The Mysterious Force Behind Man's Desires

When I was a kid back in 1957 my Dad read a book called “The Hidden Persuaders”, which was on advertising. One of the things I remember from the book is that men would never go for a magic potion that would prevent their beards from growing because shaving is universally considered a manly act. We have to ask ourselves how come some ideas and products “sell” and others only bomb. We know that “The Di Vinci Code” bombed as a movie. He was ingeniously scripted from a great novel and nobody cal fault the theatrical production, yet it bombed. People were not into having premises that had been rejected in “Holy Blood Holy Grail” being trotted one more time around the block. We hear all the time of ingenious inventions and innovations, many involving the production of energy, yet they bomb. HD TV bombed in this country- - or at least was considered an unmarketable concept in this country, even though it took off in Japan, back in the 1990’s. Sometimes success can’t be anticipated. There is a line in “Back to the Future” about someone writing out the words and music to “She Loves You” and telling someone “This is a sure hit”. Really? If we believe one source “She Loves You” released on Swan Records as a single in September of 1963, bombed royal, even though the song was alledgedly played once on American Bandstand. Yet other things such as cabbage patch kids and pet rocks are overnight crazes. Some have said that should Christianity fall on hard times it’s all the fault of the media, which one right wing source accused of conducting a campaign against Christianity. But we know Christianity is a sacred cow nobody can touch. William Randolph Hurst was accused of spawning an environment for the Spanish American War at the end of the nineteenth century. Hurst is rumored to have said to President Mc Kinley, “You give me the pictures and my newspaper will give you a War. The Spanish American war was considered a “good war” because it was one of our “troff” wars, in that it was good for business after an economic slump. Apparently Hurst saturated his newspapers with stories of white women being raped by Latinos in Cuba, and that turned the tide.

Chernobyl was one of those accidents that was and is more serious than people believed at the time. People say only two thousand died, but according to the author of one new book 830,000 people died or will die because of it. Thom Hartman says that they kept reappraising milk in Germany lowering the standard for safety by one hundred fold, meaning that in the end they allowed a hundred times as much radiation to be in German foods as they had formerly allowed so as not to cause a panic in the population. And of course when you eat irradiated food it stays with you. The effects of this radiation were much worse than the bomb blasts on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. . I didn’t know that. Also the touted “safe” nuclear reactor developed in France still involves a lot of Plutonium being dumped into the North Sea, that they aren’t talking about. And nuclear energy is not carbon neutral. It takes a lot of coal combustion to process and refine out all that uranium. In the long run, nuclear is not the way to go. I think we should open up Yucca Mountain, Nevada merely because all of our planning for the past decade or so- - and if this disposal site is not used it won’t solve anything, because there will still be all that nuclear waste lying around in more dangerous forms.

This whole thing with Arizona and racial profiling, just might have a more sinister point to it. It’s not just that a lot of people don’t know how to locate their birth certificate. It’s not that these people won’t accept copies you send away for like I did with the DMV back in September of 2002. Have you ever heard of the practice of “caging”. I thought so. Caging is the practice of being sent a letter you have to respond to and if you don’t they’ll take you off the voter registration rolls. But they will tell you that if you vote they will find you out and you will be deported. This whole movement is just another wrinkle of the birther movement they are using against Obama. People like Pat Buchannon believes there should be a moratorium on all immigration for a while till our “culture” has the chance to assimilate the incoming population. You know that word from Star Trek. “Resistance is futile; you will be assimilated”. People take exception to the language of the native country even being spoken in this land. Of course just as Israel has an demographic Arab problem, so the demographics are not the friend of right wing vote profilers as they see the percentage of minority races growing, and they know that not too many decades from now, perhaps in my lifetime, the white race will no longer be a clear majority in this country. The right winger’s time is short and they know it.

Some people may wonder just what the driving goal of the right wing is. What motivates them to do what they do? What do they ideally hope to accomplish and see in their reconstituted right wing world? You know I talked about sin and vices in that other file but I but none of those vices, not anger - anger is sort of a step along the way, not avarice - ditto -, really encompasses what pushes some of these people- - and that is pure Evil. Evil’s only goal is to derive pleasure from watching other human beings suffer. In “The Misfits”, Marolyn Monroe said to Clark Gable, “You’re only happy when you can see something else die”. Here’s one for you. Who was the first person after the Genisis Creation to take a life by violence? No, it wasn't Cain. It says that God himself slew animals to make skins for Adam. Thus God was the patent to put the idea of violence solving an issue into his children’s head. One time I mentioned that there is a Christian pastor who teaches Universal Salvation. And I propounded this idea to her and her puzzled response was “What would be the Point?” as if the righteous could not experience pleasure without the knowledge that others were suffering in Hell. One time I talked to Pastor Bill Halliday and I said, “You know- - I heard a radio program that said that even if Christianity turns out not to be not true- - its psychological principles are sound- - as far as the golden rule and love for your fellow man is concerned. I believe Pastor Bill’s exact words to me were “That’s a bunch of Crap”. Jesus of KFI has stated that without evil to overcome the good in man would never be known. Does Jesus really believe God is that stupid that he does not already know what is in the heart of a man? If Jesus read his Bible he would know what it says “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil”. Why do these Republicans after attacking the democrats then begin to feed on themselves and drive people like Arlen Specter and Charlie Crist out of the party? My own family’s attitude seems to be dictated by my brother’s wife. They want to deny me money but before money was ever an issue – and for most of my life it wasn’t – there was always friction. Either it was taking drugs - or being mentally ill - or being too religious - or drinking - - or high blood pressure - - or not taking the newspapers out in a timely manner. Their basic philosophy seems too often to be “If you can’t say something bad, don’t say anything at all”. We all know the economic news is getting better all the time. Stocks are up, earnings are up, sales are up, unemployment is down, America’s respect in the world is up. And yet like me with my family - - the very idea that success is likely fills these people with trepidation. You know these people are greedy. They want it all. But I think if God himself descended from a cloud and gave these rich people all the money they wanted they wouldn’t be happy. It’s the whole idea of Taking it from someone else- - like the poor that turns them on. Their life script is “I thank God that I am not like all the rest of the rabble in the world”. Some of them when crossed get very angry. But there is a type of evil person who doesn’t get angry- - any more than the Talosians on Star Trek got angry. Such emotion is beneath them. Bill Halliday doesn’t get angry. His goal in life is to make You angry and then point to how superior he is. The very first letter I sent Pastor Bill I portrayed a Jesus “who had problems just like we all have. A Jesus who wasn’t born on a bed of roses”. I think he must have begun his resentment of me from that moment. The very idea that a Messiah would encounter the same sort of issues ordinary human beings would face- - fills him with revulsion. You know- to those who say that good NEEDS evil- - - I would point to America.. People came here from Europe in the nineteenth century to escape the constant warring of the European nations. Was this a good or a bad thing? To have relative peace and tranquility. If more of the poor and disadvantaged had the good things in life, I think their lives would be much better both for themselves and every life they touch. Good is sufficient unto itself. (Selah)

