HEALTH BILL SUMMIT GOES NOWHERE

- AS EXPECTED

They had the Health Care summit and as predicted nothing came of it. Many on both sides considered it a waste of time. However it needn't have been. Because in the early parts of the session both sides were saying things like "Our differences aren't that great and there are many points of agreement". However certain "patterns" were fallen into quickly. The Republicans had that 2,400 page Senate bill with them many labeled as a "prop". However I don't see what is so wrong with actually having the bill before them that is under debate. The Republicans made statements like "the government wants to take over one sixth of the economy" and "This bill wants to redefine what a health care benefit is". Some republicans said "Why can't we just scrap this bill and start over". President Obama's failure was in that he did not take the republicans up on their offer and say, "OK, let's make a list of all the points where we can agree on". In terms of the vastness of the democratic senate bill the President should have demanded "Quote me a specific provision of the bill that you don't like". Both sides were given to giving these long-winded speeches that may be good for use in campaign spots but it's not how people usually engage in a conversation. It should be "You make a point or two, and then I respond right now to what you just said" and visa versa. In short there was a mutual conspiracy on both sides not to allow anything to really be accomplished. At this point I don't care whether a bill is passed or not. I'm inclined that in a benefits verse liabilities count- - there is no real up side to getting a bill passed. I think what will have to happen is that insurance rates will be jacked up another 29% and another 29% after that till we hit some sort of crisis point where all of congress agrees that they need to act.

There are roomers that the tea party far-right is disintegrating. According to Randy Rhodes a couple days ago, Rush Limbaugh and Mark LeVin have taken to attacking Glen Beck for his call to have "independent" tea party candidates running for political office against regular republicans in the primaries. Rush Limbaugh is your typical Bush Republican and doesn't want to see the conservative base divided and so sees the danger. It's fine to lie to the public and say you are a "spontanious" and "independent" movement, but all the while you know that you are just another corporate and a poser as far as being any kind of "patriot" is concerned. But also Scott Brown has come under attack by the far right for voting to break up a filibuster that was blocking an important jobs bill. A lot of what the far right does is "optics" and image. They will love to paint Scott Brown as one of their own when it comes to winning an election, but that's as far as it goes. What these people want by their own admission is to "break" this President, meaning that if the President favors it, they must do everything they can to defeat it, even if that means a jobs bill, which on other occasions they have claimed that we need.

A lot of us would like to "start over" on occasion. I know a certain church Pastor who on at least two occasions I sent him a letter saying "I wish I could just erase the past few months of our interaction and we could start fresh". This letter of course was not responded to. Sometimes you have to look for things to "respond" to. For instance in the Cuban Missile crisis, President Kennedy received two telegrams or whatever from Kruschev. The first talked about a possible negotiation, whereas the second was more of a tough ass hard line affair. President Kennedy responded to the first telegram and ignored the second. I wish people yesterday would have responded to "areas that really matter" where there was a hint of the other side reaching out, a "point of contact" if you will. Sometimes people can change their minds on things. Believe it or not it really can and does occur. Yesterday I read something about Islam that half way tempted me to convirt to Islam. I have recently learned that the Moslems do not believe Jesus Christ was crucified and died on the cross. The idea is that God by his very nature is Forgiving and as such does not need a justification to Forgive other than his own Sogreignty. To me this is an appealing notion. I believe it was Jesus of KFI who stated that "It's OK for man to forgive and overlook trespasses of others. A man can decide "OK, I'll let that go". But God due to the exacting nature of his morality cannot do this. Everything has to be counter-ballanced off. So if one person is done a favor, someone else has to suffer. That sort of thing. It is said that you can't "sin" against a man; you can only "sin" against God. With another man you may "transgress" against him. I can forgive transgressions against me if I want to. The problem with my case is that most of the people would, shall we say "be in need of forgiveness" for offences done to me- - think that they are perfect and their actions tword me are faultless. In fact they ought to get a medal or something for their conduct. As such I find forgiveness of such people problematic at best. Many of us whether it be on the credit or debit side of the ledger often entertain notions or a desire to "wipe the slate clean". And this is a wonderful thing, when it can be done. I think the President is too committed to his 2,400 page monstrocity of a bill ever to consider anything as radical as "starting fresh" with a real hope of actually getting something done. And it's a shame, too. Because there is nothing really worth "defending" in this bill.

