Friday, September 19, 2014

Should Liberals Learn To Live Without Hope?


Thom Hartman reminds us that the Arab Peoples themselves may voluntarily choose to do NOTHING about ISIS themselves if left to their own devices, and have shown a disinclination to act on their own even though they are awash in oil money and easily able to take on ISIS themselves  If the United States pursues this war with ISIS there is no way for us to win.  Even Samantha Brady today admitted that revenge is not all it’s cracked up to be.  We lost nearly three thousand good people on 9 – 11 but it costs us subatantially more than that in lost lives of our fighting men, and untold billions of dollars and a lot of heartache and suffering, lost limbs, eyes, brain damage- - what have you?   And we’ll just forget about innocent civilians that lost their lives.  But even from our own point of view it wasn’t worth it.   The war in 2003 was a mistake, and NATO going to war in Arab Spring of 2011 was a mistake, and we are about to make another mistake.  As Hartman pointed out- - what Islamic moderate who is a merchant or craftsman or something living in Syria or Iraq- - just a quiet family man who wants to be left alone - - why is that man going to sign up with the United States and have a target immediately on his back to be shot at from both sides- - not only ISIS, but worse yet, Assad’s murderous forces.   We expect the rest of the world to be as insane as we are.  But it was pointed out that Saudi Arabia has the fourth biggest defence force in terms of both manpower and budget - - in the world, exceeding countries like France.  The Saudis have funded ISIS - - and now people like Sean Hannity say “No, the Saudis are on our side”.  Well - - let them prove it.  ISIS represents no threat to us- - at least not yet.  Just as there were no Al Qaeda in Iraq prior to 2003 but our presence changed all that.  Certainly you’ve heard the expression a time or two in your life “Don’t Borrow Trouble”.  I think something like that is even in the Bible - - somewhere.   One scripture in the Bible reads “Don’t meddle to your own hurt”.    How many election seasons more to we have to have in the midst of a national war?   I’ve heard even Rand Paul has back-tracked on his so called “Isolationist” statements lately and is now on board with War.   Our country couldn’t be “Isolationist” if our life depended on it.  We have troops in every corner of the world, and have meddled in every corner of the world.   But let’s just sit this one out.
There has been another mass shooting and this one is in Florida.  This man had a felony on his record but was able to secure a firearm.  He killed six of his grandchildren and his daughter and then aimed the gun on himself.   Of course the NRA has nothing to say by way of response.  In the NFL on the Bill Carol show they had the head of the league and he fumbled around for 45 minutes or longer- - and Bill Carol was not the least bit impressed with ANY of the answers to questions this guy gave.  There is now a fourth assault case- - and this one is apparently an Arizona Cardinal.   How do you get four of these cases in the past month and say it isn’t high.  Norman Goldman says that the death rate from firearms is twice as high per capita for Blacks as it is for Whites.   Meanwhile congress is taking yet another extended vacation.  They had off five and a half weeks from late July to September 8th.  They worked four days last week and four days this week and now they have left town.  Congress won’t again meet until mid November, after the election.   So to me this is an ideal issue for any democtatic candidate to raise in this campaign.   I watched “The Big Picture” and Thom Hartman was debating people who felt that it was important that we get the eighth or ninth Bengazi hearing going.   But of course - - basically congress will only have been in session for eight days from the period between late July and mid November.   Another factoid about media news coverage was revealed.  We know about Mc Cutchen and Citizen’s United- - and all the stuff with lax campaign laws these days - - or Ohio trying to roll back voting rights and was stopped from doing so by the Court.   Well - - - the Media at large in the past year and a half - - has only spent a total per outlet of about fifteen minutes covering these topics over the past year and a half!  This is absurd.  They are much more concerned about what outfit a celebrity is wearing at a function.   Today’s song quote:  “They way they want more freedom, but what they do not say, is that they want more freedom - - to take Your Rights away”.   Norman Goldman is not predicting there will be no indictment from the grand jury in the Ferguson police shooting case.   I can’t even by surprised by this anymore.

This is Friday September 19, 2014 and the I Phone 6 is finally for sale to customers today.  The vote on Scottish independence yesterday failed 55% to 45% so basically it wasn’t even close.  It was all sentimental media hype.   The quality of liberal talk shows has been going down on a broad scale in the past six months, which is no surprise.  Randy Rhodes of course flew the coop entirely.  Ed Schultz dropped his daily show and maybe I’ll check out “The Ed Show” soon.  I confess to not having done that.  And Norman Goldman seems to be suffering from some sort of burn-out, and I’m suspecting he’ll be the next to announce he’s getting out of the business.   It used to be that talk shows were news driven shows that had a lot of caller input.  But the caller input on all shows right and left- - appears to be rapidly diminishing.  And a lot of the time the host is not up to the job of “filling the time”.  Even Stephanie’s show quality has undergone a downgrade since Jim Ward left- - and John Fugelsang, who used to be a regular guest- - can hardly be seen at all now.  We continue to hear the relentless drum beat that the election is lost, that we’ve heard for months.   But let’s look at it.  They say that both FOX news and Rush Limbaugh only have about nine million viewers, but let’s be generous and make it fifteen million.  This is five percent of the American population.  If you eliminate those not qualified to vote let’s say it’s seven and a half percent of the voting population.  If you tell me “Only fifty percent of the people vote” and lets assume that ALL of those people NOT voting are something other than conservative.  This brings the tally to fifteen percent.  Now assume only 35% of the voters turn out   We have now cut the number by a third and so the VOTING number rises to 22% or so.   You can’t win elections with 22% of the vote no matter how you slice it.   The demographics, if they are at all to be believed- are on our side.   In order to fit the FOX profile you have to be Not urban, NOT poor, NOT under thirty-five, ARE main-stream Christian, NOT single, NOT gay, and NOT a minority.   And every one of these demographics that bode well for the democrats is on the rise and every one that bodes well for the republicans is shrinking.   But we don’t have one man one vote in this country due to gerrymandering.   Also in the senate- - perhaps a bunch of red state senators from North Dakota or places like that- - can block any legislature at will.  Because we have the 40% rule - - - and most of those Senators are from sparsely populated states, so that even in the first Obama congress, there was a lot that got passed in the House but blocked in the senate.   We have other bad news.  It seems that the Government had all but cleared Governor Christie of any wrong doing in “Bridgegate” and now have drawn their expert conclusion that Christie knew nothing about ordering the closing of the George Washington bridge.   And of course increasingly cases in Federal Courts are decided by judges hand picked by the Koch Brothers over the eight years of the Bush 43 administration.   Nobody dares complain about anything for fear of losing their job, and if you do protest the media will either ignore you completely, or else side with the Police.    Such is the state of the governmental world we live in today.

