Are broke or broken, or can be fight back!

The reason we are in debt is because speculators, unimpeded by meaningful 
regulation, destroyed our economic system... because they could.  And started
crippling wars of choice, because they chose to.    

And now, instead of ending corporate adventurism abroad, we talk about cutting
basic human services at home.  Absolute nonsense.  Not a statement of policy
but a retreat to delusion.  A bald-faced lie.

The debt or its ceiling is beside the point.  We must end regressive corporate welfare, 
reinvest in America, and remove lifetime congressional welfare workers.  

When we end the war and restore congressional retirement benefits to 
the Social Security Trust Fund from whence they came, we will be on 
the way to becoming solvent. There is no good reason for public servants 
to give themselves raises and untenable benefits extending beyond their 
time in service. Simple extortion.  They need pay cuts and chill pills.  

As we rebuild the trust fund we can invest in job creation at home, 
rebuilding our infrastructure instead of paying corporate contractors
to exploit taxpayers at home and those they misuse our forces to 
occupy and expliot abroad. 

The Chickens have come home to roost.  And it has little to do 
with debt-ceiling rhetoric and everything to do with the bottom line.

We deserve justice, integrity, and competence. 
It is time we demanded accountability and reparations.
We are not broke or broken.  We are being robbed.  
It is time to restore the rule of law. 

tmf

On Flogging, Beating, Torture, Rape, Murder & other crimes and perversions.

Dear Mr. Moskos,
History has lessons for us. Violence begets violence. Murdering people
has never stopped people from murdering people. Beating people will 
not stop people from beating people. Abrahamic traditions agree the 
greatest commandment is love. Loving your neighbor as you would 
be loved, is the sum of wisdom. There is no defense for rape, torture,
brutality, or murder. Courage is the cure for fear, and faith is the bridge 
to freedom. A sad and cowardly surrender to violence, war, hatred 
and cruelty... is foolish, imprudent, criminal behavior which must 
not be condoned, ignored, or embraced. We can do better. 

Torture and brutality are slippery slopes toward rape, murder, 
perversity, and chaos. Fortunately, most people understand the 
difference between crude violence and creative reconciliation. 
We can all get along without wallowing in the gutter with criminals. 
Judicial homicide and torture are illegal, immoral, and ineffective. 
This is why all civilized nations have rejected capital 
punishment and torture. Perhaps if we join them we can 
all get along and build bridges to a better tomorrow. 


Those who encourage violence are part of the problem. 
If we want creative social change and a better future for 
our children, we will work together for peace, justice, 
and freedom.  


Values, principles, and truth matter. Those who embrace 
violence are wrestling with their own personal demons 
in a match they  are destined to lose. With love, we can 
make a difference. And our future may hang in the balance. 
When we choose to ignore history, we are doomed to repeat it. 

love always, Tim

Timothy Martin Flangan, editor of The Portland Alliance, 
"Speaking Truth to Power for 30 Years."
http://www.theportlandalliance... / 
Contact: editor@theportlandalliance.org
Box 14162, Portland, Oregon 97293-0162
Phone: (503)-327-8377 Fax: (503)-327-8949 
http://theissueslist.blogspot.... 
https://sites.google.com/site/...

What "The Left" Thinks About Oil Prices...

1. The oil companies set the prices to make as much as they can,
     regardless of what that may cost this nation.
2. Congress gets paid off and does not regulate the oil company
     behavior. (Like forcing them to pay taxes.)
3. The president can either use the bully pulpit to influence pricing
      or not.  Mostly not.
4. It is all about greed. The war in Iraq was all about oil. Libya is
     being bombed because they have lots of oil and are a weak
     nation we can easily attack, invade, occupy, and exploit. Since
     domestic oil companies are extracting a US taxpayer asset,
     FOR NOTHING, they are robbing us blind. They should be
     paying their share of our tax burden. (aka they should pay for
     the oil they steal and share the profits they make.)  If they did,
     we would not be closing schools, laying off police, and
     watching our infrastructure deteriorate beyond repair...

                  ...Oil is a pretty slippery subject.

Right Wing Claims To Care About US Troops

But progressive Americans and US Peace Movement members
want to secure the peace rather than waste American lives in
ill-advised corporate invasions and occupations overseas.

Anyone who thinks sending our military to die for Fortune 500
adventurism abroad has anything to do with caring about
military personnel...  has a problem with basic logic. Dick and
George lied us into a war which has cost millions of lives.  

This has been a disaster for everyone.  Obama, the closet
Republican, perpetuates this error.

But history speaks:  "In 1944, Democratic President
Franklin Roosevelt enacted the historic G.I. Bill,
initiating the Democrats’ longstanding commitment
to providing America’s veterans access to higher
education and the promise of success as a civilian
—a commitment that remains strong today."

