Broken Jar (test tube) Part II

This is the follow-up to my last post about the experiment of corresponding with conservatives. My hypothesis was that liberals and conservative have more in common than they have in differences. I left off talking about my daily e-mails with RT for over a year now. I mentioned that RT sends me the latest e-mails that are circulating among conservatives. Sadly, most are a few years old and riddled with lies. As I said, conservatives can’t smell them for the trash they are because what is in them meets both their criteria of anger and serves their agenda. I keep sending RT the facts disputing the horseshit he sends me. He continues to not research anything he sends. I am beginning to think he has employed me as a fact checker (as the conservative media fired theirs years ago). If so I want a paycheck and some benefits from him. I’m also going to form a union to represent me as his fact checker which will piss him off.

 RT has sent me a ton of e-mails attacking President Obama. RT assumes as a liberal I’m a Obama supporter. I keep telling him I think President Obama is just one more president owned by Wall Street. That would make him just like every other president in my lifetime. Still, I will defend President Obama or even a conservative from articles and e-mails if they’re filled with lies.  RT sent me an e-mail going around saying Pres. Obama’s grandmother said he was born in Kenya. I sent him quite a few facts showing what a lie that is. RT for once admitted it looked like he was wrong. I noted that he had sent the e-mail not only to me but to a few dozen other people. I asked him to send the facts I sent him to the rest of the people he had sent the lie to so they would know the truth. RT replied to me, “I was wrong on this one but I am sure Obama has done something else that I find objectionable that I just don’t know about.  So therefore I’m not going to acknowledge to people that I made a mistake in this particular case.” I responded, “Do you know what the thing is I hate the most when I’m dealing with conservatives? It’s that they lack integrity.”

I received an e-mail from RT about how Pres. Obama is arrogant. Calling Obama arrogant is a big buzz word for conservatives. It is a code word for what conservatives would have called him in the days before civil rights, which would have been “uppity negro” (or worse). The sheer audacity of a black man running for president let alone getting elected makes him arrogant to some conservatives. RT sent me a story to show how uppity Obama is. It involved Obama putting his feet up on the president’s desk. The desk is historical and made from the wood of an English ship and called the “Resolution Desk.” RT’s e-mail was widely circulated on conservative blogs before he received it. I did a little research and found a picture of President G.W.  Bush with his feet up on the same desk a few years before Obama was president. I asked RT why he had not been outraged by Bush relaxing with his feet on the same desk. I of course got no reply to this, which has been par for the course when I trump RT.

Another time RT sent me an article by an English newspaper writer trashing Pres. Obama for bringing 500 people with him when he visited England. Researching that was difficult as the number of secret service agents that travel with a president is top-secret. I did find when President Bush traveled to England in the fall of 2003 for a state visit; the Guardian reported that “Mr. Bush, his wife, Laura, and a 700-strong entourage worthy of a traveling medieval monarch, flew into Heathrow airport.” I relayed the info to RT that Bush traveled with a bigger posse and asked where RT’s outrage was over that. RT responded that Obama has used Air Force One, the presidential jet, way more than GW had over the same period of time. A little research and I showed that RT’s assumption was not a fact as GW was way ahead on using Air force One

I did feel trumped when RT brought up how John Edwards had a “love child” with a woman other than his wife. The feeling of being trumped didn’t last long as RT followed that e-mail up with this question, “How could a man cheat on his wife when she is suffering with cancer?” My reply, “I don’t know but perhaps you could ask Newt Gingrich.” Lately, the news came out that the former Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, had a “love child” with his maid. I sent the info to RT and said, “You can tell the media is right-wing because Sen. Edwards got caught when his “love child” was a month old and Arnold wasn’t caught until his “love child” son was thirteen.

