Jussmartenuf

2025-01-19T20:00:00.001-06:00

Below is a letter to a friend that if food for thought for you too.

Jack, i had these thoughts and more about the communication we started below.

i guess that your last question "My question continues to be: What are we going to do about it?" is not a totally rhetorical question.

More than ½ of This world is so fucked it staggers me.

I have been blessed as i have traveled extensively in my life, far more so than the average American for whom a trip to New Orleans, L.A., or NYC makes them think they are well traveled. Most lack a basic understanding of other than being "exceptional" by birthright, At best that is a half truth.

I am reminded that half truths are also half lies.

Memories come back to me now with added new twists that give me reinforced certainty that we have passed a tipping point and can slow the process but not stop it. We (every human alive) as a mass are so ignorant and unaware. We were born into this.

We have gone from a Democracy to an Oligarchy that is setting fascism as its goal, call it what you want but that is the bottom line. That is how fascism works. I have more to say about that, but not now.

When my oldest son and i arrived in downtown Hanoi 7 years ago the dynamic mass of humanity showed me again the massive momentum that dictates status quo everywhere. It confirmed something i intuited that there was no hope for society to survive as is intact, that huge changes are being enacted simply through our (every living human being) living processes.

It is not just a Democrat/Republican issue as the Dems have failed to offer promise to the solution. Both parties are ruled by their establishments which want to control who we can vote for. Nobody primary-ed Biden, no options were available.

Trump and his cabal of billionaires including warlord fascist like Putin, Musk, Xi, Orban, Modi and every other right wing warlord fascist like Netanyahu compliment each other in their thirst for more power, too much is not enough for them.

My fantasy about the Greenland thing in Trumps first go round is that as the world heats massive immigration will occur and places like Phoenix, Miami etc will also migrate due to climate leaving Greenland a haven for certain oligarchs with their private mercenaries (thugs) like the Proud Boys and Blackwater. Billionaires like Peter Thiel and Jeff Bezos have their massive estates on New Zealand and private islands and $half billion $ yachts to retreat to as well as a place at the dinner table in Mara Lago.

It is not just Venezuela, Guatemala, Haiti, Bangladesh, Sudan and dozens more countries that become unlivable due to climate and political reasons.

I have been to Chiapas, Ecuador, India, Kashmir, Iran, Nepal, Zimbabwe, Laos and dozens more, and visited with the indigenous people, been into their villages, shit in their squat privvies. I have I am arrogant enough to think that gives me special insight over even our political experts. Blinken is so prejudiced he cannot acknowledge slaughter and starvation directly under his nose.

Victims are already migrating in waves. Yesterday i met an educated man from Pakistan who told me it only made sense for him to move here for his families sake.

Trillions are pissed away to the oligarchs in the form of investment returns via billionaire Hedge Fund owners like Scott Bessent who is chosen to be the Republicans Secretary of the Treasury when asked if he would vote for increasing the minimum wage, which is $7.50 an hour, he said "No sir". Not what i would call spreading kindness.

Oh, kindness has nothing to do with it when making more money is everything.

Love thy neighbor doesn't work with some.

The collapse of the war economy would put millions out of work. Raytheon and the napalm business would suffer, their stock would crash.

Greed is just one part of the problem that i call "The Unholy Trinity".

There is a fear in the United States that is stoked daily by the perpetrators of fascism. It is so prevalent that it stupidifies millions. They are coming to take your jobs. They are coming to take your guns. They are coming to set up Sharia law. They are coming to take your hard earned money and squander it on healthcare for welfare bums.

All that immobilizing fear is changed to anger which builds to hatred and emotional stupidity that blocks logic. That is exactly what the fascist political masters want. Ignorance for the population works for them. It builds what i call "a persistence of set", a pig-headedness that is futile to penetrate.

So anger and ignorance round out my Unholy Trinity.

I see all our problems as people problems, witness ongoing global warming, resource diminishment, wars, starvations, etc.

All economic models are based on growth and growth is the problem, it creates the chaos we witness and chaos is an indicator of entropy, the invisible force that brings disorder to the universe. Yet a decrease in growth threatens the possibility of the dreaded deflation and lower profits for our masters.

So the answer to your question of what are we going to do about it is elusive.

Education for sure is first on the solutions list, but our incoming administration wants to kill the department of education and leave it to the states where Governor Abbott want to divert the funds from public to private and religious schools through a voucher program.

And the new administration of fascist billionaires owns the congress, courts and presidency beginning tomorrow.

All that and the momentum and tipping point seem to me to have already set our course well into the future.

That is just for openers, Jack.

Comments?

Kind regards

Separating the Pepper from the Fly Shit

2024-05-06T21:37:00.002-05:00

What follows is a letter i sent to a friend who here i call Anon.

Dear Anon,

The ongoing tragedy in Gaza and the Middle East causes me considerable consternation as i have a number of Jewish friends and family that are dear to me, i feel for them, despise any antisemitism toward them, support them and wish only happiness for them.

I have struggled as to how to approach them on this subject that is rattling the world yet pretty much unspoken about as it is immensely important and equally touchy.

There is an US and a THEM in our world today, Anon, and the dividing line is fine at times, and broad at others. We are divided or joined by our sense of humanity.

The one thing i do know, am positive of, is that you and I are Brothers, and as such deserving of respect and brotherly love. You are important to me.

We are members of humanity and as far as religions go, after a life time and even being Baptized in THE River Jordan, supposedly the same spot as Jesus, i finally decided that I am a Secular Humanist, someone sitting outside the box of religion.

The middle East is a three thousand year old religious war. Time to look at it from a secular, not the sacred perspective.

In my most noblest of thoughts i think we have a responsibility to see to the welfare and comfort of all… A few years ago i came across a quote of George Eliot:

"What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult to each other?"

We need to stand back as far as we can to see the game being played out in the world today, back beyond religion, back before the present, to get the complete picture. Stand outside the box of religion and prejudice to understand, to see the THEM and understand that regardless of what they say they are misguided, not part of the US.

I read up on Netanyahu; he is a brilliant man, MIT Grad, retired Captain of Special Forces. He has been in virtual complete control of Israel for over 15 years.

Bibi, as i will refer to him, is also a criminally indicted accused felon. Israeli police brought charges against him in 2016 and he still avoids justice, just like Trump and the horrible Attorney General of Texas, Ken Paxton.

They are evil, Anon, evil. Time to take off our blinders. There is a lot in common between politics in Israel and the United States and they both have a dark side that is veiled by their righteous political/religious facade. Their game.

Most Jews, rightfully so, have strong emotional ties to Israel which can make objectivity difficult. Yesterday Tom Friedman wrote "Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has put his country's worst religious extremists in his cabinet".

We must stand against this inhumanity, call it what it is, have the courage to not be part of it for fear of what others may think.

Bibi et al has destroyed Gaza's medical care, cut off food supplies, destroyed clean water and sanitation. Starvation exists as we speak. Monstrous crimes against humanity and Biden endorses it through his ignorance, silence and supply of offensive weapons. I will not be complicit to it, i will not endorse it through silence.

I see King Bibi as a brutal fascist. He is the latest in a string of leaders who have deprived the Palestinians of their human rights and stood in the way of unity for over 70 years.

I see Bibi, et al, as murderers, hell bent to destroy Hamas without regard to innocents and drive the Palestinians that survive into the desert or elsewhere.

Power becomes an addiction, and like an alcoholic, too much is not enough. Bibi's need for control is pathological.

i also see Trump as a fascist in cahoots with Bibi as their goals are the same, domination, control and power, above the law. Trumps personal envoy, Jared Kushner, and Bibi were tight. A deal with Saudi Arabia and the murderer MBS was in the works, maybe that is what finally triggered the pent up anger of HAMAS. Biden is complicit in a number ways, his lack of condemnation being obvious.

Poor Bibi and Donald, always misunderstood as if they are victims instead of criminals.

But back to Bibi: until the world's Jews including AIPAC (AIPAC needs to be woke up), join campus revolts, condemn him and his ilk, (he has legions supporting his ideology, which is to get rid of the Palestinians once and for all) chaos will continue to worsen, he is starving thousands and laying waste to their homeland. He has allowed this to happen, it is not a result of Oct 7, it was the cause of it.

Great profits have been made in settling the West Bank, lots of people have their hand in the till.

It is proposed that has always been the goal of the radical Jewish Zionist far right, and they have seized the opportunity of Oct. 7 to initiate Jewish Zionist denouement of their settler colonial project. We just didn't see it, we were to close to the trees.

I do understand about Hamas murdering civilians on Oct 7, that was horrendous and Hamas invited the retaliation, but that was not the genesis of the act and all Palestinians were not party to it, but subjected to it.

The hostages need to be returned to their loved ones, HAMAS needs to be eliminated and in the process the source of the hatred that drives them corrected so as to not refill the ranks and healing begin.

One thing i learned decades ago about conflict management is there are two sides to each story, which begs the question: why Oct. 7? It was not spontaneous, it was provoked.

Granted HAMAS is evil and needs to be destroyed, but a kill ratio of 33 to one, 77,000 wounded and counting, with no apparent regard for Palestinian innocents, has rightfully sparked campus rebellions worldwide. State Department officials are resigning in protest.

As you once told me, it appears Hamas has already won; an astute observation.

Some say this carnage fits perfectly with the radical Zionist desires to purge Israel of all but Jews. The question "is Zionism a form of White supremacy" will get a professor fired from his university. The politician i admire most, Bernie Sanders, says it is not antisemitism to oppose Israels assault on Gaza or condemn Bibi. He also said anti zionism is not antisemitism.

Hatred is being spread and amplified towards every American and Jew (you and me) as the U.S.A. is complicit in supplying the offensive weaponry to facilitate this Gazan slaughter.

This starvation has been choreographed by the extreme Zionist right, led by Bibi.

What amounts to genocide must be brought to an instant halt and care given to fellow humans, to make their lives less difficult. That is Jewish, Christian and Islamic code, all Abrahamic. We, The USs are responsible to prevent this evil, the Zionists and their supporters are part of the equation, they need light shined on their insanity, the undecided need to be forced to decide.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. (Edmund Burke)

As Americans, as all decent people, have empathy, compassion and a sense of justice.

We have a duty to expose our blind complicity and indifference in this horror, and we cannot see it until we are in a state of awareness, untangled from our emotions and prejudices.

I am pro American, i am pro Israel, I am Pro Palestinian, I am pro Peace.

I look forward to your comments.

Your friend,

jack

p.s. I see just now that Bibi and Gang just raided the offices of and banned Al Jazeera from Gaza as they obviously want to control the news coming out of Gaza. A fascist act. We are supposed to trust only what Bibi and Trump tells us? They are really very alike in their goals but Bibi is smarter. (Biden simply doesn't get it.) They both want to head authoritarian governments, they both have their personal agendas and a constituency of radical believers who don't know what fascism means that would kill for them.

If Bibi & Gang backs off their deception will be exposed. It needs to be exposed.

76mm Projectiles & Why I Keep Saying "Huh?"

2020-11-19T16:15:00.012-06:00

The following is a vignette i wrote to a friend that i thought might be of trivia interest to you.

Ever so often i try to explain about my hearing loss to someone and i have finally found a visual that explains it better.

When I was a young man, still teenager in fact, i joined the 49th Armored Division of the Texas National Guard. I was lucky enough to be too young to make the Korean Conflict and too old to make Vietnam and missed everything in between, but was on standby from 55 to 59 during the cold war.

During that time i was with a headquarters company, with light tanks, not what the "Line" (assault) companies had and our duty was the defense of the headquarters and recon, not attack.

In addition to monthly drills, each year we made one trip to Fort Wolters by Mineral Wells for small arms certification and another two week deployment to the tank trails at Fort Hood. Light tanks were manned with a crew of 4 in a bit of a pecking order, loader being bottom in command and Commander at the top. I started as a driver next to bottom, and then promoted to gunner, second in command.

Driving was fun, for the first 30 hours or so. The controls were simple enough, an automatic transmission, accelerator, brakes and a steering column. The steering column came up from the floor and had a crossbar at the top like a T. If you wanted to go right you pulled the end of the T bar to the right and it braked the right track so you turned right. Left was done in the same manner, other end. The brakes were not capable of stopping the tank if it was rolling full speed downhill, but they could slow it. Nobody told me that.

The tank trails were powdered caliche and stirred a cloud of white everywhere we went.  At the end of a day we often went straight to the showers where we undressed under the shower as we were literally covered with dust except where our googles protected our eyes.

