(A “Letter to the Editor” ’06 Election/<with much relevance to the ’08 election given McCain’s 90% bush-cheney voting record !!!> November 1, 2006)
True Responsibility to the next Generation/Posterity obtains the same Pre-requisite, while Progress in Health and Education demands it as well !
This election provides an opportunity for the voters to demonstrate that they have matured intellectually beyond the reactionary incompetence of the far-right wing anti-intellectual Republicans. In the wake of 9-11 most Americans were too frightened to consider our dilemma rationally. This allowed the simple-minded thinking of the right (who have always lied about the “simplicity” of choices) to dominate our political discourse for the last couple of elections. Their real masters (the large corporations) kept most people paranoid and thinking like an elementary school student through their control of the television network “news” propaganda until the one reality which can expose such mind-control to be the “Big Lie” it is - broke through our consciousness, Body Bags . Even though the shrub regime has denied the people their fundamental right to even view those who give their “last full measure” of devotion to this country’s final farewell from the battlefield (flag-draped caskets), the military sub-culture and all responsible citizens sense the draining of our professional force’s strength and will through this incompetently planned, executed and soon to be abandoned “fiasco” (as even the brass are now starting to call it).
Competence however, is perhaps not what the right wing has ever actually been concerned with. Deception and manipulation seems more their real interest. We have just noted the fortieth memorial to those brave Hungarians who foolishly believed the Republican’s propaganda about “rising up in the streets” whereupon the U.S. would help them throw off the shackles of Stalin-ism. The only problem was, of course, that the GOP were merely mouthing words for domestic consumption in an election year and subsequently left the Hungarians to die in the streets. More recently, bush Sr. repeated this treason against the honor of the U.S. at the end of the first Gulf war (Kuwait) when he called for the Shia in the south to “rise up against Saddam” and, wouldn’t you know it, he left them to die in the streets as well! Recalling that war, one may remember than the “tipping point” to begin that one was the lie about “babies being thrown out of incubators” by the Kuwaiti Ambassador’s daughter. This seemed amazingly incredulous at the time (that, say the GOP-ed “intelligence” didn’t know who this liar was), but in retrospect it proved just another in the consistent string of lies and deception which this time “tipped” opinion when Chaney’s multiple bald-faced assertions about “yellow cake” Uranium transfers went un-challenged by the corporate flock of prostitutes <political appointees at “the company”> who mis-represent the Intelligence professionals’ product. They claim of course “dick’s” half a dozen visits to Langley had no bearing on the flock of lies Powell presented to the U.N. -which obviously was actually successful in dis-arming Saddam –possessing the only COMPETENT intelligence agency which the shrub league conveniently ignored <Hans Blix et al of the IAEA>. Again they lie that the bush/chaney Oil lust had no bearing on our decision to engage with Oil-laden Iraq rather than to pursue the terrorists who committed 9-11 located in Afghanistan/Pakistan. The most insidious source of this fiasco (guaranteed to become such after the competent professional general <Shinseki> who requested about twice as many troops as the shrub twits wanted was summarily fired) however, seems to have been revealed by Woodward’s third (times the truth/charm) book in which we discover that instead of learning from the mistakes of history as the Democrats have done, dinky-dickhead-rummy-shrub decided to repeat them by taking Henry Kiss-ass-ger’s advice to “leave the country engaged in a war at election time – they never vote against a commander in the field”. Shrub may also have been following the example of his fellow authoritarian buddy, the “don’t call me KGB” Putin dictator of Russia in Chechnya. (Did he “see in his eyes” a re-election ploy?).
The gross incompetence of this GOP governance regarding Security however, really is at the level of High School Health. Everyone should have learned that treating the Symptoms of a disease does NOT cure it. One must deal with the underlying Cause thereof. The fools of 9-11 were not envious of our society; they were reacting to our treason against it ! When we elect prostitutes of the oil conglomerates who stop at NOTHING to provide us with cheap fuel (and the corporations with obscene profits) we have turned our back against government of, by and for the people – for the suffering millions under the yoke of the Saud Royal cosa nostra, the 20-year reign of the “president” of Egypt and similar perversions of democracy. When we supply such regimes with the weaponry to slaughter their own people, how can we be surprised that some of the survivors practice the age-old tradition of the Middle East – Vengeance ???
The stupid right-wing may prefer to follow 1984’s “Big Brother” enslavement of our country via eternal wars against those our allies oppress, but most Americans should wake up to the fact that triple-profit margin armaments rapes of our Treasury do not benefit most of us (especially the military service victims.)
