe as pawns. The Empire of Chaos is as lousy at chess as it is at history. What it excels in is in upping the ante to force Russia to back down. Russia won’t back down.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Darkness dawns at the break of chaos</strong></div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Paraphrasing Bob Dylan in When I Paint My Masterpiece, I left Rome and landed in Beijing. Today’s Marco Polos travel Air China; in 10 years, they will be zooming up in reverse, taking high-speed rail from Shanghai to Berlin. [3]</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 10px;">From a room in imperial Rome to a room in a peaceful hutong – a lateral reminiscence of imperial China. In Rome, the barbarians swarm inside the gates, softly pillaging the crumbs of such a rich heritage, and that includes the local Mafia. In Beijing, the barbarians are kept under strict surveillance; of course there’s a Panopticon element to it, essential to assure internal social peace. The leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) – ever since the earth-shattering reforms by the Little Helmsman Deng Xiaoping – is perfectly conscious that its Mandate of Heaven is directly conditioned by the perfect fine-tuning of nationalism and what we could term “neoliberalism with Chinese characteristics”.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 10px;">In a different vein of the “soft beds of the East” seducing Marcus Aurelius, the silky splendors of chic Beijing offer a glimpse of an extremely self-assured emerging power. After all, Europe is nothing but a catalogue of multiple sclerosis and Japan is under its sixth recession in 20 years.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 10px;">To top it off, in 2014 President Xi Jinping has deployed unprecedented diplomatic/geostrategic frenzy – ultimately tied to the long-term project of slowly but surely keeping on erasing US supremacy in Asia and rearranging the global chessboard. What Xi said in Shanghai in May encapsulates the project; “It’s time for Asians to manage the affairs of Asia.” At the APEC meeting in November, he doubled down, promoting an “Asia-Pacific dream”.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Meanwhile, frenzy is the norm. Apart from the two monster, US$725 billion gas deals – Power of Siberia and Altai pipeline – and a recent New Silk Road-related offensive in Eastern Europe, [4] virtually no one in the West remembers that in September Chinese Prime Minister Li Keiqiang signed no fewer than 38 trade deals with the Russians, including a swap deal and a fiscal deal, which imply total economic interplay.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 10px;">A case can be made that the geopolitical shift towards Russia-China integration is arguably the greatest strategic maneuver of the last 100 years. Xi’s ultimate master plan is unambiguous: a Russia-China-Germany trade/commerce alliance. German business/industry wants it badly, although German politicians still haven’t got the message. Xi – and Putin – are building a new economic reality on the Eurasian ground, crammed with crucial political, economic and strategic ramifications.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Of course, this will be an extremely rocky road. It has not leaked to Western corporate media yet, but independent-minded academics in Europe (yes, they do exist, almost like a secret society) are increasingly alarmed there is no alternative model to the chaotic, entropic hardcore neoliberalism/casino capitalism racket promoted by the Masters of the Universe.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Even if Eurasian integration prevails in the long run, and Wall Street becomes a sort of local stock exchange, the Chinese and the emerging multipolar world still seem to be locked into the existing neoliberal model.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 10px;">And yet, as much as Lao Tzu, already an octogenarian, gave the young Confucius an intellectual slap on the face, the “West” could do with a wake-up call. Divide et impera? It’s not working. And it’s bound to fail miserably.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 10px;">As it stands, what we do know is that 2015 will be a hair-raising year in myriad aspects. Because from Europe to Asia, from the ruins of the Roman empire to the re-emerging Middle Kingdom, we all still remain under the sign of a fearful, dangerous, rampantly irrational Empire of Chaos.</div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">This article originally appeared on <a href="http://www.atimes.com/" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0085bf; outline: none 0px !important; text-decoration: none;">Asia Times Online</a>.</em></div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">AT/GJH</span></div></div><hr /><b><a href="http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2015/01/03/391370/Russia-and-China-mock-divide-and-rule" target="_blank">[Mirrored from PressTV]</a></b><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><b><i>--Joe</i></b></div>Joe Blowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06128478097362231779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8334045142832444327.post-91371640586745457072015-05-05T11:56:00.000-07:002015-05-05T11:56:18.647-07:00My Exact Sentiments<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Qq1YDkqLItI/VUkPZIQo9jI/AAAAAAAAB4w/1MxybTjsrdE/s1600/050515_shit-pile.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Qq1YDkqLItI/VUkPZIQo9jI/AAAAAAAAB4w/1MxybTjsrdE/s320/050515_shit-pile.png" width="320" /></a></div>[<a href="http://darylcagle.com/2015/05/04/baltimore-media-flies/" target="_blank"><b>Stinky Poop Source</b></a>] <br /><hr /><div style="text-align: right;"><b><i>--Joe</i></b></div>Joe Blowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06128478097362231779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8334045142832444327.post-35480491156305261232015-04-29T12:45:00.000-07:002015-05-01T11:26:11.924-07:00The Real "Criminals and Thugs" Identified<div style="background-color: white; border-bottom-style: none; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://blackagendareport.com/nonviolence-and-hypocrisy" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Lawless President Obama Chides Baltimore “Criminals And Thugs,” Ignores Savagery Of Baltimore Police</span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XvC_KL4gbT0/VUEvidI2VXI/AAAAAAAAB4Y/h3bLnLzbRdw/s1600/042915_run_like_rabbits.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XvC_KL4gbT0/VUEvidI2VXI/AAAAAAAAB4Y/h3bLnLzbRdw/s1600/042915_run_like_rabbits.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 21.8181819915772px;">Freddy Gray made eye contact with a Baltimore cop. He ran like a rabbit so cops chased him like hounds and did what hounds do when they catch a rabbit. They snapped his spine. But the elemental savagery of everyday policing in Baltimore and a hundred other cities is not a fit topic for presidential commentary. The only “criminals” and “thugs” the first black president and for that matter corporate news can see are the citizens in the streets protesting police murder and impunity.