The big gun, a rifle in reality, shot a 76mm projectile (the line tanks a 90mm). Along side the big gun was a coaxially mounted 30 caliber machine gun for personnel targets which were the gunner's responsibility to annihilate. On top of the tank was a 50 Caliber machine gun the tank commander was responsible for. He stood in the top hatch to shoot it. All in all they were capable of making a lot of noise in addition to the normal racket in the turret. Outside the tank the 76 blasting off would raise the dust about 3 feet.

On big gun practice day we would draw a ½ truckload of these shells from stores and head to the firing range, where there were both obstacle courses and down range courses.
The down range shots were 76mm only and we had to shoot up all the big shells, no taking unused ones back. The first 15 or 29 rounds were kinda fun but we had about 100 and the gun range had no targets left, every possible target had already been obliterated. However every once in a while i could lay a shell flat enough that it would bounce, ricochet if you will, and i could watch it streak for miles. We would drive down the obstacle courses and situations would appear, maybe the profile of an enemy tank. The gunner then had to call for an AP (armor piercing) shell, the loader picked it loaded it an hollered "up" and the gunner already had the target in sights and fired the round. If a small house appeared past a turn with enemy inside a command for HE (high explosive) would be given. Should soldiers be seen afoot, the 30 caliber was used. A mix of targets a mix of guns.

During son Eric and my recent trip to First Monday i bought a replica of that 76mm shell, weighted the same, just under 30#, used to teach recruits how to handle ordinance without using live ammo. They were handled into the tank projectile end first so not to disturb the firing cap. 

I'm holding it below beside an old line tank at the old National Guard headquarters in Dallas. The 49th Armored Division was dissolved into the 36th infantry in 2004. It was the last armored division in the United States National Guard.

This, i think, should explain why I have a hearing disability.

I didn't kill anybody, but was willing to do so for "Old Glory". At that time Eisenhower was President, a war hero and a hero of mine.
FWIW, Brother.

The first picture above is the M-41 Walker Bulldog like the one i served in.
My kind regards,
jack

Tired of Winning Yet?

2018-04-23T06:50:00.000-05:00

It has been some time since i posted under Jussmartenuf here on Blogger, the reason being i have been using Facebook as a convenient format. But times, they are a changing, and some very important issues are slipping past inasmuch as a great many people have left Facebook, at least for a while.
There are two issues i would like to touch on, both provoked by articles from the New York Times. There are some who, because of the editorial position of the Times, believe that all the news they print is, to use a Trump coined term, fake news. Not so, the same as all the news from FOX is not based on lies, you have to be jussmartenuf to know how to separate the pepper from the fly shit, i have been doing it for some time now.
We all know that Trump has trumpeted that trade wars are "easy to win"; well it seems that just ain't so. Midwest farmers and agriculture in general in the U.S. of A. is already feeling the pinch of Agent Orange's folly. This link and the comments attached are worth your reading if you think trade wars are easy to win.
The other issue that has really set me off is FOX news' along with Trump's campaign to destroy the integrity of our Justice system.
Every now and then i watch Fox, in particular Hannity, as i want to know what is being said in support of Trump and that is the place to go. Please excuse the verbiage that follows, but it is the best way i know to describe him: Hannity is a mind fucker.
He speaks very fast and i doubt most of his fans have the listening skills needed to follow him and separate the fact from fiction. There is a lot of truth in what he says, but it is distorted and often not the entire truth.
Someday there must be a price paid for the damage he does, and for this he is paid the figure of $36,000,000.00 per year i am told.
Tragic, but that is life folks just be forewarned.

An Explanation of Trickle-up Economics

2017-10-21T10:21:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, as i entered the ante room of the men's locker room at the Landry Center for my swim workout, i was confronted with the TV stating that news of the possible Republican tax reform had sent the stockmarket to new highs. The station is usually tuned to CNBC for financial news as I understand it is considered the best of the financial networks and is supposedly politically neutral. The last thing we need in the locker room are political discussions, and by the way, i never hear any of the locker room talk Billy Bush did.
Of course the stock market is gaining, the Republicans are controlling not only both houses of congress and the presidency but the liberal/conservative balance of the supreme court. They all are promising tax cuts and the right for corporations to donate unlimited amounts to our political system, such as it is.
This means the rich are going to get very much richer and the middle class is going to pick up the bill by having the national debt ramp through the ceiling.
Who the hell is dumb enough to believe that by cutting federal revenue (think taxes) the increase in the GDP will more than make up the difference when the reason corporate profits are already so high is because the billionaires of Wall Street who control them, are squeezing the salaries of the workers to drive profits and stocks up.
This voodoo economics model has been proven false multiple times and needs to have a stake driven through its heart.
The insanity of this is the workers are who drive the GDP through the purchase of goods and services with their salary dollars. So far in August the "real disposable personal income" has dropped 0.1% while GDP has increased at a rate of 2.15% so far this year.
https://bea.gov/newsreleases/glance.htm
Now, what will happen with all this money that is made in the stock market? Will it be put into circulation through the purchase of products or will it be taken out of circulation through the purchase of more stocks which, by the increase in market activity, will drive the market even higher, make the billionaires even richer while the worker with no disposable income suffers more and is told how wonderful things are because the Dow Jones Industrial Average is hitting new highs. The poor dopes will believe it and praise Trump and his band of Wall Street thieves.
How dumb can people be? The stock market and the economy are NOT the same.
If a substantial portion of this money were paid to the workers the GDP would accelerate as every cent of it would be put immediately back into circulation through the purchase of goods and services the middle and lower classes are crying for. Yet many say there should be no minimum wage and workers take what is offered them or do without.
Don't we understand that if Medicare and Medicaid can be killed by villainizing the poor as bums and undeserving, all those taxes needed to pay for these benefits will be saved and dropped directly to the bottom lines of the corporate balance sheets. Stocks will increase more, the uber-rich will get even more uber-rich, the markets will increase even more, Wall Street control of Washington will be enhanced even more and the poor can suck eggs and eat cake as long as they are kept dumbed down. If they need medical care, let them get a job and buy insurance like the Ayn Rand billionaires do.
This all really sucks and greed drives this vicious cycle. Unrestrained capitalism is the enemy of the working class as much as it is the savior.
The problem is capitalism is controlled by Wall Street, not Main Street and that is what needs to change.
If you don't understand this, you don't know jack.
P.S. After posting this article the article below by economics Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz was published which supports and expands on problems not addressed but exacerbated through the proposed Republican tax program.
https://www.thenation.com/article/america-has-a-monopoly-problem-and-its-huge/

Bigots, Bigots and More Bigots, all in the name of God

2017-07-28T18:47:00.001-05:00

I had no idea there was an ambassadorship called Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom. But there is.
Most of us have heard of Sam Brownback, mainly because he has been such a disaster.
As the governor of Kansas, he has damn near destroyed the Kansas economy with the irresponsible fiscal policy he has incorporated there.

Being a natural born Jayhawk myself, i find his deplorable policies embarrassing, and i moved from Kansas in 1948. His policies caused the closing of the Mercy Hospital in my home town of Independence a couple years ago as their funding fell off to the point they could not survive under Brownbacks obstructionist ultra right wing idiocy. Now this fine pioneer town of 13,000 has no local hospital due to Brownback's incompetence.

Brownback's fiscal policies have proven once more that by cutting taxes, which are a form of revenue, actually results in decreased revenue, and does not stimulate the economy to produce excess of what was cut. Go figger.

Now he has been appointed to the position of Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom. And i truly despise the idea of this stupid, stupid man being paid to travel about who knows where spreading his hateful homophobic filth at taxpayer expense.

Just another waste of dollars, all on the same day Trump struck against the LGBT community by saying transgender people would not be allowed to serve their country.

Most informed people understand that Gay and Lesbian people are born that way. It is not a choice. It is time that bigots like Brownback and the bigoted ideology of those that have appointed him be drummed out of our political structure. They are blights on the character of our country.

I don't mind if people want to peddle their religious beliefs amongst themselves, but I'll be damned if i want any of my tax dollars used for bigots like Brownback to spread their prejudices about under a banner with stars on a blue field and red and white stripes that represent the country I was born in and live in.

The Truth About IRAN

2017-04-25T04:31:00.003-05:00

Dear friends

May of 2016 I was privileged to have the opportunity to travel to and spend 13 days and 12 nights in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

I came back with more questions than when i left; they required a considerable amount of research to answer. The results are in the treatise that follows.

Iran is a sophisticated modern country with friendly people and an ancient history. Todays political atmosphere is the result of past actions by the United States and our Allies that few Americans are aware of. It is my desire that the truth be known.

ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN

Been There, Not Done With That

Jack G. Campbell

What an eye opener. What a mind opener. It was very much not what any of us expected. The popular perception of Iran in the average American’s opinion is very incorrect.

In order to understand today's Iran a given amount of history needs to be known. It is one of the oldest civilizations on earth and mistakenly demonized by many without a working understanding of the facts. It is a history of politics, religion and petroleum dollars.

Iran did not start out a Theocracy, it was here Long before either Christianity or Islam came along, and more than 2000 years before the United States. It is an ancient culture. As a matter of fact, Iran was once a Democracy and strives to become one once more.

Iranians are not Arabs. They are Persians, they speak Farsi, not Arabic. They are historical enemies of the Arabs who have invaded them over the centuries bringing with them the Islamic religion to replace Zoroastrian.

Iran is a Shia or Shite (Follower or Friend) Islamic nation and wants you to know it. Although there is a Christian community, Jewish community, Zoroastrian community and Sunni Islamic community it is overwhelmingly Shia. It is important to them that this is understood as they consider themselves to be of a higher standard. Most of the Mid-East is the opposite with large Sunni majorities except for Bahrain and Iraq, where Saddam Hussein and his Sunni minority forcefully dominated the majority Shia and Kurd populations.

It is very important to understand the difference in the Shia and Sunni sects of Islam. Islam came out of the deserts of Arabia. The holy prophet of Islam is Mohammad. Mohammad “the last prophet” was born around 570 CE in the city of Mecca. In the year 622, with followers, he migrated to Medina; this date marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar. in 629 with an army of 10,000 he marched on and conquered Mecca with little loss of life on either side. In 632 he died. This is where the Shia/Sunni split comes.

Muhammad had a daughter named Fatima, she was married to Mohammad’s first cousin Ali. It is said that Mohammad appointed Ali as his successor. At the death of Mohammad there were those that followed Ali as their first Caliph: they are the Shia.

However, there was a competing power, Mohammad’s advisor Abu Bakr, who was also his father in law. After the death of Mohammad there were those that claimed Abu Bakr as their first Caliph; they are the Sunni.

Iran is very aware that 15 of the 19 9/11 terrorists were Saudi Arabian Sunni. The ISIS & Taliban terrorists we see on TV with their shoulder-fired rocket propelled grenades are from neighboring Sunni states such as Afghanistan and Pakistan to the East, plus Iraq, Syria and other states to the West. In fact, the owning of firearms in Iran is illegal, supposedly no one owns any. The few military people we saw in public were not armed nor are most of the police. We share a common enemy in ISIS/ISIL and the Taliban, but are divided in how to combat them. ISIS or ISIL is comprised of Sunni Wahhabi fundamentalist radicals. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is neither a State nor is it truly Islamic any more than the Ku Klux Klan is Christian. The Caliph of ISIL is named Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Saudi Arabia continues to export it’s toxic brand of Wahhabism and we call them our ally and sell them billions in “defensive” weapons to be used against Shite Muslims in Yemen and elsewhere. Saudi Arabia and Iran are at odds, that is their problem, we should not take a side and stay hands off.

I was informed by a Sunni Muslim colleague that many of the thousands of Sunni Imams are ignorant fundamentalist people, ignorant except of Wahhabi fundamentalist dogma. It should be remembered most Sunni do not follow the Wahhabi dogma.

Today Islam is split into 2 basic categories with offshoots of each. The Shia Muslims are estimated to be between 10 to 13%; the great majority are Sunni.

We arrived in Tehran early eve as it was growing dark. It is a long bus ride from the airport to our hotel, The Espinas International, where we were met with chilled non-alcoholic refreshments while the pianist in the lounge area played The Star Spangled Banner on his grand piano as a welcoming piece.

Iran is a Democratic Theocracy, Iranians elect a president and congress. When the Ayatollah is replaced, he is elected from and by a council of 80 Imams (leaders). Iran is one of 8 Theocracies in the world, 7 are Islamic and one, the Vatican, is Christian. The members of our group had their last glass of wine or cocktail at our dinner the previous eve in Istanbul. No alcohol or drugs are allowed in Iran, although clandestine activities must exist the same as everywhere in the world. Remember, the majority of the opium/heroin in the world is grown next door in Afghanistan and makes it’s way to world markets through the neighboring states as Afghanistan itself is land bound.

