London Blitz

Listen to the air raid sirens in this first video while reading the introduction. It creates a realistic backdrop for the eerie horror Londoners experienced during the Blitz in World War II.






INTRODUCTION: The Blitz began on the night of September 7, 1940 with the non-stop bombing of London by the German Luftwaffe. This first onslaught lasted for 76 consecutive nights and would destroy many towns and cities across the country before ending on May 10, 1941. Over 43,000 civilians, half of them in London, were killed by bombs and more than a million houses were destroyed or damaged in London alone.

The London Blitz, 1940*

The appearance of German bombers in the skies over London during the afternoon of September 7, 1940 heralded a tactical shift in Hitler's attempt to subdue Great Britain. During the previous two months, the Luftwaffe had targeted RAF airfields and radar stations for destruction in preparation for the German invasion of the island. With invasion plans put on hold and eventually scrapped, Hitler turned his attention to destroying London in an attempt to demoralize the population and force the British to come to terms. At around 4:00 PM on that September day, 348 German bombers escorted by 617 fighters blasted London until 6:00 PM. Two hours later, guided by the fires set by the first assault, a second group of raiders commenced another attack that lasted until 4:30 the following morning.

This was the beginning of the Blitz - a period of intense bombing of London and other cities that continued until the following May. For the next consecutive 57 days, London was bombed either during the day or night. Fires consumed many portions of the city. Residents sought shelter wherever they could find it - many fleeing to the Underground stations that sheltered as many as 177,000 people during the night. In the worst single incident, 450 were killed when a bomb destroyed a school being used as an air raid shelter. Londoners and the world were introduced to a new weapon of terror and destruction in the arsenal of twentieth century warfare. The Blitz ended on May 11, 1941 when Hitler called off the raids in order to move his bombers east in preparation for Germany's invasion of Russia.

"They came just after dark... "

Ernie Pyle was one of World War Two's most popular correspondents. His journalism was characterized by a focus on the common soldier interspersed with sympathy, sensitivity and humor. He witnessed the war in Europe from the Battle of Britain through the invasion of France. In 1945 he accepted assignment to the Pacific Theater and was killed during the battle for Okinawa. Here, he describes a night raid on London in 1940:

Shortly after the sirens wailed you could hear the Germans grinding overhead. In my room, with its black curtains drawn across the windows, you could feel the shake from the guns. You could hear the boom, crump, crump, crump, of heavy bombs at their work of tearing buildings apart. They were not too far away.

Half an hour after the firing started I gathered a couple of friends and went to a high, darkened balcony that gave us a view of a third of the entire circle of London. As we stepped out onto the balcony a vast inner excitement came over all of us-an excitement that had neither fear nor horror in it, because it was too full of awe.

You have all seen big fires, but I doubt if you have ever seen the whole horizon of a city lined with great fires - scores of them, perhaps hundreds.

There was something inspiring just in the awful savagery of it.

The closest fires were near enough for us to hear the crackling flames and the yells of firemen. Little fires grew into big ones even as we watched. Big ones died down under the firemen's valor, only to break out again later.

About every two minutes a new wave of planes would be over. The motors seemed to grind rather than roar, and to have an angry pulsation, like a bee buzzing in blind fury.

The guns did not make a constant overwhelming din as in those terrible days of September. They were intermittent - sometimes a few seconds apart, sometimes a minute or more. Their sound was sharp, near by; and soft and muffled, far away. They were everywhere over London.



Into the dark shadowed spaces below us, while we watched, whole batches of incendiary bombs fell. We saw two dozen go off in two seconds. They flashed terrifically, then quickly simmered down to pin points of dazzling white, burning ferociously. These white pin points would go out one by one, as the unseen heroes of the moment smothered them with sand. But also, while we watched, other pin points would burn on, and soon a yellow flame would leap up from the white center. They had done their work - another building was on fire.

The greatest of all the fires was directly in front of us. Flames seemed to whip hundreds of feet into the air. Pinkish-white smoke ballooned upward in a great cloud, and out of this cloud there gradually took shape - so faintly at first that we weren't sure we saw correctly - the gigantic dome of St. Paul's Cathedral.

St. Paul's was surrounded by fire, but it came through. It stood there in its enormous proportions - growing slowly clearer and clearer, the way objects take shape at dawn. It was like a picture of some miraculous figure that appears before peace-hungry soldiers on a battlefield.

The streets below us were semi-illuminated from the glow. Immediately above the fires the sky was red and angry, and overhead, making a ceiling in the vast heavens, there was a cloud of smoke all in pink. Up in that pink shrouding there were tiny, brilliant specks of flashing light-antiaircraft shells bursting. After the flash you could hear the sound.

Up there, too, the barrage balloons were standing out as clearly as if it were daytime, but now tey were pink instead of silver. And now and then through a hole in that pink shroud there twinkled incongruously a permanent, genuine star - the old - fashioned kind that has always been there.

Below us the Thames grew lighter, and all around below were the shadows - the dark shadows of buildings and bridges that formed the base of this dreadful masterpiece.

Later on I borrowed a tin hat and went out among the fires. That was exciting too; but the thing I shall always remember above all the other things in my life is the monstrous loveliness of that one single view of London on a holiday night - London stabbed with great fires, shaken by explosions, its dark regions along the Thames sparkling with the pin points of white-hot bombs, all of it roofed over with a ceiling of pink that held bursting shells, balloons, flares and the grind of vicious engines. And in yourself the excitement and anticipation and wonder in your soul that this could be happening at all.

