Our Stories by RRO

Disenfranchised :When You Don't Have Hope by RRO.

When you don’t have hope then lots of things look good:

• Drugs

• Radical religion

• Riots

• Protests

• Guns

• Violence

• Hate Groups

• Revolution

• Terrorism

Do you know where most of the terrorists came from in Paris? Well, the answer is Brussels. What part of Brussels. The Brussels neighborhood of Molenbeek.  What’s it like?  Well it might be called the Fuller Park of Brussels.  Fuller Park is a rough neighborhood in Chicago.  Both have high unemployment, poverty and a great deal of hopelessness.  Kids in schools in these two neighborhoods don’t graduate from high school, they don’t go to college.  Sometimes, they don’t even eat.
Last week the Chicago please released a video of a teenager in Chicago being gunned down in what looks old fashion murder to me.  He was on drugs, PCB, and had a knife in his hand.  He was walking down the middle of the street.  The police pulled up and shot him.  The first bullet took him to the ground.  He was shot an additional 15 times.  You can see the puffs of steam rise from his body as each bullet penetrates his body.  That certainly solved his drug problem.
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Detached from our reality

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A moderate amount of PCP often causes users to feel detached, distant, and estranged from their surroundings….may be accompanied by a sense of strength and invulnerability.  Its bad stuff.  But, who is to JUDGE that we would not want to feel detached from our surroundings if we grew up in Gaza, or Fuller, or Molenbeek.
Personally, drugs are not my style. I think I would detach by starting a violent revolution, which might look like terrorism to some.

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Bigotry is one Response to “Such People”

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We respond to drugs, terrorists, and all forms of radical behavior in this country with one simple emotion: Judgment.  It is one thing to condemn such behavior, but to make a Judgment that we are superior to all these people, to say that if we were raised in a pocket of hopelessness that we would quietly suffer and do no harm is a huge judgment against a large part of humanity in the world today — much of it inside our own borders.
And our primary action to deal with all these problems.  Violent force.  Guns.  Bombs. Military Task Forces.  Drones.  Wars. Prison.  Capital punishment.  And yet, has we kill millions, millions more rise up from the infinite supply of the disenfranchised.
Trump is the champ of bigotry.  Never in my nearly 70 years on this planet have I seen anyone that is a dangerous as this man.  He is bigoted against Mexicans, Immigrants, Palestinians, Muslims, handicapped, Democrats, his fellow Republican candidates for President, and anyone else that he can make fun of to feel superior.  Trump would never look below the surface to find out where terrorism, drug use, and all other forms of disenfranchisement is coming from … it would be beneath him to treat others as humans.  And what is worse, he speaks to what is the worse parts of all of us:  that little (or big) core of bigotry that exists in all of us.  Hitler was the last one that did this well.  Trump is going down the same road disguised as a savior appealing to disenfranchised religious right.

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Compassion, Loving our Neighbor, Being our Brother’s Keeper

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If we want to change the world, make it a better place,  using deadly violence against all the disenfranchised in our country and the world will lead to the long advertised apocalypse.  If we do not look at the core problems behind wealth inequality in our country and much of the globe, then the world will continue to unravel as we mass produce the disenfranchised.  If we ever needed some serious dialogue on the issues, it is now.  Two of the candidates for President in my mind are approaching some of the issues with openness and candor.   Bernie is good on helping the working man and down trodden.  Rand Paul is good on addressing the financial mess our congress has got us in.  Both are against attempting to solve everything with our price gouging military industrial complex.
We need to start talking … and taking the best of every point of view.

Where is the Arab Coalition Fighting ISIS? by DRJ

Without condoning it, I can understand why the Sunni majority countries like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Turkey, etc. are reluctant to attack ISIS, but where the hell is Israel? The United States spends billions arming them to the teeth with the most sophisticated high tech weapons in the world so they can bomb the civilian population in Gaza back to the stone age, but when it comes to ISIS, all we hear from them is how it is the duty of the Americans and Europeans to destroy Israel's enemies in Syria, Hezbollah and Iran. In other words, those who along with the Kurds are providing the only effective ground forces fighting ISIS.

 

For reasons I certainly don't understand, it appears that ISIS and the other jihadist terrorists operating in neighboring Syria are beyond consideration as targets for the US supplied F-15 and F-16 fighter bombers that make up the Israeli air force. As if that isn't enough to make you wonder what the hell is going on, consider this; apparently the United States is prohibited from deploying its own combat aircraft for operations against ISIS from the territory of Israel, our greatest ally in the war against terrorism. You figure, I can't.  