Our guide was a wonderful man from Tehran who had also lived in Japan for a couple years and was well travelled, well educated, well informed and very amenable to discussing anything that was asked and was an altogether likable soul who said his goal was to collect the hearts of those he met. Afshin is 43 years old and we consider each other respected friends. He created a space in my heart for him.

The greeting of salaam is accompanied by a hand over the heart gesture signifying “you are in my heart” and “I respect you”. Both hands folded over the heart is “I keep you in my heart”. Afshin taught me this along with other kind customs.

The dress code for women is that they must keep their hair covered outside of their homes. Many still wear the burka, but that is strictly a personal choice and 80 to 85% choose to not wear one and of those that do, i saw none, zero, with the full face veil that is preferred by many of the Sunni sects.

However, the hijab is a different matter. The hijab is the veil that, in public, covers the hair of all women from the age of puberty. It is part of their dress code which

stresses modesty. As you can see, the arms are covered beyond the elbow and a shirt or garment drapes over the hips, but more liberties are being taken as jeans and pants are sometimes skin snug. Female civil rights and liberties are limited as women cannot be elected leaders, nor can they become judges and they are not permitted to sing or dance in public. But women have many freedoms, although both sporting and religious events are sex separated. They drive cars, cabs even, vote and are free to come and go as they please.

All singers, musicians in restaurants etc are men. But as you can imagine from the picture of these two beautiful ladies, they hold positions of strength in the home. Let me add that women are discriminated against in other religions and worse in some Sunni Islamic areas. On the other hand, men go about their business pretty much dressing however they chose, except no shorts are worn in public and neither men nor women wear flip-flops in place of shoes.

Tehran is a gigantic city, possibly three times as big as New York City. We were told the population was between 20 and 22 million. It is quite modern and even though they have had their economy squeezed by Sanctions, there was an abundance of construction going on everywhere and the streets were crowded with pedestrians and vehicles of every sort well into the night. Most shops close and a “siesta” is taken after the noon meal during the heat of the day; as a result most shops are open well past dark.On our second night in Tehran i stepped outside our restaurant while waiting to view the street scenes. This little girl was part of a wedding party entering. Little girls in Iran do not normally dress this way, they dress like little girls. As i stood there a gent who observed me, knowing i was not a local, came up and asked me in broken English where i was from. I was a bit hesitant as it was our first eve out but told him, the United States. He asked me where in the US. I said Texas and he exclaimed “JOHN WAYNE, WE LOVE JOHN WAYNE”.

Other than street scenes the first two days in Tehran were kind of ho hum with a visit to a magnificent Persian carpet museum and a glass museum. But all that changed with a visit to the Persian jewel collection which is the world’s largest display of jewelry and is it ever impressive. This treasure is buried in the basement of the Central Bank of Iran in a vault the size of a football field and the display is stunning. The peacock throne is a portion of this display. The jewel collection was amassed by the family of the Shah and is enormous, an impossible to describe volume of precious pieces. For those of us who have seen the Crown Jewels, i would compare them to maybe 15% of this collection and the Iranian collection is so greater diversified.

No photos were allowed in the Jewel vault, the largest jewel display on earth.

This photo was taken during our visit to the All Saviour’s Armenian Cathedral, also known as the Church of St. Joseph of Arimathea in Isfahan. Building of the cathedral dates from 1060 to 1654. It is richly decorated with paintings and frescoes depicting stories and parables from the Old Testament in the upper portions and in the lower panels from the New Testament.

The Vank (monastery in Armenian) along with the Cathedral includes a museum building with a section devoted to the commemoration of the Armenian genocide committed by the Young Turk regime of the Ottoman Empire during World War I.

There is substantial art and liturgical materials on display. There is also a library building and separate printing press facility.

You can see a detailed video posted by my friends Gene Taylor and Abe Krikorian, friends who were part of our group at you tube “Conscience Films” site

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfgfKDqgYJQ&list=UUQ9M_LLnlEeHvkYALZdchfA&index=10

The Armenian presence in Iran dates from antiquity. There are also Zoroastrians, Jewish, Assyrian Christian, and Sunni Muslim minorities all living together peacefully.

This was after a visit to the Shah’s palace which reminded us that oppressive monarchy is what their revolution was all about and that in1952 Britain and the U.S. had overthrown the Democratically elected government and democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, then installed, backed and supported the dictator of their choice, the Shah, until his overthrow in a 1979 coup.

The Shah and his family lived in magnificent splendor. The Ayatollah had sought asylum in Paris from where he oversaw the non violent overthrow of the regime. (The word Ayatollah translates as “Token of God” and is a Shia Muslim word.) Please note that although the American Embassy was overthrown and most of the diplomats held hostage for 444 days, there were no deaths and all were returned safely when Reagan took office.

The third day we caught a plane to the Southwest and the city of Shiraz.

I don’t think many have a grasp of how huge Iran really is. If you were to combine Texas, New Mexico, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma and most of Kansas you would have an area the same size as Iran and if you were to double the population of that same area you would almost have as many people . Sure Iran is a lot of desert but there are more than twice as many citizens in Iran as there are in the 5-1/2 American states listed above.

Shiraz is another large city, about 3 times the size of Dallas. Again our accommodations were modern and luxurious. The tombs of two of their most revered poets are there and we visited each, touching the sarcophagus of each in order to experience their presence.

Shiraz is also the dropping off point to the ancient ruins of Persepolis. Cyrus founded the site for Persepolis and construction began about 519 BC. It was built under the rule of Darius and continued until it was conquered, plundered and destroyed by Alexander the Great (356 - 323) in 330 BC. This was the first Western Invasion of Iran by Greece long before the birth of Jesus Christ.

Then on to the tombs of several of their kings which are carved in relief out of the side of a mountain, as if in Petra. From there on to the tomb of Cyrus the Great who is known to every Persian. Cyrus created the greatest empire the world had yet seen and his respect for the customs of those he conquered earned him the title of Messiah (the anointed one) from the Jews, the only non-Jew ever to receive this honor.

The way he conquered was unique. He would go to a city and tell them they had a choice: they could keep their religions, they could keep their synagogues, their homes, and properties, they would not have to serve in the armed forces, they would be protected, but they would pay taxes as Cyrus was taking over the governing. That way he could conquer a city with no lives lost on either side and the arrangement made an example for good sense to the next city they decided to conquer.

Along the way to Yazd we stopped at Pasargadae where we visited an ancient ice house, no longer in use as refrigeration has eliminated the need for them. They were tall cone shaped buildings that had entries on both sides which descended into a large bowl in the bottom. In winter time, water was carried into the bowl and the cold air would come in the entries, flow to the bottom forcing the warmer air out the top and the water would freeze to ice. Next night more water was brought in to freeze and so on until a huge block of ice was formed that supplied ice to the inhabitants well into the summer. As the cone was built, every 5 feet or so a layer of wood was put in place to allow for movement in the event of an earthquake tremor. They were in use until about 60 years ago.

It was then a long bus ride across vast desert to Yazd which was the center of the Zoroastrian religion that was dominate until Islam came to the area. But Christianity got there before Islam.

Our group arrived late and worn out in Yazd, a modern city of about 500,000 in the middle of a desert. Most of this part of Iran, even though it is on the same latitude as Austin, Texas, is a desert, supported by massive underground aquifers totaling some 3000 kilometers in length that are fed by winter snows from the mountains in the north. Travel in the height of summertime is advised against due to the oppressive heat.

Towns such as this appeared in vast areas of desert and were areas of agriculture, as the aquifer system is immense.

There are also mountains of Granite and Marble that support a huge Quarry business and massive tile and travertine plants.

Pictured below are buildings with faces of the martyrs of the Iraq Iran conflict. They are ubiquitous around the country, each city with martyrs of their own.

Exquisite art was available in the bazaars. Although Iran is still under international banking sanctions, many merchants had credit card connections through a clandestine network with Dubai and other countries.

Prior to Arabian Islamic invasion, Yazd was the seat of the dominant Zoroastrian religion, started in the 6th century BCE, the predecessor of Christianity and Islam, which is now greatly diminished, but an eternal flame of cherry wood is kept burning in their main temple and the religion is still followed by the remaining Zoroastrians.

On the outskirts of Yazd are the two Towers of Silence. These are mountain tops where the dead were taken and placed to be eaten by the birds of prey. The towers had high walls to prevent foxes and small mammals out and keep the birds from carrying large body parts away where they might contaminate the water system. The bones were then put in a pit and covered with lime to disintegrate them. This practice ceased some 50 - 60 years ago for fear of contaminates being spread. This was a Zoroastrian practice.

Yazd is also unique for it’s architecture. The towers in the pictures above were ventilating towers to catch the breeze which was then carried below into the homes. Large saucers of water were at the base of the shafts to humidify and cool the air as it flowed through the homes.

Another custom was that the doors had two knockers on them, each made a different sound. If a male were calling on the house, he would use the male knocker and the male occupant would answer the door. If a female were calling, she would use the female knocker and only a female would answer the door. I will leave it up to your good judgement to decide which knocker was used by males and which by females.

From Yazd we traveled again by bus across a vast desert to the major city of Isfahan, considered by many as the most beautiful city in Iran. There is a major river that runs through the center of the city and it is lined with beautiful parks on both sides along with major bridges to connect both sides.

Isfahan also has the second largest public square in the world, second only to Tiananmen square in Beijing. The square is a dynamic center of hundreds of shops comprising a huge bazaar. There are magnificent mosques, the men and women each have their own. Below are two examples of past hardliner displays, the one on the left was put up shortly after the 1979 revolution. It has has been in circulation for years and many Americans are familiar with it.

The one on the right shows Obama with an open hand and warns of betrayal. The warrior on the left of Obama i have forgotten the story about except that in Persian history he betrayed Iran and Obama was being compared to him.

There is a hardliner element in Iran just as their is in America, Israel, etc. They are a declining power in the face of modernity.These two men approached me in the plaza in front of the Mosque on the right below. They were a father and son. The son spoke good English, I complemented him and he told me he had been studying English in school for 4 years. His father leaned in and spoke in his ear, the son looked at me and said “My father says, please, no Trump”.

One other interesting anecdote was while I wandered the streets of Esfahan alone, on a side street I stopped at a small store front that sold snacks and soft drinks to buy a bottle of water. The storekeeper asked me the usual question of “where from”? Having had the wonderful experience in Tehran with my John Wayne friend I immediately said Texas. He responded loudly “Bush”. I said what? and he made himself clear, an irritated “George Bush!”.

The Iranian people are very aware of world events and very aware they have been unfairly stereotyped by much of the Western media. Their news services are excellent. Go here http://www.presstv.com/Default/Live and check them out. They see everything we do including NBA scores as well as US police shooting unarmed black men and more news than American TV offers.

The news service in Iran is excellent, in some regards superior to much American news sources.

They are aware of all that we in the U.S. are such as efforts by environmentalists to stem global warming to pictures and articles about police killings of unarmed black citizens, riot, white supremacists. Iranians know we are not perfect.

The Iranian people are well informed, educated and very aware of world events, most certainly concerned about how Mr. Trump will play his cards, whether he will respect the anti-nuclear agreement or sabotage it.

PressTV is the Iranian news station. Visit http://www.presstv.ir

you will be amazed at the quality and depth of news service available.

After the first world war and the downfall of the Ottoman Empire, the two major colonial forces in the Mid East, France and Great Britain, divided the territories as they saw fit, simply drawing straight lines where there had been none and with little to no regard to tribal and religious sects already there.

In 1935 Shah Reza Shah Pahlavi changed the name of Persia officially to Iran. Both names now can be used interchangeably.

Oil had been discovered in Persia and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company had held the concessions since 1913.The Shah was in charge of the nation and stayed in charge until 1941 when he was forced out of control by Anglo-Russian forces. He died in 1943 and left a young heir, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Oil was not discovered in Saudi Arabia until 1938 in what is known as modern day Dhahran. I see this as when U.S. interests made their arrangements that lead to our modern day alignment with Saudi Arabia, one of natural resource exploitation, political convenience being a byproduct not the goal of the union.