The truth is that most all sane Muslims do NOT see bin Laden as the “way of the prophet”, but until we require civilized, humane treatment from our trading partners his extremism will not be so discernable from Abu Graib and the rape/murder of innocent Iraqi civilians a la the “moral leadership” from the oval office today (supported, funded and encouraged by the obsequious legislature of the G.reed O.iled P.arty). One more point of incompetence is made poignant by North Korea’s progress towards supplying insanity with fissionable material. One of shrub’s election boasts was that his policy towards that regime would be so much more successful than Clinton’s. The Democrats prevented them from advancing in this area. Our current “leadership” has allowed their first nuclear explosion and left them with enough material for a half-dozen more (at least). Competence requires more than slick lies, in fact.
Most of us remember from grade school that our Government is supposed to be comprised of three branches – and that a major reason for this is to establish a sort of dynamic equilibrium between them – a system of “checks and balances”. It seems the vast majority of the electorate has recognized that when all three branches (and the media) are controlled by an extreme minority our system patently does NOT work. Given the less than twenty percent approval rate of the Congress, the people seem fed up with a “Do Nothing” <’06> congress which has refused to criticize the Executive Branch, being merely it’s rubber stamp in kow-tow-ing to the mega-corporate masters who saddle the middle class (and especially their children) with fiscally irresponsible tax breaks for the extremely wealthy individuals and corporations (even making it harder for students to obtain college loans). Of course the hypocrisy of the party of Mammon’s “moral values” has recently been exposed a la the fact that they covered-up the salacious advances of a gay member towards adolescent pages. This exposes their general trend, but perhaps even more disgusting is their overall attitude of “prone on the floor” for the perverse lobbyists (e.g. Abramoff through Delay) who are allowed to write the legislation which is supposed to control abuse of power (regarding prices, safety & environmental health, for examples). <& Food and Drug “Safety”>
True Responsibility to posterity also requires a fair level of competence, especially in this advanced age of high-tech science applications, for if you don’t really understand the complexities of our interaction with nature you may damage any possibility for survival of our species through sheer ignorance. Many of us were enthralled by the PBS series “Connections” a few decades ago hosted by History of Science Professor James Burke of Oxford University. The shame is that his second major presentation on the science of global warming, aired only once in the late eighties was viewed by so few <in this country>. HE pointed out the facts then, which were accepted by the most competent scientists in the field what the “know-nothing” right-wing has kept from the majority of people until just recently, quite likely damning our children to a world of suffering and decline for their “thirty pieces of silver” rape of God’s Green Earth. Will the flooding of two-thirds of the world’s major cities (all with tide-water level of elevation – like London, D.C., New York, L.A. & Norfolk) and probable de-stabilization of our climate guarantee that posterity looks back on our age and curses it for its self-centered greed ? The irresponsible Congress which rubber-stamped shrub’s rejection of the Kyoto accords and has denied the youth their access to higher learning loans deserve to be turned out onto the “rubbish heap” of history for such callous laziness.
Competence in the areas of Education and Health are so obviously demanded it seems redundant to even have to point such out, but given the denial of reality from our present governance, even such must be emphasized. The murder of the shrub regime and their toady legislators of who knows how many victims who would have been saved via stem cell research which has now been delayed six <now eight> years will soon prove to be a most pathetic example of superstition (in the guise of ignorant clergy) overcoming the obvious truth which even any simpleton bio-researcher can see to be the case. A simple fact regarding the “embryos” which ignorance claims they are saving might put an end to this “sin of omission”. Portnoy’s mother was NOT correct, and a zygote which has divided three times to form eight identical cells has NO thought, NO emotion, NO brain waves and is less a human being than the planarian flatworms most of us “murdered” when we boiled our coffee water this morning!!! i.e. it has nothing like the complexity to house a human soul (or mind). It took the Vatican half a Millennium to admit it got Copernicus wrong, Lord save us from similar incompetence from there or the N.R.A.’s Oval Office. Shrub’s great plan for education, to require certain testing competence places the emphasis wrongly, but worse, requires our under-resourced teachers to “make bricks without straw” by Moses. The <GOP ‘06> Congress is the height of hypocrisy as well in the area of pay raises to which it finds reason to improve it’s own status eight times since the minimum wage was raised last – “beware upon which facts you feed” Steve Winwood (Traffic) = Wisdom, indeed.
