There is much turmoil around us these days. Things just feel unsettled. Most of us want to focus on a bright future. Talk positive and look the other way. A local U. S. District Judge recently in despair over a ruling he had to make, which he found distasteful to his sense of justice quoted Bob Dylan as reported in the Anniston Star:
The 14th Amendment does not protect citizens from greed.As a result, we all suffer. As Smith wrote, the “lack of an adequate education not only deprives those students of a fair opportunity to prepare themselves to compete in a global economy, but it also deprives the state of fully participating, well-educated adult citizens.”
Clearly unhappy that he was forced by law and Supreme Court precedent to rule as he did, Smith ended his ruling with a line from Bob Dylan’s 1962 song “Blowing in the Wind”: “How many times can a man turn his head, and pretend that he just doesn’t see.”
The answer, in Alabama at least, is “often.”
Because that is the answer, a better quote might be the remark Cassius made to Brutus in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves …”
The question of greed and inequality persist to bother us as a nation. As a people who sense the injustice of our time, who long to be beholden to truth and justice, we can’t afford to turn our heads as if to not see what our heart is making clear. I just saw this morning a Ted Talk’s video by Richard Wilkinson on How Economic Inequality Harms Societies. I am posting it here that we may not miss what is “blowing in the wind”. This is truly worth your time and thoughtfulness.
The linked article below by Josh Moon questions the astounding rulings of the Alabama Supreme Court and ponders if fairness and impartiality have been purchased for a price. The political influence of huge big business contributions to Republican candidates on the Court may have the appearance of impropriety to many inside and outside the legal system. This has been a problem for a long time and the subject of many studies in the country. I served on an Alabama State Bar conference in around 1995 that was struggling to come up with a new way to select justices and judges due to the problems posed by the elective process and political contributions. In the end, people must pay attention and really be involved in the process.
In a statement to CNN, Powell said it had become clear over the years that “Curveball,” whose real name is Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, was “totally unreliable.” He went on to note, “The question should be put to the CIA and the DIA Defense Intelligence Agency as to why this wasnt known before the false information was put into [a key intelligence estimate] sent to Congress, the presidents State of the Union address and my Feb. 5 presentation to the U.N.”
This kind of disparity of income and wealth is just unbelievable. It even is more intolerable when you think of someone like loud mouth Rush Limbaugh putting down firefighters, teachers and policemen.
There must be a coming reckoning with this kind of inequality existing for now. There is a universal principle that will force an account of equal and opposite force. This is what you are seeing in the middle east now. It will come here as well.
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont gives a rare voice to the middle class and the poor. Here are some comments that need to be heard on the national budget, President Obama, the rich and congress:
Do you really want the USA to be nation building somewhere else while our own infrastructure and support of our own well-being within is being systematically dismantled by the political cronies of corporate elites?
We were supposed to be going to Afghanistan to destroy a few terrorists running around in rock hewn caves. What should it take with the mighty military of the USA to accomplish the mission 6 to 12 months? Destroy their capability and get out. This was not the mission though. It was the announced facade to establish a military occupation to surround the oil region with United States dominance. Rather than plan for a new economy based on new and different energy sources for the past 50 years, we have been a practicing EMPIRE BUILDER and to what benefit and for whom?
Here at home we are passing Patriot Acts that diddle away individual rights and swindle the American people of freedoms. The empowerment of government has been extraordinary since 9/11 and it is growing. Countries that are facing uprising are shutting down the internet because communication by and among the people is key to uniting their efforts against a common foe — their own governments. In the United States we have seen constant union busting efforts over the years and now intensely at play in Wisconsin. The laws are set up and more advancing to put our Internet access in jeopardy and especially when the truth is about to be disclosed. In the cases, we are seeing now abroad those governments are dictators, kings and despots that the United States, in many cases has supported with huge funding in both military and domestic funding. We then become a part of that ruling Kingdom. Egypt is the glowing example with our Mubarak connection.
And some say we just have to be friends with some unsavory characters to promote our peace and security. So, for thirty years Mubarak maintains emergency military law over the people and they are going hungry and jobless. What a great friend we are. No, it is about control of regions and economies for a few. How fast we dropped aging Mubarak when he no longer had a grip on his people. Suddenly then we are on the side of the people. The U. S. President coming to the podium now and again, saying this and that about who should stay in Egypt and who should go. Really? Some have begun to question if what it now amounts to is a slick military coup in Egypt. The people will be thrown a few crumbs to quieten the force freedom and apease the hunger in their heart, minds and stomach for truth and food.
