Try This

To the honorables Senator Diane Feinstein, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, Senator Patrick Leahy, Congressman Charles Schumer, and President Trump

 I am writing you the leadership of the Democratic wing of the United States of America to urge you to come together on behalf of the American People to get something done ASAP with the Republican wing of the United States of America to find the common ground that binds us all together and can give us, we the people, a future.

  I urge you to forge a deal with President Trump.  

  I did not vote for President Trump but I very well may the next go round. Please wake up, and put aside all the emotional manipulation and cries of racism and fight four square for the American People (people of all colors). Zero tolerance is a policy that should have been enforced years ago. Your constituency those who you have sworn to to your best and to serve are American citizens. There is a power and responsibility in a Democracy. Those who vote and those who serve for those who vote. We are all connected and the people we serve are the existing community. That does not mean we do not care about those who would wish to join us in our community, that does not mean that we drop our sense of caring and our responsibility to all the people of the world. We are a global community. It does leave you all duty bound to serve the best interests of the American people, by best serving the interests of the American People we will help bring justice for the rest of the world.

   This letter is directed to 5 people who have witnessed many changes, you all have reached a point of longevity that brings a perspective and experience of American history that a person of barely 30 years old cannot comprehend. We are moving into crisis stage on many different levels on the planet, but these issues that demand our attention and challenge our business as usual daily grind need fresh eyes and an imaginative and creative response. 

   South of the border we have some 300 (?) million people who live in countries that have nothing like the security, infrastructure, educational systems, judicial systems the entire power and goodness of the world's first democratic republic. These people need to know that they can achieve what we have achieved and they can make it their own. 

   Instead of the physical border that President Trump has proposed I urge you to offer some suggestions that can eliminate the need for a wall. 

  

    1.) Accept President Trump's policy of zero tolerance. 

     2.) Join President Trump for an economic summit in Central America where you and the leaders

  of these countries will meet and could create a joint agreement. The agreement is that these countries will embrace the American Bill of Rights as their own. That these countries have the right to build economic independence and interdependence with it's neighbors. That all it's citizens have freedom from violence and the fear of violence. That good schools are available for all it's children. That 20 (50?) new Universities and Colleges will be built that 40 (200) new hospitals will be built. 

     3.) To restore the fabric of life of a healthy and just community. Is not going to be created overnight. The people of these countries need to be shown that real and viable steps are being

taken. Police forces need to be trained well and paid well. Teachers need to be paid well. A renewed culture of respect, kindness and generosity needs to replace a corrupt, cynical and violent one. A ban on violent movies that currently routinely get exposed to all children. 

     4.) A population goal of steady state will create opportunities for the young. An economic bill of rights that each country holds to restrain the looting of resources by foreign interests. Only citizens of each country can own a business in a given country. Cap foreign investment at 40% yet open the door to foreign investment. (figure it out)

      5.) Expand National Parks and foster an Environmental Consciousness and pride among the youth and the people.

      6.) Institute a weapons buy back plan that could be promoted as twice (3 or 4x ?) a year … Help people who have chosen a criminal path get back into being good citizens. Reward people for their loyalty to their people, their community, their country.

      7.) Stand with President Trump and make clear your American solidarity, with respect for our own laws of immigration. let the people of Mexico and Central America that we stand with them in their fight for rights and genuine improvement of their society and community.

      8.) Be willing to spend money on resources and electronic sensors etc at the border to create security and to discourage illegal entry. 

      9.) Guarantee the dreamers dual citizenship. Build bridges (figuratively) across the borders. 

      10.) Stand with President Trump. Zero Tolerance…. and show that we the people of America demand something new from all the people and countries of the world including ourselves.

    

Solidarity

    There are many lessons to be learned in life for all of us. One of the more difficult lessons is to discover the nature of our own paradigm. 

    Here in the Bay Area if one was to hear the word 'solidarity' spoken it might be heard as a call towards an idea of progress. This might harken to a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood with all humanity and a notion of a political ideal still to be achieved. When that call for 'solidarity' is proclaimed we all would serve our own good and the good of future generations to question exactly

what the parameters of this word aim to achieve. In other words what are you being asked to believe in to achieve this unity.

    All are welcome. Does this clearly generous and open invitation ever have an application that is

 not beneficial for a community? Is a person who rebels against another's certain sense of 

'solidarity' morally wrong? How do you teach the younger generation? Is embracing Solidarity

 similar to embracing conformity. Does 'All are welcome'  answer the world's problems ? 

 Does it succeed in shaming another's lack of empathy? What are the demands of the Planet? 

 How do we transition through towards a healthy and sustainable world?

 Is there room for dialogue that questions 'solidarity'?.

    We might remember what JFK said:

 " And so my fellow Americans: ask not what America will do for you -- ask what you can do for your country. "

  My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man."

  

Find the Common Ground

 The crimes (I say crimes in deference to the investigation and any and all transgressions that any one mighty point at rightly or wrongly of his lifetime)  of President Trump are dwarfed by the crimes of the ship that we all are a part of …. and the state of crisis our nation is in leaves me with only one overriding desire. PLease sit together and solve the problems of the moment. 

  The crisis at the border effects every American. We cannot take care of our own. Find the common path for the American good. Give Americans a chance. Come together sit down and address the problems with courageous power to be honest and vulnerable to forge something on behalf of the American People that protects them and the fragile strength, wealth and integrity that we have created. 

