I grew up in Pennsylvania and graduated from High School in 1966, the year that Joe Pa became the head coach at Penn State. Before finally deciding on Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, I briefly did consider attending Penn State. Many of my fellow graduates did go there. Back in those days, Penn State did not have the Academic Reputation that it holds now. In fact, it was considered a fall back for those who could not get into a good school. One of the main reasons Penn State’s Academic Reputation has greatly improved since then is the efforts of Coach Paterno. When the scandal involving the former long-time defensive coordinator under Coach Paterno first broke, there was a lot of discussion in the media, and most especially ESPN, about the fact that Coach Paterno had a lot of “power” at the University and in the community. However, it is my contention that the media analysts confused moral power with, for the lack of a better word, political power. In listening to comments made by current and former students at the University, I feel that the authority that Coach Paterno had was not in the arena of decision, but rather Couch Paterno was able to influence those with the real political power because of the high esteem he had with students and residents of the state.

In 2004, I believe it was, there was an attempt to force Coach Paterno to retire. This attempt was spearheaded by the members of the administration at the time, who are now under indictment for perjury. As those of us who have followed the growth of college football over the last few decades know, college football is all about the money. The more you win, the more money you make. Coach Paterno has always stressed, imho, education and personal development as a human being over wins and losses. I feel that the administrators at the time wanted the football program to become more of a money machine then it already was, and that is why they wanted Coach Paterno out.

However, due to the high regard that the Penn State community past and present had for Joe Pa, the efforts to oust him were thwarted. It is my feeling that these administrators used the sex scandal as a weapon to get Coach Paterno out of the way. Although it will never stand up in any court of law, loosing his position as head football coach killed Joe Paterno. Being shunted aside by the University that he loved and gave his life to broke his heart. I hope the people responsible for his ouster are happy.

Hope you all had a good Christmas/Hanukkah and have a Happy New Year. Let me offer you the following blessing for the New Year:

May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.

The reason that i mention the Nazis is because the right-wing political propagandists in this country equate the Third Reich with socialism, which is ridiculous. First of all, the Third Reich was a totalitarian political system, in which the government, embodied in the Oligarchy that controlled the Nazi party, owned some but not all of the most essential economic resources. Socialism is the cooperative ownership of essential means of production by all the citizens of the body politic. A socialist economy can exist in various political systems. It does NOT have to be a totalitarian government.

Here is a very good definition of socialism from Wikipedia, the Free Online Encyclopedia:

Socialism /ˈsoʊʃəlɪzəm/ is an economic system in which the means of production are either state owned or commonly owned and controlled cooperatively; or a political philosophy advocating such a system.[1] As a form of social organization, socialism is based on co-operative social relations and self-management; relatively equal power-relations and the reduction or elimination of hierarchy in the management of economic and political affairs.

I strongly suggest that those of you who are not well-versed in political and/or social theory read the entire article. The best counter to the machinations of the propaganda peddlers is a well-educated body politic. Let it not be said that I am not doing my part to keep you well-informed C:.

I find it both totally ridiculous and extremely disturbing that the right-wing political fundamentalists in this country have mastered the propaganda techniques of the Third Reich. Has Joseph Goebbels come back to life in 21st century America?