There are so many movies that allude to some gigantic cataclysm occurring to mankind in the near future that one wonders about the mental state of the people who go to these movies. I have heard there are some fantastic visual effects in the movie "2012". How many people are there who are like the people I have talked to who are just fatalistic about the Future and believe that trying to change it is like trying to change the will of God. Now make no mistake about it, I believe the same thing- -in a sense. I believe the future IS set in stone. I just don't believe that future involves the end of the world. If people see something as "not even doable" then they won't even try to do it. When Jesus says "blessed are the peace makers" they will not even try to be among those who are to be called the Sons of God. Sometimes the issues in a campaign can change rather rapidly. It is said that "six months in politics is an eternity". If the whole tea party movement implodes and does down the tubes in the next few months, we may find they are much less of a worry some November than we had expected. And it's true we don't know what crisis will rear its head in the near future. It could be economic, or it could involve international peace. As I said in the last posting there are any number of potential things that could trigger a crisis in the world. You could have anything from selling bombs to a terrorist to espianage revealing military secrets, to unloosing a plague on the earth, and there is always the possability of some sort of economic melt-down. But the key to this all is to respond to the problems that are in the here and now and not worried about potential problems around the corner that may never happen. If we deal with the here and now we are doing our part.

WAITING FOR THE END OF THE WORLD

Nothing outside the Olympics is really going on right now. Presumably all of us are so transfixed with the events in Vancouver that we aren't supposed to be paying attention to all of the things the Republicans in congress have been saying. They were showing an all Republican gathering in Congress on C-Span the other day and the spokespeople were all bloviating about how this little "Summit" tomorrow will accomplish nothing. In the year 1954 the 25th of February was also on a Thursday and there is a record in my baby book that I no longer have that I celebrated my birthday on the 25th of February rather than December 31st. Of course people can't decide whether George Harrison was born February 24th or 25th. These republicans in congress are in love with the sound of their own voice. You listen to these C-Pac speakers and realize the reality factor of what they are saying is near zero. They referred to negotiating with a loaded gun to their heads. The loaded gun being the "reconciliation option". Of course the Republicans have passed so many of their legislative achievements through the years by this means. Now suddenly it's wrong. But the thing is if you're going to negotiate successfully you have to have an "or else" or your actions are meaningless. The President has given the Republicans every chance to come to the table and present their ideas. But even when democrats incorporate Republican ideas, the Republicans balk and refuse to vote for their own ideas. They released some figures that said that Republicans in congress have been voting "republican" one hundred percent of the time lately. This was before the vote of the other day on the jobs bill where a few Republicans broke ranks and broke a filibuster to get a jobs bill passed. I tire of hearing what a brilliant stratigist the President is for arranging this summit. All he's ever done since the day he took office is back down from principles enunciated in the campaign. And he gets no recognition for this but is only accused of being a socialist or a closet Moslem by the Republicans.