   The lesson is we need to share our good fortune with the world. The power of wealth comes from

different sources but the power that makes America the magnet for the world's people comes from our being a fair people of self rule and people who creates a harmonious place to live through our adherence to the laws we create for ourselves through our elected representatives.

   The previous paragraph has one serious untruth, we are not creating a harmonious place, we are strongly headed in the wrong direction. This wrong direction can be corrected if we have the courage to face it. The answers are not necessarily very easy, but one of the biggest is our state of overpopulation. It is a disaster. The developers have had the upper hand in California for a hundred years that has to end. The idiots of both parties who play this game of rewarding big wealth accumulation need to  Wake Up….. to be continued.  

   Will try to get this in letter form sent somewhere.

JFK's words... Finding Home.

  Where is home? Does anyone else feel that way in the USA? Am I the only one who feels

 sickened by what America has become? Probably not.

  Though don't start the 'blow up the white house' with me. I will get to Trump in this letter but maybe at the end. 

   I was born in 1951 some 67 years ago. I still have most of my cognitive facilities intact. Enough to have a perspective that a person born in the 1970's can't share. This is true of course of generation after generation. This by no means suggests or guarantees that people of my generation will agree with me but whether we agree with our opinions of the flow of history we indeed at least did share it.

   By the time I was starting to grasp the world of adults this is what I was seeing… a beautiful country (ours) rich with opportunities, from my Dads meager salary as a Unitarian Minister we found a way to live in houses that gave room for a family of 5 kids and parents. A home with a yard. That was going to be yours if you applied yourself. I grasped the world of conflict ….. Communism the threat vs Democracy a cloud of fear hung over us as we experienced The missile crisis of 1962, children had nightmares, adults had nightmares… The anti -Nuclear movement beginning.. The magic of JFK, never had a President seemed to embody such a completely positive direction for America… meanwhile the police dogs chasing Negroes in the South, riots in the North in my hometown.. the realization of how far we needed to go for justice at home… the assassinations and the steady growth of the Vietnam War..

     I think of JFK frequently and think of what we need to be reminded of.

     'Genuine  peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation. For Peace is a process, a way of solving problems ….

      'Let us examine our attitude towards Peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that War is inevitable --that mankind is doomed -- that we are gripped by forces we cannot control.

       'We need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade---therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man's reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable --and we believe they can do it again….  (reason and spirit)

      So let us not be blind to our differences -- but let us direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can make the world safe for diversity. For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal."

    From a commencement address @ Georgetown University June 1963

     In the 1960's I realized that America's population had grown from my sixth grade days when our 'weekly reader' informed us that we were a nation of 160 MIllion and by the time the decade ended we were approaching 180 million population. Back in the weekly reader days we read of China and their 400 Million people and,  Ooooohhh! That's a lot of people some of us thought…. woooh aren't we lucky to be such a smart people to only have the 160 million… Times change. By the 1970's and I am experiencing a bit of college and I read and we all read… and a world doubling it's population… and maybe doubling it again. Oh my but someone will speak out ...  leadership will arrive...

     

History .. the thoughts are broken..

At what level to humans is history important? Does the knowledge of history give us a sense of direction that is of value? In our age of information have we become more ignorant of our history?

It's a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken
Perhaps they're better left unsung
I don't know, don't really care
Let there be songs to fill the air

Ripple in still water
When there is no pebble tossed
Nor wind to blow

In Robert Hunter's lyrics to 'Ripple' the classic song by the Grateful Dead .. written about 1970, the band is contemplating their own role in transmitting a knowledge. In this mystical exploration of their expanding role as emissaries to this consciousness that was breaking down walls and firing up the imagination of a new generation. If life is a oneness, if Life is a Unified field, if all of us ride on this River, if power is in knowing complete vulnerability.... as I try to gather the words that if I poured into some container, some flask, the alembic …..then. Then what ….? We partake this knowledge and like some great solvent it cannot but spread itself out in a uniform manner throughout the great biological field of Life on Earth.

 I get hung up on history and I revel in it. My love of a million ancestors (yours and mine) and all their work and struggle and the passing on. In Washington DC, there is a beautiful building adjacent to the Supreme
Court building and more or less across from the Federal Capitol .. … It is the Library of Congress and in it there is every book that has ever been published in the USA (rumor has it) … It's faux marble interior, beautifully designed with artwork, as you look up to the ceiling, set in panels, some American Artist has depicted the whole story of  'passing the message'. Handing the baton from the older generation to the newest, what is there to venerate? What is the aspiration of the founding fathers? these sons of immigrants from England what was the nature of the Lightning in the Bottle that they brought into being. Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. How radical, how powerful, how to this day this notion reverberates in so many across the globe. Passing the baton, the hand-me-down, Hunter sings .. 'Let their be songs to fill the air'... He doesn't say let their be books to fill the air. Let their be histories to fill the air. He is speaking to the role of the bard and singer, the soul communicator.

There is a road, no simple highway
Between the dawn and the dark of night
And if you go no one may follow
That path is for your steps alone

Ripple in still water
When there is no pebble tossed
Nor wind to blow

Am I hung up on illusion as the newspapers go through the daily work of telling us what is going down. All this happened today.. I mean yesterday.. last week.. a million keys are being pounded on keyboards around the globe and then a million more to interpret and we all should have some sense, you would think by now that it is all pretty clear cut.