These things all went together to make the most hateful, most beautiful single scene I have ever known."

References:

This eyewitness account appears in: Pyle Ernie, Ernie Pyle in England (1941), Reprinted in Commager, Henry Steele, The Story of the Second World War (1945); Johnson, David, The London Blitz : The City Ablaze, December 29, 1940 (1981).

*Source: "The London Blitz, 1940," Eyewitness to History, 2001

GALLERY:

 

TROOPS AT RISK

Once again a pseudo-Christian group is about to engage in an act of terrifying idiocy that will needlessly endanger the lives of thousands of our service men and women. Story HERE.

I am talking about the plans by the Dove World Outreach Center to burn the Quran. The book considered by Muslims to be the holy word of God. They want to do this to commemorate the Sept 11th terrorist attacks. 19 al-Qaeda terrorists committed heinous acts on American soil but this group of mental midgets believe they should insult millions of people over the acts of a few extremists. As much as I am sickened and angered by the attacks that day, I certainly don’t accept the premise that a religion and all its followers should be held accountable for the acts of a few.

The Dove World Outreach Center has been denied a permit for a bonfire but they intend to break the law and proceed. Just the rumor that they are intending on burning the Quran has sparked violent protests in Indonesia and Afghanistan but they intend to proceed.

Gen. Patraeus has warned, "Images of the burning of a Quran would undoubtedly be used by extremists in Afghanistan — and around the world — to inflame public opinion and incite violence." But they STILL intend to proceed.

Like that moron from wikileaks, it appears that no amount of human lives is too much to pay so they can have their publicity and notoriety. Many of us have had or still have son, daughters, nieces and nephews overseas in harm’s way. And the Dove World Outreach Center wants them to pay with their lives for their actions – for which they will then take no responsibility, citing their right to freedom of speech.

I am so sick of people right now…

UPDATE: There is an Op-Ed piece in the Maimi Herald HERE that is worth a read.
(H/T to Capt Fogg)

Bullshit

"The wheels of commerce are greased with bullshit"

I don't know who first said it, but it's been passed down in my family for at least a couple of generations. It's true, of course, and it's doubly true of politics. Americans seem to have more fondness for the substance than an African dung beetle and far more ability to swallow huge quantities of it. Bullshit is perhaps the one thing you can have and eat and you certainly can do both and pass on more. Despite our horror of wealth distribution, we do love to share it.

A local souvenir shop made the papers over the weekend, for a huge display of Obamahate items, including an alleged explanation by the president of why Michelle hates the flag. Of course he never said it and it was long ago exposed as having been invented by the Bullshit machine formerly known as the Republican party. Yet it's too precious to let go and the dung beetles formerly known as Republicans are still eager to rub it all over themselves, smear their own walls with it and share it with you without any concern for facts.

Remember the headless bodies Arizona Governor Jan Brewer talked about - the rising crime rate that necessitated 'special handling' for anyone appearing to be of native American descent?
You guessed it, like Saddam's WMD, it's all bullshit and unlike the perpetrators of that disastrous hoax, she's willing to admit she made the whole damned thing up to get votes. Think that's the end of it? Surely not and the headless Mexicans will be talked about long after Washington Irving's tale of Sleepy Hollow disappears into the past -- and they'll be blamed on Obama. It will all be blamed on Obama and more so because more aliens are being deported than by the previous administration, fewer are getting in and crime associated with illegal immigration is going down. Why drink the watery light beer of fact when that Bullshit brew is so much more filling?

Does it matter that the President is not a Muslim? Not as long as Fox is out there spending millions, contributing millions, to tell you he is and that they are doing it is Obama's fault anyway. Bullshit sells the worse it smells.

Think Climate change has nothing to do with human activity? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, but what you think you know about it has much to do with the Oil Tycoon Koch Brothers who spend a fortune fighting the idea and financing the "Tea Party." Why does that tea taste so much like bullshit?

Think those Climategate e-mails were proof of a vast conspiracy? Sure you do and sure you don't care that they were edited and redacted to make them seem to say something they didn't. Rupert Murdoch and his Arab Oil allies spent more millions to produce enough bullshit to roll in to make all the dogs in America happy.

Those incriminating ACORN pimp videos --- smell that warm bullshit! Why give it up just because it was another right wing media hoax? Since Fox never bothered to tell you that, you can pretend it's still true and you can just keep rolling in it.

I could go on, because the bullshit never stops, but I'm tired of the futility of living in a country where "if it feels good, believe it" is the state religion and where people will fight for their beliefs to the death. We don't live in an information age, we live in a bullshit age. We love Bullshit because it fertilizes the egos of the uninformed.

If these are indeed at last the end times, we can be sure it will not all end with floods and it won't be by any divine agency. It will end with bullshit and it will be your own damned fault.

Happy Labor Day Weekend to Alaska from the AFL-CIO

[Just had to re-post this (with a Hat Tip to LeftLeaningLady) from CNN's Political Ticker].

Richard Trumpka - President,  AFL-CIO

"What is this crazy magnet that’s pulling people to the right? I mean, look at your former governor….

Who is she, anyway?

Sarah Palin?

