Margie Robben

Last year on August 13, 2009 I wrote a political essay suggesting that the violent anti-government; anti-Obama mob movement had a three tier structure.  The top were the “rich and powerful” the middle, the “communicators”, and the bottom, the “action heroes”.  Holding fast to the imagery of my theory, I am reporting a SUDDEN CHANGE in the mob’s tactics.  From a fear-hateful and lying rhetoric, there is a switch to words of honor, morality, and love, espousing the values and sentiments of our great leaders, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Jesus.

The “communicators”, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, who are on the Rupert Murdoch political Fox TV enterprises payroll, stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. yesterday, with prayers, speeches and religious music, showing reasonableness, love, compassion, and faith in the words and deeds of holy men. How can anyone fault that? But……. is the sudden change of heart a change of mob sinners repenting or is it the calculated politics of polling, knowing evil will not succeed in getting votes in November?

Holy is good. Holy is very good. But when Beck and Palin turn from fear mongering and lying rhetoric to “holy”, one is suspect. After saying Obama is a Muslim, he is an illegal President, not born in America; that his health care program sets up “death panels”, Obama is a racist, he hates white Americans, “don’t retreat, reload”, I am not convinced of a change to holiness.

Are the polls showing the American people don’t want a politics of violence, negativity and “just saying no” to everything?  Has the mob decided to change their message from one of evil to one of holy? I dare say “yes”. I dare say “dangerous”. I dare say “manipulation”. Manipulation of “holy” may get the mob in big trouble.

A new addition to my theory comes from the good work of historian Kim Phillips-Fein who discovered the identity of the tycoons who are funneling money into the mob’s pockets to pay for the communicating and the resulting demonstrating by the action heroes in the streets.

Another addition is Jane Mayer of The New Yorker who published an article last week pointing to the unknown side of the Koch Brothers. The philanthropists and boys of culture were discovered to be the founders of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation who have closely worked from the beginning of the Tea Party.  One of the Foundations award-winning bloggers called President Obama the “cokehead in chief.” These guys give money to cancer foundations while at the same time they lobby Congress to keep cancer causing substances in the environment so that they can make more money.

Frank Rich of The New York Times also got on board today with more discovery (8/29/10) in pointing out that Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks, a promoter of events at Tea Party rallies received $12 million from Koch family foundations. The list goes on and on.

The producers of the Tea Party Lincoln Memorial event of yesterday said Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin wanted to “reclaim the civil rights movement” yet Glenn Beck said it was a coincidence that he chose August 28, 2010 to stand on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial – the very same day Mr. King stood on to make his famous “dream” speech. Did civil rights also have to be reclaimed?

I believe America never lost its HONOR and America never lost its civil rights.  Why regain these things when you never lost them in the first place? It’s like searching for your lost baby when you were holding him in your arms all the time you were looking.

I believe individual people like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin may lose their honor or believe they are losing their civil rights. Maybe yesterday’s display was very personal for them. Glenn Beck looked teary about four times during his speech. But it was when Mr. Beck talked about the necessity of “tithing” and how happy he was that so many people contributed money to HIS day that he reminded me a little of the fraudulent, self-promoting recipient of great wealth through tithing, Reverend Jimmy Swaggart when he made his notorious, cry- baby TV speech before he was defrocked by the Assembly of God and sent to jail. But let’s not go there.

Let’s hope there will be a true change of heart and not a change in strategy in the mob’s rich and powerful, communicators, and action heroes. It will not be good for America if the change is just another attempt to manipulate America’s emotions to get their vote in November.

(written August 29, 2010)

Recently there was a controversial argument about where to put terrorists on trial - in the United States District Courts or in the Military Court? The following words are the words of one United States District Court Judge, William Young, after the shoe bomber’s trial was finished. All Americans should be proud of their country to have such an outstanding judge in the United States. His words are inspiring.

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American politics is like a puzzle with many little pieces. It is confusing at first look. Each party has its own way of getting things done and not getting things done. Politicians use hidden tricks in their campaign and in the Congress and it is impossible for a regular hard-working American to know where the truth lies. The result of the political process is that the average American goes to the voting poll with no knowledge of which candidate will really help them and the Country.  The politicians know how busy the average American is and they take advantage of this ignorance.