  I read myself to bed, I stumble on new revelations of the human experience, and somehow I can't stop and it seems fresh and I believe that it is all about, the spiritual quest. I read now the first book of the 6 volumes called the Tales of Genji written by Lady Murasaki, back in 1000 AD ... some say the first novel, but what about the Library of Alexandria … https://www.britannica.com/topic/Library-of-Alexandria....
 
   Meanwhile here in 2018 does any young person know about JFK. The answer is yes, but a resounding yes? Not quite. Martin Luther King stands stronger in our history but has his deep Christian ethic lost its way... or at least it's voice.

GWB

American History .. Re George W Bush Senior... from Mark Lane's 'Plausible Denial' published 1991....

" Perhaps the cynical assessment that Kennedy's death may have benefitted our nation arises out of our distance from the events of 1963. The case is twenty-eight years old. {Now 55 years}

That same distance, however can be argued now more than ever is the time to let the truth be known. It is emerging slowly anyway, in fits and starts. Dulles and Phillips are dead. Helms and Hunt have been disgraced in legal proceedings. Haven't all the important players in the Kennedy drama retired or passed away?

They have not. George Walker Bush, the former director of the CIA and now President of the US is still on the scene. Ongoing revelations about his apparent role in the Reagan team's October Surprise and Iran Contra Scandals make his little known activities on behalf of the CIA in the early 60's more worthy of note. ......

JFK June 11, 1963 re: Race

 We face therefore, a moral crisis as  a country and as a people. It cannot be met by repressive police action. It cannot be left to increased demonstrations in the streets. It cannot be quieted by token moves or talk. It is time to act in Congress, in your state and local legislative bodies and above all in our daily lives.

It is not enough to pin the blame on others, to say this is a regional problem of one section of the country or another, or deplore the facts we face. A great change is at hand, and our task, our obligation, is to make the revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all.

 Those who do nothing are inviting shame as well as violence. Those who act boldly are recognizing right as well as reality.

 Next week I shall ask the Congress of the United States to act, to make a commitment it has not fully made in this century to the proposition that race has no place in American life or law. The federal judiciary has upheld that proposition in  series of forthright cases. The executive branch has adopted that proposition in the conduct of its affairs, including the employment of federal personnel, the use of federal facilities, and the sale of federally financed housing.

 ......

This is one country. It has become one country because all the people who came here had an equal chance to develop their talents.

....

 As I have said before, not every child has an equal talent or an equal ability or an equal motivation, but they should have the equal right to develop their talent and their ability and their motivation, to make something of themselves.

 We have a right to hold that the Negro community will be responsible and will uphold the law: but they have a right to expect that the law will be color blind, as Justice Harlan said at the turn of the century.

 This is what we are talking about. This is a matter which concerns this country and what it stands for, and in meeting it I ask the support of all our citizens.

June 11, 1963 from a televised address to the Nation.

Moses' Rock... (If I thought it would do any good)

  This little experiment in Democracy. What causes me to be so sentimental as to now seek out Red, White and Blue Tie Dye shirts? Why do I feel the Progressive Left is as lost as the Conservative Right? The tug of war between left and right is keeping us all from finding our true power and peace as a country, it blinds us to our loss of freedoms.

  Let me try to explain.

  Any place you start, anywhere a dart tossed while blindfolded at the map of issues has a landing that deserves a deep discussion. From where we are to where we might be should be an all inclusive, fear excluded zone of discussion.

 Are there any fundamentals that we can at least begin to tune ourselves to the same tone? Are there any issues that we can all agree transcend our perceived polarized talking points?

 Number one I am starting with is it not only is it OK to give a damn, It is imperative

to give a damn. A cynical disenchantment with all humanity pervades our

existence. Perhaps that cynicism is justified as we see so much of life directed by forces way out of our control. Fundamentally we might ask the big metaphysical question of 'what is ever in our control'  and how much of Life do we simply need to surrender to some greater flow that we are caught up with whether it might be called, Nature, Karma, God or It is What It Is.

  I suggest that is probably a good point for our spiritual and mental health for all of us are part of this finite experience of life from birth to death. From the helpless crying Baby to someone who stands as an adult as best we can, to lend a hand, to make a difference, to try to stand … and to watch it all as we age flow on and to realize it flows on with out us. Whether we stand for anything, whether we are capable of moving this world n any way in the direction that we might yearn, because we beget children, because we have inherited something, because as out of control as it may seem to be we must impart … as our parents and their parents before them and back generations we want to see our children have a good life.

I repeat, We want our children to have a good life. We give a damn because of the Life that we have brought into the Earth and because of our Love for that life.

  Our anger and blame for historic destruction in the past or of the present serves little good if we do not live constructively in the present. If our anger is because of injustice then it behooves us to stand for justice in the present. If we wish to create a Just society it demands that we act justly.

 Number 1)  … you/we/I have no real choice but to give a damn.

 Number 2)   … our actions do matter and do effect the world.

 Number 3)   … The Means of our actions creates the Ends.

 Number 4)   … Life on Earth is part of one Biological Event.

                                We are part of the One.

 Number 5)   … Life is subject to influence. From the tiniest species to

                                Elephants and Whales and to we the Humans.