She used to have a job, your governor…. You knew her…. Or thought you did…. I know I thought I did. She seemed like a decent person, an outdoorswoman. Her husband’s a steelworker. She seemed to take some OK stands for working families.

And then things got weird. After she tied herself to John McCain and they lost, she blew off Alaska. I guess she figured she’d trade up…shoot for a national stage. Alaska was too far from the FOX TV spotlight.

I bet most of you, on a clear day, can see her hypocrisy from your house.

I think Sarah Palin quit so she wouldn’t have to be accountable… so she wouldn’t have a record that could be scrutinized…

Instead, she’s hanging out on cable TV, almost a parody of herself, coming out with conspiracy theories about Obama and his “death panels….” Talking about “the real America.” Talking about building schools in “our neighboring country of Afghanistan.” Writing speech notes to herself on her hands.

Sometimes – about Sarah Palin – you just have to laugh…. But it’s not really funny. In this charged political environment, her kind of talk gets dangerous. “Don’t retreat… reload” may seem clever, the kind of bull you hear all the time, but put it in context. She’s using crosshairs to illustrate targeted legislators. She’s on the wrong side of the line there. She’s getting close to calling for violence. And some of her fans take that stuff seriously. We’ve got legislators in America who have been living with death threats since the health care votes.

And down in Tyler, Texas, she’s talking about—and I quote— “union thugs.” What? Her husband’s a union man. Is she calling him a thug? Sarah Palin ought to know what union men and women are.

Oh, she goes to great pains to talk differently about unions and the working people who belong to them, knowing full well we’re one and the same.

But using the term “union thug.” That’s poisonous. There’s history behind that rhetoric. That’s how bosses and politicians in decades past justified the terrorizing of workers, the murdering of organizers….

To me, it just doesn’t seem OK to go where she’s going…. It sits wrong with me…. The Mama Grizzlies, Sarah Palin says, just sense when something’s not right. Well… I wonder if those Mama Grizzlies can sense something’s just not right with her.

Quite frankly, America works because lots of people contribute lots of ideas—that’s good—even when some of them are just plain wrong. But people need to come to the table in good faith. That’s not Sarah Palin. She’ll go down in history like McCarthy. Palinism will become an ugly word.

Who is this woman, anyway? What happened to her?"

Of the nature and State of Man, with respect to the Universe

Say first of God above, or man below,
What can we reason, but from what we know?

-Alexander Pope-

Of course those of the Age of Reason had no idea of the size of the universe and the English language has no word to describe just how much bigger the visible universe is in comparison. Indeed they did know that it wasn't as the ancients thought: our floating planet covered by a rotating bowl with lights affixed, above which gods lived -- a bowl so close that it was possible for bronze age people to reach it by building a tower. Intimations they had, that a universe vast enough to include other suns, other worlds, could not have been designed to be a place for humans; a place for humans to dominate; a place designed for no other purpose.

Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine,
Earth for whose use? Pride answers, 'Tis for mine

The Anthropic Principle suggests otherwise. As Steven Hawking says, it simply states that the suitability of Earth for life on Earth is self explanatory: any form of intelligent life that evolves anywhere will automatically find that it lives somewhere suitable for it. If existence wasn't created for us, that's one less ineffable mystery that needs to be dressed up in godlike robes.

Indeed, 16th century astronomer Jerome Wolf wrote to Tycho Brahe that the "infinite size and depth of the Universe" ( if only he knew how close to infinite it is) was the greatest danger to Christianity. Fortunately for that enterprise, most today still haven't grasped that size and what it says about the irrelevance of Human values and indeed the importance of anything to do with us.

What we've come to know about the nature of reality; about what the meaning of is is, has presented us with a landscape more vast and more inaccessible to the public grasp than is the 14 billion light year fraction of what is that we can see. There are whole dimensions that we can't see and can't come close to comprehending and what we can see and comprehend is little more than the shadows in Plato's cave. That everything in this infinite universe can be attached to a two dimensional membrane floating in 11 dimensional space/time requires more than fasting, chanting, meditation and drugs to become apparent keeps reality well out of the reach of all of us. Certain conclusions about it however, are hard to avoid without avoiding the entire question of just why is is. To my admittedly limited mind, questions of creation, of entities involved with creation, entities beyond the properties of matter and energy and dimension and in what places they exist, are absurd. Isn't it absurd to discuss the number of angels that can dance on a pinhead without being able to ascribe any characteristics or properties necessary to their existence? And of course we cannot without dragging them into a place of scrutiny, which is impossible.

Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatum

Said old William, hundreds of years before the Enlightenment; don't create entities if you don't have to, yet we're still doing it. We're still creating creators, plugging the ever narrowing gaps in our ability to explain nature with gods and demons and angels and disembodied spirits, although it's long since become obvious that we don't need gods of gravity or electricity or of the nuclear forces. We don't need gods to determine why and when it will rain or to give purpose to earthquakes and storms or to make it very important to the cosmos that we worship a certain god and avoid another or refrain from sleeping with the wrong people or obtain knowledge reserved for the gods.

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is Man

What we see as energy and matter and time are properties of other phenomena, not results of conscious or unconscious entities that create and control them. We don't need to create them to explain what is otherwise explained by what we can demonstrate and we can demonstrate that random fluctuations of that fabric which manifests itself in all things can more easily do what the old consciousness needed to create entities to create.

