All those copper cables in the ground-buried treasure for enterprising thieves

How do they know an explosive device did not wash out to sea in the tide?
What would their explanation have been if they had not found a cable in the area?

                                        Scientific spectrum-spectrograph evidence is a very powerful tool. So I guess an explosive device can really be ruled out. But think of all those corroding copper cables buried underground? Things made of copper in, on or about buildings are constantly being stolen or ripped off. They are treasure for enterprising thieves.
The state here is neglecting buried treasure ! Someone should invent a metal detector for copper. My walks on the beach might be more profitable-even for an old socialist. Send the money to the Bernie Sanders campaign. 

                                              *****

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  "   Our modern lives require an enormous amount of copper. ... Far too few Americans realize the pivotal role copper plays in the future of our economy. ... Copper's high resale value means that every care is taken to avoid wasting copper and it is ... "

What kind of " democracy " is preserved by a low voter turnout ?

Ralph Nader reflects on a Donald Trump third party

   I  am tired of reading how Ralph Nader's ego spoiled election night for Al Gore. The undemocratic Electoral College was a big factor in the disastrous victory of George W. Bush.
     Nader-like many obscure socialist parties - has said for years that Corporate America controls both the Democratic and Republican parties.
       I  am registered Democrat . The insane hatred of conservative Republicans for Bill Clinton motivated me to vote for him twice. But Clinton is a neo-Democrat not even an FDR liberal. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is really an FDR liberal-not a militant " socialist ".
       It seems that ONLY hard core socialists preserve their ideological integrity. But I have no problem with " pragmatism " on the left-as long as it does not weaken class consciousness.
        Cynics now hope that critical support for Bernie Sanders can be channeled into political support for Hillary Clinton on election 2016. But what a soporific choice : Hillary vs.Jeb Bush !
            I think the most progressive thing Donald Trump can do is destroy the Republican Party.
    A bunch of privileged rich people imagine that THEY represent America.What kind of " democracy " is preserved by a low voter turnout ?
   

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")

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

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 )

Business owners most culpable on sidewalks after blizzard!

I do find fault with many main street business owners. They quickly plowed out their spacious lots in the interest of MAKE-A-BUCK. Their sidewalks neglected in the spirit of contempt for pedestrians. If they could only charge a sidewalk toll!

Just a helpful suggestion.

Submitted To: letters@providencejournal.com

Submitted To: Gene@630wpro.com

"The Socialist" -Barack Obama or Francois Holland?

A while back I noted in my blog ( http://radicalrons.blogspot.com/ ) that the aging pop singer Pat Boone accused President Obama in a Fox News interview of being a Marxist because  he does not want anybody to get rich. (link to blog article)

In his Jan.19 letter,  Class Divisions won't help America", Lewis A. Prescott thinks Obama is "once again trying to take us down the road to socialism". The Providence Journal editorial Jan.20 "Mr. Hollande's super tax opus" implies that even a very tamed, housebroken socialist is more than a little dangerous and foolish in high office.

The Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky was very familiar with all varieties of bourgeois socialism. He would have dismissed France's Hollande as "the ideal socialist leader for successful dentists."  The fate of the assassinated leader of Chile, Salvadore Allende, proves once again that real socialism can only be established by a powerful mass movement of the WORKING class.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union the very idea of SOCIALISM has been kept alive by its fanatical ideological opponents. I get a strong dose of anti-socialism any time I turn on Red Eye Radio. Your editorials are more polite: anti-socialism for successful and prosperous used car salesmen.


To: letters@providencejournal.com

A different slant on Boston Marathon and other Islamic terrorists

Wikipedia link to "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair

What little personal history I can read in the daily newspapers about the brothers Tsarnaev suggests to this old socialist less esoteric motives for them than possession by some maniacal Islamic terrorism demons. There is simply the immigrant experience in America. Coming here, or even to a similar capitalist democracy like France, can be bitterly disappointing. The young daydreamers do not escape oppression and exploitation and the alienation that Marxists often write about. And what can be more embittering than a humiliating failure to support your own wife and children?

Some readers may recall the Upton Sinclair classic "The Jungle." I think the Tsarnaev brothers, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan, and their immigrant family, have a lot in common with Sinclair's character, the Lithuanian Jurgis Rudkus. But at the end of this great American novel Jurgis is prepared to fight for Upton Sinclair's vision of socialism- still in dreamland perhaps but a lot more constructive than blowing up innocent people.

In a strange way is 21st century terrorism partially explained by the collapse of the old Soviet Union?

Submitted to: letters@usatoday.com

"Obama PULLS the Race Card" , WATCHING AMERICA

Link to "Les Miserables" Theme Song

I am a citizen of the United States and a registered Democrat in the beautiful state of Rhode Island. In my heart I am more of a democratic Socialist -but most socialist parties here have sunk into demoralized confusion or a bizarre personality cult. I hope that they too, like Christ Crucified, can rise from the dead ..

I never voted for President Obama because I thought way back in 2006 that this charismatic American politician was being puffed up by our shadowy power elite. Obama has proved himself to be a Neo Democrat out of touch with the great tradition of New Deal Liberalism. Franklin D. Roosevelt did not fear scaring our privileged class.

You cannot separate the problem of RACE from the problem of CLASS in America. I read in the above text "No, Obama is not Martin Luther King or Malcolm X ."I do think that Malcolm X is more relevant to black rage in the streets of America than the ideals of Obama or Martin Luther King.