Donald Johnson

Elderly Black Man Paralyzed by Police. ...by RRO

A few years ago, an older man was walking down the sidewalk from his son's house to his grandson's house.  Someone called into the police that a black man was wandering down the sidewalk looking into garages. Further, he had done the same thing the day before.  He was a 57 year old man from India.  He had been in the country for one week.  He knew little English but enjoyed spending time with his grandson.  His real crime, being black.

Elderly black man paralyzed by Alabama Police

Well, the police shows up and asks him what he is doing walking down the sidewalk.  He tries to point to his house and tell them he is from India and doesn't speak English.  As he tries to point toward his son's house, where he lives, they tell him in a language he doesn't understand not to walk off again.  Shortly after that, he tries again to point at his house and of course walks toward it pointing.  The policeman, Eric Parker, body slams him to the ground.  He then tells him to stand up, but being paralyzed of course, the Indian man can't stand up.

Eric Parker, the policeman, was fired.  He was charged with assault and has gone to court twice to face these charges.  Both time the jury has been hung up, unable to come to a consensus.  His defense, the man from India should know how to speak English if he is going to be in America.

ISIS Is But a Stage by RRO

We somehow want to believe that ISIS can be defeated with physical weapons.  Actually, it can't be defeated by our military or anyone else's military.   ISIS is just a manifestation of something that is much bigger.  They are just the latest reincarnation of the hate we have created in the world.  ISIS is but a stage where this hate is now gathered.  It will reappear on another stage unless we address the core problems facing our existence.

At best, ISIS can be contained like Israel contains the Palestinians.  Israel occupies the West Bank and Gaza and runs it as a military state.  We did this same thing in Iraq, we occupied the country and ran it as a military state.  It took a hundred thousand troops and half a trillion in loose change each year, but it is doable.  And that is what it will take if we chose the military option ... many decades of war, perhaps until Rome falls.

First, you have to realize that we are not talking about two separate things, the Palestinians and ISIS, not to ISIS followers.  In their mind the injustices against the Palestinians, and they are plentiful, are injustices against all Muslims.  And, who are we to say they are wrong, besides it really doesn't matter what we think.  

And when we attack Pakistan, Yemen and a dozen other countries with drones across the world, do you think ISIS might consider their people are being attacked.  When they sign up new recruits I am sure they praise America for keeping peace with the drones.  Sure.

Until we are smart enough to realize that all of our actions have consequences, that all of our actions are part of the whole, we can not begin to successfully fight the ideological war in which we are now engaged.  For instance, if we can not find a way to find a way to keep the promise we made to the Palestinians in 1947 and quit coming up with excuses because we don't want to strong arm Israel, we can't begin to stop the tide of hate building up against us. 

And don't get confused, they do not hate us for doing good things in their country or for living by American values.  All the things they really hate us for involves our military, either by us directly, or by our proxy (Israel, Saudi's, NATO, etc.)  On just religious principles, they couldn't get sufficient traction against us. 

Of the two billion Muslims in the world, about 200  million of them probably are not our friends based on the way we have treated people in the Middle East as noted above.  In short, there is an infinite supply of people that hate us for good cause. 

So one option is to spend our way into poverty bombing all the people that hate us, or the second option is to change our actions that produces the most hate.  Our (U.S., Israel, NATO) military-industrial-complex (MIC) is responsible for most of the hate for America around the world.  We use our  MIC to secure oil rights in the Middle East and pretend because we need the oil it makes what we do okay.  Actions that are motivated by greed are never, never, ever okay. When we chose our friends by how much oil they have in the ground, we can not expect it to turn out well.

Even when our politicians mouth off about Muslims should not be allowed to be President, even when we call Obama a Muslim like it is a dirty word, even when we reject Syrian refugees, etc. we are rightly creating hate against America.  

Now that we have created an ungodly mess in the Middle East with our MIC, what now?  Step one, we need to realize that we can't defeat hate, especially hate that is justified, with bombs.  We have to re-evaluate the impact that our MIC has had on not only the well-being of the Middle East, but our well-being.  If we don't, we will not only be bombing our enemies to hell, but ourselves with them.