Stephen Hawking's soon to be released book claims that existence explains itself, that there is no need to invoke entities for which existence contains no place and allows no properties to explain the spontaneous origin or virtual particles or indeed that tiny part of an infinite thing called existence. If indeed, current theory is correct, there are such an infinite number of conditions that can be called universes, inaccessible from one another, all our religions become absurd. In such isness, the creation of ever more universes is an inevitable result of the nature of is. No nebulous incorporeal entities need apply.

And in spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
One truth is clear: whatever is, is right

M-Theory is hard to grasp. OK, it's damned near impossible, but as theories do, it predicts outcomes otherwise not predictable. Hawking has come to embrace it as it makes the singularities embedded in classical theories nugatory. It makes it unnecessary to postulate something existing before time that caused time to start, for instance. It makes it unneccesary to postulate the entire idea of anything before time.

"It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going,"

Hawking writes in the introduction. Indeed, it's no longer necessary to explain the tides, the winds, the orbits of bodies in space, lightening or the nearly infinite number of gaps in our knowledge in which gods once found refuge.

If there are no more gaps for our gods to hide in, no more firmaments to divide heaven and earth, what then will become of them? Perhaps we'll find him in the one place we have never looked. In ourselves. If universes can be self-creating by virtue of physical law, cannot we be self creating in terms of what we wish to be?

History says no, Glenn Beck thinks it leads to death camps, theologians trip over their tongues trying to show how even if there isn't a God or any place for him or anything he could do if he could -- there is a God. Personally I prefer the freedom of knowing nothing matters for very long; nothing a hundred billion years of time won't wash away. I prefer to think that only the free can be moral, only the mortal can be compassionate and only in our transience can we find glory.

KOCHROACHES

A scrapbook by Octopus

A hat tip to Elizabeth for bringing this article to our attention: COVERT OPERATIONS, about the secretive Koch brothers who are the money behind numerous far right wing causes. Highly recommended reading.

German Tea

"All Jews share a particular gene, Basques share a certain gene that sets them apart,"

said Thilo Sarrazin, a board member at The Bundesbank, Germany's central bank and a former finance minister of the city state of Berlin. It's not the first time he's put his shiny black Stiefel in his mouth or gave geneticists cause to groan. His book, Deutschland schafft sich ab, (Germany destroys itself) which just came out, contains many gems like:

"In every European country, due to their low participation in the labour market and high claim on state welfare benefits, Muslim migrants cost the state more than they generate in added economic value. In terms of culture and civilisation, their notions of society and values are a step backwards."

Sounds familiar to me, but perhaps that's only my special Jew gene talking. You know, the gene for remembering. Is he only stating the truth despite "political correctness" or is he just another one the Inglorious Basterds missed? Depends on how much tea you drink, I guess. Of course he doesn't exist in a vacuum and there are Germans who applaud his audacity, if you can call it that. There are even Thilo T-shirts available on line.

"I don't want my grandchildren and great-grandchildren to live in a mostly Muslim country where Turkish and Arabic are widely spoken, women wear headscarves and the day's rhythm is determined by the call of the muezzin."

I guess he won't be resettling in Detroit or the Borough of Queens, but even there, it's a long way from where we are to sullying the ethnic/religious purity of the Vaterland or good old USA either.

Germany of course was once a place where Jews once made great strides toward blending in socially, professionally and even religiously and we see where that got them. Its conceivable that Muslims might make the same effort to become echt Deutsch, but will they see it as being worth it with Schmutz Taschen ( if you'll pardon my calque) like Sarrazin roaming about the beer halls and board rooms? Perhaps certain Muslims of my acquaintance will re-examine their strongly held assertion that Germany wouldn't have done what they did when they did it, when the thought arises that they might be next. I doubt it though.

Of course it's not going to come to that. Germany learned a lesson we're still refusing even to do the homework for and Sarrazin will have to find other employment: politics, possibly. I wonder how good his English is.

Net Neutrality and you

If you're reading this, you most likely have an interest in the future of the Internet and concern with the ownership thereof. Most of us assume it belongs to us, the way we once assumed the ' air waves' belonged to us -- just like the air itself. The electromagnetic spectrum now largely belongs to those who make a profit from it and the Internet may well follow suit. The phone and cable companies would certainly like to regulate what you may or may not get on line and how fast you get it as well as how much you'll have to pay.

What's at stake for them is the ability to sell you "premium" services over dedicated networks and to be able to "prioritize" or discriminate between traffic that takes up bandwidth and traffic they can make a buck on. Of course it's much more complex than this, but the outcome of FCC deliberations on Net Neutrality may very well have a huge effect on the flow of information and our assumption that everyone has a right to hear and be heard without interference; without corporate censorship.

Of course the ability of the FCC to do anything at all is in question following recent court decisions that seem to be part of the crusade against regulating anything and everything and without such an agency to provide a system of rules to protect a media that's fast replacing print and broadcast as our portal to the world, what you know, what you are able to know may well be determined by what makes the most money or most suits the interests of service providers. Indeed we've already traveled quite a distance down that path.

The FCC is now open to public comment. You can be sure that Verizon and Google, inter alia, are speaking very loudly and carrying a very big stick so if there's going to be any slim chance for the public to weigh in on Net Neutrality, your chance to be heard is now.