Louisiana Oil Spill Worse than Feared

That oil spill from an oil rig that crashed and burned off the coast of Louisiana has gotten much worse in the past 24 hours. A couple of days ago they were explaining the problem as an oil pressure escape pipe valve was now open to the ocean and spilling oil and they explored various options including just turning off the valve to the pipe under water, and various other under water robotic options where if one plan didn’t work they would go to a plan B and if that didn’t work they would remain confident and try other measures including the instelation of an underwater dome to capture the oil. None of those options worked and now they are endeavoring to corral the oil slick and move it further out to see where the excess oil would be set on fire and eliminated that way. But now the situation is worse and they say the leakage is five times worse than they thought, so that from a thousand barrels of oil you now would have five thousand barrels of oil leaking. There had been two leaks and now they have discovered a third leak. Previously the wind had been blowing out to sea but what they feared has now come to pass and the wind is blowing on shore and the oil is now just twenty miles from the shore, and they say that by Friday the edge of the slick will be hitting landfall, but even then the worst of the oil will be off shore. Well, Republicans, how’s that “Drill, baby, drill” thing working out for you?

Laura Bush has published her memoirs. In it she says that she and the President were possibly poisoned at a G 8 conference when she and the President and a bunch of others to a delegation fell ill. Secret service agents were concerned. Maybe it was a virus but somehow I think not. It could have been Vladamir Putin doing a little international landscaping. Also Laura states that at age seventeen she was involved in a severe car crash when she and a girlfriend were out on the road, and the other passenger was killed in the crash. Now the former first lady is sensitive to the issue and always writes back in letters where people were involved in car crashes and particular when there has been a death.

Charlie Crist in an effort to save his political skin has now decided not to run in the Republican primary but as an independent because Crist has been crucified by a damning visual – of he and the President embracing after Crist lent his support to President Obama’s stimulus plan last year. Charlie Crist of Florida was pegged as a strong vice presidential contender in 2008 and perhaps even a Presidential one. But this is before the Republican Party began their all out purge of the party of anything that smacked of being even slightly liberal. Back in March of 2008 I was reading an old blog where I expressed the hope that if I ended up voting for John Mc Cain that as president he would be ruled by “the better angels of his nature”, or however I put it. I also said I believed John Mc Cain to be a moral, sincere man. My concern was that he was known for his temper. I didn’t think he would take on such a lurch to the political right. At the time I said that Berock Obama was pretty much washed up because he had lost decisively in Texas and in Ohio, which were two really big, key states. Crist’s opponent in the Republican has been that guy named Rubio. Every time they say “Marco” on the Stephanie Miller program, someone else says “Rubio”, and I didn’t get it before now. This doctrinal purity thing will be the Republicans’ doing in 2012 and perhaps even this year of 2010. It seems that Britain’s next Prime Minister may be a liberal because Herald Brown made a gaff with an open microphone yesterday. Now Britain may be looking more to Europe for guidance rather than to the United States. Britains have become fed up wsith being America’s lap dog supporting their foreign policy and the support of US led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The election is only a couple weeks off.

The former President’s daughter, Chelsea Clinton is getting married this summer, and I imagine she’s around thirty by now. She made the former president promise to lose about fifteen pounds before he walks her down the aisle. President Clinton had one of those stints placed in his heart a couple months ago, so health concerns are paramount.

The Republicans have finally allowed the democrats to begin debating the Wall Street regulation bill in congress, after the democrats tried and failed three different times to get the votes to get the necessary sixty votes to bring the bill to the floor. Apparently this relenting of the republicans occurred without a formal vote. As such I am wondering whether some back room deal was struck, or some promise was secured by the republicans not to put certain provisions in this bill. But it may be as others have predicted that the republicans were just grand standing and they wanted to claim “We only allowed the vote to come to the floor when we were assured that the democrats didn’t have loopholes in this bill”. Since when have the republicans been against loopholes? Someone is lying here.

They now for the first time ever, approved a vaccine that fights cancer. In this vase it’s a vaccine that delays the final effects of prostate cancer. The FDA has approved this drug even though it only extends life from 22 to 26 months, or just four months. Still there is the hope that with this “foot in the door” other people with vaccines for other types of cancer will come out. Wouldn’t it be nice is cancer were a thing of the past!