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 21.8181819915772px;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="background-color: white; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 21.8181819915772px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; padding: 0px;">According to the Baltimore Police Department's own story, all Freddie Gray ever did was make eye contact with a police lieutenant and take off running. In 21<sup>st</sup> century America, the relation of young black men to the police is such that when you run like a rabbit, cops will chase you like hounds. When the hounds caught 25 year old Freddy Gray they did what hounds do when they catch a rabbit. Baltimore cops snapped Freddy Gray's spine, and they may have inflicted additional torture upon him during a half hour in leg irons in back of a police van after which they finally got around to calling the paramedics.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 21.8181819915772px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; padding: 0px;">This kind of simple, elemental savagery is the ordinary everyday state of policing not just in Baltimore but in a hundred other US cities. Black Baltimore knows, just like black Chicago, black Los Angeles and Philly and Birmingham and Jacksonville and Detroit --- they all know that the courts and ballot box provide no credible remedies to the scourge of police violence or the national policy of mass incarceration inflicted upon Americans of African descent.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 21.8181819915772px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; padding: 0px;">Our black political class was quick to point to the absence of black faces in high places in Ferguson Missouri. But most Baltimore mayors have been black for a generation, as have many of its top cops. There are black faces in judges' chambers, a mostly black city council and Maryland has a large and active legislative black caucus. Curbing the cops though, is not part of what any of our black political class actually DO.</div><b>"...when presidents and mayors call for “nonviolence” and “obeying the law” and “respect for private property” they're appealing to rules they would not dream of following themselves..."</b></div><br /><div style="background-color: white; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 21.8181819915772px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; padding: 0px;">President Obama is big on poor people remaining peaceful and nonviolent and respecting the law. This is a notion that should either make us laugh out loud, or cry, it's hard to decide which. President Obama you see, also claims the law entitles him to drone-bomb hundreds, perhaps thousands of civilians across Asia and Africa whose names he doesn't even know based upon their <a href="http://www.livingunderdrones.org/report/" style="color: #086782; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">“profiles” </a>or their proximity to supposed “terrorists,” also frequently unknown by name. The president, along with his outgoing and incoming attorneys general assure us this is all perfectly legal. We have to take their word for it, because they've made the precise legal language of the rule they says permits this classified – a <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2013/01/court-feds-can-keep-drone-legal-opinions-secret-153169.html" style="color: #086782; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">secret</a>.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 21.8181819915772px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; padding: 0px;">Along with the president, Baltimore mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake also drew the line at protesters interfering with the private property of others. This too is a joke. The Baltimore PD is one of hundreds of cop shops that routinely confiscate cash and assets with little or no justification from people for its own use, a runaway policy called asset forfeiture blessed by the incoming attorney general Loretta Lynch. So let's be clear – when presidents and mayors call for “nonviolence” and “obeying the law” and “respect for private property” they're appealing to rules they would not dream of following themselves.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 21.8181819915772px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; padding: 0px;">These are the rules the police and prison state makes for its victims, the rules that hounds make for rabbits. If we no longer intend to be hunted by hounds, we have to start by ignoring their rules, as many of our finest young people are seizing the opportunity to do. The most important lesson of Freddy Gray's death may be that it's high time to stop running like rabbits.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 21.8181819915772px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; padding: 0px;">For Black Agenda Radio I'm Bruce Dixon. Find us on the web at <a href="http://www.blackagendareport.com/" style="color: #086782; text-decoration: none;">www.blackagendareport.com</a>.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; line-height: 21.8181819915772px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report and a member of the state committee of the GA Green Party. He can be reached at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com.</div><hr /><b><a href="http://blackagendareport.com/nonviolence-and-hypocrisy" target="_blank">Mirrored from Black Agenda Report</a></b><br /><br />The whole idea behind this effort by the faux Ruling Class is to loot and emasculate the poor and colored people. Unfortunately most males and females are totally ignorant of what it means to be a man or a woman. Mr. Dixon has it exactly right. It is high time to stop running and dying like gutless, simpering animals.<br /><div style="text-align: right;"><b><i>--Joe</i></b></div>Joe Blowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06128478097362231779noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8334045142832444327.post-41816120754513700512015-04-22T13:47:00.002-07:002015-04-24T15:04:00.150-07:00Our Problems In A NutshellWhether it is political, social, legal, or economic, America's problems and solutions are the same as they are in Greece. Read what this man says to learn what needs to be done -- what you should and can do.<br /><br /><hr /><br /><h1 class="pageTitle" itemprop="name" style="background-color: white; color: #3e1f21; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 22px; line-height: 28px; margin: 0px 0px 15px 20px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2015/4/21/greeces_yanis_varoufakis_the_medicine_of" target="_blank">Greece’s Yanis Varoufakis: The Medicine of Austerity Is Not Working, We Need a New Treatment</a></h1><div><div style="background-color: white; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QYd31wQmGz0/VTgB-vkLacI/AAAAAAAAB4E/QoUek7dM9bQ/s1600/042115_Yanis-Varoufakis2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QYd31wQmGz0/VTgB-vkLacI/AAAAAAAAB4E/QoUek7dM9bQ/s1600/042115_Yanis-Varoufakis2.