Thursday, February 28, 2008
Fun with Words....
What, at this stage of the game, is the point of these mean spirited hatchet jobs other than edifying readers as to the character and intent of the author? Aside from the many bald, totally false, fabrications in the piece, would it not suffice were the author to exercise some economy of pejorative words in their childish literary endeavor and simply say, "I hate the bitch"? Of course, these are always unsigned works of novice propagandists, toiling away at the basest of character assassination assignments, the nuts and bolts of the Lee Atwater school of political dirty tricks, of which the Waffen SS officer, fat ass Karl Rove is now Dean Emeritus. This is truly bush league sludge. Speaking of sludge, Geo Bush is a more worthy subject of even the most practiced of killer hacks, given the wealth of material in his sorry personal biography and professional CV, i.e., failures. If this dreck is designed to inflame and invoke counter responses of invective towards "one of theirs", Bush for example, it fails with me. I do not participate in juvenile tit-for-tat. Nor do I convey such tripe to anyone else, regardless of their political stripe, lest I be accused of complicity in facilitating the transport of shit.
Clemens has given feds plenty to work with
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Clemens has given feds plenty to work with
Depending on how all this shakes out, some lucky warden might have one helluva prison baseball team. Barry Bonds at DH. Miguel Tejada at shortstop. Roger Clemens on the mound. Knowing Bonds, he'd insist on solitary confinement and never warm up with the rest of the cons, but what else is new? Anyway, this is what happens when the feds think you've lied to them. They go Terminator on you and don't stop until you're getting deloused in a holding cell.
Not true. Debbie Clemens wasn't injected with HGH by McNamee until 2003, at least three years after the initial Pettitte-Rocket conversation. Bonds has been charged with four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice. His defense team wants the case dismissed because there was a typo in the government's recent legal filing. If that doesn't work, Bonds' lawyers will accuse the feds of ampersand laundering. Tejada is the subject of a preliminary federal inquiry into allegations that he lied to a congressional committee. The Houston Astros, who collect these guys like baseball cards, immediately announced plans for a "Plea Bargain Night" promotion. Clemens, who is used to pinstripes, is next on the Justice Department's to-do list. On Wednesday, Congress asked the agency to investigate whether Clemens "committed perjury and made knowingly false statements." Clemens has only himself to blame. In less than three months, Clemens has y'all-ed his way into more corners than a folded flag. Remember a movie last year called "Reservation Road"? The poster tagline read: "To find the truth, you have to find who's hiding it." Clemens hid the truth. He didn't hide it very well, which is why IRS special agent Jeff Novitzky of BALCO fame is now Clemens' worst nightmare. Let the lip licking begin. Novitzky is a grinder who has already put away Olympian Marion Jones and former NFL defensive player of the year Dana Stubblefield. So the idea that Clemens will "eat his lunch," as Team Clemens attorney Rusty Hardin so ham-handedly put it, is beyond hilarious. Clemens got his clock cleaned by little, gavel-waving Rep. Henry Waxman of California. Just wait until Novitzky starts dumpster diving into his life. Clemens hasn't given the feds much of a choice. Every time there's smoke, Clemens seems to be standing there with a blowtorch. And Hardin has been brilliant in his role as the hot-air machine who says the absolute wrong thing at the absolute wrong time.
(Memo to Rusty: You can pretty much forget about that Texas Bar Journal cover shoot.) The truth hiding began in early January. Clemens told CBS' Mike Wallace that if he had known Brian McNamee had accused him of performance-enhancing drug use, he would have met with Mitchell report reps "in a heartbeat." Not true. Clemens' agents knew about McNamee's allegations eight days before the report's Dec. 13 release. Clemens testified he knew about the claims by at least Dec. 9. That's four full days of heartbeats during which he could have contacted former Sen. George Mitchell. When Wallace suggested it was impossible for a middle-aged pitcher to have Clemens' kind of success, Clemens said, "Not impossible. You do it with hard work. Ask any of my teammates." So the feds did. They asked close friend, teammate and workout partner Andy Pettitte. Pettitte distinctly recalled a 1999 or 2000 conversation in which Clemens said he used human growth hormone. "I think he misremembers," Clemens told a congressional committee on Feb. 13. Really? He just sort of "misremembers" his close buddy telling him he took HGH?
According to Pettitte, Clemens later said he was referring to his wife's HGH use. Congressional investigators asked Clemens several times during his deposition if he had ever discussed HGH or steroids with McNamee. Each time Clemens said no. Not true. Clemens later testified in the congressional hearing that he and McNamee had a heated exchange after Debbie Clemens suffered an adverse reaction to an HGH injection. During Clemens' Feb. 5 deposition, Team Clemens lawyers Hardin and Lanny Breuer blasted the Mitchell report for its supposedly sloppy investigative work. They were especially upset about McNamee's claim that Clemens attended a June 1998 party at then-teammate Jose Canseco's house. The party was the alleged birthplace of Clemens' involvement with PEDs. "We will be able to establish categorically, without question, that our client wasn't there," said Breuer that day. Clemens chimed in too. "And second of all, I never was at the party." "You weren't at this party?" said a congressional attorney. "That's correct," said Clemens. Categorically and without question, huh? Then what about the alleged photo of Clemens and a Canseco neighbor posing together at the party? What about the Clemens nanny telling congressional investigators that Clemens was at Canseco's house that day? Clemens, with a considerable assist from committee member Rep. Tom Davis, tried to undermine the former nanny's credibility by suggesting she could barely put a noun and verb together. "And her English, as I understand it, is not that good," said the helpful Davis. "It is not that good," confirmed Clemens.
Not true. A spokesperson for a congressional attorney who took part in a recent telephone interview with the nanny, told The New York Times that she spoke with an accent, but was otherwise completely literate. In his opening statement at the congressional hearing, Clemens said, "I have tried to model my baseball career, and indeed my entire life, on the premise that 'your body is your temple.'" Not true. By Clemens' own admission, the temple has ingested painkilling Vioxx pills "like they were Skittles," (by the way, Clemens said he had no idea who prescribed them) and been injected with assorted painkilling shots. And those injections were administered by everyone but a stadium hot dog vendor. During his deposition, Clemens scoffed at McNamee's impact on his legendary workout sessions and suggested the personal trainer was a clubhouse mole. If true, then why did Clemens continue to employ him? Clemens told Wallace, "If [McNamee is] putting that stuff up in my body … I should have a third ear out of my forehead." Or an abscess from an improperly administered steroid injection by McNamee. "I'm going to Congress and I'm going to tell the truth," said Clemens in his Jan. 7 news conference in Houston. Pettitte and McNamee would disagree. So might the Justice Department, which now has the matter in its hands. But other than throw him into prison for perjury, is there anything the feds can do to Clemens that he hasn't already done to himself? Pettitte, an admitted HGH user, said recently, "The truth will set you free." But first you have to quit hiding it. That's a lesson apparently lost on Clemens.
Gene Wojciechowski is the senior national columnist for ESPN.com. You can contact him at gene.wojciechowski@espn3.com.
Marty's Response:
Sir:
While I am quicker than most to criticize foolish, stupid and otherwise generally ignorant opinions, of which we suffer a surfeit in today's informationally over laden world, I think it only fair to commend the opposite, i.e., your 'Clemens' article.
I have read more than my share of Clemens' articles, news items, etc and, of course, have my own opinions borne of a love for the game..not the players..stadia, owners, history, records and stats, though they have their place and are important..my interest lies purely in that I loved playing baseball more than anything I could have done at the time, and more than anything I should have done at the time. Much of the nuances of the game are based on one form or another of cheating, it goes with the lease, so to say. Taking an extra foot of lead off a base for a possible 'steal', playing short and suckering a confirmed left field hitter by playing inordinately close to second..then anticipating a liner by moving back on the pitch, reading catcher calls from center, fouling 3 or 4 wide of 3rd then punching one down the RF line, decrypting signals, pitch outs, shifts, balks, pick offs, ...the whole game is based on getting an edge and winning...but this applies to everyone.
Where I was raised, where we played with balls kept reasonably serviceable with electrician's tape, bats, scarred by fungoing with rocks, swiped from the Park District and gloves, smelling of Neatsfoot oil, handed down from older brothers who had moved on to hot rods, beer and girls that wore cashmere sweaters, bobby sox and goofy poodle embroidery on their skirts. In this wonderful world occasionally amplified by a Lefty, Shorty, Mumbles, Vicious Vic, Zoots or someone showing up with a new, jesus christ, a new ball..had anyone been found to be shooting their asses with a potion enabling them to throw harder, hit harder, run faster...than what God had given them...he would have had mumbly-peg played on his head, if he was lucky. Chances are, he would have gotten a compound fracture of his throwing arm. In time, I progressed to HS starter (real, matching uniforms!) American Legion, college varsity, and softball leagues of slow pitch, fast pitch, overhand fast pitch (great game), lots of years, lots of games, lots of venues, lots of beer, but the tacit rules of the game never changed.
Gene, you wrote a terrific article...in content, in style, and most importantly, in honesty. I commend you.
M. A. Scanlan
Arcadia, CA
Clemens has given feds plenty to work with
Depending on how all this shakes out, some lucky warden might have one helluva prison baseball team. Barry Bonds at DH. Miguel Tejada at shortstop. Roger Clemens on the mound. Knowing Bonds, he'd insist on solitary confinement and never warm up with the rest of the cons, but what else is new? Anyway, this is what happens when the feds think you've lied to them. They go Terminator on you and don't stop until you're getting deloused in a holding cell.
 | |
| Roger Clemens as he faced a congressional committee on Feb. 13. |
(Memo to Rusty: You can pretty much forget about that Texas Bar Journal cover shoot.) The truth hiding began in early January. Clemens told CBS' Mike Wallace that if he had known Brian McNamee had accused him of performance-enhancing drug use, he would have met with Mitchell report reps "in a heartbeat." Not true. Clemens' agents knew about McNamee's allegations eight days before the report's Dec. 13 release. Clemens testified he knew about the claims by at least Dec. 9. That's four full days of heartbeats during which he could have contacted former Sen. George Mitchell. When Wallace suggested it was impossible for a middle-aged pitcher to have Clemens' kind of success, Clemens said, "Not impossible. You do it with hard work. Ask any of my teammates." So the feds did. They asked close friend, teammate and workout partner Andy Pettitte. Pettitte distinctly recalled a 1999 or 2000 conversation in which Clemens said he used human growth hormone. "I think he misremembers," Clemens told a congressional committee on Feb. 13. Really? He just sort of "misremembers" his close buddy telling him he took HGH?