 I have two children and what I want most in life is for them to live on a kinder, gentler Earth. RT informed me that he has three children and a couple of grandchildren so I assumed he wanted a better planet also. I thought that was a great starting point to emphasize our similarities. Sadly, he wants to protect U.S. corporations from having to meet clean air and water standards. He wants to protect auto manufacturers from having to meet miles per gallon standards. He is for tort reform to limit the amounts people can sue corporations or doctors for damage or death to loved ones. I commented to RT that I want to be able to sue an irresponsible doctor or corporation for as much money as I can to get them to clean up their act if they have injured or killed someone in my family. It seems to me RT would rather protect irresponsible corporations than his own family. I would offer people who want tort reform a very simple solution. That would be to sign a legal paper saying, they will never sue a corporation, doctor etc. no matter how much harm that party does to their family members. I say, set an example for what you believe in instead of punishing me and mine. In 1994, when Rick Santorum was in Congress and running for the Senate, he introduced H.R. 3918, which would have capped damages awarded by juries in medical malpractice cases at $250,000. In 1999, Santorum’s wife, Karen, filed her own medical malpractice lawsuit against a chiropractor in Virginia, seeking $500,000 in damages. My problem with these conservatives is they talk the talk but won’t walk the walk. It is the same thing I see with them getting behind the latest war when they were chickenhawks like Dick Cheney who had five draft deferments during the Vietnam War.

Lots of other things about RT’s beliefs stand in the way of that better planet I want for my kids. Such as, RT has no problems with tax laws that enable two-thirds of U.S. corporations to be exempt from paying taxes. He bashes people for getting social welfare but has no problem with corporate welfare. He somehow thinks welfare for the needy is bad but for the greedy it’s all good. He has no problem with the lies that led to the Iraq War. He sees no problem with Abu Ghraib or Gitmo torture. RT is a Rush “dittohead” and sees no problem having a drug addict as a news source. Like Rush, RT calls Pres. Obama the “Messiah.” To Rush and RT, Ronald Reagan is the “Messiah” the one true God of Gods. Like other conservatives RT dreams of having someone like Ronald Reagan as president. I pointed out to RT that Reagan supported, armed and trained Latin American dictator’s death squads. I said that Reagan is therefore a mass murderer that helped kill over 200,000 people. RT called me a liar so I sent him info and ask him if he has forgotten about the Iran Contra Scandal. He replied that Reagan had a good and honest administration. I send facts showing that the Regan administration was the most corrupt in history. They had 138 administration officials convicted, indicted, or the subject of misconduct and/or criminal violations. While RT looks the other way about mass murderer Reagan, he is, of course, for the death penalty.

As far as my correspondence with RT,  I’ve said, this is the last time more than a dozen times ago. I have lately thought about throwing in the towel and saying, “I will never have anything in common with these conservatives who stand in the way of a better world.” I then decided to reach out one more time. I sent RT this message, “I want a better planet for my kids and I bet you do also. I know we are squabbling but I bet we have more in common than we do in opposition. Any thoughts? Just trying to take a common ground, a more peaceful spiritual direction. Where does squabbling get us? I’m sure you are just as American as I am.” RT responded, “Interesting thought. Where does squabbling get us? I actually enjoy the interchange and you might be right, we may have many areas of common ground (but not likely in politics!). I worry a great deal about our planet and specifically the direction of our country. If you are part American Indian you might have an edge, but you are correct I am American to the core!”

I’ve decided for now, maybe I also enjoy the interchange and even the best of families squabble sometimes. The differences between RT and me are not going to change by me ignoring them.  I will try to be tolerant but I’m sure I will also be snide (as will RT because we can’t help that). We’ve both decided in our own way to be participants in a communications exchange which is better than being mere spectators in life. It’s not going to be pretty but RT and I are going to keep verbally boxing with one another knowing no one is going to win the bout.  I’ll keep you posted on some of the rounds.

As my plug for our valley I want to promote a local honest repairman. Mrs. E informed me our oven was not working right. I contacted a few appliance repairmen that said they’d get back to me within two days. None did so I called Girard Hardware (a place I have enjoyed doing business with) and asked them to recommend a repairman. They recommended Bill Barnett. I left a message for Bill and in no time at all he called asking when he could come. Very soon after my call Bill showed up and fixed the oven. Bill was fast, courteous and best of all even affordable to the poverty-stricken Elecpencil. If you need an appliance fixed I’d say call Bill first at, (330) 881-7047. I got to go as I smell cookies baking.