People are more led by visuals than they are by words. And yet when I get my revelations about the Federation, I am told by Mal Evans and others to place more weight on the word commentary to the visions than I should to the visions themselves. Every word is placed in a sentence to have a precise meaning, and if I have any questions as to the meaning, I am to ask them and they will elaborate further. Many things in math and science and chemistry can be explained better with visuals. One wonders why God doesn’t have “Go to my computer” to explain some of his edicts. How interesting it is that most theological fights are fights over words. Some people get visuals that might not be correct. For instance with the Rapture or “catching away” many have the visual of cars and trains crashing and planes going down because there are no longer drivers or pilots to man them. But what if God is an incrementalist, like those on the political right accuse liberals of being? Supposed God used evolution to create life by every now and then introducing a new cell mutation that “kept evolution on the right path” kind of like Mark Felt kept Bob Woodward in the right path. John Lennon felt divorced from his own soul on the “Lennon” album, and he seemed to equate this loss of self, the “Self” seemingly connected with the Beatles, as the loss of “God”. We know that in life sometimes people change and old connections are broken. I would never vote for John Mc Cain for President now, for instance. He just is not the same man as he was ten years ago. All of his beliefs, it would seem, the very nature of his soul has been altered. I remember a married couple, very close to me, that was thinking of buying their first house, and they took me and my Mom to look at it around September 25^th of 1975. Nobody would have guessed divorce was on the immediate horizon. Some events you can see coming. Other events, like “sudden genetic evolutional mutations” just arrive full blown, and you don’t know how. There seemed to be no inception or germination period. No pastor’s conference would help because nobody suspected it. Last week I was going to do a blog posting where on the morning of April 23re of 1990 Henry (an alias) called me up to share a dream he’d had with me, and I had a dream I shared with him. His dream (from a far right perspective) was of a rapture on the Jewish feast of Sukkoth, around September 25^th of 2010. This date of September 25^th is also the date that the Devil would own the soul of Joe Hardy in the movie “Damn Yankees”. But what occurred to me that day was “What if I’m not one of the chosen lucky ones?” I think sometimes movies and songs can be prophetic, such as the line “Pigeons plot in secrecy” as Thom Hartman pointed out in the song “At the Zoo”. Sukkoth as you may know is the feast of Booths – or the final in-gathering. No, not John Wilkes Booth or a voting booth or a telephone booth- - - (enough jokes). Back in March of 2008 I wrote in that blog that we have no idea what events will overtake us six months from now. I use that term “overtake” but it’s not as if you saw it coming in a mirror. It’s more of a case of blinking and suddenly everything is different. Incrementalism. I also said “It may well be that the issues we regard as so important now (like the 3 AM phone call) will be laughable six months from now. And so it was that none of the fears that Obama or Hillary had about each other came to pass. But sometimes we lose our connection - - like Lennon did - - like I did after watching the Empire Strikes Back last Saturday. I went to reconnect the other cord after I was done watching the movie on the VCR - - and there was no signal. The line was dead. This is how it is with people we think we know suddenly being raptured and as scripture says “Let another take his place”. (Selah)

Boot To The Head

People talking in movie shows
People who smoke in bed
People voting Republican
Give them a Boot to the Head

Well today we lay to rest a "cop's cop", Daryl Gates. He was police chief here in LA from 1978 to 1992. He came to media prominence because of the Hillside Strangler case, where the two culprets were Angelo Bouno and Kenneth Bianke. It is said that Daryl Gates is responsible for inovations used in the modern police department including S W A T teams and the DARE program, or drug awareness resistance education. They say he is also responsible for recruiting more women into the police department. I don't doubt Chief Gates' dedication to law and order. It's just from a Black perspective, we see a whole other side to his legacy involving racial abuse, both verbaly, additudenally, and physical. Of course Chief Gates was driven out of office in the aftermath of the Rodney King beating and the LA riots in 1992. Gates said that black people didn't have normal veins and reacted differently in choke holds from "normal people", and he also said stuff about Latinos abnormally reproducing at a young age. But as you know a big part of my ire against him is the guy who approved him for the post, Mayor Tom Bradley. If you look for the definition of the quintessential Uncle Tom, you see his picture. Mayor Bradley was one of those guys I never liked, and even before I knew he was Black I didn't like the tone of his campaign commercials on the radio in 1969. Bradley was a guy who was "full of himself" and took credit for things others did or else credit for things that never got done at all. His rapore with Black people was non existance. Other than perhaps O J Simpson, it's hard to find a guy who traded more on his race, and deserved it less. Bradley was a protogee of Police Chief Parker who was pretty much a full on racist. He found his token nigger to groom. So I say, 'Give him a boot to the head!"

Next candidate for "boot to the head" is Las Vegas Gambling Casinos. They love it when you lose and are happy for you to spend your money- - as long as you lose. But the minute you begin to win they black list you and forbid you to ever come back. The lesson of Rain Man is not lost on me. And there are lots of cases in real life where they suspect people of "cheating", and by cheating they mean finding a way to win. Because you're not Supposed to WIN. Therein lies the "violation" of their unwritten code. You know if I were a little shadier I would set up a special fund where I would advertise "Stick it to the House- - show your opposition- - bet against the house- - place your bets here". Of course this would be one of those Goldman Sachs type opperations where of course the House wins. They win every day, all of the time. So for me bankrolling this "fund" I would be in a position of every time the house wins, I win.

Give the republicans a boot to the head. They are two faced assholes. They say they want to "make sure the provisions of the bill are air tight enough" and that the Democrats leave no loopholes. And so they voted to block the democrat's measure from even coming to the floor to be debated. Do they really think the American people are that stupid?? Don't answer that. What they are thinking - - the "script" they are using- - is one that worked for a while with Health Care. They reason "The American people were all for single payer health care when this whole thing started. But we blocked the bill before the summer break last year- - and then we launched our tea party crusade funded with all the special interests and turned the "average American" against the health care bill, such that it made things very difficult for the democrats and they passed the bill and got it to the President's desk, only with the greatest if difficulty. Give the Republicans a boot to the head.

I would like to mention one church pastor, in this case Ed Peacock. Of all the pastors our church has had the time I was there- - Peacock unquestionably gave the worse sermons. Personally I found him to be a cold fish. His wife Jackie was far more outgoing and friendly than he was. But Peacock, like Bradley, made everything "about him". One time he visited our church after he left- - and something I said to him tripped him off and he went on a rampage of self adulation and how lucky the Church was to have had him all those years. He left the church when it needed him most. I am inclined to draw the picture of Marlena Dietrich and Tyrone Power in "Witness for the prosecution". "It's like a drowning man clutching a razor blade". Even though I didn't think Ed was a good pastor, I knew the church saw him as a symbol of unity and for this reason his presence at the top was necessary. He claims that God himself told him to take a more lucritive, cushy job. But the way I see it- - short of having a gun placed to your head and "being made an offer you can't refuse", Godfather style, he had no business invoking God in his decision. Frankly, even in such extremity as this, making a decision to leave is still of questionable ethics as far as "Christian responsability is concerned". Boot To The Head!