Dear Mr. President, Are you Kidding Me. by DRJ

Patrick Cockbum. ISIS Bombers Will Always Get Through

Dear Mr. President,

With all due respect Mr. President, are you kidding me? You say that "Tens of thousands have been killed by the dictatorial regime of Bashar al-Assad, millions have fled for their lives, and terrorist groups like ISIL are exacerbating the strife."  Does that mean I am to believe all those opposition forces sent into Syria by Saudi Arabia and Turkey to kill the kafirs, i.e. the Alawites, Armenians, Assyrians, Druze, Kurds, Yazidi, Arab Christians, Shiites and secular Sunni Muslims are altogether blameless for the Syrian tragedy? You even seem to want to give ISIL a pass for merely exacerbating the strife which you apparently believe Bashar al-Assad is solely responsible for. I know you are not a foolish person Mr. President, so I can only conclude you must be kidding me.

 

You say, "America’s objectives in Syria are clear:  we will continue to go after terrorist groups that threaten the United States and our allies and partners, we will work to relieve the humanitarian suffering, and we will support a political transition away from the Asad regime." But I say, and I believe the preponderance of the available evidence supports me, is that the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria is no more a threat to the United States than the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq or the Muammar Kaddafi regime in Libya were a threat to the United States. You know, I know, in fact everyone, with the possible exception of Dick Cheney and John McCain, knows that those two examples of what you call 'political transitions' but I call 'regime changes' did precious little to advance American interests in this world. 

 

You say we will continue to go after the terrorist groups in Syria. I assume by 'terrorist groups' you mean ISIL, al- Qaeda and  affiliated groups like Jabhat al-Nusra.That's good. I agree with you. We should do that. I also agree with what you said about not committing large numbers of American ground troops to take part in the Syrian civil war. So why then are you intent on removing Bashar al-Assad from power when his Syrian army with support from Iran and Hezbollah is the only effective on the ground fighting force opposing ISIL, al-Qaeda and the many other jihadist groups in Syria? No, I haven't forgotten about the CIA backed so called 'moderate' rebel forces who are also on the ground and supposedly committed to opposing ISIL at the same time they are opposing the Syrian army. The problem with them, aside from the fact they have been relatively ineffective as a fighting force, is that just like the CIA backed mujahedeen in Afghanistan way back when, it is a fiction to call them 'moderate' if by that term you mean they are secularists whose objective is to replace the Assad regime with a democratic government dedicated to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness by all the people of Syria. The truth is this current brand of CIA backed jihadists you call 'moderates' are no different than the former brand of CIA mujahedeen in Afghanistan who morphed into what we now call al-Qaeda and ISIL. These 'moderates' may be taking their direction and getting their pay from the CIA today, but you can be certain that when the time is right they will revert to form and join with their band of blood brothers in ISIL and al-Qaeda to join in the attack on the kafiri infidels, which includes you and me just as much as it includes Bashar al-Assad.

 

Again, with all due respect Mr. President I feel you are being somewhat disingenuous in the second paragraph of your reply by pointing the finger at Bashar al-Assad alone for the deaths of all the Syrians killed in their civil war without even mentioning the fact that the Syrian army isn't the only armed force in the country. I'm sure you are aware of what has recently taken place in Palmyra, and I don't think you can blame Assad for those atrocities. Isn't casting the blame entirely on Bashar al-Assad for the civilian deaths in Syria akin to saying President Abraham Lincoln was solely responsible for the estimated 200,000 civilians killed during the American Civil War? With that said I won't comment any further on the second paragraph of your reply except to say I commend you for your concern over the plight of the Syrian refugees. Lets all hope that the aid and assistance you speak of actually reaches the Syrian people.

 

In your third paragraph you say finding an end to the war in Syria is not possible as long as Assad remains in power, but you don't explain why you believe that. Certainly you must understand that if the war ends because the jihadist forces are successful in deposing Assad, Syria is sure to wind up as another Libyan style disaster. No Mr. President, I'm afraid you are mistaken on this one too. The war can be ended while Bashar al-Assad is still in power and without turning the country into another failed Middle East state. How? First of all, by doing exactly as you have suggested. Pressing (I would prefer you say 'negotiating with') Iran and Russia to effect an immediate cessation of all offensive military action by the Syrian Army and its supporters, and at the same time negotiating with (or 'pressing', if you like) Saudi Arabia, the other GCC countries, and Turkey to end all aid and assistance to ISIL, al-Qaeda and other Jihadist rebel forces in Syria. At the same time, working in conjunction with Iran and Russia, The United States must do everything it can to convince the Saudis, the Turks and our own CIA that they have no other viable option than to order their proxies to also cease all offensive military action. Any group that dares to ignore the order to lay down their arms, be it either the Syrian army or Hezbollah, the 'moderate' opposition or the 'extremist' jihadists must understand that that they will be completely annihilated for their transgression by a combined U.S., Western European, Russian and Iranian military force operating with UN Security Council authorization. Once a cease fire is firmly in place under these conditions, the Syrian people, and only the Syrian people, should be allowed to freely decide their own future, including how and by whom they are to be governed.