It takes Stephen Colbert to cut through this confusing confusion over a simple question on a financial form. Where did my wife get all that money? Folks this is a major omission and it really is a matter that places the integrity of this justice at issue. How can he hope to avoid the appearance of impropriety in rulings that related to the profound social and constitutional issues that confront the court.
“The rules prohibit phone and cable companies from favoring or discriminating against Internet content and services, including online calling services like Skype and Web video services like Netflix that could compete with their core operations. The FCCs three Democrats voted to adopt the regulations late last year over the opposition of the agencys two Republicans.”
The Big Corporate Oligarchy continues to control Congress. The ability of the mega-internet companies to manipulate access and speeds to the Internet is equivalent to silencing whomever they don’t want to be heard,and whenever they don’t want the message heard. In this age where the Internet is becoming the megaphone for free speech, the Republicans show that they are not for individual rights in the famed constitution.
Folks we need government regulation to protect us from the excess of the corporate giants that are controlling everything.
The stock market is up. The oil prices are up. The food prices are up. Consumer income is down. Workers are unemployed. Home owners are upside down and under water. Home values are down and deflating. Foreclosures are up.
Interesting thing is that the food costs and hunger problems now surfacing from the middle east as a major cause of unrest and revolution are causing the oil prices to rise. Oil prices rising will exacerbate the rising food costs here in the USA and around the world. Is there a circle of unrest that will only intensify.
The link below is to an excellent article on the problem:
Food Prices Shoot Up – Contribute To Unrest In Middle East (Video)
NBC News devoted a substantial segment of time during this evening’s broadcast to the crisis of rising food prices. Reports of the unrest breaking out all over the middle east have included the observation that poverty and the high cost of food have contributed to the desparation of those wanting change in the excesses of dictators and kings. The latter eat well while food comprises huge percentages of the poor’s budget with nothing left for anything else. The average American family budget devotes just 9% to food. This may be about to change according to this video report from Brian Williams:
Revelations – Climate Change – Merchants – High Food Prices
6:5 When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. 6 Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, “Two pounds[a] of wheat for a day’s wages,[b] and six pounds[c] of barley for a day’s wages,[d] and do not damage the oil and the wine!”
The global positioning of the United States financially and militarily has been focused on the world oil reserves. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are all about the importance of not allowing damage to the flow of oil from the middle east. We rationalize the need to support dictators and kings for our own purposes. Those who oppress and control their populations suit our selfish interest in oil just fine. Why is it so hard to imagine accurately the reason the United States is not liked by the people of that part of the world. The crowds in Eygpt have not yet focused their attention much on an anti-American theme. That is fortunate. Maybe they realized just how much the Egyptian military is tied to the American military, as reports in this country have made clear.
Mubarak kept his emergency military law in place for thirty years while the United States made him a billionaire. Did the price of passage through the Suez Canal and peace with Israel include oppression of the Egyptian population for all those years? Is this the new form of slavery of men and women today? And where is the interest in the human rights of those the United States allows to be held captive? Where is that shining light
Egyptian Protestors Demand Freedom
on a hill? It stayed hidden for thirty years until the people kicked over the table under which it has been hidden.
We keep blowing and going, bombing and fighting, polluting the earth and scoffing at scientists who try to warn us of the contribution man is making to the looming climate-change disaster. Reports are beginning to come out that we have waited too late. The report on NBC Nightly News pointed to the markets and its engine of speculation as adding to the cause of rising food prices. The merchants of the world are watching and what will they see?
Revelations Chapter 18 (NIV)
11 “The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her because no one buys their cargoes anymore— 12 cargoes of gold, silver, precious stones and pearls; fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet cloth; every sort of citron wood, and articles of every kind made of ivory, costly wood, bronze, iron and marble; 13 cargoes of cinnamon and spice, of incense, myrrh and frankincense, of wine and olive oil, of fine flour and wheat; cattle and sheep; horses and carriages; and human beings sold as slaves.
14 “They will say, ‘The fruit you longed for is gone from you. All your luxury and splendor have vanished, never to be recovered.’ 15 The merchants who sold these things and gained their wealth from her will stand far off, terrified at her torment. They will weep and mourn 16 and cry out:
“‘Woe! Woe to you, great city,
dressed in fine linen, purple and scarlet,
and glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls!
17 In one hour such great wealth has been brought to ruin!’
Huffington Post published an exclusive video interview with Erik Rasmusen on the “Epidemic of Climate Change”. He is one of a hundred journalist named among those most influential. Here is the discussion about the way such change impacts the world. Perhaps many have not considered just how sensitive the societies of the world actually are and how they will react to the disasters to come.
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Locust Fork News Journal
National and Alabama news and editorials by publisher, editor and journalist Glynn Wilson. The site has the progressive flavor of an Alabamian.
