Sunday, May 20, 2012

MY MEMORIAL DAY BOYCOTT: VIETNAM VETS IGNORED BY CT TOWN!!!


Hell (Wallingford, CT) Is For Children

I went for a walk tonight and got really bummed out by some things that I saw and heard. I walked to downtown Wallingford, CT (not my favorite place on earth, but where I’m living at present) and saw the sad scene of young folks stuck in central Connecticut trying to imagine that they are living real lives in run-of-the-mill bars, and boys chasing after girls in their tweens and threens—and sadly imagining that they are yuppies and that this is something to be when all they are, are simply John Lennon’s ‘Working Class Heroes,’ “still fucking peasants as far as I can see.” Even sadder than that was the sound of a horribly incapable cover band with an even more horrible sounding woman vocalist ‘singing’ “Hell is for children” as if Pat Benatar’s rabble-rousing gut-ripping American culture tear-down was a Christmas carol. Yup. Those folks in downtown Wallyworld tonight (they’ve all turned back into pumpkins or whatever, since CT closes at 2pm, even on weekends) are definitely ‘still fucking peasants.’




The silly monuments to CERTAIN wars on the 'green' in
Wallyworld, CT

So I meandered a bit further, and saw the town ‘green.’ All New England towns have ‘em, but Wallingford’s is a pathetic little postage stamp. Really the green is just the front yard of one church and the pathetic 50’s style architecture yellow brick city hall. That’s it. They have the nerve to actually call it a parade ground. Any parade you tried to have on this ‘green’ would have to include less than a dozen people and maybe one bicycle. Or 6 folks and 3 bicycles, or some combination therein, but you get my point. It’s small, in other words. Pathetically small is what it is, as greens go. Wallingford is pathetic, so the green is very much in keeping with what those of us who are part of the club that’s here and doesn’t want to be not so fondly refer to as “Wallyworld.” It sure as Hell ain’t no amusement ride this Wallingford place.
Anyway, it’s around midnight and I’m walking past the ugly yellow City Hall and I notice the ‘war memorials.’ Having been in New Hampshire for R & R last week, and having seen some memorials up there, I decided to shoot this one. But instead of a gun, like the heroes memorialized with these monuments, I decided to use my cell phone camera instead. Smooth move since the Police Department is within eyeshot of the statues. Also, since I’m a pacifist. It just wouldn’t do to go shooting up the town war memorials with artillery, handguns or rifles and still claim to be a pacifist. And since the cell phone camera was at my disposal I figured it was fate.

If ya really lose big-time and come back from one of
the wars selected for monuments in Wallingford in a body bag,
then they just put an asterisk next to your name
along with all the others who came back still breathing.
They did somethin' different for the Korean War folks,
they listed the dead guys at the top of the monument
saying "All gave some, Some gave all."
Yah! Dontcha think???


I took my first shot, seen here. There’s three memorials, really altogether. But what really bummed me, was that the City of Wallingford just stopped erecting monuments to war dead, it seems after our aggression in Korea in the 1950s. There is a WW I monument. There’s a WW II monument. Then there’s that Korea monument. And that’s it. All the dudes and dudettes who served, and survived or not, are listed on the town green in front of that drab ugly yellow City Hall since 1917. But if you served during conflict since then…. Well… you’re just shit outa luck in Wallyworld. Nothing for those who served in the losing ventures in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Not word one about both Iraq wars or Afghanistan. Dead silence about those supposed heroes. Hmmmm.
That absurd Betsy Ross product,
the bloodlust glorifying "American Flag"
got itself all twisted up somehow.
Shhhh....
I don't even like the 'Star Spangled Banner"
or national anthems at all.
They suck and glorify
"bombs bursting in air"
and perpetuate the glorification of uniformed bloodlust! 
Yuckipoo.

I walked up to investigate closer. Each of the three monuments lists all who wore the uniform of the US government military in each conflict, including some that were added who apparently had been forgotten the first time around. On the WW I and II monuments there are special asterisks next to those poor souls who came back in body bags instead of troop carriers. On the Korean monument that’s handled differently, the folks who came back feet first are given special mention at the top of the huge list of folks from Wallyworld who took a tour of northeast Asia on the taxpayers’ dime in the 1950s. No asterisks for them. I’m pretty glad my name isn’t up on the green with an asterisk next to it. Just sayin’.