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div><strong><span class="caps">JUAN</span> GONZÁLEZ:</strong> With the debt clock ticking, Greece is fast running out of money. The country has ordered all state bodies to place their cash reserves in the nation’s central bank, the Bank of Greece, as it struggles to stay afloat. Greece is supposed to receive the last installment of its bailout funds from European creditors, but the country’s new leftist, anti-austerity Syriza party has expressed concerns about its terms. The creditors are reportedly pressuring the country to restructure its labor market and curtail its pension system; Syriza has instead done the opposite by increasing pension payments to lower-wage workers. Speaking in Washington, D.C., last week, the head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, urged Greece to restore stability.</div><blockquote style="background-color: white; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20px; margin: 1em 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 0px 3em;"><div style="direction: ltr; padding: 0px;"><strong><span class="caps">CHRISTINE</span> <span class="caps">LAGARDE</span>:</strong> What needs to happen now is that the political views need to actually deliver the measures, the tools, the reforms that will actually reach the objectives that have been set between the international community and Greece: restore stability, improve the economy, make sure that one of these days Greece re-accesses the financial market on its own and without support. So that’s what needs to happen. And we are completely available to work with the Greek authorities on those objectives.</div></blockquote><div style="background-color: white; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;"><strong><span class="caps">AMY</span> <span class="caps">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> On Friday, eurozone finance ministers will decide whether to release emergency funds to Greece. Without the funds, Greece may default on its debt payments in coming weeks and put its membership in the eurozone at risk.</div><div style="background-color: white; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;">For more, we go directly to Athens, Greece, where we’re joined by Greece’s finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis. He’s not only a political economist, but also something of a global celebrity. <em>Prospect</em> magazine lists him as number two on its list of the world’s leading thinkers, right after French economist Thomas Piketty and before Canadian author Naomi Klein.</div><div class="collapsed-hide" style="background-color: white; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;">Yanis Varoufakis, welcome back to <em>Democracy Now!</em> Can you tell us what you are calling for right now? How high are the stakes?</div><div class="collapsed-hide" style="background-color: white; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;"><strong><span class="caps">YANIS</span> <span class="caps">VAROUFAKIS</span>:</strong> I would like to phrase my answer in terms that do not resemble a Hollywood movie and a kind of conflictual confrontation. The way I see it is this. Greece has been in the clasps of a major crisis for the last five years. We had a very serious recession that led to a depression. So the question is: How can we put an end to this never-ending downward spiral so as to stabilize our economy, create conditions for the return of a degree of social justice, and also repay our debts to our creditors?</div><div class="collapsed-hide" style="background-color: white; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;">And there are two narratives here, two competing narratives. The official version, until we got elected, was that Greece was on the mend, that austerity was working. Our proposition to the Greek people—on which basis we were elected, were given a mandate—was the opposite, that the medicine wasn’t working. It wasn’t just that it was bitter and we didn’t want to take it; it was that it was toxic and it was making a bad thing worse. It was worse than the disease. So, this is what’s at stake here. You asked me, "How high are the stakes?" It’s a question of establishing what needs to be done in order to return Greece to a sustainable path.</div><div class="collapsed-hide" style="background-color: white; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;"><strong><span class="caps">JUAN</span> GONZÁLEZ:</strong> Now, Yanis Varoufakis, you’ve talked, in your speech that you gave at the Brookings Institution, of the design failures of the European Union. Could you talk about that?</div><div class="collapsed-hide" style="background-color: white; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;"><strong><span class="caps">YANIS</span> <span class="caps">VAROUFAKIS</span>:</strong> Look, this is an open secret, it’s a common secret, that the eurozone was never designed in order to sustain the shockwaves of the major financial markets earthquake of 2008. So it was like all monetary unions that lack a shock-absorbing mechanism, a mechanism for recycling surpluses.</div><div class="collapsed-hide" style="background-color: white; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;">Let me give you an example in the American context. Remember what happened in 1929? There was a global currency of sorts, the gold standard, that created very sharp, very quick flows of capital, even back then, even though the Internet was not available at the time and there were no computers. And that created bubbles that eventually burst, beginning of course with Wall Street. And the result was that the burden of adjustment went onto the devastated nations and the devastated parts within the United States. So, what did <span class="caps">FDR</span> do? What did the Roosevelt administration do with the New Deal? It created mechanisms for recycling deficits and surpluses within the United States of America through Social Security, through the Fed, the <span class="caps">FDIC</span>, so that when the next crisis happened in 2008, which was of course monumental, even in the United States—the next 1929 in 2008 happened, the state of Nevada did not have to bail out the banks domiciled in Nevada, and the state of Nevada did not have to worry about paying for the unemployment benefits. You had these shock-absorbing mechanisms. You had the <span class="caps">FDIC</span> looking after the banks of Nevada, and you had Social Security at the federal level paying, through surplus recycling, by—automatically, without even a political decision. Taxes from New York state and California were diverted to pay for the unemployment benefits in Nevada. These are the kinds of mechanisms that you need in order to render a monetary union stable, and Europe never had those.