According to Pettitte, Clemens later said he was referring to his wife's HGH use. Congressional investigators asked Clemens several times during his deposition if he had ever discussed HGH or steroids with McNamee. Each time Clemens said no. Not true. Clemens later testified in the congressional hearing that he and McNamee had a heated exchange after Debbie Clemens suffered an adverse reaction to an HGH injection. During Clemens' Feb. 5 deposition, Team Clemens lawyers Hardin and Lanny Breuer blasted the Mitchell report for its supposedly sloppy investigative work. They were especially upset about McNamee's claim that Clemens attended a June 1998 party at then-teammate Jose Canseco's house. The party was the alleged birthplace of Clemens' involvement with PEDs. "We will be able to establish categorically, without question, that our client wasn't there," said Breuer that day. Clemens chimed in too. "And second of all, I never was at the party." "You weren't at this party?" said a congressional attorney. "That's correct," said Clemens. Categorically and without question, huh? Then what about the alleged photo of Clemens and a Canseco neighbor posing together at the party? What about the Clemens nanny telling congressional investigators that Clemens was at Canseco's house that day? Clemens, with a considerable assist from committee member Rep. Tom Davis, tried to undermine the former nanny's credibility by suggesting she could barely put a noun and verb together. "And her English, as I understand it, is not that good," said the helpful Davis. "It is not that good," confirmed Clemens.
Not true. A spokesperson for a congressional attorney who took part in a recent telephone interview with the nanny, told The New York Times that she spoke with an accent, but was otherwise completely literate. In his opening statement at the congressional hearing, Clemens said, "I have tried to model my baseball career, and indeed my entire life, on the premise that 'your body is your temple.'" Not true. By Clemens' own admission, the temple has ingested painkilling Vioxx pills "like they were Skittles," (by the way, Clemens said he had no idea who prescribed them) and been injected with assorted painkilling shots. And those injections were administered by everyone but a stadium hot dog vendor. During his deposition, Clemens scoffed at McNamee's impact on his legendary workout sessions and suggested the personal trainer was a clubhouse mole. If true, then why did Clemens continue to employ him? Clemens told Wallace, "If [McNamee is] putting that stuff up in my body … I should have a third ear out of my forehead." Or an abscess from an improperly administered steroid injection by McNamee. "I'm going to Congress and I'm going to tell the truth," said Clemens in his Jan. 7 news conference in Houston. Pettitte and McNamee would disagree. So might the Justice Department, which now has the matter in its hands. But other than throw him into prison for perjury, is there anything the feds can do to Clemens that he hasn't already done to himself? Pettitte, an admitted HGH user, said recently, "The truth will set you free." But first you have to quit hiding it. That's a lesson apparently lost on Clemens.
Gene Wojciechowski is the senior national columnist for ESPN.com. You can contact him at gene.wojciechowski@espn3.com.
Marty's Response:
Sir:
While I am quicker than most to criticize foolish, stupid and otherwise generally ignorant opinions, of which we suffer a surfeit in today's informationally over laden world, I think it only fair to commend the opposite, i.e., your 'Clemens' article.
I have read more than my share of Clemens' articles, news items, etc and, of course, have my own opinions borne of a love for the game..not the players..stadia, owners, history, records and stats, though they have their place and are important..my interest lies purely in that I loved playing baseball more than anything I could have done at the time, and more than anything I should have done at the time. Much of the nuances of the game are based on one form or another of cheating, it goes with the lease, so to say. Taking an extra foot of lead off a base for a possible 'steal', playing short and suckering a confirmed left field hitter by playing inordinately close to second..then anticipating a liner by moving back on the pitch, reading catcher calls from center, fouling 3 or 4 wide of 3rd then punching one down the RF line, decrypting signals, pitch outs, shifts, balks, pick offs, ...the whole game is based on getting an edge and winning...but this applies to everyone.
Where I was raised, where we played with balls kept reasonably serviceable with electrician's tape, bats, scarred by fungoing with rocks, swiped from the Park District and gloves, smelling of Neatsfoot oil, handed down from older brothers who had moved on to hot rods, beer and girls that wore cashmere sweaters, bobby sox and goofy poodle embroidery on their skirts. In this wonderful world occasionally amplified by a Lefty, Shorty, Mumbles, Vicious Vic, Zoots or someone showing up with a new, jesus christ, a new ball..had anyone been found to be shooting their asses with a potion enabling them to throw harder, hit harder, run faster...than what God had given them...he would have had mumbly-peg played on his head, if he was lucky. Chances are, he would have gotten a compound fracture of his throwing arm. In time, I progressed to HS starter (real, matching uniforms!) American Legion, college varsity, and softball leagues of slow pitch, fast pitch, overhand fast pitch (great game), lots of years, lots of games, lots of venues, lots of beer, but the tacit rules of the game never changed.
Gene, you wrote a terrific article...in content, in style, and most importantly, in honesty. I commend you.
M. A. Scanlan
Arcadia, CA
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Election Madness
Marty's Response:
W... for openers, Zinn is a hell of lot older than you and merely older than me....and I fear in his dotage he leans towards anarchy...that simply does not work and, in my view, creates more problems than it attempts to solve. In a realm of less violence but more social engineering, I can't get past anyone advocating a guaranteed minimum household income and a government guaranteed job...I'm not opposed to this from the cost standpoint and I'm not opposed to welfare..I'm opposed to it from the standpoint of individualism and incentive and the ultimate intrusion of government and the inevitable aspects of its control whenever the govt's money is involved. As I see it, Zinn doesn't offer anything new, he relies on hackneyed philosophy that requires cataclysmic events to even garner any attention, let alone mass, physical participation by young idealists and intellectuals that are happy working for Google and Yahoo and playing computer games. And, without a draft, who the hell looks forward to going to jail over Iraq? To my knowledge, neither Zinn nor anyone else in discussing the progressive programs and actions of FDR during the depression, in the context of applicable, like measures, i.e., unknown and drastic, that some would prefer being implemented today...never, never mention the fact that those drastic measures of the New Deal, by design, did as much to save capitalism, the ills of which we see in abundance today, as they were to assuage the pain of the disadvantaged wrought by capitalism.
I agree there is little difference in parties....I am opposed to our imperialism, arrogance and authoritarianism...but the reality is that our govt does certain onerous things that are flat out necessary if we are to sustain our standard of living, such as it is. We are in Iraq to control the source of energy, the source of the 'blood' that is life itself for us as a nation...powerful or not, we must have it to survive. That is a FACT. My big beef with the govt is that they never level with the public, its citizens. Most govts don't. Sure, I would like it if our govt were to accomplish our safeguards, maintain trade and social relations with countries of the world in civil, mutually beneficial relationships but the history of the world tells us otherwise.
Yes, I'm aware of the social and economic imbalances in our society...and I'd particularly like to see a more equitable distribution of income....stronger unions....amnesty for productive illegals (would the prejudice and bias toward Latinos cease were they all legal? NO. The so-called 'cost' of illegals is not only a provably specious argument its a cover for nativist fascism), education that works, equal rights for everyone, clean air and water, no earmarks and no corporate and farm welfare, etc, etc, etc but change is not going to come from rebellion or demonstrations that invite violence...change must come from within the system or you run the risk of destroying the system...some may be in favor of that, but I am not.
On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 9:25 PM, W. wrote:
Original Story
March 2008 Issue
There's a man in Florida who has been writing to me for years (ten pages, handwritten) though I've never met him. He tells me the kinds of jobs he has held-security guard, repairman, etc. He has worked all kinds of shifts, night and day, to barely keep his family going. His letters to me have always been angry, railing against our capitalist system for its failure to assure "life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness" for working people.
Just today, a letter came. To my relief it was not handwritten because he is now using e-mail: "Well, I'm writing to you today because there is a wretched situation in this country that I cannot abide and must say something about. I am so enraged about this mortgage crisis. That the majority of Americans must live their lives in perpetual debt, and so many are sinking beneath the load, has me so steamed. Damn, that makes me so mad, I can't tell you. . . . I did a security guard job today that involved watching over a house that had been foreclosed on and was up for auction. They held an open house, and I was there to watch over the place during this event. There were three of the guards doing the same thing in three other homes in this same community. I was sitting there during the quiet moments and wondering about who those people were who had been evicted and where they were now."
On the same day I received this letter, there was a front-page story in the Boston Globe, with the headline "Thousands in Mass. Foreclosed on in '07."
The subhead was "7,563 homes were seized, nearly 3 times the '06 rate."
A few nights before, CBS television reported that 750,000 people with disabilities have been waiting for years for their Social Security benefits because the system is underfunded and there are not enough personnel to handle all the requests, even desperate ones.
Stories like these may be reported in the media, but they are gone in a flash. What's not gone, what occupies the press day after day, impossible to ignore, is the election frenzy.
This seizes the country every four years because we have all been brought up to believe that voting is crucial in determining our destiny, that the most important act a citizen can engage in is to go to the polls and choose one of the two mediocrities who have already been chosen for us. It is a multiple choice test so narrow, so specious, that no self-respecting teacher would give it to students.
And sad to say, the Presidential contest has mesmerized liberals and radicals alike. We are all vulnerable.
Is it possible to get together with friends these days and avoid the subject of the Presidential elections?
The very people who should know better, having criticized the hold of the media on the national mind, find themselves transfixed by the press, glued to the television set, as the candidates preen and smile and bring forth a shower of clichés with a solemnity appropriate for epic poetry.
Even in the so-called left periodicals, we must admit there is an exorbitant amount of attention given to minutely examining the major candidates. An occasional bone is thrown to the minor candidates, though everyone knows our marvelous democratic political system won't allow them in.
No, I'm not taking some ultra-left position that elections are totally insignificant, and that we should refuse to vote to preserve our moral purity. Yes, there are candidates who are somewhat better than others, and at certain times of national crisis (the Thirties, for instance, or right now) where even a slight difference between the two parties may be a matter of life and death.
I'm talking about a sense of proportion that gets lost in the election madness. Would I support one candidate against another? Yes, for two minutes-the amount of time it takes to pull the lever down in the voting booth.
But before and after those two minutes, our time, our energy, should be spent in educating, agitating, organizing our fellow citizens in the workplace, in the neighborhood, in the schools. Our objective should be to build, painstakingly, patiently but energetically, a movement that, when it reaches a certain critical mass, would shake whoever is in the White House, in Congress, into changing national policy on matters of war and social justice.
Let's remember that even when there is a "better" candidate (yes, better Roosevelt than Hoover, better anyone than George Bush), that difference will not mean anything unless the power of the people asserts itself in ways that the occupant of the White House will find it dangerous to ignore.
The unprecedented policies of the New Deal-Social Security, unemployment insurance, job creation, minimum wage, subsidized housing-were not simply the result of FDR's progressivism. The Roosevelt Administration, coming into office, faced a nation in turmoil. The last year of the Hoover Administration had experienced the rebellion of the Bonus Army-thousands of veterans of the First World War descending on Washington to demand help from Congress as their families were going hungry. There were disturbances of the unemployed in Detroit, Chicago, Boston, New York, Seattle.
In 1934, early in the Roosevelt Presidency, strikes broke out all over the country, including a general strike in Minneapolis, a general strike in San Francisco, hundreds of thousands on strike in the textile mills of the South. Unemployed councils formed all over the country. Desperate people were taking action on their own, defying the police to put back the furniture of evicted tenants, and creating self-help organizations with hundreds of thousands of members.
Without a national crisis-economic destitution and rebellion-it is not likely the Roosevelt Administration would have instituted the bold reforms that it did.