After WWII Iran was on a course to democracy with a democratically elected Prime Minister, Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh, who sought to nationalize the petroleum industry in Iran which had been under the control of British interests since 1913. As most of the revenues from this natural resource was being taken by foreign interests, namely the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company interests (the AOIC was the predecessor to British Petroleum). Mossadegh felt the proceeds from their petroleum resources could and should be used to meet the Iranian budget which included lifting their population out of poverty, disease and the backwardness of the people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddegh

It then became a driving ambition of Winston Churchill and the British to overthrow Mossadegh to protect British profits of the oil company and a continued supply of cheap oil for Britain.

In an attempt to throttle the money supply Iran needed for democratic policies such as social security that were being introduced, the British sent their warships to the Persian gulf and set up a de facto blockade while AIOC withdrew their technicians from the area. Also during this time ARAMCO and AIOC doubled their production in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq to replace the lost production from Iran and to further financially strangle Iran.

As a result of this action Britain was declared an enemy of Iran and diplomatic relations were severed by Mossadegh.

In 1952, looking for an accomplice to overthrow Mossadegh, Churchill reached out to the United States under the presidency of Harry Truman, but Truman and his Secretary of State Dean Acheson opposed the measure; they held great hopes for the Mossadegh Democratic potential.

The following year, 1953, Dwight Eisenhower was elected President and Churchill was back in contact with his old war companion who was only too happy to oblige. There were two brothers, righteous and powerful, eager to carry out the overthrow of Iran's democratically elected leader and they were already underway with the overthrow of other nations at the time. Also they were personally heavily financially invested in the outcome.

It was the brothers Dulles, older brother John Foster Dulles who was Secretary of State and younger brother Allen Welsh Dulles who headed the C.I.A. Their first objective was identical to Churchill's, the overthrow of the Iranian government....The logic used was to stop the threat of the spread of Communism in Iran (as well as in Guatemala, Cuba and later Vietnam) where no threat existed. And so in 1953 the United States Central Intelligence Agency in concert with British Intelligence over threw the democratically elected government of Iran. This was accomplished by a media campaign as well as CIA agents strategically placed in the government. Our covert agent on scene in Iran was Kermit Roosevelt, the grandson of Teddy Roosevelt.

It would not sell to the American or British people that this coup was to protect the financial interests of British Petroleum, so the propaganda ploy became it was a move to stop Communism, which they claimed was the goal of Mossadegh. It is the same ploy they used in both Guatemala and Cuba to protect the personal interests of the heavily invested Dulles boys and their friends in the American Fruit Company and in the energy sector.

The Dulles brothers and Roosevelt all profited heavily from their connections. Among other things, John Dulles’ law firm was in charge of all the Shah’s family affairs.

During this coup the Shah fled to Rome until the killing of hundreds of dissidents was over, then returned a few days after Mossadegh was arrested.

After Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi was installed as the dictator of Iran many of his opponents were imprisoned, tortured and some executed. Pahlavi kept tight control over any suspected opponents through his secret police. Mossadegh himself was sentenced to 3 years solitary confinement and then held under house arrest until his death in March of 1967. Shah Pahlavi continued in power for 26 years and was aligned with the U.S. government until the Revolution of 1979 and his overthrow.

Prior to the 1979 overthrow of the Shah, the Ayatollah who was then in exile in Paris, began a covert campaign of his own. Speeches he recorded on tape were smuggled into Iran disguised as musical tapes, and were then copied and spread to the population. One of the main themes was non-violence and the movement moved forward as the United States put a worldwide embargo on Iranian oil and froze Iranian assets that were in the world financial system*.

A year of peace followed until on Sept 22, 1980, Iraq launched an all-out invasion of Iran starting a bloody war that continued until August 20, 1988. Under the Reagan/Bush administration, aid and dual-use technology were supplied to the Iraq/Hussein government in their attacks against Iran and arms supplied to Iran in the “Iran/Contra” affair. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran–Contra_affair

On July 3, 1988 The United States warship Vincennes, which had entered Iranian waters, shot down an Iranian Air commercial flight #655 killing all 290 onboard. It was an unprovoked attack. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

On Aug 2, 1990, Iraq moved over 100,000 troops with tanks, helicopters and trucks across their southern border and invaded Kuwait. The United States retaliated with devastating military force.

On Sept 11, 2001, 19 hijackers hijacked 3 commercial aircraft and murdered almost three thousand American citizens. The origin of these hijackers were: one from Egypt, one from Lebanon, two from the United Arab Emirates and 15 from Saudi Arabia.

On October 7, 2001 The United States launched an attack on Iran’s Eastern neighbor Afghanistan.

On January 29, 2002 In his State of the Union speech President George W. Bush declared that Iran, along with Iraq and North Korea comprised an “Axis of Evil”. This was responded to by Iran naming the United States, the “Great Satan”

On March 20th 2003 President George W. Bush and his administration began the “Shock and Awe” attack on Iran’s Western neighbor Iraq, bringing death and destruction to millions including thousands of American service men and women and unleashing the horrors of ISIL and misery and death on the majority Shia population.

In 2015 seven nations and the European Union signed a nuclear treaty. The list includes Iran, The United States, The United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, China and the European Union. This was hailed as a great achievement by many in the world and a terrible disastrous action by Israel, Saudi Arabia and many U.S. politicians.

On March 21, 2016, shortly before my leaving for Iran, United States Senator and presidential hopeful from Texas, Ted Cruz, speaking in front of The American Israeli Public Affairs Committee compared the treaty to the 1938 Munich agreement, and stated “on the first day in office, I will rip this catastrophic Iranian nuclear deal to shreds” and that “Either you (Iran) will shut down your nuclear program or we will shut it down for you”. He went on further to tell us once more how his fundamentalist preacher father had washed dishes for 50 cents an hour and closed by referring to Iran’s leaders as “bullies” and “homicidal maniacs”. For this he got an ovation. (Please look at the pictures of the two gentlemen on page 3 and see if they appear to be bullies or homicidal maniacs.)

Another Texan, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn had already gone on record to state that “it is time to bring devastating sanctions on Iran, with the credible threat of decisive American military action as a backstop and last resort” and to “put America’s boot back on Tehran’s neck”.

Recently, the American vessel that strayed into Iranian waters, whether by mechanical problems or (highly unlikely) navigation problems, and was released within 24 hours brought a comment by, arguably the dumbest U.S. congressman, East Texan Louie Gohmert that “we should start taking their ships out one at a time” and that Iran needs to believe “the US is a credible threat to bomb them”.

Really Louie? Maybe we should just keep our equipment and military off their territory instead?

There are hard liners on both sides of the equation, but we do know from the last Iranian elections and from the rhetoric on the street that the Iranian hard liners are being replaced with younger Democracy seeking thinkers seeking relations with the West and the U.S. Most attempts at reconciliation on the part of the US are derided as weakness and leading from behind by many major American politicians.

Current U.S. policy to allow the different factions to work out their difficulties seems an approp riate action.

The recent gift of $38 Billions in military armament to Israel and our commitment to back them unconditionally is of doubtful benefit in the eyes of many except to the politicians as they pay the dues to their Military Industrial supporters.

In the meanwhile, Saudi parties continue to support the Taliban and teach that Shia are not really Muslims, that they are Infidels.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/06/world/asia/saudi-arabia-afghanistan.html?emc=edit_th_20161207&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=42565932

We continue to sell Billions of dollars of military equipment to Saudi Arabia who continues to finance and export their prejudicial and toxic draconian Wahhabism brand of Islam to all parts of the world. The Saudis continue to bomb civilian targets in Yemen and kill innocents..

The Iranian people are desirous of peace and relationships with the west. A majority in the West reciprocate that desire.

Where is the sanity and the courage to do the right thing and seek peace?

What is the true face of Iran?

THIS IS THE TRUE FACE OF IRAN

The younger generation is taking over in iran. The old hardliners are losing out. The last elections the young progressives beat the ears back of the conservative hardliners. times are changing. it is time for americans to understand iran is a friend waiting to happen.

all we have to do is reach out. i doubt very few of our politicians are aware of the facts presented here and i will bet virtually none have been to Iran or will go as it would require acknowledging our past foreign policy mistakes and they would have to make a position change. few politicians have that courage.

Shiite militias have played a prominent role in the offensive to retake Falluja after nearly three years of ISIS rule and now in Mosul. But because of that, the battle is playing out amid persistent worries that the campaign could intensify the sectarian tensions that are tearing the country apart.

The Sunni extremist fighters for the Islamic State have warned civilians that the Shiite militias would slaughter them in revenge attacks whenever possible. The news media in Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries have framed the battle in crass sectarian terms, warning that Iran’s militias were intent on killing Sunnis.

“We were surprised that they treated us so well,” said a man at a camp who was in his 50s and gave his name as Abu Muhammad, standing on Sunday outside his tent. “Daesh had told us the Shiites wanted revenge and would kill us.”

Instead, he said, he was given cookies and orange juice.

Elsewhere in the Mideast, the Shia Houthi rebels in Yemen are being supported by their Shia Brethren in Iran. Current news reports of bombings of a funeral slaughtering over 150 civilians as well as other atrocities being committed against civilians by American supplied Saudi Arabian forces, implicating the U.S. as a participant in these war crimes are in the news.

The United States is the worlds largest supplier of Military supplies and hardware and Saudi Arabia is the United States largest customer of these products.

CONCLUSION

Iran is a low hanging fruit of peace, all the United States needs to do is give them the respect and understanding they deserve and we can expect the same in return. We do not need to threaten Iran with war, there are no Taliban in Iran nor are there any ISIS, both are our common enemy. If you were threatened with violence what would you do. I would arm myself. I remind you that it is illegal for private citizens of Iran to own arms. We saw no armed military OR police in Iran although i did see unarmed military and no police.

The United States Foreign Policy needs to change where change is a benefit to all parties. It is not necessary for the opponent to lose in order for us to win.

I’m o.k. you’re o.k. should be our guideline to re-establishment in a peaceful, fruitful relationship with Iran.

The side issues of Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jew, Christian, Zoroastrian, Muslim, Shia, Sunni, Houthi, Kurd, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Taliban, Kurds, Hezbollah, Al-Nusra and more are are all deserving of further discussion than this treatise is intended to cover but should be secondary issues to peace with Iran. We will always have differences.

Mostly, the profound ignorance of our population as to the overall facts is the greatest obstacle. Ted Cruz, who would be our next President if he had his way, is one of the most profoundly ignorant in these matters. He panders to the Israeli and Christian alliance crowd. We need not abandon Israel to have peace with Iran. I hope responsible Republicans will replace Cruz in his next senatorial race. They can do better.

In psychology there is a phenomenon known as the Karpman drama triangle that is descriptive of the dysfunctional situation that exists between the United States and the Middle East.

Please refer to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karpman_drama_triangle for further insight of these dynamics.

We have a long list of countries we have meddled in with poor results. No maybe about it, it is time for a change in our, the United States, awareness and attitude.

I strongly recommend Americans visit Iran to find out for themselves rather then being dependent on prejudiced media and government sources.

Jack G. Campbell December 7, 2016

jussmartenuf.blogspot.com jussmartenuf@gmail.com

Tomorrow being the inauguration of a new political hegemony in the United States, i would be remiss to not add a comment or two about Israel as they are a central figure in the middle East and the incoming U.S. administration has already made overtures to the Likud and Bibi Netanyahu, as they pander to the fundamentalist Christian voter in the U.S. I fear for Iran as it is being used as a pawn by posing them as persecutors to influence Israeli/American policy.

It seems we have forgotten that 70 years ago over a million Palestinians were driven from lands they had lived on for centuries and have since been occupied by Israeli forces that have created an apartheid society that refuses to allow them equal citizenship. All it takes to see this reality is to visit Israel.

We are not alone in the scramble for wealth, prosperity and power. Israelis share many attributes as Christians do, and one is greed. Greed for money and Greed for power, the same as here in the United States. Capitalism and all it’s billions. The Jewish settlements are multi million dollar projects, billions collectively and great profits are to be made. A Palestinian state would curtail those profits.

Just like the United States, politics are controlled by powerful people and hardliners, Bibi Netanyahu and Donald Trump are two of them. I predict their hegemonies will not survive. World opinion as expressed at the United Nations in the condemnation of the illegal and immoral actions by the hardliner Israelis has exposed the corruption of it, much to the chagrin of many politicians.

The hardliners in Israel may be a small majority there, but worldwide the Jewish majority opposes more settlement expansion in Palestinian territory and wants a durable peace. http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/decision-time-2/ The consensus is that further expansion is a disastrous policy. I could go on, but limited by space.

