WHAT WILL BE WRITTEN IN THE ELECTION DUST WHEN IT FINALLY SETTLES

Our dumbed down society has been listening to lies and denials for far too long.  The Republicans are incapable of understanding why they lost.the election.  Those running it see it as winnable regardless of the platform or candidate.  Their arrogance is astounding.  They seem not to hear that the groups who voted against Romney (those who voted for Obama as 'the lesser of two incompetents'  as one disgruntled voter out it to me) because of the Republican platform.  I rarely hear that mentioned when the autopsy is being done of the election.  There are, seemingly, those who can't believe that more money didn't win the election.
I have not heard Republicans pushing to change the platform that just does not appeal to the majority of voters.  It is as simple as that.

In 2008, Limbaugh  lied to his listeners, getting them to vote for Teapartiers, thinking to broaden the Republican party.  No one seems to credit him for the ruination of the party, though that, retrospectively is clearly what it was. It ruined democracy in the functioning of the Legislature as it totally dumbed it down.  Teapartiers want government out of their lives yet they are behind pro-life movements which add to it by elevating costs of unwanted and uncared for children.  We have the example of how blind to facts some states and people are.  Those who want to secede from the USA often don't realize the economic realities, that they could not exist without the deeper pockets of the government.

It is hard to remain respectful of a body of elective officials who would put Murdock and Aiken on a science committee.  It is difficult to respect McConnell who allowed such pain and anguish to exist in our citizens just to try to make Obama a one-term President.  God certainly was not with the Republicans during that election.  Does that tell the religious something.  Apparently not, since they are making up all sorts of conspiracy theories as to why they lost, avoiding the obvious truth.. 

LOOKING BACK AT ALL WE HAVE FOR WHICH TO BE THANKFUL

     All people have something for which they can be thankful.  Some just have to look harder for it than others.  It may be that they are alive or it may be their way out of agony is near and they will die soon.  For most of us, it is that life is just more positive than negative.  Happiness is  relative.  While small things make one person's life happy, those same elements could make another's life unbearable. Songwriters sing The Best Things in Life Are Free.  The beggar with no alternative but to dig in the trash behind a restaurant for something edible may not find that says it for him..
     It is nice to be loved and surrounded by those who love US...as long as they are not stalkers,..  One can be thankful for good health, a sense of humor, five working senses and importantly, sanity.  I'm thankful I don't have to live with a dog or any other furry animal.  I'm thankful when the Internet works, when a storm passes and my electric power is still on, and that Elizabeth Warren and President Obama were elected.
     I'm thankful I am not surrounded by death, violence and destruction over which I have absolutely no control.  I'm thankful, even though the view from my windows is not scenic with sunsets, oceans or lakes, I never have to worry, living on a stable hill, about being flooded by rain.  I could go on and on about all for which I am thankful, knowing that many others around me can count on the same.  I can only wish that others can find as much joy of living as I, as much for which to be thankful, and to be free, not wishing for what I can never have or to have what others have.  I'm thankful that I learned to live with reality and that my reality makes me thankful.  I can only hope that it will stay that way but realize nothing last forever; not people nor the earth around us.
     Like Nikos Kazantzakis, I want nothing, I fear no one, I am free.  I'm thankful.

THERE IS A BIT OF A POT CALLING A KETTLE BLACK

A couple of red states in the south (red meaning they agreed with Romney that 47% are takers) failed to see that their states take much more from the government than they give back in taxes.  This means the rest of us are subsidizing them.  I would be delighted if they seceded.  I don't agree with their politics; their values are not mine, so why should I pay for them.  I suppose that is one way of looking at it.  However, I cannot feel that way, In fact, there are people in that state who consider themselves as American as I.  I would not cheer for the fate they would be handed if secession is achieved.  The Civil War is fought but never accepted as lost been even after more than 150 years. The election held recently which they lost may take as long for them to accept, though I would sincerely hope not.

These, our fisclly minded Republicans, want women to bear children whether they want them or not.  If they must give birth to a rapist's child whom they cannot afford to keep (or want to keep), that burden must also fall to the taxpayers (put government here).  Is this the kind of country want to live in; .one whose political candidates lie to a gullible people who vote for them because they have made it sound good. who are voters who do not have the intelligence or time to understand the issues; those who vote for whom Limbaugh touts while he makes his millions without caring what happens to the people who believe him?

The Republican party must start showing its constituents that it will stop living in the past four years where stonewalling everything Obama wants is blocked regardless of the suffering it causes the middle class.  The Republican base had better quickly get a handle on the message from the people or they will lose yet another election.  Are there no smart Republicans any more? 

THE SOUND OF WAR

It is not often that I am lost for words, but tonight as I sit here I am perseverating about a BBC article on the sound of war.  We, here in the United States have had plenty of disasters of weather, crime, and many unpleasant things but we have not had the experience that is currently in the Middle East.