Politicians use tricks of communication in campaigns and in Congress. They say something one day, and by days’ end they are saying something totally contradictory. Several special internet web sites have popped up because of the contradictions and lies and they help Americans sort out the truth from the lies.

Politicians are gifted people. They are the peoples’ people.  Most of them start their career in politics motivated by wanting to give something back to America and making the country a better place. Others like the power, prestige and the money that goes with the job. Some of the good politicians will lose sight of what they should be doing and become corrupted. It is a challenge for a politician to end a career with the same ideals he went into it with. Like the Hollywood people, there are too many seductions thrown their way.

An election is coming up this November. Most Americans will not vote. They don’t think it is important. They think that because it is not a vote for President and Vice President, they will stay home. This could be a catastrophe for the present Administration! They need the support from other like-minded politicians so they can continue the work they started on reform.

REFORM is the main issue at the polls this year. The politician who acknowledges the need to reform America against the greed that has brought America to its economic knees should get the vote. We all have been made aware that greed is rampant in all areas of American life. Because of greed, the middle class is disappearing.  Each day, more and more people in the middle class are losing their job, their health insurance, their ability to go to college, and their home. The middle class is shutting down and becoming poor. The rich have exploited the middle class.  Without a middle class, the rich will have no one to make money off.

The issue at the polls must be to vote for continuing progress toward Reform. The vote must not be for the politician fighting against reform and who is trying to scare you into thinking reform will destroy you, and who wants the Country to go back to how it was; to the ideas that got America into the mess in the first place. The vote must be for the politician who will join with the present Administration working slowly and steadily toward a better America.

Reform means that a lot of wealthy people and wealthy corporations and banks will be angry that they have to tell the truth, maybe make a little less money, and become more transparent. They will fight with everything they can muster. They might have to start hiring again instead of holding onto the billions of dollars they made during the recession. Manufacturers will have to start hiring again too instead of holding onto their cash and their practice of sending everything off-shore in order to make an obscenely higher profit. Reform means the health insurance companies will not refuse you insurance if you get sick.

If there is a philosophical bent to the political process it is this… In spite of the anger and fight of those opposing reform, Reform will be good for all; the rich, the middle class and the poor.  If no reform occurs, the middle class will disappear, moving toward a larger poorer class and we will be left with two classes in America; the rich and the poor.  The rich will be unable to sell worthless paper and goods to their previous victims. They will become stagnant, unproductive, and bored and unable to enjoy the fruits of their labor.  The middle class will disappear.  The increasingly larger poorer class, will grow impatient, weary, angry, and rebellious. America, as we know it will disappear. No one will like that to happen.

A lot is at stake this November. Every citizen must make an effort to vote. It is the least we can do while our brothers and sisters are fighting to protect our right to vote. We must go to the polls. And when we get there the decision we must make is to vote for the politicians who will support the present Administration’s effort toward healthy reform and a more perfect union.

It has come to my attention that many children from different schools got sick this week or the days immediately following. Mononucleosis is being reported. I was privileged to be invited to attend one of these events but decided not to go indoors where the event was taking place and stayed outside, which was difficult enough.

I checked on things as the one-hour event proceeded. There was no air conditioning or fans inside the auditorium. Hundreds of parents, siblings and grandparents were huddled together with an indoor temperature in the nineties. A group of women were outside setting up 500 bottles of water. Several people leaving the auditorium early went up to the table for water and they were asked, “Is the graduation over yet?” suggesting that no water would be given out unless the graduation was completed.

The graduating students were sitting on an elevated stage in the auditorium with hot lights beaming down on them. I could not believe what was going on. At the time I was convinced that the kids and their parents were in a perfect setting for testing their immune system.

It is now about the middle of July, and I have heard several stories about people fainting during a school event in different schools during the final days of school and of children getting mono. It is difficult to make a case about the results of the last week of school and correcting it so it doesn’t happen again without knowing the full story. If there is a story, it should be told.

I am sure the Board of Education would like to know if a serious problem occurred because of the heat and putting children at risk for illness in closed and hot quarters, but there has to be proof by a compiling of facts and figures.

I would like to ask parents to e-mail me with their observations and/or if their child or anyone else got sick during this time, the dates of the illness, and the diagnosis of the illness. All information would remain confidential.