Let's talk about Wall Street and those six banks that control 63% of the Gross Domestic Product according to KTLK. Goldman Sachs is the most obvious example of being a scam artist. But they are not the only one. The whole Wall Street community deals from a sense of entitlement where they privitise the profits and socialize the losses. In general I think people who work with their hands for a living should not be paying as high of a tax rate as those who don't. We have a highly evolved state of corporate welfare in this country with many of the biggest corporations pay absolutely nothing in earnings taxes. Ronald Reagan started this whole mess with his dismanteling all the laws designed to keep big business in check. But today the tea baggers function as slight of hand artists. First they convince you that you're joining a grass roots movement- - and then they convince you that everything the republicans do by way of obstruction is right and then they point the finger at "government", when they mean George Bush but they will never blame a republican so they will say "It's all government's fault. These tea baggers won't blame the big corporations themselves for having to be bailed out but they will mutter something about a "government socialist takeover" as if government out of the blue decided to bring down the financial structure of this country, rather than fight desperately to preserve it. Give them all a boot to the head!

Finally there is the patent office. A "friend" of mine suggest that I would not like it if my computer programs were ripped off and others took credit for them and I got no recognition. And so she wants me to sympathize with these poor people who earn over $250,000 a year. Dr. Levy went so far to say that "People like me if they are taxed more just might decide to give less to our church or synagogue, and that wouldn't be a good thing". But here is a reality check. Software is evolving into a locked down state. Aren't you getting as tired as I am of Apple doing these little soap opera stunts. They leave a phone on the counter of a bar and someone uses it and now the cops are raiding his computer to see if some sort of crime has been comitted. This whole "locked down" state has gone far enough where everything is patentened and copyright protected- - and you can't even "copy a file" onto a hard drive in the way that you formerly could. The idea of even writing a program may be mute, because if these people get their way I'm likely to be told I can't use my own program I wrote myself because somewhere out there there is a patent on it. People today even patent cells of the human body. I believe I said before that about 20% of the known DNA of the human body is already patentened. Where are the feminists on this one?? Talk about "control of your own body". While we're at it I think this whole steroid hysteria has gotten way out of bounds. Steroids are also a natural part of the human body. But why should people be denied a cancer cure of even a good diagnosis, all for fear of violating some patent. I wonder where Jesus Christ would weigh in on this issue? I think there are alltogether too many patents out there. When a patent styfles research- - it's use has been made a mockery of. Now a scientist doesn't dare research anything because he might bump into some priprietary patent. They used to allow patents to expire after a while. But now they have laws that extend them. So I say "Don't lock up the halls of knowledge". Give the patent office a boot to the head!

Virtues and Vices

I would like to talk about twenty human traits. Seven are true virtues, and seven are vices and the other six are false virtues. Let’s do the false virtues first. First of all I do not regard

Humility as a virtue even though the Church claims to prize it. The second phony virtue is

Submission. To be submissive is something the church prizes but it is no virtue in itself. If a virtue isn’t worth doing it for its own sake it really isn’t a virtue. The next one is

Temperance. This means a systematic denial of “the flesh”. Some virtues and vices are not polar opposites. For instance though Lust is a vice, the other carried to extremes is no virtue. Denial of the flesh either by not drinking coffee or eating sugar or not smoking or drinking is no real virtue. Some like Ned Flanders might even add “overly exciting amusement park rides” to the list. And of course this “virtue” usually features denial of the biologically normal sexual urges. The fourth false virtue is a related one- -

Piety. This is the priding one’s self on his purity and parading his virtue to others and advertising his life as some example to be emulated. The next virtue is another bogus one and that’s

Inerrancy or “Never making a mistake”. Mistakes are a part of living and it’s what you do after you notice your mistake that matters. The idea of “never being wrong” is held as a God like quality somehow humans are supposed to emulate as though we were walking computers. The final false virtue is

Optimism. This is a “pie in the sky” optimism that is not based on anything factual, and as we said a couple postings back, an optimism that more often leads to inaction rather than action. It’s this false belief “God is in control” even when you have screwed up your own life royal and have probably screwed up other people’s lives on the way, too.

Below is a list of the Seven True Virtues.

Courage: This one that seems to have eluded the church fathers even though it is a quality called for a lot and will serve you in a lot of areas. The lack of coursge manifests itself in all sorts of ways such as not facing your responsibilities.

Honesty: This only involves not lying to others but also not lying to yourself, and not fearing the truth from others when you hear it. It involves a lack lf pretentiousness.

Charity: This one of compassion tword your fellow man is one heralded a lot by the church. Whether it is the supreme virtue can be debated.

Fidelity or Faithfulness. This involves faithfulness to people as well as faithfulness to your own ideas and moral scruples. It’s amazing how many will sell out for a price, even Abraham, founder of the Hebrew religion.

Justice: People are to abstain from violating the rights of others and to frown on the violation of rights committed by other people. People are not to condone evil but to fight for good, even if it is inconvienient. Many are afraid to do this.

Perseverence: That is to “not give up” and “not lose hope”. One should always keep a stiff upper lip and make the best of a situation and see a situation as one that can be overcome if you have the right plan. The good is worth striving for.

Prudence: This alludes to wisdom or using sound judgement in your decision making. People should always do what is “proper” or prudent. People should make the best impression possible to others and also exercise mental self discipline & clarity of judgement. One should endeavor to properly “size up a situation”.

The Seven Deadly Vices emcompass the following

Wrathfulness or Huberous: This involves uncontrolled rage against your neighbor and thinking thinking things like “He has a lot of gall to do that. I’m going to teach him a lesson” and emotions like “Who does he think he is?”