As was explained to the world by our Secretary of State John Kerry, Netanyahu et al are on the wrong track; real simple. Human civil rights must prevail.

It is time for American statesmen to have the courage to criticize Israel when the criticism is correct and constructive, not to pander to Bibi for the vote of the wrongheaded American voter. Israel is not in danger from Iran, we protect them.

For the first time, i am afraid for the damage that our new administration could do to our world reputation. It is necessary to step away from the picture far enough to get an objective view, not one clouded with religious dogma and greed. Time to understand that we really are a world community and that a goal of peace with both Iran and Israel are possible, but not through the use of brutality.

The Palestinians need a country of their own for a multitude of reasons.

Bibi’s days are numbered but he will always have his loyalists, as will Trump and all the demagogues. http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/bye-bye-bibi/

Jack Campbell 2/19/2017 Nuff said jussmartenf@gmail.com

Chiapas, Tabasco, Palenque and other points way South

2017-03-27T07:32:00.000-05:00

I just returned from San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas Mexico and the neighboring states of Michoacan and Tabasco. The area is occupied by over 4 million inhabitants and many of them are of the regions' indigenous people, decendents of both the Mayan, Aztec and others, such as the present day Zapatistas.

Traveling with a group of 9 sponsored by The Center for Global Justice out of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. https://www.globaljusticecenter.org Arrangements had been made for us to visit a variety of towns as well as social organizations whose goals were the preservation and protection of the rights of these people. Many of these people still speak only their native tongues and are poorly educated; we were told there were 33 original languages and dialects.

Chiapas is the southernmost state in Mexico, and borders Guatemala. Some of these indigenous areas have been granted autonomy and have their own laws and answer to their own legal systems. Polygamy is an accepted practice in some areas and the problems of alcohol and spousal abuse are of particular concern. We visited the villages of Chamula and Zincantan where the catholic churches have yielded to local customs and the communities are autonomous.

We also visited Oventic which is a Zapatista community where a hoped for meeting and tour was declined due to other commitments by the officials, but a few days later we had an in depth tour of an impressive Zapatista vocational school. The Zapatista, the best known group, are well organized and committed to their autonomy.

Native women are pregnant early in life and the exponential population growth appears to make the possibility of social services and sustained gain difficult. The crowded population has the attendant problem and complications of overpopulation; i.e. slums, drug abuse, lack of services, poverty, pressures, demands on the environment, etc.

At 7200 ft in San Cristobal, tourism contributes substantially to the economy and the markets and street vendors offer a large variety of beautiful hand woven local fabrics. Street vendors are all around, a stop at a sidewalk cafe for coffee will yield a bevy of shoe shine boys, trinket girls, garment peddling women, etc.

I saw a lot of Gringo heavy hippy types, dreadlocks, some clean, some filthy, the works, i wondered where they had gone as I had not seen many in years.

The entire area is, of course, supported by the agricultural products and agriculture is in trouble in Mexico due to a variety of factors. If the United States reneges on its’ 1994 NAFTA commitment, things could get worse long before they get better. Mexican agriculture has made great changes since NAFTA, such as; since U.S. government subsidized corn (think ethanol) has become cheaper for them to import rather then grow their own, they have changed to other crops such as palm oil from palm trees which in a few years are abandoned as their productive life is over after about 20 years. Subsistence farmers raise family crops of basics, corn, beans= the total protein.

In Morelia, my friends Clay and Dorian Slate told me how planting and production of avocado (nicknamed "oro verde" or "green gold" by locals) trees has replaced traditional crops. As a result market prices are dropping due to increased production as young orchards start to come into production. I have noticed the drop in avocado prices in Dallas for some time.

There are local organizations such as CIDECI-UNITIERRA non profit http://seminarioscideci.org and SIPAZ http://www.sipaz.org working to promote “fair trade” practices to protect the native farmer from middle man exploitation as well as designs by Canadian mining interests on their farms as well as educate the farmer in proper ag practices. If minerals are found on private property they are considered the property of the state to be dealt with as behooves the government and properties can be confiscated with compensation should the government decide to.

The burning of fields continues on a large scale in spite of the environmental hazard, and yes, global warming/climate change is causing concern with changing rain fall patterns. Underground water tables are being reduced greatly in some areas. Areas in Mexico City specifically have had annual drops in surface elevation of up to 9”, sinking due to aquifer draining. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/02/17/world/americas/mexico-city-sinking.html?_r=0 There are large rivers in Chiapas/Tabasco/VeraCruz drainage area and a great amount of navigable water with aquaculture enterprises such as tilapia.

As you can see, it gets complicated.

After leaving San Cristobol, i traveled overland through the mountains and jungles to the ancient city of Palenque, capping the trip with visits to Mayan pyramids and palaces retrieved from the jungles. Then a visit to and outdoor museum in VillaHermosa of an even more ancient civilization, the Olmec people, Residents of the Yucatan long before the birth of Christ. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmec

After my visit to Ancient Persia last year, the coincidence of visiting an equally ancient unknown civilization on the other side of the world this year, has opened new areas of curiosity and research for me to explore. Don’t be surprised if the next time we meet i have a few tidbits of trivia for you on the subject.

jussmartenuf

Thank goodness I don’t need to be a genius.

Travel to Iran: Ripe For The Picking

2016-10-15T21:23:00.000-05:00

I recently returned from having spent 12 nights and 13 days in Iran.

That makes me an authority on the subject since so few living Americans have ever done so.
I could sit down with Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, and at least 98 if not 100% of congress and explain why and how things are as they are.

Many would not want to believe me because they have a great deal of vested power in their political positions they want to protect and have villainized Iran to the point of wanting war with them.

There is a strong undercurrent of hate in this country that is focused on religions other than Christian as being evil. Some of the politicians use this hatred as a focusing point to hold power. Hitler used the Jews the same way. He was said to have said something to the effect that had he not had the Jews he would have had to invent them.

This hatred, along with a double dose of ignorance, effects and affects itself in our foreign policy.
We get a lot of hatred in return. Hatred is an emotion, not a cognitive process.

In psychology there is a phenomenon known as the Karpman Triangle and this triangle consists of three parts. One is the Persecutor one is the Victim and one is the Rescuer. A persecutor does not have to be a person, it can be a place or a thing but we need one for there to be a victim.

Now that we have a victim we need a rescuer. That is the weakest position to be in, the one with most consequences to pay.

Games don't have to be bad, but political games wind up that way, unless.....

A rule of the game is that games are played out of a state of awareness. People are unaware that they are in these games. A state of awareness in necessary to save yourself from the cruel game.

What goes on with Iran vs the western world goes back 2000 years before the United States with all its exceptionalism existed.

Religion plays a major role in all our lives whether we like it or not. The United States was founded on freedom of religion and also freedom from religion.

When i was a child in Sunday school i found myself stumped on how god could change Lott's wife to a pillar of salt for looking over her shoulder, yet in the alter above was a sign that said "God is Love". This conundrum helped to free me from religious dogma and the bias, prejudice and arrogance that so often accompany it.

Everyone knows the bible and the koran were written by men, not by an unseen being. A human being wrote it and the bible is full metaphors and analogies. It is too difficult to think about mortality when everlasting life is the desire. Is it not possible that we came from eternity and we will return there?

Therefore religion is a powerful force in our society and our politics.

Politics, by the way, were first. The religions came along later and each had to blend in to gain strength in the established culture. And gradually it has come to theocracies in some places.

This is the world today, the game that is being played uses countries as players, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Iran the U.S. and assorted Allies.

You can only see all this if you step out of the game. Take your emotions out of it an become an observer.

There is no reason for Iran to like us, yet they do. We overthrew their democratically elected government in 1952 and installed a dictator, the Shah. A despot. A deal cut with the petroleum industry in both the U.K. and U.S. and our leaders, Eisenhower and Churchill.

We supported Iraq's invasion of Iran in 1980. We attacked out of trumped up fear and greed their neighbors both to the West and East, Iraq and Afghanistan and threaten Iran with war if they build a nuclear weapon to defend themselves.

Iran has signed a nuclear treaty with China, Russia, England, Germany, the European Union and the United States. Our current presidential choice is between people who want to tear it up or want to keep it. A simple decision if you are not eaten up with hate and fear, they are emotions and religion is emotional.

Hate and fear are what a lot of our politicians preach. Part of their gospel to sway the flock toward their vote for salvation, all under the banner of god.

Can you imagine an atheist getting a fair shake if running for office? I cannot.

Stop being afraid, stop being angry, they are emotions, not cognitive processes, and we become able to step out of the game and observe what is going on without the emotion.

It is time to step out of the game, use our heads and seek a lasting peace with Iran, the people there desire it, the Ayatollah will ultimately listen to the will of the people, in the meanwhile we need to give him reason to believe peace is possible. Peace with Iran is a low hanging fruit, we need to pick it.

We're the Sea Bees of the Navy

2016-04-01T18:10:00.000-05:00

Today is an anniversary date. I guess everyday is, of a sort, but this one is special for me.
On April 1, 1945 the United States armed forces began the invasion of Okinawa.
Okinawa was the last major obstacle in the Pacific sweep of American forces in their battle against the Empire of Japan.
This was the largest amphibious invasion in the history of the world (Most folks think the Omaha beach D-Day invasion of France was the biggest, it was super big and also ran by the Sea Bees but Okinawa was the biggest). Okinawa was to be the staging point for the American invasion of the Japanese homeland. In Japan the population was being readied to fight to the death against the American invaders.
A giant armada of ships, planes and personnel gathered off shore and the logistics of the plan was to be handled by a newly organized unit of the navy called the Construction Battalions, or C.B.'s for short and Sea Bees for insignia. They had to get all those supplies of ammunition, food, medical supplies, and equipment to build airstrips, etc. ashore, right?

The "Can Do" people.
I was a 9 year old street kid in a small town in Kansas, Independence to be exact. A kid with an older and younger brother and a Mother all faithfully waiting for our Father and husband to return from the war. Last we had seen of Dad was when we put him on a train for the West coast. He was in full dress uniform and we were some proud. We had no idea where he was going beyond there, it was all secret. Loose lips sink ships.
I remember the day well, I also remember being gut afraid we would never see him again, but that was each our private secret.
Little did we know that he was among that armada of ships and men, just waiting to storm the beach along with thousands of other patriots.
And storm it they did and conquer they did as 82 days later enemy resistance ended. You don't know that you don't know Jack. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Okinawa
The Greatest Generation is what Tom Brokaw called them.
I am a product of that greatest generation and i am sick to tears of the belly aching, whining, stupid politicians and their ignoratnt followers who are in a constant stir about how terrible things are in my country.
This is the greatest country on the face of the earth, and when a politician lies and panders to his base that our country is not great or only a shadow of our past greatness, he or she can go straight to hell.
The constant lies and distortions of politicians that scream "be afraid, be very afraid, but stand behind me, i will protect you if you only vote for me" is repulsive. These people are not patriots, they are fear mongers, they are traitors. Traitors to the tradition of "Can Do" the Greatest Generation established.
So let me wrap it up with this: If all anyone can do is complain about our country, leave it. Go to someplace they think better and take their third rate politicians and negative crap with them.
America is already great.
Thank you my Sea Bee Dad, and thanks to all the others who gave whatever was necessary to make this great country what it is, a country where even low life lying politicians and pseudo patriots are free to speak their minds, even if they are dead wrong.

I'm Baaaaack And I Have Stuff to Tell You

2016-03-28T08:51:00.001-05:00

Sorry to be so long but a lot has gone on and there is a lot to catch up on.

Since we usually carry on in a political bent sort of way and most of us are quite full of hearing about Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, i did not want to be redundant.

As usual the best Republican candidate (Kasich) no longer has a mathematical chance of garnering enough delegates before the convention in Cleveland so let's just skip on to the Dems.

But i need to talk about Bernie and Hillary as one of them is going to be our next president and we need to make an informed decision as who to pick.

There is no doubt both are the best qualified of the 4. Trump has very few qualifications outside of being over 35 and a natural born U.S. citizen (glad to get the citizen thing out of the way first thing).
As far as Cruz goes, he can get only radical right wing Republicans to vote for him, those who would not vote for Jesus if he came down from the cross and declared himself a Democrat, which of course would be his party of choice.

Everyone know why they hate Cruz immediately? Because it saves time.

Over most of the last three decades we have had a belly full of conspiracy theories about Hillary. That she was a criminal in the Whitewater investigation, yet she was exonerated. It was insinuated that she was responsible for the death of one of Bill's staff that committed suicide. That was totally debunked. Then the issue about Benghazi which has been cleared by a Republican committee itself, even though the balance of the Republicans choose to ignore the findings. And now the e-mail issue which has been under the microscope by the F.B.I. for some time and no decision yet.

