MORE FROM THE THEATER OF THE ABSURD

Today I came across a website that seemed interesting... I read a few
articles and immediately knew this site was a good source for my blog, so
I joined it. Click the picture to check it out.

One of the first articles that attracted me was the Maybe I'm not strong enough to be an American citizen by nyceve
With, what has been going on since Bush and the neocons hijacked our
nation, I have been wondering if maybe, we who THINK are, a bit wacko.
Nothing is making sense, so someone's got to be a bit short of a full
deck, so, I wonder, is it me?

The writer of this poignant piece is also wondering, he is questioning whether he has the stamina to swallow the hard pill this 'smugligan' regime is dishing out. I, wholeheartedly, agree with the writer and am asking," HOW MUCH MORE CAN WE TAKE?" I know there are times when I feel as though I am running out of mental steam. THE MORE THEY DO TO US, the more they do to us. Never, do I see genuine remorse in their eyes, they sometimes try to put on an expression of deep sorrow but you can see right through it like the frown make-up of a clown.

I am not sure how many people are coming to the realization that
these cohorts, see us as legal instruments, at their disposal to get more
power and more wealth. That is really all we are to them, tools to be used
in unnecessary wars, just implements to keep revenue flowing to feed their lust for world dominance. They allow industries to rape our environment and make their own rules on safety thus resulting in epidemic cancers, mining mishaps and death.

Governments are suppose to look out for those with little or no voice,
they are suppose to make you proud, they are suppose to be there for you
in times of darkness. They are suppose to... but the bunch in charge
at this time are disconnected from the actualities of daily survival.
They live in an illusion, conspiring, manipulating, and outfoxing those who
oppose them, weaving webs of deceit to maintain authority.

Our future will be unbearably bleak if these power brokers are allowed to persist in their selfish ambitions to gain absolute world power. We will face such a darkness, it will take hundreds of years (if ever) for future generations to undo the depredation they have done to "WE THE PEOPLE" and I, being a mere mortal, do not have enough time left on Earth to wait for the healing to begin... DO YOU? thinkingblue

PS: Also, read an article of outrage by David Brooks and my comments on this trite essay.

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Maybe I'm not strong enough to be an American citizen

By nyceve [Subscribe]

01/11/2006 09:09:16 PM EST

Cross posted on Daily Kos, Booman Tribune, My Left Wing
Wed Jan 11, 2006 at 08:20:40 AM PDT

I am losing the ability to trust.

I'm about to turn off the TV. I'm close to throwing in the towel.
I'm strong. I'm very strong, but maybe I'm not strong enough to be an
American citizen.

Several years ago, I was in Scotland. A Scottish physician said to
me, "America scares me!" I looked at her and laughed.

Now, America is haunting me as well. Perhaps all societies must
endure a plunge into the abyss before emerging in the brilliant glow
of sunshine. But, this great American descent is deeper and longer
than I can fathom--with no end in sight.

This morning the NY Times reports that the IRS is withholding
refunds due our poorest citizens.

"Tax refunds sought by 1.6 million poor Americans over the last
five years were frozen and their returns labeled fraudulent, although
the vast majority appear to have done nothing wrong, the Internal
Revenue Service's taxpayer advocate told Congress yesterday."

Why should this scare you, and make you very sad? Very sad indeed.
It should more than scare you because, if you needed any further
proof--this is it. The United States government is not simply waging a
war on terrorists. It is waging a war against almost all of us.

The most powerful nation on earth, with the most powerful militia,
and a president who bloviates "compassionate conservatism", is relegated
to stealing from the poor.

Think of it like this. You walk by a sick, poor, homeless person on
the street, and you reach your hand deep into his cup and take out a few
quarters. It's so damn elementary.

It was no mere happenstance that after Katrina, the most vulnerable
among us were left to die. It seems that left to die is now being
institutionalized. Ask yourself what these small IRS refunds must mean
to our fellow citizens? A trip to the doctor, winter shoes, pencils to
do homework, aspirin, a quart of milk?

"The advocate, Nina Olson, said the I.R.S. devoted vastly more
resources to pursuing questionable refunds sought by the poor - which
under the highest estimate is $9 billion - than to the $100 billion in
taxes not paid each year by people who work for cash and either fail to
file tax returns or understate their income."

http://www.nytimes.com/...

