Sarah Palin on Egypt

It's not often that I find someone who makes worse sense than I do.  Following is my vote for, 2011 Queen of the Trailer Park". 

Sarah Palin on Egypt
Robert Dreyfuss | February 6, 2011
Sarah Palin, in her first comments on Egypt, managed to make no sense at
all. None. I especially liked her "not, not real enthused about what it is
that that's being done [in DC]." Here's the full quote, which sounds like it
was written by Miss South Carolina, speaking for all "US Americans":

"And nobody yet has, nobody yet has explained to the American public what
they know, and surely they know more than the rest of us know who it is who
will be taking the place of Mubarak and no, not, not real enthused about
what it is that that's being done on a national level and from DC in regards
to understanding all the situation there in Egypt. And, in these areas that
are so volatile right now, because obviously it's not just Egypt but the
other countries too where we are seeing uprisings, we know that now more
than ever, we need strength and sound mind there in the White House. We need
to know what it is that America stands for so we know who it is that America
will stand with. And, we do not have all that information yet."


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Source URL:
http://www.thenation.com/blog/158333/comic-relief-sarah-palin-egyp

Curious Carl

super highways: Ike's dream? or America's curse?

Many great ideas don't look so hot in retrospect. 

Ike's plan for a nation of super highways looked really good to the automotive industry and the oil tycoons, but it has turned out to be a curse for the majority of Americans. 

Even in 1952, the great iron highways built by American taxpayers and Chinese slave labor were falling into disrepair.  For years the railroads used their free roads, built on land that had been handed over to them by our congress, you know, the folks we put into office to look out for our interests? 

But these roads were beginning to need expensive maintenence and the corporate owners had better plans for the money they had squeezed from the farmers and shippers of goods.  But we were in the year 1952, the year we planned to put a TV in every living room, and a car in every garage.  And when we had done that, we would build two car garages and family rooms and vacation homes and we would haul huge travel trailers behind our one ton pickups. 

The age of the gasoline engine.  Every man should have at least five noisy gas engines at his finger tips. 

Had Ike pushed to repair and expand our rail system we would be living in more people friendly towns today. 

Far less polution, mass transit, far less congestion on city streets.  No suburban sprawl.  No one hour bumper to bumper commutes to the job each day.  High speed rail would cut down on the need for air travel between regional cities. 

Roads would still wander through towns and wind through mountains and forest land. 

 

And we would all be happier. 

Except for GM and BP. 

Curious Carl

 

let's quit glamorizing our past

We tend to glamorize our early days as a nation, and even before.  But we have always had "The Man" with his boot on our throat and the sting of his whip on our backs.  But during that briefest of brief period of less than fifty years, we had a prospering Working/Middle Class.  We look upon those Golden Years as the norm, forgetting how most of our national history really was.  How many on this list grew up in a Company Town?  How many worked in the garment factories at the age of 9 or 10?  How many of us crawled into the bucket to be lowered into the mine in the dark of early morning and never come out until the dark of night...six days a week. 

How many picked crops from dawn to dusk and slept in a drafty shack on a hard board bunk? 

And how many blind folks remember the days when our lot in life was the Poor Farm or the Loony Bin? 

And that's only our White brothers and sisters.  The lot for our Colored brothers and sisters was far, far worse. 

We just can't seem to accept the fact that the Ruling Class views us as a natural resource.  During World War II and for a period of years following, the Working/Middle Class prospered.  They fattened savings accounts, purchased homes and recreational property and invested their money in stocks and bonds. 

As this natural resource grew fat and contented, the Ruling Class grew restless and greedy.  Finally they could wait no longer.  The harvest began.  Now the Working/Middle Class lies in shambles.  Just as they did when they clear cut the forests and over fished the rivers and oceans, and force planted the fields, the Ruling Class has done nothing to rebuild.  Greed is a destroyer, a taker. 

