Dishonoring Our Nation’s Vets

Alright, I think that it’s better to start off by saying that the Republicans in Congress are complete chicken-hawks, and I’m being very kind in saying that. Basically, I don’t see why they can’t just bother to live up to the deal they made vets of this nation: don the uniform to defend us and we’ll cover your cost of living. That’s how it should be, but lately Republicans in Congress have been wrapping themselves in the flag, while paying lip service to the after-effects.

If anything, the Republicans have been using war and the troops as political pawns to gain any advantage in their quest to destroy the Democrats. This is beyond disgraceful, and it shows why the Republican Party has become the Party of Corruption. It needs to quit and do so now, if it wants to retain any credibility with the American electorate. If there’s anything that we as Americans dispise more than anything, it’s politicizing the military. The military is apolitical for a reason, it represents everyone and is a unified voice in our country’s defense.

New thoughts for Veterans Day

This Veterans Day has a special meaning for me as it gives me a chance to reflect on my Grandpa; as he was a WWII veteran. I just miss the guy hella bad.

At the same time, I'd like to take the time to thank a few buddies of mine for putting their lives on the line for the rest of us, as well as all the men and women in our country's uniform. What they do for us is incredible.

That being said, I'd also like to use this as an opportunity to show my disgust with the National Republican Party for doing everything humanly possible to make life impossible for our vets. Taking away the very means of them being able to eat? That's just callous, but what pisses me off even further is them celebrating this. This is fully breaking a compact which gave several rights and benefits for their service.

Recent news in America and around the World

Where should I start? Well, I guess the best place to begin is with the news in America. Apparently, for once, the Republicans have come up with something as a useful alternative to constant overtime payments by businesses (especially for small business). I'll wait to cast some judgment until I know the details, but it doesn't seem like a far-fetched idea to give paid time off, instead of overtime, but still it should be known that overtime is still a necessity in the private sector until it becomes more unionized. Anyway, there's that and Republicans looking for other ways to show that they're in fact reasonable problem-solvers. This is only a ruse in my eyes, but I'll go along with it for the time being.

My main concern, is not the Republicans at the moment. It's actually events abroad and here in the Bay Area. Let's start locally first. Over the weekend, there was apparently a bad fire that killed 5 people going to a bachellorette party in a limo. Well, as tragic as it is, I think there needs to be more details as to what happened.

As for events abroad, well let's take what's going on with the situations in both the Mideast and North Korea. The Mideast is no surprise in my eyes, as Iran's doing everything to distract world attention away from its ilicit nuclear program (I say this in the sense that Iran's senior governing officials still refuse to make the mandatory disclosures to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is the international watchdog for all national atomic programs as per the Non-Proliferation Treaty). Additionally, it feels that its chief ally in Syria (Bashar al-Assad) needs a distraction from the rebellion back home; and what better way than to build up tensions with Assad's neighbor, Israel? Well, that's fairly self-explanatory.

As for North Korea, apparently there was a father-son duo charged with conspiring to illegally sell the Kim regime components to further help them construct their illegal nuclear weapons program, even doing so through the nose of America's sanctions. Well, let's see how else this plays out, because this is very serious. My major concern with North Korea, is that it won't be long until Kim Jong Un decides to unleash the 1,000,000 man Korean People's Army against South Korea, as well launch a nuclear strike against it. This is because Kim feels he has less to lose by picking a fight with the numerically weaker Military forces in the South, than by picking a fight with America, who could easily bring to bear both Russia and China in this sense. I know off-hand that both the Russians and the Chinese will join the Americans in defending the South Koreans and Japanese in this scenario, because of the fact that both the Russian and Chinese leaderships' patience with the North has worn exceedingly thin, and both, I'm quite sure, have warned the Kim regime that more provocative behavior will result in more dire consequences as well as making it harder for them to justify their continued resistance to additional action in the United Nations.

In addition, both America and Russia have a long standing partnership in counter-proliferation, and both see the North Korean nuclear program as a massive destabilizing factor in East Asia. Additionally, China's come to see that the Kim regime does not provide a good enough buffer to deter any American military presence. I think America's Foreign Secretary, John Kerry, made this quite clear to the Chinese leadership, in saying that unless they do more to reign in their ally's provocative actions and threats of pre-emptive nuclear war, they can expect to see a much larger American military presence in the region, and a much more aggressive stance to defend itself.