Trust is essential to a functioning society. Trust is what enables us
to leave our children at school every morning. Trust is what allows us
to take lifesaving medication. When you select a doctor, you do so
because you intuitively trust this person.

So, too is trust essential in political life. Democracies cannot
flourish without trust. Without trust can there be consent of the
governed? Without trust, can there be a willingness to accept the
decisions of our government? Without trust, can there be a compact that
the laws, whether we agree with them or not, apply to all--equally?

When we trust, we make ourselves vulnerable to others. Our
"voluntary" army trusted the leadership to supply them with the tools to
do dangerous work. Small things like body armor. Our heroes, betrayed by
the government. Left to die, here again. If our heroes are worth
nothing, what about the rest of us? Trust betrayed.

I don't see light at the end of the tunnel--do you? How does one
thrive in a country where deceit trumps candor, day after day after day?
How does one live in a country when you know the government is not your
friend? When you believe at every turn, the government wishes you ill?

History is replete with governments like the one we now endure. I
will survive, in some fashion, but many of our fellow citizens won't.

The American psyche will need generations to recover. How does the
next government, whenever that comes, inculcate the sense of trust which
has been so violently stripped from the body politic?

I keep returning to 2000. The election of 2000. We were asked as a
nation to accept, to trust, the system. We made a terrible mistake.

Our government is as broken as our healthcare system.

Where is the opposition party? Is there an opposition party?

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I would like to add a "difference of opinion" piece by a typical
SMUGLICAN who also lives in an illusion. Compare this to the above
article and you will realize why we aren't seeing much real time REALITY
in these dark days of Republican control. Oh, they are so SMUG, they
live in a world of BLACK AND WHITE and could care less about the
millions and millions of us caught up in the GRAY AREAS. Please read
David Brooks, bigoted, unrealistic, bordering on hysteria opinions and
try not to .

Brooks this color -

thinkingblue this color (I had to comment on this trite!)

January 12, 2006

Losing the Alitos

By DAVID BROOKS

If he'd been born a little earlier, Sam Alito would probably have been a Democrat. In the 1950's, the middle-class and lower-middle-class whites in places like Trenton, where Alito grew
up, were the heart and soul of the Democratic Party.

But by the late 1960's, cultural politics replaced New Deal politics, and liberal

Democrats did their best to repel Northern white ethnic voters. Big-city liberals launched crusades against police brutality, portraying working-class cops as thuggish storm troopers for the establishment. In the media, educated liberals portrayed urban ethnics as uncultured, uneducated Archie Bunkers.

The liberals were doves; the ethnics were hawks.

The liberals had "Question Authority" bumper stickers; the ethnics had been taught in school to respect authority. (HOLY COW, BROOKS WOULD LIKE TO BRING BACK HITLER'S YOUTH CAMPS...thinkingblue)

The liberals thought an unjust society caused poverty; the ethnics believed in working their way out of poverty.

{WHY DOESN'T MR. BROOKS (who is strongly partial to his own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ) READ SOME MATERIAL ON POVERTY BEFORE HE SPEWS HIS DELUSIONAL OPINIONS ABOUT IT... LIKE THIS LINK: MYTHS ABOUT POVERTY thinkingblue:}

Sam Alito emerged from his middle-class neighborhood about that time, made it to Princeton and found "very privileged people behaving
irresponsibly."

(OH, PLEASE NOT ANOTHER REPUBLICAN HORATIO ALGERS STORY...THE AMERICAN DREAM IS ONLY ALIVE FOR THE RICHEST OF THE RICH... READ BELOW... thinkingblue)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From Rich to Richer
S.M. Miller
Forbes Magazine likes to herald its reports on the wealthiest Americans as demonstrating the realization of the American dream: that one can go from rags to riches. For Forbes, the Horatio Alger story is the true story of America.

But careful identification of how Forbes' centi-millionaires and billionaires attained their wealth tells a different account of the plebeian origins of the richest Americans. Half of those on the Forbes 400 list started their economic careers by inheriting businesses or substantial wealth. Of these, most inherited sufficient wealth to put them immediately into Forbes' heaven. Only three out of ten on the Forbes list can be regarded as self-starters whose parents did not have great wealth or own a business with more than a few employees.