Sarah Palin: No Laughing Matter

Of the Obama administration, she says, “They talk down to us. Especially here in the heartland. Oh, man. They think that, if we were just smart enough, we’d be able to understand their policies. And I so want to tell ’em, and I do tell ’em, Oh, we’re plenty smart, oh yeah—we know what’s goin’ on. And we don’t like what’s goin’ on. And we’re not gonna let them tell us to sit down and shut up.” The crowd’s ample applause at these lines swells to something vastly bigger when Palin vows defiantly that “come November, we’re taking our country back!”

The above lines are from an article by author Michael Joseph Gross for Vanity Fair. Gross followed Sarah Palin "...through through four midwestern states, speaking with whomever I could induce to talk under whatever conditions of anonymity they imposed—political strategists, longtime Palin friends and political associates, hotel staff, shopkeepers and hairstylists, and high-school friends of the Palin children. There’s a long and detailed version of what they had to say, but there’s also a short and simple one: anywhere you peel back the skin of Sarah Palin’s life, a sad and moldering strangeness lies beneath."


I just read Gross' article. It's long, but well worth taking the time to peruse.

A lot of us, myself included, have been guilty of dismissing Sarah Palin. We laugh at her gaffes, marvel at the way that she mangles the English language, and deride her for her lack of knowledge on most topics of substance. But here's the deal, Sarah Palin is a very dangerous woman and if we are to neutralize her, the first thing that we have to do is take her seriously.

While we're making fun of Palin, she's methodically increasing her base, travelling through middle America, trash talking the Obama administration, and regularly invoking the name of Jesus. Her base doesn't think that she's stupid; they think that she's one of them, and when you insult her, you insult them.

I'm guilty of it, as are most progressives. The provincial and narrow view of the world expressed by Palin's followers offends me and I express my distaste by asserting that they are devoid of intellectual curiosity, which is just another way for stating that they're stupid. Once you tell people that they're dumb, they just aren't interested in hearing anything else that you have to say.

However, Palin has successfully tapped into the psyche of a lot of Americans, people who identify with her because they buy her assertions that she is one of them. She makes them feel that their view of the world is valid, that their prejudices and narrow belief systems are superior to those of the heathen liberals. Early on she recognized that Obama represents everything that they fear and dislike. When he speaks, they don't always easily follow what he is talking about so they presume that he's speaking some anti-American, anti-Christian code. Palin feeds their fire; she's their leader.

Perhaps Palin's most clever move is the focus on generating the tent revival atmosphere demonstrated at Beck's Restoring Honor rally. Palin has two texts that she regularly cites at her appearances, the Constitution of the United States and the Christian Bible, sometimes interchangeably. Her audiences eat the mishmash of secular law and religious belief as if it were the mythical manna from heaven, secure in their desire to get their country back and the belief that God wants them to have it.

I don't believe Christianity is inherently evil but I do believe that humankind has repeatedly demonstrated our ability to twist the precepts of any belief system to justify the worst aspects of our nature. Misdirected religious fervor soon swells into fanaticism, and history is littered with the horrors perpetrated in the name of religious fanaticism. These people believe that they're on a mission from God and that Palin is their angel of light guiding them to salvation, not just for themselves, but for the entire country. If they have to trample on the Constitution, run undocumented immigrants out of the country by any means necessary, and kill off the liberals in order to enact their vision and get their country back, then so be it.

The saving grace of this country has been that most people who consider themselves to be Christians have never been overly involved in organized proselytizing. There have always been exceptions, but not any significant numbers involved in forcing the word of God on all, just a few souls wandering through neighborhoods and knocking on doors on occasion. However, the Palin/Beck base are a different and dangerous breed, and they have found their prophets in Palin and her acolyte, Glenn Beck.

They are fueled by their fear and discontent; Palin and Beck provide them with answers that fit their view that they have been wronged and that their entire way of life is danger of being destroyed. Every time they hear someone speaking Spanish they fear that the conversation is about them. They deeply resent being unable to understand the conversation, after all, this is their country. So they angrily question, "Why can't these people learn English?" They also provide the answer, "They don't want to learn English!"

The black man in the oval office further confuses and upsets them. He must be up to something nefarious; he can't really be working for the good of all Americans. At the core of the obsession with so-called reverse racism is a subconscious belief that black people must have some desire for retribution. That belief fuels the vitriolic dislike expressed for President Obama and the obsessive beliefs that he is on the side of the terrorists, has plans to destroy the United States, and plans to chuck the Constitution and replace it with a socialist manifesto.

I vehemently disliked most of the policies of the George W. Bush's administration but I can't recall there ever being an assessment by progressives that GWB was intentionally and with malice aforethought attempting to destroy the country. Certainly, there have been accusations that certain actions on the part of past presidents would result in the destruction of the foundational beliefs of this country but never the assertion that the president in question ran for office for the express purpose of destroying America.

At the top of the progressive agenda must be plans to reframe our message to re-engage liberals and progressives prior to the November 2010 elections and to begin to lay the foundation for the 2012 elections. I'm not confident that there is any framing that will sway those who are enraptured of Palin and Beck, and I fear that the Palin/Beck base will continue to grow.

There is a great deal of apathy among progressives and liberals; declarations that Obama has betrayed us abound. Like a petulant child who didn't get everything on his or her Christmas list, far too many of us focus on what remains undone and look past all that has been accomplished. We threaten not to vote in order to teach the Democrats not to take us for granted.

