'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

HRC - What Happened

From her recollections of her campaign published in 2017.

It's a 7 day library loan and I just don't have the ability to read the thing nor the desire, but I just wanted to see what she had to day about that whole 'damn Email thing'.


"It was a dumb mistake.
 But an even dumber "scandal"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkers_speech

"It was like quicksand : the more you struggle the deeper you sink. At times I thought I was going crazy. Other times I was sure it was the world that had gone nuts. ..... Mostly, I was furious at myself.

 "Given my inability to explain this mess, I decided to let other voices tell the story this time..

 Our best information is that she set it up as a matter of convenience.
                    -- FBI director Jim Comey, in congressional testimony July 7, 2016

"Yes it was supposed to be convenient. Some doubted that explanation. But that's what the FBI concluded after months of investigation. And it's the truth.

 .........

 "I emailed regularly with Chelsea and with Bill's team --- he does not personally use email, and we are still phone people --and with relatives and friends. But very little of my work was via email
during the next four hectic years. I held lots of meetings, talked on the phone (on both regular and secure lines), read stacks of briefing papers, and traveled nearly a million miles to 112 countries to see people face-to-face.

 When we went back later on and collected all my work related emails, we found a lot like this:

   to John Podesta....   .... Please wear socks to keep your feet warm.

   to Huma Abedin    .....   Can you hang up the fax line ...

   to Huma Abedin    .. I'm fighting with the WH operator who doesn't believe I am who I say and wants my direct office line even though....

 (I've shortened Hilary's humorous examples .. chuckle)

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkers_speech

 Laws and regulations did not prohibit employees from using their personal email accounts for
the conduct of official Department business.
      --- Report by the State Department Inspector General, May 2016

 .....
 
   I directed my attorneys to collect and provide to the department any messages I had that could be conceivably be considered related to official business. That came to more than 30,000 emails. They were intentionally expansive in what they determined to be work related. The State Department and the National Archives and Records Administration later determined that 1,258 of them were, in fact, purely personal and did not need to be provided to the department.
   More than 30,000 emails sounds like a lot. But that's over four years, and a lot of those consisted
of "Thx" "Pls Print" -- or no reply at all ......
   Another 31,000 of the emails I had were personal and not related in any way to my job as Secretary of State. I got a lot of grief for saying they were about yoga sessions and wedding planning. But these messages also included communications with lawyers and doctors, information about my mother's estate  ........ in short , clearly personal content. Naturally I don't want strangers reading them.

 ......and for good reason no one wants his or her personal emails made public.

  http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/08/20/hillary_clinton_email_scandal_explained.html

Monday April 16, 2018

So how did I ever get to be a supporter of Donald Trump?

For the record I did not vote for him. Yup!  Jill Stein. Maybe I should have just pushed the none of the above button.

   http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2016/aug/08/tim-kaine/tim-kaine-falsely-says-trump-said-all-mexicans-are/

...... For the record I do believe that there is this whole Deep State thing going on ... CIA NSA grinding at Trump get back to recognizing Russia is our enemy. You must join our fear... and the realm of Putin is frightening and their is way to much smoke to say that there is no fire .. regarding the death of dissidents, former spys and journalists.. it's very ugly.

   Somehow I sympathize with Trump and agree with my Republican acquaintance who I sat with in the studio on Saturday afternoon. That Trump is not in the President's chair because he wants more wealth .. he genuinely wants to be the great President for America. He is hamstrung by his own privileged and isolated point of view and his general enamor with wealthy success stories as being the path to good leadership. However much of what he is attempting to forge ... Re:Tariffs .. Re:Mexican Border and loud noises (National Guard) are designed to make refugees think twice... is needed. Even more or combined with this would be a plan to reverse the Corruption of Wealth the loss of Democracies in Central and South America.. in Africa .. the developing worlds. This is only leading to poverty and migrations..

 The Progressives of the USA need to wake up that we indeed need to be Firm with our Border .. Tree Party Tree Party .. Tree Party... PLanetary Solutions local communities... Democracy depends on Firm Borders... Dalai Lama  and World Council of People ... might be a very Positive means to move forward.