It is this link between Protestantism and capitalism is at the core of the economic philosophy of political fundamentalism in the United States today, since most, if not all, political fundamentalists are also religious fundamentalists. By religious fundamentalists I mean conservative evangelical protestants. I find the Christian Fundamentalist idea that material success is a measure of god’s favor hysterically funny since Jesus and his disciples, as well as the earliest Christian communities in and around modern-day Israel, owned little or nothing and what they did own was held in common. There are numerous sayings in the canonical gospels attributed to Jesus that make it very clear that material success was a hindrance to entry into the kingdom of Heaven. If you want to understand Weber’s explanation of how Protestantism became to the conclusion that material success was a measure of God’s favor, I suggest that you read the book. It’s not particularly long nor a difficult read. Something that I will discuss in greater detail in my Christian Heresiology blog, but I want to mention it briefly here, is that I feel the roots of this link between christianity and capitalism can be found in the Acts of the Apostles. The original disciples send Paul to collect contributions from the Gentile churches in Asia minor to show his acceptance of their leadership and to help support the Christian communities in and around Jerusalem. From his letters it appears to me that Paul found this idea of Christian “communism” rather distasteful. He often stresses his own reluctance to accept charity and boasts of his own economic self-sufficiency because he has a trade that allows him to earn money anywhere. He often encourages the members of the Churches he founded to be equally self-sufficient. I suspect that, unlike the Jerusalem Christian communities, Paul and his followers were not really expecting an immediate Apocalypse. As I pointed out in my latest post on Christian Heresiology, there is a very close tie between Christian theology and it’s struggle for political power. Europe at the time of the reprimation saw the birth and rise of the middle class, a group that achieved economic success without the benefits of noble-birth or inherited wealth. The Middle Class was flexing its political muscle and demanding political power to rival the long-standing power of the futile lords. This political struggle was best exemplified by the rise of cities and towns who recieved their charters from the ruling monarchs rather then the local lords. Many of the local lords were also members of the catholic hierarchy or had family members in that hierarchy. It is not surprise that the Reformers found their main support from the citizens of these free town and cities, and therefore, tied ther developimg theology to the aspirations of the middle class.

Modern-day American Protestant leaders have taken this link between Protestant theology and the Middle Class to new heights. They have further distorted the Christian message and American political ideals/history to further their misguided (I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt here) agenda. It is time for all Americans to wake up to the reality of their machinations. The U.S. never has been and never should be a one religion country. It was founded on the principles of religious, political and economic freedom. Whether the Fundamentalists want to admit it or not, this country is and always has been a country built by immigrants coming from diverse economic, religious, cultural, and ethnic background, even the Fundamentalists. It is this ability to accept and merge these immigrants into the melting pot of America that has made us a strong nation. To really see what happens to a nation that tries to maintain the fiction of ethnic purity, I suggest you study closely what happened in Nazi Germany, Yugoslavia, and the Soviet Union. The latter two dissolved into multiple political entities based on ethnicity. This is the future we may face if we do not retreat from the ever-increasing anti-immigration stridency of the political Right.

Besides the obvious reduction in the military budget, a topic I will discuss in a later post, why don’t we reduce the entitlements the elected officials? Former presidents do not need pensions. Even if they serve two-terms, eight years, that’s a lot less then the twenty years or more the average working stiff has to stay at the same job to get a pension. Also, eliminate all pensions for Congressmen. Most of these guys have “Second jobs” and outside interests that pay them far more then most working Americans will see in a lifetime.

Second, eliminate free health-care for all elected federal officials. Most of these guys, and I use the word in a non sexist way, are millionaires or damn close to it. They make more in a year, not counting their Federal salary, then you or I will make in a lifetime. They want people who they think can afford to pay for healthcare to pay for healthcare rather then depending on Federal “entitlements”. Hell, if anybody can afford the ridiculous premiums that the insurance are charging for Healthcare, it’s these idiots.

It’s time that we working class and middle class Americans stood up to these fools and stopped believing their incredible bullshit. Contrary to the conservative rhetoric, it is not small business that drives the American economy, it is the working Americans. It is not small business, in the sense that you and I understand small business, that creates jobs. Jobs are created by the large corporations and mid-sized businesses. The problem that our economy and that has led to the large unemployment figures is that we give theses companies tax-credits and other entitlements even though they run their businesses poorly, ship jobs over seas because it costs less for labor in Third-World, and the politicians in our government are, for the most part, deep in the pockets of these corporations.

I am afraid that the “pundits”(Idiots) at Fox News maybe right: class warfare – and it won’t be a war of words – is coming if we do not radically change the status quo. This country belongs to the people and I do not include corporations as people. I don’t give a damn what the supreme court said, they’re bigger whores then the assholes Congress.

As a post-script a tip of my hat to Warren Buffet who had the balls to say that wealthy people like him need to pay their fair share of taxes.