Today, we can be sure that the Democratic Party, unless it faces a popular upsurge, will not move off center. The two leading Presidential candidates have made it clear that if elected, they will not bring an immediate end to the Iraq War, or institute a system of free health care for all.
They offer no radical change from the status quo.
They do not propose what the present desperation of people cries out for: a government guarantee of jobs to everyone who needs one, a minimum income for every household, housing relief to everyone who faces eviction or foreclosure.
They do not suggest the deep cuts in the military budget or the radical changes in the tax system that would free billions, even trillions, for social programs to transform the way we live.
None of this should surprise us. The Democratic Party has broken with its historic conservatism, its pandering to the rich, its predilection for war, only when it has encountered rebellion from below, as in the Thirties and the Sixties. We should not expect that a victory at the ballot box in November will even begin to budge the nation from its twin fundamental illnesses: capitalist greed and militarism.
So we need to free ourselves from the election madness engulfing the entire society, including the left.
Yes, two minutes. Before that, and after that, we should be taking direct action against the obstacles to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
For instance, the mortgage foreclosures that are driving millions from their homes-they should remind us of a similar situation after the Revolutionary War, when small farmers, many of them war veterans (like so many of our homeless today), could not afford to pay their taxes and were threatened with the loss of the land, their homes. They gathered by the thousands around courthouses and refused to allow the auctions to take place.
The evictions today of people who cannot pay their rents should remind us of what people did in the Thirties when they organized and put the belongings of the evicted families back in their apartments, in defiance of the authorities.
Historically, government, whether in the hands of Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals, has failed its responsibilities, until forced to by direct action: sit-ins and Freedom Rides for the rights of black people, strikes and boycotts for the rights of workers, mutinies and desertions of soldiers in order to stop a war. Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens.
----------
Howard Zinn is the author of "A People's History of the United States," "Voices of a People's History" (with Anthony Arnove), and most recently, "A Power Governments Cannot Suppress."
W... for openers, Zinn is a hell of lot older than you and merely older than me....and I fear in his dotage he leans towards anarchy...that simply does not work and, in my view, creates more problems than it attempts to solve. In a realm of less violence but more social engineering, I can't get past anyone advocating a guaranteed minimum household income and a government guaranteed job...I'm not opposed to this from the cost standpoint and I'm not opposed to welfare..I'm opposed to it from the standpoint of individualism and incentive and the ultimate intrusion of government and the inevitable aspects of its control whenever the govt's money is involved. As I see it, Zinn doesn't offer anything new, he relies on hackneyed philosophy that requires cataclysmic events to even garner any attention, let alone mass, physical participation by young idealists and intellectuals that are happy working for Google and Yahoo and playing computer games. And, without a draft, who the hell looks forward to going to jail over Iraq? To my knowledge, neither Zinn nor anyone else in discussing the progressive programs and actions of FDR during the depression, in the context of applicable, like measures, i.e., unknown and drastic, that some would prefer being implemented today...never, never mention the fact that those drastic measures of the New Deal, by design, did as much to save capitalism, the ills of which we see in abundance today, as they were to assuage the pain of the disadvantaged wrought by capitalism.
I agree there is little difference in parties....I am opposed to our imperialism, arrogance and authoritarianism...but the reality is that our govt does certain onerous things that are flat out necessary if we are to sustain our standard of living, such as it is. We are in Iraq to control the source of energy, the source of the 'blood' that is life itself for us as a nation...powerful or not, we must have it to survive. That is a FACT. My big beef with the govt is that they never level with the public, its citizens. Most govts don't. Sure, I would like it if our govt were to accomplish our safeguards, maintain trade and social relations with countries of the world in civil, mutually beneficial relationships but the history of the world tells us otherwise.
Yes, I'm aware of the social and economic imbalances in our society...and I'd particularly like to see a more equitable distribution of income....stronger unions....amnesty for productive illegals (would the prejudice and bias toward Latinos cease were they all legal? NO. The so-called 'cost' of illegals is not only a provably specious argument its a cover for nativist fascism), education that works, equal rights for everyone, clean air and water, no earmarks and no corporate and farm welfare, etc, etc, etc but change is not going to come from rebellion or demonstrations that invite violence...change must come from within the system or you run the risk of destroying the system...some may be in favor of that, but I am not.
On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 9:25 PM, W. wrote:
Marty:Sometimes you piss me off. Howard is about as old as you and me, and is not in a position to "walk the walk", at least on the point, but someone has to do it and someone has to exhort others to do it.Fuck voting, it gets us nowhere, at least at the present. As George Wallace said of the Repubs and the Demos, "There ain't a dimes worth of difference".The difference will be made when the people take to the streets and force the pols to take notice. They won't take notice of the polls or the elections, only the monied interests care about polls and elections, because it means they remain in power and control -- their handpuppets doing their bidding.As a member of the SDS and the Weather Underground in the 60's, I was proud to protest the war in 'Nam, and if it wasn't for people like me that fuckin' war would have continued forever.Today we need people to put their bodies and their lives on the line to stop the illegal war in Iraq, to stop the tax credits for the upper 1%, to indict the motherfuckers' in Washington, and if exhortation by an aging old fart like us is what it takes, then it is what it takes.
March 2008 Issue
There's a man in Florida who has been writing to me for years (ten pages, handwritten) though I've never met him. He tells me the kinds of jobs he has held-security guard, repairman, etc. He has worked all kinds of shifts, night and day, to barely keep his family going. His letters to me have always been angry, railing against our capitalist system for its failure to assure "life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness" for working people.
Just today, a letter came. To my relief it was not handwritten because he is now using e-mail: "Well, I'm writing to you today because there is a wretched situation in this country that I cannot abide and must say something about. I am so enraged about this mortgage crisis. That the majority of Americans must live their lives in perpetual debt, and so many are sinking beneath the load, has me so steamed. Damn, that makes me so mad, I can't tell you. . . . I did a security guard job today that involved watching over a house that had been foreclosed on and was up for auction. They held an open house, and I was there to watch over the place during this event. There were three of the guards doing the same thing in three other homes in this same community. I was sitting there during the quiet moments and wondering about who those people were who had been evicted and where they were now."
On the same day I received this letter, there was a front-page story in the Boston Globe, with the headline "Thousands in Mass. Foreclosed on in '07."
The subhead was "7,563 homes were seized, nearly 3 times the '06 rate."
A few nights before, CBS television reported that 750,000 people with disabilities have been waiting for years for their Social Security benefits because the system is underfunded and there are not enough personnel to handle all the requests, even desperate ones.
Stories like these may be reported in the media, but they are gone in a flash. What's not gone, what occupies the press day after day, impossible to ignore, is the election frenzy.
This seizes the country every four years because we have all been brought up to believe that voting is crucial in determining our destiny, that the most important act a citizen can engage in is to go to the polls and choose one of the two mediocrities who have already been chosen for us. It is a multiple choice test so narrow, so specious, that no self-respecting teacher would give it to students.
And sad to say, the Presidential contest has mesmerized liberals and radicals alike. We are all vulnerable.
Is it possible to get together with friends these days and avoid the subject of the Presidential elections?
The very people who should know better, having criticized the hold of the media on the national mind, find themselves transfixed by the press, glued to the television set, as the candidates preen and smile and bring forth a shower of clichés with a solemnity appropriate for epic poetry.
Even in the so-called left periodicals, we must admit there is an exorbitant amount of attention given to minutely examining the major candidates. An occasional bone is thrown to the minor candidates, though everyone knows our marvelous democratic political system won't allow them in.
No, I'm not taking some ultra-left position that elections are totally insignificant, and that we should refuse to vote to preserve our moral purity. Yes, there are candidates who are somewhat better than others, and at certain times of national crisis (the Thirties, for instance, or right now) where even a slight difference between the two parties may be a matter of life and death.
I'm talking about a sense of proportion that gets lost in the election madness. Would I support one candidate against another? Yes, for two minutes-the amount of time it takes to pull the lever down in the voting booth.
But before and after those two minutes, our time, our energy, should be spent in educating, agitating, organizing our fellow citizens in the workplace, in the neighborhood, in the schools. Our objective should be to build, painstakingly, patiently but energetically, a movement that, when it reaches a certain critical mass, would shake whoever is in the White House, in Congress, into changing national policy on matters of war and social justice.
Let's remember that even when there is a "better" candidate (yes, better Roosevelt than Hoover, better anyone than George Bush), that difference will not mean anything unless the power of the people asserts itself in ways that the occupant of the White House will find it dangerous to ignore.
The unprecedented policies of the New Deal-Social Security, unemployment insurance, job creation, minimum wage, subsidized housing-were not simply the result of FDR's progressivism. The Roosevelt Administration, coming into office, faced a nation in turmoil. The last year of the Hoover Administration had experienced the rebellion of the Bonus Army-thousands of veterans of the First World War descending on Washington to demand help from Congress as their families were going hungry. There were disturbances of the unemployed in Detroit, Chicago, Boston, New York, Seattle.
In 1934, early in the Roosevelt Presidency, strikes broke out all over the country, including a general strike in Minneapolis, a general strike in San Francisco, hundreds of thousands on strike in the textile mills of the South. Unemployed councils formed all over the country. Desperate people were taking action on their own, defying the police to put back the furniture of evicted tenants, and creating self-help organizations with hundreds of thousands of members.
Without a national crisis-economic destitution and rebellion-it is not likely the Roosevelt Administration would have instituted the bold reforms that it did.
Today, we can be sure that the Democratic Party, unless it faces a popular upsurge, will not move off center. The two leading Presidential candidates have made it clear that if elected, they will not bring an immediate end to the Iraq War, or institute a system of free health care for all.
They offer no radical change from the status quo.
They do not propose what the present desperation of people cries out for: a government guarantee of jobs to everyone who needs one, a minimum income for every household, housing relief to everyone who faces eviction or foreclosure.
They do not suggest the deep cuts in the military budget or the radical changes in the tax system that would free billions, even trillions, for social programs to transform the way we live.
None of this should surprise us. The Democratic Party has broken with its historic conservatism, its pandering to the rich, its predilection for war, only when it has encountered rebellion from below, as in the Thirties and the Sixties. We should not expect that a victory at the ballot box in November will even begin to budge the nation from its twin fundamental illnesses: capitalist greed and militarism.
So we need to free ourselves from the election madness engulfing the entire society, including the left.
Yes, two minutes. Before that, and after that, we should be taking direct action against the obstacles to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
For instance, the mortgage foreclosures that are driving millions from their homes-they should remind us of a similar situation after the Revolutionary War, when small farmers, many of them war veterans (like so many of our homeless today), could not afford to pay their taxes and were threatened with the loss of the land, their homes. They gathered by the thousands around courthouses and refused to allow the auctions to take place.
The evictions today of people who cannot pay their rents should remind us of what people did in the Thirties when they organized and put the belongings of the evicted families back in their apartments, in defiance of the authorities.
