Losing no sleep over Homeland Security shutdown

With a late night yawn I read the news about how Congress spared Homeland Security at the last minute. Homeland Security– over glorified in the early years after the September 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center- now can be shut down permanently with no harm to the American people.

Homeland Security consists of tens of thousands of rude, crude,fat bloated, LAZY idiots. Here in Rhode Island their type is personified by the goons who maltreated and terrorized a perfectly respectable Warwick man, Gregg Bogosian, just trying to pick up relatives at T.F. Green Airport. Bogosian detailed the outrageous abuse story on local TV news earlier in February. He now has filed a $10 million civil suit in Federal Court.

These Homeland Security clowns will not win any war against terrorism, to be sure. They could easily be transferred to the less futile War on Drugs. For me, a socialist, Big government is deplorable only when it spits on human dignity. And wastes TAX PAYER money doing it.

Alan Dershowitz - Zionist with "Chutzpah"

I am following this story of a growing boycott of Israel's leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, soon to disgrace the Congress of the United States with an unauthorized and meddling speech.

Not for nothing, President Obama is not welcoming the world champion of Zionism. But a so called Liberal Democrat, celebrity defense lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, scolds any Democrats thinking of snubbing this arrogant war criminal in a Feb. 23 Wall Street Journal article.

You really don't have to have any mad affinity for the Third Reich to find this guy rather despicable. For years now he has been a cheer leader for Israel no matter what its latest crimes against the Palestinians. As a "professional Jew," he complained in a well titled book "Chutzpah" that Jews were still treated as "second class citizens" here in the United States. This is as a big a lie as his assertion in the  Wall Street Journal  article that Israel is the "only vibrant democracy in the Middle East."

But just a question from a dumb goyim: "If Jews should be FIRST CLASS CITIZENS, then just who must serve them as second or third class citizens?" To be sure, Dershowitz client, "Queen of Mean" billionaire Leona Helmsley, did not suffer even unconsciously from an inferiority complex. She fired one of her gay hotel managers and cheated the federal government out of millions of dollars in taxes. And so, in need of a rescue operation from lawyer Dershowitz, she is seen in a newspaper photo with Alan tenderly touching this greedy, cold hearted witch.

With Alan's embrace of the ONE PERCENT – Jewish and non-Jewish- we need not wonder why this LIBERAL DEMOCRAT sees racist Israel as both Jew Heaven and "vibrant democracy." In Israel Jews are indeed FIRST CLASS CITIZENS. A pity for the Palestinians!

Submitted to: letters@providencejournal.com

                                                                                                                                                                                  

Could not the Islamic A-Bomb be a good thing?

The capitalist news media– not a little influenced by its "professional Jew" Zionist overseers - is spreading panic over the prospect of a nuclear armed Iran.  The unasked American public might wonder: why is it OK for Israel to have a nuclear arsenal and not Iran? Are the Iranians more vicious theologians than the Zionist clique that rules Israel? The chant "Allah is great!" is no more inherently pernicious than the centuries old, Old Testament delusion of being "The Chosen People." A secular democracy recognizes no group of humanity as "special".

     
The Islamic A-Bomb-call it "The Wrath of Allah" just might stabilize the Middle East by creating a balance of real terror. Don't tell us that ISIS is more terrorist than the atomic bombs that were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And they were dropped with a terrorist motivation: not to end the war in the Pacific but to show the post war world– namely the Soviet Union– who was now the new super-power in the world: U.S imperialism.

I really find it difficult to listen to insincere and rather ludicrous political speeches on the unique EVIL of ISIS.

Submitted to: letter@globe.com, letters@providencejournal.com

Democrats should boycott Israel's Netanyahu

As a citizen of a secular country I do not want to see a representative of Zionist Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, have the honor of addressing the Congress of the United States against the wishes of the president of the United States, Barack Obama.