War Sux. Period.
No matter how many statues ya build
and how hard ya try to glorify it.
Ask the rape victims.
The burnt kids.
The tortured civilians.
The homeless suffering cats and dogs.
The dismembered.
The...
dead.
OMG!
:'(

I’m pissed that this stupid town hasn’t erected a monument to the folks of the Vietnam era. Admittedly, the first and second Iraq wars and Afghanistan are recent, but if you’re gonna erect monuments to folks, HOW DAREYA EXCLUDE CERTAIN OF THEM. THE FOLKS WHO SERVED DURING VIETNAM DESERVE A MEMORIAL, OR ALL THE MEMORIALS JUST SHOULD BE TORN DOWN. We have a mayor here in town, a Republicon who has been in way too long named DICKinson. Those Repubicon DICKS’ll getcha every time! The Dems in town aren’t real Dems, they’re kowtowing to DICKinson, and squabbling with each other so much, that they actually cross endorsed this fool a coupla years ago and might just as well roll over and play dead.
When I took that closer look at these monuments I noticed a few things. The WW I memorial depicts some soldiers, sailors and what-not. Those guys (and they are all male) all look stiff-jawed and courageous marching off to battle. Two of the 5 dudes in the monument have rifles, but 3 in the middle are carting American flags. DUMB! If you’re in Europe in WW I and carting around American flags like that, yer guaranteed to get an asterisk next to yer name, I promise ya! The Milford, CT green is bigger and nicer and has a better statue of both a Vietnam soldier and a Korean soldier on it. Both of them look real young and REAL scared, like they probably really were. I know I woulda been. And if yer REAL scared and not carting around that Betsy Ross product advertising where you’re from and the fact that you’re out to occupy their country and kill their countrymen, then you have a far better chance of avoiding your name winding up on the town green with an asterisk next to it.
Each of the three monuments had eagles on top of them. All three eagles looked different but they all looked REAL aggressive. I’ve seen eagles on Connecticut River Eagle watches. They look cool, but nothing like the monsters depicted in these three eagle statues. They look awesome. And even though they’re called “American Bald Eagles” I know of no single eagle nor do I believe the species has taken a stand as a whole, either pro or anti-America. I think they’re pretty much neutral, but I also think they want us to clean up our act so their habitat sticks around awhile, and I also think they want us to pretty much make sure eagle hunting and poaching can’t happen.
On the street in front of the drab, ugly yellow city hall and the monuments was an American flag looking pretty shabby. No wind, it was pretty much pooped out. That’s America! The next flag was all twisted up, looking all messed up! That, too, is America! Even my liberal friends get all pissed off when I tell them I don’t like the American flag at all. I call it ‘that Betsy Ross product’ and fly it upside down on Facebook, and that really pisses people off. I can’t stand that the red stripes glorify blood and I believe nationalism is the worst ‘ism’ of all and that nationalism has caused more wars and death than Nazism, Socialism, Fascism, Communism and Maoism combined. And I think American nationalism is more deadly than any other form and has resulted in the most absurd and costly killing machine in living history, the American Department of Defense, which is the most powerful independent institution ever contrived. It has more power than all the three supposed branches of government which try and rule over it. We’ve lost control over American nationalism and need to regain that control. We need to stop glorifying the bloodlust of organized gangs of thugs called Armies, Navies, Air Forces, Marines, etc. We really SHOULD stop building monuments to war dead and service people.


A parade?
A PARADE????!!!! 
To comemmorate war DEAD???!!!
Are you NUTS??!!!
Insane!
That's the United States of America
Imagining that bullying the world is somehow
heroic.
It just makes for dead folks.
And
misery and suffering.
Peace Pleeeeeeze......

I looked up at the ugly city hall and saw a sign of what folks are fighting for. The right wing Chamber of Commerce is hosting the Rascals later this year in Wallyworld, come join the Rascals and celebrate your rights? Huh?
Then I looked up and saw that Wallyworld was having its annual parade this month for Memorial Day. How sick is that? A day set aside to commemorate those slaughtered via organized violence in war, should NOT be ‘celebrated’ with parades, marching bands and what-not. Silence, reflection, candle-light vigils, religious services would be far more appropriate. I’m going to have my own personal boycott of Wallyworld’s Memorial Day parade.  And how obscene is it that Memorial Day has become a three day weekend and a reason for barbecues instead of that calm and sedate reflection. I’m sorry Wallyworld, but you are a sick puppy.


Friday, May 18, 2012

U.S. PRESIDENTIAL MORALITY/AN OXYMORON—AND THE NUCLEAR TRIGGER!


Send In The Clowns
The Post-Nuclear War I U.S. Presidents

I am in no manner a fan of the clear pattern of American military aggression ever since Harry Truman was hoodwinked by his intellectual superiors at the Pentagon (intellectual superiors to Truman weren’t hard to come by, as FDR himself lamented before his death) when this government specifically chose two CIVILIAN targets upon which to drop two nuclear bombs when we won our first-strike nuclear victory in Nuclear War I. By specifically choosing to slaughter hundreds of thousands of non-uniformed non-combatants, civilian men, women and children (and cats and dogs) minding their own business at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, the pattern of U.S. military violence on other continents and aggression overseas was established. Armies, Navies, Air Forces and Marines are no more than ridiculously well-armed gangs of thugs who are mostly teens and tweens hoodwinked by national leaders (whether those leaders are Germans under Hitler, Italians under Mussolini, Russians under Stalin, or Americans under Truman and Eisenhower) in colors (rather than black leather jackets with motorcycle gang logos, they wear snappier uniforms or uniforms to hide themselves camouflage-style).
Since Nuclear War I, the U.S. government hasn’t declared war, so it’s been all Presidential orders which have resulted in our wars of aggression in Korea, three sovereign Southeast Asian nations, absurd gambits in Iraq twice now, and a prolonged occupation of the sovereign nation of Afghanistan. These are but the major attacks. This doesn’t include our smaller attempts at militaristic violence under Presidential orders in such far-flung places as Cuba, South America, Africa, and the Middle East.

Since Presidents don’t bother to declare war anymore, and Congress for the most part isn’t involved in the big decisions regarding whether to kill people in this or that country, it might be instructive to consider the Presidents in my lifetime who have been making these decisions to kill people in other sovereign nations, with our teenage and tweenage kids who imagine they are doing some sort of constructive good, because the President says so.
I was born in 1956, so Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower was the first President to reign in my lifetime. I’ll mention Truman once again—FDR admitted that he made a mistake in selecting this brainless wonder from Missouri and that because of his limited capacities he opted to keep him out of the nuclear loop regarding the whole Manhattan Project thing. FDR’s biggest blunder was naming a backwards pol like Truman when WWII was raging, fully well knowing how sick FDR himself truly was in a medical sense and he admitted such. Truman was easily manhandled by the Pentagon brass, and although you might remember being taught, for example, that following our annihilation of two innocent cities that Japan surrendered aboard a US Naval vessel unconditionally. It WAS NOT unconditional at all, despite what you were taught. Even though we had the massive upper hand, nuke capability and having dropped two already, Truman and his people allowed, for instance, that fool “Emperor” Hirohito to remain in that position until his death fully 45 years after that ‘unconditional’ surrender of his. He lived in splendor, and was the head of state of Japan for all that time. That’s Truman.
Eisenhower ran on a slogan, “I like Ike.” I don’t like Ike at all. I don’t like any career military person in this country who would dare shift to civilian leadership by running for President, as it violates all the tenets of our liberal democracy and runs the risk of encouraging a far-too-strong military, and Ike knowingly did this. If the military is too strong, we, like any nation run the risk of military coups, dictatorships, etc. Any General worth his salt will avoid elective office like the plague if he loves the nation. Not Ike! He also was the creator and prime driver behind the for-profit military contract system during WWII leading up to our Nuclear War I victory. He then had the gaul to make a speech when he was running for Prez warning about this “Military Industrial Complex” of his creation.

JFK was an alright guy, but only served 34 months as Prez when he got killed. His family made their money off questionable booze profiteering, and he cheated and lied to his wife and the nation about his now famous extramarital affairs with a variety of women from Marilyn Monroe to interns entrusted to his care while in the Oval Office. A lawyer with some good motives, but simultaneously some VERY questionable personal motives and dubious emotional stability.