The data, then, do not support the assumption that the United States is a true meritocracy where the most able rise to their rightful positions. Nor do they defend the contention that the United States is structured so that authentic equality of opportunity prevails. Inheritances undermine the achievement-reward equation.

In 1995, it took only $340 million to break into to the Forbes 400. In 1996, the hurdle was raised to $400 million. By 1997, it was $475 million. The net worth of the wealthiest of the wealthy is increasing much faster than that of the rest of us.

Underlying Forbes' and others call for dramatically lowering taxes on the wealthy and decreasing or eliminating taxation of capital gains is the belief that we need wealthy people so that they can save, become entrepreneurs and provide jobs for the rest of us who are not as wise, energetic or risk-taking as they are. What proportion of the Forbes 400 established successful companies? Perhaps a quarter. We lack data on employment and other benefits of these enterprises.

Rather than concocting fables about our supposed "opportunity society," the editors of Forbes really ought to be examining the starting-gate advantages that the bulk of the Forbes 400 enjoyed. And while they're at it, perhaps they could delve into a few other questions: Exactly how does the great wealth of a very few benefit ordinary people? Do great concentrations of wealth block out opportunities for others to innovate? Do the consumption patterns of the wealthy distort the values and ambitions of many others? Are materialism and commercialism promoted by the display of enormous wealth? Is the power of big money corrupting political democracy?

S.M. Miller is Senior Fellow at the Commonwealth Institute and Research Professor of Sociology at Boston College.
ALSO READ: From Horatio Alger to Enron

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Alito wanted to learn; the richer liberals wanted to strike. He wanted to join R.O.T.C.; the liberal Princetonians expelled it from campus. He was orderly and respectful; they were disorderly and disrespectful. The experience was so searing that he mentioned it in the opening of his confirmation hearing 37
years later.

In 1971, Fred Dutton, an important Democratic strategist, acknowledged the rift between educated liberals and the white working class. In a short book, "Changing Sources of Power," Dutton argued that white workers had "tended, in fact, to become a major redoubt of traditional Americanism and of the antinegro, antiyouth vote."

The New Deal coalition, including Catholics and white ethnics, was dying, he argued, and should be replaced by a "loose peace coalition" of young people, educated suburbanites, feminists and blacks.

That plan wasn't stupid, but it didn't work. The party has been in a downward spiral ever since. John Kerry lost the white working class by 23 percentage points. He lost among his fellow Catholics. He lost the election.

After every defeat, Democrats vow to reconnect with middle-class whites. But if there is one lesson of the Alito hearings, it is that the Democratic Party continues to repel those voters just as vigorously as ever. The Democrats have amply shown why they remain the party of gown, but not town.

{Ok, Brooks, Enough with the civilities, listen you "BOOB" Click this link
(Why Democrats Lose at the Polls When They Win In the Courts:)
if you can take your head out of the sand and take off
your ROSE COLORED GLASSES long enough to comprehend reality...!!!
thinkingblue}

First, there was the old subject of police brutality. If you listened to the questions of Jeff Sessions, a Republican, you heard a man exercised by the terror drug dealers can inflict on a neighborhood. If you listened to Ted Kennedy, you heard a man exercised by the terror law enforcement officials can inflict on a neighborhood. Kennedy railed against "Gestapo-like" tactics.

Patrick Leahy accused Alito of rendering decisions in a "light most favorable to law enforcement."

If forced to choose, most Americans side with the party that errs on the side of the cops, not the criminals.

Then there was the old hawk-dove divide. If you listened to Lindsey Graham, a Republican, you heard a man alarmed by the threats posed by anti-American terrorists. If you listened to Leahy or Russ Feingold, you heard men alarmed by the threats posed by American counterterrorists. The Democratic questions implied that American counterterrorists are guilty until proved innocent, that a police state is being born.

If forced to choose, most Americans want a party that will fight aggressively against the terrorists, not the N.S.A. (again click) Then there were the old accusations of bigotry. Kennedy misleadingly and maliciously asserted that Alito had never written a decision on behalf of an African-American. But those wild accusations don't carry weight any more. Rich liberals have been calling white ethnics bigots for 40 years.