A couple days ago people around here were discussing ways in which the world could come to an end. There is an amazingly high number of Bible prophecy junkies around here, who believe that if God says it, than man's attempts to alter the future that is set, is useless. The world could come to an end if Russia and China encourage Iran in their pursuit of a nuclear weapon. I said "we need to get Russia and China to isolate Iran" but these people say, "That's just not going to happen". Of course we could undergo a cyber attack where someone sabotages our whole computer system where our military secrets are stored. And of course they all say that espionage has never been higher. You frequently hear stories on Sixty minutes how this or that secret is in jeopardy or how many times our security has been breeched. It doesn't matter to fundamentalists that they have a track record going back a century of being wrong at every turn, they are still going at it with their predictions. Meanwhile there is always the asteroid from outer space that could do us in. They are pretty sure a giant asteroid struck North America somewhere in Arizona about twelve thousand and nine hundred years ago. This would make it just a bit after 11,000 BC. They say there is a lot of irridium, a relative of platinum, chemically, that occurs very rarely in normal rock but is much more plentiful in extra terrestrial minerals. But they can't find any large crater from said asteroid attack. They theorize that perhaps the asteroid broke up just before striking earth but after it turned white hot and polluted the atnosphere and set off a chain reaction of global cooling and "the nuclear winter" and all that stuff. That still raises the mystery of just how advanced was civilization in twelve or thirteen thousand BC otherwise known as "The Age of Leo". I bet they had more advanced weapons than arrow heads to hunt with. They don't believe over-hunting killed off all the big mammals that used to roam the land. But the thing is they say asteroid collisions of this magnitude are so mathematically rare that statisticly they don't see how one could have struck earth "only" thirteen thousand years ago. I'm not sure I can go along with that logic. I told this group that "we don't need a fatalist in the white house" but once again these people seem to want the worst for America. They yearn for the era of hyper inflation they have been predicting so resolutely for. We all know they are in love with the whole idea of being in a perpetual state of War and paranoia and fear. But the thing is they had their chance. They had eight uncontested years to try and screw up America and damn near did so. They wish oh so furvently that the next Presidential election were tomorrow rather than nearly three years in the future. They hate hearing good economic news. Their position can only weaken with each passing month.

Toyota has now done what they had refused to do before and that is admit that it is a software problem that caused their cars to race out of control and kill people. They just wanted to talk about loose floor mats. Of course if you're a Christian and you're in a Toyota and your car spins out of control on a six lane highway and kills a half a dozen people but you survive without a scratch, you're likely to say that an angel was protecting you. But that raises the question of why an angel would allow a half a dozen people to die because of your defective car. Of course we hear a lot about "tort reform", which is the elimination of the average person's right to sue a corporation in court. Some people say "we only want to cap big pay-outs" but ignore the reality that many attorneys won't even take a case if they don't personally believe there is a chance of winning a big pay-out. With the choice of attorneys thus severely reduced, many poor people will decide to settle for peanuts out of court and eliminate the problem that way, which is what these corporatists have wanted all along.

The "neo con" movement has affected the Christian community. If you go down the list of things they believe in now it will be things like "taxes are inherently evil" despite the fact that Jesus said for the Jews to pay their taxes to Rome. But there is one question right now I would like to ask Jesus of KFI. As you know that it has long been said that "No trial from Satan ever betides a saint without that permission first going past God's desk and he approves it. And thus the trial is meant to make you a better person and give you something you can learn from. But Jesus of KFI has axioms like "people don't change" and also that people who espouse atheism are those who are "not normal" but have somehow been "damaged" or "traumatized" by an event somewhere in their childhood or something. Hence Jesus is disposed to give Satan a free pass in his assirtion that "certain people just aren't worth trying to reach" and he throws in stuff like "they will only try and manipulate you anyhow so stay away from them". Jesus says this but he also says that if your "decision for Jesus" is powerful enough - - if you just exercise enough human will and resolve- - you can overcome anything. You don't need the prompting of the Spirit or any of that other stuff about "being led by God" in the Bible. Hence my biggest problem with Christianity, as this moment, is not contemplating my own failings to a perfect religious system, but rather the truth that in order to conform to a morally compromised Christian system as Jesus teaches, I will have to compromise my own values and end up being a poorer man for the experiance than I would have had I never touched Christianity. How can these people demand that I be true to "The Faith" when the faith is not true to itself? Or to quote Stevie Winwood in reference to Jesus of KFI, "even you don't quite believe you". (Selah)