LBJ was an arm-twisting backroom TX pol who was crude and did oddball perverted things like lower his drawers in public and expose his buttocks to show off a scar while Prez. He did some good stuff on Civil Rights, but felt that sending teens with rifles off to Asia in a military draft of all things was the right thing to do and created a mass frenzy near to civil war in the country.

Nixon was an unstable crook. Period. He swore like a trooper, he was paranoid, committed vast felonies, named another crook as his VP (Agnew) and then had to resign.

Ford was another brainless wonder like Truman, and anyone who believes Nixon made the call to Gerry and didn’t make a quid pro quo about that pardon in exchange for his ascendancy from a Grand Rapids congressman to VP and then Prez, ought to consider a few bridges I have for sale on Ebay.
Jimmy Carter couldn’t manage the economy, but probably qualifies as one of the two moral guys to occupy the Oval Office in my lifetime.
Ronald Ray-gun was a hypocrite, a labor union chief in Hollywood who turned his back on his labor pals as soon as it benefited him. He slept a lot in office, and people actually now do believe he had early stage Alzheimer’s while in office, and it’s evident if you now look at the record. He launched the biggest arms race in history and created an uncontrollable monster at the Department of Defense.

George HW Bush was the spoiled rotten son of a US Senator, had everything in life handed to him on a silver platter, and couldn’t get himself re-elected due to incompetence.

Bill Clinton gets way too much credit and his decision to take advantage of an intern entrusted to White House care, Monica Lewinsky, who was his own daughter’s age, and who lied in every way he saw fit in order to try and extricate himself from this immoral mess makes him somebody I would not want kids to emulate.

George Dubya Bush since leaving office it has become known had such a severe drug and alcohol problem before taking office that his wife almost left him. His hypocritical wifey kept shut until after he served out his 8 year stint, but has made it clear that this dude could have killed dozens in DUI crashes and was irresponsible right up until his first run for Guv and after. This is the same fool who had the nerve to sign death warrants on others including a retarded guy. He also lied about WMD to get us into his chosen war, Iraq. He committed many felonies in office including illegally wiretapping and torturing folks.

Barack Obama is still fairly new to us, and so far has no glaring moral horrors that have been reported like all the rest of our Presidents in my lifetime minus Jimmy Carter.
THESE ARE THE GUYS WHO HAVE BEEN SINGLE-HANDEDLY DECIDING TO USE U.S. TAXES AND RESOURCES TO KILL PEOPLE OVERSEAS! THESE MORAL PYGMIES ARE THE ONES WHO HAVE MADE THE DECISIONS TO CAUSE THE DEATHS OF THE TEENS AND TWEENS WHO, IMAGINING THAT THEY ARE DOING GOOD, ARE ACTUALLY MERELY BRINGING VIOLENCE, POVERTY, RAPE, TORTURE, AND INSTABILITY TO OTHER SOVEREIGN NATIONS. AND WORST OF ALL, THESE ARE THE MORAL PYGMIES (WITH THE TWO EXCEPTIONS MENTIONED) WHO HAVE HAD THEIR HANDS ON THE TRIGGER OF THE WORLD’S DEADLIEST NUCLEAR ARSENAL IN ALL OF RECORDED HISTORY. THE IMMORAL BOOBS WHO HAVE OCCUPIED THE WHITE HOUSE, JUST IMPERFECT PEOPLE, ARE THE STRONGEST ARGUMENT OF ALL FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT BY THE UNITED STATES AND CONSTRAINING AND PREVENTING THE U.S. PRESIDENCY FROM HAVING THE FREEDOM IT HAS HAD IN THE DECADES SINCE NUCLEAR WAR I TO COMMIT ACTS OF MAYHEM, MURDER, BOMBING AND WAR AT WHIM. PEACE PLEASE….