I want to list a few interesting and important facts of American history that are not often presented in our history book:

• The Star Spangled Banner did not become our national anthem until 1931
• “In God We Trust” did not appear on American currency until 1956

The Conservatives who have for the past few years accused Obama of being a Muslim, not American-born, and therefore not legally qualified to be President, and a Socialist, have been trying very hard to rewrite American history. They want us to believe that the United States was founded as a solely Christian country, that immigration is a bad thing, and that immigrants contribute little or nothing to this country, and the most extreme of them, see the United States as the successors to the Israelites as God’s chosen people. I will be discussing some of these topics in future posts, but the reason I bring them up now is that they are part and parcel with the increasing militarism in this country and reflect the dangerous direction that this country is taking due to the lack of courage shown by the President and the Democratic leadership. They are, as I said in the previous post, far to much consummate politicians, more concerned with their own reelection then with what is right.

The United States should serve as the beacon of Democracy in the world. We really adopted that role during and after World War 2. However we should not force other countries to adopt Democracy using the force of arms. That makes us no better then the Nazis, the Soviets, or the Maoistes. Rather, we would better serve the cause of Democracy by leading by example. We would also get far more support from the rest of the world if we stopped being the policeman and instead became the role model. Also, and this is aimed spesficially at the Christian Right Wing, we would be truer to those Christian principles they so loudly proclaim. After all did Jesus not say, “Those that live by the sword, die by the sword”.

What bothers me most about Obama is that he talks a good game of change, but he does not really have game. He comes off as weak and wavering. I believe he is neither but he needs to reassure us all that he isn’t either by standing up for what I believe he believes and what all the most reliable political polls indicate the American people want: Get us the hell out, and get us out now.

Political wishy-washiness is quite common among American presidents. This is especially true in foreign policy desicons that require a choice between standing up for our principles as opposed to expediancy or at, as Henry Kissinger called it “real politik”. My daughter, and my youngest son Michael(who is writing this at the moment), are fans of System of the Down and their former lead singer Serj Tankian. Serj is of Armenian descent who immigrated from Lebanon to the United States, he is a U.S. citizen and a strong activist for international recognition of the Armenian Genocide of 1915. I think this video by Serj says it all. I reccomend you search your favorite music source for their music and pay close attention to the lyrics. Powerful stuff!

I do realize that the situation that he inherited in January of 2009 when he was sworn in as President was worse then any of us, including Obama, expected. Also, the loss of the democratic majority in congress in 2010 added to Obama’s difficulties. But that loss was, I believe, due in large part to the dissatisfaction that many of us felt with the way things had been handled the previous two years by the democratic Congress and Obama. What do i mean? Let me explain.

On both domestic and foreign policies Obama the canidate promised serious changes. What I want to focus on in this post is the changes in domestic policies he promised and next time we will talk more about foreign policies. The major domestic change that Obama promised was a major reform of the health care system in America. While most Americans believe that we have the best healthcare in the sense of what services and treatments are available and the state of the art medical technology that we have, Americans pay far more healthcare then any other country. In other words, high quality healthcare in the United states to those can afford it. The main concern of the healthcare industry is not so much the quality of care but rather the quantity of their profits. Obama promised to make healthcare affordable for all Americans irregardless of economic status.

What we got was, as far as I can tell, a muddled mess of incremental changes, and I use the word changes loosely, many of which won’t go into effect until after the 2012 election. If the conservatives have anything to say about these changes, they will not happen at all. The healthcare reform package will be repealed if the conservatives get enough votes or win the 2012 presidential election, which, given the current situation, is a definite possibility. The other domestic issue that Obama to reform is our current immigration laws. So far, all we’ve seen in that area is lots of rhetoric, but little substantial change at the national level. We have seen some very serious negative change in certain states’ policies, for example, Arizona.

The problem with our immigration policy is that the indiscriminate use of the term “illegal immigrant”. Many of the people the conservatives consider illegals are not really in this country illegally but rather have had issues getting proper documentation from the federal government. Also we need a national policy that would allow migrant farm workers from Mexico and central America who, contrary to what the conservatives want us to believe, are essential to the agricultural economy of the United States. The days of the “okie” migrant of the Dustbowl era are long gone. There are very few Americans (in the conservative sense of the word) willing to do the work these illegals do at the wages their employers are willing and able to pay them. The consequences of restricting these seasonal immigrants is that in the long term the large-scale farms that provide much of our produce will move from the US to Mexico and Central America, this is already happening and will continue to happen at an even larger scale if there is no substantial change that will allow these immigrants legal access to their employment. The end result for American consumers will be ever-increasing prices at the grocery store.