Cartoon by Amos Biderman, published by Haaretz October 30, 2014. Biderman explained in a phone interview with The Times of Israel that the cartoon implied that Netanyahu was leading to “a disaster in Israel-US relations on the scale of 9/11,” pointing to the prime minister’s “arrogance” and unchecked settlement construction in retaliation for Palestinian terrorism and diplomacy alike.  Link to article on:  Jews for Justice for Palestinians

I hope many so called LIBERAL Democrats have the moral sense and the decency not to grovel before this war criminal, arch enemy of the Palestinian cause. The common people of America never decided that we should have a SPECIAL relationship with a JEWISH state anymore than we should have a SPECIAL relationship with a reactionary Islamic state. Too many Americans have been slobbering over this nuclear armed menace to peace in the world. Believe me, most Americans do not have a sentimental, indulgent attitude toward this self-absorbed, arrogant, permanent "friend" of the United States. Time to end our cozy and DANGEROUS relationship with this artificial state.

To be sure, the safest place for educated and progressive Jews is right here in the United States. Too many once left-wing Jews have sold their souls to an idol- the State of Israel. Today they are far more "professional Jew" Zionists than they ever were Marxist  Socialists. And they are indeed over-represented in the news media. No, this is not anti-Semitism. It is just the truth.

Submitted to: letters@time.com,  letters@usatoday.com, letter@globe.com, letters@providencejournal.com

Giuliani joins the kooks!

Link to thestranger.com/blogs:
"Rudy Giuliani's Racist Anti-Obama Comments
Are a Desperate (and Successful) Plea for Attention"

Having served as a presidential elector for the American Communist Party and the Socialist Workers Party, I can assure my fellow citizens that President Obama is not and never was a socialist or a communist. This from a bootlicker of the billionaire Koch Brothers –still daydreaming presidential hopeful Rudolf Giuliani.

 "America's Mayor" joins Ayn Rand cranks Paul Ryan and Rand Paul in associating patriotism with "The Virtue of Selfishness". And by that criterion who can be more PATRIOTIC than our politician buying, climate change denying, Israel defending Koch brothers?

Saul Alinsky's "Rules For Radicals"

At least Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" might point President Obama more in the direction of New Deal President Franklin D. Roosevelt and away from the neo-con Republicans now in control of the Senate and the House. Only the complete corruption of popular democracy will put an Ayn Rand nut in the White House in 2016.

By the way, Giuliani joins-also aging- celebrity pop singer Pat Boone in suspecting that Obama is a Marxist "because he does not want anybody to get rich." Boone (singer of the memorable RACIST pop song "Speedy Gonzalez") said this in a Fox News interview a few years ago.

                                                                                                                                                                          

Submitted to: letters@providencejournal.com

Mall Zombies threatened by ISIS!

America's mall zombies are in danger of quickly losing their heads –if not their minds. So today's news reports.

As a democratic Socialist I have a very different perspective on how to deal with the very real danger of terrorism within the United States. After the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, I was, first of all, struck by futility of our nuclear weapons. In fact, most of our military is an absurd waste of money. We really just need a specialized police force here. In an odd way the PACIFISTS have a solution to terrorism: terrorists in Syria are no more a threat to ordinary Americans than cannibals in the former Belgian Congo.

I don't want to give ISIS any new ideas. But if you soon see a YouTube video showing them dining on enemies of Allah, DON'T PANIC. Say to yourself: "It's just a movie. It's just a movie!"

Submitted to: letters@providencejournal.com

CBS NEWS COMMENTS and "Je suis Charlie".

If George Orwell, author of "1984", could come back to life in  2015 America, he would see how horribly right he was about THOUGHT CRIME in a world of endless war.

Yesterday (Feb.19) I viewed the CBS headline- on line: MAJOR THREAT . . . "For the time, a majority of Americans favor the U.S. sending ground  troops into Iraq and Syria to fight ISIS".

The first TWO COMMENTS contradicted this. My own began "Have we learned nothing from Vietnam? "The other person's comment: . . . "Why would anyone want one more American life taken for these corrupt countries?" . . .

I printed out the article along with the two comments. This morning I noticed that both of these embarrassing (to the ruling class) comments were REMOVED. Then I added another one: "In order to have another foolish war the ruling class must tell and spread the BIG LIE. 'Je suis Charlie Hebdo' – Now where did I get that inspiration about FREE SPEECH in America?"