All I am saying, is give peace a chance and that means taking the choice away from the American Presidency, no matter who occupies the office. 
John Winston Ono Lennon,
Killed By Handgun,
December 8, 1980
:'(




Thursday, May 17, 2012

My Gun Story: The Real Story – An Autobiographical Sketch


Mr. Peace, John Lennon,
Himself Ironically Slaughtered With A Handgun:
HAPPINESS IS A WARM GUN
NOT!
Until January 2007 I spent my professional life primarily trying to serve those with mental disabilities—those diagnosed with retardation and/or mental illness—as a counselor, a direct care worker or running programs as an assistant manager, manager, director or as a case manager. It was rewarding work, but I was in the throes of various problems myself and my professional record was inconsistent. I don’t beat myself up and I believe I did FAR more good than harm for sure. I honestly believe that my best work and the infinitely most rewarding work I had the opportunity to do was the unscripted work of talking informally behind a closed office door one-on-one with clients of all descriptions. I’ve had the chance to engage a huge variety of people; from a mentally retarded convicted and self-confessed rapist to a person diagnosed with schizophrenia who held two master’s degrees. I’ve worked with homeless persons as both a professional and a volunteer and I’ve also done both paid and volunteer counseling with addicts and alcoholics. I’ve counseled and ran a jail diversion program for offenders from their first day out of jail or prison and also done so on a personal basis and as a volunteer. It is these one-on-one opportunities to hear people’s deepest concerns and having the opportunity to help people in this way that I miss the most about human service work. I can say that without reservation, and I can also say that this was my forte within the panoply of human service responsililities I adopted—I believe that this was the best work I did in the field.
Missiles: I Simply Despise The Suckers!
Whenever Anybody Breaks Out A Missile Or Two
You Know The Party's Over!
Yuck!
Since January 2007 I have been disabled and not working full time in any capacity whatsoever. In the summer of 2010 various situations caused me to begin writing and publishing, the first of those projects being this blog site, Unabashed Left. I’ve since garnered several more websites (two at Examiner.com and now I’m writing for CBS now, as well) and began a course of academic study at Hartford Seminary. It is my goal to become fully self-supporting and leave disability behind. I have been beset with a series of medical challenges however, yet I still am optimistic and fully expect this disability to be a temporary chapter of my life in the not-too-distant future, God willing.

Now that I am out of the counseling business, I find it interesting and instructive that friends, acquaintances and others have found me to be someone they like to share their personal difficulties with, and I’m very content and happy with this circumstance. I spent much of my life having emotional problems of my own, and was a loner and introverted for most of the first 50 years of my life in my private persona. Though I was a good counselor and good in other areas of human service, my own existence was a sad one in many ways, but definitely lonely. When I made the choice to seek help for a tendency toward addictive behavior in 1993 things gradually began to change. Since then I’ve had friends, romantic relationships and life has been much better for me, including emotionally.

Since my disability, but particularly since beginning to write and to publish (there is something about writing and having people actually read my essays and articles which has transformed me in many ways from a reasonably contented individual, to a more complete human and one who has a degree of peace and satisfaction which I never would have imagined possible—and it is for this, more than anything else that I owe thanks to my hundreds of thousands of readers, now, over these couple of years) I have changed and am different in many ways. I am more animated, confident, joke MUCH more, more positive, less fearful of others, and more willing to take risks in my personal life—not irresponsible ones, but to ‘think outside the box’ in order to experience new things and consider new possibilities in life.

What I find interesting is that I make friends much more easily, and that even casual friends and acquaintances seem to trust me, and take me into their confidence. I truly am honored by that. When a person unburdens themselves in an office behind closed doors when you’re on a payroll for doing so it is much different than when people unburden themselves and tell you their most intimate concerns, worries and even ‘secrets’ simply because they trust and like(love) you. Often folks choose one person to confide a problem (or problems) to in life, and I find myself in that position extraordinarily often, and that just makes my day whenever somebody trusts me that much. I guess it shows that I’m proud, that whatever attributes I have that cause others to trust me in this way, that people DO choose to trust me. I love to joke and kid, and enjoy small talk somewhat, but I’m a person who really prefers to delve deeper into issues and into moral, ethical, psychological and ethical concerns. I love, obviously, to discuss politics and religion, for example.