New Low for Racial Discrimination

I don't know where to start. What is the point of US Airways telling two Black passengers that they cannot board unless they change their outfits, but letting a White passenger on wearing the same outfit they were? This seems like racism at its most basic core in my eyes, and I think Alter Net really deserves the credit for putting this story up to its followers and for showing us that racist chauvinism is still lurking within our country to this day, even though it's faced a successful mask since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Still, it doesn't help that the Black community still faces too many barriers to achieve their dream of full racial equality, and receive the same opportunities as their White counterparts. I have to say, as someone who is a student of History, we are entering a new phase of race-based violence and terrorism, but at the same time, entering a new opportunity to look our inner-most demons in the eye and learning from our past mistakes. If anything, the Tea Party, like the Coffee Party and Occupy Movements, have shown us that activism, from either the Left or Right, brings change that is neither simple nor clean. However, they serve as a reminder when the political extremes break loose. Only this time, the side going off the rails is not the Left, it's the Right. How might one ask? The answer is convoluted and messy, just like the process of change.

Think of the 40 years of Conservative governmental control, and you can start drawing a series of confirming moments about how we ended up in our current mess. Much of the social aspect goes back to the reaction in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, the Voting Rights Act in 1965, and the Housing Rights Act in 1968, all of which culminated in Richard Nixon's election to the Presidency. Unsurprisingly, Nixon campaigned on "Law and Order" to appeal to mostly conservative Whites in the South, as well as on a new expanded version of Barry Goldwater's campaign theme of States' Rights. At the close of the 1960's, this message was especially popular given all the upheavals that came with that decade of radical change. In fact, Nixon's campaign put forth a platform of running against the newly adopted Supreme Court ruling mandating the states put forth busing programs to desegregate schools. The policy Nixon advocated during the 1968 campaign was to end this order immediately. Well go to the 1980 campaign and its aftermath (of course following Nixon's forced resignation following the Watergate Scandal in 1974, and Jimmy Carter's victory over Gerald Ford in the presidential campaign of 1976), we see the Conservative Movement's resurgence in the victory Ronald Reagan heralded in that year's presidential race. Reagan instilled not just supply-side economics which America had not seen since the 1920's, but also a series of roll-backs of Civil Rights policies nearly to the point where they were back in the 1950's. Well, fast foward to the Republican Congressional take-over in 1994, following the Democratic (Bill Clinton) Presidential triumph just 2 years earlier, and Presidential win in 2000, now we're getting to where we are currently, especially at the closing of the Clinton years and the start of the Bush era.

It was under George W. Bush that most of this far-right ideology began taking root, especially following the attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2001. For the next 4 1/2 years, think of the amount of activity the Religious Right and Crony Capitalists engaged in. I find it's easy enough to see how these actions, together with a real growing disdain for the Black community continued to grow, due to their constant agitation for full equality. However, this cycle of constantly railing about the "Black agenda", the "Homosexual agenda", etc., would eventually catch up with the Conservative movement. Think of the debacle in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans (Case in point), and that should be enough to draw a line towards the Democratic Congressional take-over in 2006, and Barack Obama's presidential sweep just 2 years later.

It's the fact that Obama's been office since 2009, and that under him racism has exploded to the most severe extent since the late 1950's and early 1960's. However, Obama is not the one to blame, as his victory in 2008 marked a shattering of a major glass-ceiling for the Black community and began a new era of racial definition. At the same time, Obama has provided the American people with a whole different kind of opportunity, not just because of his race, but because of his real ability to connect with people of many walks of life, and embodying what our most difficult daily struggles are. Going back to my earlier commentary, the fact is that when Obama took office in January 2009, some of the worst lunatic fringes of the far-right went completely haywire. The reason: a Black man should not occupy the White House. The previous statement is a testament to the fact that the fringe in question is the White Supremacist faction that tends to be one the most vocal backers of the Republican Party (No, this is not to say that all Republicans are racist, not all are, just many from this particular fringe tend to be). Well you see where that got them, as of last year's election, just in control of the recently gerrymandered House of Representatives, as Obama's still in the Presidency, and the Democrats still have control of the Senate, albeit by a slightly bigger margin.

