Just Rambling

Sat down at the computer to write this blog, and nothing emerged!  I played a couple of games of solitaire since this at times lets something simmer to the top.  Nothing!  So, today is going to be “other irrelevant matters”.

The first thing is an update on my husband’s knee replacement.  He is doing remarkably well, and follows the physical therapist’s suggestions carefully.  It will be five weeks this coming Tuesday.

I believe most people who have heard of the death of Joe Biden’s son, Beau, feels deeply for this family.  At least my prayers are that Beau Biden’s soul rests in peace, and that much comfort comes to the rest of his family.  Probably much grief comes to every family at some time in their lives, and although one may come to realize that it is just part of life, that doesn’t make it any easier.  This morning I was rather appalled to hear a young news person comment on how the Biden family always “bounces back” from grief.  And I thought, no, they don’t.  They crawl back through a great darkness toward a speck of light off in the distance.  It takes time and courage, but it can be done.  This has nothing to do with whether one has a religious faith or not.  Faith may give one comfort and additional strength to keep crawling, but I have seen people with little or no faith make the journey back. 

As an FDR Democrat, or Eisenhower Republican, I am, of course, really thrilled that Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley have decided to declare their candidacies.  I read that older people really relate to Bernie.  Well, of course we do.  We remember the good times in this country when the policies he has always supported were well entrenched in our political system.  And some of us remember the bad times of the Great Depression and the economic safety net FDR gave to really poor people, and the hope for a better life he gave to everyone else.  That better life came during the three decades between the end of WWII and Ronald Reagan.  By bringing those policies back to the forefront, maybe we can get some sanity back into Washington, D.C. 

Before this week, however, the one thing that really got me excited was the comment by Jeb Bush that it was probably a mistake to invade Iraq.  A mistake, my foot!!  It was a deliberate action taken for purely economic reasons, and based on lies, lies and more lies.  My greatest disappointment when we achieved a Democratic majority in both the House and Senate in 2006 was the decision not to impeach George W. Bush for high crimes and misdemeanors.  Vincent Bugliosi’s book, “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder” is a must read for an excellent legal basis for that prosecution.  These past years since 9/11 have greatly eroded the internal strength the United States had that gave us the world-wide respect that we had enjoyed since WWII.  It was the adherence, at least on the surface, to the principles that we said we believed in that made us so respected.  George W. Bush, et al, absolutely destroyed that. 

Oh, well.  The Giants’ game is on, and I have rambled enough for a Sunday afternoon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Hint of Yellow?

Bernie Sanders has announced his candidacy for President of the United States.  (wow)  That is how the news media has reacted to this announcement.  For months when only Hillary Clinton was expected to run, or had announced, there were outcries from the media that there needed to be another Democratic candidate so during the Democratic debates there could be an actual debate – not just one person up there essentially giving a speech.

So why isn’t the media reacting more positively and vigorously to Sander’s announcement?  Even so-called liberal MSNBC?  For one thing, as far as I can tell, MSNBC is owned by Comcast, and one can be sure a corporation as big as Comcast does not want Bernie Sanders to become President. The prospect of paying more in taxes probably curdles its corporate heart. If it has one.   It will be interesting to observe how the corporate owned media will respond if Martin O’Malley announces he is running on the Democratic ticket since he is as avowed a member of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party as is Sanders.  I really wish Elizabeth Warren would run, but since she has adamantly refused to acknowledge that she is, or will, I must take her at her word. 

With all of the above being said, why am I not on the Hillary Clinton band-wagon?  I certainly believe that it is past the time that a woman could, would and should be President.  Hillary also certainly has a tremendous amount of experience at the federal level – we all know what that is.  There certainly is a tremendous amount of support for her out there.  And if she is the Democratic candidate after the primaries, I will certainly support her.  When I listen to a lot of the whoop-de-do about her not following in Bill’s footsteps, it just about makes me want to throw-up.  I’ve been married for 61 years.  I am a Catholic and my husband is not.  It is perfectly reasonable for a married couple not to share every thought and emotion that crosses their path.  In fact, if they are both strong-minded, they certainly will not.  The political malarkey about her e-mail accounts while Secretary of State and the continuing made-up scandal about Benghazi really are also irrelevant. 