A few evenings ago I was out around town and ran into a casual friend. We joke a lot, talk a lot about politics—both local and national—and we’ve also spoken at length about his dissatisfaction with his job, with how he’s treated as the manager of a retail chain employer, and I’ve offered help with seeking another position and have heard him out about his concerns quite often. He’s a great guy, single without kids. And, while he’s responsible in his job he is dissatisfied with his lot there and in other ways it has seemed to me as well. We were speaking of a common friend who is a recent single mother and who has had many personal problems in recent years (she is very young and we are both concerned about her and now about her baby). I tried to help this young woman at one point, and it didn’t pan out so well, and she has sought the help of my friend, and we compassionately discussed her situation.
As we spoke of her plight, he began to recount a tale of his own from years ago. He started to tell me about a time when he lived atop a restaurant/bar that his father owned, apparently. There was a commotion downstairs as he related the story, and he went down to check on the situation. His father’s place was being robbed and a gunman was there when my friend arrived. My friend shocked me by saying that he “pumped three shots into him.” He said that he had a license to carry a handgun at the time and he began to relate some of the graphic details of the scene which followed. I asked my friend “Did he make it?” My friend replied “No, I waited too long to get a hold of the police…” and I could see that this was not a good time to conduct this VERY personal and important conversation with my friend. He had to return to work, so I assured him that I wanted to hear the rest of the story but that we had better do it at another time. It’s obvious to me that this fellow is in need of sharing this story with me, but while he has my phone number and contact information, I only have his work number and know only his place of work and the town he lives in.

I most definitely AM a pacifist, for reasons I will go into shortly, but certainly can understand this man’s situation and do not judge his actions. I look forward to giving him the chance to finish up sharing his story with me, and I think that once he does that, our friendship will change dramatically. I’m certain he didn’t bring this topic up either casually or unintentionally, and as I mentioned earlier, I am honored whenever somebody chooses to share such personal stuff with me.

It was a half hour walk home for me following that talk, and I found myself reflecting on the Trayvon Martin case and the difference between the predicament my friend found himself in, wherein he felt he had to defend his father against a gun wielding thief, and George Zimmerman who pursued and shot dead a 17 year old unarmed high school student. It also firmed up my conviction that these ‘stand your ground’ laws must be reversed!
One more story if you’ll bear with me. A good friend of somebody very close to me served a very long prison sentence, implicated in a manslaughter which involved the handgun killing of one man and the severe injury of another surrounding a robbery. This fellow served out his time in state prison. Obstacles of all sorts are thrown up at ex-convicts, both bureaucratic and otherwise. First of all, simply finding legitimate work with an arrest record is almost impossible. And now, in the state of Connecticut and many other states, double jeopardy is ignored and a fine levied against inmates in the form of multi-million dollar ‘rent’ charges levied upon them when they are released. So when an ex-convict does succeed in finding legal work, they not only have to pay federal and state income tax, their Social Security tax, but also now the state levies an additional 20 to 30% tax on their income to collect the back ‘rent’ for their accommodations in prison. This friend of my friend, who has served his time, HAS been working legitimately for a long time since his release. This fellow has a girlfriend who he loves and he treats her grandson as if he was his own. He supports her and helps out with her family’s expenses too, especially those of the child. I’ve had the opportunity to see him in a swimming pool playing with this kid, and the kid loves this man as though he were his own Grandpa! And this gentleman, and that is most definitely the word for him (you’ll find nobody more respectful, polite and well-mannered in this day and age) is a great handyman and dedicates most of his spare time to helping out others for no pay and often at his own expense (gas, parts, time and supplies).

As a little kid growing up (and please understand that I now absolutely appreciate and love everybody who raised me and were involved in that process) I was exposed to gravity knives, switchblades, brass knuckles, shotguns, rifles, handguns, some violence, and frequent police and emergency personnel visits to my home. I thought this was a normal environment, since I had nothing to compare it to. Before I was 9 one older brother was already off to jail and disappeared for 2 years (an eternity for a little tyke) without explanation (he died in 1993 as the result of a drug overdose) and later another brother was sentenced to his first long stint, serving 9 years that time (and 25 way too long years the next—thank God he’s out and doing well today—I love him dearly). The US aggression in Southeast Asia was at its height and my only other brother also disappeared by being sent in 1968 to some place called Vietnam! All I knew was that my Mom was scared out of her wits that this brother would be killed there! OMG!