Election and World Series

Well folks, 2 pieces of interesting news. Last night, the San Francisco Giants made it to the World Series (2nd time in 3 years, not bad), and are about to face the Detroit Tigers (who hopefully will be more of a challenge than against the Texas Rangers in 2010 - who choked badly, for the record). Now I'm not going to tell you that the Giants are a bad team, because well, they're not! They have the best pitching rotation in the entirety of Major League Baseball. Try having 5 of the league's best starting pitchers, and since I think he's returned, the league's best closer. If I remmber correctly, good pitching always generally outperforms great hitting. So we'll see what happens tomorrow night.

As for the other piece of news, Pres. Obama and Gov. Romney just concluded the last of the general election debates, and we'll see what kind of impact they had. I seriously think that Obama just seriously knocked Romney's scarns back to kingdom come, as there's little to no chance that he'll be able come back and pull some other Houdini to grab the presidency (unless of course there's by some odd reason that the Barack Obama/Joe Biden ticket gets racked by a serious scandal, or the Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan ticket and their Republican hacks find some interesting means of stealing the election | i.e., tampering with the voting machines, etc.) I just know that the Republicans will do anything to win, even to the extent of committing massive voter fraud. Still I give them credit in one sense, they have identified a problem in our electoral system, just only it's them and their corporate cronies who are the involved parties.

Election is fast approaching

My family and friends, I must advise you that we are about to commence with the same ritual we completed 4 years ago, and will in every 4-year interval for the presidency. President Obama, as unshockingly obvious as this sounds, is running for re-election. I know that many of you wish to sit out this election by not casting your vote at all, thinking that you have no voice in the process. In all seriousness, don't! This is exactly what people like the Koch brothers want you to do. They want to silence your voices and make theirs heard, so that they can continue their scam of taking away our rights and our money.

I want everyone to know that we have a stark choice this year between the visions of Pres. Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney in their fight for the presidency. I won't make the specious claim that a presidency under Romney would mean the end of the Earth, or that the sky will crash upon us, as those likelihoods are very minimal (try the odds of 1 in 100,000,000). Anyhow, what may happen is that life will become much harder for the middle class as the Republican mantra for the time being is for the middle class to sacrifice various needed programs and deductions (for taxes) so that they can give the top 5% of income-earners another $1,000,000,000.00 in new tax cuts which they believe will stimulate the economy, and that we should not tax this class as they are the job creators. I don't know about you, but to me, this is complete nonsense. First off, it's a hollow argument in the sense that spending $1.00 on a tax cut (or tax break) for the wealthy only brings in like $.60 of revenue. Compare that to at least $1.60 in revenue for every dollar spent on unemployment insurance to the middle class. Secondly, we've tried this method when George W. Bush was president from 2001-9. Believe me, it failed miserably as incomes declined severely and prices shot up much higher than the rate of inflation. Another factor to look into is taking out various regulations desparately needed to protect consumers from fraud, or to give them a legal recourse to settle a dispute with a large corporation. Think about the recent financial crisis as a clear example of what I'm talking about. This came upon us by maintaining very weak regulatory oversight of various portions of the financial markets, including in the commodities and speculations markets.

Gov. Romney has made it clear that this is the only solution for getting us out of the mess we're in. That Pres. Obama's method of propping up working families has done nothing, but take a pretty penny out of your portfolios and been a large waste of your tax dollars. He thinks that your tax dollars would be spent better subsidizing big business, and paying it to handle your money and benefits, from Social Security to Medicare to Education. Speaking of education, I've been in the private education system, and can tell you from experience, it's even less efficient than the public system. In highschool, I had a math teacher who was trained to be a test proctor, and as such was insufficient in teaching us both trigonometry and advanced mathematics. In fact I remember in senior year, where every American student got D's and F's on their midterm exams, while the International students got A's and B's. If you're going to argue that the school I went to was unionized, you'd be dead wrong. There was no union, the principal was adamant about not firing the teacher in question, retaining full confidence in them (this was after both students and parents complained). Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked, but that should highlight my point that private does not generally equal efficient. In the case of these areas, public is generally better, as it helps to give a more expanded range of options for teaching our children. Do there need to be some structural reforms done? Of course, and how to do it is a debate I would gladly welcome. I'd love to hear either educational or psychological experts duke it out over policy changes, or structural changes/consolidations. However, what we don't need is money going out to parochial (faith-based) schools from the federal government as it clearly violates the 1st Amendment (Congress [or for that matter the states per 14th Amendment] does not have the right or authority to promote religion nor to trample on someone's right to religious freedom). Separation of church and state has long been a traditional American principle, going back to the Founding Fathers.