Some of us who were old enough to have lived through WW2 in the comparative comfort afforded us by virtue of being in the USA before too much damage could be done to us directly.  Those born after the war have lived it only through film.  I wan 1973, just off a plane with my family in the Athens airport, when Palestinian gorillas were tossing hand grenades into the crowd (which we happened to be).  Having heard only three grenades go off and some automatic weapons, the experience as similar to an atom as compared to that which Europeans and those in the UK, especially London, lived through.  There are some sounds that never leave your head or trigger panic even if heard in a movie or the TV in another room.

To be happy to be living in the United States and to experience compassion for all those who suffer the violence currently in the Middle East, click here.



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KEEP SEN KERRY IN THE SENATE FOR TWO MORE YEARS

     It was shocking to hear a Democratic pundit comment that McLean was racially prejudiced against Susan Wright because she is black.  I doubt that is the issue at all!  If Wright becomes the next Secretary of State, John Kerry remains a Senator.  That would leave a Massachusetts senatorial vacancy which the Republicans want to quickly fill with their so-called 'Independent ' Scott Brown who would be another vote against the Democrats, as his past voting record would indicate..

     Wall St and lobbyists are quaking as it is that Elizabeth Warren might get to lead with her ideas to rein in Wall St with regulations.  She was successfully voted down from becoming the Head of a new department called Consumer Financial Protection Bureau   The Republicans were able to keep her from starting a department within the government to do just that but they could not defeat her getting to Washington as a Senator and they are clearly unhappy after spending 5.5 million dollars in their failed attempt..It has been custom in the past to accept the results of an election and try to work within the governmental and constitution  rules  to achieve a fairness for the country.  The Republicans are going to fight that.

     Paul Ryan spoke recently to point out that his plan and budget are not dead as the voters voted a Republican majority in the House.  He, of course, was not voted out.  He just wasn't up for re-election this year so by default (losing the bid for Vice President) he remains as a Representative.  Clearly he took no message from the voters this election. I can only cringe at the behavior of the losing team when I think they might have been voted in to run the country!  Actually we know, because Grover Norquist told us, he would not actually be running the country, Norquist and those with him would be doing that

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WHERE IS GOD WHEN NEEDED?

carnage by man's hand

The war in Gaza has been reignited.  Click here and be sure to watch the video. Is this a case of 'the debil made me do it'?   How can rationalize this action?

In New York and New Jersey, we see death and damage with people of all races and ages suffering.  Yet by 'God's' hand if we assume nature is God, equal or more damage is done, many more killed.  Can we have someone who talks to God explain this one to us?  Click here and be sure to watch the slide show of pictures.

RELIGIONS ARE NOT ALL GOOD FOR US

Religion is not supposed to make people heartless  Yet is seems it does at times .  In Ireland, a 31 year old woman died of septicaemia because that Catholic country allowed doctors to refuse an abortion to save her life because they said the 17 week fetus had a heartbeat.  She may have had an ectopic pregnancy.  To read this story, click here.

We recently had a US Representative to Congress (fortunately not re-elected) who was convinced women no longer die in childbirth.  Yes, they do.  This young woman was in her first pregnancy but she could as easily been the mother of several children who would have been orphaned!

Most religions claim their God is good and not cruel.  If that is true, what happens to the church officials who are cruel and mean.  How can people believe in these institutions?  They have turned into big business and like our recent Republicans in Washington look out for their own interests and not the interests of life, as they claim to do.  They are so rigid about life at conception yet they know nothing about life after birth.

Hopefully the worst of these ideologues are no longer in a position of power.  However, as we have also recently seen through Grover Norquist, the Koch brothers, ALEC and others, you don't have to be elected to serve in government to grab power and wield it.  It is no longer just a war on women's right to control their own body,   Imagine if the reverse were true and the government decided to force men to have a vasectomy for some reason claimed to be an edict from God.  Who is the one who heard from God?  Where is it written that we can believe that someone other than ourselves decides what should happen within our body when we are given a choice?

Rather than put rapists in jail at taxpayer expense, why not emasculate them and make them impotent or, at the very least, infertile?  Would there not be a male hew and cry of the unfairness? Yet we have men in power who think nothing of forcing a woman to use her body to give birth to an unwanted child whose genes she did not choose.

How much can we allow religion to make choices for the rest of us?  Should we allow clitorectomies, female genital mutilation, of female children too young to make the decision for themselves but who will have to live their lives without that which could bring sexual pleasure in marriage, with that which Nature gave them at birth?

What has happened to humanity?  How can we not blame the religions  and their beliefs that seem to go against Nature, not with it.  As long as Nature provides spontaneous abortions (miscarriages), it must be believed that some pregnancies should not reach term.