Submitted to: letters@providencejournal.com, letters@usatoday.com, letter@globe.com

Astute blogger's observation on Islamic School of Rhode Island vandalism ( this week's news )

One alert blogger makes this observation that I have failed to find anywhere else: "They also drew a circle with a cross in it, known as the sun cross or the wheel cross. This is a symbol used by white supremacists, such as the KKK, including neo-Nazis"
( see http://bennorton.com )

No, this was probably not crazy kid stuff!

Submitted to: letters@providencejournal.com

                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Portrait of "Hater" who vandalized Islamic School

 

I agree with this point in your editorial  today ("A hateful Act", Feb.18) on the vandalism of the Islamic School of Rhode Island: any attempt to blame one billion Muslims for this is deeply unjust.

My image of this guy (it must be a guy!) is right out of Harper's Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird." He is not a professional terrorist. He is not a professional anything. He is a poorly educated, ignorant, unemployed drunk. He does not write letters-to-the-editor. He has his own graffiti skills. I give you our very own West Warwick version of Bob Ewell– "the white trash" of Harper Lee's novel.

This sort of EVIL has deep social roots. Bob Ewell was also a victim of hopeless poverty, unemployment, and ignorance. He found SOMEBODY to look down on from his own hellish pit. (just a guess, of course).

                                                                                                                                        

Submitted to: letters@providencejournal.com

We should quickly change our Middle East foreign policy

 

It would certainly help the American Muslim community if the United States ended its cozy relationship with every rotten, undemocratic, theocratic, decadent royalist regime in the Middle East. Also, too many of our political leaders slobber over Zionist Israel.

What is democratic about this self-absorbed, self-righteous, JEWISH state? When did ordinary Americans ever decide that we have a special ,sentimental, extremely indulgent, relationship with Israel? We must pressure Israel to disarm its own nuclear weapons.

And Democrats should just walk out when the prime minister of Israel, Netanyahu, speaks to the Congress in early March. He was invited here by the Republican fans of Ayn Rand- herself a rabid atheist- Zionist who thought the Palestinians were inferior human beings. I'll bet President Obama is furious with Netanyahu.

Submitted to: letters@providencejournal.com, letter@globe.com, letters@usatoday.com

New Atheism a front for Zionism?

Militant atheism has been around since the Great French Revolution of 1789. The New Atheism is clearly nothing more than a front for militant Zionism. No honest socialist-even if a convinced atheist- will sympathize with this deranged and decadent bunch. They have been accurately described as Islamophobes.

A non-religious socialist will find more inspiration and instruction in a long forgotten book written by that incorrigible atheist and REVOLUTIONARY– Vladimir Lenn, the leader of Russia's Bolshevik Revolution in 1917.  Like Marx Lenin believed that the only cure for religious confusion was a rational social order.

Any honest socialist will oppose Zionism and support the oppressed and downtrodden in every country. The world's Muslims present a truer picture of oppression than comfortable middle class Jews in a nuclear armed and belligerent Zionist Israel.

If Democratic politicians have any sense, they will not be there in the Congress to welcome the prime minister of Israel– war criminal Netanyahu in early March. Nor will they welcome the Catholic Pope unless he too is personally welcomed by the White House first.

Let the Ayn Rand Republicans greet  Mr. Netanyahu. Ayn Rand was a rabid fan of Israel too. So is the Ayn Rand Institute. Ayn was buried under the floral design of a dollar sign. A fitting symbol for global capitalism.

Submitted to: letter@globe.com

New Atheism a front for Zionism?

Link to "The New Atheism" on Wikipedia

I have no quarrel with your Sunday editorial pointing out anti-Semitism where it is clearly evident. But the hot story in the blogosphere the past week is the evidence of a Hate Crime in the slaying of three young Muslims in North Carolina.

I have had a problem with the very concept of HATE CRIME for years. If a maniac blows your brains out, what consolation would it be to your family if it were determined that HATE was not a motive? What brutal crimes are not motivated by HATE?

But there is certainly a political slant on the killer Craig Hicks. He does represent the New Atheism with a vengeance. A lot of research makes me suspect that the New Atheism is a front for Zionism. It just might be funded and encouraged by FBI/CIA operatives. I recall the infamous COINTELPRO program of the Nixon era. The agencies would actually plant "violent types" in respectable political organizations. Think about it. You will soon be reading about it.