 It used to be - - by possible way of explanation why I have never prayed for Israel’s “salvation” as a nation even back when I was a lot stronger in the Faith, and that is because back then we all were told that it was impossible for Israel to get “saved” until the Rapture of the Church with all of the Christians removed and Israel having to fend for itself in the tribulation.  I was reading the Daniel 8 prophecy last night about the ram with two horns, and the he-goat, and how the he-goat went throughout the surface of the whole earth “and his feet never seemed to touch the ground” and when confronted with the he-goat, the Ram lost all power before him and its two horns were broken.   There may be multiple applications of this imagery only to say that the Ram is seen as good and the he-goat is seen as bad.  I checked out all the other “bits” in the book of Zachariah from chapters nine through thirteen.   Last night it was Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune and then “Vampire Diaries” and I dozed off before nine- - and roused during the next program.   Next week - - I guess we’ll get Dodgers and Giants baseball on channel 56 because they got their contract thing straightened out.  I would only note that from September 24th on you can begin looking for any strange supernatural omens, because I am informed by “the other side” strange events are destined to transpire.  I won’t have any money the past week as it is- so a Rapture would be ideal for me.   Next week at last will be the main Season Premier week for TV programming- - which is always forever that we have to wait for.
I tracked the roomer down about Pat Robertson getting out of combat during the Korean War.   Pat Robertson came from a privileged family in Virginia and had lots of political connections, as follows.  In 1948, the draft was reinstated and Robertson was given the option of joining the Marine Corps or being drafted into the army; he opted for the first.  In his words, "We did long, grueling marches to toughen the men, plus refresher training in firearms and bayonet combat." In the same year, he transferred to Korea, "I ended up at the headquarters command of the First Marine Division," says Robertson. "The Division was in combat in the hot and dusty, then bitterly cold portion of North Koreajust above the 38th Parallel later identified as the 'Punchbowl' and 'Heartbreak Ridge.' For that service in the Korean War, the Marine Corps awarded me three battle stars for 'action against the enemy.'"[8]  However, former Republican Congressman Paul "Pete" McCloskey, Jr., who served with Robertson in Korea, wrote a public letter which said that Robertson was actually spared combat duty when his powerful father, a U.S. Senator, intervened on his behalf, and that Robertson spent most of his time in an office in Japan. According to McCloskey, his time in the service was not in combat but as the "liquor officer" responsible for keeping the officers' clubs supplied with liquor. Robertson filed a $35 million libel suit against McCloskey in 1986.[9] He dropped the case in 1988, before it came to trial and paid McCloskey's court costs.[10] According to a newspaper report from 1986, Robertson confirmed elements of McCloskey's allegations and said that he never saw front-line duty.[11] A lot of these Televangelists came from this limbo period being just too young to see combat in World War II, I’ve noticed.  I guess you could call them GINOS or great in name only, or perhaps denoting femininity such as in gyno sperm.   Gene Scott and Chuck Smith are from this same time period sliver.
I decided to check in on Last.FM and played “Smells like Teen Spirit”, “Heart Shaped Box” and a live and electric version of “About a Girl” and also “Joan Crawford” by Blue Oyster Cult- - where I was amazed how many lyrics I still remembered though I haven’t heard this song in ages.   Suicide was a good “life move’ for Kurt Cobain- - because Grunge wasn’t destined to last that much longer anyhow.   It was the first time I had checked in on Last.FM in a long time, and they seemed to have changed their format a little.  But they still remembered me referring to me by my strange call-letters.  Some may say that Kurt Cobain was the quintessential Generation X person.   I assign the generations to a slightly earlier time period than others.  I consider the boomer generation from about the late thirties- - - to about 1960 inclusive.  I say it started if you were young enough to have been in high school when rock and roll first became all the rage.  I would say that Generation X ends- - at that point where a person was too young to remember a period when computers were not in general usage.   I think the term came because this generation considered themselves X’d out from society.   I remember in 1996 during the Clinton Campaign when they first announced in the news the advent of “The milenial generation” - - interviewing a group of then ninth graders, and I thought “What kind of strange species will these people turn out to be?”   

No comments: