Tuesday, August 30, 2011

My Brother John, WWII Vet, POW, Surrenders to the UCA

He's turning 86 next month and with every day he is getting crankier.  He hurts, he's alone in a huge house he never wanted, he has to take pills every day just to stay alive and cranky.  And he's absolutely furious with what has been done to his USA.  I call it UCA: United Corporations of America. 

WARNING: 
When I'm angry, it is such fun to speak to a (possible) audience of sleepy-time Americans and blanket (no pun intended) everybody with the name "Sarah".  Funny, I envision My Sarah's avatar wears spike heels, short skirts and a blazer.  She's a real gotcha girl who shops at Gotschalks and  Wal-Mart and drinks near-beer while she nurses her latest baby, shoots wolves in Russia, and whips up an Apple Pie for the family.  This Sarah can do anything!  She can do it even if she can't!  Well, that's sleepy-time America for you: as long as you stay asleep you can't wake up.  Sarah.

This morning I posted a spot on FaceBook, a video regarding the Senate report of over $30 billion which has been stolen and wasted by contractors. Randi Rhodes was all over this in this in the beginning of the Zips.  Oh, BTW, Sarah, I call the first decade of the 21st century the Zips - meaning zeros, which pretty much explains my opinion on much of what took place then. 

Speaking of Randi, are you aware that she was in the US Air Force, achieved the rank of Airman 1st Class!  Yay Randi!  She was an airplane mechanic and had some training as a flight engineer before she left the service.  Yes:  it was an honorable discharge.

Anyway, it is looking like this awful little thievery by contractors is becoming quite an issue ..... because now the Pentagon faces cuts, too.  Remember, Randi raised the alarm years ago when she broadcast contractors lined up for their cool cash handed to them at midnight from the back of flat bed trucks in Iraq.  She talked about shady doin's and Blackwater and The Magna Carta and she certainly got my brain woke up.  You betcha, Randi may be one foul mouth woman, but she earned my respect and the respect of a lot of other people I respect. 

Oh, well, it's come full circle and you can't get away from it.. or can you,Sarah?  Department of Defense is angwy at their widdle fwiends?  Will they lie, will they scare our sleeping siblings, will they say the House Cleaner hasn't cleaned up their House fast enough and he shouldn't get another term?  We have a fine kettle of fish to fry me a river, Sarah.

It's been a loooong time since Ron suggested the spin of his Trickle Down Theory!  Tell it to the Judge, I say, haul all their thieving rumps to trial, from BoyGeorge, and GunSlinger Cheney to Drug King Rumsfeld and Karl the Rove.  Remember them?  Ron no doubt is spinning in his grave, not just turning over.

Anyway, all our arses are at risk, and it's just a crying shame that even the Hallowed Dept. of Defense is going to have to give up some toys.  Pass me a violin, please.

I have an acquaintance, once dear to me, who's political position is "I don't give a damn as long my shares go up."  This former friend sacrificed his entire family for want of prestige, money and happiness.  He kept his money and laughs loudly these days. Another beloved friend died with those words on her mouth, and she wasn't American.  But her husband was Oil, just like my ex.  Oops. They worship at the alter of their shares still.

Wanna know a secret?  On Russia Today television I heard that Mobile Exxon is joining with a Russian OIL company to explore OIL fields on the Russian Arctic Shelf. It hasn't broke news yet on our giggle channels. Tee Hee! (One day I will offer my opinion on Giggle News).  Meanwhile, our future may be in saying goodbye to another ocean.

My final word to you, Sarah, in honor of our poor Gulf Coast is: Oil and Oceans Don't Mix!

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

News Today as Predicted in 1960s

I was a high school student during the Civil Rights Movement, reared by a mother who never passed an opportunity to espouse ethnic prejudices, and yes, Catholics were included in "ethnicities" in the 1960s!  Although Muddle America feared that the Pope was going to rule America, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was elected.  He also got us involved in the Viet Nam War, and then he was killed.  I, like my cohort, matured somewhat with his death, and the subsequent assassinations of younger brother Bobby Kennedy, and of Dr. Martin Luther King, not to mention the murders of our classmates who were drafted and sent to fight in that Viet Nam War as fodder for business as mentioned in my previous blagh.  Those good old days should have, could have been a huge wake up call. 

Our little school system was in a less than wealthy district, so we had the benefit of only getting teachers from those newly-credentialed, twenty-somethings some of which just happened to be men who served in the Korean War.  These teachers were not shy about passing on their  observations regarding War, McCarthyism, prejudice and resource preservation. 

They  hammered in our heads that the only real threat to our future was apathy:  "Apathetic people will sit in their swill and not move a muscle....until they have an excellent reason to do so," 

They thought "All is not black and white, it's all shades of gray."  They quoted Hitler:

"All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach."

Another life-lesson was framed "When people are starving it does not matter whether the hand that feeds their children comes from one political source or another." 

And one teacher in particular shocked us by predicting that one day water and air would become nothing but commodities: sold to the highest bidder!  How could this be we asked.  And he turned our question around and asked us to consider the indigenous peoples who occupied the Americas.  These peoples believed one could no more own air and water than one could own land! 

After high school I attended Napa Junior College and had the great opportunity to speak with Dr. Maya Angelor after her lecture on Civil Rights.  She asked me how many colored people I knew.  I told her I knew none, but heard that a fellow named Woody had lived a long time near St. Helena and they said he was Negro.  She chuckled, shook her head, looked deep into my eyes as only she can, and said,

"Young Miss, do you know that within the Civil Rights Movement, Napa County is referred to as The Selma, Alabama of the West?"

I was shocked, horrified and shamed.  Less than a year later I was forced to stop my education and went to work in a title insurance company in Napa.  I learned that there indeed was a coalition, a force within the local real estate companies, to keep our little valley "white".

I marvel today at the teachings of our young teachers and Dr. Maya Angelou. And I'm grateful that they gave me some insight on that big outside world beyond our tiny valley and left many of us with eyes opened and prepared for a bigger and broader world and some skills in coping with it.

This morning I watched a television program (not a commercial network) predicting that the US will soon be creating "derivitives" for fresh water.  As if mortgage derivitives weren't enough! 

The discussion was about the world running out of capital and the need to create new capital...in order to keep ... capitalism alive. 

For a good desscription of derivitives I recommend the article explaining them on  Billsandiego.blogspot.com.