Someone said Thanksgiving is lost. So he announced he's saving it since he already saved Christmas.
My guess that Thanksgiving is buried underneath a pile of over zealous Xmas consumerism.
Seems to be true, doesn't it? Go anywhere and you'll experience unhinged Xmas trappings and tons of stuff for sale.
So what happened to Thanksgiving?
Gone, it looks like.
So, to help restore the "thanks" and the reason deep underneath it, here is this rendition of Amazing Grace.
Just saying... I'm really thankful that spring will come and most amazed when it does.
After a bazillion years of killing each other, hating the other guys, beating up and stealing from our most unfortunate, and stomping on refugees and asylum seekers, it is time to acknowledge that the old ways just have not worked out so good for the most living humans.
O.K. so a few people are living is great style.
That’s O.K. let them keep on keeping on.
But, as a society, we generate a lot of wealth, trillions every year.
It’s time to take a few baby steps toward treating ourselves better and improving our life. That means all people. Not just the fortunate few.
That’s why I agree with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC).
It’s clear that the time has come for our society to begin to acknowledge that human life is more important than accumulating more and more wealth for the already stupendously wealthy and powerful .01%.
It is time to take more baby steps toward emphasizing improving life for the humans living and begin to move away from allowing most our society’s wealth to be metastasized into trillions of dollars of corporate welfare and weapons of death and destruction.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won applause and cheers from her constituents on Sunday at a town hall in the Bronx where she expressed deep frustration with the routine dismissal of investment in public goods as “free stuff.”
“I never want to hear the term ‘free stuff’ ever again,” Ocasio-Cortez told the audience.
The progressive first-term Democrat explained her vision for newly proposed legislation—the Green New Deal for Public Housing—for a $180 billion investment in upgraded public housing that would prioritize communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis, retrofit units with energy-efficient insulation and appliances, and create 250,000 jobs. The bill is cosponsored in the Senate by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.).
Like public roads, schools, and libraries, Ocasio-Cortez said, public housing should be recognized as a public good funded by taxpayers, particularly the wealthiest people and corporations.
“It is possible and it’s not that we deserve it because it’s a handout,” the congresswoman said. “People like to say, ‘Oh, this is about free stuff.’ This is not about free stuff… These are public goods.”
At Sunday’s town hall, Ocasio-Cortez denounced the term “free stuff” to dismiss progressive proposals for benefits already available to people in many developed countries as a “neoliberal” talking point.
“I’m already hearing some of these neoliberal folks who are trying to flip the script on us and say…’Oh, I don’t want to pay for a millionaire’s kids to go to college,'” she said.
The argument makes no more sense, Ocasio-Cortez suggested, than saying publicly-funded infrastructure unfairly benefits the rich.
“I believe all people should be able to go to a public library,” she said. “Everyone can drive on our roads, everybody should be able to send our kids to public school, and every person who needs it should have access to public housing.
A new breakthrough in modern medicine could be upon us. A UK company called Medisieve wants to cure tenacous diseases like malaria using... magnets!
To understand how Medisieve works, think how you're asked to drink a Barium solution before an X-Ray
If pathogen cells could be bound with magnetic nanoparticles, you could extract them with a magnet - that's Medisieve's belief
Human trials will start very soon.
We’ve covered news of a longevity fund that hopes to extend human lives past a hundred years. We’ve explored the concept of remote surgery, where a doctor miles away operates on a patient through the use of mixed reality technology.
Now, a UK company called Medisieve literally wants to use magnets to pull out diseases out of the bloodstream. Yes, you heard that right.
A clear understanding of why Nixon ordered the break in of
Democratic Headquarters in 1972 has eluded me for years.
Watergate has never made sense to me.
But now, Thom Hartmann and Lamar Waldron have cleared away a great deal of disinformation,
found some clarity, and connected the dots. That’s to say, many more dots than I
ever could have imagined… from the murder of President Kennedy, multiple attempts
to assassinate Fidel Castro, the failed Bay of Pigs fiasco, and much more... revealing our national nightmare.
