Capitalism Hits Fan by RD Wolff “FASCINATING”
Yesterday on Thom Hartmann, I saw a hypnotizing phone interview with R.D. Wolff author of Capitalism Hits Fan. Information was unveiled about things I had not fully realized. For instance:
In the 70’s, when wages began to stagnate and American workers were forced into a dysfunctional spiral of borrowing and debt that ultimately exploded in the mortgage meltdown. Click This Link http://www.rdwolff.com/content/capitalism-hits-fan-movie
Although, lucky for me, I escaped the inevitable mortgage meltdown but all the other negatives that had been happening to the American Worker, myself and my family felt.
The debt trap, 2 incomes and still unable to make ends meet, the rising cost of health insurance, the elimination of safety nets, the list goes on and on. We the middle-class have been pinched and pulled in every direction by the wealthy one percent power that had (and still has) taken hold of our capitalistic system. It’s been too long hidden from the collective psyche of the We who represent the middle and the bottom on the economic ladder. Thanks to people like Professor Richard Wolff, these clandestine maneuverings of the American Soul has been brought out of its darkness and exposed to light. One should never forget that knowledge is power and wisdom is strength. I hope we will be able to start a reversal in the way we were led (brainwashed) to THINK. I hope there is still time and the generations of We still to come will have a chance at the GOOD OLE AMERICAN DREAM. But forgive me, I am doubtful. thinkingblue
PS:On this subject:
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is advising the White House NOT to put Elizabeth Warren in charge of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — a watchdog agency she invented and is most qualified to lead.
Can you sign our urgent petition to the President?
PETITION TO PRESIDENT OBAMA: Elizabeth Warren has proven that she is willing to stand up to Wall Street on behalf of consumers and is the logical choice to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Tim Geithner is a longtime Wall Street insider, and if he’s recommending against Elizabeth Warren that’s all the more reason to appoint her.
SIGN THE PETITION — JUST
ADD YOUR NAME
Now Watch A Fascinating Video With R.D. Wolff On The Phone With Thom Hartmann
On the phone with Thom Hartmann and R D Wolff
CAPITALISM HITS FAN – TRANSCRIPT HERE
Watch A Fracking Mess ‘GASLAND’ here
RNC Document Mocks Donors, Plays on ‘Fear’
Thom Hartmann on Freespeech TV
Please sign this very important
petition “demand question time” (of our political
leaders) HERE..
We really need more dialog from those at the top… The
Republicans have got to be made to realize they can’t hide behind
“NO” any longer! thinkingblue
Let’s keep our heads, while we continue
to watch THE THEATER OF THE ABSURD!!!
“A SEARCH FOR TRUTH WILL FIND INJUSTICE.”thinkingblue
Arizona Immigration Law and A Picture Worth A 1000 Words.
Just a quick post today… All about a picture being worth a 1000words.
I found this picture on facebook at Cuéntame’s Photos – Wall Photos with a caption that read:
If you could write a one-line message on a blank billboard in Arizona for people to reconsider
SB 1070, WHAT WOULD IT SAY?
I proposed instead of a picture why not post a political cartoon up on that BIG billboard? Here’s a good one from Fitzsimmons
OR this one from Mike Keefe
OR better yet this one also from Fitzsimmons
You know what they say about a picture… WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS…
Ain’t it the truth! thinkingblue
Watch A Fracking Mess ‘GASLAND’ here
RNC Document Mocks Donors, Plays on ‘Fear’
Thom Hartmann on Freespeech TV
Please sign this very important
petition “demand question time” (of our political
leaders) HERE..
We really need more dialog from those at the top… The
Republicans have got to be made to realize they can’t hide behind
“NO” any longer! thinkingblue
Let’s keep our heads, while we continue
to watch THE THEATER OF THE ABSURD!!!
“A SEARCH FOR TRUTH WILL FIND INJUSTICE.”thinkingblue
Tell CNN — stop spreading FOX’s lies
I’ve noticed CNN moving toward the views of the Tea Party and Limbaugh’s Ditto Heads… Maybe, that’s why I seldom watch it anymore. Come on CNN, if you want more viewers try taking them away from MSNBC and not FOX (you call that news?). What do you have against a THINKING audience anyway? thinkingblue
You too, can tell CNN off by signing the petition below…
—
Since Saturday, more than 45,000 ColorOfChange.org members have called onCNN to stop helping FOX launch its latest race-baiting smear campaign.If enough of us speak out, we can stop FOX’s distortions from spreading. Can you help us reach the 50,000 mark by signing the letter to CNN and asking your friends to do the same?…You can sign the letter here — it takes just a moment: http://www.colorofchange.org/cnnfox/?id=2139-1238844
The real danger of FOX
FOX has consistently stoked the fears of some White Americans that President Obama might favor Blacks over Whites — an irresponsible and dangerous game. But it’s even more dangerous when other news networks amplify and validate what they’re doing. This is FOX’s plan, and it’s important to note that just before the story got covered on CNN, FOX spent the previous day accusing the other news organizations of not covering the story. They set the bait and CNN took it.
It’s the same pattern that was used to put ACORN out of business. FOX ran a smear-campaign with partial or fabricated information and then got other news outlets to follow and run with the same story without digging deeper. Once the truth came out, it was too late.
We expect FOX to lie and distort. But for CNN and others to fall into the trap of repeating FOX’s claims is a different story. Now, in hopes of preventing similar situations in the future, we must fight back. Join us in calling on CNN to do real reporting, and not mainstream FOX’s distortions and lies. And when you do, please ask your family and friends to do the same. It only takes a moment:
http://www.colorofchange.org/cnnfox/?id=2139-1238844
Thanks and Peace, — James, Gabriel, William, Dani, Milton and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
July 10th, 2010
Watch A Fracking Mess ‘GASLAND’ here
RNC Document Mocks Donors, Plays on ‘Fear’
Thom Hartmann on Freespeech TV
Let’s keep our heads, while we continue
to watch THE THEATER OF THE ABSURD!!!
“A SEARCH FOR TRUTH WILL FIND INJUSTICE.”thinkingblue
The Halliburton Loophole Via Dick Cheney
The Halliburton Loophole Via Dick Cheney
It is hard to believe the blatant, out N’ out criminal activities that went on during the Bush/Cheney years, under the eyes of the law and without consequences. Illegal wars, spying on the people without their knowledge, torture, UNCONSTITUTIONAL LOOPHOLES. (Read This) Are we really free? This doesn’t sound like freedom to me. If it weren’t for the freedom of the press that produce media iconoclasts like Jon Stewart, our so called freedom would be in name only. I’m to the point that I don’t trust any politician. When I see one of them speaking on TV, I turn off the sound and believe me, you could not tell if Mr. or Ms. Politician was an “R” or a “D”… their mannerisms are so similar. Just a bunch of greedy
individuals all worried about their own rice bowls. They’re supposed to represent us but they do anything but represent us. The only representing they do is for self interest. So again, if it weren’t for people like Jon Stewart, Thom Hartmann, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and the like, we might as well be living in the closed society of Iran for all the truths we would be able to learn. thinkingblue
Please watch The Jon Stewart Show clip below and read The New York Time Opinion Article and learn, learn, learn.
A MARK TWAIN QUOTE:
“Sir, I have been through it from Alpha to Omaha, and I tell you that the less a man knows the bigger the noise he makes and the higher the salary he commands.”
“How I Edited an Agricultural Paper,” 1870
WATCH Josh Fox on The Daily Show:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart |
Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c |
| Josh Fox |
|
Opinion from the New York
TimesTimes Topics: Oil and Gasoline
A version of this article appeared in print on November 3, 2009, on page A28 of the New York
edition.Published: November 2, 2009
Among the many dubious provisions in the 2005 energy bill was
one dubbed the Halliburton loophole, which was inserted at
the behest of — you guessed it — then-Vice
President Dick Cheney, a former chief executive of Halliburton.It stripped the Environmental Protection Agency of its
authority to regulate a drilling process called hydraulic
fracturing. Invented by Halliburton in the 1940s, it involves
injecting a mixture of water, sand and chemicals, some of
them toxic, into underground rock formations to blast them
open and release natural gas.Hydraulic fracturing has been implicated in a growing number
of water pollution cases across the country. It has become
especially controversial in New York, where regulators are
eager to clear the way for drilling in the New York City
watershed, potentially imperiling the city’s water
supply. Thankfully, the main company involved has now decided
not to go ahead.The safety of the nation’s water supply should not have
to rely on luck or the public relations talents of the oil
and gas industry. Thanks in part to two New Yorkers —
Representative Maurice Hinchey and Senator Charles Schumer
— Congress last week approved a bill that asks the
E.P.A. to conduct a new study on the risks of hydraulic
fracturing. An agency study in 2004 whitewashed the industry
and was dismissed by experts as superficial and politically
motivated. This time Congress is demanding “a
transparent, peer-reviewed process.”An even more important bill is waiting in the wings.
Cumbersomely named the Fracturing Responsibility and
Awareness of Chemicals Act, it would close the loophole and
restore the E.P.A.’s rightful authority to regulate
hydraulic fracturing. It would also require the oil and gas
industry to disclose the chemicals they use.The industry argues that the chemicals are proprietary
secrets and that disclosing them would hurt their
competitiveness. It also argues that the process is basically
safe and that regulating it would deter domestic production.
But if hydraulic fracturing is as safe as the industry says
it is, why should it fear regulation?
RNC Document Mocks Donors, Plays on ‘Fear’
Thom Hartmann on Freespeech TV
Please sign this
very important petition “demand question time” (of our
political leaders) HERE..
We really need more dialog from those at the top… The
Republicans have got to be made to realize they can’t hide behind
“NO” any longer! thinkingblue
Let’s keep our heads, while we continue
to watch THE THEATER OF THE ABSURD!!!
“A SEARCH FOR TRUTH WILL FIND
INJUSTICE.”thinkingblue
STOP BIG OIL BAILOUTS
I know – petitions are a pain –
but before you give up on them, sign this one. Please, pretty
please — for our future which hangs in the balance. Remember:
Big Oil is not our friend. Ditto for banks, doctors, insurance
companies, brokers, etc. ad nauseum. Maddi
Thanks Maddi, I signed the petition and will send it around. I hope it works, even if just a smidgen… It seems the more money you possess the more help you get if you gamble it all away. Makes no sense but who are we to question? It’s always been that way and it always will remain that way… Pardon me for sounding so cynical… It seems, Pessimism and Skepticism is all they(The Big Oil, Big Banksters, Big Pharma, Big Insurance, Big Government {but only for the rich} and Big Medicine) have left us with. Carolyn
PS: Please sign STOP BIG OIL BAILOUTS petition here
or below.
Stop Big Oil Bailoutswww.stopbigoilbailouts.comI can’t believe our government just
gave Big Oil (includes BP) $35 billion in tax breaks! Sign this
growing petition to help get them repealed.
America’s richest oil companies are shaking you down.
While reaping the largest corporate profits in history, BP,
ExxonMobil, Chevron and other Big Oil companies have shaken more
than $35 billion in special subsidies and tax breaks out of the
U.S. taxpayer. Then, when Big Oil dumps millions of gallons of
oil into our oceans and waterways, they leave us with the cleanup bill.
BP and other Big Oil companies have been getting government
hand-outs that fleece billions from taxpayers every year. ExxonMobil,
the most profitable corporation in American history, avoided
paying ANY income taxes to the Federal Government last year and
then pocketed an additional $46 million from the IRS.
Surprised? We were.
Enough is enough. It’s time to end federal subsidies and tax
breaks to BP and other Big Oil companies. Instead of subsidizing
the most profitable dirty fuel companies on the planet, we could
be supporting new startups that specialize in clean and green
energy. We can break our addiction to oil, create green jobs and
make sure disasters like the one in the Gulf of Mexico never happen again.
But we need your support to make sure our leaders follow through.
Sign now to tell Congress and candidates for office nationwide to
stop the shakedown, and stop taxpayer giveaways to Big Oil and
all the other Dirty Fuels.
RNC Document Mocks Donors, Plays on ‘Fear’
Thom Hartmann on Freespeech TV
Please sign this
very important petition “demand question time” (of our
political leaders) HERE..
We really need more dialog from those at the top… The
Republicans have got to be made to realize they can’t hide behind
“NO” any longer! thinkingblue
Let’s keep our heads, while we continue
to watch THE THEATER OF THE ABSURD!!!
“A SEARCH FOR TRUTH WILL FIND
INJUSTICE.”thinkingblue
WHY THE USA CANNOT GET OFF FOREIGN OIL DEPENDENCY!
WHY THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA CANNOT GET OFF FOREIGN OIL DEPENDENCY!
It’s Sunday July 11, 2010, my usual Internet visit for this day took me to a clip of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
What a trip. Jon known for his sarcasm and wit did a show that had all the discernment that Jon usually delivers, with one extra tidbit… A sad reality of
what the leadership in our country (past and present) really is… A JOKE! Eight presidents going back to Nixon (1969), all delivering the same old worn-out speech to We The People Of The USA, dire warnings that we must, (MUST) get off our dependency of foreign oil. Over 40 years of rhetoric, empty wordiness, barren, blatant sounds of robust bullshit. They all read the speeches written for them by college educated writers and that’s exactly where it ended, words typed on a piece of paper. Watching the skillful editing of this show was indeed sad. Today with the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and all the adversity this spill
is bringing and will continue to bring us for decades (if not longer) is depressing beyond belief. Any one of those leaders could have changed this scenario but decided instead to KICK THE CAN DOWN THE ROAD; the everlasting road that has finally come to an end today. thinkingblue
Click Here To Go To The Jon Stewart Site
RNC Document Mocks Donors, Plays on ‘Fear’
Thom Hartmann on Freespeech TV
Please sign this very important petition “demand question time” (of our
political leaders) HERE..
We really need more dialog from those at the top… The
Republicans have got to be made to realize they can’t hide behind
“NO” any longer! thinkingblue
Let’s keep our heads, while we continue
to watch THE THEATER OF THE ABSURD!!!
“A SEARCH FOR TRUTH WILL FIND
INJUSTICE.”thinkingblue
Rand Paul, Don’t Take Us Back To Corporate Racism!
Rand Paul, Don’t Take Us Back To Corporate Racism!
Warn Justice: No to corporate racism
I cannot believe that there is a strong effort out there in ‘La La Land’ to condone corporate racism. We humans should be advancing our enlightened collective minds not sending it back to the dark ages.
What is wrong with some people?
Imagine yourself a hard working, play by the rules person who happens to be of dark pigmentation. Ok, now imagine you are driving on a highway and you realize you need to stop and use a restroom facility. You stop by a small gas station and go up to the proprietor and politely ask for the key, expecting civility back but instead you are received with a look of aversion. Even though, in your mind you know why this business owner is giving you a gander of distaste, you are a bit taken aback because you can’t believe that in this day and age your skin color is being challenged. Here you are the same being as this fellow, just different ancestry and because of that this non-thinking little man is LEGALLY allowed to, without speaking a word shake his head “NO” and point to the road, as if to say… ‘You’re not welcome here, hit the road bud.’ Well, that’s the direction people like Rand Paul and John Stossel want us to go. Down the beaten path, back to the insensitive times of…
The Jim Crow Laws were state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated De jure racial segregation in all public facilities, with a supposedly “separate but equal” status for black Americans. In reality, this led to treatment and accommodations that were usually inferior to those provided for white Americans, systematizing a number of economic, educational and social disadvantages. FROM THIS SITE:
Oh, folks like Paul and Stossel always calmly counter, ‘we are not advocating racism in Public places like The Jim Crow Laws, we only want Private Corporations to have the freedom to practice racism, if they so desire.’
It’s enough to make, WE WHO THINK, shout out…
“Hey Scotty are you listening, beam me up fast!!”
thinkingblue
Warn Justice: No to corporate racism!
Below is a video that epitomizes sound judgment and experience. I wish Rand Paul would or could hear/see it. If people would only open their minds and SEE, we could all achieve success by using what works best… COMMON SENSE. I am also embedding this on my website: http:thinkingblue.blogspot.com
TAKE ACTION HERE . . . By now you’ve heard that the GOP’s U.S. Senate candidate for Kentucky repeated his claim that a central piece of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was wrong, and that businesses should be free to discriminate against whomever they please. Rand Paul didn’t seem to care that without federal intervention, people of color might still be second-class citizens in most aspects of American life.
Thanks to our friends at the civil rights organization, Color of Change, we now know that FOX contributor and business anchor John Stossel went even further than Paul and called for the section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that applies to business to be repealed. And he’s refused to back down, saying that:
“It’s time now to repeal that part of the law because private businesses ought to get to discriminate. And I won’t ever go to a place that’s racist and I will tell everybody else not to and I’ll speak against them. But it should be their right to be racist.”
In Stossel’s America, corporations have a constitutional right to enforce racial segregation. Not in our America!
This is a very dangerous moment. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons entitled to constitutional protections. Now Fox News Corp. is promoting the idea that the Supreme Court should protect “corporate persons” from the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Recent history has shown that the public accommodations section of the Civil Rights Act is still needed. In 1994, it was used to hold Denny’s Restaurants accountable, after the chain repeatedly refused to seat Black customers. Just last year, it was used to go after a Philadelphia pool that prevented Black children from swimming there.
We have to protect the gains of the 1960s era civil rights movement. We must prevent the absurd doctrine of corporate personhood from being used to strike down civil rights law. And we must expand our efforts to amend the Constitution to make clear — once and for all — that human beings, not corporations, are protected by the Bill of Rights.
Act now. Sign below to tell the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice to prepare a public memo on the threat of “corporate personhood” to the civil rights of real people:
Stossel Rips Rand Paul Smear
(Delusional, Sociopathic, Insanity or just plain immaturity and naivity!)
Is Rand Paul racist?
RNC Document Mocks Donors, Plays on ‘Fear’
Thom Hartmann on Freespeech TV
Please sign this very important petition “demand question time” (of our political leaders) HERE.. We really need more dialog from those at the top… The Republicans have got to be made to realize they can’t hide behind “NO” any longer! thinkingblue
Let’s keep our heads, while we continue to watch THE THEATER OF THE ABSURD!!!
“A SEARCH FOR TRUTH WILL FIND INJUSTICE.”thinkingblue
A Fracking Mess!!
After viewing this documentary, I was mortified and ashamed of what our species is capable of. If you think this is a free country… THINK AGAIN! The Bush/Cheney administration did everything in their power to take away as many freedoms as possible so doors could be opened to allow THE CORPORATE “BEING” to have free reign on getting at any type of resource no matter who or what was in the way. I know it’s hard to believe that they would go so far as to ruin our planet if only to make another buck. But with every dollar they get a nickel’s worth of power. The Power to Destroy. If you haven’t seen Avatar I recommend you rent it. It is a chilling glimpse into the future of what can happen to Mother Earth when all her natural resources are depleted. Think it a fairytale? Another… THINK AGAIN! Watch the trailer of Gasland below and The Daily Show featuring the filmmaker of Gasland, Josh Fox. Stay enlightened, information may be the only weapon we have to help save our planet against The Corporate World who will kill every living creature upon it, if they are allowed. thinkingblue
A Colossal Fracking Mess
The dirty truth behind the new natural gas. Related: A V.F. video look at a town transformed by fracking.
Early on a spring morning in the town of Damascus, in northeastern Pennsylvania, the fog on the Delaware River rises to form a mist that hangs above the tree-covered hills on either side. A buzzard swoops in from the northern hills to join a flock ensconced in an evergreen on the river’s southern bank.
Stretching some 400 miles, the Delaware is one of the cleanest free-flowing rivers in the United States, home to some of the best fly-fishing in the country. More than 15 million people, including residents of New York City and Philadelphia, get their water from its pristine watershed. To regard its unspoiled beauty on a spring morning, you might be led to believe that the river is safely off limits from the destructive effects of industrialization. Unfortunately, you’d be mistaken. The Delaware is now the most endangered river in the country, according to the conservation group American Rivers.
A V.F. video look at a town transformed by fracking.
That’s because large swaths of land—private and public—in the watershed have been leased to energy companies eager to drill for natural gas here using a controversial, poorly understood technique called hydraulic fracturing. “Fracking,” as it’s colloquially known, involves injecting millions of gallons of water, sand, and chemicals, many of them toxic, into the earth at high pressures to break up rock formations and release natural gas trapped inside. Sixty miles west of Damascus, the town of Dimock, population 1,400, makes all too clear the dangers posed by hydraulic fracturing. You don’t need to drive around Dimock long to notice how the rolling hills and farmland of this Appalachian town are scarred by barren, square-shaped clearings, jagged, newly constructed roads with 18-wheelers driving up and down them, and colorful freight containers labeled “residual waste.” Although there is a moratorium on drilling new wells for the time being, you can still see the occasional active drill site, manned by figures in hazmat suits and surrounded by klieg lights, trailers, and pits of toxic wastewater, the derricks towering over barns, horses, and cows in their shadows.
The real shock that Dimock has undergone, however, is in the aquifer that residents rely on for their fresh water. Dimock is now known as the place where, over the past two years, people’s water started turning brown and making them sick, one woman’s water well spontaneously combusted, and horses and pets mysteriously began to lose their hair.
Craig and Julie Sautner moved to Dimock from a nearby town in March 2008. They were in the process of renovating their modest but beautifully situated home on tree-canopied Carter Road when land men from Houston-based Cabot Oil & Gas, a midsize player in the energy-exploration industry, came knocking on their door to inquire about leasing the mineral rights to their three and a half acres of land. The Sautners say the land men told them that their neighbors had already signed leases and that the drilling would have no impact whatsoever on their land. (Others in Dimock claim they were told that if they refused to sign a lease, gas would be taken out from under their land anyway, since under Pennsylvania law a well drilled on a leased piece of property can capture gas from neighboring, unleased properties.) They signed the lease, for a onetime payout of $2,500 per acre—better than the $250 per acre a neighbor across the street received—plus royalties on each producing well.
Drilling operations near their property commenced in August 2008. Trees were cleared and the ground leveled to make room for a four-acre drilling site less than 1,000 feet away from their land. The Sautners could feel the earth beneath their home shake whenever the well was fracked.
Within a month, their water had turned brown. It was so corrosive that it scarred dishes in their dishwasher and stained their laundry. They complained to Cabot, which eventually installed a water-filtration system in the basement of their home. It seemed to solve the problem, but when the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection came to do further tests, it found that the Sautners’ water still contained high levels of methane. More ad hoc pumps and filtration systems were installed. While the Sautners did not drink the water at this point, they continued to use it for other purposes for a full year.
“It was so bad sometimes that my daughter would be in the shower in the morning, and she’d have to get out of the shower and lay on the floor” because of the dizzying effect the chemicals in the water had on her, recalls Craig Sautner, who has worked as a cable splicer for Frontier Communications his whole life. She didn’t speak up about it for a while, because she wondered whether she was imagining the problem. But she wasn’t the only one in the family suffering. “My son had sores up and down his legs from the water,” Craig says. Craig and Julie also experienced frequent headaches and dizziness.
By October 2009, the D.E.P. had taken all the water wells in the Sautners’ neighborhood offline. It acknowledged that a major contamination of the aquifer had occurred. In addition to methane, dangerously high levels of iron and aluminum were found in the Sautners’ water.
The Sautners now rely on water delivered to them every week by Cabot. The value of their land has been decimated. Their children no longer take showers at home. They desperately want to move but cannot afford to buy a new house on top of their current mortgage.
“Our land is worthless,” says Craig. “Who is going to buy this house?”
Christopher Hitchens to Begin Cancer Treatment
Christopher Hitchens possesses a mind that makes you either love him or hate him. I do love his intelligence but his warmongering and embrace of the neo-conservative movement provoked me to also hate some of his thoughts. But love or hate he certainly is a force to be reckoned with. thinkingblue
Christopher Hitchens to Begin Cancer Treatment
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/christopher-hitchens-to-begin-cancer-treatment/
EXCERPT: (Reviewing
the book Hitch-22, in The Times, Dwight Garner wrote of Mr.
Hitchens, “He has a mind like a Swiss Army knife, ready to
carve up or unbolt an opponent’s arguments with a flick of
the wrist.”)
Yup that sounds like the ole’
Neoconservative Hitchens… The man you hate to love… Sorry to hear of his health malady. 
In my opinion…Except for his war-mongering notions… his other characteristics were of an honest nature! thinkingblue
At the front of his book (Hitch-22) he
includes two excerpts from other writers:
W.H. Auden, “Death’s Echo”
The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews
Not to be born is the best for man
The second best is a formal order
The dance’s pattern, dance while you can.
Dance, dance, for the figure is easy
The tune is catching and will not stop
Dance till the stars come down with the rafters
Dance, dance, dance till you drop.
–W.H. Auden, “Death’s Echo”
Excerpt from Chapter I, “The Anaesthetic of Familiarity,” of his
1998 book Unweaving the Rainbow (by Richard Dawkins)
To live at all is miracle enough.
– Mervyn Peake,
The Glassblower (1950)
We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die
because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.
More here: http://richarddawkins.net/articles/91
RNC Document Mocks Donors, Plays
on ‘Fear’
Thom Hartmann on
Freespeech TV
Please sign this
very important petition “demand question time” (of our
political leaders) HERE..
We really need more dialog from those at the top… The
Republicans have got to be made to realize they can’t hide behind
“NO” any longer! thinkingblue
Let’s keep our heads, while we continue
to watch THE THEATER OF THE ABSURD!!!
“A SEARCH FOR TRUTH WILL FIND
INJUSTICE.”thinkingblue
A very sad picture about our very sad past.
A very sad picture about our very sad past.
When I search the news each day, certain articles stand out and seem to beg BLOG ME and pass Me around. Today it wasn’t an article but a picture that called out from our sorry past.
A newly discovered photo was found of two little boys born into slavery. If you weren’t aware that they were slaves you might have concluded that their expressions of bewilderment and sadness, was because they were playing happily and some relative ordered them to sit on a barrel to get their picture taken for the family album. But realizing they were slaves, compels you to scream out and try to reach into the past to hold them and snatch them from the harmful clutches of the greedy who saw these children as only price-tagged goods on a slave block with $$$ visions of how much they might fetch. A picture to be circulated as FOR SALE!
I called this OUR SORRY PAST but it is much worse than that, it was more like an American nightmare. A frightening fact that blots our history with repulsive cruelty so sickening that you wished it could somehow just vanish like it never existed.
It should not have ever happened but it did and we should not repress it. Its existence should be aired and acknowledged as long as human beings can still breathe. The human race is plagued with a terrible malady called greed. It should have been somewhat evolved from our being but instead it has become stronger. The only tool we have to combat this human failing is the ability to broadcast and announce GREED as a sin. Expose it where ever it permeates and not ever allow it to be repressed and go into hiding. thinkingblue
Rare photo of slave children found in NC attic
APBy NICOLE NORFLEET, Associated Press Writer
RALEIGH, N.C. – A haunting 150-year-old photo found in a North Carolina attic shows a young black child named John, barefoot and wearing ragged clothes, perched on a barrel next to another unidentified young boy.
Art historians believe it’s an extremely rare Civil War-era photograph of children who were either slaves at the time or recently emancipated.
The photo, which may have been taken in the early 1860s, was a testament to a dark part of American history, said Will Stapp, a photographic historian and founding curator of the National Portrait Gallery’s photographs department at the Smithsonian Institution.
“It’s a very difficult and poignant piece of American history,” he said. “What you are looking at when you look at this photo are two boys who were victims of that history.”
In April, the photo was found at a moving sale in Charlotte, accompanied by a document detailing the sale of John for $1,150, not a small sum in 1854.
Below is a comment that I found attached to the above article… TALK ABOUT SICKENING! thinkingblue
If I were black today, I would thank the Lord that my ancesters were part of the slavery in America. The reason is simple, had my ancesters not been transported to America and put into slavery, I might be part of the Africa that for a large part has its own problems today. Believe me, they are much worse than what life I have potential for in the U.S. Now, I just need to figure out that it is up to me to make my life what I would like it to be. I was born free in the US and it is simply up to me to do what it takes to be a success in whatever I want to do as an adult. Unfortunately, for some reason I am basically a bit lazy and want the easy way out. Its not the white races that keep me down, it is me that keeps me down. I also understand that I have a genetic base for not having the ability to be analytical, but thanks to cross breeding with whites over the centuries, many of us have the ability to be analytical and get ahead in todays world. So, bottom line, I would be happy to be black in the U.S. and not in Agrica. (Comment From Mr. Dismay, One Sick Puppy)
My Reply:
