Yes, there are two Americas’ Virginia, they exist as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist. One tolerant and broadminded, the other intolerant and narrow-minded!
Sincerely, thinkingblue, from the TOLERANT AND BROADMINDED USA
PS: Joe (You Lie) Wilson, et al reside in the other America!
If Obama manages to lose to Romney, a blatant unabashed liar and a flagrant SCREWBALL, the Supreme Court will become a dictatorship and not an impartial, objective observer who can make decisions according to the constitution and what is good for this nation and its people; A tyranny court of far right-wing, goofy and dangerous decisions.
When this court, in 2000, picked our next president against the will of the people, my one thought was, OH NO MORE RIGHT-WING JUSTICES WILL BE APPOINTED. Of course this SCOTUS decision to appoint Bush, also wrecked havoc on our country and society which left us quite bruised and damaged, still the USA, with time, was permitted to heal somewhat, with the election of an intelligent brain. Yet Dubya’s conservative picks for the court has continued to EASE ON DOWN THE ROAD and vote along an ideological line, so that, in a sense means that old George W Bush is still sort of, YIKES, at the helm. More conservative appointees (from Romney) will clinch the deal and we won’t need those 9 justices anymore, just sign on the dotted line and enact laws that will favor the rich and make the poor even poorer until they won’t be called poor any longer but slaves. So be it. thinkingblue
Court's Recent Rulings Shake Up Partisan Narrative
June 29, 2012
It's a bit less likely now than a week ago that you'll hear people accuse the Supreme Court of being politicized.
That's because this week, the court ended its session with two controversial decisions — neither one of which was decided on the usual and predictable split between the five justices appointed by Republican presidents and the four appointed by Democrats.
But that doesn't make the court any less of a political animal.
Complaints about "activist courts" are common — and that phrase is easy to define, says Jeffrey Segal, a Stony Brook University professor. "Activism is a decision that people don't like."
A partisan court is a little different.
"Political polarization means that, by and large, the center is disappearing," Segal says.
There was a time when justices appointed by Democrats and Republicans intermingled in their judicial decisions. Ideological lines were murkier, and it was harder to predict who would fall where in a split decision. The last two justices who retired, David Souter and John Paul Stevens, were both Republican appointees who usually voted with the court's liberals.
This story is a tragedy that defies explanation. The mother is most assuredly mentally ill and the abused little girl will suffer mental scars for the rest of her life. The other 2 children involved will probably be placed in the foster care system which is a spin of the ole wheel of fortune, as to whether they will wind up in a safe and loving environment or suffer more abuse from within this, yet another, broken system involving children of the poor. It's a very sad tale that should not be swept under the carpet. We live in a time of social inequality where the top 1 percent of Americans now own 40 percent of the nation’s wealth. How much does the bottom 80 percent own? Only 7 percent, (Read more here: HOW UNEQUAL ARE WEhttp://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/10/03/334156/top-five-wealthiest-one-percent/) these statistics are appalling and result in the mass suffering of our little children. If I were part of the 1 percent living in this New Gilded Age, I don't think I could ever show my face in public let alone run for President of the USA. ( “I’m not concerned about the very poor,” --Mitt Romney--) thinkingblue
PS: Some sad statistics about Foster Care: According to national statistics, 40 to 50 percent of those children will never complete high school. Sixty-six percent of them will be homeless, go to jail or die within one year of leaving the foster care system at 18.
80 percent of the prison population once was in foster care, and that girls in foster care are 600 percent more likely than the general population to become pregnant before the age of 21. More Here: Statistics suggest bleak futures for children who grow up in foster care
http://amarillo.com/news/local-news/2012-06-24/what-comes-next
A Kansas City, Mo., mother is behind bars, accused of keeping her 10-year-old daughter locked in a closet, not letting her come out to eat, sleep or even go to the bathroom.
The girl weighed just 32 pounds, and hospital records indicated that she has only gained 6 pounds since she was 4 or 5 years old, according to a police probable cause statement. The girl also suffers from "multiple healing skin injuries and failure to thrive," the statement said.
"She weighed a little over a third of what a 10-year-old should weigh," Kansas City Police Capt. Steve Young said. "We don't know how long or how frequently she's been in there [the closet], but it's clear she'd spent a significant amount of time in there."
Kansas City police met Missouri Children's Division workers outside the apartment building Friday morning after the division received a hotline call about a girl who was locked up and unable to eat or use the restroom.
When a division worker told two women outside the apartment that three children lived in the apartment, the neighbors said they had never seen the third child even though they'd lived there for "several years."
THE 5 percent of Americans with the highest incomes now account for 37 percent of all consumer purchases, according to the latest research from Moody’s Analytics. That should come as no surprise. Our society has become more and more unequal.
When so much income goes to the top, the middle class doesn’t have enough purchasing power to keep the economy going without sinking ever more deeply into debt — which, as we’ve seen, ends badly. An economy so dependent on the spending of a few is also prone to great booms and busts. The rich splurge and speculate when their savings are doing well. But when the values of their assets tumble, they pull back. That can lead to wild gyrations. Sound familiar? http://room4truth.com/2011/09/04/an-unequal-society/
--- Life as a Foster Child A throw away kid...
This is my story as a foster child. I hope it helps someone understand us, especially the foster parent. I hope it makes the case workers really listen to us. I hope it changes the system, but I'm afraid it won't.
Don't let me mislead you, I am not a child now, but I remember everything. I remember thoughts and feelings, I remember the looks and attitudes of those around me. I was a watcher, a silent, withdrawn watcher. In a way, I still am.
I was taken from a stay in the hospital to the social worker's office. There I met my younger siblings, ( I was the oldest). I didn't know what was happening, but I don't think I cared at the time. I was already broken at this point. I had already shut down emotionally, a child in a box, detatched, going through the motions. I was 7 years old, and very small for my age.
I had no memory of the particular incident that put me in the hospital. It had just happened, and my mind protected me from the memory, it still does to this day.
Yes, we should have been taken.
Don't get me wrong, child services were right in getting us out of that home. It was horrible there. After my mother divorced my dad she married a psycho. No, really, he was clinically psycho. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and even his parents warned my mother to stay away from him. She didn't listen. She moved in with her very young 5 children. I remember so many horrible moments with that monster. So when I finally ended up in the hospital, it was good that we were immediately taken out of the home, but then came foster care.
How can you expect us to be grateful?
This is to all of the foster parents, we don't like you. You have to earn that right. You have to earn our trust, what little we have left, and it won't be easy. Oh, and something else. Don't expect us to be grateful for what you are doing for us. What do we have to be grateful for, anyway? We were ripped from everything and everyone we know. We were thrown to you, and you want us to be grateful? We didn't choose you, and we know you will probably never love us. You are strangers, you are dangerous, you are another set of adults we have to listen to, another set of adults who can hurt us. You have power over us, and we are helpless. Our life lays in pieces around us. We are shattered, damaged, broken. How can you expect us to be grateful? MORE HERE: http://www.squidoo.com/lifeasafosterchild
Statistics show the future bodes poorly for many of the children in the foster care... Arrow, an international child-placement agency, claims the statistics describe a national foster care crisis. ...
Alan Turing, the British mathematical genius and codebreaker born 100 years ago on 23 June, may not have committed suicide, as is widely believed.
At a conference in Oxford on Saturday, Turing expert Prof Jack Copeland will question the evidence that was presented at the 1954 inquest.
He believes the evidence would not today be accepted as sufficient to establish a suicide verdict.
Indeed, he argues, Turing's death may equally probably have been an accident.
What is well known and accepted is that Alan Turing died of cyanide poisoning.
His housekeeper famously found the 41-year-old mathematician dead in his bed, with a half-eaten apple on his bedside table.
It is widely said that Turing had been haunted by the story of the poisoned apple in the fairy tale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and had resorted to the same desperate measure to end the persecution he was suffering as a result of his homosexuality.
But according to Prof Copeland, it was Turing's habit to take an apple at bedtime, and that it was quite usual for him not to finish it; the half-eaten remains found near his body cannot be seen as an indication of a deliberate act.
Indeed, the police never tested the apple for the presence of cyanide.
Moreover, Prof Copeland emphasises, a coroner these days would demand evidence of pre-meditation before announcing a verdict of suicide, yet nothing in the accounts of Turing's last days suggest he was in anything but a cheerful mood.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
We have... been recreating the narrative of Turing's life, and we have recreated him as an unhappy young man who committed suicide. But the evidence is not there”
Prof Jack Copeland University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
Alan Turing's genius
He had left a note on his office desk, as was his practice, the previous Friday to remind himself of the tasks to be done on his return after the Bank Holiday weekend.
Nevertheless, at the inquest, the coroner, Mr JAK Ferns declared: "In a man of his type, one never knows what his mental processes are going to do next." What he meant by "of this type" is unclear.
The motive for suicide is easy to imagine. In 1952, after he had reported a petty burglary, Turing found himself being investigated for "acts of gross indecency" after he revealed he had had a male lover in his house.
Faced with the prospect of imprisonment, and perhaps with it the loss of the mathematics post he held at Manchester University, which gave him access to one of the world's only computers, Turing accepted the alternative of "chemical castration" - hormone treatment that was supposed to suppress his sexual urges. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18561092
Conviction for indecency
In January 1952, Turing met a man called Arnold Murray outside a cinema in Manchester. After a lunch date, Turing invited Murray to spend the weekend with him at his house, an invitation which Murray accepted although he did not show up. The pair met again in Manchester the following Monday, when Murray agreed to accompany Turing to the latter's house. A few weeks later Murray visited Turing's house again, and apparently spent the night there.
After Murray helped an accomplice to break into his house, Turing reported the crime to the police. During the investigation, Turing acknowledged a sexual relationship with Murray. Homosexual acts were illegal in the United Kingdom at that time, and so both were charged with gross indecency under Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885.
Turing was given a choice between imprisonment or probation conditional on his agreement to undergo hormonal treatment designed to reduce libido. He accepted chemical castration via injections of stilboestrol, a synthetic oestrogen hormone.
Turing's conviction led to the removal of his security clearance, and barred him from continuing with his cryptographic consultancy for the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British signals intelligence agency that had evolved from GCCS in 1946. At the time, there was acute public anxiety about spies and homosexual entrapment by Soviet agents, because of the recent exposure of the first two members of the Cambridge Five, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, as KGB double agents. Turing was never accused of espionage but, as with all who had worked at Bletchley Park, was prevented from discussing his war work. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing
IMAO: The sad circumstances inflicted upon the genius of Alan Turing (because of sexual orientation discrimination) during the 1950's, is NO DOUBT, one of those times in our human history that the Republicans would like to take us back to...
I don't know about you but the older I get the more I am having problems with Cultural Insanity. We as a people do need laws in order to live together with a smidgeon amount of courtesy and respect for one another. BUT, Holy Riddled With Holes, Batman, there is a gray area to every law and rule ever devised by mankind! At least there should be, but not in this Little Rural Southern Town. An article printed in the local newspaper, about a man arrested for urinating in public is beyond all that is REASONABLE. I know this guy did a NO NO for sure, but give me a break, Arrested, Booked, Running a SS # and EBT card (food stamp) check on him and then making sure the local paper got a hold of this super notorious story so they could print-up a comprehensive headline article complete with MUGSHOT for "PUBLIC URINATION" is BATSHIT CRAZY!
Excerpt: The "culprit" was ordered by FHP to STOP but was evasive and uncooperative! (HE WAS PEEING FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!)
If the guy had been an undocumented immigrant, he would be fast tracked to another country (costing big bucks to taxpayers) for doing such an UNTHINKABLE BODILY FUNCTION! I can’t help but ask… Why didn’t the Police Person have a little empathy and just give the guy a warning? Oh no, that would make sense and in this Culture of Insanity that the GOP/TP has catapulted us all in, making sense would be an even BIGGER thou-shalt-not, than peeing on a public sidewalk. Pathetic and Distressing to say the least! (redacted newspaper clipping included) thinkingblue PS: I, once again, can't help but wonder why, the Florida Authorities didn’t give this much attention to George Zimmermann for killing an unarmed teenager; but, there I go again with my damnable common sense.
The Best Authority On Batshit Crazy: George Carlin
EXCERPT: As a fellow journalist and immigrant, I've always felt a connection to the issue of immigration and the plight of undocumented immigrants. I've spent a good part of my career reporting on these issues, and reading Vargas' article reminded me how truly uneducated the general population is in regards to immigration and how that needs to be changed for this conversation to move forward. Read more in ¿Qué más?: Is the new STARS bill better than the DREAM Act?
When I first realized this, I couldn't believe the amount of people that are so uninformed/misinformed about how the immigration system actually works in this country. I mean, it's obviously not a requirement for anyone to know this information, but if you're going to have an opinion about the issue, you should at least get informed. Unfortunately, the mainstream media--where most people go to find information--is hugely responsible for perpetuating the unfounded myths that abound regarding immigration. One of the most common misconceptions is that the process of becoming a documented or "legal" immigrant is simple and everyone should just follow the rules, get in line and get a green card. My reaction to that one is always the same: if it's so easy, why wouldn't every single undocumented immigrant do just that? Do people seriously think undocumented immigrants like living in the shadows? Living in fear of being discovered and getting deported from the only country they've ever really known?
My Two Cents Worth: I can't help but envision the world’s human population as one. I know people are very territorial, just like the other animal species, and I suppose it’s an important part of the evolution and perpetuate the species process to feel these innate gut-responses of THAT’S MINE NOT YOURS. Life forms must protect their territories in order to have a somewhat safe haven to bring forth new generations. I saw this in action the other night; the many birds that live in trees on my property let out a certain shrill, come sundown. When I heard their screeching sounds I knew there was danger in the vicinity for these feathered creatures. Sure enough, there was a huge owl lurking in the tree camouflaged and looking like a part of it. The screeching got louder and soon the owl spread his mighty wings and landed on the ground with small birds’ dive bombing it. The owl was out to dine on, no doubt, one of the adult bird’s fledglings and he wasn’t about to leave the scene hungry. The smaller birds were very upset with this intruder but could do nothing about it but alert each other to the impending peril.
When it comes to humans, the so called territorial space is a whole country, and for some their actions are very similar to the birds. They feel as though this real estate cut from the Earth’s land masses, where they were born, belongs to only them and no one else should intrude upon “their” soil.
I realize there has to be laws protecting one’s space but the immigration laws the Republicans are trying to shove down our throats are barbaric and without thought. They are based upon people’s unfounded fears but what else is new? The Republicans are masters at using fear to get what they want. Fear is easy.
I just came across another thought provoking article written by Fareed Zakaria a good read that will give you the facts on what is happening in our country regarding immigration and it is nothing to be proud of. America, thanks to the right-wing is fast becoming a cruel place and a Second-Rate Nation. Those of us who are not influenced by the fear mongers must try to put a stop to this downward decline of our image and America itself. Its win at all cost for for the GOP, they have proved this time and again. The sad thing is, that it appears they are unstoppable, they have got the momentum; they have a land full of ignorant people who refuse to read and research the many misleading “facts” that are spoon-feed to them by the callous leaders of their party, who feel no shame. thinkingblue
An immigration deadlock makes the U.S. a second-rate nation
By Fareed Zakaria
As the American economy sags, the race for the presidency gets tighter—except in one dimension. Hispanic Americans continue to support Barack Obama by an astonishing 61%-to-27% margin. Were Obama to win, it might well be because of his attitudes on one issue: immigration. But it is an issue on which he will be unable to enact any of his preferences, let alone those policies that many Latinos support. The Republican Party has taken a tough stand on the topic. Democrats have their own bright lines. That means America’s immigration system is likely to stay as it is right now—utterly broken.
We think of ourselves as the world’s great immigrant society, and of course, for most of the country’s history, that has been true. But something fascinating has happened over the past two decades. Other countries have been transforming themselves into immigrant societies, adopting many of America’s best ideas and even improving on them. The result: the U.S. is not as exceptional as it once was, and its immigration advantage is lessening.
Would you have guessed that Canada and Australia both have a higher percentage of foreign-born residents than the U.S.? In fact, in this respect, America—which once led the world—–increasingly looks like many other Western countries. France, Germany and the U.K. have only slightly fewer foreign-born residents than America (as a percentage of the population). And some of these countries have managed to take in immigrants mostly based on their skills, giving a big boost to their economies.
Canadian immigration policy is now centered on recruiting talented immigrants with abilities the country needs. Those individuals can apply for work visas themselves; they don’t even need to have an employer. The Canadian government awards points toward the visa, with extra points for science education, technical skills and work experience.
The results of the system are evident in Vancouver, where American high-–technology companies like Microsoft has large research laboratories and offices. The people working in these –offices are almost all foreign graduates of American universities who could not get work visas in the U.S. They moved a few hours north to Vancouver, where they live in a city much like those on the American West Coast. Except, of course, that they will pay taxes, file patents, make inventions and hire people in Canada.
Sixty-two percent of permanent-resident visas in Canada are based on skills, while the remainder are for family unification. In the U.S., the situation is almost exactly the reverse: two-thirds of America’s immigrants enter through family unification, while only 13% of green cards are granted because of talent, merit and work. And it’s actually gotten worse over time. The cap on applications for H1-B –visas (for highly skilled immigrants) has dropped in half over the past decade.
It’s not as if America doesn’t need these people. American companies are struggling to fill 3.7 million job openings, many of them in science-–related fields. Meanwhile, foreign students receive half of all doctorates in such fields, and almost all of them will head home after graduation. (In recent years, the H1-B visa limit was reached within the first few days of filing!) New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg calls America’s immigration policy the single biggest problem facing the economy and argues that our current approach is “national suicide.”
It isn’t just Canada to which America is losing the best and brightest. Australia, Britain and Singapore are all wooing the world’s most talented graduates. And then there are China and India, where many of these graduates come from. As those countries develop economically, new opportunities grow there, and lots of Indians and Chinese decide to go back home. The Beijing government makes a serious effort to recruit many of these people, from recent college graduates to tenured professors at the world’s best universities. The evidence is that increasingly it is succeeding.
But none of these broad –arguments to reform America’s immigration system will make much difference while the partisan standoff remains. Those who have hard-line views on this topic believe that immigration reform must start with taking control of the border through more stringent patrols, more effective fences and wider deportations like those that have been under way for years.
While the ideological battles over immigration persist, something strange has happened on the ground: Mexican immigration to America is slowing to a standstill. The Pew Hispanic Center released a report in April showing that net Mexican migration into the U.S.—those entering minus those going back to Mexico—is now zero and that the number of Mexicans going back might actually now be higher than the number entering. This trend might be partly a product of tougher enforcement, but it is most likely caused by economic weakness in the U.S. coupled with a striking decline in Mexican fertility rates (which is itself caused by more education and opportunities in Mexico).
Whether or not this trend holds, the U.S. has to deal with the workers who are already here. The most sensible solution would be to craft legislation that would deport those who have criminal records and give some kind of legal status to the others. The path to citizenship for these workers should properly be long, placing them behind regular applicants and visa holders, and could take 15 years, during which they would have to pay all their taxes and abide by all laws.
That would allow a real reform of the system. We should sharply reduce the number of legal immigrants who arrive because they are sponsored by a family –member. We should expand massively the number who come in because they have skills we need. We should recognize that certain industries do need temporary workers—farms in California, for example—and those industries could set up temporary-–worker programs so crops can get picked during harvesting season. Ideally, such a bill would be bipartisan, sponsored by a prominent Democrat and an equally prominent Republican. Naturally, it should have the strong support of the President.
The tragedy, of course, is that we had such a bill. It was sponsored in 2005 by Senators John McCain and Ted Kennedy and strongly supported by then President George W. Bush. It did not even get to the floor of the Senate or House for a vote. The right hated it because it provided a legal path for undocumented workers, the left because it reduced family unification. And the unions opposed the –temporary-worker provisions.