Submitted to: letters@providencejournal.com

Another coincidence too good to be true? Hick's ex-wife, Cynthia Hurley.

I was curious about Hick's ex-wife, Cynthia Curley. I spot an internet headline that says: "Cynthia Hurley gets a year in jail". This Cynthia, same age as Craig, only stole about a million dollars in gold and silver from a very old aunt, Lilian King. Aunt Lilian complained that Cynthia was bringing crack cocaine addicts on her property.

Craig Hicks was reported as unemployed. Where was he getting his money? No relatives named. Second wife wants a quick divorce, saying he believed everybody was equal. So, I guess, he was a PROGRESSIVE SOCIALIST? This might just be lousy notes for a bad detective story!

Just curious in Cranston.


Submitted to: letters@providencejournal.com

Can't locate ANY Craig Hicks relatives

I am only appealing to your journalistic curiosity. I may be a hopeless amateur here. But I can't locate a single relative of this Craig Hicks character who killed the three Muslims. Only his wife who wants a quick divorce.

Check it out?

Submitted to: letters@providencejournal.com

Is Craig Stephen Hicks related to Ayn Rand Philosopher and contemporary author?

This might just be a weird coincidence: There is an author-philosopher, disciple of Ayn Rand named Stephen Ronald Craig Hicks. The killer, "gun toting atheist", of three Muslim students in North Carolina is named Craig Stephen Hicks. The author wrote a book titled "Ayn Rand and Contemporary Business Ethics". Has the news media carefully checked out the background of the killer? Is that even his real name?

Submitted to: letter@globe.com

What if the three slain were Hassidic Jews?

I just viewed Muslim rage on Twitter over the news media coverage of the killing of three promising Muslims in a college town in North Carolina. I can easily see their point: what if three Hassidic Jews were gunned down by a "gun toting" atheist? Would the news media have dumbly accepted a police slant on it as a matter of road rage or parking space? So even without the talents of Brian Williams the capitalist news media can quickly distort the news.

Submitted to: letters@providencejournal.com

Hands off Cuban Socialism!

As a citizen of the United States and a democratic Socialist I would hate to see everything good and decent and progressive about socialist Cuba spoiled by the corrupting influence of American vulture capitalism.

Has the world been told the full story behind the collapse of Soviet era communism? How could hundreds of thousands of Russian Communist Party members – almost over night– abandon the rational ideology of scientific socialism (which was never a Stalinist personality cult) and embrace the reactionary American crackpot Ayn Rand? Embrace the socially insane principles of global capitalism?

Link to The Demon-Haunted World

Our popular science writer Carl Sagan reported that all sorts of intellectual rubbish was surfacing in post Soviet era Russia ( read his "Demon Haunted World"). A Lenin could have predicted this (Lenin's  work "Materialism and Empirio Criticism" is still very instructive)

I would love to see a revival of socialist thinking in Russia. In 2017 they should CELEBRATE the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. And once again reach out to the workers of the world.

( comment on article published in Aktyalnye Kommentarii ( Russia ) on Jan. 29, 2015 by Alexander Ionov, WATCHING AMERICA, "The U.S. Always Wants More")

Tonight I just turned off Brian Williams

Last night I was surprised to see Brian Williams doing the news-after THE NEWS. Tonight I was unpleasantly surprised again. Brian is indeed the very face of our corporate ruling class. I turned off the TV. And opened the window.

Submitted to: letters@usatoday.com

The Pope needs a spanking?

I was not impressed with the Holy Father's PERMISSION to spank your naughty child. Just don't let it show on his cute little face. What will your nosy -politically correct -neighbors think? Perhaps a little TOUCHY-FEEL-LY is also good for the child's character. But protect his dignity. Don't let it show on his behind!