 Number 6)   … Life is Learning.

 Number 7)   … Material Success can not sustain itself without

                                the Thriving of All Life on Earth.

 

  Number 8)  … We can Generation after Generation

                                  make the world a better place.

  Number 9)  … The Balance of too much Government or too Little is

                                  The fundamental issue of Left and Right.

  Number 10) ….     The People Have the Power (Left and Right)

                                   to find the Center.               

                                

August Magic

 Magic? Hah! Sitting at a picnic table at Toby's Feed Barn in Point Reyes California, a nice overcast low clouds that the sun has't quite burned off yet. The sounds of happy tourists, and some locals chatting, the breeze rattling the metal clips attached to a American Flag against the pole. clink clang, clink clang over the adjacent Post Office...

 The cup of coffee almost finished and now the retreat to the restrooms again..

  "We're all friends here." the friendly woman attempting to get back to work on her lap top says to the yellow jacket. So what is August magic? What is July Magic? September Magic? ....

  So ... back to work. After an awesome conversation on this 6 sided Picnic Table finished up after I asked the young woman who was on my right if she didn't mind keeping an eye on my laptop and shoulder bag... "I don't expect you to tackle anyone" just in case... she smiled and said she was willing to guard my stuff but didn't expect to have to tackle anyone.

  By the time I got back the triangle was filled by the friendly and lovely woman from Pixar. Who is in charge of the Posters and Billboards .... Coco --- Incredibles 2 and the young woman on my right who is an editor for some spiritual progressive publication out of the East Bay and on her way to be a WOOFer (World Organization of Organic Farmers)
for someone in Sebastopol .... not the Crimea. ..and the conversation went in a sweet triangle all about the Unity the absence of enemies the intrinsic Connection of Ecology ad Spirit. Life... OK back to work... Where was I? ah yes ... August Magic.

'Forces of Division' II

I repeat this writing for what purpose it may but just for the central point that I still make,

that this sweet (hAH!) yes sweet .... Ball of Confusion .. Sweet Home PLanet Earth where the skies are so blue ... Sweet Home California ... too ... and don't forget Alabama. 

Peter Baker's story from October 20, 'By Leaving out Trump's Name Message is Sent'  illustrates the dilemma this country is in. Dilemma is putting it lightly.

    How do we as citizens find a way to wrap our minds around these days of maximum discord. It seems the whole nation is facing a dark descent into civil strife.

   Not only do former President's Obama and Bush 'take aim at divisions' but so does the national Press Corp, and certainly the NYTimes talented staff of reporters.

But how good is their aim, how good is your aim? Are our bastions of decency, former Presidents of the Democrats and Republicans standing on ground that allows them to fire their moral directives with a clarity of vision that understands the frustration of the ordinary citizens who held their noses and voted Mr. Trump in?

  The trouble with the viewpoints of Obama, Bush and the National Media is that they are not very 'Liberal', using the word as it implies a free exploration of ideas including ideas that might even seem contrary to one's own. From my perspective 'the Liberal' viewpoint of today so permeated by fear and the hyperbole of hate, it is anything but Liberal, in it's certainty that Evil is confined to the current President and his supporters it is creating a counter wave of ugliness that will not go away.

   What the NYTimes and President Obama and President Bush see is that 'the Powers of Division' all come from 'the other side'

   Let's look at three premises of supporters of President Trump. That all immigrants should obey the laws of the United States including Immigration laws and that those laws should be enforced. That an immigration policy that calls for extended scrutiny of applicants from Islamic Nations to 90 to 120 days, or by reducing refugee totals from 100,000 to 50,000 is not a Ban. Is this a ban, or is it the due diligence of a man elected through as honest a process as we have so far of one man one vote. How can he not do what the people of America deeply need and asked for. Restrain the flow of illegal immigration. 11 Million is insanely way too much. How can the media go on about Lies and not own it's own distortion?

   As a non-car driving, California Tree Hugger who watches the destruction of this Planet on a daily basis  I have come to the conclusion that there will be no future for our children and their children until individuals live lives of personal responsibility.

The policies that we have inherited of centuries of expansion of an Economic engine that thrives on more and more people, now wrapped around notions of compassion is completely doomed. This blind compassion will lead to massive death and destruction down the road. We are in the full blossom stage of the human population bloom without regard to consequences. The knee-jerk, America First, nationalism is at least a modest form of waking up to a nightmarish future that the 'Liberal' state of civilization seems to offer. If those who call themselves Liberals could remember some basics, such as we are all one, then we might stop ripping the supposedly less educated people of America for standing up as best they can in the face of forces that seem out of control.

  Try to take an objective look at this world of information.. I am speaking to all my friends, and everyone who reads this might be in that category, and I am speaking directly to the editors of the NY Times, who every day with their crack reporters attempt to wrestle that steering wheel of .. the control of truth … to work on behalf of restoring civilization into the hands of the likes of George Bush or Barack Obama. I out of my .. reckless is it? noble is it? neither .. simply an attempt to understand the truth have joined sides with the deplorables and those of Brexit and every indigenous voice of aspiration and sovereignty that says let me be me. You want a borderless planet than kiss Democracy good bye. Borders define communities, communities have a right to exist and have a right to and a duty to defend themselves from invasions.