Pres. Obama, however, has tried, and largely unsuccessfully in some cases, to make the case that we can still make structural changes to the economy and grow it up. We need jobs, which he's been on target about for the past 3-4 years to help the economy recover much faster. However, he's been dealing with the recalcitrant and obstructionist Republican-dominated 112th Congress (Republicans control the House of Representatives and have larger blocking ability in the Senate), which has for the most part refused to budge on any kind of job-producing bill, save for a transportation bill that passed. Pres. Obama has pressed for more action to alliviate the high unemployment rate (currently about 8%), but the Congress has refused to budge, with the Republicans' goal being that they should make him a 1-term president like Pres. Jimmy Carter (1977-81). In some cases, I think Pres. Obama deserves a lot of credit, especially in saving the auto industry and passing healthcare reform. I'll admit that it's a start, and that more people using it will realize that their costs will come down. However, I think that it needs some more tweaking. I mean this in the sense that we need to take out the insurance industry's special exemption from Federal Anti-Trust Laws. It's a mistake to keep it, and that was 1 component to how costs grew faster than the rate of inflation. Let's for argument's sake say that medical care costs $1.00, but your insurer charges you $3.00. I know from working in the industry (I'm an admin assistant in a small insurance sales office), that $.60 of every dollar goes to claims (torts). However, that formula was never the case, especially considering the fact that 1 in every 3 dollars for insurance costs went aside to claims, meaning that the other $2.00 went to non-medical purposes. That's right, $1.00 went to political contributions (to bribe various politicians to look the other way) or to denying care to people, while another would go to the CEO's bonus. Think about it, that made up about 90% of the cost. Anyway, watch this race carefully, is what I can tell everyone.

Israel's New Low in Misbehavior

Where do I even begin with this? How is it that whenever the international community tells Israel to quit building settlements for the sake of peace (this includes Israel's only real ally, America), that it just builds more? Well, that is nothing new, by any stretch of the imagination. The real issue is that it now won't let any UN Human Rights Inspectors come to investigate claims about the settlements underming the Palestinians' right to national self-determination, as well as the right to stay in their homes and live in peace. They see the settlements correctly for what they are. It's a land grab, and soon will lead to the development of a new Apartheid system. I know Israel will continually deny this analogy to the American South's Jim Crow and South African Apartheid, but it is going in the same direction. Saying that they won't let anyone verify their claims, or those of the Palestinians, is only allowing injustice to flourish. If Israel wants to be an equal member of the international community, it must heed the community's will for peace.

Reliving the 1960s

My God, I've been seeing the news about the teen Trayvon Martin's death. It's hella racially motivated and the dang cops near Orlando are not even bothering to investigate, saying either the witnesses misspoke on some of the facts, or that there was no one to refute the gunner's claim that he acted in self-defense. That's complete b******* if you ask me. By all means, are the cops attempting to let the guy get away with murder, since in their minds it's just another n***** kid about to cause trouble. It's not, and there's 3 reasons to say this. #1 and most obvious, Trayvon wasn't armed, he only went out to the local 7/11 to get some candy during the half-time break of an NCAA basketball game. #2, the gunman had been previously arrested for assaulting a police officer and had no business maintaining a gun license. #3, the final reason, Florida's "Stand Your Ground" (or as I'll put it; Shoot First, Ask Later) is hella racist and further more, the gunman acted as a self-appointed cop. I mean the cops can simply replay his 911 recording, and the recordings of the other witnesses. The fact is he failed to comply with an order to stay put and let the cops handle the situation if he felt threatened. Instead, he followed Trayvon and shot him in cold blood. That's what's called a hate crime. The reason that the gunman felt threatened by Trayvon, was as the man put it, "He's black." That's enough evidence to convict him on that.