Historically, government, whether in the hands of Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals, has failed its responsibilities, until forced to by direct action: sit-ins and Freedom Rides for the rights of black people, strikes and boycotts for the rights of workers, mutinies and desertions of soldiers in order to stop a war. Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens.
----------
Howard Zinn is the author of "A People's History of the United States," "Voices of a People's History" (with Anthony Arnove), and most recently, "A Power Governments Cannot Suppress."
Sunday, February 17, 2008
$$$$
On Feb 16, 2008 11:09 PM,
W. wrote:
For some figures, etc. seldom announced by the 4th Estate check out www.informationclearinghouse.info.
Marty's response:
W., there isn't much in here of import that I, or any newspaper junkie, isn't aware of to some degree. That's not to say there isn't much to be appreciated or much that should be in the popular media. What does concern me, is that even commentary intended to translate the arcane economic lexicon, i.e., Bernanke's remarks, for the less financially sophisticated of us, is no more edifying than a typical WSJ article. And, of most WSJ commentaries having to do with hard financial data, as reported by various govt agencies or the Fed itself, the Journal hardly ever challenges the spoon fed data. I've had a hard on over this for years and attempt to keep track of certain financial data myself, irrespective of what is reported by govt. For example, without detailing specifics for the moment, how many people would agree that inflation is only 2.8% or 3.1% annually? How many consumers compare the overall rate with the core rate, or even know the difference? No one needs an econ degree to have an opinion on these questions which, in my opinion, are probably closer to the true figures of 5% to 7%. Of more concern to me are the data that NO ONE mentions or writes about, particularly the money supply and nonborrowed reserves. M3, as the total money supply was once characterized, is no longer even published by the Fed, rather odd in that the prime mission of the Fed is maintaining a stable currency. My running calculations indicate money supply is growing at the rate of 15 +/-% annually..and if the past 2 months of growth continues, the rate will hit a new record of 16%. This is extraordinary. Look for a reversal of Fed cutting policy within 6-12 months and an ensuing battle against inflation. In the meantime, nonborrowed reserves (total reserves minus borrowed reserves), are currently in negative territory, having gone from +$45B in early December to -$20B by Feb 13. Credit markets will not loosen up as long as banks are still tapping the Fed discount window and term auction facilities (TAFs) to the tune of $20B/mo. The industry stigma of this need is no longer, everybody is doing it. In a nutshell, banks are becoming insolvent. These are dire situations practically without precedence, yet we hear none of this in either the main stream or alternative media. Ominous.
Interesting news item: Today, Sunday, the UK govt announced the nationalization of one of the largest banks in England. Northern Rock, known colloquially as "The Rock", has been the object of a private takeover by several groups but no one could get the financing necessary to pay back the $49B the govt pumped into the Rock in an attempt to save it. Billionaire socialism at work, and, it can happen here too.
M.
W. wrote:
For some figures, etc. seldom announced by the 4th Estate check out www.informationclearinghouse.info.
Marty's response:
W., there isn't much in here of import that I, or any newspaper junkie, isn't aware of to some degree. That's not to say there isn't much to be appreciated or much that should be in the popular media. What does concern me, is that even commentary intended to translate the arcane economic lexicon, i.e., Bernanke's remarks, for the less financially sophisticated of us, is no more edifying than a typical WSJ article. And, of most WSJ commentaries having to do with hard financial data, as reported by various govt agencies or the Fed itself, the Journal hardly ever challenges the spoon fed data. I've had a hard on over this for years and attempt to keep track of certain financial data myself, irrespective of what is reported by govt. For example, without detailing specifics for the moment, how many people would agree that inflation is only 2.8% or 3.1% annually? How many consumers compare the overall rate with the core rate, or even know the difference? No one needs an econ degree to have an opinion on these questions which, in my opinion, are probably closer to the true figures of 5% to 7%. Of more concern to me are the data that NO ONE mentions or writes about, particularly the money supply and nonborrowed reserves. M3, as the total money supply was once characterized, is no longer even published by the Fed, rather odd in that the prime mission of the Fed is maintaining a stable currency. My running calculations indicate money supply is growing at the rate of 15 +/-% annually..and if the past 2 months of growth continues, the rate will hit a new record of 16%. This is extraordinary. Look for a reversal of Fed cutting policy within 6-12 months and an ensuing battle against inflation. In the meantime, nonborrowed reserves (total reserves minus borrowed reserves), are currently in negative territory, having gone from +$45B in early December to -$20B by Feb 13. Credit markets will not loosen up as long as banks are still tapping the Fed discount window and term auction facilities (TAFs) to the tune of $20B/mo. The industry stigma of this need is no longer, everybody is doing it. In a nutshell, banks are becoming insolvent. These are dire situations practically without precedence, yet we hear none of this in either the main stream or alternative media. Ominous.
Interesting news item: Today, Sunday, the UK govt announced the nationalization of one of the largest banks in England. Northern Rock, known colloquially as "The Rock", has been the object of a private takeover by several groups but no one could get the financing necessary to pay back the $49B the govt pumped into the Rock in an attempt to save it. Billionaire socialism at work, and, it can happen here too.
M.
Christmas Stamp
Subject: Unbelieveable!!! Christmas Stamp.................WHAT NEXT?
How ironic is this??!! They don't even believe in Christ and they're getting their own Christmas stamp, but don't dream of posting the ten commandments on federal property?
United States Postal Service New Stamp
This one is impossible to believe. Scroll down for the text. If there is only one thing you forward today....let it be this!
REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of Pan Am Flight 103!
REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993!
REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the Marine Barracks in Lebanon!
REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the military Barracks in Saudi Arabia!
REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the American Embassies in Africa!
REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the USS COLE!
REMEMBER the MUSLIM attack on 9/11/2001!
REMEMBER all the AMERICAN lives that were lost in those vicious MUSLIM attacks!
Now the United States Postal Service REMEMBERS and HONORS the EID MUSLIM holiday season with a commemorative first class Holiday postage stamp. Bull!
REMEMBER to adamantly and vocally BOYCOTT this stamp
When purchasing your stamps at the post office. To use this stamp would be a slap in the face to all those AMERICANS who died at the hands of those whom this stamp honors.
REMEMBER to pass this along to every patriotic AMERICAN you know!!!
Marty's response:
Why don't the morons (IQs under 60) who intentionally write lies (bullshit) ever sign their tiresome, thinly disguised nativist, nationalistic (fascist), xenophobic, bigotted bromides? Christ, there are so many assholes in this country! Let's look at this stupid, feeble literary piece of shit.
Surely, anyone that believes in Jesus Christ being God incarnate, virgin birth, ressurection, the Holy Ghost, guardian angels and other nonsense strictly as a matter of faith, has no logical basis in fact for denying anyone their beliefs of faith having to do with a Sun God, Vishnu, Thor, the Moon, Buddha, Allah or a fucking door knob if they wish. Personally, I prefer the door knob.
Please, tell me, what does Islam have to do with Christmas? Nothing. If there was only one thing I would forward today it would be a hot poker up the ass of the jerk that wrote this hate mail.
Remember the Muslim bombings? Get serious! Remember the bombing of Hiroshima? Remember the bombing of Dresden? Oh, you say that was different, that was war! Well, certain factions of Muslims consider themselves at war...what's the difference? What the fuck are we doing in Muslim countries anyway? How many foreign powers have military bases in North America? Would YOU partake in a terrorist act against, say, China were they to have a garrison in, say, Omaha? Of course you would. And weren't most, if not all, Germans Christians? Weren't most, if not all, Italians Christians? How in the name of your sacred 'God' can you justify killing hundreds of thousands, nay, millions of innocent women and children, Christians all? I'd like to know the writer's opinion of Teddy Roosevelt's OKing the massacre of Christian Phillipinos, women and children included. Or how bout our own shameful genocide of the AMERICAN Indians, carried out by the inventor of "total war" himself, Gen. Sherman? Hey asshole, if you don't know it, Americans are the most violent, expert and wanton killers on the face of the planet.
Getting back to stamps, what do you have against a Hanaukka stamp? A Kwanza stamp? I don't hear shit about these, why not? Because they didn't bomb something or someplace that involved us? You know nothing of history, nothing. David Ben-Gurion was a master terrorist and killed Christians...and anyone else that he perceived to be in his way. How many blacks killed whites, Christians, during the riots that swept this country? How many? Fuck the barracks in Saudi Arabia, what about Detroit? If all the Muslims in the world, some 1.4 billion, were of the stripe that act violently against us , the writer might have an argument. As it is, Islam as a total congregation, is no greater a threat to world peace than Christianity. And as a nation that, in spite of the wacko Christian fundamentalists that would have me live my life according to their evil lights, does guarantee and respect the religious beliefs of ALL religions. Try, hard as it is for you to read anything more comples than 'see Spot run', reading the Constitution.
Pass this on to anyone with an intelligence quotient above 60.
M.
How ironic is this??!! They don't even believe in Christ and they're getting their own Christmas stamp, but don't dream of posting the ten commandments on federal property?
United States Postal Service New Stamp
This one is impossible to believe. Scroll down for the text. If there is only one thing you forward today....let it be this!
REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of Pan Am Flight 103!
REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993!
REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the Marine Barracks in Lebanon!
REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the military Barracks in Saudi Arabia!
REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the American Embassies in Africa!
REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the USS COLE!
REMEMBER the MUSLIM attack on 9/11/2001!
REMEMBER all the AMERICAN lives that were lost in those vicious MUSLIM attacks!
Now the United States Postal Service REMEMBERS and HONORS the EID MUSLIM holiday season with a commemorative first class Holiday postage stamp. Bull!
REMEMBER to adamantly and vocally BOYCOTT this stamp
When purchasing your stamps at the post office. To use this stamp would be a slap in the face to all those AMERICANS who died at the hands of those whom this stamp honors.
REMEMBER to pass this along to every patriotic AMERICAN you know!!!
Marty's response:
Why don't the morons (IQs under 60) who intentionally write lies (bullshit) ever sign their tiresome, thinly disguised nativist, nationalistic (fascist), xenophobic, bigotted bromides? Christ, there are so many assholes in this country! Let's look at this stupid, feeble literary piece of shit.
Surely, anyone that believes in Jesus Christ being God incarnate, virgin birth, ressurection, the Holy Ghost, guardian angels and other nonsense strictly as a matter of faith, has no logical basis in fact for denying anyone their beliefs of faith having to do with a Sun God, Vishnu, Thor, the Moon, Buddha, Allah or a fucking door knob if they wish. Personally, I prefer the door knob.
Please, tell me, what does Islam have to do with Christmas? Nothing. If there was only one thing I would forward today it would be a hot poker up the ass of the jerk that wrote this hate mail.