In an earlier era, the fact that the more extreme wings of the parties disliked the bill might actually have made passage easier, because that meant it was supported at the center, where the action lay. Today all the power has shifted to the wings of the two parties, who control their agendas. The failure of immigration reform is a metaphor for the breakdown of the political process. The simple fact is that in a country of more than 300 million people, any policy is going to have opponents—not everyone agrees with you—but the opponents can now paralyze the process. So nothing gets done.
It’s a sad state, because the U.S. remains a model for the world. It is the global melting pot, the place where a universal nation is being created. We may not do immigration better than everyone else anymore, but we do assimilation better than anyone else. People from all over the world come to this country and, almost magically, become Americans.
They—I should say we—come to the country with drive and dedication and over time develop a fierce love for America. This infusion of talent, hard work and patriotism has kept the country vital for the past two centuries. And if we can renew it, it will keep America vital in the 21st century as well.
In a world proud of the prosperity and profundity that a global village creates, it seems odd that there is so much discrimination and resentment. Might we, as a larger community, realize that times have changed, technology has altered our reality? Nationally, or internationally, we are all connected.
“Populists (and 'national socialists') look at the supposedly secret deals that run the world 'behind the scenes'. Child's play. Except that childishness is sinister in adults.”
~ Christopher Hitchens ~ PS:I changed the title from "We Are Americans - Just Not Legally" to "The Painful Reality of Being An 'Undocumented' American" because it characterizes what I am trying to express about a situation here in America THAT SHOULD NOT BE. thinkingblue
THE SADNESS CONTINUES: Undocumented teen suicide — Consequences of the failed DREAM Act vote in December 2010
by Dee Dee Garcia Blase on Nov. 27, 2011,
Failed DREAM Act Vote Rears Its Ugly Head
By DeeDee Garcia Blase
Co-President of the National Tequila Party Movement
May the death of Joaquin Luna not go in vain.
DREAM Act student, Joaquin Luna, recently took his life in Texas. At 18 years old, he had aspirations of becoming an engineer. He was one of ours. He
took his life because he felt as an undocumented immigrant he had nowhere to go. He relied and was hoping for the passage of the DREAM Act in December 2010 that could have been passed with only a handful more Senate votes. I knew there would be dire consequences to the failure of the December 2010 DREAM Act vote, but it is getting tougher and tougher to swallow news like this when we hear of children who feel they have no other option. It’s heart wrenching. Just think, if the DREAM Act would have passed last December, we would not have to witness this precious life go to waste, and I’m told Joaquin is not the first. MORE HERE
http://shine.yahoo.com/parenting/woman-behind-controversial-military-breastfeeding-photo-fired-her-164900839.html
Excerpt: The photo that caused the initial uproar featured two military moms breastfeeding their babies while wearing their Air National Guard uniforms. While many people were supportive of the women's right to breastfeed whenever necessary, others felt that the picture was disrespectful to the military.
We live in a culture of dipshit. No one should see a picture of a human female naturally breastfeeding her offspring as disrespectful to anything or anybody. Nursing a baby is Nature and intrinsic to every mammal that walks upon Planet Earth. Why is it when you see a cat or a dog or a cow feeding their young it seems beautiful or cute, yet when a human mother is seen nursing her young, it brings about feelings of disgust and aversion? I blame it on capitalism and the use of sex in marketing. Firing this woman for taking part in a photograph of women naturally feeding their infants, in military uniforms, is another notch on the belt of those who view women as inferior and in need of subjugation through laws that diminish their freedoms. I’ll bet Schryver Medical is a GOP contributor.
More Excerpts: Scott -- who served in the Army from 2000 to 2006, including a tour in Iraq, and whose husband is still in the military -- was surprised by the outrage. "I'm an X-ray tech and I breastfeed in my uniform all the time," she told Yahoo! Shine in an interview on May 30, the day the controversy ignited. "Granted they're scrubs. But people do it all the time in their uniforms. If you have a hungry baby, why would you take the time to change completely?"
The two members of the Air National Guard who appeared in the controversial photo, Terran Echegoyen-McCabe and Christina Luna have been reprimanded because the photo "violated a policy that forbids military members from using the uniform to further a cause, promote a product or imply an endorsement," the Air Force Times reported.
"The uniform was misused. That's against regulations," Captain Keith Kosik, a spokesman for the Washington National Guard, told the Air Force Times. "I want to be very, very clear about this. Our issue is not, nor has it ever been, about breastfeeding. It has to do with honoring the uniform and making sure it's not misused. I can't wear my uniform to a political rally, to try to sell you something or push an ideology. That was our point of contention."
“The Uniform Was Misused!” tell that to a hungry baby, will ya! thinkingblue
Today is Flag Day, fly old glory proudly, even though the Republicans have stained it so unmercifully. This is a video of Porky Pig reciting the Pledge of Allegiance the way it was written, the way I remember being taught in grade school...