Bear with me here while I digress for a moment.  The third time I ran when I finally won, as a candidate I was doing the “hot-dog appearance” at a fund-raiser in one of the communities in my future District Two.  A woman approached me and very politely said that she and her husband had decided to vote for me this time because, as she said, I had held the same basic opinions all three times I had run.   Taking what that woman said and applying it to the political show playing out on the national level, one of the things the TV “talking heads” do say about a Sanders or O’Malley, or Warren, for that matter, candidacy would do is bring Hillary further to the progressive wing of the party.  And that is where I dig in my heels.

If she could, would or should change her basic positions on domestic policy issues during the campaign because of pressure from the progressive left, what will stop her from changing her basic positions on domestic policies after she is elected?  There will be plenty of pressure on her from the political right to do so, for sure.  Does she have the courage to stick to what she will say during the campaign, or does she have a hint of ‘yellow’ in her character.

In my opinion, pay no attention to what any candidate says during a campaign, whether on the local, state or national level.  Go back and look at their record.  Read what their positions were on policies you favor, or don’t, before there was any hint of running for another office.  If they have held office before, look at their voting record to determine where their basic values tend.  Listen to what they have to say during the campaign to determine if they have shifted positions for political reasons. 

And then support, preferably in my order, Warren, Sanders and/or O’Malley.  They stand firm now, as they have in the past, on their populist values.

I Can Say Whatever I Want

I wonder what would happen to me if I ran into a crowded theater and ran down the aisle shouting, “Fire, fire?”  Since by this time I would be at the front of the theater, I could watch all of the people screaming, shouting and clawing their way back up the aisles, perhaps trampling on others who were slower moving to get away from the supposed fire.  So, a few people were injured, or maybe killed in the ensuing stampede. So what?

I wonder what would happen if a bunch of us got together at some gathering and began to use language that incited a riot, thereby causing injury to life, limb and property?  Or went to a peaceful protest of some kind, and used language to incite that peaceful protest to turn violent?  Or used speech with someone to urge them to commit a crime?

Under these circumstances do I have the right to say anything I want, anywhere I want, and is my right to free speech unequivocally guaranteed in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution?

These are generally accepted as probable crimes, and I could be prosecuted for committing them.  So what is the difference with what occurred in Garland, TX, this past week when that anti-Muslim woman, Geller, knowingly and willingly convened a contest for cartoonists to come up with a cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammad?  I say knowingly and willingly because anyone who follows the news at all should know by this time, Muslim or not, that to depict in any art form a depiction of the Prophet will cause radical-right Islamists (similar to radical-right Christians) to freak out and perhaps cause violence.

Closer to home, does the attorney, Matthew McLaughlin, from Orange County, California, have the right to advocate killing any gay person who touches another for sexual gratification?  What is the difference between conspiring to have someone else commit a crime that you want committed and deliberating creating situations – the cartoon convention in Texas or the attorney paying his $200 in California to get his petition on the ballot to kill gays – that will if carried out result in injury or death to someone, even though that someone is not a specific person. 

Probably the thing that is missing here is the realization, which many of us instinctively have, that with every right guaranteed in the Constitution, comes a corresponding responsibility to use that right carefully.  Thus, we don’t cry ‘fire’ in a crowded theater; we don’t deliberately incite a riot; we don’t conspire to have a surrogate commit our desired crime; we don’t deliberately enflame people on the radical fringes of a religion, knowing they may resort to violence, for example.   

Rational people do not react to provocation, regardless of their cultural background.  We are not talking about the responses of rational people however.  We are talking about the irrational responses of irrational people to irrational people!  Our right to free speech must be absolutely protected.  But it cannot be abused.  Rational minds need to work this one out pretty damn fast, or irrational people will start putting irrational restrictions on our rights.

 

Reason for Late Blog

Friends,  This is only the reason I have not written a blog this week.  My husband had knee replacement surgery Tuesday morning, and he is doing really well.  But on the way down to the hospital on the highway, we hit a deer, mashing in the front of the driver's side.  We were fine.  The deer was not.  Our insurance company has been fantastic -- The Hartford -- so have no complaints there.  But along with everything else, up our isolated canyon we have an encampment of less than desirable neighbors, and one of them apparently committed suicide earlier this week, so that has meant much time on the phone.  And on, and on, and on!!! 

Next week, much on policing, Bernie Sanders, and whatever else I can come up with.