But why bother, the shrill voices of the right have no kind word for a single soul that does not subscribe to their desire to kill social programs for the population.

Then we have Bernie. Steadfast, resolute.

Do you hear anyone else telling you "the system is rigged"? That is the truth. Wall street and the
You heard about the Carrier Air Conditioning factory that is closing and moving 1,400 jobs to Mexico didn't you? Be aware that is because Wall Street has profit numbers they have assigned to Carrier and they don't give a hoot that our jobs are moving out of country, they are promoting it, for profit.

So when you hear of how Wall Street invests in America, don't you believe it, it is exactly what they want you to think and Bernie is the only one telling you who the real villains are.

Get out and promote his cause, because it is your cause.

If you don't know that, you don't know Jack. And Jack is back.

America: Who Runs This Country?

2015-08-13T09:36:00.001-05:00

Plagiarism abounds. All you have to do is take a hiatus for a while and someone tries to steal your thunder. I googled up my name and found someone else who picked it up, more than likely because it is unique, clever and says sooooo much. I guess it is not illegal for someone to name their child after me.

Anyway, I am still here and will ignore the plagiarist as i have no time for copy cats while the real deal is available.

The new political season is upon us, early as it is, the airwaves abound with Trump-isms and i am not about to down the man as he is a refreshing change in the hum-drum from the usual suspects. Just yesterday i saw where it is 168 or 186 days away from the first primary in Iowa, where this time last election cycle Michele Bachman and Rick Santorum were leading the polls, giving us a good indication of what the Iowa Republican Caucus represents in the way of reality.

But i want to talk about more serious stuff. I watched the first FOX debates along with 24 million other people, and yes The Donald did enhance my attention.

Trump with his Mensa Muse Rudi Giuliani

At this time he leads the polls followed closely by Doc Carson. Where are the true hawks? Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina bloviator, has dwindled to last place and now has zero percent of the polls. How can that be? Maybe because he did not whine loud enough when they took down the Confederate Battle Flag after the slaughter of 9 South Carolina peaceful citizens? Rick Perry's donors have all rode off into the sunset and Gilmore (who?) has dropped off the chart.

But enough of the small talk. One thing that was common in the debates was that there was no talk of the main issues facing America's Middle and down classes. Of course they all wanted to help the common man by doing away with the Affordable Health Care act, watering down or even killing social security for our children and grandchildren, importing more foreign specialists rather than educating our own while sending anchor babies back to where their ancestors came from, increasing spending in order to send our young men and women to war with Iran all the while defunding government and ignoring our infrastructure, but beyond that they miss the point entirely. Correction; "miss the point entirely" should read "ignore the point intentionally".

The Donald told everyone how money buys favors in politics and anyone who does not understand that does not know jack. Billions can buy favors unlimited and this bunch of candidates is on the take big big time.

While Republicans, invoking the name of Reagan (not quite as much as the name of God yet more than Jesus), always say Washington is the problem and then trick voters into sending representatives to Washington who make sure it does not work properly, which makes it a self fulfilling prophecy.
To find the real problem is real easy: Follow The Money.

Multiple choice questions:

1. Who sends our jobs overseas? A. Government B. Corporations C. Disney cruise lines?

2. Who hides Trillions in overseas tax havens ?
A. Corporations B. Government C. Mitt Romney D. A great many of American "Industrialists"?

3. Who tries to buy elections in this country?
A. Sheldon Adelson B. Charles & David Koch C. Rupert Murdoch D. All the fore mentioned E. a burger flipper?

$30.3 Billion Oligarch Sheldon Adelson

3. Does money A. trickle down from Apple to its consumers or B. trickle up to apple from its consumers? C. same question about Exxon, GE, J.P. Morgan, Citibank and more.

4. Who pays a higher percentage in taxes (Income + Payroll)? A. An independent house painter B. The National Football League C. a Wall Street Billionaire?

5. Is Climate change A. a conspiracy of atheist scientists B. an inconvenience to the hydrocarbon producers like the Koch brothers that Senator Inhofe of Oklahoma gets his money from? C. a signal to buy heavier wool clothing? D. A signal to buy lighter cotton clothing?

How you doing so far? Get my drift? This total bunch of losers hoping to run our economy do not even know what the problems are, so it is impossible for them to fix them. Failed policies repeated do not a winner make.

Does this give you a clue as to why Bernie Sanders is drawing standing room only crowds everywhere he speaks?

You don't have to be real smart to answer the above, you have to be jussmartenuf, like me.

I told you i would be back and i am. Watch for my next epistle, so you can say "you know jack".

WHOA!

2012-06-28T19:08:00.000-05:00

i read the news today, oh boy!

It is really hard to make something important interesting, then all of a sudden something happens to change that.

Justice Clarence Thomas

The supremes really surprised me. i take that back. Only one of them. Chief Justice John Roberts proving he was jussmartenuf by siding with the four other sensible justices was a surprise. Roberts was an appointee of George W. Bush and i expected him to vote against this mostly Democratic legislation.

Justice Anthony Kennedy was a bit of a toss up, but he went hard right, after all he was appointed by Reagan and thinks corporations are human beings.

Justice Antonin Scalia was not in doubt, he voted to make George W. Bush president by cutting off the recount of voting in Florida in 2000 while Gore was ahead overall in the 50 states by more then half a million votes. He is a registered Republican who accepted an offer from the shrill Michele Bachman to speak to Tea Party new comers in congress and was a duck hunting buddy of Dick Cheney. No surprises there.

We all knew well in advance what Clarence Thomas was going to do, he was going to vote exactly as his wife "Ginnie" instructed him to do if he knew what was good for him and if he wanted dinner on the table, etcetera. After Clarence found out his moves were not cool enough for Anita Hill and wound up with "Ginnie" the die was cast.

You remember Ginnie, she is the jerk who had the audacity to call Anita Hill and ask her to apologize for not liking her hubbies vulgar advances. Click on the above links in case your memory need refreshing. Virginia Thomas is a product of the uber right wing nut faction of the Republican party. Her curriculum vitae includes stints as a consultant for former house leader and radical Tea Party spokesman Dick Armey. You remember Dick, he is the one who called Gay congressman Barney Frank "Barney Fag" and then said it was just a mispronunciation. Barney said that was funny, no one ever referred to his mother as (Mrs.) Elsie Fag.

After her stint with the vulgar homophobe Armey, she moved on to the conservative "think tank" (bit of an oxymoron there) Heritage Foundation. You remember them, they are the ones who originally recommended the individual mandate that Romney used when he created "Romneycare" for the folks in Mass before he was against it for the rest of us. Then she became the head of the conservative lobbying group she dreamed up called Liberty Central. All of this and still Thomas would not recuse himself from the decision rendered today from the Supreme Court. This creep made it onto the supreme court by a vote of 48 against and 52 for. Some of the "fors" were misogynistic Democrats who preferred to believe the lies written about Anita Hill by David Brock, who was a conservative lackey who has since admitted he lied to support a right wing Murdoch conspiracy to ruin Hill and picture her as less than a lady. In atonement Brock has created the web site Media Matters, a site that exposes political lies and distortions.

But enough of hypocrisy and political double dealing.

Minutes after the decision was made public Mitt Romney made a 4 minute and 11 second address in which he used the term "Obamacare" 18 times. Now wouldn't you think anyone running for the Presidency would be smart enough to know that was not the name of the case involved? It is the Affordable Care Act, people. Affordable Care, key words that Romney hates because they have a nice ring to them. Romney also made a couple of very untrue statements, kinda like he was a Sarah Palin or Glen Beck.

Romney used the phrase "Obamacare" 18 times because much of his base stupidly hates our president and he wants to feed that hatred as he hopes it will help him get elected. If you don't know that you don't know jack.

Bottom line is this: the Roberts court today passed down a decision that is a God send for all Americans whether they realize it yet or not. Hopefully this is a stake in the heart of the heartless who wish to deny their fellow citizens healthcare, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The opponents of this bill will continue to waste precious time beating their gums about a done deal. Their main avenue of attack will be to say it raises taxes on the middle class and small business. It involves only businesses with over 50 employees who should already be covering their employees and gives those companies tax breaks for it. Also it involves individual responsibility which is usually a Republican talking point. Besides anyone who has insurance is not affected nor are those who cannot afford it.

Next we need to see that there is a medical community to support the care of all the newly insured. And regarding immigration, did you know there are almost 50,000 Indian doctors practicing in the U.S. now? But that is another story.

In the mean while we are on the right track, not perfect like single payer, but on the right track, and i will be back, trust me.

Blaze

2012-05-20T17:13:00.003-05:00

Happy Memorial Day and God bless all those who have gone before us.

Certain things stand out in my memory. If anyone were to ask me what was my favorite movie it would be impossible to choose just one because there are soooo many really good ones that have been made.

From all those movies, there have been certain lines that have really stood out. All of us would probably agree that "make my day" or "I'll be back" are a couple of them.
One of my very favorite was from a film made in 1989 that starred Paul Newman as the flamboyant governor of Louisiana, Huey Long, and Lolita Davidovich as his sweetie, Blaze Starr.

As i remember it, Blaze was a young girl leaving home to make her way in the world as a stripper in New Orleans. Blaze sought the wisdom of her Mother before leaving and asked her if there was anything she could tell her that would help her along the way. Her mother told her "Blaze, Honey, never trust a man who says trust me".

Great line.

I seldom go the movies any more. Maybe 4 or 5 times a year. I went to see "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" several weeks ago and it was a winner, looking at contemporaries of mine dealing with the discontents of aging. Penelope Wilton in a supporting role should get an oscar. But this is not to be a movie review.

As i mentioned in a previous post, i start most of my days before daylight with a large cup of French roast and my email. i get a lot of email. From friends and family of course, and a good bit of news reporting, every major newspaper in the world is available for reading. i usually spend little to no time on the stock market and sports, as i prefer world and national events, social issues. Some of the websites are interactive so i can even throw in a comment now and then if i wish. If i am not careful i spend too much time reading people argue with each other, kind of a you said, no you said, fest. A bit Jerry Springer even. i could cliche you and say it breaks the monotony, but i have no monotony.

A lot of the comments are from people that are reasonable and thought provoking, but there also is a fringe element of anger and hatred that is exchanged that is remarkable. A lot of the articles are sometimes predictable; there are Tom Friedman, Robert Reich and Paul Krugman, then there are Erick Erickson, Charles Krauthammer and George Will. That pretty much covers left to right, but not the far far right. There are other brilliant writers outside of the mainstream, I delight in finding them. Mark Ames is one and i have a link for you after this bit of repulsive trivia.

The far far right or the fringe does a disservice to intelligent discourse. I don't want to have anything to do with people like Charles Worley, the Baptist Minister in North Carolina who last week said they should take all the lesbians and put them behind one fence and the "queers and homosexuals" behind another fence, and humanly drop food into them till they die off. You saw it. You heard it. Here it is if you can stomach it. Worley sermon. (please use the printed link to connect to video as the one posted somehow was removed, probably by the source.)

Disgusting people like Worley are totally irretrievable, completely out of the main stream and will not change, don't waste time trying to communicate with them. They are the fringe right that always vote Republican and most Republicans cannot stand their hateful positions. After all, if you can't trust your preacher who can you trust. These people and anyone who really believes Obama is not a bona fide United States citizen are just too far stupid to communicate with. Don Trump wants you to trust him. George Will said Donald Trump is a "bloviating ignoramus with a very low IQ". You hit a home run on that one, George. Trump doesn't know Jack

You gotta be jussmartenuf. We all understand that nothing is free. It all has to be paid for. No free lunch unless you're buying drinks or rolling the dice. There is a great sum of money out there, enough to go around, but it doesn't and we all know why. A lot of folks can't see through the smokescreen put out by biased sources. Can we really trust the sources we gather from?

Money is basically made only three ways: 1. You work for it; you paint a house, you wait on customers, you go to your office every day and keep books, teach pathology or teach school, etc. 2. You put your money or others money to work; a 401K, investment in your own lawn service or lash salon, or gamble the stock market. 3. You make money off of people; you hire a salesperson who sells your products at a profit, you pay people to do work and create a profit for you. (Of course you can inherit it, but someone had to make it first.)