</div><div class="collapsed-hide" style="background-color: white; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;"><strong><span class="caps">AMY</span> <span class="caps">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> I want to turn to the opposition lawmaker, Kyriakos Mitsotakis of the New Democracy party, which is the former governing party of Greece. He criticized your party, the governing party, Syriza’s party’s approach to Greece’s financial troubles.</div><blockquote class="collapsed-hide" style="background-color: white; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20px; margin: 1em 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 0px 3em;"><div style="direction: ltr; padding: 0px;"><strong><span class="caps">KYRIAKOS</span> <span class="caps">MITSOTAKIS</span>:</strong> [What the government is doing] is devastating for economic activity in Greece, all this uncertainty, the downgradings, the fact that the government is using all the available cash, paying no one, the fact that the banks are funneling all their liquidity to support the government. It’s completely catastrophic for the real economy. So, inaction has a real cost.</div></blockquote><div class="collapsed-hide" style="background-color: white; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;"><strong><span class="caps">AMY</span> <span class="caps">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> Yanis Varoufakis, your response?</div><div class="collapsed-hide" style="background-color: white; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;"><strong><span class="caps">YANIS</span> <span class="caps">VAROUFAKIS</span>:</strong> Well, look, if it were true that the Greek economy was on the mend prior to our election and that it was on a sustainable path, then my colleague would be right. Unfortunately, it isn’t true. The debt deflationary crisis was continuing, inexorably. Nominal incomes continued to fall. Private and public debt continued to rise. The banks could not function as credit-providing institutions. Investment was negative. And generally speaking, the Greek economy was like a drug addict that relied on the next dose of loans from its international and European creditors.</div><div class="collapsed-hide" style="background-color: white; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;">And what we tried to do was to say to our international and European creditors, to our partners in Europe and to the whole world that this recipe was simply not working. And <b>we took a very considered view and a very principled position</b>. We said that, look, if we sign on the dotted line of this existing program, <span class="caps">IMF</span>-inspired program, then, of course, we will secure another $5-7 billion—this is a new dose, if you want—and our addiction will continue, but at least we will have our dose for a few more months. We didn’t take that dose. We didn’t sign on the dotted line, because we want to get rid of the addiction. We want to stabilize the Greek economy.</div><div class="collapsed-hide" style="background-color: white; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;">And if this means that there’s going to be a standoff for a few months between us and our creditors, who don’t like to hear that the program they have been enforcing and implementing in Greece for the last five years was a failure—<b>nobody likes to be told that whatever you’ve been doing for five years is a failure</b>—well, this is the price, however, we had to pay in order to reboot Greece and to reboot our relationship with our creditors. The only way you could be heard was to say, "We are not interested in getting this loan tranche until and unless we have a rethink of the whole program, so that Greece stops going down the path of the downward spiral of debt deflation." And if, in the meantime, this means that our bonds have been downgraded, well, from what? From minus a million to minus one million and one, right? Then, so be it. <b>We were not elected to lie. We were elected to say to our own people and to the people around the world that this medicine has not been working, we need a new treatment</b>.</div><div class="collapsed-hide" style="background-color: white; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;"><strong><span class="caps">JUAN</span> GONZÁLEZ:</strong> Well, but meanwhile, many world leaders keep putting pressure on Greece. U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew warned that a full-blown crisis in your country would impact the wider European and global economy. This is what he said.</div><blockquote class="collapsed-hide" style="background-color: white; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20px; margin: 1em 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 0px 3em;"><div style="direction: ltr; padding: 0px;"><strong><span class="caps">TREASURY</span> <span class="caps">SECRETARY</span> <span class="caps">JACK</span> <span class="caps">LEW</span>:</strong> If there is a crisis, it will first hit Greece, and it will hit the Greek people very hard, but it is something that the European and global economy do not need, to have another crisis. So, it’s in everyone’s interest to find that space, but the Greek government needs to come forward with the kinds of details that the institutions and they can work through to find the kind of program that can have that kind of confidence.</div></blockquote><div class="collapsed-hide" style="background-color: white; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;"><strong><span class="caps">JUAN</span> GONZÁLEZ:</strong> Your response to Treasury Secretary Lew?</div><div class="collapsed-hide" style="background-color: white; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;"><strong><span class="caps">YANIS</span> <span class="caps">VAROUFAKIS</span>:</strong> Well, Secretary Lew is absolutely spot-on, quite right. This is a crisis we don’t have to have. It’s a standoff that we should have ended some time ago. It is completely correct to say that if this negotiation fails to achieve a mutually advantageous outcome, then the repercussions will be dire, not just, of course, for the Greek people, but for the international economy. We are completely in agreement with that. And what I believe that Jack Lew has been doing over the last few days and weeks is he’s been applying pressure to both the Greek government, of course, but, on the other hand, the institutions—the <span class="caps">IMF</span>, the European Central Bank, the European Commission, European partners—to get to an agreement.</div><div class="collapsed-hide" style="background-color: white; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;">On the question of proposals to settle this agreement, I can assure you now, for quite a few weeks—actually, months—the Greek government has very clear proposals on how to settle this. It is a matter of convincing the institutions, the three institutions—the <span class="caps">ECB</span>, the European Central Bank; the International Monetary Fund; the European Commission—that the ways of yesteryear, the ways of the last five years, were not solving the problem, that we need deeper reforms. <b>We need to get rid of the idea that austerity is going to end the debt crisis.