   The Planet is in the midst of an unprecedented transformation, I hold no faith in the 'Liberal'  democratic state nor much in the Trumpian  rebellion but at least there is a rebellion and all I can hope with the Monkey Wrench he represents that President Trump represents an opportunity for America and the world to ask where are we going?

  

    Beyond that it is probably best to resume a sense of being in God's hands and good luck to us all.

    

The loss of impartial News

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Berkeley-braces-for-demonstrations-13133346.php#photo-15970871


The loss of an impartial press is a loss to this Democracy the oldest Republic on the Planet. With the radicalization of press rooms across America all with the design to 'get the President' we are moving into disturbing territory.
 Where racism is screamed at every turn, when it is frequently a case of no I just don't like you or simply no more illegal immigrants ... Please. But no, today people feel obligated to  take the compassionate path of the broad brush of crying Racism.
  The USA has taken on approximately 1.5 million new immigrants a year for the last 20 years. Though apprehensions at the border are down to about 310,000 in 2017 because of the 'Trump Effect'

Who does this enrich?
Where does that leave communities? Who makes our immigration laws? (democratically elected representatives .. Democrats and Republicans maybe an Independent or two) If the economic motivation justifies ignoring our laws isn't that a form of corruption? How long does the 'wink and a nod' by our compassionate Blue State leaders put many poor people in harm's way and a legal nightmare?

 As one demonstrator said yesterday 'Peace and love Promotes Peace and Love'. Let's talk.

Comey refused access to DNC Servers.

http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/313555-comey-fbi-did-request-access-to-hacked-dnc-servers

Intel Hack
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-hacking-intelligence-20170105-story.html

DNC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_National_Committee_email_leak

meanwhile ....

https://www.dw.com/en/why-is-the-arctic-melting-faster-than-the-antarctic/a-38678700

in the Northern Hemisphere.... in the Southern Hemisphere?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/jul/03/transatlantic-flight-paths-of-2-524-planes-on-single-day-video-animation

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2011/05/transpolar-flights-radiation/

Deep State Versus the People

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-summit-pipeline/trump-lashes-germany-over-gas-pipeline-deal-calls-it-russias-captive-idUSKBN1K10VI


Interesting how willing Trump is to mess up everyone's party like a big Elephant walking through... crunch.. clunk... whoops.. Well I never... How undignified!

When you read the back story how Billion dollar deals get made between Germany and Russia for Energy... then you wonder isn't the whole NATO scheme of things pretty much a fraud. On the one hand we ring Russia with Missile sites bringing the Obama Administration into the scheme with it's placements in Poland.

 Oh! We must maintain our strength against our life time adversary...


https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4739418/peter-strzok-defends-actions-bias-played-part-2016-probe


that last minute of Mr. Strzoks testimony  .. 'the victory notch for Putin to tear apart our Nation'

the last minute strikes me that the root of the problem is this fear of losing our adversary... what if we were just in another business deal with another country all this jockeying for wealth and control of the Planet.. are we the 'Good Guy's' with all of our Weapon's aimed against the 'Bad Guy's'...


Is Germany a ‘captive’ of Russia?

 Not really.

NY Times ... Does it depend on your definition of 'captive' or 'not really' ?   > 

Germans view Russia more favorably than Americans do. And United States governments have been complaining about Germany’s dependence on Russian gas for years, even if Mr. Trump has done so more bluntly. But Germany has endorsed tough sanctions on Russia even when they looked likely to hurt German business, and German companies have gone along.

Last year, the German manufacturer Siemens stopped delivery of power plant turbines to a Russian partner when it emerged that it was transporting them into the disputed territory of Crimea.

“Germany refuses to see that large energy projects also have a political dimension,” said Marco Giuli, an analyst at the European Policy Center. “For the German side there is no contradiction, the general take in Germany is that energy policy is a full component of commercial, economic policy and the decision should be entirely left to commercial actors.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/11/world/europe/trump-germany-russia-gas.html

  and Alan Dershowitz giving his take on the Strzok testimony ... courtesy of Fox news... (and you can hate them for featuring an attractive white blonde announcer or just in general for taking such an adversarial tone to American politics however...
  somewhere we need to hear the other side of the story.)

https://youtu.be/frrrXxucxbo

Immigration June 2018

    the New York Times on Trumps Retreat on Child Parent Separation

   From Thursday June 21 2018 articles 

   The President caved to enormous political pressure on Wednesday and signed

an executive order meant to end the separation of families at the border by detaining parents and children together for an indefinite period.

   This policy was a cruel piece of Trump's response to a surge in border crossings.

   Right now it is likely that the administration is scrambling to find facilities where the families could be detained but even that is uncertain as there is

an earlier court ruling dated back to 1997 that prohibits immigration authorities from keeping children in detention, even if they are with their parents for more than 20 days.

  The administration is an untenable situation

   < check out Homeland Security's statistics? Monthly apprehensions at the border>

  

  >

  Judge Dolly Gee of Federal District Court in Los Angeles, the daughter of immigrants from China, will rule on Whether Trump can detain families together after 20 days of time. This ruling is not abundantly clear in the context as reported

as such that the Federal Government will have to release all families perhaps though that seems unlikely..

 'We are keeping a very powerful border, and it continues to be a zero tolerance, we have a zero tolerance for people that enter our country illegally.