In 1954, Congress after a campaign by the Knights of Columbus, the world's largest Catholic fraternal service organization, (1951 they started using those two words), added the words, 'under God,' to the Pledge. The Pledge was now both a patriotic oath and a public prayer.
Separation of Church and State was not the soup du jour on that day and One Nation Indivisible, was divided! thinkingblue
I came across this BUTTON the other day while posting on StumbleUpon, upon clicking it and seeing the below message, I thought it quite funny.
{{{Everything is OK now. If everything is still not OK, try checking your settings of perception of objective reality.}}}
But then I pondered, what exactly is this thing called objective reality? I knew, simply put, that our perception of things around us is not reality based but is defined by our brains, using past experiences.
Of course they do, they would not win or be allowed to steal elections if the populous was even partially aware of this cognitive philosophy. This Party of NO, must dumb down its voters, or they won’t have a chance in any election. But, I believe an odd (maybe a better word would be LIKELY) consequence occurs when they attempt to stifle good judgment, they themselves become ignorant to the realities of life. Their focus thus becomes clouded with money, power, arrogance, and greed; their attitude towards others is of indifference, believing all other humans beings (along with every other form of life) exist solely to make them materialistically superior, and nothing else. They are a very dangerous entity, not upon reality because reality will always prevail, it is beyond the scope of mere mortals but the Republican mindset will be lethal to us who live in this time and space. If they succeed in winning the election, come November 2012 another generation will suffer their disastrous hegemony for years to come; And that in very plain language… STINKS! thinkingblue
What is objective reality?
Over on The Motley Fool atheist board, someone recently posted the question: “Could somebody please explain the term ‘objective reality’ to me?”
We don’t view the world as it really is; we interpret it with our senses and filter it through existing patterns in our brains. For instance, when I think that I see a blue racquetball, I am not really perceiving the ball directly. White light is striking the surface of that ball, all the wavelengths are absorbed except for those that we recognize at the color blue, and then the light bounces back to the surface of our eyes. The cells in our eyes transmit the pattern of photons back to our brain, which then looks at the pattern of light and dark shading, interprets the slightly different information from each eye to estimate distance, and then creates sort of a computer simulated model of a ball. Your brain tells you “That’s a blue ball!” and that’s what you think you see.
But senses can be fooled or misled, and your brain’s program can screw up and misinterpret what it’s reading. Then you can get a false impression of what you are seeing in the world.
Furthermore, you interpret a lot of things based on your memories of things that have happened to you in the past. If you see or hear about something that conflicts with the world model that was already in your head, you might reject the new information or file it wrong in your memory, because your brain doesn’t like to completely reorganize its existing patterns every time it sees something a bit odd.
So there’s a “real world” out there, outside your brain; and then there’s the “virtual world” that has been built inside your brain. The real and the virtual world never match up completely, but they can correspond to a greater or lesser degree. When you see a blue ball, you can be pretty confident that there really is a ball and it really has the property of being blue. The color blue is not really a “thing”; it is just a word that we use to label light at a certain wavelength. But there really is light, and it really has different wavelengths, and it really does bounce off of things like balls to show you the color blue.
When we talk about “objective reality”, we are talking about the world that’s really there, unfiltered, outside your mind. Our beliefs do not change the world, except to the extent that they lead to actions that alter reality. So I can, if I try hard enough, go around all day sincerely believing things like “That blue ball is actually an orange artichoke”
Why Does The Right Wing Need Reality Unhinged?
Essentially for the same reason the round earth reality was opposed by authorities, or the sun as center of the solar system was opposed; to keep control of the authority paradigm under their thought control, is a conservatives first imperative. For that they will deny evidence from observed reality that seems to constrain their authority. They are then compelled by emotion, to demean new or opposing information, particularly by shaming the messengers of contradiction and their message. We can be most passionate over that which we least know as fact.
They right wing often seeds irrationalism into the national dialectic to keep corralled, those dependent upon blind forms of trust, as opposed to more verifiable scientific analysis. We are figuratively then cast into the debate between the right wings modern versions of an obviously flat earth (appearance’s) , and the intellectual elites ideas of a round world which requires thought and rational interpretation. The conservative right spends much time on shame, blame, and attacks on science and intellectualism in general (their own excepted). Ignorance becomes the prime conservative currency they can take to the bank, made by trust in their authority and its “invincible” ideology.
Conservatives need to control Appearance Reality, always have. In effect, tantamount to metaphorically supporting a kind of pseudoscience, for they must offer their “real” evidence why they cannot be wrong. They operate from the assumption, then, that their view is reality, truth or fact, and other views wrong or fantasy. For this they must shame deep inquiry as tantamount to a kind of obfuscation, or complicated mental based fantasy. If you control how things seem by controlling emotions through fear rather than conscientious reason, a public diverted from objectivity will be primed to “get” the conservatives absolute surety.