So let's visit a bit about an article by Mark Ames who i mentioned above. i think it is interesting and provocative to reasonable people of all political persuasion. It is all about how the Russian economy was looted by the ruthless oligarchs that developed when the socialist system in Russia privatized. The looting of billions and the suffering and death of hundreds of millions was the result. It goes on to tell of oligarchs here in the US who are looting our system with no reprisal. These are leading pillars of industry. You will see the parallels to our society today, they are there, shadows in our system that need light shined on them. Who are the other oligarchs in our society? Read oligarch and come to your own conclusion.

May i say at this time, i have close friends and people that i admire who are of all political persuasions, but they are not of the radical fringe. Virtually all Democrats want fiscal responsibility same as Republicans. Heck, even the right wing Forbes states that Obama is the smallest government spender since Eisenhower, would you believe it, what with all the false information being spewed by ideologues. Who ya gonna trust?

Virtually all Republicans want all our citizens to have preventive and rehabilitative healthcare along with prosperity. But we cannot simply austere ourselves into prosperity. I think the Republican party has abandoned more than half of the Republicans that belong to it, or at least abandoned them on critical social and fiscal issues. Republicans themselves decry issues such as the personal freedoms many of their party wish to destroy. So my Republican friends, let me tell you what you can do about it.

Abandon the Republican Party, at least for now. To support it is to support the radical fringe that is so vile. The party is immobilized by the radical fringe that is so angry they cannot think clearly. Join the independents and Democrats in voting for Obama this November. You know he will listen to us and you know Grover Norquist will not. Let's put America back on the right track together. The oligarchs have us divided over issues that are red herrings. Together we can focus on the social issues like health care for all and fiscal issues. Corporations and the oligarchs who control them make billions and pay little or zero taxes. We all know that is a truth, many say so themselves. We can dump the members of congress of both parties who are oligarchic puppets.

But we must do this together, we're all in it together. Out of many, one. Think about it

I'll be back. Trust me.

Everybody's Got One

2012-05-13T15:08:00.000-05:00

Happy Mother's Day Mother, wherever you are.
Mother passed on May 25, 1984, coming up 28 years ago later this month. I miss her regularly. She was born August 14, 1909 in Muskogee, Oklahoma of truly pioneer stock.

Mother was 11 years old before women in the United States had the right to vote, prior to that time they were legally second class citizens. On August 18, 1920, Congress finally ratified the 19th amendment giving all women the right to vote. Even at that the vote in the Senate was 56 for and 25 against ratification (weren't those 25 a stupid lot?). It seems unbelievable that this obvious civil right was denied to women for so long but it was. Even after ratification by the needed 3/4 of the 48 state legislatures, it wasn't until 1984, 64 years later that Mississippi, the last of 12 hold out states, finally ratified it making it 100%.

The civil rights act of 1964 giving our Black citizens the same rights as Whites was also a torturous path to passage. We all have seen the pictures of George Wallace, the Democratic governor of Alabama, standing in the doorway of the University of Alabama refusing to allow Black students to enter. We also remember Lester Maddox, the Democratic governor of Georgia who kept a supply of axe handles in his restaurant to beat Black patrons should they try to enter. Maddox, by the way, did not win a majority of the popular vote and was appointed, not elected, by the Democratic state legislature of the time.

My how things have changed. This broke the back of segregation in our country and was the pivot point that turned the deep south away from the Democrat party and President Lyndon Johnson who led this Civil Rights Act, and turned the deep south into majority Republican states. To say that racial, religious and sexual preference prejudice does not exist in the south today is a lie, i know because i live there. Heck, 45 years ago racial intermarriage was against the law in 14 states.

Today we are confronted with this same incredible obstinacy that borders on class stupidity in denying members of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender (GLBT) communities the right to their inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness. Thank goodness most of these obstinate people will make the change and act to support this freedom because in their hearts they know it is the right thing to do. They know this human right is guaranteed to ALL Americans in the Declaration of Independence. Inalienable means something that cannot be taken away and cannot even be given away. Anyone who stands in the way of this inalienable right is on the wrong side of history. If you don't know that, you don't know jack.

The GLBT community has been the whipping boy for a large segment of people all of whom may not be aware of the bigotry involved in their denial of recognition.

This right is overdue and regardless of how many states vote to outlaw this inalienable right like North Carolina just did, that is only temporary. I would say that North Carolina just showed its ass, but a great many people there voted against this prejudice which is proof that change is coming and this vote will not stand. Freedom and Liberty is coming for all as sure as the sun will rise in the East. The obstinate will not accept this easily, i am sorry to say. It will be tested in the Supreme Court but the right to same sex marriage is coming as sure as the next rain.

This bigotry too shall end, you just need to be jussmartenf to understand it.

Happy Mothers Day, Mother. You taught me well.

Conspiracy or Fact?

2012-05-13T08:19:00.000-05:00

There are conspiracy theories and then there are conspiracy theories. They abound, particularly with the advent of the internet.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Marilyn Monroe's death. Was it accidental? Was it suicide? Was it murder? After all, Marilyn was allegedly having undercover rendezvous with JFK and maybe RFK. All this arranged by Frank Sinatra and Frank did have ties to the mafia, no theory there. So did the mafia rub out Marilyn as she was getting too hot for comfort with her rendition of "happy birthday Mr. President" at his birthday gala?

Next year is the 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination. Was it the work of a single warped mind? Simply a coincidence that Oswald was in the right place at the wrong time for Kennedy or was it something more, concocted and constructed during one of Oswald's trips to Cuba or Russia? After all, Oswald was married to a Russian, wasn't he?

And more recently, the twin towers. Were they actually a set up deal by the C.I.A. to create a cause to attack Iraq? Didn't both Bush and Cheney, being oil men, have a plan to take over the Iraqi oil production? After all, they hated Hussein and Hussein hated them and they did say Iraqi oil would pay for the cost of the war, didn't they? They did say there could be "mushroom clouds" over the U.S. if we didn't do a preemptive strike, remember?They didn't attack Cuba who has no oil, did they?

And then there are the Chemtrails that most folks mistake for contrails. You know, the cloud like streaks that follow airplanes at high altitudes. Are they really contrails or are they chemicals being sprayed by the government in conspiracy with Rothschild empire as a genocidal pogrom against the middle class?

Had enough? All right then try this one on for a fact. Let's see if you are jussmartenuf to get it. There is a conspiracy by many of the billionaires of the United States to gain control of the government for their personal benefit. There always has been and there is today. In your gut you know that. Heck, this is old news. Even back in the 30's as FDR was trying to put in safeguards for the middle (and poorer) classes such as the Glass-Steagall Act and the Social Security Act, the Republicans led by Senator/financial powers such as Prescott Bush were trying to prevent them. You remember Prescott, he begat Bush #41 who begat Bush #43 all part of the American elite aristocracy that still battles rights for the individual. In 1999 they repealed the Glass-Steagall act and the world wide financial melt down and eleven trillions of dollars of middle class investments lost overnight was the result.

Now the Republican mantra is Social Security is bankrupt and it is not.

Let's just take two billionaires to illustrate our conspiracy point. The Koch brothers of Kansas are two of the richest people in the world. They are estimated to have fortunes in excess of 30 billion dollars each. Their fortunes combined would make them the richest person in the world. They started out rich, as their Daddy made a fortune with Joe Stalin in Russia in the oil and gas business before WWII. Every year the Koch Brothers hold closed meetings at exclusive resorts where they invite a small number of very powerful guests. Guests that include governors of states, like Rick Perry of Texas; Supreme court justices, like Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas (both of whom voted to allow corporations, like Koch Industries to make unlimited secret donations to the political interests they choose); the head of the United States Chamber of Commerce (which really is simply a lobbying organization for Industrial giants); and varied other billionaire controllers of industry. Their goal is to influence the laws of our country to their personal benefit. The ALEC http://www.justice.org/cps/rde/xchg/justice/hs.xsl/15044.htm templates of state and federal laws they want enacted originate from these meetings.

In order to get what they wish for they need to destroy many, if not all, of the benefits of the middle class such as social security and medicare.

Photos from Rolling Stone

I know, you think this sounds nuts, but it is not. Hear me out. Let's just take Social Security and Medicare for example. Why would these billionaires want to destroy them? To increase the bottom line profit of their companies and make themselves richer is why. Hasn't every billionaire simply wanted to make more money? Romney is not even a billionaire, just a third rate 250 million dollar man who makes over $20,000,000 per year and pays less taxes then you do (and no social security or medicare payroll taxes). His fortune will continue to grow as you cannot even spend that much money unless you are running for political office and are willing to fund your own way. Romney is funded and supported by, among others, the Koch brothers through their vast network of so called "think tanks" and political action committees (PAC's) with patriotic sounding names such as "Americans for Prosperity" and "Freedom Works" into which they have poured tens of millions of dollars to influence your vote and destroy collective bargaining rights for the American worker while demonizing the worker as the problem in this process.

On any company income statement, which lists both income and expenses, the largest expense of almost any company is payroll. The amount paid their labor forces is in the trillions of dollars annually for corporate hires in the U.S. The social security and medicare taxes corporations must pay for these workers is 7.45% of payroll. That is $74,500,000,000 for each trillion in payroll that drops immediately to the bottom line to be cut up and added to the assets of the industrial leaders. When you multiply that times the several trillion dollars in payroll for the middle class it begins to add up. This means more $50 million bonuses for their execs, more summer and winter palaces, more and larger yachts and jet aircraft, helicopters to get the kids to school. Sure there is a pittance for the small investor, but it is all paid for by the middle class citizen, their buying power is reduced, their quality of life is reduced by that same amount. Many of these companies do not pay dividends and the Koch companies are privately held, not even on the stock exchanges, so you could not participate in their profits if you wanted to.

You would think the Industrial giants would understand that if they supported more wealth for the middle class it comes back to them in spades through purchase of their products, whether raw materials or finished products. Henry Ford figured that out, but these people don't. The key word is avarice which is greed for extreme wealth and the power it brings.

The Kochs along with other billionaires like Sheldon Adelson who funded a Republican candidate, who wanted to spend taxpayer money to establish a colony on the moon while reducing food aid to the poor, with $20 million bucks. There are many many more billionaires like these, we can get to them at another time, but you know the type, the ones who smear through innuendo and distortions like Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch.

(Pictures of Koch Industries home offices in Wichita Kansas and a port terminal of Koch Industries.) http://www.kochind.com/

These billionaire industry leaders own the Republican Party (and a large chunk of the Democrats too), or at least a large portion of it and the financial industry owns the rest. (You do know that the financial industry in the US is twice as big as the manufacturing industry, don't you?) Many in the financial sector just want to privatize social security, not destroy it, which is Wall Street code for run it through their system so they can skim a few hundred million of it every year as a handling cost. The Republican party even makes a big deal about how they are more business friendly and the Democrats are not. You have heard these pitches yourself.

In November you will have an opportunity to vote for middle class American workers or for the Billionaires of industry who in the search of more riches have sent our jobs overseas. Industry, not government, is the culprit in American manufacturing job loss, but industry would have you think otherwise.

If you can't see and understand this you don't know jack.

Stay tuned. I'll be back.

Mine is better. No it's not. Yes it is. No it's not. Etc.

2011-11-03T10:58:00.002-05:00

If your parents never had any children, chances are that you will not have any children; it's in your DNA. But then you knew that, didn't you?

Deoxyribonucleic Acid, DNA, is the main constituent of chromosomes that is present in the carrier of genetic information in all living organisms, the chain of which we are at the top. Now, don't take any ego satisfaction from that, for, as we will see, this does and does not mean that we, being smarter than the average bear on the street, know Jack about genetics.

One thing we do know is that there is not a religious gene.

Religion is a learned thing. If i were born in Yemen, i would probably grow up being a Muslim. Had i been born in Israel, chances are good i would have been a Jew; in Rome, a Catholic; in Burma, a Buddhist; in Salt Lake City, who knows? In the United States, the probability would be that i would grow up a Christian, taught the religion of my family before me, eager to accept, as it was part of being a "good boy" and the benefits thereof. And so it was.

A few weeks ago the pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, Robert Jeffress, stated that Mormonism is a cult, not just a regular cult but a "theological cult" as opposed to a "sociological cult." The difference between a cult and a mainstream religion is sometimes defined by the number of members. According to the Mormon Church, "the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" in America has the fourth-largest number of followers. Other sources differ, but who decides when a church is mainstream vs. cultish? Most of us have people we care about who are Mormons; the same goes for the Baptists, Catholics and Jews, as well as many other religions. Even atheists or agnostics. Maybe even a Muslim or two, at least i do.

i am jusssmartunuf to know that one human being is not superior or better than another because of what church they do or do not go to, and that includes Pastor Jeffress, the Pope, the President, every member of congress, every PhD, MD, and DD. Better educated maybe, more famous maybe, smarter maybe (but never ever in every category), more powerful even, but not superior or better.