Treachery or Betrayal: This is one the Church does not recognize as one of the seven deadly vices and I’m wondering why? This is plotting to do evil to someone behind his back- - and to be two-faced and duplicitus while doing it.

Lust: This one is self explanatory but I could have easily said “Addiction” because this one involves either a physiological or psychological addiction to an activity one is compelled to do and one feels enslaved by and can’t get away from.

Averice Less than a desire to own things- - this is a avarice to own People and to seek power and control over others so you can make them do your bidding. It is probably the most important vice that politicians are guilty of.

Sloth or Laziness: This one is pretty self explanatory and in this case it is the polar opposite of a lack of perseverance. Idleness is the Devil’s workshop.

Hypocracy: This means being two-faced, phoney and pretensious, and your word not being worth a dime because you engage in constant self-adulation. These are people who can’t face themselves. This is basically the opposite of honesty.

Squandering: This one involves waste. Waste of time and waste of possessions and wastes of other people’s time. There is a presumption reminiscent of Homer Simpson here that waste and pollution don’t matter. It’s a sense of entitlement.

Mein Kamph

I watched “24” just now. What you have now is President Taylor being morally compromised by a guy who blackmailed a Russian official into restarting the peace process in order to avoid the revelation that the Russian government itself, and not a Russian mob or groups in the mideast, were responsible for the death of President Omar Hassan. President Taylor wants to shove all this under the rug and prevent Jack Bower from interviewing Dana, who after a little slapping around, promised to tell Jack everything she knew and name names. Peace built on moral compromise cannot last. But the this is true in any area such as Christianity. Jesus Christ of KFI and all the rest of them are constitutionally incapable of giving an honest answer to anything. So many people live by deception and hypocrisy. I guess you could say that I have a personal bias against deception and hypocrisy. Back on September 27^th of 2007 I wrote a blog posting called “The Final Disappointment” where I pronounced the Democratic party dead, because even at that date I believe it has sold out on so many key issues that it was no longer a viable force and that we all best begin looking for a third party.

Some people say that the purpose of life is ongoing struggle for mastery of our environment. I believe this struggle goes on not only in the “terriestrial realm” but also in the “telestial” or hyper-space realm. Some people view the after life is a place of stasis and no change. But such is not the essence of life. Life is struggle. Scripture says “In this world you will have tribulation but woe to the person by whom that tribulation comes”. Essentially this passage of scripture is saying that there is Good and there is Evil. As you know in my pluralistic view of the universe I believe there are countless moral polarities out there, each with its own idea of what good is and each with its own idea of what evil is. Life in the tellestial realm is not limited by a mere humanoid physicality. One could imagine all sorts of life forms. There may be ectoplasmic clouds out there. You may have life assuming many forms like these dancing Shiva statues with multiple arms, to insect like creatures, or aracnids or crustiations, or squid like creatures, or even stranger shapes like jelly fish or sea fans or rock like coral structures, or serpentine or worm like entities. We do know a thing or two about the after life in hyper space in that we will be exposed, like the internet exposes us today, with forms of knowledge previously difficult to obtain. So anyone could be an expert on 20^th Century authors in the US or playwrights, 19^th Century French artist, 18^th Century Austria, 17^th Century France, 16^th Century England, or 15^th Century Germany. Contrary to the old adage, knowledge is often the key to understanding others. You have to know a person’s or a nation’s history to truly understand and deal with today’s realities. Christians have a basic loathing of any “History” that is not written in their own Fairy Tale books by people like Irenius and Eusubius. Many Christians’ retort to almost any problem is “Well, if you were Dead that situation wouldn’t bother you”. I have a new adage for my Christian friends. “Death can’t beget life”. Yet most any Christian pastor would say almost any problem can be solved by repeating certain mantras he gives you, or pretending the problem doesn’t bother you and becoming “dead” to it, or engaging in the fantasy that your own mind controls how much power Satan has over your life, and that if you just Imagine hard enough, everything in your life will be sweetness and light.

I said a minute ago that in the here and now there appears to be forces of Good and forces of Evil almost everyone can agree on. So do you want to be a white chess piece or a black one, and go from there? This immigration law in Arizona is patently unconstitutional. I believes it interferes with the federal prerogative of controlling the borders. We in California have tried to pass laws limiting immigration only to have them invalidated by the courts, such as proposition 187. People want to limit President Obama in other ways. Rush Limbaugh and others are saying how horrible it would be to have Wall Street reform. Yet I listened to the President’s entire speech yesterday that ran 28 minutes or so, and the applauses were frequent. So at least those people recognize we have a problem. The President divided our basic problems into four areas. I think these credit rating agencies like Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s, was one of the divisions, and derivatives was another. These derivatives were originally started for people working with a certain commodity such as oil, insuring they would get a stable price. Another area the President talked about was consumer protection, and not trying to take advantage that many people who use credit are stupid. Maybe you can’t legislate against stupidity, but we can ease some of the worst abuses. Other areas of concern is the “up-tick” rule they used to have before you could do a short sale, or selling a stock that you don’t actually own. People talk about “digital money” meaning credit and debit cards, as an area where all modes of commerce are facilitated. Back in the old days, for instance you would have to stand in line at a bank to get traveler’s checks. Perhaps there was value in applying some natural friction to our commerce (buying and selling) because it kept it from accelerating out of control. Just think about it.