It's time that we start taking Sarah Palin seriously; her base certainly does. If we don't, there may lessons learned in November 2010 and 2012 but we may the ones who are schooled.

The Great Impastor

meg·a·lo·ma·ni·a- n.

1. A psychopathological condition characterized by delusional fantasies of wealth, power, or omnipotence.
2. An obsession with grandiose or extravagant things or actions.

Glenn Beck wants to be your Megalomaniac in Chief. Within a matter of days, he's declaimed from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, declared his ministry as spiritual guide to the disenfranchised, appropriated God and Martin Luther King, and launched his own news website, The Blaze. Oh, and channeled Moses, but that's such an old schtick (oops, I pun).

It's tempting to use my brand new laptop and my brand new blogging year (Second Blogoversary countdown: 359 shopping days left!) to write my fanny off on this subject, but the research all by itself has been so much fun that I'd hate to put too many words in the way. So tag along as I follow the Yellow Brick Road to visit The Great Oz.

Orson Scott Card, Mormon author referenced by NYTimes:  “Mormonism is not just another form of Christianity — it is incompatible with ‘traditional Christian orthodoxy.’” Amen! Absolutely correct! We send out missionaries to every country that will allow them to enter precisely because we believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ is incompatible with “traditional Christian orthodoxy.”

Russell Moore, Dean of The School of Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary:

A Mormon television star stands in front of the Lincoln Memorial and calls American Christians to revival. He assembles some evangelical celebrities to give testimonies, and then preaches a God and country revivalism that leaves the evangelicals cheering that they've heard the gospel, right there in the nation's capital.

American news media pronounces him the new leader of America's Christian conservative movement, and a flock of America's Christian conservatives have no problem with that.

If you'd told me that ten years ago, I would have assumed it was from the pages of an evangelical apocalyptic novel about the end-times. But it's not. It's from this week's headlines. And it is a scandal.

Michelle Boorstein, The Washington Post (8/31/2010):

Longtime Beck-watchers said he has always made references to his faith journey, his conversion from Catholicism to Mormonism, his crediting God with saving him from drug and alcohol abuse, professional obscurity and "friendlessness." But in the runup to Saturday's rally, Beck talked publicly and privately about God working through him, calling a pre-rally event Friday "Divine Destiny" and lining up evangelical pastor John Hagee and other religious leaders to appear with him."I'm a little nervous about that kind of talk," said Janet Mefferd, a nationally syndicated Christian talk show host who said most callers Monday wanted to talk about Beck. "I know he means well and loves this country, but he doesn't know enough about theology to know what kind of effect he's having. Christians are hearing something different than what he thinks he's saying."

 This isn't the first time Beck's faith has been scrutinized. Prominent Mormons haveoccasionally criticized him as being an entertainer, not a theologian. After an interview in 2008 with Focus on the Family, the article was pulled because some of the group's supporters thought it was wrongly validating his conversion experience. 

Glenn Beck, on Fox News Sunday: "You see, it's all about victims and victimhood; oppressors and the oppressed; reparations, not repentance; collectivism, not individual salvation. I don't know what that is, other than it's not Muslim, it's not Christian. It's a perversion of the gospel of Jesus Christ as most Christians know it."




Jillian Rayfield, Talking Points Memo, quoting Glenn Beck in the same interview shown above:

Host Chris Wallace also told Beck that "in the 40 years that I've been in this business, I have to say I've never seen anyone quite like you. You're not a newsman. You're not a preacher. You're not a politician."

"I'm a dad, I'm a concerned citizen," Beck replied.

Wallace also asked Beck about Jon Stewart, who's mocked Beck repeatedly on his show. "I think he's funny," Beck said of Stewart. "Quite honestly, I think he should write me a check."

Lacy Rose, in her Moneywood column for Forbes.com:

As I detailed in our Beck cover story this past spring, his now $35 million-a-year empire includes a variety of Web offerings as well as a popular radio program, Fox News TV series, books, podcasts, speeches, newsletters and stage shows. (To see how he makes his millions, go here.) 

Screenshot of Beck's other website, The Glenn Beck Program:

That headline reads:" Moses was high on drugs:Israeli..."

And the intriguing article noted above reads:

Moses was high on drugs: Israeli researcher

March 4, 2008 - 10:20 ET

High on Mount Sinai, Moses was on psychedelic drugs when he heard God deliver the Ten Commandments, an Israeli researcher claimed in a study published this week. 
  
 Such mind-altering substances formed an integral part of the religious rites of Israelites in biblical times, Benny Shanon, a professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem wrote in the Time and Mind journal of philosophy. 
  
 "As far Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don't believe, or a legend, which I don't believe either, or finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel under the effect of narcotics," Shanon told Israeli public radio on Tuesday. 

 Which naturally leads me to conclude that Glenn Beck was confused about exactly who was calling:

Hey Glenn Beck, You Crack Me Up!

A month ago when I read that Glenn Beck planned to host his Restoring Honor rally on the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s historic I Have a Dream Speech, I was so ticked off that I could spit nails. Next I heard that the ubiquitous Sarah Palin was scheduled to speak at the rally and my left eye started to twitch uncontrollably. When I learned that Dr. King's niece, Alveda King, also planned to speak at Beck's rally, I feared that my Aunt Dorothy's prophesy was about to be fulfilled and my head was going to explode.