</b> We need an investment package for Greece. And we need, together with our partners and institutions, <b>to agree on a reform mechanism, a reform package, that attacks here in Greece the worst cases of rent-seeking, the oligarchy, the various cartels, instead of targeting the little people, the pensioners who are living on $600 a month, as if that is a reform that would work.</b></div><div class="collapsed-hide" style="background-color: white; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;"><strong><span class="caps">AMY</span> <span class="caps">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> Again, Yanis Varoufakis, what will you do if Europe expels you from the euro?</div><div class="collapsed-hide" style="background-color: white; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;"><strong><span class="caps">YANIS</span> <span class="caps">VAROUFAKIS</span>:</strong> Europe is not going to expel us from the euro. I refuse to believe that Europe would ever operate that way. Remember that since the end of the Second World War, European peoples and their governments have been working tirelessly to bring closer integration together. Nobody in Europe wants to begin the process of disintegration, over what is, after all, a <b>very small philosophical difference of opinion </b>regarding how to stabilize a small economy like Greece.</div><div class="collapsed-hide" style="background-color: white; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;"><b>Our position is that, folks, the last five years offered decisive proof that this program that you had agreed with previous governments was not working, and now we need to reboot it, we need another one. And we need one that makes perfect sense, that is completely undogmatic, and which does two major things: Firstly, it removes the austerity-driven logic from the scene, because it’s self-defeating and it’s pushing debt up rather than down by attacking incomes from which the debts will have to be repaid; and secondly, deep reforms that attack the malignancies of the Greek social economy, and in particular, the oligarchy and the very gross level of inequality, which is adding to the crisis. When you are turning a society like Greece into less equal, into a more unequal society, and you reduce the tax base by allowing the rich to get away without paying their taxes, to have tax immunity, and constantly to be looking at small-scale parasitic behavior while neglecting the grand-scale parasitic behavior, then you’re simply making a bad thing worse.</b></div><div class="collapsed-hide" style="background-color: white; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;">And believe you me, <b>our proposals are eminently sensible. We are bombarding the other side with reasonableness.</b> We want to come to a conclusion very quickly. We were prepared months ago to come to an agreement. We’re working tirelessly to forge this agreement, for the benefits of Greeks, of Europeans and the global community. [Emphasis Mine.]<br /><b><a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2015/4/21/greeces_yanis_varoufakis_the_medicine_of" target="_blank">--Via Democracy Now.</a></b></div></div><hr /><div style="text-align: right;">--Joe </div>Joe Blowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06128478097362231779noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8334045142832444327.post-7013435801361043272015-04-20T08:58:00.000-07:002015-04-20T09:11:39.705-07:00I'm Too Serious? Maybe.<h1 class="title" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 32px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 36px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 26px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/20/john-oliver-doomsday-video_n_7098160.html" target="_blank">John Oliver & Martin Sheen Present The Ultimate Doomsday Video</a></h1><div class="author editor" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial, FreeSans, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 26px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="byline vcard group " style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #999999; direction: ltr; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="info" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; float: left; margin: 2px 0px 0px; max-width: 310px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="thirdparty-logo" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Huffington Post </span><span class="name fn" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 0.9375em; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> | By <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-mazza/" rel="author" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #999999; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ed Mazza</a></span></div></div></div><br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="321" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UC_gXD5OE88" width="570"></iframe> <br /><br /><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; vertical-align: baseline;">If the end of the world is coming, you don't want to see <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/06/cnn-end-of-the-world_n_6422738.html" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #bf1900; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_hplink">a military band playing "Nearer, My God, to Thee" as CNN reportedly has planned</a>.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; vertical-align: baseline;">No, if Doomsday is finally here (and you're going to be parked in front of a TV during humanity's final moments), you want a celebration rather than a funeral dirge -- and on "Last Week Tonight," <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC_gXD5OE88" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #bf1900; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_hplink">host John Oliver recruited "West Wing" President Josiah Bartlet, Martin Sheen</a>, to help the world go out in style.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; vertical-align: baseline;">Check out the clip above for everything that made our time on this planet so remarkable, plus a few things we're all less than proud of. -- <b><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/20/john-oliver-doomsday-video_n_7098160.html" target="_blank">Via Huffington Post</a></b>.</div><hr /><div style="text-align: right;"><b><i>--Joe </i></b></div>Joe Blowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06128478097362231779noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8334045142832444327.post-27064112906836705302015-04-17T12:12:00.000-07:002015-04-17T12:15:33.436-07:00Suck It Up - Suckers<div style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img src="http://www.counterpunch.org/images/flag-print.gif" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma; font-size: 12px;"></span></div><br /><b>A demonstration in non-cooperation.