Appearance Reality is the appearance “truth” of how things seem. Today’s conservatives see the economy, as well as their social values, as these kinds of inviolable right truths, and questions from you or I are automatically (if challenging their conceptual paradigm), felt by them as being wrong. We appear wrong to the narrative of their dogma. Since we seem somehow willingly wrong to them, they tend to invoke shaming in order to stop critical thinking abilities from functioning fully—in the conservative faithful.
-Science Itself Must Be Debunked; Kinds of Faith Overriding Evidence and Rational Theory
Objective contextual rendering of complex social and economic issues, such as theorized from science, must by necessity, be perceptually tarnished, often by pseudo-scientific emotionalized debunking. It is out of conservatism’s control mind-frames, to allow intellectual theory or controversy to spiral out of their control narratives. Conservatism relies on the appearance of a-priori knowing of unquestionable “truths”. Contrary ideas can then be declared spurious and wrong merely by existing, without the need of any objective-like truth finding or further research.
You will notice conservatives emotionalized ad-hominem attitude’s of contempt and shaming as primitive authoritarian manipulative identity control mechanisms. Conservatism depends upon select self-serving rationalization to define their apparent unquestionable group defined consensus reality. To question them is perceived as offending them, the questioner is perceived as being on the side of something inherently wrong. The manipulative tactic of The Thought-terminating cliché, is widespread across the conservative right, serving the purpose of emotionally diverting questions regarding beliefs by placing identity boulders in the way of perceiving cause and effect..
http://www.indopedia.org/Thought_terminating_cliche.html
This opens the door to proselytizing demagogues from soapboxes in the mass media. READ MORE HERE: http://benafia.wordpress.com/my-pages/conservative-reality-avoidance-necessity-appearance-reality/
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Is There a Difference Between Memory and Imagination?
If you remember something wrong, is the label “memory” still accurate? Does the label of memory necessitate a 1:1 correspondence with the past? If not 1:1, how much correspondence with the past is necessary for us to still be comfortable using the label of memory? More importantly, if we can talk about a memory being in error, or even completely fabricated (i.e. – “false memories”), then at what point can we then say there is a meaningful difference between memory and imagination? READ MORE HERE: http://cognitivephilosophy.net/consciousness/is-there-a-difference-between-memory-and-imagination/
EXCERPT: Kim Ruocco, widow of Marine Maj. John Ruocco, a helicopter pilot who hanged himself in 2005 between Iraq deployments, said he was unable to bring himself to go for help.
"He was so afraid of how people would view him once he went for help," she said in an interview at her home in suburban Boston. "He thought that people would think he was weak, that people would think he was just trying to get out of redeploying or trying to get out of service, or that he just couldn't hack it - when, in reality, he was sick. He had suffered injury in combat and he had also suffered from depression and let it go untreated for years. And because of that, he's dead today."
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Suicides are surging among America's troops, averaging nearly one a day this year — the fastest pace in the nation's decade of war.
The 154 suicides for active-duty troops in the first 155 days of the year far outdistance the U.S. forces killed in action in Afghanistan — about 50 percent more — according to Pentagon statistics obtained by The Associated Press.
The numbers reflect a military burdened with wartime demands from Iraq and Afghanistan that have taken a greater toll than foreseen a decade ago. The military also is struggling with increased sexual assaults, alcohol abuse, domestic violence and other misbehavior.
Because suicides had leveled off in 2010 and 2011, this year's upswing has caught some officials by surprise.
The reasons for the increase are not fully understood. Among explanations, studies have pointed to combat exposure, post-traumatic stress, misuse of prescription medications and personal financial problems. Army data suggest soldiers with multiple combat tours are at greater risk of committing suicide, although a substantial proportion of Army suicides are committed by soldiers who never deployed. MORE HEREhttp://news.yahoo.com/ap-impact-suicides-surging-among-us-troops-204148055.html
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Media should be talking about this overwhelming cataclysm but they are not. It seems it is one of those quandaries that those in power positions would rather sweep under the carpet. I blame many of our societal ills on the GOP conservative frame of mind and again I place responsibility for these military suicides smack dab on the GOP ideology of… women are weak, gays are an abomination, government is not and should not be responsible for its citizenry, human beings ARE ISLANDS, therefore each individual has no one to blame but themselves for humankind breakdowns; And the GOP attitude on mental illness, especially within the military is, ITS ALWAYS FEIGNED AND ALWAYS A COVER FOR COWARDLINESS. They disperse this indifferent, calloused and unrealistic credo, as if it were something to be proud of. It’s a false pride because all of us together are only as strong as our weakest link. John Donne, wrote a poignant poem many years ago that 'rings' true today.
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee. John Donne( born between 24 January and 19 June 1572 – died 31 March 1631)
"All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
This famous meditation of Donne's puts forth two essential ideas which are representative of the Renaissance era in which it was written: No man is an island, entire of itself...The idea that people are not isolated from one another, but that mankind is interconnected; and… Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee The vivid awareness of mortality that seems a natural outgrowth of a time when death was the constant companion of life.
Donne brings these two themes together to affirm that any one man's death diminishes all of mankind, since all mankind is connected; yet that death itself is not so much to be feared as it at first seems. Join us in exploring these two main themes, which we have associated with the two controlling images of the meditation...the island and the bell.