Remember the Muslim bombings? Get serious! Remember the bombing of Hiroshima? Remember the bombing of Dresden? Oh, you say that was different, that was war! Well, certain factions of Muslims consider themselves at war...what's the difference? What the fuck are we doing in Muslim countries anyway? How many foreign powers have military bases in North America? Would YOU partake in a terrorist act against, say, China were they to have a garrison in, say, Omaha? Of course you would. And weren't most, if not all, Germans Christians? Weren't most, if not all, Italians Christians? How in the name of your sacred 'God' can you justify killing hundreds of thousands, nay, millions of innocent women and children, Christians all? I'd like to know the writer's opinion of Teddy Roosevelt's OKing the massacre of Christian Phillipinos, women and children included. Or how bout our own shameful genocide of the AMERICAN Indians, carried out by the inventor of "total war" himself, Gen. Sherman? Hey asshole, if you don't know it, Americans are the most violent, expert and wanton killers on the face of the planet.
Getting back to stamps, what do you have against a Hanaukka stamp? A Kwanza stamp? I don't hear shit about these, why not? Because they didn't bomb something or someplace that involved us? You know nothing of history, nothing. David Ben-Gurion was a master terrorist and killed Christians...and anyone else that he perceived to be in his way. How many blacks killed whites, Christians, during the riots that swept this country? How many? Fuck the barracks in Saudi Arabia, what about Detroit? If all the Muslims in the world, some 1.4 billion, were of the stripe that act violently against us , the writer might have an argument. As it is, Islam as a total congregation, is no greater a threat to world peace than Christianity. And as a nation that, in spite of the wacko Christian fundamentalists that would have me live my life according to their evil lights, does guarantee and respect the religious beliefs of ALL religions. Try, hard as it is for you to read anything more comples than 'see Spot run', reading the Constitution.
Pass this on to anyone with an intelligence quotient above 60.
M.
Shoe Bomber
Got this in email...
Received: Sept 14, 2007
Remember the guy who got on a plane with a bomb built into his shoe and tried to light it?
Did you know his trial is over?
Did you know he was sentenced?
Did you see/hear any of the judge's comments on TV or Radio?
Didn't think so.
Everyone should hear what the judge had to say.
Ruling by Judge William Young, US District Court.
Prior to sentencing, the Judge asked the defendant if he had anything to say. His response: After admitting his guilt to the court for the record, Reid also admitted his 'allegiance to Osama bin Laden, to Islam, and to the religion of Allah,' defiantly stating, 'I think I will not apologize for my actions,' and told the court 'I am at war with your **country.'
Judge Young then delivered the statement quoted below:
January 30, 2003, United States vs. Reid.
Judge Young: 'Mr. Richard C. Reid, hearken now =o the sentence the Court imposes upon you.
On counts 1, 5 and 6 the court sentences you to life in prison in the custody of the United States Attorney General. On counts 2, 3, 4 and 7, the Court sentences you to 10 years in prison on each count, the sentence on each count to run consecutively. (That's 80 years.)
On count 8 the Court sentences you to the mandatory 30 years again, to be served consecutively to the 80 years just imposed. The Court imposes upon you for each of the eight counts a fine of $250,000 that's an aggregate fine of $2 billion. The Court accepts the government's recommendation with respect to restitution and orders restitution in the amount of $298.17 to Andre Bousquet and $5,784 to American Airlines.
The Court imposes upon you an $800 special assessment. The Court imposes upon you five years supervised release simply because the law requires it. But the life sentences are real life sentences so I need go no further.
This is the sentence that is provided for by our statutes. It is a fair and just sentence. It is a =ighteous sentence.
Now, let me explain this to you. We are not afraid of you or any of your terrorist co-conspirators, Mr. Reid. We are Americans. We have been through the fire before. There is too much war talk here and I say that to everyone with the utmost respect. Here in this court, we deal with individuals as individuals and care for individuals as individuals. As human beings, we reach out for justice.
You are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist. You are not a soldier in any war. You are a terrorist. =o give you that reference, to call you a soldier, gives you far too much =tature. Whether the officers of government do it or your attorney does it, or if you think you are a soldier. You are not ----- you are a terrorist. And we do not negotiate with terrorists. We do not meet with terrorists. We do not sign documents with terrorists. We hunt them down one by one and
bring them to justice.
So war talk is way out of line in this court. You are a big fellow. But you are not that big. You're no warrior. I've known warriors. You are a terrorist. A species of criminal that is guilty of multiple attempted murders. In a very real sense, State Trooper Santiago had it right when you first were taken off that plane and into custody and you wondered where the press and the TV crews were, and he said: 'You're no big deal.'
You are no big deal.
What your able counsel and that the equally able United States attorneys have grappled with and what I have as honestly as I know how tried to grapple with, is why you did something so horrific. What was it that led you here to this courtroom today?
I have listened respectfully to what you have to say. And I ask you to search your heart and ask yourself what sort of unfathomable fate led you to do what you are guilty and admit you are guilty of doing? And, I have an answer for you. It may not satisfy you, but as I search this entire record, it comes as close to understanding as I know.
It seems to me you hate the one thing that to us is most precious. You hate our freedom. Our individual freedom. Our individual freedom to live as we choose, to come and go as we choose, to believe or not believe as we individually choose. Here, in this society, the very wind carries freedom. It carries it everywhere from sea to shining sea. It is because we prize individual freedom so much that you are here in this beautiful courtroom. So that everyone can see, truly see, that justice is administered fairly, individually, and discretely. It is for freedom's sake that your lawyers are striving so vigorously on your behalf, have filed appeals, will go on in their representation of you before other judges.
We Americans are all about freedom. Because we all know that the way we treat you, Mr. Reid, is the measure of our own liberties. Make no mistake though. It is yet t rue that we will bare any burden; pay any price, to preserve our freedoms. Look around this courtroom. Mark it well. The world is not going to long remember what you or I say here. The day after tomorrow, it will be forgotten, but this, however, will long endure.
Here in this courtroom and courtrooms all across America, the American people will gather to see that justice, individual justice, justice, not war, individual justice is in fact being done. The very
President of the United States through his officers will have to come into courtrooms and lay out evidence on which specific matters can be judged and juries of citizens will gather to sit and judge that evidence democratically, to mold and shape and refine our sense of justice.
See that flag, Mr. Reid? That's the flag of the United States of America. That flag will fly there long after this is all forgotten. That flag stands for freedom. And it always will.
Mr. Custody Officer. Stand him down.
So, how much of this =udge's comments did we hear on our TV sets? We need more judges like Judge Young, but that's another subject. Pass this around. Everyone should and needs to hear what this fine judge had to say. Powerful words that strike home. God bless America
Please SEND this----------so that every American has a chance to read it.
Marty's Response:
Yes, as a matter of fact, I did know about this and read the sentence when it determined, 3 years ago.
What is the point in distributing this now, in September 2007?
I believe Judge Young is a fair and decent man, he is patriotic and means well regarding our country and the sentence was appropriate to the crime, however, I have a problem with his remarks.
The Judge is naive and has no understanding of Middle East cultural history. I fully realize that the common reaction to the Judge's remarks would be one of agreement by most Americans...but there is a bit more to reality than convicting and sentencing a 'terrorist' and espousing the patriotic slogans du jour.
Let's look at what the Judge had to say.
"There is too much war talk here and I say that to everyone with the utmost respect." The president of the U.S. constantly reminds us that we ARE at WAR. Does not the judge realize this is the REALITY of the situation? Who does the judge think we are at WAR with if it is not the defendant? The defendant certainly believed himself to be at WAR with us. And, now that I think of it, is not a conventional soldier in a conventional army a "terrorist" from the standpoint of the entire enemy population, including civilians? When General Sherman invented 'total' war during the civil war, meaning total destruction of the enemy population, including civilians in mufti, he was hailed as a hero. When the civilian victims of the fire bombing of Dresden heard the drone of bombers overhead and knew the indiscriminate incendiary bombs would follow, killing and burning women, children, babies and old people, non-combatants if you will, did they not consider the pilots and bombardiers TERRORISTS? I believe the judge is woefully lacking in any understanding of reality. He certainly knows nothing of what constitutes WAR. If our president tells us we are at war, is it not logical to presume that our enemy thinks likewise?
"We do not negotiate with terrorists. We do not meet with terrorists. We hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice." Why doesn't Judge Young get his head in the game? If we did as the judge says we would have "hunted" down bin Ladin long ago instead of pre-emptively and illegally invaded a sovereign country where there were NO terrorists, OR ANY GOD DAMNED ARMY THAT HAD PROVOKED WAR AGAINST AMERICANS!! That, Judge Young, is reality, of which you are obviously blind.
"It seems to me you hate the one thing that to us is most precious. You hate our freedom. Our individual freedom to live as we choose, to come and go as we choose, to believe or not belive as we individually choose. Here, in this society, the very wind carries freedom. It carries it everywhere from sea to shining sea. It is because we prize individual freedom so much ........." Forgive me, I can't help myself...this is bullshit worthy of an eighth grade civics essay. Judge Young must have been up for re-election, this is pap. Speaking of wind, the judge would better serve whoever he is trying to impress with this juvenile propaganda were he to mention the noxious air we breathe. Why doesn't this horrific defendant hate Danes, or Swedes, or Frenchmen, or the Swiss, or Italians, or any number of other worldly citizens that actually have more freedom and a higher standard of living than Americans? Why isn't this defendant attempting to kill Peruvians, or Canadians, or Icelanders?
Judge Young, to Arabs that have resented Caucasians for hundreds of years going back to the Crusades and through the years of Colonialism, the geopolitical machinations of WWll and the enforced hegemony brought on since oil was discovered in THEIR lands, they want us the fuck out of THEIR lands, THEIR countries. They want to live THEIR lives as we live ours, they want THEIR religion, THEIR customs and THEIR natural resources. Would the good, sanctimonious judge not declare jihad against the Chinese were the Chinese dominating us, controlling our vast coal resources, invading a neighbor Caucasian, Christian country?
"We Americans are all about freedom." This is total bullshit. Americans are all about money. This defendant doesn't give a god damn what is or isn't important to Americans as long as Americans stay in America. This war will never end and we will be in Iraq, and Iran next, for as long as their oil holds out. Judge Young, its not about freedom, whatever that means these days with this fascist government we have, its the oil, stupid.
Each time I see this, (why aren't these Christofascist pieces ever signed?) its rather hackneyed having been circulated for over 5 years, the first, and irrepressible, thought that crosses my mind is the definition of 'moron.' I remember studying the origins and applications of the Benet-Simon and Stanford Benet tests to determine a person's intelligence quotient. Though I always doubted the veracity of a somewhat pseudo-scientific, quantitative method of arriving at a person's ability to reason and learn, I was, at the same time, fascinated with the bracketed scales that were formulated and I harbored a hidden fear that were MY IQ truly discovered, I could possibly be relegated to one of the classes designated below average. These were: 'moron' indicating an IQ of 50-69, 'imbecile' from 20-49 and 'idiot' below 20. Adult morons were generally thought to have the mental capacity of 7 to 10 year olds. Whilst these categories have long gone the route of being professionally passe and societally abusive in common vernacular, I find the term 'MORON' (IQ=50-69), as it was once used by the American Psychiatric Association, especially applicable to anyone that would tout the thinly veiled nativist prejudice so blatant in the specious "facts", supposedly published by the LATIMES. The TIMES did no such thing, as a call to their information desk will verify.