</b><br /><hr /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15px; text-transform: uppercase;">WEEKEND EDITION APRIL 17-19, 2015</span><br /><div class="subheadlinestyle" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px; margin-top: 12px;">Group Hug in Hell</div><div class="article-title" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 36px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 36px; margin-top: 6px;"><a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/04/17/the-election-that-matters-will-take-place-in-the-streets" target="_blank">The Election that Matters will Take Place in the Streets</a></div><div class="mainauthorstyle" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 1px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 9px;">by ROB URIE</div><div id="main-text" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma; font-size: 12px;"><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><strong>Be Gone Labor, Environment</strong></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><strong><br /></strong></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">Whether it is broadly perceived at present or not, an economic bomb was just dropped on the loose coalition of political and economic interests— Black Lives Matter, the $15 minimum wage movement, the residual of Occupy and the immigrants’ rights movement, by the political Party that a half-century or so ago nominally represented like issues, the Democrats. With President Barack Obama getting ‘fast-track’ authority for the uber-corporate friendly, anti-labor and anti-environment TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) and establishment candidates Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush the likely contenders for President in 2016, both mainstream political Parties are doubling down on the neoliberal, neoconservative status quo.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">As Mr. Obama most certainly understands, the ISDS (Investor-State Dispute Settlement) provisions of the TPP render ‘liberal’ and ‘progressive’ civil labor and environmental proposals moot— issues like a minimum wage and what type of fuels U.S. utilities can burn will be decided by corporate lawyers in tribunals outside of civil jurisdiction. Appeals to Hillary Clinton to oppose the agreement— Jeb Bush and Congressional Republicans have already signaled their support; illustrate the folly of political ‘lesser-evilism.’ Ms. Clinton is a committed neoliberal and any opposition she might offer would most certainly be an election ploy. Given the ‘political capital’ that Mr. Obama is expending to get the TPP passed, it is reasonable to assume that it represents the culmination of the neoliberal takeover that has consumed the Democrat Party for the last half-century.</div></div><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">Informing modern political theory, in the late nineteenth century the German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey developed the ‘telos of becoming,’ the purpose (telos) that becomes evident through subsequent history. When applied to American politics a trajectory from Jimmy Carter’s neoliberal resurgence to Bill Clinton’s social capitulation accompanied by NAFTA and deregulating the banks led to Barack Obama’s current push for the TPP. With polls consistently showing the American public well to the left of mainstream Party policies, modern Republicans lack the finesse for the political long con. With the TPP as soon-to-be-accomplished fact, from bank bailouts to the revived unitary Presidency, from extra-judicial drone murders to endless wars, Barack Obama is the gifted salesperson for a new corporate totalitarianism.</span><br /><br /><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><strong>The Rationale</strong></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><strong><br /></strong></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">By accounts Mr. Obama does have a rationale for his support of the TPP, a ‘strategic vision’ that illuminates the interests at stake— as well as the utter irrelevance of the electorate and the broader American people in the ‘deal.’ The logic goes approximately like this: multinational corporations— banks, arms manufacturers, oil and gas companies and various and sundry industrialists already rule ‘the world.’ The choice from this point forward is between ‘our’ corporations and Asian, mainly Chinese, state-sponsored corporatism. The problem for the rest of us is that this is an updated eighteenth century European ‘royalist’ view— it is neutron bomb politics where the 99.9% of us who also occupy the planet, and the planet itself, have been assumed away. The ghettoization of the political and economic ‘leadership’ classes has facilitated a deeply delusional internal logic in policy ‘circles.’</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">From within this view the rest of Mr. Obama’s policies make sense. The bailouts of banks and bankers were to keep the ‘real’ players in the game. U.S. sponsored chaos across the Middle East is a contest for regional, and global, dominance where the lives of the ‘little people’ who are its casualties are irrelevant to the ‘higher purpose.’ Obamacare expands the proportion of the domestic population tied to the corporate model of social relations. Domestic surveillance is the hierarchical model of corporate control applied to a network of engineered social relations— technology defines the realm of social possibility through the inclusion and exclusion of broader social possibility. Left apparently unconsidered is that this unchecked corporatism seems at present the quickest path to mass extinction of most living things on the planet.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><strong>Group Hug in Hell</strong></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><strong><br /></strong></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">For Democrats in particular the election cycle revives the preference for religious imagination with increasingly toxic results. This imagination has been joined with the capitalist idea of progress through embedded history presented as the new and improved product line. If only we elect a ______ to the Presidency the world will be right. Had these aspirations ever borne meaningful relation to actual outcomes the conceit might make some sense. Margaret Thatcher demonstrated that a woman can force a hard-right turn as well as any man. Clarence Thomas was appointed to the Supreme Court because he proved himself useful to the institutional hard-right by throwing tens of thousands of hard-fought anti-discrimination lawsuits by the poor and disenfranchised into the dustbin without review. Absent a miraculous end-of-term conversion the neoliberal, neoconservative Barack Obama is set to make Jimmy Carter into a retrospective Democrat hero.