But unlike the Forests and the Oceans and the Fields, we can do something about this rape that has befallen the Working/Middle Class.  We can rise up, self start, and take back that which was rightfully ours to begin with. 

 

Curious Carl

 

Pet Peeve

Pet Peeve

 

I think that there's nothing more subversive than free advertising by a company.  Like buying a 30 thousand dollar car and having the make of the car in raised shiny letters.  Or the dealer where you bought the car puts on their own license plate holder with the name of the dealership on it.  Or the tires with the manufacturers name.  In fact, most everything you buy has a name boldly displayed, telling all and asundrey that you are the proud owner of their product. 

And no one ever challenges this free advertising.  Well, almost no one. 

The last new car my dad bought, come to think of it, the only new car my dad bought, had license plate holders proudly naming the dealership. 

"What's that?" dad asked. 

"What's what", the puzzled fellow echoed. 

"That advertising around my license plates", dad demanded. 

"Well, that just shows folks where you bought your car."  the salesman replied with a big smile.  "We like to get the word out." 

"How much are you going to pay me to advertise your company," dad demanded. 

"Pay?  We don't pay.  Besides, you need to have a license plate holder." 

"If you don't pay, then put the original holders back on.  I'm not going to pay you for the car and then provide you free advertising, too." 

And so it came to pass that my dad's brand new car proudly announced in raised silver script, "Buick Super Duper Whatever", but his license plate holders did not have any free advertising. 

Oh well, you can't win 'em all. 

 

Curious Carl

 

Can We Please Stop Blaming Immigrants?

Is there some formula to determine who is not descended from immigrants? 

We now know that even those folks we thought were Natives had pushed other people off the land as they moved in.  So even my Blackfoot and Osage connections were immigrants at some point. 

My mother's folks came from Germany in 1752(John Ludwig, who was a sea captain in the revolutionary war) and my dad's people were well settled in what is now West Virginia in the mid 1750's.  Somehow, between the 1750's and the late 1800's my people worked their way across this continent until here I am, a native Washingtonian living about as far West as we can go on the lower 48.  Some migration.  None of us would be here if it were not for daring, brave or  desperate people striking out into the unknown. 

When I first saw the rabbit hutch-like shacks occupied by migrant workers in the fields around Yakima, I didn't look down my nose at the people huddled there.  Instead it reminded me of stories my folks told me about their own humble beginning as dirt farmers in Spokane Valley.  They lived in a two room shack with a path to the out house and a pump outside the back door. 

So many of my people were farmers and miners and loggers and plain working class people.  Their labor built this mighty nation.  As a reward they were spat upon and looked down upon by the very people they helped make rich.  Many of them just accepted this as their lot in life, going to their churches and praying to their God, even knowing that their God was smiling with great favor on their Masters, while turning His back on them.  But somehow they thought that if they worked hard enough and prayed hard and long enough it would all work out. 

My dad took a different path.  Early on he became a labor organizer and a Radical.  He did not believe that the meek would inherit the earth, but instead they would be buried in it in unmarked graves. 

My dad taught me that being Patriotic did not mean that you bent your head and took the Masters lash.  True Patriots speak out against the inequities around them. 

Even knowing that this is now the United Corporate Empire of America, true Patriots call for a Peoples Revolution, a taking of power from the Ruling Class. 

 

Curious Carl

 

Struggling for a better world

 

The struggle for a better world is worth the effort.  There are times when I say, "Mankind is doomed".  Other times I say, "Yes we can!" 

But mostly I find life so exciting, and the trip through it so full of adventure, and my time so short, that I do not think in terms of, winning or losing.   I just think in terms of, doing. 

 

Curious Carl

 

a portion of Eisenhower's farewell speech 1961

Subject: a portion of Eisenhower's farewell speech 1961

As you read the following, think of how the mass media has been taken over and our ability to be the informed citizens has been corrupted. 

Curious Carl

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"...In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together..."