Marge Robben - mbrobben@aol.com

The Gulf Oil Disaster

The on-going Gulf oil disaster’s most revealing fact is that no one was “minding the store”.

We already knew no one was minding the store with the banks, with the Madoff’s investment scheme along with other investor creeps. We knew there was no oversight with the automobile, toy, drugs and food industries. We knew it big time in the health care insurance industry.

Somehow America seemed to be fooled or lulled into believing that if the oil industry was drilling miles under the sea, they knew how to do it and if something went wrong, they knew how to fix it. We mistakenly thought, also, that because a government agency like MMS was watching them, our beautiful birds, fish, water and beaches were safe.

How wrong we were!  The very people watching the oil industry were in bed with the oil companies, doing drugs with them, and taking favors from them.

Not only have the American people lost trust in the Corporations of America and other nations, but we now have a monstrous and disastrous cleanup on our hands which may have destroyed our wildlife, water, and beaches for decades.

The damage continues. The clean-up continues. There is some hope the containment of oil leaking is starting to work.  As part of the clean-up we must not make the same mistake we made after 9/11 when so many authoritative people told us the air was safe. Many of our first responders got sick and died. We trusted them too.  Now we must not trust. We must demand that our responders are well cared for. We must demand they are given the tools they need to do the job. We must protect their lungs, their eyes and their skin. We must make sure one of the culprits, British Petroleum, uses our “pay as you go system” and not allow BP to use their lawyers to fight the costs of the clean-up, and the lost revenue of our fisherman in the court system as everyone waits to get paid twenty years from now.

The American people are sick and tired of the advertised slogans of the past, which indoctrinate us with the false idea that by giving tax breaks to the wealthy somehow the benefits will “trickle down” to the middle class and poor. It doesn’t happen.  Very few rich people give away what they think they have rightfully earned on the backs of the poor and middle class unless there is a benefit to them.

Someone once said that a parent is as happy as the least happy of their children. In the same way, the rich cannot be happy unless the middle class and the poor get an equal chance of making a decent wage and that our old, sick and disabled are cared for.

With the oil disaster, many people are asking why the government can’t plug up the hole. Much of the criticism comes from the very same people who previously condemned the administration for “too much government intervention”. Somehow now the government is not big enough.

In a New York Times article (6/6/10) Tad W. Patzek, Chairman of the Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering Department at the University of Texas in Austin, was quoted on the oil leak. He said, “It’s a very complex operation in which the human element has not been aligned with the complexity of the system”. It was pointed out that the laws of physics are involved in the challenge and one of the challenges is that one mile down there is a ton of pressure every square inch. He said that the laws of physics are largely in control.

In the Gulf oil disaster, not only was the law of physics breached but the human element was breached as well. Both elements were certainly not in alignment. On the oil rig there were reports of disagreements, loud arguments, confusion as to who was in charge, slipshod workmanship, taking risky chances, and rushing to finish unsafe work in order to make a buck and get on to the next job. The human element took shortcuts and there was no separation between the workers and government oversight. Government and oil executives accommodated each other and looked the other way when it came to adhering to safe rules and regulations. They told us they could operate deep within the center of the earth and they were not prepared for the consequences. By their own behavior, they are showing us they were not able to protect us from a catastrophe.

It may be that we are at a crossroad in America. It may be that it is time to listen and evaluate more carefully. Stop, step back, listen and evaluate the facts. Start to identify what is hype and what is real. We may have to trust only when trustworthiness is proven. It may be that we have to hold all those people accountable who make their living by manipulation and lying. If we have to conserve, we will have to do it. If we have to do our homework, we will have to do it. If we have to give up something to help someone in need, we will have to do it. As Americans it may be a time for us to grow up. We have no other choice.

By Margaret and John Robben

Memorial Day 2010 is upon us and it’s appropriate now to remember what the Vietnam War was like when Richard Blumenthal was still in college.

Like many other young men of that time, Blumenthal was in no hurry to put his life at risk for a war that most of the country didn’t believe in.  One of the few legal ways of avoiding the draft was to seek college deferments and hope that the war would be over by the time you graduated.   Blumenthal, and thousands of others, chose this route.  But the Vietnam conflict seemed to drag on forever.  Preferring the Marines to the other services, Blumenthal signed up for the Marine Reserves.   As it turned out his unit wasn’t activated and he served his five years Stateside.