</div><br /><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">It is more than a bit ironic that in a country with nominally democratic aspirations the quest for a leader who will deliver ‘the people’ from their bonds becomes abdication, infinite ‘progress’ that never quite relates last year’s savior to this year’s bonds. Coincident is the want for more emotionally satisfying incantations, better explanations for the facts that are their opposite. Neocons and neoliberals are statespersons and responsible economists when the Blue Party is in office and war-mongers and readers of economic goat entrails when the Red Party is in office. The totality of the ideological distance between Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton can be found in the few names that don’t overlap on their contributor lists. The pragmatists hoping for ‘a seat at the table’ don’t appear to have realized that they are once again on the menu.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">The root of this electoral delusion lies in the contradiction between political and economic democracy. Posed as compatible, even complimentary, American democracy was conceived in plutocracy and slavery, in the three-fifths a chattel person slaves accrued to those who owned them. Two centuries before the Supreme Court’s ‘Citizen’s United’ ruling the owner of fifteen slaves held the political ‘personhood’ of nine slaves (3/5 = 0.6 X 15 = 9) plus himself. Fealty to legislative and judicial precedence has antique white guys in fact and spirit communing with the social facts of past centuries that have been so skillfully reconstituted in modern social technologies. ‘Private’ contributions to political campaigns approximate the distribution of income. Representative democracy has the same representatives representing the interests of factory owners and ‘their’ employees. Labor leaders who are paid like bosses act like bosses.</div><br /><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">The recurring ritual of liberal and progressive commentators pleading with Democrat candidates to consider their policy prescriptions conveys the well-padded chairs in well-appointed offices that will greet their ritual humiliation once the votes have been counted. Self-important distinctions between REDBLUE voters and the ‘irrelevant’ left will be on public display until the first Presidential ‘compromise’ hits the news. The first few compromises will be ‘pragmatic,’ a signal that HILLBUSH wants to ‘reach across the aisle’ to accrue political capital for the important votes. The next few will be accedence to the Conservative / Christian temperament of the voters whose divided vote called for small ‘c’ change. And the next few still will signal the inability for transformative organization by the liberal-left until the current savior needs to rouse the troops for the next election.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><strong>The (Corporate) People Will be Heard</strong></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><strong><br /></strong></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">For those occupying less hospitable environs, a/k/a the overwhelming preponderance of persons on / in the world, the pageantry of radical irrelevance which is electoral politics retains some entertainment value from the distance. The perpetual chide that not voting accedes political power to those who do accepts at face value that political power is gained at the ballot box. The only major Democrat to win in the 2014 mid-term elections, Pennsylvania’s Tom Wolf, just put forward the most radically neo-liberal state budget in modern history. While ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) has been partially exorcised from the utterly corrupt Pennsylvania state legislature due to bad press, Democrat Wolf’s election victory brought back the ALEC platform without the political baggage. Who says voters don’t have a voice?</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">While Tom Wolf is but one Governor and Pennsylvania but one state, the tie between the mainstream political Parties and impossible-to-dislodge political and economic interests transcends local politics. The class dynamic at work in Pennsylvania is mirrored nationwide: a group of moderately literate, self-interested neoliberal opportunists are using the residual agrarian / urban, state / city frame to enrich themselves by looting the cities under the cover of neoliberal ideology. How many privatized school cheating scandals, misbegotten student debts and industrial sewers that used to be town water supplies need exist before the distance between words and deeds is obvious?</div><br /><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">The political dynamic being brought to the fore is rapidly increasing class antagonism. Those either too busy or disinterested to understand exactly how far down the neoliberal rat hole the Democrat Party has descended will be seeing it in their paychecks and health insurance premiums in coming weeks and months. With fortune (Machiavelli’s ‘fortuna,’ not banker script) in play, the TPP may be Hillary Clinton’s undoing. It places the Democrat Party so decisively in the pockets of the corporate-totalitarian right that the more prescient forces of the liberal-progressive establishment might choke on their continuing support for Democrat policies. Republicans are ‘worse’ in the sense of being less skilled at selling corporate interests as those of ‘the people.’ But given that the actual policies of both Parties are close to identical, the political choice is either for the existing system or against it without the faux distinctions of Party politics.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">The present amorphous coalition of Black Lives Matter, the $15 minimum wage movement (why not $21 plus benefits?), the residual of Occupy and the immigrants’ rights movement embody the political with economic issues that sum to true political opposition to the heavily cloistered political mainstream. Crude materialist theories of political interests, the first ______ President, etc., have been the tools of cynical political opportunists selling similar policies with carefully circumscribed difference for some decades now. Barack Obama has his reasons for pushing the TPP. But if you believe that they are ‘your’ reasons you haven’t read the fine print. The only politics likely to matter in the next few years will be decided in the streets, not at the ballot box. -- <a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/04/17/the-election-that-matters-will-take-place-in-the-streets" target="_blank">Via CounterPunch.</a></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><em><strong>Rob Urie</strong> is an artist and political economist. The images that accompany this piece are his iteration of previously existing images. This approach derives from a social theory of art.