(There aren't many "RICH LIBERALS" but Liberals in general do not call "WHITE ETHNICS', bigots. You are one ignorant, pathetic weasel of a man, to dig to the bottom of your weasel bag for a false allegation to protect Alito... if he is the wonderful empathic, human being you say he is, he should get as politically far away from you as possible! But answer this please, why are so many bigots attracted to the Republican Party? case in point... Council of Conservative Citizens thinkingblue:)

The Uncompassionate Conservative (need I say more...thinkingblue)

Commentary:

It's not that he's mean. It's just that when it comes to seeing how his policies affect people, George W. Bush doesn't have a clue. By Molly Ivins

Finally, and most important, there is the question of demeanor. Alito is a paragon of the old-fashioned working-class ethic. In a culture of self-aggrandizement, Alito is modest. In a culture of self-exposure, Alito is reticent. In a culture of made-for-TV sentimentalism, Alito refuses to emote. In a culture that celebrates the rebel, or the fashionable pseudorebel, Alito
respects tradition, order and authority.

What sort of {NAZI...(thinkingblue)} party doesn't admire these virtues in a judge?

The Alito Opportunity Commentary: Samuel Alito's nomination shows that conservatives aren't interested in conserving much of anything.
By Greg Anrig, Jr.
November 1, 2005

The big story of American politics, which was underlined by every hour of the Alito hearings, is that sometime between 1932 and 1968, the DNA of the Democratic Party fundamentally changed. In 1932, the Democrats had working-class DNA. Today, the Democrats have different DNA, the DNA of a minority party.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
thinkingblue emailed David Brooks at dabrooks@nytimes.com with the following:
Re: An opinion for David Brooks: I WISH YOU WOULD TAKE YOUR NOSE OUT OF THE CLOUDS...And get a good whiff of reality.

I just read your article In the Midst of Budget Decadence, a Leader Will Arise where you so proudly blame seniors for " the horrendous burden they are placing on the young", because of the Medicare prescription drug benefit just passed. To blame seniors for the high cost of prescription medicine and also for collecting social security at their/our younger counterparts expense deserves a... ONE AND A TWO AND A WHOPPING... HUH???

Please give me a break, (you wouldn't give your own Ma, a break if she had FALLEN AND COULDN'T GET UP... so I use those words metaphorically) this is one of the most offensive, overused, stereotyped, banal, trite gathering of words, you and the rest of the non-thinking conservatives, have ever uttered (over and over and over and over and over...ad infinitum) Please read this article, if you would like that sniff of reality at this time... myth of the 'greedy' elderly

I really don't expect you to click the link and read anything like that... you choose to live by your unrealistic perceptions of life... way up in your Ivory Tower away from the stench of low income reality. Besides, I wouldn't want to be responsible for jolting you out of LA LA LAND and into the actuality of here and now.

Also commenting on David Brooks Losing the Alitos ...

You really outdid yourself on your most recent column of January 12, 2006! You reached deep down in your BS bag to write that one, pulling out all that worn-out, blathering conservative rhetoric. It must be the most hackneyed, and unimaginative piece of boloney you have written so far, (I say "must be" because I, most of the time, have no inclination to read your silly, overused, conservative "outlook on life" articles, so I'm just guessing!) Gee, I thought you were more educated and worldly-wise than that. It won’t be the first time I have misjudged someone and it probably won’t be the last. Anyway, I should really thank you, it was great ammunition for my weblog. I should give you an award.
thinkingblue
thinkingblue.blogspot.com

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(I HOPE TOM TOMORROW DOESN'T MIND THAT I PAINTED McBOBO'S GLASSES ROSE COLORED...thinkingblue)

AND MORE FROM THE NEARSIGHTED NITWIT, BEHIND THE ROSE COLORED
GLASSES D. BROOKS...

A weblog I don't think I've seen before, The Broad View, has an article on the subject with the on-point title They Want Our Parents to Die, addressing David Brooks' really disgusting article suggesting that old people are stealing their own Social Security money from their weak and helpless offspring (who they have obviously never done anything for). It's downright sick.

ThinkingBlue

Friday, January 13, 2006

MORE THEATER OF THE ABSURD

Maybe I'm not strong enough to be an American citizen

Losing the Alitos

By DAVID BROOKS

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