The left wing cares about people first.
For the right wing mean extreme...

profits trump people.

We can do better.

In response to the conversation on Karylee's wall!

• Timothy Martin Flanagan Obama is a Republican... He was a better choice than McCain and Palin... but not by much. Hopefully we can find an actual progressive to run. Obama's embrace of the death penalty, the Bush agenda, wiretapping, and rendering Americans for torture, rape, and murder overseas... is only the short list of why we need someone on our side for a change...

  Saturday at 3:56pm ·
• |

  Doug Stanley

  Timothy. While I respect your right to your opinion, you frighten me. I sincerely hope, for the sake of the future of this country, that a candidate who embraces the things you espouse is never successful in attaining elective office. Esp...ecially as President of the United States.
  I'm pleased that you recognize that Obama was and is not the Messiah he was thought to be, and I agree that the selection of Sarah Palin was a horrible choice. However I also hope that this run at socialism is over. I do appreciate the dialogue, and thank Karylee for allowing it on her wall. God bless America.

Tim Wrote:  I did not "espouse" any of the sad realities which now exist.  I only pointed them out. I think that having a president who embraces the Bush agenda, wiretapping, and rendering Americans is frightening as well.  But what would be more frightening is to ignore the facts.

The linguistic acrobatics which are necessary to call Obama a "socialist" are ludicrous. Just more spin from the mean machine.   However, your claim that the Bush agenda is tantamount to socialism may, at some levels, be historically accurate.  Hitler considered himself a socialist. And the claim that we have a right to attack anyone, anywhere, anytime, for any reason... seems relatively Un-American to me. As for Obama... while his embrace of wars of choice is frightening... this stance has more to do with corporate fascism than socialism.  We are on a slippery slope...

Basically Obama's surrrender to the right wing does not bode well for everyday people.  Hopefully we will find someone to secure the peace, fix our schools, and get insurance companies off the table and out of our pockets. We need a Dept. of peace instead of endless war. And cutting social services to fund tax breaks for billionaires is insane.  We should properly care for our elderly, students, children, veterans,
and other Americans who have lost jobs, homes, and health.

We need universal nonprofit healthcare like the rest of the planet... functioning schools, intact infrastructure, constitutional integrity, and a return to the rule of law.  Today's progressives, in many ways, are the new conservatives.  We would conserve values, laws, the environment, and the constitution. Who could argue with this?  Healthy educated employed citizens can build a better tomorrow.

The mean right wing spin machine's vision of endless corporate occupations on the taxpayer dime is nonsense.  And it is unfortunate that Obama has surrendered to this view.  Most Americans have no idea what they have lost.  Legalizaed rendering, wiretapping, wars of choice, and the suspension of habeas corpus has set this nation back 400 years.  Congress is most to blame.  They suspended habeas corpus and made torture legal.  Their betrayal of the values my father defended in World Ware Two is a tragedy.  In my view.

But...  opinions vary...  And thanks Karylee for the space for the preceding conversation. Any who have opinions on these matters could send a letter to editor@theportlandalliance.org.... for 20 thousand readers!
http://www.theportlandalliance.org

Islamophobia: the efficacy of hate

Anyone
who calls
an entire
religion evil...
is sick.



Abrahamic
traditions
(Judaism,
Christianity,
& Islam)
have each
inspired a
variety of
nutcases
and wackos
who have
chosen to commit unfathomable atrocities.


But the idiotic and sociopathic behaviors
of individuals who claim one religion or
another... in no way provides reason to
indict all Muslims, Christians, and Jews
who share the same God and
spiritual foundations.

Abrahamic tradition holds that the greatest
force is love. The faith, hope, and courage
of these faithful has moved mountains
and ended wars.

Devout Christian, Muslim, and Jewish
people understand and agree that others
should treated with the same compassion
and kindness which all of us would hope
to receive.

Fortunately, the sane among us can keep
these things in perspective while
ignorant and hateful fear-mongers
recklessly spew violence and vitriol.

Labor Day, Fall, Celebrations, & Epiphanies...

Enjoy! www.writingresource.info/laborday

"... Happy Labor Day. Time for another uprising. Nonviolent civil society, unified across racial, ethnic, class and religious lines, has all the power if they ever choose to use it."

peacevoice.info/

More Administrators hired than faculty!