The aircraft Carrier, USS HANCOCK, (CVA-19), was deployed to Vietnam numerous times between 1962 and 1969.  On board the HANCOCK during one of these tours was Yeoman Ken “Jake” Jaccard.  While Jaccard was serving on active duty in the waters off Vietnam, Blumenthal was billeted in Washington, D.C. Both young men served their country, the former on active duty in the Navy, the latter in the Marine reserves. Jaccard, now in his 60s says he still suffers from Survivor’s Guilt. Is it possible Blumenthal does too?  If so, that might account for the few times he’s misspoken about his military service.

When Jaccard returned from Vietnam he found himself coping with the fact that he’d survived the war.  To help himself deal with these feelings he undertook the task of working on special websites for other veterans, as well as writing poetry like many other veterans have done down through the ages.  His poem,”Survivor’s Guilt,” is included in this column.

Blumenthal, whatever his feelings were about the Vietnam War, has been working with passion aiding American veterans.  As Connecticut’s Attorney General he’s been in a unique position to help bring them back into the mainstream of American life.

Young Americans have been “called to serve” during our country’s wars and depending on the climate of the times have gone willingly, or reluctantly, or in some cases not at all.  The latter have been called “draft dodgers, or “cowards,” and some have even been imprisoned.  Many of them became permanent exiles of their own country as a result.

The Vietnam War did such serious damage to the young people of this country that it’s resulted in the Draft being shelved in favor of Voluntary Enlistments.  No longer do Americans rush off to sacrifice their youth on the altar of war when other means of protecting our way of life might suffice.  Having a military reserve, such as the one Dick Blumenthal served in, could prove as much of a deterrent to our enemies as having a large-standing presence of military might around the world.

                 SURVIVOR’S GUILT–A Vietnam Legacy

                                             by Jake Jaccard, YN3, USNR

                                 Sometimes I ask WHY they had to die
                                 And WHY I was left alive to grieve…
                                 The answer seems we shouldn’t try
                                 To question mysteries we can’t perceive.

                                  Life at best, is happenstance,
                                  We’re here to live life the best we can
                                   The rest then, must be left to chance…
                                   and accept Fate as a man.

                                   Our Birth was much like being vexed,
                                    for in the Womb, we feared to leave.
                                    No one can tell what happens next,     
                                    No answers come, our doubts relieve.

                                    You may miss those who did not

                                    survive,

                                    For those whose blood was spilt…
                                    But more: Be happy that you’re alive,
                                    And dwell not, on all this guilt.

                                     For that is what they’d want you to do,
                                     To live your life for them…
                                      Life goes on, and so must you! 

                       And in this way, you’ll honor them.

Copyright 1996 – All Rights Reserved (with permission to reprint)

Jake Jaccard, lives in Winchester, Tennessee. We found his poems and the poetry of other Veterans on the following website.  http://www.usshancockcv19.com/poetry/vietnam/index.htm

(Published in the Greenwich Time and Stamford Advocate on 5/31/10)

No one can escape girl bullies. They are all around us. And they are hungry for victims.

A young girl comes to America from Ireland. She is a sweet and pretty girl in her teens. She moves to a New England town and within a year she attracts some of the most popular boys in her school.  The girl bullies also take note of her and they are threatened. They bombard the Irish colleen with inhumane tactics, and she winds up hanging herself. The bullies have done their job well.

Another young woman joins a country club. She is an excellent athlete but several “A” team players are threatened by her. The lead bully convinces the others by manipulation and deceit that she is not worthy to play with them and prevents the young woman from being invited to join the team.

A third-grade girl, articulate and beautiful, is found crying in her room at night. Her Mom tries to find out why her daughter is so unhappy. The little girl sobs as she tells her Mom how a girl in her class is making up stories about her and is convincing other girls in the class not to include her in their activities.

Bully girls are not dumb. In fact, they are exceptionally intelligent. They are gifted in how they express themselves. In public they come across as innocent and charming but in private they can be vindictive, vicious, and evil.