Steven Dwight Ferber, Ph. D. – Chemistry <202/806-4231> <= OUT dated
<1112 North Roosevelt Street,
Arlington, Virginia 22205 > <=OUT dated
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To Z Editors, October 29+, 2008
Since so much of what is wrong with a choice that would continue the policies of the far right wing as has been suffered under since Reagan's election by the Ayatollah stupidity (re: US internal affairs) save every other Thursday in the 90's is contained in a missive I wrote for the '06 Election, I have included it along with this update/expansion, since McCain had to sell his maverick SOUL to become the prostitute of the anti-intellectual (anti-TRUTH) cabal which destroyed this country's constitutional rule-of-law thru the 80's (culminating in the lack of prosecution of Iran/Contra in '87); forcing him to "pick" Sarah Vapid as his Veep who had to attend 7 schools to get thru an undergraduate degree - who speaks at anti-American terror conferences of an organization dedicated to succession from the union ! (the founder of which was off-ed by criminals he was buying "plastique" from for his bombing hobby).
This week's Rocket J. Squirrel episode, titled:
Bonzo's lies of Laffer-able curve "free lunch" comes home to roost;
or "Self-policing" in big business is shown NOT to work........ again !!!
(for those who've heard about the crash of '29)
It should be obvious by now, that the Nation/World is in dire need of a CHANGE in leadership regarding the economic system. Reagan's alzheimic belief in the lies regarding the "trickle-down" model of sweeping all advantage to the already advantaged who would then magnanimously let their crumbs fall to the rest of us seems not to have worked any better than in the "Robber-Barron" days of the early nineteenth century. Just as the "margin calls" of over-extended credit heralded the crash of '29, the self-regulation of overly free markets has proved "enough rope" to hang the religionists of avarice from their own petard. The evil here however, is not only childish greed(after Hiroshima, those who ONLY care for their "coconut count" may NOT be wisely mature) this time; but involves a healthy dose of incompetence. When fools who imagine themselves "experts" do not understand the instruments with which they trade, little wonder that much can run amok ! The real source of economic troubles these days is that, far from being even a dismal "science" it's a guess-work art (maybe akin to medicine when we treated headaches with leeches) AND most obviously, whatever IS known about a single-state system is moot whilst yet the multi-national model is still evolving towards a full world system (kinda like a Hamiltonian differential equation with SHIFTING boundary conditions). To assume any "magic hand" is going to prevent problems in such a changeable model is the height of "belief over pragmatic caution". America's history (according to the Historian Henry Steele Commager in The American Mind) has been one of pragmatism, & the "great cahuna's" of the religion of western economics have proven to be more superstitiously fundamentalist than competent. Professor Robert Reich warned of the coming recession a year ago, & is perhaps more representative of those humble enough NOT to tempt such gargantuan mistakes as the G(reed) O(iled) P(arty) orthodoxy "Chicago school" seems to have left us with (he served with the last administration which didn't run a deficit - the Democrats).
To mention a few points briefly: for the vast majority of US taxpayers, the GOP has been playing "reverse Robin Hood" i.e. taking relatively more critical wealth from the less endowed middle class & giving it to those who need NONE and tend NOT to spend or even invest it ! ; the “Small Government" LIE of GOP hypocrisy, surely small regarding helping THE PEOPLE, whereas they expand it ever BIGGER regarding rape of the treasury for Defense/Armaments boondoggles (recall General Eisenhower's warning) for no-bid contractual cronies like cheney-haliburton-black water (which also promulgates a LIE regarding how many "troops" we actually are over-PAYing for by ~ 100,000 expensive mercenaries); the 3 TRILLION dollar cost for the Iraqi war thus far (4.5 actually) according to Nobel laureate economist Stieglitz at Columbia, which doesn't even include the long-term treatment/recovery/maintenance cost for the tens of thousands of seriously disabled vets which, for comparison; the 100 hour gulf war parallel "tax" is now running at billions a year (not to mention the suicide rate is at an all-time high 'cause many PTSD victims cannot even receive proper treatment). The worst aspect, however; is that Trillions have been squandered in Iraq for Dickhead Chaney's true boss (Big Oil), while Afghanistan suffers because shrub has not funded President Karzai adequately so as to AVOID having to employ the powerful (rich) Narco-Warlords as his regional Governors (whose product funds the Taliban). On an instinctual level, regarding the candidates; the Democrat grew up in the school of "hard knocks" economically compared to the Republican who as a "poor little rich kid" son of an admiral wanted for nothing before & especially after (as a "kept man" of a multi-millionair-ess) his apparently compartmentalized experience in a POW camp.