To get sociological: The Holy Father wants to prop up parental authority. But I think this rotten bourgeois family should be replaced by a more COMMUNAL social unit-patterned after the Israeli kibbutz. You don't spank a child you don't OWN!                                                                                                             

Submitted to: letters@usatoday.com

"The NBC anchor must have credibility?" - true but superficial

Link to American Free Press article

I  have no wish to deflate NBC news anchor Brian Williams for inflating or conflating personal Iraq war stories-usually distorted by the fog of war anyway. But behind Brian Williams, of course, are his corporate masters-the very individuals who intentionally LIE us into nasty wars. What was more foolish than for the mass media to propagandize for an endless war on terrorism-every bit as futile and costly as the war on drugs? We see now that even modern medicine cannot win its arrogant WAR ON GERMS.

It is easy enough to protect any news anchor's credibility if he is instructed to tell the truth. But Brian Williams, the face of NBC, is also the face of our war propaganda. Was his phony baloney war story also motivated by a felt need to sell the disastrous Iraq War to the American people, to conflate it with one of our-also phony-GOOD WARS?

Even if Brian Williams is fired, it will be for lost sacrosanct credibility. But TRUTH is not sacrosanct in the capitalist owned news media.

Brian Williams can quickly be replaced by another corporate cardboard, charming charlatan. I recommend our very own Gene Valicenti !

Link

Submitted to: letters@providencejournal.com

Mark Dozois – consider this "chilly inhumanity"

Link to Eyewitness Account of Hiroshima Bombing

Mark Dozois writes in his Feb. 5 letter "Chilly Inhumanity" that he watched the video of the Jordanian pilot being burned alive. The human being "screaming in agony until death." This soul shaking experience converts him into a cheer leader for our state terrorism war against terror?

Let him reflect on these thoughts of an eye witness to "Hiroshima Burned to Ashes":  "Among the hundreds of injured persons of whom you cannot tell the difference between male and female there were children screaming IT"S HOT, IT'S HOT and infants crying over the bodies of their mothers who appeared already dead."

As a believer in socialist internationalism I say : NO SUPPORT FOR THE U.S. WAR ON TERROR. There is not much of a moral choice here: state terrorism vs. fanatical gang terrorism? It is know-nothing ignorance to support our imperialist wars- which are never waged for humanitarian reasons. There is an awesome amount of honest sociological research behind this pacifist point of view.

Submitted to: letters@providencejournal.com

The Golden Age of Phoniness! ( Brian Williams )

I am trying to process this early morning radio news with Gene Valicenti. First Gene talks about the Herbal Supplement Hoax. What, no St. John's Wort in St.John's Wort? Then Gene comments on the Brian Williams scandal:  Williams was NEVER on board a military helicopter that was fired upon.

To be sure, this celebrity newsman is no Walter Cronkite. But the U.S. ruling class is not interested in HONESTY in the news coverage of our insane wars or HONESTY in reporting big business ethics scandals.

A while back I recall  PrOJO columnist Froma Harrop getting a 
little tired and bored and impatient with the J.D. Salinger's unforgettable character, young neurotic, middle class Holden Caulfield. Fans of "Catcher in the Rye" can never forget Holden's adolescent sensitivity to everyday PHONINESS. But that was back in the relatively honest post-war years. 

What kind of Holden could we imagine in this Golden Age of Phoniness?

To: John DePetro <john@630wpro.com

                                                                                              

Update on "Ragged Dave"- a Patriot fan in Seattle

link to "Consider Yourself . . ." from "Oliver"

 A Brown University connection with " Ragged Dave ".

Last year you published a letter I sent you on the plight of my homeless friend who spent a miserable night in the Harrington Hall shelter in Cranston ("No help for 'Ragged Dav ", Aug. 1, 2014. )  He now has a place to live ( precariously, of course ) in Seattle, Washington. He calls me a few times a month. 

Just before the Super Bowl he made it clear to me that he was no fan of the Seattle Seahawks. Dave hoped that the New England Patriots would win one more time. I told him to call me again right after the game. That night I watching the musical " Oliver " with a rather motherly neighbor.  I just checked the Superbowl score a few times, despairing of a Patriot victory by half-time. Right around 10 o'clock at night Dave calls. I was silent expecting bad news. Then he said "They won!." I will always associate this happy news with "Ragged Dave".