Girl bullies have been known to get guys to do their bullying. An expert seductress, a girl bully can get a guy to kill for her or get a guy to set up the victim by having sex and then humiliating her by telling other guys all that has occurred.

Girl bullies are like the female mongoose.  A dominant female mongoose can start a war within her community when she feels threatened and she gets the older females to evict a competing female by chasing, scratching and biting her.

The female bully wants control, and wants to make other girls submissive to her.  To understand how she operates will be an important skill to have to resist falling under her strong spell.  

A female bully has a sense of entitlement. She has deep prejudices and keeps them secret. You will never hear her give compliments to other girls not in her group. She compulsively criticizes. If she sees another girl as a potential threat to her power she will try to destroy her. Other girls would rather join her than stand up to her.

The female bully is a know-it-all, but under this guise there is a spiritual deadness and a mean-spirited petty disorder. She tries to have others see her as a kind and caring person, but her entire effort is to dominate.  

Some girl bullies go on to bigger things. They become adult serial bullies.  They can be found in the workplace as our bosses, coaches, landlords, politicians, and religious leaders.

Bullies usually come from an abused upbringing and are full of resentment toward their past abusers. They take their hostility out on victims their own age. You will have to be strong to resist them.

You can be sure, however, that the bully-girl will eventually fail. They always do. But you might have to be patient for this to happen. Besides seeking the help of other people like yourself you will have to keep reminding yourself of your own value. Eventually you will find other girls and women to be your real friends.

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do

                                      September 12, 2008

I think I may be an elitist. I think I may be a “typical” white woman. I think I may cling to analyzing and intellectualization when I find things falling apart around me.  I can’t understand why people do not think the way I think. I think I may be naïve. I think I may be a dreamer.

I am 74 years old and near the end of my days. I thought that trying to change the world was behind me. Lately, I have been thinking about taking my sisters’ advice, “Slow down, sit by the beach with a book and sip lemonade.”

I have always been interested in how people interact. My curious nature led me to college at age 36 when my fifth child was ready for kindergarten. I wanted to know all there was to know about sociology and psychology and why people behave the way they do. I wanted to know what all the smart people knew.

At night I used the TV news programs to fall asleep. During one of those evenings while watching election results I was inspired by a young man who won a Senate seat from Illinois. I followed his progress through the years, read his books and was very impressed. He had a tongue-twister of a name: Barack Obama. 

Before Obama I wasn’t much interested in politics except for one brief moment when John F. Kennedy rode down Hempstead Turnpike on Long Island just before his election.  It was a cold autumn day and my husband and I along with our five children and one baby carriage ran several blocks to where his motorcade was going by. There he was, standing in an open car, hair blowing in the wind, coat opened, big smile on his face waving to us all. Those were happy days.

The happy days were soon followed by very sad ones. Three great American men killed: John, Martin, and Bobby.  Politics were too painful. Over and over I would ask, “Why do people kill great people?”  Is it because they are different from the ordinary? Is it because they want to “change” things?

Change is Obama’s campaign platform!  He wants to change and fix things that do not work. He wants change in all aspects of American life -  foreign relations, education, and economics. He wants to bring our troops home. He wants to make health care available and affordable, and make the drug companies accountable!

Barack Obama to me is humble, empathic, and extremely intelligent.  He has street smarts, and is hopeful, spiritual, loyal, and optimistic. He loves his family and they love him.  He has a sense of humor and an infectious wide smile and he’s slow to anger.

He listens to others. He can think on his feet and sees where the problems lie. He is loyal and emotionally stable.  He is wise beyond his years. He has a calm and serene temperament. He has an innate ability to know when something is right or wrong. He is a great teacher!

On Memorial Day this past May, I bumped into an old friend. When she saw me she rushed to greet me with a big warm hug. I was wearing my favorite patriotic sweater and my just purchased Obama hat.  She glanced at my head and shouted for all to hear, “You are a disgrace to your country, Margie!” I felt dizzy, like I was going to fall over. The word “disgrace” hit me like a ton of bricks.  The pain in my chest was incredible. I turned from her and I started to walk away and never went back.