I'm going to make this very clear, I feel like I'm reliving the 1960s. I don't see why we have to let this kind of nonsense happen. There's no reason that America, or any other nation, should be arming its citizens to the teeth. This is exactly why I think that gun control is so desparately needed. Anyone who wants a gun to either protect themselves, or to hunt, should have that right. After all, we have the 2nd Amendment for that reason. However, I don't think that people need assault, automatic or semi-automatic weaponry, nor do I think that people should be allowed to own guns in an unlicensed fashion. If you want to own a gun, simply take the necessary tests to receive a federally issued (not state-issued) license and have your gun registered in a federal database. I think that makes a lot of sense, and I also think that it will do the country some good. Let's make America safe and secure for the next generation, and not one that allows yahoos to get guns and kill innocent people for their own sadistic pleasure.

If I became the President

Okay, first of all, I'm really not interested in running, just to be clear. However, in the scenario that I would end up becoming President, I would only say to people what I think is the way to go, but keep engaged with them as much as possible. At the same time, I also think that having meetings with the leadership in Congress is another way to keep in touch with everyone. It's something I would try to do on a regular basis. One thing I know that I cannot do is make too many high stakes promises, especially knowing the reality of politics, but I can tell people that will be as honest as I can and explain to them what choices come before us. In my opinion, it's better to be straightforward with the American people, especially once in power, and it's better to keep everyone in the loop about what's at stake.

Worst Corruption in America

In all my life, I have never seen corruption quite this bad. For many Americans, this holds particularly true, and for those around the world. America does not need to be this way, but with all our new gadgets and other distractions, this situation is exactly as those on top want it to be. Corruption has marred Americans’ belief in both the political and judicial systems, as well as in the media, religion and other institutions. Where does this all come from? Well start thinking back to the decade before the Reagan debacle and the catastrophes of its horrid legacy. If there was one thing, we can be thankful to Pres. Ronald Reagan for; the massive deregulation that he put in place that allowed these powerful corrupt forces to become involved in our daily lives again. Everyone thought that generations of past years solved these issues a long time earlier, but apparently the Baby Boom generation, who helped to put Reagan into office, did not bother to read its horrible history about how deregulation, and some cases non-regulation, can lead to massive economic disasters. All it took in 2008 was a credit/financial crisis to pull the country to its knees and force the American people to tackle the corruption in front of them. So far, it looks like the corrupt will not only win, but will stay in place forever. I credit Pres. Obama and the Occupy and Tea Party movements for getting this conversation started, but I seriously think that they will not succeed in changing our current situation. The status quo will stay intact and Pres. Obama will not be in office come Nov. 2012 and Jan. 2013. The reason: the radicalized forces of the corrupt status quo are willing to rig the electoral and judicial systems to the point so that they can defend their economic dominance. Just watch, they did it under Bush (using the Republicans as their pawns), they will do it again. I just hope that this time, they will not be successful, but I know it is completely wishful thinking.

At what point will the American people say enough? Probably sooner, or probably not at all, depending on how far the right pushes them. Yes, I will admit, I am a hard-hitting, despicable, no-good, loony liberal, but the fact is that I really do not think that it is the government’s place to be taking resources away from people who need those the most to give to those who really are without any to begin with. Not to mention, there is no reason to be eradicating people’s rights in order to achieve some political agenda, nor is there any reason for discrimination, or in some cases segregation, to return. Lastly, whose stupid idea was it to make unregulated capitalism our law? I really do not understand the logic of the Republican Party or the Conservative movement in general to undo what Pres. Roosevelt put in place in the 1930s. They kept us from getting into a bunch of crises like our current one for nearly fifty years (1933-81). I really think that to allow corporations to monitor and enforce compliance upon them and privatizing the entire system, from election and government posts and benefits to justice is among the dumbest ideas ever. It sends the message that only those who can pay or who are of a specific race or background have the ability to get justice, while others have to suffer, as they must for being the worst infections to society. To me, this is exactly like living in Nazi Germany again, only this is 21^st Century America. We can be better, but we need to change our thinking.