On 9-11-01 I woke up to the sound of an explosion half a mile away, the Pentagon; and seconds later to the "whoosh" of the pressure wave from the impact since my apartment was so close. The worship of the GOP of mammon over justice that their priorities indicate in expenditure of life & lucre on Iraq over the home base of Al Qaeda dishonors those whose memorial now graces the Northwest approach to that building (along with the three thousand in New York & those in Pennsylvania). Such a party is not worthy to lead this land (& world) as McCain's hero Teddy Roosevelt demonstrated when he tried to replace it with an alternative (the Bull-Moose-ers). The party's evil perfidy has only increased since Sirhan/Satan's hand "elected" Adolph Nixon. The slimy dishonorable tactics practiced by such as Lee Atwater, Newt-brained Gingrich on to below contempt Rove leads to one of their latest STUPID assertions, that Barack has NOT differed significantly from his party's stance often enough. Logic dictates that when HIS Party is in the OPPOSITION it just might be the one which is CORRECT during a time of crisis (the position which a "maverick" would take if he was trying to correct the self-same mistakes!) It seems that if anyone is screwed up here, it must be McCain who apparently "left his mind at the Hanoi Hilton" and joined the WRONG PARTY !!! After all, if one party has been WRONG, it's quite likely the other one might have been RIGHT ! (like in totally dismantling the economic regulatory oversight that got us into this recessionary cesspool !) And if the "maverick"'s party is the PROBLEM, maybe we'll have a better chance to REFORM the system if we vote for the opposition! The Jeffersonian Democrats (the true inheritors of TJ's logically humane free-will tendencies) have battled against the racist post-Lincoln Republicans grab for power since they left their backwards Dixie-crat history behind under FDR & JFK and now have nominated a deeply qualified gentleman of color with the intellect, composure and vision to bring the promise that "All Men Are Created Equal" to fruition in this land. As important perhaps, they have given America an opportunity to put the lie to much of the world's perception that our ideals are lies & hypocrisy (not surprisingly given the last several Republican regimes), which is perhaps the most potent "weapon" we have in our two-pronged eagle's talons! For the majority of people in this world (of color), and the hopeful many who pray that we may return to our honorable Constitutional rule-of-law, this election can empower us thru the greater strength of our earthly neighbor's respect & admiration that the battle for "hearts & minds" requires if we are to prevail in the current "war against terror" or cultural misunderstanding & arrogance on multiple sides, prevail as a species in a Nuclear age threatened by climatic havoc.
If one pays attention, of course they recall that the "Surge" was actually just an acknowledgement of the truthfulness of Gen Sheskali who Cheney/shrub fired for telling an "inconvenient truth" about the requirements for the war which the Democrats pointed out thru years of denial. BTW it's temporary success is due to the sunni "awakening"/Al Qaeda stupidities of excess and the Makhdi Army's temporary "stand-down" as much as anything. However, what they stupidly did NOT follow thru on was the PURPOSE of the short-term stability bought, POLITICAL reconciliation amongst the tri-partite "electorate" of this pseudo-country cobbled together by colonial forces in the last century for oil convenience. THAT Failure means that the sacrifice made has accomplished nothing & is as pyrrhic as Nixon's "Peace with Honor" (which actually delayed the release of McCane et al for his self-centered maintenance of power/re-election at Kissingers advice, who gave our current "leaders" the exact same scheme (of course Lon Cheney was a part of that first travesty of treason). The B.S. about both Congress & the Executive being held by the same party is SO hypocritical coming from the gang that's held them for six years before this past year, and given the illegal/immoral packing of the "anti-supreme" court for six years after Iran/Contra's lack of double impeachment in '87 (and a Frank Church type exposure of our complete History since 1981) comes across like the bratty millionaire CHEATS they are (painted so deceitfully by the Defense contractor multi-national owned Media mind-controllers who replaced any semblance of a free press half an hour after watergate, which constitutes the fourth estate control by the GOP's pimps). This nation desparately needs a return to "Candor" of the JFK/Carter kind to bear any resemblance to a government of, by & for the people. (The Chaney espionage treason of "outing" a CIA agent is, I believe punishable by firing squad in times of war.....correct ?/ shrub has made moot 150 "signing statement" laws while in over 200 years of US History there have been only 600 such, & usually not to NEGATE the will of the people !!!
Sic Semper Republicanus, at the polls !!! (If you want to make the world a better place, get up & vote Democratic........ or don't bitch - you haven't earned the right !!!)
Steven Dwight Ferber, Ph.D. Chemistry
U.Va. ’76; U.Minn. ’81 (left), Howard U. ‘05
P.O. Box #7123 N. Station, Arlington, Va. 22207