However, there was no spit and no nails, the twitch is nearly gone, and my head is still intact. I temporarily forgot the basic rule for surviving encounters with the madness of those who attempt to rewrite history and reshape truth--never forget to laugh.

Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and Dr. King's hapless niece as modern day purveyors of the dream is just laughable. I was eight-years-old when King spoke at the Lincoln Memorial; his speech moved a nation. I know for a fact that Glenn Beck is no Martin Luther King, Jr. He's not even a reasonable facsimile thereof.

Beck is a pompous twit whose hour has come round at last, much like the beast slouching so ominously towards Bethlehem in The Second Coming. History is filled with charismatic charlatans who give winning performances before clueless audiences.

And the audiences...they fervently worship their idols, and the more those of us who see that the emperor has no clothes try to share that revelation, the more firmly entrenched they become in defending their idols from those of us who would dethrone them. Attacking Beck and Palin only elevates them in the eyes of their followers. The rest of us are the enemy.

Look at the language that they use; it's as if we are at war. "Take back our country;" "Restoring Honor;" "I want my country back;" "Defend our Constitution."

So rather than spitting nails, or developing a permanent tic, or having my head explode, I'm going to engage in a bout of laughter at Palin, Beck, and Alveda King trying to assert that Dr. King would have been at their side on August 28. I'm going to recognize that Beckolytes will not be swayed no matter how many times the rest of us try to tell them that their demi-god has feet of clay. When I'm done laughing, I'm going to renew my efforts to work on my local get-out-the-vote campaign. The way I figure it, the only sensible course of action is for those of us who have not drunk the kool-aid to take back our country.

Beck and Palin focus on one line from King's I Have A Dream Speech, the part about being judged by the content of our character not the color of our skin. It's certainly a part of what was said that day, but Dr. King never made pretty speeches solely about pie in the sky dreams; he always grounded his dream in a call for action. The following is also from that speech:

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check -- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

A FARM GROWS IN NEW ORLEANS

Just when I think the weight of the ignorance, hate and corruption in this country will finally drag me into the depths of complete despair, a story or exchange will come to my attention and give me a glimmer of hope that all is not lost.

This morning it was the story of a farm rising from the ashes of the post Katrina Ninth Ward. Much of the Ninth Ward, the poorest area of New Orleans, remains scarred and abandoned by folks with too few resources and too little hope.

But take a few people like Brennan Dougherty, Kyle Meador and Donna Cavato, add a few youthful volunteers like Jake Feinman and Alex Epstein and a movement is born. On a recent weekend afternoon, the farm played host to a neighborhood festival. In the past, relief workers and volunteers would have outnumbered residents because so few had returned to the nearby streets. But on this day, dozens of locals attended.

These people have not formed an angry political mob nor are they a bunch of ineffectual “holier than thou” hypocrites. They have instead started a humanitarian effort that even has the drug dealers’ grudging respect. They have taken their trade elsewhere in order to increase the safety of the grown ups and children who operate the farm and the nearby Our School at Blair Grocery.

There is a large compost pile, fed largely by produce waste from a Whole Foods store that is nearly 15 feet tall and is called The Volcano. The farm not only raises organic produce and animals but it is a learning center for the area’s children who are gaining valuable lessons in proper nutrition and self sustenance.

"Growing good food is a lot like building a strong, diverse community," says Dougherty, who frequently conducts composting workshops. "Healthy food starts with rich soil. That's your foundation. Then you build up in layers. A strong community also needs a solid base. It requires diversity of materials, thought and action - the layers. Then you grow from within."

Our School at Blair Grocery: “Students are 15-19 year old African-American youth who have not found success in a traditional educational environment, and who need and deserve an engaging curriculum in a supportive environment. Our curriculum utilizes the best practices in education, offering learner-centered, outcome-based, transformative, place-based and feedback-driven teaching through experiential projects.”

There’s a lot of hope and joy in New Orleans these days.

Follow the link HERE to read the companion story.

Follow the link HERE to read about these innovative NOLA programs.

There are days when I think there is hope for the human race yet. Happy day everyone!

What Americans REALLY Want!

Oh, its obvious that the political tides are a changing but before those of you on the right get all bent out of shape over your perceived "win" lets look at some facts from a recent poll:

53% of Americans and a plurality of likely voters support the federal government providing aid to states and localities to avoid further layoffs and service cuts.  Or as this study found:

Provided even minimum context -- that some "300,000 teachers and other educational workers are potentially facing layoffs" -- support rises to 65-30, and over 60% of likely voters, with Republicans and independent moving dramatically in support.

54% of Americans favor allowing the Bush era tax cuts expire!  Oh, and this study found:

And by a stunning 68 to 28, voters say that cuts for Social Security and Medicare should not be part of any deficit reduction plan -- including over 60% of Republicans. Two-thirds of likely voters (65%) oppose raising the Social Security retirement age to 70 -- including two-thirds (66%) of Republicans.

Instead, over 60% of Americans choose progressive measures -- ending tax breaks for corporations that outsource jobs abroad, taxing excess profits on Wall Street, or lifting the cap on Social Security payments above the current 106,500 limit. By 54-31, they prefer higher taxes on the wealthy over a national sales tax that hits working people harder.

