Don't Let Them Scare You!

As more and more slightly insane terrorist "bombers" appear on the scene, please be alert and read more than the initial story. From the Sears Tower plot (Chicago) to a conspiracy in Florida, from shoe to underwear bomber all these stories have big holes and plenty of proof how these plots did not have much of a chance to work and were hatched and executed under very suspicious circumstances. The Nigerian underwear bomber, for example, boarded the plane without a passport, was shephearded by an unidentified official through security and placed on the plane. Before that his father had appeared at the US Embassy and warned the authorities that his son had radical connections and might plan a terorist act. Of course, nobody followed up on that ... draw your own conclusions.

The latest scare, the Oregonian Christmas bomber story does not seem to pan out very logically. What struck me most was the following:

The Oregonian newspaper quoted Oregon US Attorney Dwight Holton as saying: "This defendant's chilling determination is a stark reminder that there are people - even here in Oregon - who are determined to kill Americans." I ask aren't there Americans who not only have the chilling determination to kill Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis but also have been doing so for many years?

Nothing makes sense any more. I am giving up - but not quite yet. Keep on reading and digging deeper. The truth is out there.

Read an article with details here: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/11/25-0

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"Thou Shalt not Kill" Applies to All?

Yesterday I received an email asking me to sign a petition to save Sakineh Ashtiani, an Iranian woman accused of adultery, rescued from stoning by an international outcry and now threatened to be executed. Of course, I signed immediately. Anything I can do to save a life, I will do, gladly.

But this noble effort made me think of the non-effort in this country to stop the killing in the wars we keep going. Who raises awareness about the women (and children) who are not accused of anything, whose only "crime" is to live in Iraq or Afghanistan or Pakistan and who get killed either by our over-zealous soldiers or by indiscriminant missiles fired from drones or other aircraft? Are we as a nation already totally numb to this constant wiping out of innocent lives?

When somebody else does the killing - in this case the Iranian government - our government's elected boogieman of the hour - we are being pushed to react, to rally and show our concern -- is it mainly because we want to magnify the bad image of the "enemy" rather than over the concern about the poor woman's life?

Wherever I look these days, double standard rules, applied without much thought but with great enthusiasm. I find it disheartening, disillusioning and actually quite disgusting. If I do it, it's ok. If you do it, it is a crime. We are not moving along the path of enlightenment that way. Peace!

Democracy? Where?

Did you hear Mitch McConnell's speech before the American Enterprise Institute? It's not the only Republican post-election rhetoric that lacks the common sense that I am defending here. He said very clearly, with a straight face and full of blistering conviction (if his sad face can convey that at all), that the priority of his House majority is to roll back every legislative progress that has been passed during the last two years. He also said that if Pres. Obama does not do what they want, they will have somebody in the White House in 2012 who will not yield the Veto pen.

Is that the essence of Democracy? Or just hateful, spiteful, narrow-minded semblance of governing? Old Russia anyone? Isn't that something the Republicans accuse President Obama of - ramrodding change down the poor populace's throat? I am confused, but also angry and deflated. What has this country come to? Can there be no reasonable discourse? Civility? Winning a landslide of House Seats is not a mandate to disassemble the whole works. Especially by the Party that has ZERO plans on the table to do anything positive. Hear, hear!

Does this Nation not have important problems to solve? Like Economy, Jobs, Environment, real reform of the Financial Industry, maybe even Election Reform? Could they be at least mentioned or addressed? No, that would definitely be too much common sense. Good luck to all of us.

The Jesters Give us the Truth

Just listened to the parting remarks made by Jon Stewart (http://www.youtube.com/watchv=jXmbzLI3pnk&feature=player_embedded will get you there) at the Washington DC Rally for Sanity and was reminded of my history lessons. Were not the court jesters the ones who could tell the absolute truth -or maybe just the inconvenient truths - to the King or the Queen without being punished? The Courtiers had to make things look good and flatter the ruler in order to be kept on and maintain their influence.

The sadness over this state of affairs- that comedians have to step up for SANITY and the truth, while all the supposedly free carriers of the news and the truth are feeding us IN-sanity, comprised mostly of spin and lies, is only outweighed by the comments posted following the youtube clip. How so many people -who apparently read and write well- can miss the point of the rally altogether by such a wide margin is rather incomprehensible to me. Read them and see for yourself.

Case in point on the media's reliability over the last few days, the parcels supposedly filled with explosives sent by freight plane from Yemen (who knows?) and promptly intercepted by our vigilant homeland security department long before they arrived here. If you poke around a bit in the independent news sites you will see that this is an entirely ridiculous story that can be proven wrong and inconsistent very easily. Purpose? To install fear in our not so informed populace - exactly the fear-mongering Stewart's rally was pointing out.

Please inform yourself and THINK. And if you have not voted yet, please do so on the correct side of the ballot. (I know that's hard, but maybe reading Michael Moore's latest essay can help you out.

PBS Really Not "Public" Any More

For some time now I have been very disappointed and displeased with PBS’s news coverage. Very mellow, non-controversial, no-balance reporting – as opposed to the recentlly discontinued Bill Moyers Journal hard-hitting pieces. The only difference to the commercial stations is the lack of reports on local fires and babies falling out of windows.

Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)
“A multi-part FAIR exposé of PBS's most prominent news and public affairs programs demonstrates that public television is failing to live up to its mission to provide an alternative to commercial television, to give voice to those "who would otherwise go unheard" and help viewers to "see America whole, in all its diversity," in the words of public TV's founding document.”

Among other rather troubling findings, this one irks me the most.

“-- On segments focusing on the Afghan War, though polls show consistent majorities of Americans have opposed the war for more than a year, not a single NewsHour guest represented an antiwar group or expressed antiwar views. (Emphasis mine) Similarly, no representative of a human rights or humanitarian organization appeared on the NewsHour during the study period.”

Published on Tuesday, October 19, 2010 by FAIR

$80,000 to Kill or Miss- Poof ... Gone

Here is a thought: How much common sense does it make to use a high-tech, high-priced piece of U.S. weaponry, a huge shoulder-fired rocket called Javelin, in Afghanistan? “Each Javelin round costs $80,000, and the idea that it's fired by a guy who doesn’t make that in a year at a guy who doesn’t make that in a lifetime is somehow so outrageous it almost makes the war seem winnable.” (from Sebastian Junger’s book WAR, see below))

In the article Publish or Perish: Getting a Read on American War Nick Turse reviews writings on the current wars and compares them with the literature on the Vietnam war. He writes “… there is much to be learned from Junger’s in-print version of Americans-at-war. His blow-by-blow accounts of small unit combat actions, for instance, drive home the tremendous firepower American troops unleash on enemies often armed with little more than rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. Page after page tallies up American technology and firepower: M-4 assault rifles (some with M-203 grenade launchers), Squad Automatic Weapons or SAWs, .50 caliber machine guns, M-240 machine guns, Mark-19 automatic grenade launchers, mortars, 155 mm artillery, surveillance drones, Apache attack helicopters, AC-130 Spectre gunships, A-10 Warthogs, F-15 and F-16 fighter-bombers, B-52 and B-1 bombers, all often brought to bear against boys who may be wielding nothing more than Lee-Enfield bolt-action rifles -- a state of the art weapon when introduced. That, however, was in the 1890s.”

Check out the whole article at http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/10/14-7 published by www.CommonDreams.org

With a fraction of the moneys spent on these deadly toys, how many jobs could we “grow”, how many hungry children could we feed, here and the world over, how many homeless people could we help? Too much horse sense, probably! And not really profitable.

There are Alternatives to War

Common Sense: Wars do not solve problems, they create more problems and more severe ones!

Michael Nagler, president of the Metta Center for Nonviolence in Berkeley, California, writes in today's Common Dreams News (go to http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/09/27-2). I want to draw your attention to the three points listed below.

"I encourage anyone who hasn’t already done so to familiarize him- or herself with the alternatives to war that fall into three broad categories: 1) living more lightly on the earth, since most wars today are fought over its diminishing resources; 2) diplomacy, mediation, and international institutions that can keep disputes from turning into wars, and 3) nonviolent mechanisms to deal with the wars that nonetheless break out, like the unarmed interventions just mentioned that are helping to reduce violence in trouble spots all over the world now. I recommend that we all learn about these things and talk about them with family, friends, and our congressmen or women. You may not get anything but raised eyebrows at first, but remember what Gandhi said about a real innovation: “First they ignore you; then they laugh at you; then they fight you – and then you win.” Provided you have learned to fight nonviolently. That must be the subject of another article."

Where are the Solutions?

Again we are in Pledge-Campaign-Promise-Politicking-Mode and Common Sense seems to have vanished from the scene. Every party and every candidate is promising what they have been promising for eons, just with a few variations and with a lot less options. Less taxes, more taxes, balancing the budget, and so forth. My favorite is "Listening to the Voters" -- when did that happen the last time? Most of the campaign time and money is spent on besmearing the OTHER, never mind on 'solutions.'

That is what I am really missing, Common Sense Solutions. Vague phrases are not solutions. Headlines are not solutions. Touting numbers that no one can verify or even understand is not a solution. Does that mean - worst scenario - that nobody has any solutions? That is what I believe. I am sure there are people who have answers but if they state them out loud they will be disappeared, one way or another. Nobody wants to say or hear the truth. Why are we fighting wars costing trillions? Why can we not tax people making obscene, unspendable amounts of money? Why can we not mandate greener living? Why can we not feed everybody?

The SYSTEM is so screwed up, my solution would be to drop it and start anew. Like untying a knot, you have to start with one loose end. We can do that with proper leadership. Who is out there to lead us?

More on Where do Jobs Come From?

I do not know where I picked this up, but it is still relevant. The last paragraph really scares me - or - it shows a reality we will have to deal with. Good Luck.

I am still looking for the one article/statistic/speech that tells me where the jobs will be coming from. All I can find is how many jobs per year we will have to add to pull even with the employment/unemployment status of many years ago.

"What America needs right now is not economic growth, it's economic development, which is defined as the development of economic wealth of a country for the well-being of its inhabitants. Normally a concept discussed in relation to developing countries, it is now clearly what we need in America after several decades of de-industrialization, union-busting, and exporting of jobs and manufacturing, and a dramatic widening of the gap between the rich and the rest of the population.

It has often been said that India's middle class constitutes a modern developed country the size of Belgium or Austria within a larger Third World country. America's poor constitute a Third World country the size of South Africa within a larger modern developed country. "

Does Rape and Torture Need Definition?

In a recent book group discussion of "Little Bee" (by Chris Cleave) we got stranded at the terms "torture" and "rape" when somebody asked for a definition. Do we really need a definintion of torture which then is subject to tweaking by a phalanx of opinionated lawyers, leading to another discussion altogether and away from the basic question: What is torture? Applying Common Sense I would say, if you hurt me in any way to get something from me that I am unwilling to give, then you tortured me. Basta! as the Italians say. That's it. How much it hurts, what body part you apply it to, how long it lasts, if organs fail or not - is really irrelevant. IT IS TORTURE.

The same goes for rape. If you take what somebody is unwilling to give then it is RAPE. She was asking for it, she dressed provocatively, and other common arguments are -again- irrelevant. It is the ACT we are naming and, hopefully, punishing.

Imagine -- a world functioning based on common sense originating in our pure conscience! How much time, how many words, how many lies, how much suffering we would save ourselves and others. Why is our innate conscience, which knows the difference between whole and unwhole, hidden so deeply? Is it buried by centuries of deception, demagoguery, ignorance and failure to listen and act upon what we are told by the inner voice? Is it ignored by cowardice or inbred callousness? Maybe some genetic re-engineering is in order. We KNOW, and we could act far better than we are. Namaste!

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs -- WHERE?

There is some logic and Common Sense missing in the jobs debate. In my opinion, at least, and I am no economist or the like. So excuse me for a moment while I repeat the mantras on the subject we keep hearing (ad nauseam!): we must create jobs, they must come from the private sector, small businesses need to hire people -- then the numbers will improve. Well, I do not believe this scheme will work. Let's assume small businesses hire lots of people which then in turn produce lots of products (what? may I ask - everything I have bought within the last six months was "Made in China" or in some other cheap-labor country). And who will now buy these products? In volumes that will shore up the economy? With 30 Million people unemployed or underemployed, who has the money to buy anything but the bare necessities?

