REALITY- Eleven years have passed since that fateful Tuesday morning that changed the way Americans perceived the outside world. As none will ever forget, on that day, more than three thousand human lives ended when The U.S. security structure failed to protect our borders from four hijacked passenger aircraft. It is well known by now that 19 terrorists, most of them from Saudi Arabia, hijacked 4 commercial passenger jets bent on crashing those huge airplanes into various targets within the United States. It is sad to say that on that day the terrorists did succeed in 2 of their 3 surmised goals, One Boeing 757 crashed into the Pentagon, two Boeing 767's destroyed the World Trade Center Twin Towers in New York City, and the fourth jet, a Boeing 757, was shot down over Shanksville, Pennsylvania said to have been on course for The White House.
A moment of silence please.
There are a myriad of ways to feel about the tragic events of September The Eleventh 2001. I hope that most would feel respect for the people whose lives were taken that day. Respect for the passengers on each of the four doomed flights having no idea that this day would be their last. Respect for those who woke up the morning of September The Eleventh feeling as though it was just another Tuesday in New York. Beautiful weather, busy streets, and a job to do. Respect for the men and women in uniform who may have expected to face an ordinary day on the force or in the fire station but knew deep down the risk they faced every time that they put on their uniforms. Those intrepid first responders put on their uniforms and were greeted that Tuesday morning by beautiful weather, busy streets, and a job to do. I write today out of respect for those who were lost and for those who persevere.
Eleven years later and the images of heroism are still compelling.
Eleven years later the images of non-reaction are also compelling. This is what Republican President George W. Bush was doing after he was told by one of his handlers that "The nation was under attack." I think we can at least assume that George W. Bush was smart enough to understand that his handlers did indeed mean that this nation here, The United States of America, the nation that Bush was sort of president of at that moment was in fact the nation that Bush had just learned was under attack. While W. may have indeed at that time understood that his nation was under attack, could have been an attack from The Planet Mars for all he knew at that moment, it is clear that George W. Bush had absolutely no idea how to react or what to do. In a stunning piece accidental comedy the above photo features a rare image of the actual thoughts of George W. Bush which can be seen listed on the purple display to his right.
Appointed President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld swore that they would bring the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Osama Bin Laden, to Justice. They failed.
What they did succeed in doing was starting two illegal wars, one of them at least in the exact wrong place, rolled back environmental regulations to the point where one oil company (BP - British Petroleum) would soon be responsible for the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry, and as a farewell show they crashed The United States economy into a mountain creating the second largest financial crisis in American history. When things got tough this is how The Republican Party handled it. Poorly.
So poorly that when it came time to elect a new president in 2008 the Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain couldn't out run his predecessor or his opponent and his party lost control of The White House and The U.S. Congress.
Over the course of President Barack Obama's first term in office his administration has worked to end the second Iraq War, his policies have stopped the bleeding of the worst financial collapse in American history since The Great Depression. Despite unprecedented Republican obstructionism President Obama has managed to begin the stabilization of The American economy.
President Barack Obama also pursued policies towards and issued the order to kill Al Qaeda terrorist leader and mastermind of the September The Eleventh Terrorist Attacks Osama Bin Laden.
For once Vice President Joe Biden actually did say it best "Bin Laden is dead and G.M. is alive."
But that's enough history, this is about the future in specific the future of the citizens of The United States of America. The near future, November 6th 2012, the day that Americans will once again make time to make history. On that day the people of The United States will vote to decide the next President of The United States.
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are the Republican candidates running for president and vice president respectively. Paul Ryan introduced a budget that would end Medicare and believes that a woman should be forced to bare the child of her rapist. Somehow this position, which has been adopted as part of The 2012 Republican Party Platform, is referred to as "pro-life" when in point of fact this position can best be described as "anti-woman". While Mitt Romney is a wildcard.
Willard 'Mitt' Romney has been on nearly all sides of all of the issues to date. I believe that the one thing that Romney has said along the campaign trail thus far that he has truly meant was that he believed that he should be president because it was his turn. Romney was born to wealth and has made more money throughout his professional life by closing other people's businesses down and putting every-day Americans out of work.
Mitt Romney refuses to follow the established history of presidential candidates by releasing his tax records. Most likely because W.M. Romney is afraid to be honest with the American people about how he got to where he is today. In fact 'Mitt' Romney is not even running for president under his real name. He gets a stage name? Like Shawn Michaels or Lady GaGa?
President Barack Obama has faced impossible challenges, greater odds than a more generous god would have allowed, and the unprecedented obstructionism of The Republican Party who's top representatives have said that their one goal over the last four years has been to make sure that Barack Obama was only a one term president.
The Republican Party's goals had nothing to do with helping you.
The goals of The Republican Party have nothing to do with helping the American people.
The goals of The Republican Party have nothing to do with moving this great nation forward into a future where the hungry are fed, the poor are kept warm, and the politicians and businessmen who have tried to hoard supplies, opportunities, and resources just for themselves and those closest to them at the expense and exclusion of decent hard-working Americans are held accountable for their destructive actions. A future where those criminals are treated as criminals deserve to be treated.
Despite what President Obama has endured over the last four years he has accomplished more than anyone thought that he could. He restored dignity and honor to the office of President of The United States. He ended a needless war in Iraq, hasn't started any other "pre-emptive" wars, and brought the terrorist Osama Bin Laden to justice when he predecessor "Didn't know where [Osama Bin Laden] is" and "Frankly Didn't spend that much time on him".
All of President Obama's administration's accomplishments came on the heels of the George W. Bush Administration arguably eight of the worst run years in American history. Imagine what President Barack Obama could do in a second term, a term that starts here and now not drudging through the mistakes of the past.
President Harry S. Truman said it best "If we don't make a mistake, what a paradise we could make of this world."
We must not make the mistake that is the Romney / Ryan fiasco.
We must choose to re-elect President Barack Obama to a second term so that we can all have a chance to move forward.
And as Always,
Ps. This blog is dedicated to the memory of all whose lives were lost or fractured forever on that fateful Tuesday morning, and to all those who have given their lives before and since in service of the cause of freedom for Americans and all others around the world.
REALITY- By now everyone should know the story of Trayvon Martin. An unarmed high school football player carrying candy and a cell phone was gunned down in the night by a man who had no official authority. Sadly this story would not be remarkable (as this kind of thing happens all too often) but for the fact that the local police failed to investigate the crime immediately. Instead they took the word of the guy with the smoking gun in his hand and no visable wounds what so ever. In short, the killer said that it wasn't his fault because when he shot and killed the unarmed teenager he said that it was in self defense. The local police didn't investigate in order to corroborate they simply accepted the killer's story at face value and let him go free.
This would have been the end of the story if it had not been for the efforts of Trayvon Martin's parents who had to take their case to the nation via television interviews. Having been turned away by the local police, the family of Trayvon Martin was forced to plead for justice on The Today Show.
Most people, when they lose a child under any circumstances, need to be comforted by friends and family while the details of caring for the deceased are seen to by others. A natural grieving process takes place, we're all familiar, or will one day become familiar with it from one perspective or another. Sybrina Fulton had to go on television before the man who murdered her son Trayvon was even arrested for the crime.
More than a month had passed since George Zimmerman had shot Trayvon Martin in the chest in what Zimmerman claimed to be self defense. Trayvon Martin was talking to his girlfriend on his cell phone that tragic night. She reports that the last things that she hears are that Trayvon asked someone "What are you following me for?" she heard a man's voice reply "What are you doing here?" Martin's girlfriend then hears what she describes as "the sound of pushing". Trayvon Martin's phone went silent. Trayvon's girlfriend, who remains anonymous, believes that Trayvon was the one who was pushed by the other man.
No one really knows for certain what happened next, except that George Zimmerman fired his handgun while it was aimed at Trayvon Martin's chest. Zimmerman claims that the smaller unarmed teenager attacked him from behind. A 911 call that reported the incident at first as "someone screaming outside" captures the sound of someone in a high pitched cry for their life just before a gunshot silences them. Two experts have studied the tape of that 911 call and they report that the voice heard crying out for help was definitely not the voice of George Zimmerman. The experts say that they don't know for sure if the voice heard screaming for help is Trayvon Martin as there was no sample of Trayvon Martin's voice for them to compare it to.
George Zimmerman was finally arrested and will be tried for second degree murder in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon's mother, posted a special mother's day video.
Here's the link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KaOw4cQEHs
Kelly Thomas was a mentally ill homeless person who was also unarmed and murdered. Kelly was beaten into a coma by 6 members of the Fullerton California Police department. 5 days later he was taken off of life support and Kelly Thomas died never having regained consciousness.
Kelly Thomas' murder, unlike Trayvon Martin's, was caught on video surveillance cameras. Although it still took almost three months for any arrests to take place as the police were claiming that Kelly had been "combative" with the six officers and that two of them had suffered broken bones at the hands of Kelly Thomas. Later the police changed their story to fit emerging facts and said that no one involved in the incident suffered any serious injuries. No one except Kelly that is. Currently two officers stand trial for second degree murder charges in the beating death of Kelly Thomas.
Here is a link to the full surveillance video from that tragic night on youtube.com.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6yaeD-E_MY
George Zimmerman and the six Fullerton County police officers who killed Kelly Thomas have at least two things in common.
1. They are all murderers.
2. They are all bullies.
Bullies, people who think that they can do whatever they want to whomever they want because they're bigger, stronger, more well trained and armed, or richer than you. No matter who you are you know what a bully is.
Which brings me to Mitt Romney. Who, it has been recently revealed, spent his high school days bullying closeted homosexuals for the sheer joy of hurting someone else. So it has been reported, one time Mitt Romney actually chased down a student and cut all his hair off of him. Because "Romney didn't like how the kid looked". Then there was another man that Mitt Romney suspected of being homosexual and so every time Romney heard that classmate say anything he would tell the student "That'a girl".
Mitt Romney ran his business in much the same fashion, bullying smaller companies into bankruptcy while he and his corporate friends reaped all the spoils, getting rich off of the destruction of other people's lives.
Mitt Romney is now the Republican Nominee for President of The United States of America. And he is still a bully.
Republicans love bullies, because republicans are bullies. Not every last republican, I doubt Ron Paul could be considered a bully. Unless you count the fact that he hasn't stopped pretending to run for president even though he has lost a few times already. Now that I think of it, the way Ron Paul is all racist and anti-abortion kind of makes him more like a bully in his way of thinking.
The thing that all of these bullies have in common is their mentality. The attitude of a bully is one that says 'I can hurt anyone I don't like and you better not stop me either because you should be glad that I'm not hurting you.'
That is a crazy way of thinking. It is the same line of thought that empowers every racist to claim superiority over someone else because they might be a little bit different from them. It is the same line of reasoning that leads to murders, rapes, and other such human abuses like torture, economic tyranny, and political domination.
Mitt Romney, as a bully himself, has the same attitude towards those that he considers beneath him that George Zimmerman had when he looked at Trayvon Martin and pulled the trigger. The same mentality that led six police officers to climb on top of a defenseless 120lb man and beat him and kick him until he stopped moving.
The mentality of a bully.
I don't think that I'm overstating this. Mitt Romney is a bully don't vote for him unless you want him to punch you in the stomach and take your lunch money.