The last domestic issue that needs to be addressed at the federal is same-sex marriage. Marriage laws are traditionally a state issue, that is, each state defines what constitutes a legal marriage in that state. However, although I do agree to some extent that this is a state issue, there is a limit to what restrictions a state can and should put on their definition of marriage. Also there needs to be a strong legal distinction between a civil marriage and a religious one. While neither any state or the Federal government what constitutes a religious marriage, a civil marriage must not violate the civil rights of the persons seeking to get married. A civil marriage is and should be totally and solely a legal contract between two consenting parties. There should be no restrictions based on any criteria that can be legally construed as discriminatory. And there are numerous legal precedents that rule out gender/sex as a legal criteria for restricting contracts.

Now, to get to what went wrong the main problem is that Obama to many of the democrats in Congress or democratic canidates for Congress consummate politicians, that is, they try to hard to please everyone and end up pleasing no one. It is time for the democrats, including Obama, to stand up and be counted. Stop being so wishy-washy. Take a real stand for change. So what if the republicans call it socialism? Trust the American to know the difference between right and wrong. I think that if the democrats really take a stand and fight for substantive change, they will see many more Americans getting involved in the political process, much like we did in the 2008 presidential election. The problem both in 2008 and 2010 is that there were to many politicans running and not enough advocates for change.

I have been an Amazon affiliate for quite some time, probably ten years or so. However, that relationship has come to an end, an end not of my choice. Amazon is strictly an online retailer. It has no presence in the real world, that is, no actual bookstores. For a long time online retailers and their affiliates have been exempt from collecting state sales tax. However, in recent years, and most recently here in Arkansas, states have been passing revisions to their tax codes that requires online retailers and their affiliates to collect sales tax for sales originating in that state.

For whatever reasons, Amazon does not want to do that, instead, Amazon drops all affiliates in any state that requires they collect sales tax. That is why I am closing my bookstores – Amazon won’t collect the sales tax and won’t honor any sales originating from affiliate links in Arkansas.

While I, to some extent, understand Amazon’s position, I feel that the way they are handling it is unfair. I certainly understand the rationale of the states that have required online retailers to collect sales tax. After all, with so many retailers increasing their online presence and reducing their physical presence, these states need to offset the loss of tax revenue if they want to continue to provide necessary services to their residents. I have long felt that the exemption from state sales tax gave online vendors an unfair competitive advantage, so I do support this change in the Arkansas tax code. That is why I feel that Amazon’s decision to drop affiliates in states that have the sales tax requirement is both unfair and unreasonable.

I have deleted the links in the sidebars on both of my sites to my amazon bookstores. At this point I do not feel motivated to spend the time and energy needed to go back through all posts and pages and remove any links to those bookstores. I do not know yet how those links, if clicked, will be handled by Amazon. i do know that I will not get credit for any sales from those links, which is fine, since I never really expected to make any serious return on those links. You are free to shop at Amazon, however, I intend to boycott them and urge anyone who thinks like myself that this policy of theirs is unfair to also boycott Amazon. After all, it was their affiliates that helped make Amazon the online giant that it is. It seems Amazon has gotten to big for it’s britches and is content to hurt the very people that made it the success it is.

As I do most mornings when I get up I grabbed a cup of coffee and turned on Mike and Mike on ESPN this morning. For those of you who are not familiar with Mike and Mike, it is a sports talk show usually very informative and quite interesting. Sometimes the banter between Mike Greenburg and Mike Golic gets rather amusing.

This morning they were talking about the U.S. open and Rory McIlroy. As they usually do each morning they had a fair number of “experts” talking about this event. There were two threads in the conversation about the golf tournament that set my teeth on edge.