  The world is a Mess but it's our Mess. The ouster of Trump will not solve a thing. The previous 8 years were the descent into Fascism but ignorance and Folly folds over onto itself in Resistance and Projection of Evil... Anyways I am too tired to make much sense of it now...

  Time to leave the Library. Get Home cook up some Good Humous Broccoli and Pasta ponder Love and when the Heck does Guy .. never Mind all OK. Peace Out.

Mueller and Comey : American Heroes ?

http://thehill.com/opinion/criminal-justice/371206-robert-muellers-forgotten-surveillance-crime-spree

When Robert Mueller was appointed last May as Special Counsel to investigate Trump, Politico Magazine gushed that “Mueller might just be America’s straightest arrow — a respected, nonpartisan and fiercely apolitical public servant whose only lifetime motivation has been the search for justice.” Most of the subsequent press coverage has shown nary a doubt about Mueller’s purity. But, during his 11 years as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mueller’s agency routinely violated federal law and the Bill of Rights.
Mueller took over the FBI one week before the 9/11 attacks and he was worse than clueless after 9/11. On Sept. 14, 2011, Mueller declared, “The fact that there were a number of individuals that happened to have received training at flight schools here is news, quite obviously. If we had understood that to be the case, we would have — perhaps one could have averted this.” Three days later, Mueller announced: “There were no warning signs that I’m aware of that would indicate this type of operation in the country.” His protestations helped the Bush administration railroad the Patriot Act through Congress, vastly expanding the FBI’s prerogatives to vacuum up Americans’ personal information.

Deceit helped capture those intrusive new prerogatives. The Bush administration suppressed until the following May the news that FBI agents in Phoenix and Minneapolis had warned FBI headquarters of suspicious Arabs in flight training programs prior to 9/11. A House-Senate Joint Intelligence Committee analysis concluded that FBI incompetence and negligence “contributed to the United States becoming, in effect, a sanctuary for radical terrorists.” FBI blundering spurred the Wall Street Journal to call for Mueller’s resignation, while a New York Times headline warned: “Lawmakers Say Misstatements Cloud F.B.I. Chief's Credibility.”

Trump’s One-Night Stand Turns Into a Legal Nightmare

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/10/opinion/michael-cohen-trump.html"
All of this arises while Mr. Trump is facing, with no legal team to speak of, the all-consuming distraction of the most formidable criminal probe any president has ever faced. ...... "





Then there is Comey ....

 

Let's check James Comey's Bush years record before he becomes FBI director

Laura Murphy

  
article from June 2013 and Obama appointed another hero of Change we can believe in...



.... The new FBI director will be around for the next decade. We need one who will respect the constitution and the rule of law; not one who will use discredited and illegal activities in the name of justice and safety."

 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/21/james-comey-fbi-director-bush-history

All very interesting...

https://www.npr.org/2018/04/10/601153729/does-fbi-raid-on-trump-lawyer-cohen-mean-attorney-client-privilege-is-dead 

Put Yourself in Their Shoes ...

https://www.ptreyeslight.com/article/put-yourself-his-shoes

from the 'The American Revolution' by Gordon S. Wood

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/550925.The_American_Revolution

The Revolutionary leaders were not naive and they were not utopians -- indeed, some of them had grave doubts about the capacity of ordinary people. But by adopting republican governments in 1776 all of them held to a more magnanimous conception of human nature than did supporters of monarchy.

   Republics demanded far more morally from their citizens than monarchies of their subjects. Republics lacked all the accoutrements of patronage and power possessed by monarchies. If republics were to have order, it would have to come from below, from the people themselves, from their consent and virtue, that is, from their willingness to surrender their personal desires to the public good. Much of the Revolutionary rhetoric was filled with exhortations to the people to act virtuosly telling them, as Samuel Adams did, that 'a Citizen owes everything to the Commonwealth.' Republicanism thus stressed a morality of social cohesion and devotion to the common welfare, or res publica. Several of the states in 1776 -- Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia -- even adopted the name 'commonwealth' to express better their identification with the seventeenth-century English revolutionaries and their new dedication to the public good. ....