'MAD AS HELL!" DRAWS FIRST BLOOD

Joseph Andrew Stack this morning crashed a small plane into a seven story office building in Austin, Texas, where the CIA, the FBI, and the IRS were headquartered. This may be the first instance of a Tea Bagger "losing it". Joseph Stack wrote a six page Suicide manifesto in which he raked all the people whom he was offended by over the coals, and that includes the IRS and the economy in general as well as the Catholic Church. The government is not labeling him as a "terrorist" and some on the left speculate that it's because he's a right-winger and they never tag one of their own. Before he took off in the plane he set his own home on fire with people inside. In his manifesto he made an interesting observation. He said "Karl Marx said that from everyone according to his ability and to everyone according to his need." But he says "With capitalism it is more like "from everyone according to his gullibility. To each according to his greed". To me that seems like a good addage for the Christian church. Oh, here is a good one. As you know Shakey's Pizza has their sign out "Shakey's made a deal with the bank. The Bank doesn't make pizza and Shakey's doesn't cash checks". I have a good one. "Marcus Arelius made a deal with God. God doesn't emotionally fly off the handel and Marcus Arelius doesn't forgive sins". I could picture hanging a sign like that in my office during counseling sessions. Joseph was recently married and usually suicidal people are loners. But I think their is a societal warning here in that these are stressful times. Chances are we are going to see more people going off half cocked - -and taking their own lives, and perhaps the lives of others. And they aren't all Islamists. The government is investigating any right wing groups in Texas, of which there are many, that the man may have been associated with. Even before today's incident there was talk of getting up some sort of "Mad as Hell" political party going. Network if anything more prophetic than when it came out in 1976 what with it's mantra of "I"m Mad as Hell and I'm Not going to Take It Anymore!" One of these days they'll be able to predict when a person is about to Blow like that. But that day isn't yet here.

Frances Reid apparently died today, who played Alice Horton. Alice the character of the wise old great grandmother has not been on the show in about ten years, but they make passing reference to her. She was apparently even too "ill" to attend the funeral of her own son, who was getting up in years himself. How many Horton children will they bring back for the funeral? There is Marie, the nun, and Tonny Horton, whom before I began watching the show had incest with each other when Tonny had amnesia. I doubt Tommy has been on the show since the 'sixties. Then we have Attie, who is known for getting cancer and dying. But first she had a baby in her 'fifties and that's how Hope Brady was born. Then there is Bill Horton, who used to be a regular and in the early days was involved in a lot of the plot lines. But he hasn't been on the show in twenty years. There are any number of old characters they could bring back, such as Julie's younger brother, Steve. Then there is Julie's son, David. Then there is Josh and Jessica Fallon and that psychopathic murdering son of theirs, Nick. Then there are all Maggie's kids such as Melissa, and Janice, and Sarah, and I lose track of them all. Then there is good old Jeremy, son of Mike Horton, son of Bill. And we mustn't forget Jack and Jennifer. If the only people attending the funeral are Caroline Brady and Bo and Hope and Roman, the thing is going to look awfully suspicious. But when did soap operas reflect reality?

Liberals have been compiling a list of people who want to push a health care bill through with the "reconciliation" process that is about twenty or 25 names long. This is a start. But Harry Reid killed a jobs bill a week or so ago because it was contaminated with republican provisions. They can't get anything right. Of course yesterday was the anniversary of that famed Stimulus package that seems to have produced jobs. But someone pointed out that in Roosevelt's day you could sign a bill today and start digging the next week because there was no environmental protection agency to contend with. Maybe the right wing has a point. These regulations can be a pain in the ass. But the jury is still out on whether the stimulus bill was a success. We keep hearing that more money is in the pipeline but they've been saying that for the better part of a year. I'm giving it another six months - then we'll know. Many say that there will be another explosion of mortgage defaults this year and that event will have its own economically depressive rippling effect. I'd feel a whole lot better if state and local governments were adding programs rather than continuing to cut programs as well as salaries and personnel.