The first thread that set me off was Mike Golic somewhat belittling McIlroy’s win because Rory is not american-born. Yes, the U.S. open is the American national gold championship but, like the British open, it is open to any golfer with the proper credentials, irregardless of nationality. Golic’s premise is that it would have been a more important and impressive win if Rory were an American. He feels that American sports fans want American champions.

To me, that is extremely ethnocentric, especially in this day of the world wide web and the globalization of just about everything imaginable. I probably agree that Americans do pay less attention to things like sporting events if there is no American in contention for the title. We tend to think that we are superior to any other nationality and that the United States is somehow chosen by God. It is this attitude, which we exhibit perhaps without realizing it, that causes us Americans to be disliked in so many other countries. Perhaps it is time for us to rethink and re-evaluate our misguided sense of superiority.

The other thread that caused me to want to write this post was the discussion comparing McIlroy to Tiger Woods. Sports analysts in this country, and especially those at ESPN, want to make mountains out of mole hills. They either take something like Rory McIlroy’s win yesterday and anoint him as the next Tiger Woods, or they take LeBron James’ poor showing in the final four games of the NBA finals and make it appear as some sort of apocryphal disaster. I recommend that the analysts at ESPN get some sort of sense of reality and keep things in perspective.

While I agree that Tiger Woods’ achievements in golf are extraordinary, I do feel that golf needs Rory McIlroy or someone like him to achieve the same level of success as did Tiger Woods. Weather Tiger Woods recovers from his injuries or not, the reason I think gold needs McIlroy is that golf, unlike most other sports, is still considered a “gentlemen’s” game, that is, it discourages loud and abrasive behavior by both players and those in attendance. Woods, unfortunately has a history of profanity on the course and behavior reminiscent of a spoiled child. He also exhibits a level of arrogance that is unbecoming of a champion. Personally I attribute this bad behavior to a culturally ingrained sense of superiority that we Americans tend to flaunt in inappropriate ways. Perhaps it’s time that our young people were given a role model with a greater degree of humility and civility then that exhibited by too many American-born champions.

What I want to address today is Sarah Palin’s lack of mental abilities to be a local dog catcher, let alone President of the United States. To quote her current employer, FoxNews, “SarahPAC, the former Alaska governor’s political action committee, announced Thursday that Ms. Palin would tour “historical sites that were key to the formation, survival and growth of the United States of America.”. In other words she is undertaking this Bus Tour to increase awareness and understanding of American History. The problem is she herself either lacks the proper knowledge of American History necessary to teach others, or she is, like so many other fundamentalists, is trying to rewrite American history. The most recent example of Palin’s revisionist American history is her explanation of the purpose of Paul Revere’s “Midnight Ride”. There are a number of blog posts about Palin’s gaffe, but the Huffington Post article from June 5th best provides an overview of both the original gaffe and Palin’s revisionist explanation of why she said what she did.

It seems to me that someone with Presidential aspirations would have a much better understanding of American History then what Palin exhibits. I do not really know weather she actually believes her revisionist understanding of the issues, ideals and goals that the Founding Fathers faced in the events leading up to, during and immediantly after the American revolution, or if she is intentionally distorting the facts to suit her political agenda. If the former is true then she needs to study American history much more deeply, putting her particular prejudices aside. If the latter is true then she is a real threat to what the United States was meant to be as defined by our Founding Fathers. Either case disqualifies her as Presidential material.

In a future post, I will discuss Palin’s ethical qualifications, especially in light of the scandal that led her to resign as governor of Alaska halfway through her first term.

Jon Stewart’s on Palin’s Gaffe from the Dailyshow.com
Stephen Colbert’s take on the Gaffe from Colbertnation.com
Sarah Palin’s attempt to explain herself from her offical PAC website

In order to balance the budget we can either increase taxes (either by raising current taxes or by adding new ones) or we can cut spending period. Or we can do a combination of the two. The conservative approach is to cut spending, primarily in programs like Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. Cutting theses programs targets the less fortunate, as well as the elderly, many of whom are now totally dependent on Social Security for their retirement income, thanks to the mess the investment bankers and hedgefunds made of their pension funds. Many republicans and tea party candidates in 2008 screamed bloody murder about Obama’s healthcare reforms and their supposed “Death Squads” for the elderly. Cutting Social Security and Medicare would be far more insidious then Obama care ever intended and the starvation and deprevation of our seniors would be far more real then the imagined “Death Squads”.

