Sunday, November 7, 2010

Keith Olbermann


I heard last night that Keith Olbermann of MSNBC has been "suspended without pay" after it was disclosed he had not revealed political contributions as suggested in his contract with GE/NBC INC. It reveals that even though he has been an unrelenting voice against the policies of the right-wing dating back to the 2003 invasion of Iraq to the 2010 election he is the only one put out as being unethical and suspect as biased to the point of being unprofessional. It would also reveal that the right-wing (FOX) has no qualms about being a shill for the GOP and the Tea Party. Actual solicitation for contributions on-air by the likes of Hannity, Beck, and O'Reilly are just fine but Olbermann has to be silenced and punished for being on the left.
I am disheartened as I ask myself, "Who will be next?" Will it be Rachel Maddow? Chris Matthews? Will we reach a point where the media is right wing only(sic) with not a single dissenting voice allowed on the left? I hope not as this will only expedite the slow lurch into corporate fascism and a society devoid of dissenting voices except those who resist anything which takes away from the have mores and the multinationals. A full discourse and a free media is our only chance for justice to return to this great(once great?) nation. Justice requires a free press. If Keith Olbermann can no longer present a voice crying in the wilderness against the powers of money over ideals, how long can we expect other essentials of democracy to persist?

Monday, July 12, 2010

My Liberal Relations


This is my friend Nicole who was a professional musician for 37 years and until recently was a regular performer at Johnny Foley's Irish House in SF. I met her in 1999 about three months after moving to Oakland to attend Naropa's satellite campus. She had a personal ad which said,"If music rocks your world let's rock." We met on xmas day 1999 and played at the corner of Haight and Ashbury on the steps of Ben and Jerry's. It was unrehearsed and unchoreographed yet as the morning sun came out it was a mystical day which started our deep friendship. She always tried to keep me around with a place to play in East Bay playing at Beckett's Irish Pub for 7 years but health problems that have just been diagnosed as lymphoma left her little choice as to limited her hours to recover her strength and lead a long and full life. She gave me the diagnosis which gives adds a prognosis of less than one year to live. She has chosen not to do chemo nor radiation treatment. She worked all her life paying her own payroll and SSI taxes and will never retire. She believes education should be free. Liberal ideas get to the masses and then it becomes harder to manipulate and corral them. This is what I will miss the most is the reminders that Mr Greed will always try to get it all and we will always have to say no, nyet, nada.
Keep singing Nikki as long as you desire and breathe. In my heart I will always hear the wonderful harmony we made.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

If You See These Men Together Someone Wants Your Money


The mail my mom gets from fringe-wing fright mongers preying on people on fixed incomes always has one or two themes; Obama is a ___________ or a ________. He is a friend of Usama bin Laden (who was much closer to the Bush Family Evil Empire BFEE) but if you voted for Mr Shoots Wolves From Helicopter, then you are feeling the wrong people are in control. Which is kind of how I feel now but not nearly as I did for 8 years with BFEE in control. The clock ran out and they had to bail out before they bailed out. The GOP solicitations for support to defeat the legal defense of Git'mo prisoners and to impeach the president for being a Muslim Marxist Socialist Kenyan and did you notice he is black? That's the bottom line. The dark skinned people are taking our country away from us. That's good for 20$ to 100$ Oh and the gay to the SCOTUS too. Too many horrible things to mention, just send us money and we will get Justice Roberts to save prayer and Justice (Fat Tony)Scalia will save the fetuses. Hallelujah send more money and bless you. Or you're with THEM.

Monday, June 7, 2010

human Experiments


The blog boingboing reports that the use of medical observers at CIA directed interrogation sites where at least 8 prisoners died during detention, indicates there are strong evidence that should be investigated by the USDoJ. Though no one was charged with war crimes, if the information obtained through public documents is true, it is looking like we have ourselves another Bush Cheney Obama moral dilemma. Should we pursue this or just "move forward"?
I am not telling.
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/06/06/scott-allen-md-lead.html#more

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

The Pie Wydens

This week I find out that Naomi Wolfe has endorsed the Tea-Bag party as an antidote for fascism. It supports the concept that at the fringes the two ends meet sort of like a moebius.It is a spiral as noted by the Buddha. We are born into a world and bring with us an inheritance of countless lives. Many were fascists in a previous life and are quite adept at it now as a cultural practice. Others lost in the Stalinist purges are anarchists and darn good at that. The present polarization is a reincarnation of the vacuum that occcured after the great depression. The right is afraid of the left and their bicycle throwing ways while quite content at the racism,anti-government demonstrations, and militia build-ups to the point of seeing the police as an extension of the federal over reach.
Quite content with abstinence only education which helps increase birth rates for white people and the limiting of a woman's access to abortion leads to a continuation of the anti-feminist rhetoric of the far right disguised as "pro-family" and "pro-life". The use of white male supremacy to achieve rule is slowly eroding and the reactionary Tea-Bag party blames what is a demographic shift as a move towards socialism. It is nothing of the sort. It is what is achieved through years of neglect of infrastructure that is our universities and our public schools. NCLB is a band-aid put on a festering and weak patient. The only beneficiaries of NCLB are the people who create distribute and administer the exams. The arts are not so easily quantifiable and so have no purpose in the post modern world. The right wing only wants religious teaching just like the Taliban. They want women to barefoot and pregnant and out of the workforce just like the Taliban. Are we fighting in Afghanistan for women or for just another recycled fascist reincarnation? Indeed we live in ironic times when someone like Naomi Wolfe thinks the TeaBaggers are a solution to an fascist upswing in western politics.