**An update to al readers**

While many of these concerns of mine have so far not unfolded as of yet or at all. Pres. Obama is clearly still in office as of January 2009, having won another term in November 2012 (I know, old news). However, some things have come close to what I was scared of happening. For one thing, the Republicans are trying new gimmicks to rig the electoral college again, in addition to having a green light from the Supreme Court to engage in voter suppression across the states. In addition, they're trying to set the scene for taking away basic rights that we as Americans have, and are looking to expand their ability to wage further indefinite perpetual warfare, which we'll be paying for not only in dollars, but in blood. For what? Crusades to de-Islamify the Middle East (to Republicans in Congress all Muslims are Infidels, though not all voting Republicans think this way).

Even though segregation has not become law of the land as of yet, it's always a concern that it will be. I'm exceedingly opposed to any efforts, to quote the late Strom Thurmond, to prevent, "The amalgomation of the races", as it will only create a permanent underclass of second-class citizens. History proves time and again, that subjecting people who are different to permanent second-class citizenship is an invitation to open rebellion and/or possible revolution. Think of the Civil Rights Movement. Even though it was non-violent under the direction of Martin Luther King, it was an open revolution against the Jim Crow system. That didn't mean the activists and protesters didn't lose their lives, as they did. The resistance to the Civil Rights Movement was often violent and was joined frequently by local and sometimes State law enforcement.

Far-Right at it again

How the heck is this reality shaping up? I understand that people are pissed and frustrated about the economic situation and not having their voices heard. I feel that way myself, but I don't think we need to go to crazy extremes just to get our voices heard, nor do I think we need to engage in divisive politics in order to get to the top.

Well, now that the Far-Right is in power, or at least controls the House and has a stronger presence in the Senate, I can see their crazy ideas coming out into the light. Who the heck will benefit from a flat tax or from shutting out all immigrants from coming to this country? And lastly, what is the reason for trying to prevent African American and other minority communities from voting, or stripping union rights? I honestly don't see the logic in it, unless you're trying to take out the Democratic base for the 2012 election cycle.

This is the problem I have, the Far-Right is using our current crisis as an opportunity to drag America backwards to the 1830s. I would not even be surprised should they try to reinstate slavery again, or make it so that we can rescind citizenship to those who are not White and Christian. I have to say, this is complete horseshit.

The Far-Right's bullshit has me ready and willing to put my full effort into get getting President Obama re-elected in 2012. Yeah, I can say that our president has made some decisions that I don't particularly agree with, but I can say that he's also done what he could considering the circumstances as well. I personally think he did not go far enough in some instances, such as Healthcare and Wall Street Reform. I think those bills needed to be made stronger. However, I still think that he'll be better than the yahoo that comes out of the Republican nomination process (which my instict tells me is Perry).

Current status of Mideast Peace

I don't believe this, Pres. Obama goes out of his way to try to end the ongoing dispute between Israel and the Palestinians, and at every step, PM Netanyahu continues to fight him. I don't know how Israel can think that by putting off the peace process and demand that it get recognized not as a state, but a Jewish state, when that was not a part of the initially agreed upon text. I think for the Arabs to complain is more than legitimate, as Israel has been dragging its feet for the past year or so.

As for the Arab side process, I think that Pres. Abbas needs to realize that by daring Israel to annex the areas the Palestinians want for a state is only giving the Israeli radicals and settlers what they want, the right to oppress the Palestinians without any kind of rebuke from the international community. Additionally, it is going to damage Obama's credibility as an even-handed broker, working to bring both sides together. Abbas should not give in or cave, he should continue to fight for Palestinian sovereignty and call for Israel to end the construction of settlements. As long as he continues to work in tandem with the Arab League, and the UN, that should provide him enough political cover to make the hard choices necessary to create a Palestinian state.

As for President Obama, he needs to be more vocal. He really needs to display more disapproval of Israel's severe misbehavior on the international scene. If he doesn't start showing America as being more assertive, it'll only show that America will always turn a blind eye to any of Israel's consistent flouting of international law with its settlements. Not to mention, it will forever damage America's role as an honest peace negotiator in the eyes of the Muslim world. Now is not the time to give in to Israeli demands, Mr. President. Today is the day that, politics aside, someone can actually make a situation a lot easier for a nation with no homeland. The last thing we need to do is treat a humanitarian crisis as a military conflict, and this should be your consistent message to Netanyahu. Where are you now, Mr. President? We need someone of your standing to go out and really create a fuss. We need you to remind Israel that its actions are alienating its one true ally in a world where everyone else remains extremely critical.