At the South Carolina debate, one Republican, Ron Paul, suggested that we could provide everything needed for those at home, like our seniors, by eliminating or drastically reducing the one trillion dollars we spend every year on military interventions over seas. I am not denigrating the service of our veterans or current military personal, but, imho, the U.s. has a tendency to interfere militarily in areas where we really have no business doing so. I do not condone isolationism, but we are far to easily swayed by the military-industrial complex, ignoring the warnings that President Eisenhower issued in his farewell address in 1960.

In order to balance it’s budget, Wisconsin a few months ago deprived state workers of their collective bargaining rights, so that the governor could unilaterally cut benefits to state workers. This tactic is being followed by other states as well. I would not be surprised to see the federal government follow suit, especially if the conservatives gain more control next year. I respectfully suggest that rather then depriving salaried and hourly workers of benefits that they cannot afford otherwise, both state legislators and Congressmen take a very hard look at their own salaries and benefits, especially the free health care and ridiculous pensions these elected officials receive. If they are serious about balancing the budget, they should start by eliminating these benefits for those currently holding office as well as those who have retired. For the most part, for the last fifty years or more, the politicians who get elected to these offices are quite financially independent and really do not need either the salary or the benefits. That includes former presidents.

The other option in balancing the budget is to raise or create new taxes. The first and most important step here is to eliminate the Bush tax cuts or those individuals making more then 250,000 dollars per year. The second most important step would be to close many of the corporate tax loop holes. Why should we give tax break to those corporations who outsource jobs thereby depriving many Americans of their livelihood. I don’t know about you, but I get very angry and frustrated when I have to deal with a customer service representative for an American corporation who speaks poor English. I think corporations that have outsourced or will outsource American jobs need to be penalized by paying more taxes. Finally, I think that Ron Paul came up with a brilliant suggestion at the South Carolina debates. He suggested that all illegal drugs should be legalized. What a source of tax revenue that would be! Tax these drugs at the same level that tobacco and alcohol products are taxed. As for the fallacious argument that we would all end up as drug addicts, if these drugs were legalized, I have one question for you: Would you seriously start using heroine if it became legal?

If I become convinced that Ron Paul would seriously try to implement his ideas, if elected, I would vote for him at the drop of a hat. This would be the first Republican Presidential candidate since Henry Cabot Lodge in 1964. I was only a sophomore in High School then, and not old enough to vote.

Ron Paul at the South Carolina Debate, ~Youtube
Jon Stewart on the Debate, ~Dailyshow.com
Stephen Colbert Interviews Congressman Ron Paul ~Colbertnation

I find it ridiculous how the sports media has become so star crazy. Putting two or more great players on the same team does not guarantee great success. If you look at the most successful franchises in the NBA over the last fifty or sixty years(Boston Celtics, La Lakers, Detroit Pistons, and Chicago Bulls), these franchises were able to establish “dynasties” not because of the greatness of one or more players, but because they all played as a team.

Basketball, even though each team has fewer players then other sports, is and always will be a team sport, just like football, baseball, and hockey. No one player or even three players on the same team can dominate night-in and night-out at the level necessary to win a championship. Only when all the players on the team understand their roles and they all learn to play together as a team will they successfully compete for a championship.

Yes, the Heat has two of what most people consider the top five players in the NBA in Lebron James and Dwyane Wade. But both James and Wade are not team players, not in the sense that the Bulls’ players are. James and Wade are more one-on-one players, leaving them vulnerable to a team like the Bulls that plays a very tenacious team defense.

As long as the Bulls continue to play as a team, and there is no reason to think they won’t, sense they have played this way all year, it does not matter all that much which players the Bulls have on the floor at any given moment, the Bulls should win this series contrary to the predictions of most so-called “experts”. I throughly believe that, and it would not surprise me very much if the Bulls swept the Heat.