Let's look at it.
1. "40% of all workers in L. A. County are working for cash and not paying taxes." This is a patently false, and stupid, statement as even any moron could deduce provided he/she got off their bigotted ass and did some 7 year old thinking. A. The inference is that these 2,262,519 (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2006 census estimates based on 5,656,299 full and part time workers ) workers are, for the most part, illegal. First, the Census Bureau does not verify citizenship in its surveys so I would challenge this preposterous presumption on its face. Second, using Bureau of Labor Statistics ratios and interpolating the numbers, the entire Hispanic workforce in LA County works for cash and doesn't pay any taxes, i.e., beyond incredulous! Go ahead, figure it out...I'll give you a head start...which morons deserve due to their mental handicap..their are 4,653,...ah, hell, call it 5,000,000 Spics in LA County.
2. "95% of murder warrants in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens." Aside from available data which disproves this statement, I called a Sheriff's Homicide Detective friend to get the actual 'skinny.' Suffice to say its 'BULLSHIT.' If anyone cares to argue the point I'd not only be pleased to accommodate you I will also bet you $1, 000.00 I can disprove this statement and you cannot prove this statement. Unless hundreds of Mexicans and other Hispanics have changed their names to such as Jawain and Mohammed.
3. See # 2.
4. "Over 66% of all births in LA County are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal......" A. It is illegal for hospitals to verify citizenship so how does whoever wrote and cooked up these numbers know? Could they have possibly taken all Hispanic names of maternity cases and spuriously inferred this? Would not the number of Medi-Cal births of Central and South Americans swell this number? Incidentally, just HOW were Mexicans segregated in the accounting of this number? Would not the number of Hispanic, poor, American citizens delivering babies in LA hospitals actually increase this number beyond 100%? Exactly, exactly what was the methodology used to garner these statistics? By the way, of the remaining 1/3 Medi-Cal births, what are the respective proportions for poor whites and poor Blacks, Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, Arabs, Viet Namese, Cambodians, etc., surely, these figures would have had to be collected along with the "Mexican" numbers, wouldn't they? This is such an egregious use of bullshit that I think I should vomit, chunky, on my keyboard.
5. "Nearly 35% of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally." I have no idea how many illegals are held in some form of detention facility awaiting deportation but they are not felonious 'inmates'. This statement clearly intends the figures to apply to prison and jail convicts. The usual false figure bandied about is 25% to 30%, whatever, they are both outrageous fabrications. A report from the U.S. Justice Dept. in mid 2006 stated that the "non-citizen" population of all Federal and State prisons and jails in California represented 9% of the total population, this included any ethnicity and any permanent resident and any visa holder of any type along with illegals. Further, the California Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation (an oxymoron) in their 4th Quarter 2006 report on the 81,612 prison population of LA County, classified 9,350 as illegal, that is 11.46% of the highest illegal concentrations in the state with the highest number of illegals in the U.S. Additionally, despite these lies of anti-Hispanic, for the most part hypocritical, Christian assholes, Hispanics, illegal or legal, are 450% less likely to be incarcerated as Blacks...regarding whites, U.S. native born adult whites are 3 TIMES more likely to be incarcerated than foreign born adults. Look it up. Have any of the proponents of this bullshit read the report of FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, generally considered as an anti illegal organization? They published a report titled, "Illegal Immigrants Represent a Disproportionately High Share of the Prison Population." Its flawed. They stated that illegals comprised 3.1% of the population but 4.54% of the prison population. Even if this were true, which it isn't, an under educated, poor segment of any population would be expected to have an incarceration rate greater than 1.1% of their share of the total population. According to the DOJ, Bureau of Justice Statistics in their year-end 2006 bulletin NCJ 215092, the U.S. prison population was comprised of 40% Blacks, 35% Whites and 20% Hispanic, which includes any ethnicity born in any Hispanic country. Correspond these figures with their respective share of the U.S. population: Blacks 12.1%, White 74.7% and Hispanic 14.5%. Who is bitching about the cost of incarcerating an incredibly disproportionate number of Blacks in prison?
6. "Over 300,000 illegals in Los Angeles are living in garages." Is this meant as a joke? Any Angeleno over 16 knows 300,000 middle class WHITES can't afford to buy or rent a garage in LA!!
I'm tired of this. How many people that have read the attached had nothing but a smug, self-satisfied, perverse, nationalistic (fascist) sense of "yea, kick the dirty bastards out of OUR country?" Then went to church on Sunday? Jesus Christ, be honest, and don't give me the money and cost crap...it doesn't wash. How many of you can tell me what the current velocity of $1 is? How many can tell me what happens to the $7,000,000,000 paid into FICA, Social Secirity, by illegals that is forfeited every year? C'mon, quick, what happens to that $7B? How many of you can tell me what the amount of the Farm Bill, which is corporate welfare, a god damn hand-out to capitalists that, ironically, practice socialism with YOUR money? For your information, its $27,000,000,000...and the Bill will pass next week, of course you all knew this. How many poor farmers do you know? How many of you realize how food costs have spiraled due to $4 corn and $10 wheat? How many of you have filet mignon every week? When you pass on the T-bones why don't you write your Congressmen and bitch about these billions, that you pay for in direct hand-outs to multi-millionaires then get screwed again when you go to Safeway? Anyone passing the attached crap along or believing it, is a bona fide moron if they justify their phony so-called patriotic, sanctimonious attitude because of "their taxes", which THEY all chisel and fraudulently cheat assidiously, like a badge of honor ...the truth is you are bigots, prejudiced, hypocritical, phony Christians and you should be ashamed of yourselves. Would Jesus Christ, your professed Savior, pass this on with His imprimater? I doubt it. I wonder how many of get off gossiping about the god damn Mexicans and all their grubby, snot-nosed kids fucking up your kids' schools...and, holy shit, "we're paying for it!!" Aren't all Mexicans Catholic..and they practice their religion better than you do...how many of you Catholic moms wouldn't think of having 6 or 7 kids but you sure as hell aren't going to abstain from fucking, are you? Or using "rubbers'! Isn't this against Catholic dogma, ergo, a sin? God, what phonies! This country has always had wacko nativist, nationalistic fascists like you: there were the Puritans that would torture (is Dickhead a Puritan?) and pillory people not of their standard, there were those who hated the Irish and all 'Romans' (Rum, Romanism and Rebellion), there was the Bolshevik scare of the 1920s and 30s, the Blacks of the 50s and 60s and now you have your 'wet backs.' With people of your ilk, if it wasn't Latinos it would be some other group, any group that doesn't conform to your lights...and you have the temerity to castigate theocracies, Allah and Muslims!.. I'd love to know how many of you supported our illegal, criminal invasion of a sovereign country by war criminals...and since you want Mexicans shot, or rounded up like cattle in a good old national hoe down and kicked out of the country, why aren't you passing emails that support Iraqis that want us out of their country? Jesus would. I'm sure its in the Bible if you look hard enough. Creamy puke this time.
PASS THIS TO YOUR EMAIL BUDDIES!
M.
Received: Sept 14, 2007
Remember the guy who got on a plane with a bomb built into his shoe and tried to light it?
Did you know his trial is over?
Did you know he was sentenced?
Did you see/hear any of the judge's comments on TV or Radio?
Didn't think so.
Everyone should hear what the judge had to say.
Ruling by Judge William Young, US District Court.
Prior to sentencing, the Judge asked the defendant if he had anything to say. His response: After admitting his guilt to the court for the record, Reid also admitted his 'allegiance to Osama bin Laden, to Islam, and to the religion of Allah,' defiantly stating, 'I think I will not apologize for my actions,' and told the court 'I am at war with your **country.'
Judge Young then delivered the statement quoted below:
January 30, 2003, United States vs. Reid.
Judge Young: 'Mr. Richard C. Reid, hearken now =o the sentence the Court imposes upon you.
On counts 1, 5 and 6 the court sentences you to life in prison in the custody of the United States Attorney General. On counts 2, 3, 4 and 7, the Court sentences you to 10 years in prison on each count, the sentence on each count to run consecutively. (That's 80 years.)
On count 8 the Court sentences you to the mandatory 30 years again, to be served consecutively to the 80 years just imposed. The Court imposes upon you for each of the eight counts a fine of $250,000 that's an aggregate fine of $2 billion. The Court accepts the government's recommendation with respect to restitution and orders restitution in the amount of $298.17 to Andre Bousquet and $5,784 to American Airlines.
The Court imposes upon you an $800 special assessment. The Court imposes upon you five years supervised release simply because the law requires it. But the life sentences are real life sentences so I need go no further.
This is the sentence that is provided for by our statutes. It is a fair and just sentence. It is a =ighteous sentence.
Now, let me explain this to you. We are not afraid of you or any of your terrorist co-conspirators, Mr. Reid. We are Americans. We have been through the fire before. There is too much war talk here and I say that to everyone with the utmost respect. Here in this court, we deal with individuals as individuals and care for individuals as individuals. As human beings, we reach out for justice.
You are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist. You are not a soldier in any war. You are a terrorist. =o give you that reference, to call you a soldier, gives you far too much =tature. Whether the officers of government do it or your attorney does it, or if you think you are a soldier. You are not ----- you are a terrorist. And we do not negotiate with terrorists. We do not meet with terrorists. We do not sign documents with terrorists. We hunt them down one by one and
bring them to justice.
So war talk is way out of line in this court. You are a big fellow. But you are not that big. You're no warrior. I've known warriors. You are a terrorist. A species of criminal that is guilty of multiple attempted murders. In a very real sense, State Trooper Santiago had it right when you first were taken off that plane and into custody and you wondered where the press and the TV crews were, and he said: 'You're no big deal.'
You are no big deal.
What your able counsel and that the equally able United States attorneys have grappled with and what I have as honestly as I know how tried to grapple with, is why you did something so horrific. What was it that led you here to this courtroom today?
I have listened respectfully to what you have to say. And I ask you to search your heart and ask yourself what sort of unfathomable fate led you to do what you are guilty and admit you are guilty of doing? And, I have an answer for you. It may not satisfy you, but as I search this entire record, it comes as close to understanding as I know.
It seems to me you hate the one thing that to us is most precious. You hate our freedom. Our individual freedom. Our individual freedom to live as we choose, to come and go as we choose, to believe or not believe as we individually choose. Here, in this society, the very wind carries freedom. It carries it everywhere from sea to shining sea. It is because we prize individual freedom so much that you are here in this beautiful courtroom. So that everyone can see, truly see, that justice is administered fairly, individually, and discretely. It is for freedom's sake that your lawyers are striving so vigorously on your behalf, have filed appeals, will go on in their representation of you before other judges.
We Americans are all about freedom. Because we all know that the way we treat you, Mr. Reid, is the measure of our own liberties. Make no mistake though. It is yet t rue that we will bare any burden; pay any price, to preserve our freedoms. Look around this courtroom. Mark it well. The world is not going to long remember what you or I say here. The day after tomorrow, it will be forgotten, but this, however, will long endure.