None of the pundits and/or government officials have mentioned any specifics where these millions of people could be employed and what they are supposed to produce. Last night, on her last day in the White House, the Chair of the President's Economic Advisors, Christina Romer, in an interview aired on PBS, complained very lightheartedly about the lack of aggressiveness in the Administration. Aggressiveness is what we need, I think. New thinking and honest thinking. I would like to see some statistics of the labor market showing the sectors where significant growth could be expected. You experts out there, put on your thinker's hats, rather than keep repeating the empty phrases we keep hearing over and over again. Please give us some hope.

No-Brainer: Freedom of Religion

Really, give me a break, do we have a First Amendment or not? It is very clear in what it states. So any debate about the legality, location, meaning etc of a community center which includes a place of worship is rather unnecessary - and definintely unproductive. Especially if we want to hold on to our (USA) exceptional status as a beacon of ........ (Insert you favorite!).

When people like Newt Gingrich (a historian?) confuse Nazism with a religion it becomes very weird, even more so when a large number of people believe what he and other 'intellectuals' spout in this connection.

Enough said. Please apply Common Sense to what you read and hear. And let me know what you find.

Do you mean what you say?

More and more we find that outrageous statements, which have made it into the public eye, once challenged, are followed by lame excuses such as "I misspoke" "was quoted out of context" "did not mean to say ..." "had no intention to have this meaning ..." "was misinterpreted" "totally misunderstood ..."

Take the following, which was published on Friday, July 9, 2010 by Al Jazeera English (emphasis mine):

'Brawler' General to Lead Centcom
"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil," Mattis said. "You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."
On Thursday, Gates dismissed concerns about the comments, saying appropriate action had been taken at the time - Mattis was reprimanded and told to choose his words more carefully - and the four-star general had learnt his lesson.
Robert Gates, the defence secretary, praised Mattis as "one of the military's most innovative and iconoclastic thinkers" as he announced his recommendation for the post on Thursday."

So, he was told to "choose his words more carefully" rather than to change his "thinking" which I am sure he will not do. Looking at that with Common Sense what does an apology or a 'misspeak' statement really say? 'Oops, I let the cat out of the bag, I should have been more careful. And here is the clean version (which of course is a lie).' In most cases there is no follow-up on the original statement and an analysis of what that statement says about the person who said it. Do you really think that the General will change his attifude, which he developed over his illustrious career?

Look for more examples as you troll through the media. What I find is truly disgusting - especially if it comes from those we have elected or from those they appointed to high offices. People we are supposed to trust and believe in. How? Why?

Just came back from watching "Countdown to Zero", a documentary about the threat of nuclear annihilation we are facing today with even more nations wanting to join the nuclear bomb club and how we must work toward a nuclear free world.
The film is a very loud wake-up call for all of us who still have an intact common sense: Why would anybody on this planet want to produce, stockpile and have at the ready a vast arsenal of nuclear weapons, when all of us should know what happens when one of these horror bombs goes off. Go see for yourself! Most scary aspect of the movie to me was how much enriched Uranium is still floating about and how easy it is to smuggle it around the world.
What also bothers me about the film are some of the sanctimonious quotes by known villains such as Tony Blair, Zbiginiew Brzinsky, Robert McNamara who now speak as if they never really wanted to have anything to do with nuclear weapons. When they were in charge they were the perpetrators who kept uncounted missiles on trigger alert - where they still remain today! All that spells is mutual destruction and no winners. The story in the film goes that these catastrophic weapons must not fall into the hands of the terrorists - I ask, what are they doing in the hands of anybody? If the weapons did not exist they could not fall into anybody's hands. Again that scenario is portrayed as if North Korea, Pakistan or India wants to defend themselves through the deterrent of nuclear weapons that is evil; when 'we' do it, it is justified. The threat is a real threat, no matter who is the threatener! And to pretend that the only danger comes from the terrorists and the rogue states is pure nonsense. All the 'trigger' nations have their weapons at the ready, and that's where the mistake will be made ...
We still want to support the START-Treaty with all our powers. It is a good 'start' and could lead to the eventual elimination of atomic weaponry. But don't hold your breath, yet.