Here’s the story…
Trump is Hiding The Truth About JFK (w/ Lamar Waldron) - Nov
22, 2019
The Johnson administration for the Vietnam War – the Bush administration for the 9/11 Wars – Afghanistan & Iraq – the Obama administration for drone, remote control assassinations – and now the Trump administration for human rights atrocities involving separation of children from their asylum-seeking parents and imprisoning them under inhumane conditions , a free world could judge the leaders of the United States for crimes against humanity just as we, the victors, judged the leaders of Nazi Germany (Nuremberg) and the Empire of Japan warlords (Tokyo) upon the conclusion of WWII.
Clearly there are considerable and major differences between the atrocities which were perpetrated by the Nazi / Japanese leaders vs. the administrations of U.S. Presidents Johnson, Nixon, Geo. H.W. Bush, Geo W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Yet, as leaders, with the power to do otherwise, these U.S. leaders, including cabinet members and other appointees under their control — both Democrat and Republican — led our nation and our allies into unnecessary wars and condoned heinous atrocities, such as murder, mass murder and torture, in violation of the Geneva Convention, based upon false and deliberately misleading propaganda which they used to justify their actions.
These U.S. leaders never paid a price for their roles in planning, permitting, carrying out and condoning the various deceptions, intrigues, murders of democratically elected heads of state and coups d’état to say nothing of unleashed terrifying weapons causing death, dismemberment and unimaginable destruction upon innocent civilians.
However, millions of everyday people did pay the ultimate price — with their lives — and millions more are still paying due to the weapons of carnage – agent orange, spent uranium munitions, napalm, landmines, and many more.
Additionally, trillions of dollars were squandered feeding the war machine, enriching the cadre of war broker beneficiaries and a multitude of small-time criminals.
Alone, a president, cabinet member, department head or a general could not have created the original lies plus the sustaining mechanism to fan the flames of destruction we have witnessed over the past 60 plus years.
That has taken a plethora of specially honed psychopathic talents brought together under the auspices of an unrestrained, unaccountable, intelligence community led during the 1950s by John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles, Secretary of State and Director of the CIA; then perpetuated by subsequent leaders of the U.S. intelligence department (s) and Secretaries of State.
Together, the Dulles brothers were responsible for creating, contributing to and exploiting anti-communism hysteria in the U.S. during the 1950s (Please see my previous post: below: Lies Too Big to Fail, Part I, How We Lost Our Naïveté.) and paving the way for the “Black Ops” atrocities - which are ongoing - right up to today.
Why do I believe these things? What has changed over the past 60 years and more? The answer is:
JFK Records Collection Act (1992);
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA);
Most importantly, the historically unequaled courage, compassion, professionalism and “applied” intelligence of Dr. Joan Mellen, Douglas P. Horne, James Garrison, Lamar Waldron, Thom Hartmann (and many others), for shinning the light of truth on those who conspired to murder President Kennedy;
And likewise, the historically unequaled courage, compassion, professionalism and “applied” intelligence of Dr. Judy Wood and UK researcher Andrew Johnson, for uncovering what really took place at the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001.
As a result of the documents made available through multiple FOIA requests, the JFK Records Collection Act and a handful of courageous souls, information long held secret has come to light exposing our Doppelganger past and sadly, our present, as well.
"Slower than molasses! More powerful than a democrat! Able to obstruct any House bill at a single glance!"
"Look! Down in the sewer!"
"It's a rat!"
"It's disgusting!"
"It's Super Moscow Mitch!"
MAD Magazine has done it again by giving us a perfect satire of Mitch McConnell (R-KY) Senate Majority Leader and Mr. Trump’s best bud, otherwise known as “The Man of Stall”. MAD editors correctly pointed out that Moscow Mitch (MM) has been “able to block democracy in a single bound.”
Yes, it’s MM, the super star Republican, the main man who single-handedly stymied everything… not only this year, but every year, back to the beginning of the Obama era.
MM sure does know how to be the man!
Art credit: COURTESY OF MAD MAGAZINE
Mitch McConnell MAD interior by writer Desmond Devlin and artist Kerry Callen.
Simply put, as a nation we have lost our connection with goodness and morality.
All that our nation once stood for… the common good… human rights… democracy… freedom… even law and order… has been trashed like yesterday’s coffee grounds by this gang of depraved, perverted, miscreants currently occupying White House and the Executive Branch.
How long will we stand inactive and mute, permitting this administration to commit more and more outrageous crimes against humanity?
Yes, there was a time when America had a compassionate heart and a soul, too.