Sometimes the polarity between Good and Evil becomes more noticeable. Sometimes this polarity seems to build to some Climax, like the Slavery issue did before the Civil War. There came a point where everything and everyone was defined as either pro slavery or anti slavery. Such an issue today is Islam, and some might say foreign culture in any form. Some say that Arab culture is taking over Anaheim. More than ever the Pat Buckhannon types are saying “American culture is at stake”. People see the President as somehow soft or conciliatory tword Islamic culture. Yet in reality there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between President Obama’s foreign policy and that of George Bush. All of the repressive measures such as rendition (abducting and transport to a foreign nature to be tortured) and also American citizens can still be targeted by the Army and executed without a trial. This war in Afghanistan is likely to keep escalating and go on at least another ten years. Christians see War as a good thing. As I have often said, most of us view war as a means to an end. Christians and the tea party crowd view war as an end in itself. In the Bible we are in a continued state of war with Satan, who is called “The Lord of this world”. Satan is quoted as saying “These things are Mine and I have the power to give them to whoever I want”. So if you love the world you are an enemy of the Christian Right. And this presents a basic problem. Christians love their own lives but they hate the world, so naturally they want this world to be done with. So many Christians live in a fantasy world. But when they come off their fantasy trip then they get really scared knowing that Satan has won every contest in at least my life- - where God contests Satan in any area- - Satan always wins. Hence (knowing this) Christians are “necessarily” paranoid. Since they live in fear they want to peddle this fear to others. And therein lies the evil. Because “Fear” in the abstract gets morphed into more refined emotions such as prejudice, bigotry, and xenophobia, that are dangerous.

The Climate of Racial Paranoia Continues.

Arizona has passed the strongest anti immigrant measure in a long time anywhere. Now a policeman can stop you and ask for your "papers" just like in Nazi Germany. Of course the goal is to get illegal Latinos off the streets and out of the country, or at least out of the state. Of course Saran Palin and others are still talking about "taking aim" at democrats and using the image of gun sight cross hairs as a "dog whistle" call to all of the gun whackos out there who are just looking for an excuse. At least April 19th came and went in this country with nobody getting killed. Of course it's understandable that whites, as well as Blacks, too, would be concerned about Latinos taking their jobs. But you know what Allan Greenspan allegedly said in 1993. He said his job was to keep the reins of money so tight that everyone would feel a certain unease about losing their jobs and in this way there would be no "wage bidding wars" breaking out. The last thing Greenspan wanted was a tight labor market where people are actually willing to pay top dollar. Randy Rhodes had truck drivers who in 1985 made twenty dollars an hour and now they make fifteen or something 25 years later, with the inflation we've had. And meanwhile people in Arizona may be having to pay the man who cleans their pools $25.00 an hour when he used to get by with the foreign help happy to work for five dollars an hour. Of course in general the tea baggers what us to shift the blame for no jobs - - away from our disastrous trade policies - - and on to racial minorities, and see the whole thing as part of a giant Obama conspiracy. I don't know what Obama's policy is on immigration but he may be doing some "dog whistling" of his own. After all "learning English and paying a fine and going to the back of the line" is dog whistle speak for Amnesty. So the real question is what position should we really have in this country twords all those illegal aliens here over the past 25 years? Jesus Christ (of KFI) thinks you should rat out your best friend and get him deported. I don't believe the issue is that black and white. There is a certain "human factor". These are people, lives, families, who came to this country in search of a better life, and they found it here in America. How far should be deviate from those words on the Statue of Liberty? Personally, I don't know. I want respect for the law to be upheld, but I'm also aware that there is a tradition in this country of extending open arms to all offering them a better life. Some have said this is the only country that was founded on concepts and ideals rather than race and genetics. One person put it thusly: "I could go back to Italy and spend thirty years there and I would never be an Italian, but if an Italian were to decide to come here and take the citizenship test, he would indeed Become an American.

Tomorrow is Earth Day. The battle for the future of planet earth goes on. The first two earth days in 1070 and 1071 were heavily celebrated. But after that the idea fell into disuse until 1990 when again the whole Earth Day got a second life and since then people have been ecology conscious. Last night I watched a thing that said California was leading the way to a Green economy and enemy conservation. That was news to me but I'm glad to hear it. I thought I also heard that 12% of our total energy production came from "alternative energy sources". This is also news to me. I had no idea the figure was that high. There is talk of soon whole cities will be "going solar panel" and I've heard that solar panels have dropped dramatically in price. I hope that's true. People like me are looking for one big "cure all" but in the end it will probably be a bunch of little things that turn the tide on our energy needs.

The banking bill before congress is one that contains a lot of input from diverse sources. People say that both this banking bill and the health care act, are "two of the most transparent processes ever to come before congress". I'm glad to hear that. Of course the Republicans, all 41 of them apparently, are pledged to vote against this banking bill, for even getting it out of committee. A big provision of this banking bill is what I call a "dowry fund" in that it makes big financial institutions fork over a bunch of money in advance, in anticipation of the day when they may be dissolved corporately, by the provisions of this bill. This money they themselves provide will help make the transitions necessary for dissolution- - so that all the right people get paid off in a fair and equitable manner. Of course the tea party crowd are just shills for the bank and insurance companies. I don't know how unprecedented this is for a "protest group" to be a shill for a shadowy interest. But some have compared it to Nazi Germany, which in the beer hall days of Munich, billed itself as a "Workers party" and pro union and such. When really this whole approach was just a come on for the things Hitler eventually instituted. People are led like sheep to believe anything the big corporations with their vast wealth and media control, tell us to believe about the "Real" problem with this economy, as THEY want us to view it.

I have thought about this whole idea of incrementalism. It was true in Nazi Germany but it's also true today. If people in the year 2000 woke up and it was suddenly ten years later and read our newspapers they would recoil in horror. They would not believe that a Black president was the object of such diverse hatred. They wouldn't be able to make sense of all this Tea Party stuff. They would recoil at the idea of the United States being at war on two different fronts and both wars were wars of choice. (Not to make any connection with Germany in the 1930s) And they would not believe stories of Abo Grave and Guandanamo bay and civil liberties abuses of the CIA and other government agencies and all the surveillance they do now. Ten years ago they would say "I thought the Watergate crisis resolved all these issues". But if I were a Christian in 1971, which I wasn't, and woke up today I would certainly run hard as fast as I could away from anything Christian. I would know that all the stuff Larry Norman said about "The Real Jesus" verses "Churchianity" was just a lot of idle wishful thinking. And the thing is about wishful thinking is that it has an addictive, narcotic effect on the human soul. People say that rather than people becoming more certain about whether they should protest in Nazi Germany, they actually became increasingly UN-certain about whether to speak up, as the opiate drip of the propaganda seeped into their brains and their minds and conscience were numbed..