One more note to play before concluding. Iran has been causing more hell than Israel, which is something I do recognize off-hand. They still provide support to various militias in the Mideast, such as Hamas and Hezbollah. Not to mention, it's this kind of backing that's keeping the Arab states in a constant cycle of fear, more than anything else. I don't see how everyone is blaming the Arabs for all the violence directed towards Israel, or more specifically how there's state funding from the Arabs. Let me be clear on this, outside of possibly Syria, the Arabs are largely content on leaving Israel in peace. Most have become resigned to the fact that Israel is not going anywhere anytime soon, and are still trying to settle old disputes and extend diplomatic recognition. However, they're not venturing anywhere near the final step of recognition, not only because of the settlements, but because of Iran's meddling in their affairs. Most Arab states fear a revolt from Iran, so they largely stay quiet. Which brings me back to my original point, which is that if anyone is causing trouble for Israel these days on a state-based level, it's Iran. The Arabs see the militias largely as an unnecessary hindrance to peace and are making it clear that their aims don't reflect Arab nationalism. Iran doesn't and that's how these groups are still able to operate.

To conclude, this process does not seem to make itself any easier to work with. Now matter how many steps forward are taken, we always have to take about four steps backward to compensate. I don't see how in a world where people can agree on a consensus gap of 95%, can kill each other of the remaing 5%. Oh wait, I remember, it's because of extremism.

Reasons for Why Not to Elect Republican Congress

The Republican Party, has over the last year, been going balls to the wall over its hatred of our President. Let's face it, a Southernized Congress will only try to bring back Jim Crow and look to make America a Christian nation, with no room for free expression. This is not what we need, as they are nothing more than extremists. It's only their way or nothing, and if you don't like that, go elsewhere.

At the same time, their economic policy is you are on your own if you can't find work. We need to extend permanent tax-breaks to our corporate cronies and keep the offshoring break legal. It's wealthfare for the top. Don't worry, you will be subsidized if you are in the wealthiest 1-5%. This is just ludacris!

We need to keep the Democrats in charge for another 2 years. They're the ones with the ideas, not the Republicans. The Republicans only want to piss you off to the point that you'll give up your rights. Also, they wish to enshrine division & hatred.

Recent inauguration of Pres. Obama

As many of you are aware, Barack Obama has recently become the 44th President of the United States of America. Although it is early in his term, I think we can expect great things from him and hold true to his enthusiasm that if we're doing community service, that we can do just about anything. My only hope is that he can keep us inspired to what we, as Americans, can do to get ourselves out of this whole we're in. If it's done at the microeconomic level and expanded upwards, I think that that may do the trick. You can't do it from the top down.

The good part is that partisan politics is now a thing of the past, and lately I've seen both political parties go more towards a bi-partisan path to solving the nations problems, even if they don't agree on some of the details.

To Pres. Obama: I hope that with your guidance, we can find a new way to define the United States of America as a nation and who we are as a people. I find that you are on the ball when you said that we will not apologize for our way of life. I agree whole-heartedly with you on that statement. Mr. President, your election has inspired such good-will and hope from both within and for our nation. You have become the very calming of the storm that is needed after the turbulence of the 1990s and the Bush years.

To my friends here and abroad: I think that with this underway, we shall see a small era of peace and hopefully a new vision of how the United States of America will in fact define itself as this century unfolds itself. I think that we shall see the USA start to regain its reputation after being humbled down. You may not see the US Military dictate US Foreign Policy as much and that it will be instead be dictated by the US State Dept, which is where that responsibility belongs, more often.

Just to be clear, I don't know how these years will turn out, but I have a sense everything will get back to normal. I think that Pres. Obama will do whatever he can to make sure this country can be all that it can. If you are worried that the Republican party will make some surprise comeback, I do not see that happening in 2010. The most likely time the Republicans will come back is maybe around 2016, maybe later. As long as Pres. Obama holds the White House, I think the Republicans will be reassessing their values and their core beliefs of low taxes and limited government. I now think that the Republican party will have to move towards the center, as the Democrats have under our president, in order to make themselves electable.

Then again, we shall see what the future bestows on us.