The Band: I Shall be Released

It makes No Difference

This quote might be why RT hates facts and would rather believe assumptions:

“Facts are stupid things.” ~ Ronald Reagan

Science Gone Too Far

“Science gone too far, science gone too far. How did you ever break the jar? Science gone too far, science gone too far. Maybe it hasn’t crawled too far.”  That is the chorus to 1977’s, “Science Gone too Far” by the Dictators. I was reminded of it by my own scientific experiment that went on far too long and ended with its own broken jar, so to speak.

My experiment involved corresponding with two conservatives. My hypothesis was that liberals and conservative have more in common than they have in differences. I decided on this experiment after being contacted via e-mail by a conservative in 2009. I had stumbled across his blog while looking up some info. He had a question on his blog asking, what is wrong with America? After reading some of his past posts I was easily able to answer his question. I commented, “What is wrong with America is too many people have beliefs like yours and won’t listen to any other opinion.” In no time I got an e-mail from the blogger who I will call HX. HX said he was open to anything I had to say, so my experimental idea was formed. I tried my hardest to find as much common ground as I could.

I ignored XH’s characterizations and name calling and kept digging up similarities. Finding similarities kept getting harder and harder to do. He rejected any  similarities I tried to point out. HX insinuated that my parents raised me in a commune, that I was a jobless, hippie communist, welfare recipient who spent all day listening to the Grateful Dead.  In fact, my father had been a factory worker, a car salesman, a department store manager and lastly a union tradesman who owns his own business. I grew up  seeing  the hardships that a small business owner endures. I’ve always had a job since age 13, ran a small side business for a few years with Mrs. E and I have never collected a dime in welfare. I was no hippie but actually a punk rocker who spent as much of my day as possible listening to the MC5, the Clash and the Dictators.

The science experiment jar broke on my “friendship” with HX in a little under a year.  The last thing I heard from him said, “I finally realized you are right about the corporations taking over our government.” He included a video saying that this convinced him he had been wrong all along. The video was one of those Alex Jones type of wackadoodle things about how some inter galactic space aliens actually are controlling Earth. HX had finally gone off the deep end. I was hoping he didn’t have a gun in the house. I figured maybe he didn’t as he was more the business type conservative than the Ted Nugent type conservative.  I decided I would try the experiment again when the opportunity arose.

In 2010 my next science experiment came in the Ted Nugent meets corporate tool type I will call, RT. A friend sent me an e-mail from some conservative he’d run across asking me to address it. The e-mail was one of those types that conservatives send out then all post on their blogs. It is usually blasting President Obama, government, liberals etc. It’s funny these items tend to never be fresh but instead are always a few years old. Being old they tend to smell like garbage. They’re false or filled with so many falsehoods they are indeed garbage. Conservatives can’t smell them for the trash they are because what is in them meets both their criteria of anger and serves their agenda. That is why conservatives won’t even spend a minute on Snopes. com or any of these sites to fact-check an article before e-mailing it. When an e-mail has a stinky smell it usually takes me less than a minute to research and debunk.  I e-mailed my friend proof about the lies in the e-mail that RT was spreading and he sent those facts to RT.  Now RT had my e-mail address and kept sending me daily falsehoods that generally took me less than a minute to disprove with facts and return to him. You would think RT would start fact checking the B.S. he sent me and others also listed on the e-mail but he wouldn’t. My scientific experiment with RT is nearing the science gone too far, broken jar state. That is the background and I will follow-up on whether we are at the similarities or cavernous divide state on my next post. To be continued……….

For now: Tree Hugging Scientifically Proven to Improve Your Health.

My daughter, the Mac and I stopped at Molly’s Restaurant 1309 Salt Springs Road, Youngstown, Ohio for lunch recently.  Mac had a fish sandwich and I had a made on premises hot sausage patty sandwich and we shared some fair style french fries. Everything was excellent with the sausage not overly spicy hot. The Tuesday special is 35 cent wings and Friday features fish specials. Prices are very reasonable and there is a reason Molly’s has been around almost 30 years. Check it out and tell me what you think.

Turn it way up for: The Dictators, Science Gone too Far

Exposed and Heartache

“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.”
— Arthur Conan Doyle, (Sherlock Holmes, Scandal in Bohemia, 1891)

A Sad Symbol

I’ve decided that every post will also include a short review of an area business or restaurant in our valley. Look for that below some of my latest poems.

