The Meaning Of Irony

Next to the physician's office, one who went to a "good" school and priced his services accordingly, stood a laundromat in which one of the large plate-glass windows hung a sign which read: "Free Soap On Thursdays." This business, along with the doctor's office, were in a poor section of a medium-size New England city.

Demonstrate!

I once discounted a friend's observation during the low-intensity warfare of the Reagan administration, that the peace movement didn't draw as many people as during the Vietnam anti-war movement because it wasn't perceived as "sexy" to demonstrate any more.

Standing on a road in Massachusetts demonstrating against the war in Iraq, I think my friend was absolutely right! I think that he was on to something! I've grown accustomed, over the past few months, to standing with one other activist named Mickey, who has been out to vigil on every single Saturday since the war's inception. That's five years!

At first, Mickey tells me that the crowds were quite large, perhaps a few hundred, which is a substantial number for a relatively small community.

But where are the people who could join us now? It's usually just Mickey and me. People walking and driving by shout their support or flash the peace sign or thumbs up, but only infrequently does anyone bother to actually come out and stand with us.

Over four thousand U.S. dead and around sixty thousand wounded. Possibly about a million Iraqi dead and untold numbers injured and displaced. One estimate projects a three-trillion dollar price tag for the war by it's unforeseeable end. War in Afghanistan and perhaps another in Iran if Bush continues to have his way. Where are the people to protest? Where is the anger?

View From Mary Flynn's Bench

View From Mary Flynn’s Bench

The view from Mary Flynn’s bench is sublime in early spring.

Legions of gray cumulus wash over the Berkshires

Leaving traces of dappled shadow much as the ripples of spent waves on ocean shores.

The meadow grass bends to the fresh west wind

Halting only momentarily at the edge of the forest upturning the new green of maple and beech; the rust of oak.

Great fortune in being on the right planet, beside the right star at the right time.

The Power of Words

There may well be over one million dead in Iraq, and George W. Bush said he could have used "better rhetoric" in the lead-up to the war.

Ralph Nader

Only one candidate would bring about any measure of change to the political environment in the U.S. Ralph Nader would confront the power of U.S. corporations if elected president. He would end the war in Iraq. He would reverse environmental destruction and restore civil liberties that have been gutted by Bush-Cheney.

Gross distortions about Nader as a presidential candidate have surfaced since the loss of the Gore presidential ticket in 2000. The Democratic Party, and their lack of resolve in failing to confront the illegitimacy of the Florida vote, and the deceit and betrayal by the Republican Party, are the only reasons for the disaster of the 2000 presidential campaign!

Enter the G.O.P.

"G.O.P. Now Sees Obama as Liability for Ticket," (New York Times, April 26). Now the Right-Wing Republican Party begins hate mongering!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/26/us/politics/26ticket.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Obama v. Clinton

Democratic primary election results in Pennsylvania ought not to surprise anyone. First, it must be stated clearly that both Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton represent a neoliberal political philosophy. That philosophy allows the military and the business elite to get away with about as much mayhem as they wish globally, while shrinking the middle class in the U.S. and severely diminishing the ability of the working class to keep their collective proverbial heads above water vis-à-vis the economy. The neoliberal strain of thinking allows U.S. imperialism to continue around the globe with no real limits on the projection of U.S, power. Also, few real or effective limits are placed on the environment’s ability to recoup the environmental degradation of the past half century.

That said, there is a very real difference in the kinds of votes each of these candidates received, and probably will receive in upcoming primaries, and that difference involves racism in the U.S. An analysis of the voting patterns and demographics in Pennsylvania on April 21 showed that Obama did poorly everywhere in the state except the area in and around Philadelphia. In Philadelphia he literally swept to victory, while the rest of the state, quite conservative, strongly supported Clinton. There were no surprises in Pennsylvania, a state that has supported many reactionaries in the past! What is quite illustrative, however, is that Obama could do better in a Southern state such as South Carolina, where large numbers of Black Americans came out to support him.

There is no question that racism, whether of the personal or institutional variety will continue to haunt Obama’s campaign, while the Clintons, with a family history of supporting the bill that sped up the process of getting the condemned to the death chamber, and supported another bill that severely limited the ability of poor Americans to take advantage of what’s left of the social “safety net,” will remain as spoilers in his attempt to win the Democratic nomination for the presidency.