And As Always,
REALITY- Although it is what George W. Bush did wrong, President Barack Obama must project strength. By allowing The Republicans in Congress and on Television to dictate terms in situations like unemployment benefits, corporate accountability, and Bush tax cuts for the top 2 percent The President has lost support among many groups of people. The town where I live is pretty racist. (The town's people here I should say are racists. The town itself, a location with no emotions, is as ever neutral.) Folks here have been laughing at President Obama's Administration openly since before he was officially nominated, but now I have overheard members of the African American community expressing their displeasure with The President's seeming inability to combat The Republican Agenda both in Congress and in the court of public opinion.
Not that anyone has noticed or remembers that President Obama, or his orders, have been responsible for...
1. Ending The Second U.S. / Iraq War, and not yet starting any new wars in Iran or Syria. Like I said at least not yet.
2. Reversing the downward spiral of the largest financial collapse in American history since The Great Depression. You remember, it was that giant finacial meltdown that was caused by the failed policies of former Republican President George W. Bush "1/20/2001-1/20/2009" and his Republican, G.O.P., right wing pals.
And last but not least...
3. The Killing of one Osama Bin Laden.
It's true, it happened, I remember it.
I saw it on Saturday Night Live even.
Bush claimed to have been trying to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden since 2001. Obama accomplished in three and a half years what George W. Bush failed to do over the course of 7 plus years. President Obama's Administration gave the orders that lead to the death of Osama Bin Laden.
The Republicans have been in total control of the framework of the overall national debate and the content of President Obama's arguments by way of that control. So much so that the American people have all but forgotten that the Republicans had their chance to get Osama Bin Laden and The Republicans failed. President Obama required only half the time that The Republicans had had to terminate the most wanted man in history.
In any case, President Barack Obama had better get ready to be debated off the stage by whichever Republican whom finally becomes their selection for candidacy. You all know that these are not the actual 2012 Presidential debates right? The Republican Candidates are only practicing for the real debates against the real President of The United States Barack Obama. You all know that that is all that they are doing on television every week right?
Almost like minor league baseball players, The G.O.P. Candidates are taking televised batting practice. Crushing lobbed grapefruits out into deep right field hoping to make it to the big show. Although they are already on a big show aren't they? The Republicans have created a, what might as well be, weekly 'reality' TV show around their primary election cycle. Scheduling more than 20 televised debates amongst themselves and not inviting any outside opposition.
The Globetrotters at least invite the Washington Generals to play the basketball games. The audience would be less impressed I think if The Great Harlem Globetrotters took to the court alone. Winning games 212 to nothing because there was no real opposition. While party debates on either side rarely if ever actually invite any opposition during their debates, it's important to remember that everyone you see on the Republican debate stage is on the same team. Each one playing a role. Like pro wrestling, these Republican presidential candidates are not trying to hurt one another only trying to make the eventually chosen candidate appear to be as strong as possible.
The Undertaker doesn't really want to injure his demonic brother Kane when he hits him over the head with a steel chair. The chair-shot is meant to be exciting and to be a visual spectacle. The fans are meant to see Kane survive the big chair-shot by The Undertaker so that you know that Kane is very resilient and that Kane can take on anything, can survive anything, even a big chair-shot from The Undertaker.
Or even sharing a debate stage with President Obama. In wrestling they call it doing a 'job' or putting the other guy 'over'. Established performers like The Undertaker and Newt Gingrich do 'jobs' to put newer younger talent 'over' in order to create a newer younger 'star' so that the business that the two talents share can continue on into the future. The older talents do this in order to solidify their own future in the business.
The season of Republican 'reality' show style "presidential" debates has worked to create newer younger 'stars' within the Republican Party. 'Political stars' that may generate enough fan recognition to stand on the same stage with Barack Obama and survive his chair-shots. If I were working close to the president I would have him arguing with Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in order to prepare the president for the Republican assault machine that is all warmed up for him.
Ps. Here's a top three list of International boogeymen who have left the political map on President Obama's watch...
1. Osama Bin Laden,
2. Moammar Gadhafi,
3. and Kim Jong Il.
And As Always,