Here in this courtroom and courtrooms all across America, the American people will gather to see that justice, individual justice, justice, not war, individual justice is in fact being done. The very
President of the United States through his officers will have to come into courtrooms and lay out evidence on which specific matters can be judged and juries of citizens will gather to sit and judge that evidence democratically, to mold and shape and refine our sense of justice.
See that flag, Mr. Reid? That's the flag of the United States of America. That flag will fly there long after this is all forgotten. That flag stands for freedom. And it always will.
Mr. Custody Officer. Stand him down.
So, how much of this =udge's comments did we hear on our TV sets? We need more judges like Judge Young, but that's another subject. Pass this around. Everyone should and needs to hear what this fine judge had to say. Powerful words that strike home. God bless America
Please SEND this----------so that every American has a chance to read it.
Marty's Response:
Yes, as a matter of fact, I did know about this and read the sentence when it determined, 3 years ago.
What is the point in distributing this now, in September 2007?
I believe Judge Young is a fair and decent man, he is patriotic and means well regarding our country and the sentence was appropriate to the crime, however, I have a problem with his remarks.
The Judge is naive and has no understanding of Middle East cultural history. I fully realize that the common reaction to the Judge's remarks would be one of agreement by most Americans...but there is a bit more to reality than convicting and sentencing a 'terrorist' and espousing the patriotic slogans du jour.
Let's look at what the Judge had to say.
"There is too much war talk here and I say that to everyone with the utmost respect." The president of the U.S. constantly reminds us that we ARE at WAR. Does not the judge realize this is the REALITY of the situation? Who does the judge think we are at WAR with if it is not the defendant? The defendant certainly believed himself to be at WAR with us. And, now that I think of it, is not a conventional soldier in a conventional army a "terrorist" from the standpoint of the entire enemy population, including civilians? When General Sherman invented 'total' war during the civil war, meaning total destruction of the enemy population, including civilians in mufti, he was hailed as a hero. When the civilian victims of the fire bombing of Dresden heard the drone of bombers overhead and knew the indiscriminate incendiary bombs would follow, killing and burning women, children, babies and old people, non-combatants if you will, did they not consider the pilots and bombardiers TERRORISTS? I believe the judge is woefully lacking in any understanding of reality. He certainly knows nothing of what constitutes WAR. If our president tells us we are at war, is it not logical to presume that our enemy thinks likewise?
"We do not negotiate with terrorists. We do not meet with terrorists. We hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice." Why doesn't Judge Young get his head in the game? If we did as the judge says we would have "hunted" down bin Ladin long ago instead of pre-emptively and illegally invaded a sovereign country where there were NO terrorists, OR ANY GOD DAMNED ARMY THAT HAD PROVOKED WAR AGAINST AMERICANS!! That, Judge Young, is reality, of which you are obviously blind.
"It seems to me you hate the one thing that to us is most precious. You hate our freedom. Our individual freedom to live as we choose, to come and go as we choose, to believe or not belive as we individually choose. Here, in this society, the very wind carries freedom. It carries it everywhere from sea to shining sea. It is because we prize individual freedom so much ........." Forgive me, I can't help myself...this is bullshit worthy of an eighth grade civics essay. Judge Young must have been up for re-election, this is pap. Speaking of wind, the judge would better serve whoever he is trying to impress with this juvenile propaganda were he to mention the noxious air we breathe. Why doesn't this horrific defendant hate Danes, or Swedes, or Frenchmen, or the Swiss, or Italians, or any number of other worldly citizens that actually have more freedom and a higher standard of living than Americans? Why isn't this defendant attempting to kill Peruvians, or Canadians, or Icelanders?
Judge Young, to Arabs that have resented Caucasians for hundreds of years going back to the Crusades and through the years of Colonialism, the geopolitical machinations of WWll and the enforced hegemony brought on since oil was discovered in THEIR lands, they want us the fuck out of THEIR lands, THEIR countries. They want to live THEIR lives as we live ours, they want THEIR religion, THEIR customs and THEIR natural resources. Would the good, sanctimonious judge not declare jihad against the Chinese were the Chinese dominating us, controlling our vast coal resources, invading a neighbor Caucasian, Christian country?
"We Americans are all about freedom." This is total bullshit. Americans are all about money. This defendant doesn't give a god damn what is or isn't important to Americans as long as Americans stay in America. This war will never end and we will be in Iraq, and Iran next, for as long as their oil holds out. Judge Young, its not about freedom, whatever that means these days with this fascist government we have, its the oil, stupid.
Each time I see this, (why aren't these Christofascist pieces ever signed?) its rather hackneyed having been circulated for over 5 years, the first, and irrepressible, thought that crosses my mind is the definition of 'moron.' I remember studying the origins and applications of the Benet-Simon and Stanford Benet tests to determine a person's intelligence quotient. Though I always doubted the veracity of a somewhat pseudo-scientific, quantitative method of arriving at a person's ability to reason and learn, I was, at the same time, fascinated with the bracketed scales that were formulated and I harbored a hidden fear that were MY IQ truly discovered, I could possibly be relegated to one of the classes designated below average. These were: 'moron' indicating an IQ of 50-69, 'imbecile' from 20-49 and 'idiot' below 20. Adult morons were generally thought to have the mental capacity of 7 to 10 year olds. Whilst these categories have long gone the route of being professionally passe and societally abusive in common vernacular, I find the term 'MORON' (IQ=50-69), as it was once used by the American Psychiatric Association, especially applicable to anyone that would tout the thinly veiled nativist prejudice so blatant in the specious "facts", supposedly published by the LATIMES. The TIMES did no such thing, as a call to their information desk will verify.
Let's look at it.
1. "40% of all workers in L. A. County are working for cash and not paying taxes." This is a patently false, and stupid, statement as even any moron could deduce provided he/she got off their bigotted ass and did some 7 year old thinking. A. The inference is that these 2,262,519 (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2006 census estimates based on 5,656,299 full and part time workers ) workers are, for the most part, illegal. First, the Census Bureau does not verify citizenship in its surveys so I would challenge this preposterous presumption on its face. Second, using Bureau of Labor Statistics ratios and interpolating the numbers, the entire Hispanic workforce in LA County works for cash and doesn't pay any taxes, i.e., beyond incredulous! Go ahead, figure it out...I'll give you a head start...which morons deserve due to their mental handicap..their are 4,653,...ah, hell, call it 5,000,000 Spics in LA County.
2. "95% of murder warrants in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens." Aside from available data which disproves this statement, I called a Sheriff's Homicide Detective friend to get the actual 'skinny.' Suffice to say its 'BULLSHIT.' If anyone cares to argue the point I'd not only be pleased to accommodate you I will also bet you $1, 000.00 I can disprove this statement and you cannot prove this statement. Unless hundreds of Mexicans and other Hispanics have changed their names to such as Jawain and Mohammed.
3. See # 2.
4. "Over 66% of all births in LA County are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal......" A. It is illegal for hospitals to verify citizenship so how does whoever wrote and cooked up these numbers know? Could they have possibly taken all Hispanic names of maternity cases and spuriously inferred this? Would not the number of Medi-Cal births of Central and South Americans swell this number? Incidentally, just HOW were Mexicans segregated in the accounting of this number? Would not the number of Hispanic, poor, American citizens delivering babies in LA hospitals actually increase this number beyond 100%? Exactly, exactly what was the methodology used to garner these statistics? By the way, of the remaining 1/3 Medi-Cal births, what are the respective proportions for poor whites and poor Blacks, Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, Arabs, Viet Namese, Cambodians, etc., surely, these figures would have had to be collected along with the "Mexican" numbers, wouldn't they? This is such an egregious use of bullshit that I think I should vomit, chunky, on my keyboard.
5. "Nearly 35% of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally." I have no idea how many illegals are held in some form of detention facility awaiting deportation but they are not felonious 'inmates'. This statement clearly intends the figures to apply to prison and jail convicts. The usual false figure bandied about is 25% to 30%, whatever, they are both outrageous fabrications. A report from the U.S. Justice Dept. in mid 2006 stated that the "non-citizen" population of all Federal and State prisons and jails in California represented 9% of the total population, this included any ethnicity and any permanent resident and any visa holder of any type along with illegals. Further, the California Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation (an oxymoron) in their 4th Quarter 2006 report on the 81,612 prison population of LA County, classified 9,350 as illegal, that is 11.46% of the highest illegal concentrations in the state with the highest number of illegals in the U.S. Additionally, despite these lies of anti-Hispanic, for the most part hypocritical, Christian assholes, Hispanics, illegal or legal, are 450% less likely to be incarcerated as Blacks...regarding whites, U.S. native born adult whites are 3 TIMES more likely to be incarcerated than foreign born adults. Look it up. Have any of the proponents of this bullshit read the report of FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, generally considered as an anti illegal organization? They published a report titled, "Illegal Immigrants Represent a Disproportionately High Share of the Prison Population." Its flawed. They stated that illegals comprised 3.1% of the population but 4.54% of the prison population. Even if this were true, which it isn't, an under educated, poor segment of any population would be expected to have an incarceration rate greater than 1.1% of their share of the total population. According to the DOJ, Bureau of Justice Statistics in their year-end 2006 bulletin NCJ 215092, the U.S. prison population was comprised of 40% Blacks, 35% Whites and 20% Hispanic, which includes any ethnicity born in any Hispanic country. Correspond these figures with their respective share of the U.S. population: Blacks 12.1%, White 74.7% and Hispanic 14.5%. Who is bitching about the cost of incarcerating an incredibly disproportionate number of Blacks in prison?
6. "Over 300,000 illegals in Los Angeles are living in garages." Is this meant as a joke? Any Angeleno over 16 knows 300,000 middle class WHITES can't afford to buy or rent a garage in LA!!
