As is usually the case in political malaise, those in power fail in the true sense when the will is lacking to search out causal relationships particularly where the economy is concerned because it entails treading on their own kind. This was evident at the onset of the trade deficit launched three decades ago by our own laissez-faire multinational corporations. They balked at American wages and fringe benefits and sought new labor markets abroad. Where was the government then to perform its...

Ted Kennedy should not have made the statement that the Clinton policy was indeed regime change “but not by war.” Clinton’s intense bombing of Iraq during “Desert Fox” was certainly war, even though it did include ground troops. [It was, in fact, a prelude to the strategy of Kosovo three months later.] As a matter of fact Clinton continued the bombing defense installations for months even after the official four days of intensity. All through his terms he kept up the defense of the no-fly zone...

With Gephardt out of the race and Kucinich going nowhere, universal, single payer health care is buried once again: its point to maintain a healthy nation as part and parcel of maintaining the nation's well-being as per existing social security for those sent out to pasture or for the millions of the ill-luck who are handicapped, or widowed with children did not need Harry and Louise this time to dump it. Once more in not espousing this principle, we defy the natural process, for the most pa...

Impressive was the initial reaction John Kerry to the “AWOL” accusation against Bush as ‘over the top” and he wasn’t about to “go there.” But when the Republican chairman, Gillespie launched a tirade against Kerry’s voting record and lobby discrepancies, the senator was reminded of Dukakis’ mistaken strategy of rising above the cheap shots. In addition, his memory clicked on “character assassination” that the Republicans had perfected during the Clinton years, and Karl Rove’s attack on McC...

Justifiable public resentment of representatives in the federal government is due to vile perquisites driven by lobbyists. The prevailing perception is that politicians sent to Washington are unable to shed their childish ties and grow their thinking to a national level. Currently, however and ironically, this selfish, provincial brattiness is valued mostly by the present majority which unabashedly declares one step further that there should be little need for Washington middlemen in the distrib...

Homosexuality seems to depart from nature’s system, but does it really when nature is mocked by a DNA structure of anomalies such as gender mix up as in the case of a transsexual, to the unheard extreme as the most recent in the death of the poor child with two heads? This is not to say that homosexuality is abnormal, although even now it is rare, since throughout history it was accepted more or less. The implicit anomaly simply springs from biology and the impedance of the reproductive proc...

 D-Day Plus One [excerpt from my novel]      As the first squad descended the slope the next morning into an open field of picturesque rice paddies and leisurely herded together civilians who had hidden in the copses dotted along the way to the western shore, another company further ahead suffered severe casualties as one of its platoons was trapped in a deep ravine and its other two rifle platoons bravely attacked under heavy enemy fire to rescue the few remaining men. Lieutenant Lin...

Is there no difference between people in need and people dependent on government? Are people in need of security, whether it be protection from criminals or national defense, not dependent on branches of government? Are not the captains of industry dependent on government that insures their holdings and estate will be forever safe? Are not the super wealthy beholden to the government’s Federal Reserve preventing run-on banks that would jeopardize their funds and also are they not beholden to...

Let us first deal with the perception that Americans don’t feel secure in time of crisis with Democrats. Since Reagan this has been forced fed to the public by the right wing. Odd that it didn’t bother the nation during eight years of Clinton. Surely, the rest of the world felt more secure with Clinton even though he sent troops to Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo, bombed Iraq innumerable times, devastated bin Laden’s camps. The reason is that, except for preemption in Haiti, clearly to end the in...

At one time the Republicans were right as far as foreign policy goes that the Democrats were always, it seemed, getting us into some meaningless but tragic wars. However, when Republicans got us into “skirmishes” they were out of self defense, or patriotism. These critics would conveniently forget that Truman and Johnson were under constant pressure from the hawkish Republicans never to let the commies get away with anything. Understandably the young would not know of Nixon who began his clea...

Education must be as concerned with directing youth toward a code of ethics suitable to each individual and to the general good as it is with the growth of their intellectual citizenry. It must be concerned with the development of moral values as in the development of his economic and political potential. Educators must disclose their inherent distaste for the world of what too often is and espouse with immeasurable resources the philosophy of what can and ought to be. For education to ha...

When I was a kid--and an Errol Flynn fan-- the Republicans resented the New Deal because it meant institutionalizing Robin Hood — spreading the wealth around. Their philosophy was that the national and global decisions are made by the profit motive, regardless of consequences. In spite of the Crash of ‘29 or Reagan’s Black Friday, they still believe the common good is in the grubby hands of the money vendors. If that’s so, then why at the turn of the last century did the auto-industry expect...

Separation helped inspire the American Revolution; for without it the founding fathers would not dare bend the consensus of a colonist more or less comfortable with the Anglican Church and the many sects derived thereof. So, too, the growing number of Catholics in the colonies were content with the papal bull for the direction their lives would take. Suddenly from the Declaration of Independence there grew a conscience that began to break out of the box. There is no denying that a devout ...

Erin Hanafy of the AP wrote an “interesting” [?] article based on a study of fairy tales by Purdue and Western Illinois Universities sociologists of women’s studies, showing emphasis on beautiful people. The study pointed out that in Grimms’ “Cinderella” alone beauty in women was referred to 114 times and but 35 references to ugliness. Implicit in this article, of course, is that undue reference to appearance and equating the hero and heroine’s good looks to goodness and the ugly villain as ev...

The Republican party was swallowed up by Nixon’s “southern strategy” that took all states by storm. It should have been renamed the Confederate Party by the conservatives; for its primacy of perception runs counter to the foundations of a federal government that has forged a substantial middle class by making it a priority to redistribute wealth in order to include the working class dream of forging a future for itself and its posterity and in the end creating an inclusive dynamic society fo...