More happy news for Dave? He asked me to study his rich late aunt's will in Providence City Hall. I would love to tell him: "Consider yourself one of the family!". He is related to the Alpert family after which Brown University Medical School is named.

To: letters@providencejournal.com

Rand Paul or Ayn Rand on the evil of vaccination?

I recall in the 1950s the John Birch Society was saying that putting minute quantities of fluorine in our drinking water-to prevent dental decay in children-was a communist plot. Now Republican leader Rand Paul  is saying that vaccinations are DANGEROUS. Did he consult the Complete Works of Ayn Rand ( his idol ) before speaking out on this BIG GOVERNMENT plot?

To: letters@providencejournal.com

Portion of a 1955 cartoon warning against the evils of three government health programs, including water fluoridation.  [Source: Spectator]

50th Anniversary of Malcolm X assassination (Feb. 21)

The Autobiography of Malcolm X,
original paperback cover

How can any radicalized in 60s baby boomer ever forget the greatest black leader of our time? With tens of thousands of black Americans in the streets again protesting police brutality (with chants of "Black Lives Matter!")

I vividly recall the still inflammatory images and speeches of Malcolm X. The 50th anniversary of his assassination is coming up on Feb.21. What radicalized  young whites observed was Malcolm's growth and evolution. In the last year of his life (read socialist writer George Breitman's book) he clearly began to connect the evil of racism with the evil of capitalism: "Show me a capitalist and I'll show you a bloodsucker", he declared.

In his famous biography Malcolm X described all the good the Nation of Islam was doing to rescue young black lives from the gutter, from alcoholism and drug addiction, to rescue black prisoners from self-hatred and self-destruction.

Yet in 1965 the Providence Journal was not impressed with Malcolm X : "Put down the assassination of Malcolm Little as a minor footnote in history." ( check your microfilms on this ).

These are the words of Malcolm X (1925-1963)
inscribed high on the front of the University of
Rhode Island Library. link

There is popular quotation of Malcolm expressing his love of books inscribed on the outside wall of the URI library. But his name was blotted out (last time I checked).
I glance at this internet headline: "Malcolm X was right about America". Yes, indeed!

Submitted to: letters@providencejournal.com

U.S. Foreign Policy Hypocrisy!

Link to Debs Canton Speech at the Zinn Education Project

As a citizen of the United States I can only wish that our own-literally bought and sold-news media were as honest as this commentary on the mind boggling hypocrisy of U.S. foreign policy. Did the working class people here ever decide that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia was a great friend of the United States, that socialist Cuba was a perennial enemy, that Israel-simply as another STATE-could do no wrong? After the collapse of the old Soviet Union we find fault with Czar Putin?

I just read Eugene V. Debs' famous, eloquent, and most instructive "Canton Speech". The American plutocracy has always operated under the banner of freedom and democracy. Will young working class Americans continue to die for the same Wilsonian blather that the old socialists ridiculed?

What cant over FREE SPEECH here! "Je Suis Charlie". Humbug, I tell you. Humbug!

EUGENE V. DEBS HOME
 –TERRE HAUTE,
VIGO COUNTY, INDIANA

( comment on article  published in Altavoz ( Peru ) on Jan. 28, 2015 by Editorial, "The Hypocrisy of the United States" , WATCHING AMERICA )

ProJo's Stanley M. Aronson's last column on NOTHINGNESS- weird and wonderful!

Link to Dr. Aronson's Obituary in The Providence Journal

When I read that your beloved columnist Stanley M. Aronson had died I immediately recalled he was my dead mother's favorite too. (and Ma was also born in 1922.)

It does indeed pay to be CURIOUS in this life. Einstein spoke of "holy curiosity." But it was just plain weird that Dr. Aronson's last column was a profound reflection on NOTHINGNESS. Unless we have an unshakeable belief in the afterlife we tend to associate death with nothingness. Aronson's last column is not dogmatic on the subject but creative and informative. I had an impulse to comment on it but it was really too deep for haste.

If you can think of God as No Thing, you can indeed believe in both the Big Bang and a metaphysical Creator. But Aronson's last sentence suggests that this very deep philosophical discussion be continued in the nearest tavern.

                                                                                                                                                               



Submitted to letters@projo.com