Americans are furious that Wall Street has been bailout out and Main Street remains in trouble.  Americans realize that the deficits were caused by bad political decisions:  Unfunded wars abroad, the bailout of Waltt Street, and special interest subsidies.  They can't understand talk of providing more tax cuts to the wealthy while cutting Social Security or raising the retirement age. In a time of Gilded Age inequality, they sensibly favor progressive taxes on the wealthy.

Americans are increasingly negative about the economy and for good reason.  While Americans are losing faith in Obama's policies and are souring on the Democrats in Congress they also hold Repulicans in low regard. 

2010 will be a PROTEST of Washington's failure not an endorsement of conservative priorities!

Amid the drumbeat of elite alarms about deficits, tea party fury at spending, Republican trumpeting of the "voodoo" of top end tax cuts and balanced budgets, most Americans haven't lost their heads. They don't want working families to pay for the calamity that they did not cause. They expect those who had the party to pay for cleaning up the mess. And they are looking for a plan that will rebuild America, not simply one that will sack government.

Six out of ten Americans favor the idea of rebuilding America and investing in new industries.  Or as this study found:

Six-in-ten voters respond positively to a broad narrative focused on resolving our public investment deficit in infrastructure. Investments in "roads, sewers, schools, trains, renewable energy and other basic parts of our communities" that would "create jobs, help business compete, improve our communities and generate revenues to pay down the deficit" makes sense to them. This message tests better than any other progressive message on investment as well as more conservative messages focused on spending cuts.

Or as the study's author concluded:

"Voters take the long view, seeing the need for both a commitment to a 21st century economy and long-term strategies to reduce the deficit. These are complimentary, not exclusive goals. Progressives need to show they are serious about the deficits, but once they do, voters turn to them, not conservatives, for the right spending priorities and answers."

Oh, I know lots of you believe I am a socialist....but as a small business owner I know that neither party gives a hoot about small business or the little guy.  Here is a great article about the reality of these business groups that claim to represent small business: Misrepresenting Small Business.

Forget Ayn Rand, but rather listen to the words of Adam Smith, the true father of capitalism.  The dysfunction that represents the policy debates we have today are clearly explained here:

We've been hearing a lot lately about the possibility of a double-dip recession. I do not know if we will actually go to a double dip or just substandard growth given the high level of underutilized human resources. But that is beside the point.

It is a very sad feeling, one that I had during the aftermath of Katrina, when the government reveals that it does not intend to respond to a crisis. It is a cold, dehumanized feeling. The tolerance of 9.5 percent unemployment, which is in reality a much larger number (say 15 percent) than the official numbers, is a symptom of dysfunction.

The dysfunction arises in part because of a failed vision. Society needs public goods and their repair. Adam Smith identified this in The Wealth of Nations. Education, schools, roads, and bridges are the lubricant of a productive society and there is no better time to repair or upgrade them than when you have slack resources that can be hired to address the task. Denigration of government's essential role has gone on too long. It is doing us harm. Yet it has roots in experience.

Our lockdown on spending is a symptom of lack of trust. It is also in part because our government is seen by the population as favoring large institutions and corporate power, not people. Given the choice between perceived corporate welfare that enlarges our future tax burden and curtailing the government, many people now opt for the latter. Not because people lack the desire for services, but because we do not trust our political system to deliver those needed services. See a recent Pew Reseach Poll, which illustrates the pervasive perception that government economic policies benefit Wall Street rather than Main Street.

The real dysfunction is the fact that those on the right while clamoring for freedom, liberty, and individualism are in fact mouthpieces for Wall Street and various other corporate interests.  As Rob Johnson states in a recent Huffington Post article:

We are amidst a breakdown. An irrational macroeconomic strategy and a nonsensical growth strategy is being chosen in a way that is perfectly understandable in a money politics-driven collapse of trust in government decision making. Deterioration of government services is bad enough, but imposing austerity due to lack of trust in a time of high unemployment and slack resources is tragic. It is a means to accelerate the decline of living standards of those who have taken a beating since 2007. Double dip or stagnation is too subtle a distinction. We are amidst an unfolding collective choice to pursue a downward spiral. I do not for a minute believe this will result in a lower debt/GDP ratio. I do see deflationary risks as a prelude to an inflationary response. Our leaders, showing their fear by responding to the fearful polling results are not leading. Where will this end?

Watching the antics of these politicians attempting to follow and not lead gives me pause...and makes me realize that the only true statesman in this country is Barack Obama.

Personally, I am tired of listening to the regurgitation of 30 years of stupid political rhetoric.  Unions didn't destroy our economy management did.  The facts are all around you and if you need more here are some good ones:  Rotten Apples, Core Values.

Oh, call yourself what you want but conservatives, libertarians, or whatever you are just Republicans and good luck in 2010!  Go ahead and follow Paul Ryan's "Road Map..." or just sit on your hands and do nothing for two years figuring it will pay off for you in 2012. 

You cannot stop the Republicans from going to war, from bailing out Wall Street and or from cutting deals with their special interest cronies....

Remember, our first crash ocurred in 1929 and FDR took office in 1933; I always believed that the Democrats should have allowed McCain to win in 2008 and allowed the Repulicans to muddle through for four years...

Americans have enough common sense to know that the 21st Century belongs to the Progressives and the Conservatives proved that over the course of the last 30 years!  Had the Democrats been truly Progressive then the election of 2010 would be a moot point.

Americans want to throw the democrats out of office because they remind them too much of Republicans......

Deficits and Economic Recovery (Full)

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