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If I had only a smidgeon of universal power, I would put forth a proclamation that these words of wisdom shall become required reading and study for all who believe we are NOT, every last one of us, in the SAME boat; And Common Sense would tell you quite blatantly… it’s not UNSINKABLE. thinkingblue
If women are paid equal for equal work, Businesses Will Fail!
This is so convoluted, it's hard to... NO IMPOSSIBLE TO understand, that is, if you possess average to genius aptitude or INTELLIGENCE. (or even if you were a few peas short of a casserole! )
Anyone who doubts the United States has been in an economic free fall for the last three decades should check out the new United Nations Children’s Fund report on child poverty. OF the 34 wealthiest nations looked at by UNICEF – the United States has the second highest child poverty rate of all of them – with a staggering 23% of all American children living in poverty.
Only two nations – United States and Romania have child poverty rates above 20%. That number would be even higher except for federal life lines like food stamps – which reduced the number of children in extreme poverty by half last year. Unfortunately – with unemployment benefits expiring around the nation – and Republicans gutting the food stamp programs – things could get a lot tougher for children in America. http://rt.com/usa/blogs/thom-hartmann-blog/poverty-united-child-states/
But I guess none of this "malarkey" on poverty is true and I am doing my usual Whistle In The Dark. Just remember what Presidential Hopeful, Herman Cain, once told us, "BLAME YOURSELF if you're not rich!".
The above article tells us that there may be just an itty bitty bit of sunshine peeking through the darkness, after Wisconsin's Ignoramus Pool, leaped, bounced and hopped to the polls to merily vote for their darling boy Walker. Scott Walker, is a disaster for Wisconsin and an abysmal bleakness for America but it doesn’t seem to matter to the Super Pac's who threw money around like there's no tomorrow to retain Walker’s gubernatorial seat (thank ‘YOU’ to the 5 Republican Judges on the SCOTUS for making this a reality) proving once again that MONEY TALKS AND TRUTH TAKES A WALK!
Wisconsin results look better for Obama than for Romney
WASHINGTON — Looking ahead to November, the Wisconsin recall election — triggered by GOP Gov. Scott Walker busting state worker unions — leaves President Barack Obama in better shape than Mitt Romney.
Wisconsin is one of 10 battleground states, and exit polls of Wisconsin voters show Obama at 54 percent to 42 percent for Romney — even though Walker survived the challenge.
It is not an inconsistent finding, given the peculiar nature of a recall election. Some 60 percent of Wisconsin voters said a recall was only appropriate when a public official was accused of some kind of official misconduct. Walker’s recall was triggered when he led the drive to grind down the collective bargaining rights of state government employees — a major policy difference, not a personal failing.
That resistance to the use of the recall tool suggests why some voters in Wisconsin were comfortable in casting a ballot for a Republican with roots in the Tea Party movement and turning around and saying in November they could vote for Democrat Obama.
No one is predicting that Obama can repeat in 2012 his 2008 blowout in the Badger State, when he beat GOP rival Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) by 14 points. But Obama also has history on his side — the last Republican who won Wisconsin was Ronald Reagan, in 1984.
Scott Walker's "Win" is not a "Win" for the people, it's a (bought) "Win" for the Koch Brothers and their Wealthy Corporate Ilk. It's a very sad day for our Republic. thinkingblue
He wants to cut more from poverty programs instead.
The Tea Party Republicans are stunningly cruel and are a brutally covetous lot. They are only motivated by greed and it's amazing no one (especially their base) has tried to oust them from the political arena. I am totally ashamed that they represent ME in any capacity what so ever! It's all about making the rich, richer because they know that wealth begets enormous power. Of course they don't care about the working poor, in their eyes the needy only represent a possible slave labor force and if they could shred the safety nets any reasonable government would supply their less fortunate citizens, the more peons they will have to work at piddling wages; Long working hours, with compenstion so low that misery and hopelessness becomes the only way of life, for those who have little to nothing. These callous few (GOP/TP) feel NO SHAME benefiting from the poor’s misery. It’s time we end their exploitation of the many, it’s time to end their demands that only the rich deserve rewards. We The People have got to put a stop to their scourge upon OUR America! They have made it crystal clear that this nation, OUR NATION does not matter to them, it’s power they want and only power is important. Please sign the petition. thinkingbluehttp://leftaction.com/action/dont-let-boehner-back-out-defense-cuts
Yes, there are two Americas’ Virginia, they exist as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist. One tolerant and
free-thinking, the other intolerant and close-minded!
Sincerely, thinkingblue, from the TOLERANT AND FREE-THINKING USA
PS: Joe (You Lie) Wilson, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh et al reside in the intolerant America!
thinkingblue
thinkingblue
This famous meditation of Donne's puts forth two essential ideas which are representative of the Renaissance era in which it was written: No man is an island, entire of itself...The idea that people are not isolated from one another, but that mankind is interconnected; and… Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee The vivid awareness of mortality that seems a natural outgrowth of a time when death was the constant companion of life. 
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