I'm not into "Virtual" reality. You may remember that Sherlock Holms episodes on Star Trek where Piccard says "Can't we find a way of giving him what he wants but not giving anything?" I'm sure the members of the Holy Trinity have that discussion all the time. Is life just some crystal device sitting on someone's desk with all our thoughts encoded in crystals? Some say that the sixth or psychic dimension is a dimension of Mind. I can't buy that. I don't like the term "Virtual" to begin with. "Virtual" more often than not means "Not so". Like "This car is virtually as good as a BMW" or something for three times the price. Dreams and nightmares are a form of "virtual reality" after all. Our minds and psyches are trapped inside an alltogether imaginary situation, and our en-grams register is temporarily over-ridden. I don't know about you but I don't act the same way in dream situations I would really react if I faced it in real life. Some may say that my metaphysics is "bound by physicality". Just as hyperbolic trig has no actual mesurable physical degrees or angles, doesn't mean that there isn't some real function for this branch of math, though danged if I know what it is. I use the terms hyperspace and hyper-matter - as ways of somehow offering some link of physicality to the world as we know it. Even though it can be argued that one MPH over the absolute speed limit is as good as a mile. Just like spitting tobacco on the sidewalk in heaven will get you kicked out just as surely as killing your father and raping your mother. I'm hoping that others will investigate this sphere of reality. Keep in mind that the speed of light is an absolute limit and is the same physical speed regardless of how time and matter and mass are shrunken or expanded. We've explained all this in prior postings but for now, take my word for it. You can't "game the system" the way Joseph Stack tried to game the Tax Code. Just as when you are dreaming what you are perceiving isn't the real you. The real you is lying in bed and probably motionless. So it is that there may be some co-existant reality in hyper-space we aren't consciously aware of, but then after we are made familiar with it upon "Awakening" suddenly the whole thing makes sense to us. (Selah)

WHEN ALL HOPE IS ABANDONED

We all have those moments of crushing despair where we know something we had hoped in is no longer possible. For some, like a rich couple, it may be matriculating their child into some prestegious private prep school. But when the child approaches the age of admittance, perhaps seven, it becomes apparent that he is just too mentally lacking to be up to the work load. He just doesn't have the "right stuff" and you realize they're no use. On today's soap opera Samantha Brady, who has spent most of her time as a rather frompy unwed mother of several children, she was faced with evidence of the violent death of her youngest daughter. Her estranged husband planted the evidence for cruel motives of his own. His actions are perhaps the purest form of evil known to man. They say you never get over the death of a child. And then we have the death of your Christian faith. For me that was all but assured after a phone call with "The Asshole from El Paso" that left me almost physically ill when the reverand accused me of being "Obsessive" when it came to pursuing my Christian faith. Now liberals out there have to contend with a "virtual" death. Obama did not suffer assasenation but hope in him died nontheless. Just read earlier postings in this blog such as "No Quarter" or else read a bunch of postings in "For the Record". Clearly the writing was on the wall six months ago. I read the writing but somehow didn't believe it. You try reasoning and prodding and cajoling and any other means to somehow "wake this President up" from this idiological slumber he's been in and you realize that it's utterly useless. Obama was not taken out by the Mob, but he nonetheless has been rendered politically useless all the same. There remains nothing to do except to look around for a more worthy candidate to run in 2012, preferably on a third party ticket.