August 17, 2010, 03:10 PM ET  http://theissueslist.blogspot.com/

Growth in Administrators
Outstrips Growth in Faculty Members

A report issued today says that the number of administrators for every 100 college students increased by 39 percent from 1993 to 2007, while the number of professors and researchers rose by 18 percent during that period. The study of 198 public and private universities was released by the nonprofit Goldwater Insitute, and led by Jay P. Greene, a senior fellow at the institute who is also head of the department of education reform at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. Officials at one university system, the University of Texas, objected to the study's methodology. They told The Dallas Morning News that the study included counselors, deans, and accountants in the administrative ranks, which artificially inflated those numbers. Mr. Greene said the point was to account for staff not directly involved in instruction or research. His report blames this "bloat" for the increase in college costs.

Is Government the solution or the problem?

Effective leaders in various governments have created productive jobs and steered economies from ruin to prosperity.  Freely established nations of good people have banded together to secure the peace, protect their freedom, and realize justice according to a foundation in the rule of law.

Recessions may come and go, but these are merely fluctuations in economic conditions which transcend governments, taxes, and the vicissitudes of nature. Government spending, when creatively administered, demonstrably raised all ships and move us from the great depression into a position of strength and security as the richest and most powerful nation in modern history.

Obama is creating great uncertainty by allowing the Bush tax's to continue.  His surrender to corporate insiders on health care has been a disaster, although what small steps forward which have been made are helpful. The decision by congress to consider heath insurance premiums as taxable income is insane. 

The astronomical debts run up by the Bush and Cheney administration have crippled this nation for the next half century.  If our current president would reject endless wars and occupations as a platform, we might be able to move forward. Businesses in American will hire when our government stops exporting jobs overseas in blatant surrender to transnational economic cartels who have bought this this nation. 

Personal incomes in America have been in decline for the past ten years.  Until we begin to invest in America, incomes will continue this downward spiral.

Bush's Third Term....

In his campaign stump speech, Obama said that he wanted to
restore the moral high ground he thought was lost under Bush:
"We are going to lead by example, by maintaining the highest
standards of civil liberties and human rights."
He explained ways this would be accomplished.
"Close down Guantanamo, restore habeas corpus (the right
to see the evidence against you), say no to renditions,
no to wireless wiretapping."  He also declared that single
payer was the only solution to our health care crisis. 
How did he do?
Obama has not closed Guantanamo -- and some Guantanamo
prisoners have reported harsher treatment under Obama. 
The Obama administration has argued against extending habeas
corpus to some prisoners, and it has continued rendition
and warrantless wiretapping. In fact, Obama went further:
secret sentences. Osama bin Laden's cook Ibrahim al-Qosi
was convicted, and his sentence will not be revealed until it's
been completed.

Obama criticized Bush for claiming that the U.S. president |
has the authority to detain U.S. citizens without charges.
Osama’s administration goes further and says that, without
charges or evidence, the president has the authority to kill
U.S. citizens and even maintains a list of citizens targeted for
assassination. Obama complained about the "revelation of
secret programs" under Bush; yet, as a Washington Post
headline said this summer, "U.S. 'secret war' expands globally."

The Bush administration was criticized for making backroom
deals where the participants weren't revealed. Obama promised
his administration would be transparent and that, for instance,
he would make every aspect of the health care reform debate
open to public view, even broadcasting all negotiations on C-Span.

In practice, Obama held back names of health industry
representatives meeting behind closed doors in the
White House until a lawsuit was filed and didn't
allow transparent health care negotiations or for
them to be broadcast. He has, however, been more
open than any other administration, according to the
Pulitzer-winning PolitiFact, and posts most visitors
online, with exceptions for "sensitive meetings."
Obama criticized Bush for being in bed with oil interests.
But Bush's people were left in place in the Minerals
Management Service, which approved without
inspection at the behest of oil interests the drilling
permit that led to the Gulf\of Mexico spill. Rolling
Stone reported that staffers throughout the Interior
Department refer to working there now as "Bush's
third term."

There are many more similarities, such as in the use of
military tribunals instead of traditional courts,
Middle Eastern strategy and lack of protection
for whistle-blowers.  And the Cheney-Bush policy
of endless war to enforce corporate occupations...
has only continued and expanded.

All that said, there are examples where Obama has gone against Bush policies: abortion, children's health insurance, tax cuts for the rich and the release of torture memos.

The verdict
So would a person have to be "crazy" to compare
George W. Bush's presidential policies with those
of Barack Obama's?

No. Bush and Obama have behaved similarly on
major issues, including energy policy, government
transparency, terrorism, civil liberties, health care,
war & peace.  Obama, like Bush and Cheney,
favor judicial homicide, even when compelling
evidence exists that such laws result in the deaths
of innocents and undermine the moral authority
of the law.

We deserve better.  All we can hope for now,
is that some more progressive candidate may emerge
so that Bush does not get a Fourth Term.