But, that was then and this is now… Has America’s soul as well as her heart turned to stone?
Caption: A young migrant girl sits on the floor as her father, recently released from federal detention with other Central American asylum seekers, gets a bus ticket at a bus depot on June 11, 2019, in McAllen, Texas. (Photo: Loren Elliott/AFP/Getty Images) Story follows.
"Does the U.S. provide mental health services for separated families who ask to be deported in order to reunite?"
The U.S. held a record 69,550 migrant children in detention facilities in 2019, a Tuesday report from The Associated Press and PBS Frontline found, leading to major psychological and physical harm and lasting trauma.
"No other country held as many immigrant children in detention over the past year as the United States—69,550," said AP tech reporter Frank Bajak in a tweet promoting his colleagues' work. "The physical and emotional scars are profound."
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- More than 13% of American adults -- or about 34 million people -- report knowing of at least one friend or family member in the past five years who died after not receiving needed medical treatment because they were unable to pay for it, based on a new study by Gallup and West Health. Nonwhites, those in lower-income households, those younger than 45, and political independents and Democrats are all more likely to know someone who has died under these circumstances.
Senior White House adviser Stephen Miller in a series of leaked emails pushed white nationalism, bemoaned opposition to Confederate symbols following a mass shooting at a Black church in South Carolina and embraced immigration policies once lauded by Adolf Hitler.
On Tuesday, the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit civil rights advocacy group, published an investigative report from its Hatewatch arm, which reviewed more than 900 messages Miller sent to Breitbart editors from March 2015 to June 2016. More than 80% “relate to or appear on threads relating to the subjects of race or immigration,” Hatewatch said.
The other day the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) made an announcement claiming that the Congressional Democrats were treating Mr. Trump unfairly – not ensuring him with due process. Transparency, they said was missing – regarding the impeachment investigation. Further, they claimed, Congress favors criminals and illegals, defending them over police officers.
Interesting, I thought. I know that some police have made it clear they want more freedom to abuse the rights of Americans by beating, shooting, even killing – all in the name of self-defense, and perhaps, justice, too.
Interesting, also, I thought, that the FOP believes it needs to defend the king of obstructionism, obliterator of human rights, and ignorer of laws.
Odd, is it not, that many of Mr. Trump’s loyal supporters voted for him because they earnestly believed he’d drain the “swamp” and make government work for them.
After three years it is fair to ask, “So, how is that working for you?”
What about the $3 trillion Mr. Trump and the Rs added to the national debt by cutting taxes for the rich and the corporations? How about the expansion of the defense budget by more than $133 billion? And, about those manufacturing jobs… ad infinitum.
Look, the systems is just not working for average Joes – like me – or, other average Joes and Janes, like police officers, either.
The Common Good
We must change our game from the current out of control predatory capitalism and make it evolve into modern "Capsoulism". That would be “capitalism” with a soul inside. A system that works for the common good.
We need to eliminate the pain we feel when we go to the grocery store. We need relief from the stress that engulfs us knowing that our paychecks have retrogressed well past today's cost of living. To say work is no longer satisfying is to admit that our daily quota continues to move upward while our reward remains rooted in the 1970s. Management gets the big bucks while we must choose between feeding the family, paying the rent, paying for grandma’s prescriptions, or her hospital bill.
Something is really out of whack. Our current version of U.S. capitalism is just not cutting it.
Could it be because we have managed to delete our collective conscious, our souls?
We are literally spending all our efforts trying to make a living within an out of control, predatory capitalistic monstrosity that requires sacrificing grandma and our children on the insatiable altar of conspicuous consumption.
I think it’s time to take a lesson from the Republicans who excel at moving the goalposts on the clueless Democrats.
So, let’s try this - stop trying to make the corporate CEOs and the big banks happy.
Let’s end corporate welfare and begin to pull ourselves out of the swamp muck by simply doing what’s called “the common good”.
That translates into:
Make every law, every decision meet only one test - if it is not good for everyone... it's not good for anyone.
Finally, one more thing.
Until we make “weapons of war” a nonprofit, free for the common good, enterprise, we will always have wars and killing. We will never experience peace until the profit is taken out of war making.
Now, I feel better.
How about you?
The Simpsons - Homer Sells His Soul For A Donut - 2017
We all are selling our souls for a donut. But the devil is making us pay in the here and now.