Bank Reform Bills Headed For Rough Sledding

The Obama banking reform bill is one you would have thought the tea baggers would be for, but Republicans who have looked at the bill don’t like it. They say it will “institutionalize” the notion of the bank bail out and that this bill sets up an apparatus where aid can continue to be given, although the bill espressly states that “Too Big to Fail” will no longer be allowed. There have been various “reforms” talked about in the news but a lot of them are what I’d call frivolous and don’t get to the meat of the problem. The meat of the problem is undoing what President Clinton did in the closing months of his second term, such as wiping out glass-steigel and the allowing of derivatives and turning the banking community into a gambling casino - - and not keeping depositors’ funds safe from that sort of thing. There are things such as margin requirements and the restoration of that stock traders tax we talked about, which would help matters. Of course you know what happened with Goldman Sachs last Friday where employees were betting on their own investments to fail, and some would say “based on a lot more than a hunch”. Some might say the charges are akin to throwing a boxing match. I don’t think it’s quite that clear myself. The news media needs to dedicate a little more time to explain some of these complicated issues to the public.

Now the library of congress or whoever is going to collect every “twitter” that has ever been sent as part of some historic archive. Personally I don’t see why “tweets” are limited to 140 characters. You can’t say very much in that length of time. Why not preserve one of my blogs instead to be looked at a hundred years from now. I delve into areas such as science, religion, and politics in a heck of a lot more detail than you can ever do in 140 characters. Every time I think of doing that period in my life from June of 1985 through the early weeks of 1987 I can’t help but thinking that my life, even the more interesting parts of it- - is boring compared to the lives of others, who have accomplished great things, and often overcoming great odds. How can I compete with that? Also there is the credibility factor where I have already distorted a few “facts” about my life in terms of chronology, and I’d thinking it would in general just be less “confusing” to the reader to let sleeping dogs lie, rather than force them to learn a whole other set of facts, or at best major variations. The Blackberry is behind the times in terms of phones now compared to Android and the I phone and all of them. But if you are addicted to the “crack berry” you don’t want to give it up. Apple still despite all the talk of new software still hasn’t come out with the I phone 4 yet. Everybody is hoping that all the things it lacks such as multi tasking, will be corrected. Some are hoping you’ll be able to use it with carriers other than A T & T. Yet if Apple is anything they are bull headed. They fall behind in the PC race decades ago because they were so “proprietary”.

Former President Clinton issued a statesman like warning against hate speech and hate groups the other day. Back in the nineties he issued a similar warning, only back then I wasn’t listening because I was on the other side of the political fence in those days. But now I see the light. With all these guns people bring to political rallies and all of these gun shows where they don’t do any background checks, you know something dire is going to happen. It’s just a question of time. Rush Limbaugh in a rambling psychotic fit, said that if anything DID happen in terms of an assasenation, that it would all be on President Clinton’s head because he “set it up”. Rush Limbaugh is the ultimate in shooting the bearer of bad news. Rush Limbaugh’s grip on sanity appears non existent these days and with virtually every sentence he says something crazier than the sentence before. I listened to his “Thank you, President Obama” speech. Rush has always used sarcasum, but never has the sarcasum been employed in a more self delusional sense. If I were in an abnormal psyche class and a total stranger was reading the same script Rush used in some sort of a taped interview where you were supposed to identify the mental illness- - I would say the speaker had a profound “disassociation” and also an utter inability to string two sentences together. Rush Limbaugh works himself up into these “fits” and doesn’t know the alarming impression he gives about himself to people whose brain cells still work. Personally I hope President Clinton continues to speak out. The former President is gifted in oratory and he’s known for his straight talking.

Kitty Kelly just released a biography on Oprah Winfrey. She calls it flattering but insightful. But Barbra Walters and Larry King have boycotted her giving in interview and Oprah will not be interviewed about the book. It’s called celebrities closing ranks behind their icon. A sociologist would find this noteworthy. But people are still going to buy the book. The trouble with Oprah is that she underestamates the intelligence of the book buying public. The point was made that Kitty Kelly has never had to retract one word she's ever written about anybody. There is a type of personality out there, that I am going to call the "Faith personality". Pastors and therapists have all of this baggage of dogma they carry with them everywhere, and through which they intemperate the world. If you were to do a biography on Dr. Levy certain things would become apparent. He is incredibly simplistic using logic that would in time come to bore a bright third grader. He's not as bad as Louis Monteith - yet, but give him time. He is also a rather shallow individual. People who refuse to have a back and forth discussion but instead deal in one liners and personal intimidation and vague innuendo and manipulations - don't have much respect from me. He brags how well he’s mapped out every hour in the day. But he won’t respect the fact that perhaps I have more background on a certain news story than he has. He’s one of those people who says “Well I never heard anything about that” and therefore it doesn’t exist. That’s pretty much the logic of this type of personality. This type of personality goes to great lengths to protect him or herself from the unfamiliar. What they basically are are psychic sleep-walkers. He and [two names withheld] praise my intellect to the skies on Christmas and yet Dr. Levy still has not run any of those three articles I sent him when he said he was willing to run anything I wanted to write. I don’t even know whether he has read them because the amount of feedback on all three articles has been zero, shades of Bill Halliday. I expect he’s read them but I might not be correct. I've said it before. If I were as smart as certain people claim I am I would have a six figure salary today. Were you to ask him as Kitty Kelly might “If you’re a Jew how do you deal with the problem that there is absolutely no historical evidence that the Jews were ever in Egypt or in the wilderness of Sinai for forty years, given that these are the foundation stones on which Judaism is built?” For Dr. Levy religion is a generic “Brand X” affair. I suspect he looks on religion much as people look upon their cars which they spend time polishing up and showing off to their friends, who do the same. They say “Look at mine” and you say “Yeah, but look at mine” both with a form of mutual respect knowing they basically are in the same “club”. In this case, it’s a religion club. (Selah)