While I have no problem with restricting access to social media or even telephone calls during games, practices, and other organized team activities, I feel that restricting these athletes’ access to social media during personal time is a violation of the First Amendment. As I heard one ESPN analyst put it yesterday, Mendenhall, because he is a professional athlete, represents the Steelers and the NFL, implying that this is in effect 24/7. Sorry, but that’s a crock of shit. How would you feel if your employer told you what you could and could not say on your Twitter account using your own cell phone or computer?

For a very informative and interesting discussion about Mendenhall’s comments, as well as Twitter use by professional athletes, click here.

As for why I disapprove of the use of Twitter in general, first of all Twitter posts are limited to 140 characters. Most people cannot say anything worth while in 140 or less characters. This makes it very difficult to present one’s ideas in the proper context.

Secondly, it is too easy for anyone, especially the media, to gain access to your Twitter posts, and Twitter does not restrict how a “follower” of anyone uses Twitter posts. If Twitter posts are meant to be personal communications, those comments were more then likely meant for the personal use of the followers, not for use as grist for the media mills. If someone in the media, who is say a follower of Mendenhall, wants to use one of his posts, he should at least notify if not get written permission to do so. The interpretation of the copyright laws to be revised to include social media. Twitter needs to make this sort of “unauthorized” use of Twitter posts a violation of their Terms of Use. We need to redefine the balance between the freedom of the press with the rights of individuals to some personal privacy.

I want to talk very briefly what Mendenhall said. I will have to paraphrase his comments sense, from what I heard, at least one, if not both, of the posts have been deleted, probably due to pressure from his employer. Mendenhall’s first comment expressed some distaste for the chanting, cheering, and singing of the National Anthem after the news of Osama’s death became public. I too found the demonstrations somewhat inappropriate. Osama’s death was, for all practical purposes, an execution, much like the death of Saddam Hussein, Adolf Eichmann, or the Rosenburgs. All of these were political executions, some more barbaric then others. There was no reason for anyone to cheer at any of these executions.

The cheering that I saw at the Monday night baseball game in Philadelphia was eerily similar to the cheering of the Iranian mob outside the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1981. I know most Americans were horrified at that demonstration. I always thought we considered ourselves above such displays of barbarism and jingoistic nationalism. As someone emigrated to this country from Germany some 60 years ago, I am sensitive, perhaps to a fault, to the jingoistic nationalism exhibited by the German people during the Third Reich. I get nervous when Americans display the same sort of “nationalistic” fervor. Patriotism, when done right, is a good thing, but when it becomes robotic and unreflective it becomes a tool for those seeking tyrannical powers to control the masses.

Finally, I want to applaud President Obama for his decision NOT to release the apparently gory and gruesome photos of Bin Laden’s body. I am sure that the more conservative members of the media will pounce on this decision, much as they did with his birth certificate. However, we as a nation must remember that there are Islamic people around the world who, although do not support Bin Laden’s terrorism, will be grossly offended if those pictures are released. We have done much to offend these people; let’s not add insult to injury.

After President Obama got sick and tired of Donald Trump’s nonsense about weather Obama was actually born in the U.S. and therefore legally President and released his birth certificate, Donald Trump practically broke both arms patting himself on the back. When Obama announced the death of Bin Laden and the recovery of his body Sunday night, my daughter received an e-maill from one of her High School teachers of this image. I think the captions says it all lol.

You might Jon Stewart’s comments on the release of Obama’s birth certificate amusing as well as Stephen Colbert’s. Both Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert talked about the death of Bin Laden Last night, and I suspect they will again tonight, so, if you have Comedy Central on your television you might want to tune in at 11pm Eastern time. A lot of the more conservative news analysts are trying imho to give Bush and his administration a lot more credit for the death of Bin Laden then the Bush Administration deserves. Even if the leads that lead to Sunday’s events were developed during the Bush Administration, Bush never had the balls to go into Pakistan and go after Bin Laden himself. Bush, for all his talk and bravado, settled for an easy “victory” over Saddam Hussein rather than the person(Bin Laden) we really needed to go after. Bush refused to go into Pakistan to get Bin Laden because he was to busy kissing the ass of Pervez Musharraf. It was not until very late in his second term that Bush finally stopped supporting Musharraf regime and the Pakistani People were able to achieve a more Democratic government. I wonder how much the impending election of Obama had to do with that.