  "The border's just as tough, but we do want to keep families together"

  The President furious about the pummeling he has taken in the news media in recent days, began casting about for a solution to the politically damaging situation.

   The country still awaits a comprehensive immigration bill …. but jumping into Guy thought..  What we are awaiting is a comprehensive look at why there are such an abundance of refugees and find a new approach, a comprehensive approach that does deal with this crisis. It's a Global Crisis of poverty of many and great wealth of the few. It's a Global Crisis of corrupt governments. It's an Global Crisis of endemic violence that we as a nation bare responsibility for… Culturally, Militarily and Economically. It's an issue of a Human Population that is overflowing the banks of what might be said is The River of the Community  of Life .. …..

Huxley

'Be your own Huxley!' OK. or just be your own self even..

that being what my 89 year acquaintance told me after declining my invite to sit with me and share his reminiscences of UC Berkeley in 1961 or 1962 on California Times ... the early 60's when Aldous Huxley was visiting 'Professor of Nothing in Particular.'

 as Mark Twain tried to tell us and tell me... that you can blame the tyrants for taking over but if citizens did their job and properly gave tyrants hell or even recognized it's not even about a big mean tyrant but it's all those little ways that your freedoms are chipped away, dissolved away, voted away... and that it certainly seems an impossible job to be that vigilant.. you need a lot of people with you.

 But ultimately it's up to you alone.

Immigration Proposal that didn't happen....

Immigration

The President's (Obama) Proposal

 As many of you know the Congressional Budget Office has to report on every law or proposal to the US budget. I became a subscriber to their reports a few years back thinking I might get a little background information that wasn't so readily available...


 This proposal really chilled me. I have never heard anything more about it... Maybe I don't understand the rationale or the positive intended impact ..


 CBO estimates that by 2026, the immigration proposal would make the total number of people residing in the United States 11 million (or about 3 percent) higher than projected under current law (see Figure 2). That increase in the population would expand the labor  force and employment, boosting output. At first, as employment increased, less capital would be available per worker, and workers’ average output would therefore be lower for a time. In addition, the new workers would be less skilled, on average, than the labor force under current law. Through the end of the 10-year period covered by this analysis, those factors would make average wages lower than they would be under current law— although that reduction does not necessarily imply that average wages would be lower for people who would be residents under current law. CBO has not analyzed the effects of the President’s immigration proposal on the income of those people. Over time, the increases in the labor force and in employment would boost output in another way: They would raise capital 

4. CBO has not estimated the economic effects of all of the President’s proposals. For example, a proposal to give states grants that would expand access to child care for low- and middle-income families could, in principle, lead to increased labor force participation among affected parents. But the Administration has not provided enough detail to allow CBO to estimate the proposal’s effects. In addition, CBO is in the process of estimating the economic effects of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement not yet approved by the Congress, so it has not included those effects in this analysis.

 5. An analysis of that legislation conducted by CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation is summarized in Congressional Budget Office, letter to the Honorable Patrick J. Leahy providing an estimate for S. 744, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act (July 3, 2013), www.cbo.gov/publication/44397. See also Congressional Budget Office, The Economic Impact of S. 744, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act (June 2013), www.cbo.gov/publication/44346. CBO A MACROECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF THE PRESIDENT’S 2017 BUDGET

 JUNE 2016 ....

New From CBO A Macroeconomic Analysis of the President’s 2016 Budget

...ever since...

 Was watching something on the big screen… my landlords big screen in the living room .. his living room. My Cabin is 'up the hill' from the ranch house but I come down to get the running water.. wash my dishes.. Yes running water what a blessing right under your own control.. just turn the knob. I am a huge fan of technology. Some technology that is.

 We humans ... so brilliant!  … or slightly that way. You get one or two bright bulbs and the rest of us just follow up, think we get it, just do our job. Maybe that's an unfair description but I was watching on the big screen this Saturday NIght briefly after washing my dishes… this documentary on Rajneesh…. Bhagwan! I have opinions…  prejudices.

 After two 1 hour episodes I couldn't bear to sit through the exciting conclusion… not that I couldn't handle it, ... the Oregon experiment. As I said to JP … I'm with the locals, the rednecks. Not that I couldn't notice that there was a certain … whoopie!

Joy in Free Love!! All so 60's even though it was the 80's….

 And coincidentally earlier today when I went to CMCM on my day off to try to work on still presenting the essence of Republican vs. Progressive which my two previous shows attempted to deal with…. prior to the Good Humus Farm tour which was quite shocking .. I kept the camera rolling through the mayhem…. though no bloody footage ..the immensity of a little dog getting attacked by rosebushes is horrible enough…. so far after a major announcement to all 590 friends on Facebook …. 4 people according to the counter have clicked on my movie.

  I am very used to this Rodney Dangerfield treatment in this incarnation. After all me and the Rajneesh with his 17 Rolls Royce's have a lot in common. Wait a minute. In common …. ??? ! … thousand of ludicrous acolytes… worshipping his very footsteps.

  Nobody worships my footsteps. Hallelujah there!

  Get to the point of this commentary …. OK.

  The point is this…. ever since Billy Hall ripped the record player's arm off my…. Woodstock the album …. Jimi Hendrix playing the Star Spangled Banner in all his majesty in the Hall family living room …. that I was so thrilled to share with my childhood best friend .. Dicky Hall… probably about the summer of 1971 (me 19 years old )…. maybe even the last time that me and Dicky ever saw each other.. I can't remember.