I know she did not mean to hurt me.  I think she was threatened by who Barack Obama is and his message of “change”. I believe I was the victim of her fear

The opposing political party, like my friend, has launched their own attack against Obama. They use ridicule and distortions to attack him. They also seem to be afraid of change. McCain proposes the same platform as the President for the last eight years.

Younger Americans, like I was many years ago, do not have time to sort the truth from fiction. They are too busy. This can be a dangerous situation today because truth in America is a rare commodity. In all areas of life, lying and deceit is a national pastime.

Until November 4^th, I will continue to organize non-partisan Voter Registrations as a gift from the Obama Campaign. I am out there dragging a table and two chairs to the beaches, parks, and storefronts signing up unregistered citizens.  

My greatest hope is that Barack Obama wins the Presidency of the United States.

My worst nightmare is that fear will win out over change and that Barack Obama will lose the election and I will sadly be saying on the morning of November 5, 2008, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”.

“GOING FOR THE VATICAN JUGULAR”?

Bill Donohue, President of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, ran an advertisement today (3-30-10) on the Opinion Page of The New York Times, called, “Going for the Vatican Jugular,” in which he defends the Catholic Church and its response over the years to the predatory child molestation behaviors of some of their priests.

Mr. Donohue, in his role as “protector” of the Church, offers seven talking points in which he blames everyone else for the crisis except the Church. He states that in one case from 1950, the victims’ families never contacted the police until the mid 1970s. He said the Vatican didn’t learn of Father Laurence Murphy, of the diocese of Milwaukee, charged with the sexual molestation of over 200 deaf children, until 1996. He blames the Media and their editorials, he blames radical lawyers out to get the Church, and on and on.

Nowhere in Mr. Donohue’s advertisement of protection of the Church was there a mention of how the Vatican and the Church failed to protect its’ children, nor how they will protect them in the future. I find this very sad.

It was comforting as a child to grow up in the Catholic Church. My family was caring but somewhat chaotic and unstimulating and I was always on the lookout for activities that I could participate in. I went to public school and attended weekly Catechism classes at St. Francis Xavier in the Bronx. On Friday afternoons Father Quinn had a girl’s program of running races that I absolutely loved.  He called it St. Theresa’s Little Flower of Jesus Program.  Since I was a good runner I always left with a handful of wonderful candy that was the reward for the winners. During the Lenten period I would save all the Friday candy until I could start eating it on Easter Sunday.

The Little Flower Girl’s Club was a hit with me and my friends.  Somehow most of us knew to stay clear of old Father Quinn who sat on a bench and watched the games. He always had one of the little girls sitting on his lap. The girls would say “Yuk!” and secretly laugh at the smell of Father Quinn’s odorous breath.

There was another priest, Father Kilmartin, in the parish. He was extremely handsome and enjoyed dancing with the older girls. He attended the Friday night basketball games and dances, having the greatest time laughing and dancing. He made quite an impression.  He didn’t last long. He was transferred out of the parish. It wasn’t known where or why.

Why did the Church go wrong? The world grew and changed but the Church didn’t. The Church remained static in a “job protection” mode.  The Church did not recognize as their responsibility the protection of their children.

Mr. Donohue presents many excuses for the Church’s failures. None of his comments take an interior look. He only blames others. The excuses don’t fit with an effort to change and to see the priesthood as it is. The Church continues to have no use for women as priests or as partners. The Church sees children as captive receptacles for their sexual frustrations. The priests are not real “fathers” and have no personal experience living with the valuable children and women they represent. When a father is a real “Dad” and “husband” he experiences first hand the love and responsibility that his children and partner give him and he can more joyously live out his life.

The Catholic Church hierarchy as an all-male society is flawed by not including married men and women in the mix. Not having a more diverse priesthood is a recipe for failure. The laity has been working for the expansion of the priesthood for years but to no avail. The priesthood likes things just the way they are.

The hierarchy of the Catholic Church fails to see sexual abuse of children as a crime. They have fooled themselves and others into believing their Brothers in Christ have fallen into sin and can be saved, forgiven, transferred or hidden. In order to survive, the Catholic Church must change and expand its views and behavior toward children and see sexual abuse as a crime. No more secret files, payoffs and quiet lips. The predators must quickly be turned over to the authorities, put on trial, and if proven guilty, be prosecuted, and taken out of circulation. If they make these beginning corrections maybe there will still be hope for the Catholic Church.