I don't know Pastor Jeffress and suspect he meets and presents himself well as that is a keystone to success in his business. Pastor Jeffress is a highly educated person and, as a result, limited by the prison of his education, unable to think outside the fences created by the dogma of his religion. That is my personal opinion. Education does not necessarily make a person smarter, but it has a tendency to make them think they are smarter, and that is almost the same thing. Almost. Jeffress teaches what he has been taught. Just because we are taught something does not mean it is correct.

The Bible is a history, a dated history. The King James version was printed 400 years ago this year, and chapters of the Old Testament go back over 2000 years, long before genetics and long before people were encouraged to think outside the box. In fact, in those days thinking outside the box just might get your fingernails pulled out, or maybe even nailed to a cross. The Bible did not drop out of the sky, fact is the Bible was written by human beings who, i believe, all had their personal prejudices which influenced their scripture, just as Dr. Jeffress' personal prejudice and dogma influence his choices, as do ours.

This is the reason the Dr. Jeffresses of the world experience a learned, not inherited, ignorance. They are bound by the limits of what they have been taught.

Jeffress went further to say that the qualifications of the next president are that he be a "born-again Christian" and added that his horse in the presidential race was named Rick Perry, the homophobic Governor of Texas. So all you of mainstream religions like Jews, Catholics, Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians etc., are not qualified to be president, according to Jeffress.

Having never attended Dr. Jeffress' church, and having no intention of doing so, i can only surmise about what might be preached as gospel thereabout. Is it about how the constitutional wall that separates church from state does not really exist, that homosexuality is a sin, that the world was created and did not evolve? Three conjectures that are dead wrong.

Everyone has a constitutional right to say anything. It does not have to be factual, and it is up to us to be jussmartenuf to separate the pepper from the flyspecks.

Dr. Jeffress and the people who agree with him are not an uncommon phenomenon; they are replicated in mass. They exist in a state of confirmatory bias and will continue to do so, as long as Jeffress and his ilk continue to teach their learned ignorance.

It is our obligation as thinking beings to object to such nonsense.

The ninth rule of the Roy Rogers Riders is "Love God and go to Sunday School". Not bad advice, but it all depends on what my Sunday School is teaching.

For what it is worth, one of the Republican presidential candidates (the one i think is the best of the lot), Jon Huntsman, a Mormon, said of Dr. Jeffress, "He is a moron."

I agree.

Slave Labor

2011-10-26T15:02:00.000-05:00

A couple of years ago, Annie and i were traveling up highway 287 and were southeast of Crockett, Texas by about 15 miles when we decided to see what the next roadside historical marker had to tell us. We arbitrarily pick one every once in a while just for grins and to break the monotony of our travel. They usually bring pretty much unexciting information about a church that used to be on that site and the name of the landowner who donated the land and maybe the long gone circuit riding preacher that was involved. Or else it might be tell of a graveyard located 2 miles from the marker. This time we got lucky.

The marker told us a brief story of how in 1847 twenty eight year old Albert Holley was setting up a homestead in East Texas. He was arriving from Alabama with his group of 137 slaves. The rest of his family was coming to Texas from Alabama by boat.

Southern Slave

I was stunned to think of the responsibility of having to care for that many people. Slaves in 1850 were selling at various prices, depending on their age, sex and physical condition, but a primo slave, 23 years old, could bring around 1,200 dollars to the seller. So it was quite an investment in 1850 and Holley was a large slave owner as few owned so many and about 75% of the white population owned none. The slaves were of different ages, and sexes I would suppose, detail is not available, but it would seem reasonable that anyone with that many slaves traded in human beings to a substantial degree. Anyone with 137 slaves was definitely in the slave breeding business. Marriage was outlawed between slaves and most were kept dumbed down as they needed to be jussmartenuf to do what was needed of them, and no more. Dumb was good. It was all legal.

Today it seems that the same is being applied to the rank and file of American citizenry by most of our titans of industry and finance and our media. Of course there has been a class war going on for not only decades but generations. There is nothing wrong with making a million dollars. As Reverend Ike used to say, "The best thing we can do for the poor is not be one of them." But even though it is not illegal and is even admirable to make a ton of money, there is something immoral when it is done through the exploitation of the underprivileged.

Today's minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, which projects to $15,080 per year, working 40 hours per week, 52 weeks of the year. It does not include benefits of any sort. Some politicians and pundits say this is too much money and should be reduced or that the minimum wage should be abolished altogether. Think about this, based on the same formula, Rush Limbaugh makes $27,885 per hour.*

I know the argument; this is usually for entry-level people, often teenage workers or people will little or no skills, but surely some are single mothers needing to feed their children. Nevertheless, that person is faced with the same problems we all encounter daily: the need for food, clothing, shelter, medical care, transportation and all on $15,080 per year, that's gross and if you think that is a living wage, you don't know Jack. With the recent Obama reduction in Social Security tax for the worker to .042% and the other payroll tax deduction of Medicare, which is .0145%, the net comes down to $14,228 or $38.98 per day, further reduced by the fact that in Texas the state adds an .0825% tax to all purchases except medical care or for food bought in a grocery store. Don't we all remember Rachael Ray's show about her being able to miraculously buy three meals a day for just $40.00? (Just an aside: when Rachael came to do Dallas on $40.00 a day she stayed in the pricey ZaZa boutique hotel where prices start at around $600 per night for the cheap rooms. Their server is down so i cannot confirm actual prices at this time.)

We can extrapolate further. You can take exception that McDonald's has a dollar burger, but don't you get my drift? Minimum wage is not even a living wage for one person, let alone someone with a dependent. You can expect to see this person lined up at the emergency room for medical care as it is improbable that they have access to a personal physician for preventive care.

Today Albert Holley would not have to concern himself with the care and feeding of 137 slaves, many of whom would be unproductive as they would be too young or too old or too ill. He would not have to clothe or feed or shelter his help. He would not have to concern himself with their well-being when the workload slacked, such as in the dead of winter. All he would need to do is to draw on the millions of Americans today that are looking for work, any work. All they need to do to qualify is to be jussmartenuf.

*$58 million divided by 2080 working hours per year.

Chapter one: becoming jussmartenuf

2011-10-20T00:52:00.002-05:00

Riley lived in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. He was a horse man all his life, in fact he died from a stroke he suffered chasing a horse across the pasture. He made his living and raised a family as a small business man, he had an automobile body repair shop a few miles north in Tulsa.

I never knew too much about horses, and after i got to know them a bit i didn't want to know too much about horses, having learned that, like people, they sometimes had disagreeable dispositions. Also, it seemed when riding, every time my posterior was coming down the hard saddle was coming up to meet me, giving my back an uncomfortable jar. It always looked so easy when Shane rode into the sunset.

Strawberry Roan

Riley had a Strawberry Roan that was an exception to this rule. She was a sweet horse, a gaited Tennessee Walker that was smooth riding and always seemed to put her foot exactly where i wanted her to step. Riley could get her to stand perfectly still when salving an ear or checking her eyes.

"Horses are just smart enough" Riley told me, "if they were any smarter it wouldn't work and if they were any dumber it wouldn't work". That's me; just smart enough.

Now i like to read commentaries by learned journalists and am always a bit dismayed with some of the words they find to express themselves, words like casuistry and sophism. They send me to the dictionary and for years i would kind of gloss over them, thinking i could guess what they meant in the context of what i was reading rather than get out the seven pound dictionary and page alphabetically to their definition. When i guessed, i often guessed wrong. The computer has simplified all that for me, but i still don't necessarily retain their meaning and often have to look them up the second and third time before it all soaks in.

Casuistry, by the way, means the use of clever but unsound reasoning and sophism means an untrue or fallacious argument meant to deceive. I sometimes find myself reading articles that contain casuistry and sophism, the problem being i have to be just smart enough to recognize it, because at first glance they are plausible and reasonable but actually they are misleading and they are wrong. Specious is the word i want you to remember because a specious statement is a wrongful statement that sounds reasonable and is told with the objective of deceiving us and getting us to believe it. We just have to have enough horse sense to figure it out or be left with the wrong impression, and worse still, maybe passing it on as the gospel truth.

Politicians become pretty good at putting together specious statements. Things like if we don't give the ultra (i like uber) rich special tax breaks allowing them to pay less taxes then you or I do, they will be forced to fire people (kind of a threat in that, isn't there?). Conversely, if we give them those preferred tax positions everything will be wonderful and they will hire more people; hire more people to do what? It all sounds a little specious to me, doesn't it to you? It would seem if Rush Limbaugh were made to pay taxes on his $58 million dollars per year he should have enough left over so he would not have to fire any gardeners or dishwashers, ( I just can't get a picture in my mind of Rush washing dirty pans or vacuuming under the bed) or even the person who keeps his Rolexes wound. In fact just the opposite seems plausible, maybe we could hire some teachers or policemen or maybe even save the life of a child through research or rehab if those taxes were put to use in a proper manner.

You see, new words can really be enlightening, if we are jussmartenuf to put two and two together and get four.

Obama killing Christians? - What next?

2011-10-17T22:15:00.001-05:00

Each morning it has become my habit to scan the news on the Internet. I usually do this before dawn with a large cup of coffee. I try to get an overview of what is going on in the world by looking at several sources of information and this morning that included the RedState blog which is posted by Erick Erickson. RedState is just what it sounds like. It is a right wing Republican oriented blog.

As you may have noticed in the news recently, President Obama has ordered about 100 special forces troops into Uganda, a landlocked country in Africa, to track down the leaders of an organization known as the Lord's Resistance Army, or the LRA. The US goal is to take the leaders of this group out of control.

Murderous Lord's Resistance Army
leader, Joseph Kony
Washington Post Photo

The LRA is a murderous lot, led by a criminal that has been indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court. The leader's name is Joseph Kony. Kony has ruled by terror, rape, mutilation and murder. He has recruited child soldiers that are sometimes murdered when they do not comply. The girls are sometimes used as sex slaves. According to Erickson and the Washington post, The LRA gets their message straight from God and their goal is to take over Uganda and set up a theocratic regime with Kony as their prophet.

Anyway, it seems Erickson at RedState has been flooded by emails from concerned Redstate readers that Obama is sending troops into Africa to kill Christians who are fighting radical Islamists. Oh my, shades of Donald (just because you are rich, that does not make you smart) Trump, how some do jump to conclusions. US forces are there to assist local authorities and to take out Kony and his henchmen who have been terrorizing Uganda for more than 20 years.

To Erickson's credit, he advised these misguided people that killing Christians is not the case, in fact the Bush administration also hunted members of the LRA. I suspect these are some of the same people who thought Obama is not an American. It is unfortunate that others did not step forward to straighten these people out at that time also, maybe some of this misdirected anger and energy could have been put to use on more productive, and might I say, progressive, not regressive, issues.

Erickson could have let this pass and fester and many would have been focused on nonsensical information as they were when Sarah Palin told her whopper of a lie that there would be "death panels" created to determine who would live and who would die if a universal health plan was adopted. This was a major distraction, enhanced even by at least one United States Senator, Charles Grassley from Iowa, who stated there was reason to worry. Grassley would have better served his constituents with the truth by stating that issue was a canard (an unfounded rumor), rather then allowing the wrongfully skeptical to remain that way. It seems Grassley (and others) was more interested in wrongful information being in circulation if the confusion could buy him just one wrongful vote.

Rush (just because you are rich, that does not mean you are honest) Limbaugh, it appears, is the source of this recent foul information about Obama sending troops to Uganda to kill Christians. It is not the first time his listeners have heard misleading rhetoric. He has a knack for dropping innuendo with the apparent goal of disrupting the truth with lies and distortions, specious information. I consider any person who wants our president to fail is a traitor of the first degree and Limbaugh has stated publicly that is his wish. Limbaugh is an Ugly American who is full of hate. One who for the incredible sums of money he makes, $58 million dollars last year, is grossly overpaid to be negative. It matters not to him if the truth is not involved, but it matters greatly that others are mislead by his quest to demonize everything & anyone who does not agree with his selfish agenda.

If we the American people choose to replace our current president in the fall of 2012, let's do it with the correct information, not because of distortions of the truth or outright lies, and let's hope that if Donald Trump gets news of all these goings on in Uganda, he gets it from the correct source, not the kids on the corner.