A Sad Symbol

In a Utah first-grade classroom children learn geography
by coloring pictures of the state’s twenty-four symbols.
The state bird, fruit, vegetable, flower, tree and rock.
Only a black crayon will be needed
for Utah’s newest state symbol,
the state gun, the Browning M1911.
The Utah republican state representatives passed this measure
because they see guns as a symbol of liberty and freedom.
Arizona’s Congresswoman Gabriele Giffords was shot and wounded
in an assassination attempt while six of her constituents were killed.
No one has asked her if she thinks
guns represent liberty and freedom.
Pennsylvania is now looking
at the long rifle as a state symbol.
To symbolize Ohio’s idiot Governor Kasich
and his vision of returning Ohio to the 17th century
I give you Ohio’s new state gun,
the blunderbuss.

Revisionist History

Sarah Palin was quotes as saying, “If the phrase
Under God in the Pledge of Allegiance.
was good enough for the Founding Fathers
it is certainly good enough for me.”
The pledge was written 100 years after the Revolution
in 1892, by a man named Francis Bellamy.
The phrase “Under God” wasn’t part of the 1892 pledge
and was inserted into the Pledge in 1954!
Rep. Michele Bachmann has said, the slave-owning
Founding Fathers “worked tirelessly to end slavery.”
North Carolina Congresswoman Virginia Foxx
asserted that Republicans, not Democrats,
passed civil rights legislation in the 60’s.
They are just a few of the conservative politicians
who believe reality is whatever you need it to be.
You should realize U.S. history text books
are going to be really fucked up
because they are written in Texas the state
that wants to secede from the United States.

Not Hiring

Hewitt Packard CEO Carly Fiorina
chopped and outsourced
10,000 of H.P’s jobs to other countries.
She also cut research and development funds
such “leadership” decisions caused
H.P.’s stock to fall more than 60%.
So she was rewarded with $21 million and fired.
She then ran for California governor and was defeated.
Mitt Romney has made his fortune by
downsizing companies and outsourcing jobs.
When Mitt was governor of Massachusetts
his state’s record on job creation was
one of the worst in the country ranking
47th out of 50 states in jobs growth.
Donald Trump has filed bankruptcy four times
fleecing millions from banks and bond holders.
These and people like them
want to be our countries leaders
and bring their talents to running
our economy and creating jobs.
It is our job to make sure
that they don’t get the job.

I joined some members of the VPJC (Valley Peace and Justice Coalition) this evening for their Friday peace vigil against the war(s).  They have been doing this every Friday for several years now.  This evening they were in Hubbard, Ohio. After the vigil I enjoyed having dinner with VPJC members, Roz, Ron, Martha and Ray. These are all people I have admired for a long time so it was an honor to dine with them.  Since we were in Hubbard we stopped at Fat’s Village Tavern.  We enjoyed a great sized fish sandwich, a BLT, a sausage sandwich with made on site sausage and fries.  It brought back memories of when I use to stop there after work when I had a job in that area.  They have some top-notch bar food that you should check out when you are in the Hubbard area.

PEACE VIGIL SCHEDULE 2011

VIGILS ARE FRIDAYS, 4:30 – 5:30PM;

CALL RAY NAKLEY: 330-506-1999 OR R0N DULL: 330-518-9881

TO CONFIRM DETAILS DUE TO WEATHER CHANGES.

 

JULY:   

22^ND GIRARD (RT 422 & LIBERTY)

29^TH Newton falls (RT 534)

AUGUST:

5^TH COURTHOUSE DOWNTOWN Y-TOWN 

12^TH LISBON ON THE SQUARE

19^TH NEW CASTLE, PA ON THE SQUARE

26^TH HOWLAND CORNERS (RTS 46 & OLD 82)

 These are great folks so come out and join them for a worthy cause.

Song about America’s Homeless Veterans.

Steve Earle: Rich Man’s War

All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers. ~ Francois Fenelon

Eye of the Beholder

I’ve been doing some serious thinking about the state of our country. With so much hate and greed about it’s hard to find much beauty in the world.  As I was thinking about that and checking my e-mail I received the following story. It reminded me that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and often comes in surprising unusual packages.