Another Look At Our Energy Policy

Thom Hartman has been pitching the idea of a value added tax again. I was and still am inclined to not like such a production tax on industrial products because such taxes discourage the very behavior we are trying to encourage in this country. As Thom Hartman puts it, it's just a little tax added in in every stage of the production of a good. So if you're building cars they tax the product while mining the metal, and smelting it, and refining it, and molding it into sheets, and finally on the whole car. Hartman believes with the tax spread around like this that the consumer won't feel the bite. Yeah, and I've got some swampland in Florida I want to sell you. Clearly the intent of such a tax is to remind us all that energy is extended in every stage of production. Hartman introduces the silver lining of this otherwise regressive tax by saying that "at least the big corporations that pay nothing in taxes now will be taxed at every stage directly at production." I think what our government needs to do first is to delay implementation of the Health Care act provisions, all of them, until this economy gets back up on its feet. Because as Dick Morris points out, this Act is probably unconstitutional because it mandates more state medic-aid and also mandates individual purchasses to private corporations. Such provisions can be easily argued as infringements on state law and state sovreignty. I imagine such questions will be asked of the next candidate for Supreme Court justice. In a similar vein, I am against any form of a carbon tax or any tax which would tend to slow down this economic recovery. However there are things we can do now live invest in solar pannels. I see nothing wrong with subsedizing these like the German government does, and the southwest gets a lot more sunshine. Some have argued that since oil is used much less in the production of electricity than it is for transportation, it makes a lot of sense to have hybred electric cars. Hartman states that half of the cars in use are used for less than twenty miles of travel during the day. Given my own experiance I highly doubt this, but I'll let it pass. If we could get these forty or fifty percent of people driving hybreds instead of 100% gasoline cars we could shift away from oil, and we can use wind power for electric generation like T Boone Pickens talks about. The secret is to have the wind farms spread out in diverse areas. That way if you have three wind farms, the wind is most likely blowing in at least one of the areas. I think market forces along will dictate that auto manufacturers produce increasingly efficient car engines that get at least 35 miles to the gallon, as lofty as that seems. Something else we can do that might be market force related is go vegie burger instead of meat. This will be one of those "concepts" introduced to the public, like no trans fat oils were, that will take time but will happen as surely as wind and water sculpt rock in the desert. Also as Hartman also teaches, if we empower women to liberate themselves, population rates will go down. When you think about it, this is an essential part of the puzzle since left unchecked- - perhaps no ammount of energy efficiency will suffice. George Bush talked about switch grass. But hemp is another obvious comodity we need to cultivate for our energy needs, and neither product is a food item. Hemp paper will save trees.

People are worried about whether the proposed finance reform laws will have teeth in them. We need something drastic as far as lobbying goes. How about we start with a five year ban on ex congressmen becomming lobbiests, and see where that takes us. We need to make financial and corporate questions the center piece of grilling the next Supreme Court before congress. If he or she will not go for strong laws, don't vote for them We need at least a quarter percent stock trader tax, and one half of a percent would be even better. Since computers do modern trades they can trade securities so rappidly in buy and sell actions that such a tax would slow this artitrage process way down. At the center piece has to be laws dealing with derivitives or bets on money, or bets on bets on monitary actions. Originally such derivitives were used by farmers to insure they wouldn't lose too much money on a bad crop, but we've gone way beyond that. Dick Morris said that he is the last of a dying breed of moderate democrats. I do not know to what extent "moderate" or blue dog democrats played a role in shifting the balance to democrats in 2006. Republicans were saying back then democrats only got elected because in campaigns they sounded like republicans. Many say that without economic reform, we will be only "re-inflating the bubble" and another bust cycle will follow soon. Randy Rhodes pointed out that homes on the West Coast of Florida sold for $350,000 in December of 2005 but now the same property sells for $85,000. But when the mortgage holders try and cut a deal to settle for $150,000 that bankers refuse and that the bankers would rather take a bigger loss and auction off the property for the lower $85,000 citing tax write off laws. I must confess that the math on this escapes me. Even at the fifty percent income bracket, you'd still lose money. Some are still predicting another wave of real estate forclosures this year.

The owner of the West Virginia mine where 29 miners died probably won't see the inside of a prison even though over five hundred safety violations were found. The people at the top never are convicted. Not unless they can pin the rap on some hired underling. Of course the whole region is an ecological disaster with heavily polluted streams and sheared mountain tops and debris filled valleys. Obama's the guy who wants "clean coal". But we also need to make it safe coal. You thought all mining jobs were unionized. Apparently not. I have no idea how carbon sequestration has come. Actually I don't see why we don't use natural gas such as propane instead of coal anyhow. It's easier to obtain and transport, and it's cleaner.

Meg Whitman is pro abortion and favors government funded abortions. She voted for Barbra Boxer and even aided her campaign. Most of the time Boxer has been on the ballot I have voted republican. Whitman favors aid to illegal aliens and now I learn that she favored the massive TARP bank bail-out. I guess Money loves its own. I'm still a registered republican and I'm voting for Poisoner because on the issues where I am conservative I agree with him.

President Obama seems to want our space program to end entirely. He's canceled our going back to the Moon by 2020. Of course this would be a prelude to our finally getting to Mars. When I was a kid they showed that cartoon series "Space Explorers" which depicted our going to Mars by 1978 and I remember thinking, "That date sounds about right". We learn so much from our space program. Instead of cancel it, I would double or tripple its funding, because we get all these scientific dividends, not to mention what it does for the human spirit. Doesn't Robert Schuller teach that mankind should always think in big possabilities? And many times you never know how much you'll learn without taking those vital initial steps.

Apparently I am having computer problems. I'm getting red print warnings. My phone hasn't worked in two days and yesterday my internet went completely out, but it came back after twenty minutes, but "error" rates have skyrocketed. Yesterday was a jinxy day for me anyhow. I lost a gold coin I found a month ago with foreign writing on it. I have no idea whether it was worth anything or not. The bathroom room light bulb is burnt out. My phone bill is being hiked for inferior service. I see the messages is gone now. Maybe that's a good thing.