 Billy Hall.. the Dad of my best friend and Dad of dear friends to this day Cindy and Pammy… said '''get that GaDamn Caterwaulin! out of here" as he strode into the living room where me and Dicky were sitting and if I say ripped the the arm from the record player that would be a terrible exaggeration… yet I swear GaDamn and Caterwaulin' was in the sentence and he was steaming,anger --- hearing one second of Jimi Hendix explore the Star Spangled Banner in 1969, and it was probably 1971 then, and me with my scruffy 'Che Guevara wanna' be' beard and overalls …didn't make him any happier. The fact is that he did not ruin the record.. he could have ripped that needle right across the Warner Brothers grooves…. he had some control. sure Scared me though.. !

  So you got thousands of these happy free love acolytes in Oregon… wondering why the locals are such ' bigots' while dressed in reds and oranges.. Would someone have freaked out if you wore your faded Green T shirt….? People don't know what mind control is unless it is someone else who suffers from it….. All I got to say is Yukk!

 Home rule. Jefferson was our voice. Now the younger generation is dumping the Baby out with the Bath Water… 'Old white men… Horrible throw it all out!'  

 Ever since Billy Hall ripped the arm up and off ..Live from Woodstock 3 lp set … the Star Spangled Banner.. Jimi Hendrix. I knew that Billy Hall was speaking from his heart. I recognized that the older 'infrastructure' of the USA had it's place and had earned it's place.. like WW2 and the Korean War… who risked their lives for this country.. who gave their lives for this country? .. whether the Wars were necessary or not.

 .. ever since..

 I think about invading peoples and cultures. I think about HomeRule. … and I really don't want anyone to be any thing less than themselves and I do believe that the unfinished business of the 60's ... is the business of the 21st century.

A passage from Jack Kerouac on Mother's Day...

Speak for yourself John Alden...

to my Mom. I love you!

 I'll let my dear dear friend of this lifetime Jack Kerouac speak from his little masterpiece entitled 'Maggie Cassidy' published in 1959 overlooked and humble little novel within ' the Legend of Duluoz' series. Kerouac writes of Teenage Angst and Lust and Love and growing up in Lowell, Massachusetts in the 1930s. The son of French/Canadian American hardworking parents..

 "Ah go home - Jack - let me sleep. I'm going to sleep tonight."
 "No Maggie, I don't wanta leave when you feel this way -"
 "Yes you do - I don't feel any particular way."
 "Yes you do-"
 "Particular feeling? Just because I just happen sick and tired-of this- and that-what I expect-what you
expect- I just want to quit and go home-"
 "You are home. There's your door."
 Looking at it with a rich frown and a fnuf, "Sure. Home. Okay. Sleep"
 "Aren't you home?"
 "Dream it some other time, so what if it's my home I don't want to get all overexcited about it -"
 "I wasn't-"
 "You never nothing. Oh Jack- (pain in her cry) - "go home- stay-do something- I can't stand it hanging around day after day not knowing what to do with myself and whether I should get married or not or just - blah - nothing - Oh fer kri-sakes, ain't you gonna go yet!" (as I am grabbing her to kiss her) - "Leave me alone!"
  Pushing my hand off.
  I turn around and walk off into the night.
  Four houses down, my neck burning and strangling in the still winter star solitude she says, distinctly, "Ha ha," and I hear her going into the house, the click of the door, the "ha ha" not laughed but spoken signifies not only she's not through with me but it worked to get rid of me tonight. I can't face my own conclusions.
  I drag along in wonder, hatred, stunned, realizing it's nothing; I go by the cemetary so bemused with these witchery-tortures of whether this, that, Maggie, I don't notice the ghosts, the tombstones, it's just backdrop to my anxious hunchings over knuckles.
  Three miles home again I walk, in midwinter midnight, this time not fast, or joyous, but dispirited with nowhere to go and nothing in back -- all the night does at the end of a street is increase it's distance--
  Yet in the morning I wake up reconciled with the fact that not only she'll make some kind of apology but I ought to laugh and shake it off and shake her off and she'll climb on again.
  My mother sees the palings in my thoughts, advises me ---
  "Stop braking your head on all kindsa junk - concentrate on your track and school, never mind Gus Poulo and your gang they got nothing to do but hang around you got lots of things, see them later and never mind that Maggie Cassidy -- see her this spring or this summer -- don't rush things and don't rush around with every-thing and every-body-- Take some advice from you old la-dy, aye?" And she'd wink, and pat my head, and reassure me. "I'm not crazy me" Stopped in the middle of the kitchen floor, my mother, with a kind of ribbon in her coalblack hair, rosy cheeks on both sides of her big blue eyes, her hands joined at her lean rest on the back of the chair just loosely and for a second, looking at me seriously, primly, grave understanding of the prime things pressed down in her lips, , a twinkle in her eyes "Mama always did show you how to get things done and everything will be allright, I got you for Saturday night guess what?"
  "What? Quoi?"
  " A nice pair of new shoes, when you go the track and change to your sneakers there won't be nobody be able to say you got old shoes, te vielles son pu bonne" she'd announce and sneak in in an entirely different authoritative almost greedy-sneering tone, as a shoe worker she was talking about they condition of a pair of shoes - "so I got you a new pair of Thom McAns, didn't cost much."
  "Aw Ma tu dispense tout ton argent!" (Aw Ma you spend all your money).
  "Voyons, ta besoin d'une paire de boittine, ton pere itou, fouaire n'atchetz avant l'moi est funi lui itou - weyondonc-" (Look you need a new pair of shoes, your father too -look here!) angry such a thing should not be realized, going off into the parlor to straighten out a lace armrest on the sofa while we're talking over my breakfast.
  "Ah Ma, I love you" I say to myself, and I don't know how to say it to her out loud but I know she knows I love her anyway.
  "So mange, eat, forget it - a pair of shoes ain't no china
  bazaar, ah? And nods, and winks. I sit in the firm eternity there.