Hypocricy and Disconnect

Top Military Officer Admiral Mike Mullen on Thursday expressed outrage over the Wikileaks leak, saying the founder of the Wikileaks website, Julian Assange, may have blood on his hands already.


What is wrong with this picture? The Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the overseer of two acknowledged wars and many more secret ones, accusing someone of having blood on his/her hands? Does Admiral Mullen have anything to do with drone strikes, special op raids and the general execution of these wars? Who has more blood on his hands?



Think about it. Please!

The Wikileaks "Debate"

Have you noticed how the real importance and the content of Wikileaks' release of the Afghanistan documents has been woefully ignored. What is being 'debated?' "Military orders have been broken." " We are giving the enemy all the information to defeat us with ..." The documents do not give an accurate, complete picture ..." "Who is going to go after Asage?" "They are destroying our good relationships with our allies ..." "The data are from the past ..."

Hold on a minute, please! To me this all sounds like bogus, if I want to be kind in my choice of words. We are in a brutal war, have been for eight years or so, progress has been mostly zero and the cost of it is bankrupting our country. These leaked documents are giving us an insight into how this war is fought and how it has been going. "Nothing new" as the commentators said, but also "same, same" which nobody said, at least not in the MSM. Both of these comments are devastating. Nothing new and the fact that the same things are still going on are, for me at least, a terrible judgment of how things are going over there. Who has been writing about that? Go look!

The arguments cited above are actual quotes from newscasts spoken by highly paid 'experts' and commentators. Think about every one of them. Apply Common Sense. What are you left with? Empty dribble, if you ask me. If information like this, several years old, is threatening our National Security or the 'Safety of our troops' then we are in bad shape, and our enemies are in even worse shape. So we should have 'won' a long time ago. But we are nowhere near a 'win.' We hear the same old mantras from our generals, special envopys and ambassadors. Those mantras, unfortunately, have nothing in common with the real picture of what's going on on the ground, as they say. It does not take a lot of intelligence to figure that out, without the help of dull and 'not-saying-anything' commentators.

I am very tired of expert gurus on the major networks and in newspapers seriously spouting 'opinions' which say absolutely nothing other than what anybody who read the news could have said. Go figure. And stay with your common sense, regardless of what they are telling you or not telling you.

Mighty Nations Meet and Promise ...

and do not deliver on their promises! The recent Meetings of the G20 and G8 in Canada cost one billion US Dollars for 1 1/2 days. That is exactly the shortfall on the promises made to Africa and other developinng nations elsewhere at the 2005 G8 summit in Scotland. Furthermore the Toronto meetings have not produced any striking results ... horse sense says: Can't we do better? Read the whole article at

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/07/04-2

Freedom of the Press

The Wonderful Ways We Track Financial Transactions

Watch out terrorists! We know about every penny you transfer from account to account! Or, maybe not ... because

according to a report in the Wall Street Journal on Monday, June 28 more than $3 Billion in cash had been flown out of Kabul airport in the past three years, and U.S. investigators think that some of the money flown out to safe havens is diverted U.S.aid ...

Well, I'll be darned, I thought they (the Homeland Security guys) had this nailed ... but I guess Dollar Bills do not show up on Body Scanners. Shucks!

Common (or Horse) Sense, of course, says: There could be a way to track these few dollars, couldn't there?

Bashing Europe's Finances

I am getting very tired of listening to my neighbor (a college professor) and our financial advisor (a life-long investment professional) who claim that Europe's finances -starting with Greece- are on the brink of disintegrating. The same people never mention our own precarious situation, I mean that of the United States of America's financial system. Just finished reading "Is there a Global War between Financial Theocracy and Democracy" by Les Leopold (Common Dreams website), who thinks the same way. "Do not throw stones when sitting in a glass house". If anybody is 'living above their means' it is the Americans. I have never met a Western European who had an average of eight (probably maxed out) Credit cards in his wallet! And very few young mothers over there drive their offspring to school in a conspicuously oversized SUV. But back to high(er) finance. Why are the deficits of European countries so much more evil than ours? As far as I know most European nations still produce saleable goods. Something we cannot claim for ourselves unless it's weaponry. Their workers have unemployment benefits and most still have pensions coming. And those who work can afford nice long vacations. Something the American workers have never known.