                                       THE OLD DENTED BUCKET

  Our house was directly across the street from the clinic entrance of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore . We lived downstairs and rented the upstairs rooms to out-patients at the clinic.  One summer evening as I was fixing supper, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to see a truly awful looking man. “Why, he’s hardly taller than my 8-year-old,” I thought as I stared at the stooped, shriveled body. But the appalling thing was his face, lopsided from swelling, red and raw.  Yet his voice was pleasant as he said, “Good evening. I’ve come to see if you’ve a room for just one night. I came for a treatment this morning from the eastern shore, and there’s no bus ’til morning.” He told me he’d been hunting for a room since noon but with no success, no one seemed to have a room. “I guess it’s my face …. I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says with a few more treatments ..”

For a moment I hesitated, but his next words convinced me: “I could sleep in this rocking chair on the porch. My bus leaves early in the morning.” I told him we would find him a bed, but to rest on the porch.. I went inside and finished getting supper. When we were ready, I asked the old man if he would join us. “No, thank you. I have plenty.” And he held up a brown paper bag. When I had finished the dishes, I went out on the porch to talk with him a few minutes. It didn’t take a long time to see that this old man had an oversized heart crowded into that tiny body. He told me he fished for a living to support his daughter, her 5 children, and her husband, who was hopelessly crippled from a back injury.
He didn’t tell it by way of complaint; in fact, every other sentence was preface with a thanks to God for a blessing. He was grateful that no pain accompanied his disease, which was apparently a form of skin cancer. He thanked God for giving him the strength to keep going…

At bedtime, we put a camp cot in the children’s room for him. When I got up in the morning, the bed linens were neatly folded and the little man was out on the porch. He refused breakfast, but just before he left for his bus, haltingly, as if asking a great favor, he said, “Could I please come back and stay the next time I have a treatment? I won’t put you out a bit. I can sleep fine in a chair.” He paused a moment and then added, “Your children made me feel at home. Grownups are bothered by my face, but children don’t seem to mind.”

 I told him he was welcome to come again. And, on his next trip, he arrived a little after 7 in the morning. As a gift, he brought a big fish and a quart of the largest oysters I had ever seen! He said he had shucked them that morning before he left so that they’d be nice and fresh. I knew his bus left at 4:00 a.m. And I wondered what time he had to get up in order to do this for us.

In the years he came to stay overnight with us, there was never a time that he did not bring us fish or oysters or vegetables from his garden. Other times we received packages in the mail , always by special delivery; fish and oysters packed in a box of fresh young spinach or kale, every leaf carefully washed. Knowing that he must walk 3 miles to mail these, and knowing how little money he had made the gifts doubly precious.

When I received these little remembrances, I often thought of a comment our next-door neighbor made after he left that first morning. “Did you keep that awful looking man last night? I turned him away! You can lose roomers by putting up such people!” Maybe we did lose roomers once or twice. But, oh!, if only they could have known him, perhaps their illnesses would have been easier to bear. I know our family always will be grateful to have known him; from him we learned what it was to accept the bad without complaint and the good with gratitude to God.

Recently I was visiting a friend, who has a greenhouse, as she showed me her flowers, we came to the most beautiful one of all, a golden chrysanthemum, bursting with blooms. But to my great surprise, it was growing in an old dented, rusty bucket. I thought to myself, “If this were my plant, I’d put it in the loveliest container I had!” My friend changed my mind. “I ran short of pots,” she explained, “and knowing how beautiful this one would be, I thought it wouldn’t mind starting out in this old pail. It’s just for a little while, till I can put it out in the garden.” She must have wondered why I laughed so delightedly, but I was imagining just such a scene in heaven.  “Here’s an especially beautiful one,” God might have said when he came to the soul of the sweet old fisherman. “He won’t mind starting in this small body.” All this happened long ago – and now, in God’s garden, how tall this lovely soul must stand.

 The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7b)

 Friends are very special. They make you smile and encourage you to succeed. They lend an ear and they share a word of praise. Show your friends how much you care. Pass this on, and brighten someone’s day. Nothing will happen if you do not decide to pass it along. The only thing that will happen if you DO pass it on is that someone might smile (because of you).