I'm tired of this. How many people that have read the attached had nothing but a smug, self-satisfied, perverse, nationalistic (fascist) sense of "yea, kick the dirty bastards out of OUR country?" Then went to church on Sunday? Jesus Christ, be honest, and don't give me the money and cost crap...it doesn't wash. How many of you can tell me what the current velocity of $1 is? How many can tell me what happens to the $7,000,000,000 paid into FICA, Social Secirity, by illegals that is forfeited every year? C'mon, quick, what happens to that $7B? How many of you can tell me what the amount of the Farm Bill, which is corporate welfare, a god damn hand-out to capitalists that, ironically, practice socialism with YOUR money? For your information, its $27,000,000,000...and the Bill will pass next week, of course you all knew this. How many poor farmers do you know? How many of you realize how food costs have spiraled due to $4 corn and $10 wheat? How many of you have filet mignon every week? When you pass on the T-bones why don't you write your Congressmen and bitch about these billions, that you pay for in direct hand-outs to multi-millionaires then get screwed again when you go to Safeway? Anyone passing the attached crap along or believing it, is a bona fide moron if they justify their phony so-called patriotic, sanctimonious attitude because of "their taxes", which THEY all chisel and fraudulently cheat assidiously, like a badge of honor ...the truth is you are bigots, prejudiced, hypocritical, phony Christians and you should be ashamed of yourselves. Would Jesus Christ, your professed Savior, pass this on with His imprimater? I doubt it. I wonder how many of get off gossiping about the god damn Mexicans and all their grubby, snot-nosed kids fucking up your kids' schools...and, holy shit, "we're paying for it!!" Aren't all Mexicans Catholic..and they practice their religion better than you do...how many of you Catholic moms wouldn't think of having 6 or 7 kids but you sure as hell aren't going to abstain from fucking, are you? Or using "rubbers'! Isn't this against Catholic dogma, ergo, a sin? God, what phonies! This country has always had wacko nativist, nationalistic fascists like you: there were the Puritans that would torture (is Dickhead a Puritan?) and pillory people not of their standard, there were those who hated the Irish and all 'Romans' (Rum, Romanism and Rebellion), there was the Bolshevik scare of the 1920s and 30s, the Blacks of the 50s and 60s and now you have your 'wet backs.' With people of your ilk, if it wasn't Latinos it would be some other group, any group that doesn't conform to your lights...and you have the temerity to castigate theocracies, Allah and Muslims!.. I'd love to know how many of you supported our illegal, criminal invasion of a sovereign country by war criminals...and since you want Mexicans shot, or rounded up like cattle in a good old national hoe down and kicked out of the country, why aren't you passing emails that support Iraqis that want us out of their country? Jesus would. I'm sure its in the Bible if you look hard enough. Creamy puke this time.
PASS THIS TO YOUR EMAIL BUDDIES!
M.
Social Security Veto
Got this from email...
Social Security Changes
It does not matter if you personally like or dislike Bush. You need to sign this petition and flood his e-mail box with e-mails that tell him that, even if the House passes this bill, he needs to veto it. It is already impossible to live on Social Security alone. If the government gives benefits to "illegal" aliens who have never contributed, where does that leave those of us who have paid into Social Security all our working lives? As stated below, the Senate voted this week to allow "illegal" aliens access to Social Security benefits. Attached is an opportunity to sign a petition that requires citizenship for eligibility
to that social service.
Instructions are below.
If you don't forward the petition and just stop it, we will lose all these names. If you do not want to sign it, please just forward it to everyone you know.
Thank you!
To add your name, click on "forward" or better yet, "copy and paste" if you know how. You will be able to add your name at the bottom of the list and then forward it to your friends.
When the petition hits 1,000, send it to comments@whitehouse.gov
Instructions are below.
PETITION for President Bush:
Dear Mr. President:
We, the undersigned, protest the bill that the Senate voted upon recently which would allow illegal aliens to access our Social Security.
We demand that you and all Congressional representatives require citizenship as a prerequisite for social services in the United States.
We further demand that there not be any amnesty given to illegals, NO free services, no funding, no payments to and for illegal immigrants.
We are fed up with the lack of action about this matter and are tired of "paying" for services to illegals!
Signed
Marty's Response:
When are you phony, hypocritical, nativist, prejudicial, so-called "Christian" bastards going to stop disseminating this bullshit?
1. Jesus Christ, one only has to read the tripe having to do with not being able to "live on Social Security alone" to realize whoever wrote this shit has oatmeal for brains. I challenge the writer to produce one iota, one shred of evidence, of official reference regarding the objective of Social Security benefits to afford a 65 yo person the ability to retire and live on the benefits "alone." The original intent, as it remains today, of the Social Security Act was to "alleviate the hazards of old age, unemployment, illness, and dependency; to establish a Social Insurance Board in the Department of Labor, to raise revenue, and for other purposes." "Assistance" does not, nor has it ever, mean "total sustenance." The average monthly Social Security benefit for an aged couple today is $1,648. If the husband lives 13 years beyond 65 and the widow lives another 4 years, their benefits would be well over $300,000 without figuring COLAs. Even allowing for inflation adjusted dollars this figure would far outstrip employee contributions.
2. "Illegals- never-contributed", etc. I again challenge the writer of this pab to produce evidence of ANYONE, legal, immigrant, illegal or the god damned Pope receiving monthly SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS that has NOT contributed an amount commensurate with benefits received. SHOW ME!!!
3. "Where does that leave those of us who have paid into SS all our working lives", aw, poor babies, ain't you gettin your fair share? It leaves you exactly where you belong, you dumb shit!! What does it matter to you, or you, or you what anyone else receives in benefits if those benefits are based on what the other person contributed to the system, as YOUR benefits are also calculated?
God almighty, imagine millions of illegals making $10/hr and more, slitting pigs' throats, draining blood and pulling guts...we've simply got to protect America and stop this rip off!
How many of the signatories of this moronic, thinly veiled anti, biased, ethno-prejudicial dreck know how many BILLIONS of dollars are contributed every year to FICA taxes that are forfeited by illegals? Come on, you'all have the answers on everything Mexican...how many billions are forfeited and what happens to it?
How many of you can list, say, the top ten corporate welfare programs that aggregate in excess of $100,000,000,000? How many of you know the number of corporate welfare programs in the country? 100, 300, 500? All paid for by you, so I expect you all have at least a ball park figure in mind and these billions and billions of taxpayer hand-outs are OK with you.
We all eat and we all have some idea of the greatness of American agriculture, right? How many of you know what the farm subsidy costs you? How many can name the top 10 or 20 recipients of these millions of dollars and what their corporate profits are exclusive of our taxpayer hand-outs? Were I to tell you "who" and "how much", would you sign a petition to stop it? Quick, how much money do you, the taxpayer that's so pissed off about Mexicans apparently costing you money, GIVE to the manufacturers of ethanol, per gallon? As smart as you all are you can quickly figure out how much ethanol costs you: 2006 production, 3.8 billion barrels, 42 gallons per barrel, TAX CREDIT PER GALLON $ 0.51. And this is the tip of the iceberg, for the first time in our history wheat sold for $9.00 a bushel!!! $9.00!!! Because acreage normally planted in wheat was planted to corn for ethanol, and the corn went to almost $5.00/bu. Same with soybeans. Ask mom what the price of beef is...that made all time highs, as did pork, chickens, turkeys because of the price of corn feed. Even with all the ethanol, 5 billion barrels this year, oil hit an all time high TODAY of $80!! Ethanol is a cruel joke played on the American taxpayer and you people ought to be signing petitions that have merit, instead of stupid, immoral, unChristian, nativist biases
M.
Social Security Changes
It does not matter if you personally like or dislike Bush. You need to sign this petition and flood his e-mail box with e-mails that tell him that, even if the House passes this bill, he needs to veto it. It is already impossible to live on Social Security alone. If the government gives benefits to "illegal" aliens who have never contributed, where does that leave those of us who have paid into Social Security all our working lives? As stated below, the Senate voted this week to allow "illegal" aliens access to Social Security benefits. Attached is an opportunity to sign a petition that requires citizenship for eligibility
to that social service.
Instructions are below.
If you don't forward the petition and just stop it, we will lose all these names. If you do not want to sign it, please just forward it to everyone you know.
Thank you!
To add your name, click on "forward" or better yet, "copy and paste" if you know how. You will be able to add your name at the bottom of the list and then forward it to your friends.
When the petition hits 1,000, send it to comments@whitehouse.gov
Instructions are below.
PETITION for President Bush:
Dear Mr. President:
We, the undersigned, protest the bill that the Senate voted upon recently which would allow illegal aliens to access our Social Security.
We demand that you and all Congressional representatives require citizenship as a prerequisite for social services in the United States.
We further demand that there not be any amnesty given to illegals, NO free services, no funding, no payments to and for illegal immigrants.
We are fed up with the lack of action about this matter and are tired of "paying" for services to illegals!
Signed
Marty's Response:
When are you phony, hypocritical, nativist, prejudicial, so-called "Christian" bastards going to stop disseminating this bullshit?
1. Jesus Christ, one only has to read the tripe having to do with not being able to "live on Social Security alone" to realize whoever wrote this shit has oatmeal for brains. I challenge the writer to produce one iota, one shred of evidence, of official reference regarding the objective of Social Security benefits to afford a 65 yo person the ability to retire and live on the benefits "alone." The original intent, as it remains today, of the Social Security Act was to "alleviate the hazards of old age, unemployment, illness, and dependency; to establish a Social Insurance Board in the Department of Labor, to raise revenue, and for other purposes." "Assistance" does not, nor has it ever, mean "total sustenance." The average monthly Social Security benefit for an aged couple today is $1,648. If the husband lives 13 years beyond 65 and the widow lives another 4 years, their benefits would be well over $300,000 without figuring COLAs. Even allowing for inflation adjusted dollars this figure would far outstrip employee contributions.
2. "Illegals- never-contributed", etc. I again challenge the writer of this pab to produce evidence of ANYONE, legal, immigrant, illegal or the god damned Pope receiving monthly SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS that has NOT contributed an amount commensurate with benefits received. SHOW ME!!!
3. "Where does that leave those of us who have paid into SS all our working lives", aw, poor babies, ain't you gettin your fair share? It leaves you exactly where you belong, you dumb shit!! What does it matter to you, or you, or you what anyone else receives in benefits if those benefits are based on what the other person contributed to the system, as YOUR benefits are also calculated?
God almighty, imagine millions of illegals making $10/hr and more, slitting pigs' throats, draining blood and pulling guts...we've simply got to protect America and stop this rip off!
How many of the signatories of this moronic, thinly veiled anti, biased, ethno-prejudicial dreck know how many BILLIONS of dollars are contributed every year to FICA taxes that are forfeited by illegals? Come on, you'all have the answers on everything Mexican...how many billions are forfeited and what happens to it?
How many of you can list, say, the top ten corporate welfare programs that aggregate in excess of $100,000,000,000? How many of you know the number of corporate welfare programs in the country? 100, 300, 500? All paid for by you, so I expect you all have at least a ball park figure in mind and these billions and billions of taxpayer hand-outs are OK with you.
We all eat and we all have some idea of the greatness of American agriculture, right? How many of you know what the farm subsidy costs you? How many can name the top 10 or 20 recipients of these millions of dollars and what their corporate profits are exclusive of our taxpayer hand-outs? Were I to tell you "who" and "how much", would you sign a petition to stop it? Quick, how much money do you, the taxpayer that's so pissed off about Mexicans apparently costing you money, GIVE to the manufacturers of ethanol, per gallon? As smart as you all are you can quickly figure out how much ethanol costs you: 2006 production, 3.8 billion barrels, 42 gallons per barrel, TAX CREDIT PER GALLON $ 0.51. And this is the tip of the iceberg, for the first time in our history wheat sold for $9.00 a bushel!!! $9.00!!! Because acreage normally planted in wheat was planted to corn for ethanol, and the corn went to almost $5.00/bu. Same with soybeans. Ask mom what the price of beef is...that made all time highs, as did pork, chickens, turkeys because of the price of corn feed. Even with all the ethanol, 5 billion barrels this year, oil hit an all time high TODAY of $80!! Ethanol is a cruel joke played on the American taxpayer and you people ought to be signing petitions that have merit, instead of stupid, immoral, unChristian, nativist biases
M.
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