Daily Music Selectionby V.J. Leventhal For the last 30 years (or maybe longer) I have been engaged in a concentrated effort toward self-awareness and mastery. I’ve studied most of the world’s religions, read philosophy, science, literature and poetry – all with the goal of understanding the true nature of reality. I’ve spent many entire days focused on a specific idea – measuring and applying a life lesson to see whether the wisdom holds true. After all this work, which I intend to continue throughout my life, I feel that I’ve arrived at a place of at least some knowledge of how things actually work, and an understanding that allows a glimpse of the bigger picture that may be unfolding in a given set of circumstances. This has enabled me to remain calm ‘while all around me’ are not, to not be swayed too much by the ups and downs of life, to rest easier in the knowledge that things are not always as they appear, and that the cyclical nature of existence leads back eventually to balance. I have come to a place where, generally speaking, anger is not an emotion that I nurture in myself, or others, preferring always to work…
By W.B. Dunne The News Pauper returns from his travels in the real world. The “news” is full of the items that perpetuate the status quo of hyperbole over content. It is the humble NP’s desire to avoid dissipating my meager energies responding to the daily outrage in deference to observing the larger trends that indicate the way the future will be. The following is a commentary that no doubt will go against the grain of the latest strident outcry over Obama’s moves in office. I support Obama because he is in fact playing a long game that has already begun to bear fruit. Namely, look how we as a public are digesting real information again … even the Foxers can’t escape discussing the reality of the disparity in the wealth people hold in this country while the tax cut debate proceeds. Fox News and the media at large are cornered into presenting facts, although skewed, in the story about WikiLeaks. The list goes on as you, dear reader, already know. It isn’t my intention to repeat the litany of which you are completely aware. The cries on the left of betrayal by Obama are good for the discourse in…
With all of the Republicans and some of the Democrats currently running the country apparently addicted to dragging us back to the age of indigent serfs and moneyed aristocrats, abetted by a president who still seems to think you can negotiate with the Inner Circle of Hell and not get burned, how long before this little playlet becomes a reality? Peasant: “Sir, your tables are groaning under the weight of the banquet upon them. My children are starving and all I can give them are your crumbs. Won’t you help us, please?” Overlord: “Give me back my crumbs.” – Posted by ctrl-z November 22nd, 2010, to “There Will Be Blood,” by Paul Krugman, Common Dreams, Nov. 22, 2010.
“It’s plain hokum. If you can’t convince ‘em, confuse ‘em. It’s an old political trick.” – Harry S Truman Your Tattlesnake has had running arguments with various Teabaggers and Tea Party sympathizers for many months now and they all share the same tactic: Should you ask a question they can’t answer or make a point they can’t refute, they start screaming at you or rudely talking over you, as if the volume of their voice can eradicate reality and reason. This leads not to debate, but confrontation, and that seems to be what they want. Beyond that, exactly how do you ‘debate’ people who insist: – There are no racists in the Tea Party movement; – It’s Obama and not George W. Bush who started the TARP bailouts of the banks and Wall Street; – The terrible economy is exclusively the fault of Obama and his liberal social programs; – All of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s social programs were complete failures; – Social Security, Medicare, the VA and the GI Bill were/are not liberal social programs; – Obama has raised taxes for the poor and middle-class; – Obama is a Muslim/socialist/communist (take your pick) plotting the downfall of the US backed…
“Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” – George Bernard Shaw 1. The Republicans are going to end earmarks. Ha, ha! Both parties, but especially the GOP, thrive on earmarks – not only does it bring home the bacon, but it’s a nice covert way to reward their corporate sponsors. The typically devious Republicans, with the help of some Blue Dog Dems in the Senate, are just going to change the name to something like ‘help American families add-ons’ or ‘freedom appropriation inserts’ and continue to happily earmark away. 2. The Republican Party is now strong. Another laugher. The GOP had to rebrand as the ‘new Tea Party GOP’ in 2010 and none of their candidates dared campaign with Junior Bush. In TV ads, many GOP candidates did not even mention they were Republicans. Rand Paul, the only true Teabagger in the Senate, is now making noises like a “go along to get along” guy, and various naïve Teabaggers in the House, like the anti-government-paid health care dimwit who demanded his government-paid health care ahead of schedule, have begun showing their strong streak of stupid, even before January’s official swearing in. Most of us have noticed it’s not…
By W.B. Dunne This one goes out to the youngsters out there who have only begun to experience the political process in America. The ones who voted Obama into office and are now seeing the correction for the first time in these midterms: The Democrats won in a landslide in 2010 for the first time ever in a midterm election, and the fact that there is a “Speaker Boehner” on November third is due to a Supreme Court decision, the Koch Brothers, Fox News, the US Chamber of Commerce, and Karl Rove. The NP reminds the young voter that the great court supported the corrupted GOP with its Citizens United decision, allowing for unlimited and undisclosed money from corporations and foreign interests in the campaign. The unintended consequence was that it helped the Tea Party candidates too, and that fact threatens to split the right wing in the House of Representatives. A silver lining for Progressives if ever there was one! Hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign interference has bought the corporate masters precious little. Speaker Boehner will get what he always wanted and was promised long ago, the mantle of Head of the GOP Majority, but it will…