Is this Europe bashing a diversionary tactic? "Look over there, how terribly they have managed ..." as opposed to "Wow, what will be the next crisis here?" - something serious writers have addressed frequently but is not picked up by the media with enough emphasis (I think). I personally am worried about the countries' financial future much more so than about Europe's. Let's put the attention where it belongs. Common Sense? Yeah ...

Basic Human Values? Honesty, Ethics, Morals?

After reading all the fluff in our media about the Israeli attack on the Freedom Flotilla I wonder where basic considerations of human values have vanished to. Issueing "regrets" over the loss of life (when we, the US, are in the killing business??) seems lame. Demanding "independent, unbiased and thorough" investigations has become such a meaningless gesture - we know where that leads to - see Warren Commission Report, 9/11 Commission Report, Goldstone Report, all the investigations into war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan - have they come up with the "truth", has anything happened afterwards? Other than more white-washing and/or disregarding them and calling them biased.

The people taking the supplies to Gaza, risking their lives in the process, are making a statement that our government refuses to make. Why? Because our President and our representatives want to be re-elected and spared the defamation by the Israeli lobby. When will we have leaders who put common decency and common sense above their vain, self-serving motivations? I am convinced that if President Obama would stand up and say very clearly that we do not tolerate such behavior, as demonstrated in the Israeli attack(s) -let's not forget Lebanon and Gaza!- and send some ships and planes to underline his remarks, his chances for re-election would soar!

Frankly, we should be more afraid of the Israeli nuclear arsenal than of the "maybe in five years" Iranian bomb, since the Israelis have demonstrated over and over that they are willing to attack whenever they feel threatened.

Common Sense? YES! Who reasons that way? Nobody, really, except a few voices in the desert ...

We have a new "poodle"!

Remember when British Prime Minister Tony Blair was called G W Bush's "Poodle?" I am beginning to think that President Obama has become Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's "Poodle". If he does not make a strong statement followed by some strong action regarding Israel's attack on the Freedom Flotilla I am done with him. And I did have so much HOPE! It's all evaporated - over his handling of Israel/Palestine Peace Negotiations, Iraq, Afghanistan, Citizens Rights, Bank Bailout, Financial Reform, Oil Spill, and even Health Care! I was convinced he could do better.

Disappointment # Defeat # Distressed

So much for daily blogging ... here I am again, I'd rather not show my face. Have not gotten anywhere with that edit. Sooo many other things in the way. I clean up the room, next thing I know there are papers all over again. Taking three classes a week does not really help. One is a writing workshop where I produce a story every week. Up to 2000 words each. Has gone well but not conducive to this work here. I'll tell you more tomorrow, because I am making another commitment. Have not quite figured out the date. Looks like May 12th. Keep your fingers crossed.

I AM PUBLISHING MY BOOK

Four days ago I made a commitment to deliver a clean manuscript of my Memoir about growing up in Austria before, during, and after World War II to my newly found publishing consultan in two weeks. Day one of the fourteen I started putting all my annotated manuscript copies, accunulated notes and critiques in one place - a large surface in my workroom - then looked at photographs which I had earmarked for possible inclusion in the book, original letters sent by my father from the Russian front yet to be translated --- and then I panicked! There is no way that I can finish in time!

And that is where I am today, still, four days later. I am putting away everything in my workroom which has nothing to do with the book. No distractions. Marcia, my wife, is helping me to find places where I can store these distraction AND find them again, should I need them. Wish me luck. I shall report on my progress daily.

I am back, for good this time

Within the last 24 hours I learned that a US population of 330 Million owns 270 Million Handguns. Who is defending whom from what? Neighbor from neighbor? Friend from friend? Who is the enemy? Does this make sense to you?