My most popular article here at Unabashed Left is one I called “My Gun Story” (linked: http://unabashedleft.blogspot.com/2011/02/my-gun-story.html) and was my first piece of fiction, and I never intended to do any fiction here. It is more widely read by leaps and bounds than any other article here (second place goes to my satirical Newt Gingrich biography). It’s the story of my alter-ego, 11 year old left-wing Lisa who grills her pastor, protestant minister Reverend Sara, about her tendency to tell Lisa in private about the horrors of guns and violence, but to tone down her message when she’s in front of her congregation in the pulpit on Sunday mornings. I believe I have a calling to the ministry within the tradition of the awesome United Church of Christ.
We all are what we are for only two reasons. The nature vs. nurture controversy is a straw man. It’s both. We are all the product of our genetics and of our environment. Period. And until we reach the age of majority, we’re not even legally responsible for the environment in which we find ourselves. The reality is that none of us are responsible for the environment in which we were raised. I didn’t line up and say I want this family and this town. Nobody did. I have no regrets for any of that, I love my life today and all those who were involved in creating it and for all aspects of my upbringing, good and not-so-good.

My genetic structure, the environment in which I was raised and everything which has transpired since then, including my religious tradition (I am a devout Christian) have caused me to be a self-proclaimed pacifist. It’s a controversial title, and the definition of the term itself is worthy of hours of debate. It’s controversial even among my liberal and Democratic friends.
I love the two men outlined here who are in one degree or other responsible for the handgun deaths of another. I love those who have served in uniform and have killed with guns. I despise guns. I believe a global ban on the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns would be a great leap forward in the evolution of our species. I AM A PACIFIST.
AND THIS IS MY GUN STORY.


Yoko Ono has continued much of John's work and check out the Lennon Peace Prize at this link: 
yoko-ono.com



Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Barack Obama Outlines Plan for Afghanistan: RIP Benazir Bhutto :'(

To my leftist friends, I say that our awesome incumbent
President with the awesome name fusing Islam with the west
Barack Hussein Obama
spoke from the Muslim nation of Afghanistan to the American people.
He spoke of gleaming restructured high rises at ground zero,
following the misguided destruction of 3,000 souls there 10  years ago by young zealots 
conned by the man
that President Obama 
understood was the true enemy of Muslim, Christian, Jew, and all others alike,
Osama Bin Laden.



Great Britain's and America's immigrant, Dr. Winston O'Boogie,
Mr. John Lennon 
said it musically in a way nobody can imitate
"Give Peace A Chance"

About one year prior to Barack Obama's election as President of the United States, on December 27, 2007, and just 2 days after the Christian celebration of the birth of another person of peace, Jesus Christ, Benazir Bhutto was brutally assassinated in Pakistan following her last political  rally in the city of Rawalpindi, two weeks before the scheduled Pakistani general election of 2008 in which she was a leading opposition candidate after having returned to her beloved Pakistan where she was elected twice as Prime Minister, in a part of the world where that is almost unimaginable, and having compelled the dictator Military President General Pervez Musharraf that his time of oppressive rule was over and a general election in which she was the leading candidate was scheduled in 2008.

Prime Minister Bhutto was declared by the United Nations as a winner of the United Nations Prize in the field of human rights for her amazing work, received her honorary Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) degree from Harvard University in 1989 and was truly the embodiment of hope for South Asia in a multitude of ways. 

Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, April 24, 1941 – December 13, 2010
At the beginning of Barack Obama's efforts to try and make sense politically and militarily of the goings on in the subcontinent another tragedy occurred in the untimely and tragic death of State Department veteran and a man who had the trust of almost all involved in the region, when Ambassador Richard Holbrooke died unpredictably of natural causes on December 13, 2010. It was Mr. Holbrooke who commenced political negotiations towards an end to the conflict in Afghanistan, and who deserves huge credit for enabling the ascendency of diplomacy over force, resulting in the forced leave of General McCrystal, the demotion and ultimate force of General Petraeus from his political base within the military to his civilian position he holds today as CIA Director, thus ending his own future political ambitions.
President Barack Hussein Obama 
speaking to the nation tonight from Kabul, Afghanistan
making lemonade out of the 
lemons handed to him by Cheney and Bush.

As I listened to this young promising President tonight from Kabul, I could only ask myself how things would have been so different had Benazir Bhutto's life not been snuffed out so tragically early and what a change Richard Holbrooke made in his life so dedicated to the cause of peace. 

Amen. 






Barack Obama: 5 Years Ago Today Video

These are just some of the reasons I'm working my tail off to re-elect Barack Hussein Obama as the President of the United States. God bless you and God bless America! Are you in? I'm in!


barackobama.com