</em></div><hr /><div style="text-align: right;"><b><i>--Joe </i></b></div>Joe Blowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06128478097362231779noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8334045142832444327.post-48825978689697379462015-04-10T12:38:00.000-07:002015-04-10T12:39:27.298-07:00What you call, Rule of Law<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 20px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2KSiMiOJeYc/VSgmW3R2VHI/AAAAAAAAB30/B1XO8MBpmKw/s1600/041015_gun-control.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2KSiMiOJeYc/VSgmW3R2VHI/AAAAAAAAB30/B1XO8MBpmKw/s1600/041015_gun-control.jpg" /></a></div><span style="color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: 36px; line-height: 1.1;">When Anger Management Leads to Gun Confiscation</span></div><div class="meta" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><div class="published-at" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 10px;"><time style="box-sizing: border-box;">Apr. 10, 2015 - <b><a href="http://patriotpost.us/articles/34516" target="_blank">Mirrored from the Patriot Post</a></b></time></div></div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 20px;">Anti-Second Amendment zealots are sure to be stirred up by a new study that claims 22 million Americans have severe anger issues <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">and</em>access to guns. The <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bsl.2172/abstract" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca; text-decoration: none;">study</a><span class="printOnly" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 11.25px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">1</span>, conducted by researchers at Harvard, Columbia and Duke universities, goes on to identify these angry people as generally young or middle-aged men living in suburban areas and having a history of impulsive and explosive anger issues. Next up: Gun confiscation.</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 20px;">The study’s authors <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/04/08/nearly-1-in-10-americans-have-severe-anger-issues-and-access-to-guns/" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca; text-decoration: none;">note</a><span class="printOnly" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 11.25px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">2</span> that, while laws are already on the books limiting gun access for people with felony convictions or misdemeanor domestic violence convictions, there have been few attempts to limit access for people with documented anger management issues or alcohol abuse.</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 20px;">In recent years, newly minted federal and state laws focused on limiting gun access to people with mental illness, but so far the results have been mixed. While it has been possible to prevent some mentally ill people from owning firearms, there are also cases where perfectly healthy individuals have had their guns confiscated after being swept up in this dragnet. Furthermore, the study’s authors point out that, even if mentally ill people are removed from the equation entirely, it would reduce violent crime by only 4-5%.</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 20px;">The study concludes that it’s time to widen gun restrictions to include people with other misdemeanor convictions and documented behavior that, according to its findings, indicate the potential for gun violence. The anti-gun lobby is sure to latch onto this study as it continues its fight to remove firearms from private ownership.</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 20px;">Certainly there are people so mentally unstable that they shouldn’t own guns. But who gets to decide just how angry people must be before we revoke their Second Amendment rights? Is it, for example, throwing a rock through a neighbor’s window, or is it something mundane like raising one’s voice in a heated discussion about picking up the trash? </div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 20px;">Everyone expresses anger, and, while the study defines an “anger problem” through a series of aberrant behaviors like repeatedly destroying property or getting into physical altercations, lawmakers may not adhere to such a strict definition. Nor does it instill confidence that the execution of laws meant to curb gun ownership by so-called angry people will be administered without prejudice. We need only look at the gun-grabbing effect of laws already on the books to prove this point.</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 20px;">Take the case of <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/04/09/right-to-bear-arms-gun-grabbing-sweeping-nation/" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca; text-decoration: none;">Michael Roberts</a><span class="printOnly" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 11.25px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">3</span>, a law-abiding citizen in California who had his 21 firearms, including some irreplaceable family heirlooms, confiscated in 2010 when his doctor filed a restraining order against him. The matter was peacefully resolved, but the police refused to return Roberts' guns despite a court order instructing them to do so. In the end, he sued for and received the cash value of his guns, but the police, who had no such authority under the law, destroyed the firearms.</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 20px;">Sadly, the Roberts case is not unique. States with strict gun laws — California, New Jersey, Massachusetts, et al. — often operate on a confiscate-first, ask-questions-rarely mentality. These types of cases happen under the radar and often go unreported in the media, leading people to think lawful gun owners needn’t fear having their guns confiscated and destroyed by government officials.</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 20px;">The gun grabbers who hide behind state and federal laws count on the bureaucracy to mask their actions and to prevent people from seeking restitution if their guns are confiscated. Oftentimes, the cost of litigation, fees and fines are too great for gun owners to pay, and they have little recourse as their firearms are seized for ginned up reasons.</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 20px;">The right to own firearms is protected by both the Second Amendment and the Fifth Amendment, which covers private property. But if government officials and anti-gun zealots are making the rules, the status of legal gun ownership will remain on precarious ground. <b>[<a href="https://matthewtuininga.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/what-is-the-christian-position-on-gun-control/" target="_blank">Picture Source</a>]</b></div><hr /><b><a href="http://patriotpost.us/articles/34516" target="_blank">Via Patriot Post</a></b><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><b><i>--Joe</i></b></div>Joe Blowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06128478097362231779noreply@blogger.com3