 

I know what I am suggesting is overly simplistic, but there should be enough there in principle to get started on finding a way out of the morass that is Syria today.

 

I want to thank you for replying to my e-mail, and I also want to wish you every possible success during the time remaining in your second term. I believe you and Secretary Kerry did a fantastic job in negotiating the Iran nuclear deal, and I hope you can build on that success by employing a similar diplomatic solution to end the disastrous war in Syria.

 

Sincerely,

Donald Johnson

#PrayforParis

Well, the world is not okay tonight.  The country that gave us the Statue of Liberty is under attack from terrorists.  Like the children in the gangs in Chicago, LA, Atlanta, and every big city in America.  More will die in the U.S. this weekend than will die in Paris.  

Paris will probably be a call to action for the West to attack ISIS with more vigor.  Bigger bombs, it is what we understand.  

There will be no call to action to change what happens on American streets.  There is no big bomb, there is no one we can deliberately hurt to change things.  The children dying in the gangs are black and hispanic mostly, their moms single, their dads uneducated.  We will give no bomb of help to their moms to keep these children in school, or even fed them.    The next generation will be the same as the last, our lack of commitment guarantees it.  And some day, the child can grow up hoping to join ISIS and we won't understand.

It Doesn't Really Matter which Establishment Candidate Wins, We Lose

There is a lot of talk about who is going to win the primaries on the Republican side to run against Hillary.

First, it will be an establishment candidate for the Republicans.  It will not be Trump, Carson or Fiorina.  The establishment will at some point crush these three outsiders and elect one of their own, Rubio or Bush most likely.  It really doesn't matter what you want or what we want.   There are billions of dollars that can be mobilized when it is time that will unite behind one of their own and they will simply roll over the outsiders.  

Of course, there are the friendly outsiders, like Bernie on the democratic side and Rand Paul on the Republican side.  Both are outsiders but are not considered serious threats.  Bernie has already pledged to support Hillary if he loses giving up any negotiating power he might have in moving the democrat party toward a more progressive agenda. He is simply warming up the electorate mare for the Hilliary stallion. 

Rand Paul, the only real fiscal conservative that believes you should pay for what you spend does not have enough Americans behind him who are committed to sound fiscal policy.  On both sides of the aisle, we want to spend more than we can afford and we have swallowed the military-industrial-complex lie that spending more money for military than the next 10 countries combined for defense is not enough to keep us strong.  Obviously because we are too stupid to spend the money well or efficiently?  And yes, the majority of democrats believe this lie too.  

The New President

The new President, whoever he or she is, will be part of the corporate oligarchy that controls this country.  No one has ever been more a part of the corporate machine than Hillary and the Clintons.  She has shackles around every inch of her body that is anchored in corporate America.  And, you have to believe that Rubio who struggles with his personal finances will never have to worry again when he is adopted by the establishment.  

Under this new President a few things can be counted on to happen including:

• The Military Industrial Complex will expand,
• Corporate Taxes will decline (a good thing),
• Obamacare will morph into something else for the Healthcare Insurance Industry
• The minimum wage will be increased moderately (a token contribution to the working people).
• Illegal Immigrants will be punished somehow (fines perhaps) and be granted a path to citizenship.
• We will continue to fight profitable wars in the Middle East.
• Unions will continue to lose power
• Banks too big to fail will get bigger and hold us hostage.
• The Present will gain power, the Congress will lose power.
• The progressive social agenda will move forward
• Irresponsible spending by the Feds of more than we have will continue, burying our kids in debt.
• Literacy rates in America will decline.
• The labor participation rate will drop below 60% and continue to decline.
• Automation will accelerate reducing the number of jobs for all, 
• Homelessness will increase.
• Poverty rates will increase
• Dropout rates in high school will increase
• The number of mentally ill in jail will increase.
• The number of illegal immigrants will decline (as joblessness in America increases)
• Our traditional infrastructure will not get rebuilt
• Our digital infrastructure will not expand to the poor.