Stop in downtown Youngstown at the Lemon Grove. Hanging on the walls you will see, “PRESERVATION: A Photographic Journey Through OUR Youngstown.” It’s a gallery show presented by Paul Grilli and Leslie Cusano, two Youngstown photographers preserving our industrial and cultural heritage one photo at a time.

Grilli’s site.

Cusano’s site.

Pittsburgh bands: The Iron City House Rockers, Norm Nardini and the Tigers and Donny Iris and the Cruisers will be playing the Eastwood Mall Rib Fest on 7/16/11. I’ve seen all these bands and they are terrific. For just $5 it is a steal and you should check them out.

Iron City Houserockers:  Love So Tough

Donny Iris: Back on the Streets

Norm Nardini: Nothin’ to Lose

“The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame.”
— Oscar Wilde

The Koch Brothers Were Not Founding Fathers

By now I’m sure you realize I think corporations are out to take over our world. Their lobbyists have bought our “representatives” so laws can be written to favor corporate interest over the interest of the people. The corporations on the other hand have not purchased our entire supreme court. They saved money as they only purchased  five of the nine members which gives them the majority they need.  The Supreme Court recently, by a 5-4 majority, favored Wal-Mart who was being sued by 1.5 million women in a discrimination case. In April, by a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court gave corporations a victory by blocking a class action lawsuit by consumers against a cellphone company. The court also struck down restrictions on corporations about how and when they spend money on advertising and other communications during campaigns. The ruling further enforces that a corporation is a  person. The ruling begs me to ask; if our nation goes back to the draft for the military, will a corporation be drafted and sent to a war zone?  The five conservatives on the court say they stand for tradition and precedence on the bench when it comes to interpreting the constitution. We see their hypocrisy when they instead go for judicial activism in cases involving corporations. That is because they believe our country belongs to the corporate powers.

July 4th has me thinking about how our forefathers took on one of the first corporations, the East India Company during the Boston Tea Party by dumping the corporation’s tea in the harbor.  What if anything did our Founding Fathers say about corporations? James Madison said, ” The end of democracy and the defeat of the American revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of the lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.” He also said, “There is an evil that ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by….. corporations. The power of all corporations ought to be limited in this respect. The growing wealth acquired by them never fails to be a source of abuses.”

Thomas Jefferson expressed this, “I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our governments to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”  Jefferson had also talked about how banking institutes were more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.

Our 16th president Lincoln stated, “I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me and the bankers in the rear. Of the two, the one at my rear is my greatest foe. [As a further undesirable consequence of the war…] Corporations have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow. The money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in the hands of a few, and the Republic is destroyed.” He also said, “The money powers prey upon the nation in times of peace, and conspire against it in times of adversity. The banking powers are more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. They denounce as public enemies, all who question their methods or throw light upon their crimes.”

I am left thinking about the movie, “Rollerball” that was made in 1975 and remade in 2002. It is the story of how corporations share running  the world after an ugly corporate war. Earth no longer has continents but instead has corporate owned sectors. It is science fiction but in light of what is happening in our politics and courts it seems like a glimpse of what is to come if these corporate powers aren’t kept in check.

Three Quotes from, “Rollerball”:

1. “What do you want books for? Look Johnny, if you wanna learn somethin’, just get a Corporate Teacher to come and teach it to ya’. Use yer Privilege Card.”~ Moonpie

2. “Corporate society takes care of everything. And all it asks of anyone, all it’s ever asked of anyone ever, is not to interfere with management decisions.”~ Bartholomew

3. at the start of the Tokyo game]
P.A. Announcer: “Ladies and gentlemen, will you stand please for the playing of our Corporate Hymn.”

This July 4th as Mrs. E and I go to see some fireworks I want them going off during the U.S. National Anthem not the “Global Corporations National Anthem.” George Washington said, “Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” The same can’t be said of the corporate cause of profits before people. Happy Independence Day!

To see the propaganda on tort reform we have been fed by corporations and the media they own check out the excellent documentary, “Hot Coffee” on HBO.

Dave Alvin: Fourth of July

also: Out of Control

Now as through this world I ramble,  I see lots of funny men,  Some rob you with a six gun,  And some with a fountain pen.”  –Woody Guthrie in “Pretty Boy Floyd