In the last year of his life (1965) Malcolm X was thinking in much larger terms than RACE. So white radicals on the left became very interested in his new message: "Show me a capitalist," Malcolm said, "and I'll show you a bloodsucker."

You have to begin with a bold sentiment like that in order to achieve even MODERATE social progress here in capitalist America. Oddly enough, President Obama is still more representative of the great majority of Americans than our new Republican Congress.

Will these Tea Party Republicans soon be serving up the crackpot reactionary Ayn Rand to the Other America? Just what we need: "The Virtue of Selfishness" with a COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATIVE facelift.

Interesting times in the United States of America. Thinking about the Great French Revolution of 1789. The song from the popular play "Les Miserables": "Do you hear the people sing . . . ?"

( Posted comment on Le Temps ( Switzerland ) on December 3, 2014  by Stephane  Bussard )

Should Humanists embrace Ayn Rand?

How can Humanists best respond to injustice? Not in the rude, mean spirited manner of the New Atheists putting up obnoxious ads on Rhode Island Public Transit Authority buses: "Godless, so are we."

Does Logic & Reason culminate in a reactionary social philosophy? Should Humanists embrace the Ayn Rand cult? What does her crackpot atheist cult classic "The Virtue of Selfishness" have to offer black rage in the streets of America this past week? Do Humanists want to make common cause with our ONE PERCENT plutocracy? How many of these super-rich people are oh-so-enlightened atheists, having liberated themselves from the superstitious fear of Hell for the injustice they perpetuate here on earth?

Clearly the New Atheism is giving moral support to our government's Crusade Against Islam, spreading its oh-so-enlightened  Islam-o-phobia. A scandalous  TORTURE REPORT of prisoners of war is being released today. Put the military bases on alert against THEIR evil! The evil of ISIS!

As a long time SOCIALIST,  I must ask my fellow Humanists if they think they are above the CLASS STRUGGLE? Has the New Atheism made peace with U.S. imperialism? What does Reason & Logic have to say about the madness of the capitalist way of life?

I can't imagine joining a New Atheist club where a Hitler and a Lenin can exchange mocking jokes about Jesus Christ rising from the dead. And joking too about his gospel of Love. What a fool!

The crackpot atheist Ayn Rand, of course, worshipped MONEY. Do we embrace her?

NOTE:  Of course, there is a long tradition of Judeo-Christian humanism. Did organized atheism ever sponsor even a two-bit SOUP KITCHEN?

Does Godlessness lead to "The Virtue of Selfishness"?

I want to thank my good HUMANIST friend ( and Lovecraft Pal ) Herb Marshall for directing me here. As a long time SOCIALIST I am wary of this NEW ATHEISM which is not only rude but right-wing reactionary - in the vile tradition of Ayn Rand, the crackpot atheist who worshipped MONEY. What does her book "The Virtue of Selfishness" say to oppressed and exploited black Americans?

Don't pretend that mere atheism rises above the class struggle with a wink of approval at the educated (atheist?) elite. And a look of contempt for poor, unenlightened masses. Would the New Atheists have invited Ayn Rand for tea and sent the religious Martin Luther King out as her chauffeur?

Sometimes I suspect New Atheists are funded by the FBI to serve as agents of Islam-o-phobia. No?

Does reason & logic apply to this sick and irrational capitalist system? The Providence Journal just published my letter : "Wary of the New Atheism" (Dec. 4, 2014.) ALL comments are welcome.

A Pulitzer Prize investigation: the New Atheism?

I note the number of comments on my short letter just questioning the political agenda of the New Atheism. To be sure, if the Ayn Rand cranks are prominent in the movement, the progressives have formed an unprincipled alliance.

Every socialist knows in his bones that you cannot begin to win the hearts and the minds of the common people- so necessary for REAL socialism- if you just scold them for being dupes of organized religion. And it is an effete and sophomoric atheism that wants to refight intellectual battles won by Science long ago. And no committed socialist would find it necessary to antagonize the world's major religions unless they have forged a sinister conspiracy with the ruling classes against the people.

It was the greatest mistake of the Russian Bolsheviks to make their state officially atheist. They should have copied America here-with its separation of Church and State. Any intelligent socialist would assume that public education with emphasis on basic science- biology, chemistry, physics- would free most young minds from what that IDEAL HUMANIST, astronomer, and popular science writer, Carl Sagan, called the "Demon Haunted World."

I link the crackpot atheist Ayn Rand, author of "The Virtue of Selfishness," and her bizarre cult, with HUMANIST Isaac Asimov's "Armies of the Night." They clearly worship MONEY!

I will try to reply to many of those comments on my blog http://radicalrons.blogspot.com/ But one question remains: How many of the New Atheists apply reason and logic to the everyday insanity of the capitalist way of life?

Submitted to: letters@providencejournal.com

WATCHING AMERICA: Recalling RED China

I am a citizen of the United States and a registered voter here in Cranston, Rhode Island. Just a thought question for those young Chinese who still vaguely remember "Red China" and the ideals of socialism-communism: Do you think the American legal system can possibly rise morally superior to the rotten and unjust American economic system?

Where in the world is capitalism all about equality and justice for all?  Certainly not here in America!

(WATCHING AMERICA : "Ferguson Unrest Exposes an Incapable US Judicial System", published in Huanqui, China, November 28 by Zhi Zhenfeng )