What will not happen:

• A great wall across the Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California border to Mexico will not be built at the cost of billions of dollars to build, man and maintain.
• Israel and the U.S. will not let the Palestinians have their own country or self-determination
• We will not lower the interest rates on the profitable loans to indebted college students, future or past.
• We will not equally fund education for poor black or hispanic kids.
• We will not provide affordable college education to our children.
• We will provide Universal Health care for our people like most modern countries 
• We will not end for-profit prisons in America.
• We will not provide help to drug addicts
• We will not end the war on drugs
• We will not start the war on poverty
• We will not address the challenge of the homeless or the mentally ill people in this country.

How do I know all these things for a fact?   It is elementary, Watson.  What is best for corporate America?  What is good for the Oligarchy?  What increases corporate profits?  Answer that question on each issue and that is how it will go whether a Republican or Democrat is in Presidency.  The difference that occur are really very minor, nothing will change on the major issues, see above.

There is no universal vision for our future.  There are very few that can image how our society has to evolve to prosper in a world where birth rates our declining, automation is exploding, labor is no longer valuable, and values are essential for future prosperity.  In short, we are screwed.

Republicans, its not complicated why the rich get richer.

In the  previous Republican debate last night there seemed to be a lot of confusion about wealth inequality.  Why it occurs and how to fix it.  And it is so very simple ... 

Ordinary people get their income from wages.  Income tax is progressive and takes away more money has one moves from poverty to middle class.  It is like a rubber band, the further you get away from poverty, the income taxes pull you down harder.  Top rate is 39.6 %. 

Rich people get their income from capital gains ... increases on the value of their stocks and investments.  Capital gain taxes are less progressive.  Top rate is 20%.  The rubber band is looser.  And here is the real kicker.  It is only charged when you sell the stock or asset.  So, if you sit on an investment for 20 years it accumulates tax free all those years ... with the power of compound interest.  Rich people like Buffett buys and holds a stock forever.  If he needs some money, he simply uses the stock as collateral, and buys some more stock/assets.  And in his case, he usually picks winners and companies that turn out good cash flows.  The cash can pay back the loans, keeping the original stock earning cash tax free. Its a money machine untouched by our tax system.

For example, the average return on the stock market is 7%. One billion dollars invested at this rate doubles in ten years. The rich now control 10, perhaps 20 trillon dollars, that is doubling mostly without taxation every 10 years. Unless they have invested in a dog, in which case they sell their stock paying little to no taxes since there was little gain, and buy a new stock and restart the wealth accumulation without taxes.  For the rich, there is little need or motivation to sell their stocks/assets.   

Of course, Buffet will die one day and his heirs will pay an inheritance tax, or death tax. This tax tends to be higher when Democrats are in power and lower when Republicans are in power. Currently,  the rate is 40%.  I'm guessing Buffet et al, have trusts set up to avoid these taxes, or has all his assets held offshore.  I'm getting my lawyers on this to understand how it works. Wait, I don't have enough left on my credit card to pursue this now.

Automation is compounding the impact of how capital gains taxes are making the rich, richer.  As machines take over jobs less people have good jobs or any income at all.  Automation makes companies more profitable,  their stock prices rises faster, capital gains rise faster. The gap between rich and poor opens at an ever accelerating rate.  The only bug in this equation is that as we destroy workers we are also destroying customers. Soon we have rich people living in a sea of impoverished slaves. It's simple mathematics.  Of course, one day the pions should revolt, but we are a decade or so away from a true bloody revolution.

Of course,  anyone in Congress for more than a few terms is rich via book or speaking deals, etc.  Obama has got two libraries at a half billion each in the planning and as already started planning his $150,000 per speech speaking tour.  And yes, the Clintons did it, too. The Saudi's helped the Bushes out.  In short, they are part of the system.

So, what are the odds of getting a more progressive capital gains tax?  Perhaps some will listen to a voice from the past? During Reagan's term, the top income tax rate and the top capital gain tax was the same 29%.  While this does not remove the impact of compounding without taxation, it is at least a move in the direction of restoring equality.

Of course the other half of the equation is what politicians do with the taxes collected from capital gains.  If the funds are not used to invest in America's future in digital and physical infrastructure,  in education and development of the impoverished and the outdated, in the development of our weakest and brightest, then fixing the tax code will be an exercise in futility. Finally, we must use funds to retire our 20 trillion in debt which will become unmanageable as interest rates rise starting now.

So, if we do nothing with capital gains taxes, the rich will get richer, the poor will get poorer.  It is just mathematics.