The thing that we all need to remember is that Osama’s death will not put an end to the activities of terrorists nor will it speed up the end of U.S. Military action in Afghanistan or Iraq or even Libya. What it will do is give the families of the victims of 9/11 a sense of closure. Weather we consider Osama’s death justice or revenge is not important. What we must do from here on is stay vigilant against terrorism and continue to promote in a very real sense, with actions not words, the efforts against oppression and tyranny like we did in Egypt and are doing in Libya. We also need to remember that just because the terrorists and the tyrants may be Muslims, that does not mean that that represent the teachings and principles of Islam, no more so than the Crusades represented the teachings and principles of Christianity. In the history of any major religion it seems that those seeking power will use that religion and to achieve their ends, even if it means perverting the core principles of that religion.

The reason for my lack of enthusiasm for Obama’s re-election is that he has fallen far short of my expectations in his efforts to bring about real change in American domestic and foreign policy. We still do not have a healthcare system that puts the needs of people ahead of corporate profits, we still have a foreign policy that is too quick on the trigger, and not enough emphasis on the desires and aspirations of the peoples we are claiming to help. Our economic policies, which also effect in a very significant way our environmental policies, are still strongly grounded in an overdependance on fossil fuels. Our tax code greatly favors the large corporations, which are the culprits in all of these issues, at the expense of working people. I will discuss each of these areas in greater detail in the months ahead, but right now I will sketch out some of the basic problems in order to get our discussions rolling.

The basic underlying issue in all discussions of political is the over emphasis on profits that is at the heart of the American economic system. While I do not begrudge a business an honest profit, I feel that the American economics system places far to much emphasis on the investor and far to little on the end user. To often the investor and the end user are not one and the same, and the investor has little interest in the quality of the product or service for the end user. All the investor cares about is his/her return on investment, I.E. profit, The most glaring example of this is insurance, wether life, health, or casualty. In the old days the company belonged to the policyholders. Nowadays to many insurance companies are owned by investors, the vast majority of whom do not have their polices with the company. The same is true of the banks. They were once owned by the people who had accounts with the bank, and therefore benefited when the bank made a profit that, sadly, is no longer the case,

America is still overly dependant on fossil fuels like coal and oil, which are increasingly limited supply as well as detrimental to the environment. We need to institute a national policy that fosters aggressive development of renewable, low-cost, alternative fuels but not necessarily the so-called “bio-fuels”. It is apparent that our increasing use of fuels produced from bio-products like corn, is causing serious food shortages worldwide. That is not a good thing.

Our healthcare system sadly enough is also becoming increasingly oriented towards profit then providing better and better healthcare for people of all economic classes. The most disgusting example of this corporate greed is in the pharmaceutical industry. Rather then developing products cure serious diseases the pharmaceutical companies are rushing to market products that only treat symptoms, which often have side-effects worse then the disease they are to supposed to “treat”. This has lead to product recalls and outrageous lawsuits. The only people then the investors in the pharmaceutical industries who reap long term benefits from this situation are the lawyers who represent the patients.

Finally, our foreign policy, which should be geared toward leading by example and fostering American ideals of “life liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, are geared instead towards promoting the profits of the oil companies and other large corporations, the very businesses that are responsible for the loss of American jobs, thanks to their outsourcing. They use the rationale of “multi-nationalism” to justify this outsourcing. Yet it is this same multi-nationalism that allows them to avoid paying U.S. taxes, although it is the American consumer that is their main source of profits. To me, that is really despicable and needs to be corrected immediately.

It is President Obama’s lack of leadership in forcing these much-needed changes that causes me some serious concern. I understand realpolitik need for compromise, but at some point we need to disregard realpolitik, and stand up for what we believe. Had the Sons of Liberty in 1775 practiced real politics, there would have been no Boston Tea Party and, therefore, no American Revolution.