  I sit in the firm eternity there. actually sitting in the firm eternity here... getting late.. that was hard work transcribing Jacks's words...

 My Mom brought home a couple of books to me one winter day when I was laid up with some horrible ear ailment in my early teenage years. Miserable and sick and read "On the Road" which she had picked up from the library .. ....

 My Mom was working hard in those days with 5 kids to look after.. and selling Encyclopedia Brittanica door to door .. or was it Amway products or both simultaneously .. ? Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York. about 1966 maybe '67 .. I love you Mom.

'Liberal Orthodoxy' 2

Liberal 'free from prejudice or bigotry; tolerant:' An Oxymoron you might call.. 'Liberal Orthodoxy' but that is what i see. My experience is that we have a very definite fearful herd mentality going on the Left and the Right. What i have been seeing for quite awhile because I reside in a Liberal community, Marin County, California, is a complacent blindness to current administrations because they are 'our' guys. Example Gov. Jerry Brown (Fracking, loosening of Environmental Standards, Mandates of Growth) or Pres. Barack Obama (Debt, Growth of Security Apparatus, Fracking and other Environmental damage, Corporate Trade, etc.) That we accept actions that if they had been Republicans people would be out on the streets in uproar. I see a wall of indoctrinated fear or if you are a Politician you can build the Straw Dog enemy just as Bush Jr did.. fear Liberals.. fear Republicans. The big issues of our day need to be addressed by people not wearing a Red or a Blue tie.

The issues of our day are buried under a complacency and a sad cynical drift, which might reflect reality but if we/I do not step up and try to influence reality how do I/we know what is possible. Anyhow I talk to Republicans, I like 'wacko T Party people' (some of them) and agree with some of their premises (ex. national debt), Though the TParty Express of the Koch Brothers is the antipathy of common sense conservatism. I do believe that like Confucious thousands of years ago said .. something like 'a government that governs least works pretty good' . I am ultimately a Nature Lover that wishes humans would respect the Earth. I like Victor Frankl's suggestion (author of 'Man's Search for Meaning' Beacon Press) that Americans should have a Statue of Responsibility (Response Ability) to balance the Statue of Liberty. I believe if you try to control Nature (too much) you get chaos. A friend whose positive outlook on life is one of the best claimed that we live 'in Germany 1937' .... Who are 'we Good Americans'? I see Liberal Orthodoxy in Jon Stewart and Colbert. Nice guys but as a friend tells me they don't tolerate Republican Bullshit. Which is great as long as you have that same spirit to not tolerate Liberal Bullshit. Just listening to Jon Stewart on his show that followed the recent ....

John Perry Barlow

John Perry Barlow died a couple of months back. I didn't get around to sharing my thanks with friends for his great poetry that moved me so many times over the years in his collaborations with
the Grateful Dead and Bob Weir.

https://blog.archive.org/2018/04/24/highlights-from-the-tribute-to-cyberspace-philosopher-john-perry-barlow/




https://youtu.be/Nqou2V5VooQ

Black-Throated Wind

Grateful Dead

Bringing me down
I'm running aground
Blind in the light of the interstate cars
Passing me by
The buses and semis
Plunging like stones from a slingshot on Mars

But I'm here by the road
Bound to the load
That I picked up in ten thousand cafes and bars
Alone with the rush of the drivers who won't pick me up
The highway, the moon, the clouds, and the stars

The black-throated wind keeps on pouring in
With its words of a life where nothing is new
Ah, Mother American Night, I'm lost from the light
Oh, I'm drowning in you

I left St. Louis, the City of Blues
In the midst of a storm I'd rather forget
I tried to pretend it came to an end
'Cause you weren't the woman I thought I once met

But I can't deny that times have gone by
When I never had doubts or thoughts of regret
And I was a man when all this began
Who wouldn't think twice about being there yet

The black-throated wind keeps on pouring in
And it speaks of a life that passes like dew
It's forced me to see that you've done better by me
Better by me than I've done by you

What's to be found, racing around
You carry your pain wherever you go
Full of the blues and trying to lose
You ain't gonna learn what you don't want to know

So I give you my eyes, and all of their lies
Please help them to learn as well as to see
Capture a glance and make it a dance
Of looking at you looking at me

The black-throated wind keeps on pouring in
With its words of a lie that could almost be true
Ah, Mother American Night, here comes the light
I'm turning around, that's what I'm gonna do

Goin' back home that's what I'm gonna do
Turnin' around
That's what I'm gonna do

'Cause you've done better by me
Than I've done by you

Songwriters: John Barlow / Robert Hall Weir