While we might have been away

[lapauvre]

sez the pink slip....

While we may have been being distracted by such things as prisoner abuse, American young people who no longer exist being brought home in silence to grieving friends and relatives, by Oprah, by American Idol, by Koby Bryant, by Martha Stewart, by Rumsfeld's absolutely magnificent use of his hands as he uses words like "untidy," by the Catholic priest pedophiles, by the homosexuals right to marry, by Janet Jackson's nipple ring, by the endless and totally blind meanderings of the congress and the senate about how to avoid the only logical and workable medical system in the last industrialized country to discover it (do we need another Columbus?,) by every bit of hype and propaganda and crap needed to fill 24 hour news stations, I just thought I would let you know:

The corporative and high level business darlings, with their lobbyists, have visited our "representatives" once again, to gain access to the trough of taxpayer money. It is interesting how our elected officials can somehow find a way to accommodate them so easily, when it is so hard to figure out how to accommodate the sick in America.

Check it out, fellas. The leeches are sucking, the pigs are snorting at the trough, and our elected representatives are letting them do it. They have managed, once again, to find taxpayer funds to have the wealthy have a healthy gang bang at the taxpayers. Unfortunately, nobody is around with digital cameras to see the taxpayer's humiliation.

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=a5t6tMN9e5Ks&refer=news_index

[lapauvre]

1. Please pay attention

This may not be a big deal to a lot of you, but it is a big deal to me. When veteran's funding, VA hospital funding, the deficit is rising, our national debt is rising, when they "Washington speak" of Carrier air conditioners {made, I think the guy said on Lou Dobbs, in Mexico} being used in India, and Dell computers being used (made in China if I remember correctly in wherever the outsourced place was, and Nike's (made in yet another country) being worn, and Levi's (also no longer USA made--Levi would puke) I think this is important.

This is a crock. I do not understand economics that well, but I believe some people on here do. If I am correct, in my simple minded understanding, then the stock owners of corporations are making big bucks while American products, made elsewhere, are costing American jobs.

I have a list of absolutely disgusting entities which I will submit at a later time.

Please pay attention. While you are being presented, over and over and over, the horror and outrage on the 24/7 news lines, there are things going on, bills being passed, corporate welfare being delivered out of taxpayer money. I am too poor to pay taxes now, but I once proudly paid taxes, proudly, for the betterment of my fellow man. I didn't know then, about corporate welfare.

This is a prime example.

I am almost seventy. I have nothing to do but pay attention to these little blurbs about current events, and I have an incredible memory. I often wish I could slip comfortably into catatonia, so I could STOP understanding, stop thinking, stop evaluating, stop remembering. I have not been given that comfort.

On this, what I consider to be, the most enlightened of informational sites, there must be economists. I would appreciate the justification for this hog wallowing, glupping, sanctioned by our elected "representative" republic.

[Taverner]

2. No I agree...this is something

But what's sad is how numb we've all become...amidst all the travesties of Bushco and the other corporatists...we're used to seeing this.

[Mel]

3. your not alone

I'm in my late 30's and I'll be honest with you I'm scared of getting old because from what I'm seeing happening in the House and the Senate I'm screwed, we are all screwed. I'll probably be living in a cardboard box I don't see myself ever owning a home.

The latest crap today in the House was the so called health saving accounts. What a crock like a poor person can afford to put money away. If they could they would have insurance it's just another way for the rich to slurp at the trough on the working peoples back.

What is hard work worth? I haven't seen a damn thing from hard work starting off in the Raygun years and then topped off by Bush 1 and still couldn't claw my way out during Clinton but I felt like I was almost there starting to see some light then bam * the worst! Some days I have no hope this week has been one of those weeks. Don't mean to bum you out but I sure do know what your talking about I see the pukes on the House of Reps. floor and they are doing this country in it's disgraceful they don't give a damn they are in power and they are going for it! I watch them sneer and accuse Democrats of being hyporcrites. They think us younger folks don't pay attention they are so wrong! I watched them hold that floor open for 3 hours and 15 minutes when they passed that piece of crap bill for prescription drugs......have I mentioned how much I hate these people? (Mike Malloy) :) I miss his rants! and I could go on with mine.