Clearly it is time for the American people to get serious about running a candidate on a third party ticket. The two political parties are corporate parties A and B. Evan Bayh has decided to quit the senate but people argue that he isn't changing what he basically does. He's just changing offices. He is in bed up to his eyeballs with corporate interests. It's seemingly impossible to over-state the extent to which lobbyests control American politics. The Nation magazine the other day talked about how lobbyests control the media. The so called fourth estate is owned, lock, stock, and barrel by corporate interests such as Arthur Daniel Midland, and General Electric. These networks, even supposedly liberal ones like MSNBC routinely put up apologists on news interviews for their special interest views constantly defending the status quo. It would seem that the phrase "conflict of interest" has vanished from everyone's vocabulary. But aside from outlets like The Nation, the voice of the left is surprisingly muted in this country compared to what it was 25 years ago. This was back before conservatives had taken over talk radio and the media still gave you an honist reporting of the evening news. I have cited example after example, such as the way these Networks handle demonstrations of the left verses ones on the right. If ever there was a time for "thinking outside the box" this is it. Today people have taken to attacking such things as wind power generation, much prefering a massive return to Nuclear as the way to go. They cite statistics from 1985 talking about all the wind power turbines that have been abandoned. Other people don't like bullet trains. They say things like "Nobody rides the train any more". Of course these people say they want jobs but when President Obama talks about a program for "Green jobs" they are against that, too. Many on the right, and I have talked to them, act as though corporate taxes have never been higher in this country and that is why we are losing our domestic industries. Did you know corporate taxes are higher than they have ever been before? No? That's because it is a bold face lie. One of so many bold faced lies that people on the right tell. But the answer to all these problems after you've read enough blogs like this is to go out and get active and do it quickly. There is no time to lose. Remember that Franklin Roosevelt actually picked up congressional seats for his party in the 1934 off year elections. If he did it so can we. I know that Obama is no FDR. He's proven that over and over too many times to count. But we can incorporate FDR's methods in spelling out the issues to the people. Nobody in 1934 would have trusted a republican right wing group that called itself a "grass roots movement". The big difference between now and then was that in 1934 we had a President who wasn't afraid to lead. We don't have that now. There is a gigantic VOID in the Executive branch of government and we have to overcome that and if possible, endeavor to do the President's job for him. Are we up to that?

BRINGING BACK COMMON SENSE TO GOVERNMENT

You one of the classic taunts of that Sarah Palin speech a week ago was “How is all that hopey - changy stuff working out for you?” Well we don’t have those things because the Republicans don’t play by the rules. It used to be that filibusters were only used on rare occasions in the senate, as history bears out. But during the Clinton administration the filibuster rates were jacked up by the Republicans, and it was worse under George W Bush under the democrats. But nothing is as bad as the situation we have now where the filibuster is as common as brushing your teeth in the morning. Tom Harkin is introducing an anti-filibuster rule where on the first vote the vote is still sixty needed to override. Two days later the requirement drops to 57 and two days later, to 54 and finally two days later it reverts to 51. Senator Harkin points out that in the old frontier days you had senators from Georgia or Kentucky or Tennessee, who had to travel a long ways to Washington. Often the common people did not know what their congress was doing and it took time to notify the common people. But today with instant communication, this doesn’t mean much. The filibuster is now used “all the time” on everything. There were bills that ended up passing 98 to nothing that were filibustered by the Republicans. Also appointments have been held up. Last week seventy nominees were blocked by the will of one Republican senator. Now they are saying that President Obama should appoint all seventy in recess appointments. Republicans such as Reagan and Bush made routine use of recess appointments. I don’t see what the President has against using the powers that he has. For instance he could overturn “Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell” by executive order if he wanted to. But he is choosing not to do it. A lot of people in the service are being “outed” by third party gossip and immuendo, rather than a service man coming forward and saying “I’m gay”. But there are other things the President could be doing. For instance according to George Washington’s blog last week, instead of strengthening our regulations of banks and financial institutions, deals are being made now NEVER to regulate certain aspects of bank behavior. It’s like they have instituted statutes against any regulation of certain institutions at all. Timothy Geitner needs to be removed from office as utterly unqualified to hold the post. His past is just too questionable. In getting rid of Geitner we may actually be pleasing a few Republicans, which is what Obama always says he wants. He is holding on to a non-existent thread of bipartisanship. This administration isn’t running on hope; it’s running on fumes.

After the 9 – 11 attacks on the Twin Towers certain emergency regulations were put into place. We have been in a “state of emergency” since 9 – 11. Obama did not recind these regulations but instead renewed them. I don’t think these times call for a perpetual “emergency” status. Living in phoney red or orange alerts or whatever- - will only numb us to the idea of any emergency at all when someone needs to call a real emergency. It would seem these “states of emergency” are just vehicals to violate people’s civil rights. We don’t need that. We need a third party desperately to run in 2012 to remedy all of these problems and bring back common sense to politics.