March 24, 2009

The blog below was written and published in the Greenwich Times on August 13, 2009. The Health Care Reform Bill was signed into law yesterday, March 23, 2010. The violence has started again, whipped up by the right-wing media, and various Republican Senators and Congressmen urging the fringed right-wing crazies on the balcony and in the halls of Congress. The crazies are throwing bricks and breaking the windows at Democratic headquarters, severing gas lines of Congressman who passed health reform, sending death threats and urging Americans to get out and clean their guns.  Some of these radicals think God is on their side,  while professing to being “pro-life”.  Some people feel their freedom is being taken away from them, and the top-rung guys are feeling the deprivation and withdrawal from losing power.  God bless us all.

MBR

SEND IN THE MOB!

SEND IN THE CLOWNS!

THE CIRCUS HAS COME TO TOWN – again

The political mob has three distinct tiers. On top are the “rich and powerful”. In the middle are the “communicators”. And on the bottom are the “action heroes”.

Usually, the “rich and the powerful” quietly enjoy the good life. They are successful, hard working and elegant puppeteers who eat in four-star restaurants, live in beautiful homes, have commanding jobs, went to the finest schools and belong to prestigious country clubs. Some of them are CEO’s bankers, insurers, money managers and drug manufacturers.  Their lives are predictable. The idea of “change” in them causes distress and alarm. Change is not predictable!  They don’t like it. It never occurs to them that change may be good for the other 99% of Americans.

At the present time we have seen a small amount of “change” - in the car industry, the monetary system, the Supreme Court, and choosing a mixed racial President. And, it looks like the health care industry may be about to make big changes.

 The “rich and powerful” must have a big stake in the health care system not changing because they have reached down into their storage chests and pulled out their marionettes to perform. They are going full American stage on this one. They have elicited both their second tier “communicators” and their third tier “action heroes”.

The “communicators” are usually not as rich as the “rich and powerful”. They are rough around the edges but have a way of speaking which appeals to the average man. Their job is to project onto their audience feelings of anger and rage. They are very interested in the rating system and they work to get higher ratings and stimulate into action the common folk.  If they do their job well they will see their own staged anger and rage exhibited in their audience, the man on the street. The “communicators” are entertainers, and are not true news people, even though they like to think they are “fair and balanced”. It is part of their “emperor has no clothes” mentality.

The communicators are guys and gals like Rush, Hannity, O’Reilly, Beck, Palin, Coulter and Bachman. They are masters at the tricks of language and confusion and get the man in the street to take what they say as the truth. They don’t allow fair debate. They don’t use fact or reasoning. They distort history. Their job is to excite the masses into action.  They are trying to make a living and make a good salary at what they do. The “communicators” are all pretense.

The third tier is the real scary lower level puppets. They are the front line soldiers. Some are true believers of the message of the “communicators” while others are hired thugs. They are ready to go anywhere at any time. The busses, cars and planes are waiting to take them to where they are needed.

The “action heroes” put their bodies at risk and fight. They have a job, they are brave, and they will do whatever has to be done. They will shout, push, verbally assault, and kill when necessary. They believe what they do is right.  We have seen them before. They killed Lincoln, Kennedy, Martin, and Bobby. They have killed great men and women before and they will do it again

In the political arena of the past, when a crime has been committed, it is usually the “action heroes” who go to trial and get convicted for their crimes. They do the crime and take the punishment. When the crimes are over, the “communicators” sometimes change their tune, sometimes lose favor with the people, or sometimes get fired. After the crime the “rich and the powerful” may have fleeting feelings of remorse, a few change their ways, but go on living the good life. The truth is: if a crime has been committed, every actor on this stage is guilty, whether they are the “rich and powerful”, the communicator”, or the “action hero”.

The atmosphere during this summertime 2009 is a time bordering on chaos, fear, mutiny and possible crime. We are in a time of “déjà vu all over again” as Yogi Berra liked to say.  So………It’s time to stop the staging and the false rhetoric. It’s time to live the truth. It’s time to do the right thing. It’s time to work diligently on making the American Health Care System the best we can.  History is watching us and will record what we do. …….just…… Cool it!   

August 8, 2009