[lapauvre]

4. Thank you for reading.

I know there are many distractions, but this is important. It really is. Those who are non constituents cannot write directly, by email to our senators and representatives. I beg you to write to them. I beg you to write letters to the newspapers. I beg you, please, not to become enthralled by what the media, almost entirely owned by the right wing, chooses to cram down your throats. The ersatz republicans who control the congress have so voted.

Find what every one of your Federal Representatives and Senators have done to give preference to big business over American lives, jobs, health with our tax money, and bitch them to death.

A young democrat recently asked me, what IS the difference between the republican philosophy and the democratic philosophy? My response was this: The current ersatz (and they are really not republicans, but those who control the party and keep them in power) republican party has interests in property and profit. Democrats give preferences to people, human life, our environment, the future of our children, the health of individual humans, the freedom of individuals to speak without fear of insult and degradation.

In this State, even the democrats do not dare to put "democrat" on their election signs.

The right keep and enhance their power by a religious Jihad that makes the Muslims look like pikers. A judeo/Christian jihad. In my opinion, however horrible it may sound, the twin towers would still be standing if the United States had ever given support to the Palestinians, or even signed a UN sanction on Israel. Israel, a nation, is not a religion. It is a nation. The nation of Israel cannot be the tail that wags this two thousand pound gorilla that is America.

Never again and never forget for the Jews. But never again and never forget for all others. The nation of Israel should not and does not anymore play on my grief at Buchenwald, Treblinka, Auschwitz, Bergen Bel sen, or any of the others. At the age of ten, I saw the pictures and was traumatized enough to need a month off from school. I was throwing up constantly. I didn't know that human beings were capable of such acts.

I didn't know MY country was capable of Hiroshima. I saw those picture as well.

Democrats, those who haven't sold their souls to remain in power, value the individual right to live, environmental survival, the well being of this planet and everything that keeps human beings alive.

I am not an extreme leftist, and I think a lot of people need to get off their donkeys and register and vote, and those who don't should stop whining.

If you don't vote, don't whine.

My very best friend, a devoted democrat, just walked out the door when I wanted to discuss the Black voter block issue. My very best friend and neighbor is a black man. WE are both approaching seventy years old. He happens to be the most intelligent, thoughtful, open to discussion, informed, thoughtful, and not hesitant to respectfully disagree with me person I respect. So he is valuable to me. I am valuable to him. We live in South Carolina. It ain't easy being a democrat in South Carolina.

But I have, for purposes of this post, a problem with Black non-voters. I have a problem with those who call for reparations. I have a problem with them using their block voting, or what they think is their block voting as far as the democratic party is concerned. I have the same problem as I do with the American Jewish community. I have no problem with American Jews. I have a tremendous problem with Israeli political and military actions. I do hope some of you can differentiate.

If you can't, then you can't differentiate between Islamic fundamentalist suicide bombers, and those who chose and practice the Islamic faith. If you can't, then you can't differentiate the difference between what is the republican party and what is the right wing controlled republican party. If you can't, you can't differentiate between ersatz Christians, those who follow the Prince of Peace. Martin Luther King, Ghandi, Mother Theresa...If you see Jesus Christ with a sword in his hand, an advertisement for a war-god, then, may your world come soon. If you can't differentiate, then I hope the messianic Jews may get there, the suicide bombers may get there, and, gee, I hope those saved Christians may be raptured up and let this world, this hell, be a more peaceful place.

Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, thank you (or no thank you) for the series you have written. You have turned Christ's defenders and Christian seekers of sanctuary into those who would look for little movable plastic figures at any Christian meet. In the current world, two thousand years plus after the death of our Saviour's, I no longer care to call myself Christian. In my heart, I am Christian, but never, never would I join the lot of you opportunists.