The Garden of Allah

This song struck me the first time I heard it years and years ago.
I didn't realize how the section in blue would apply to today...especially with the
Global Warming Deniers who are mostly financed by Big Oil.
Take a look and see what you think . . .

The Garden Of Allah lyrics - Don Henley

It was pretty big year for fashion
a lousy year for rock and roll
The people gave their blessing to crimes of passion
It was a dark, dark night of the collective soul
and I was somewhere out on Riverside by the
El Royale Hotel
When a stranger appeared in a cloud of smoke
I thought I knew him all too well

He said now that I have your attention
I got something I wanna say
You may not wanna hear it, I'm gonna tell it to
you anyway
You know I've always like you boy
Cause you were not afraid of me
Things are gonna get mighty rough here in
Gomorrah-by-the-Sea

I said it's just like home
It's so damn hot I can't stand it
My fine seersucker suit is all soaking wet
And the hills are burning
and the wind is raging
and the clock strikes midnight
in the Garden of Allah
In the Garden of Allah

Nice car
Ah, I love those Bavarians
so meticulous. Why
I remember when things were a lot
more fun around here
When good was good and evil was evil
Before things got so . . . fuzzy

I was once a golden boy like you
I was summoned to the halls of power
in the heavenly courts
I dined with the deities who looked upon
me with favor,
for my talents, my creativity
and we sat beneath the palms
in the warm afternoons and drank the wine

With Fitzgerald and Huxley and they pawned
the biting phrase from the tongues hot with blood
and drained their pens of bitter ink
Vainly reaching for the bottle full of empty Edens
Branded especially for the ones who had come
with great
expectations to the perfumed halls of Allah,
for their time in the sun

And we were stokin' the fires and oilin'
up the machinery
Until the Gods found out we had ideas of our own
And war was coming and the Earth was shaking
and there was no more ruin in the Garden of Allah

Today I made an appearance downtown
I am an expert witness because I say I am 
And I said gentlemen, and I use that world loosely
I will testify for you,
I'm a gun for hire,I'm a saint, I'm a liar
Because there are no facts, there is no truth

Just data to be manipulated
I can get you any result you like 
What's it worth to you?
Because there is no wrong, there is no right
And I sleep very well at night
No shame, no solution, no remorse, no retribution
Just people selling t-shirts
Just opportunity to participate
in this pathetic little
circus and winning, winning, winning

It was pretty big year for predators
The marketplace was on a roll
and the land of opportunity
spawned a whole new breed of men without souls
This year notoriety got all confused with fame
and the devil is downhearted babe, cause
there's nothing left for him to claim

He said it's just like home
It's so low-down I can't stand it
I guess my work around here has all been done

And the fruit is rotten, the serpent's eyes shine
as he wraps around the vine,
in the Garden of Allah

BTW: In case you didn't pick up on it,
"The Garden Of Allah"
is a metaphor for the Garden of Eden

Why?

You know, the US has a unique form of Government.

To my knowledge, no other country has a similar form of democracy as ours.

Most of the other "democracies" are based on a Parlimentary form of government...like England, et al.

Why is this, I wonder?

Could it be that they are right and we are wrong?

One of the things I took from the movie "Sicko" was that other countries (like England and France) were "afraid" of their constituents.

How long has it been since our gov't. was afraid of us?

Maybe there is a point here to be made!

I know that I am SICK of being taken for granted by Bush and the other Corporatacracies.

We deserve better than the gov't we have.

Now, how do we go about it????

The Two Party System

There is nothing wrong with the two party system.

The problem is the leadership (or lack of same!) in either party.

The biggest contributor to the lack of leadership is the WAY that we elect our "representatives."

If we were to institute total public financing for all elections, we would vastly diminish the ability of the BIGS (Big Oil, Big Pharma, etc.) to buy the candidate of THEIR choice.

The second thing we could do is eliminate 90% of the "Executive Privilege" that allows corrupt administrations like this one to hide things like our national Energy Plan from the public...the people it affects!

The candidates will spend, in all, over one billion dollars to get elected next year.

It's a $400,000/year job! With 8 years in office that amounts to $3,200,000.

They certainly aren't in it for the money.

So, why do they do it?

POWER! Any candidate that says they are looking for public service is full of s**t.

They want power and that power SHOULD be coming from "We The People!"

But it's not.

Until we can put an end to the corruption of money by the BIGS and K street, we will continue to lose our country to evil people like Bush/Cheney.

Can you imagine Guliani being willing to give up any of the powers that our Idiot-in-Chief has usurped?

The only ones that might actually DO SOMETHING about this disparity have been effectively sidelined because they don't have the same access to the BIGS as the "mainstream" candidates.

Perhaps a third party IS the way to go.

BUT...think about this.
1. A Republican Senate by 1 vote
2. A Democratic House by 30 votes.
3. An Independent Prez and VP.

Can you say GRIDLOCK?

I don't know the answer...but I'm beginning to understand the question.

We should all look at the truth of the situation and try to come up with a realistic answer while we still are "We The People."

Before it's too late!

Questions about Obama

Where are the Democratic Leaders?

Recently I saw Cokie Roberts make the claim that the Republicans were "Slight" underdogs in the coming Presidential elections.

While the thought of Guliani having the powers of President scares the living HELL out of me, I got to thinking about her point.

There is only one group that can give the Republicans a victory in 2008...the Democrats!

They have shown no distiction since gaining the majority in both houses of congress.

They took Impeachment off the table without any consideration of what the "people" wanted.

They have not "aggressively" pursued an end to the war.

They have caved in to the President every time he stood up to them. Always claiming the "next time" we're going to stop him.

What the Democratic party (and this country) really needs right now is LEADERSHIP!

That's right...all caps and it needs to be shouted to the heights.

I thought that Obama might be that man. Now I'm not sure. Nobody - least of all Clinton - has taken a real stand.

Voting at the last minute, when they are sure which way the wind blows, dodging votes where they could be making a statement...

These are NOT the things that I think of when looking for a leader.

Why won't a major candidate state, for the record, "I will roll back the many damages that Bush has inflicted upon our Constitution?

Dodd has done so, but he seems to be the onlty one and I don't know how electable he really is.

Where are our leaders?

Obama putting the "party" first by silencing his criticism of the war smacks too much of "Politics as usual" to me.

Body Armor

Rep Louise Slaughter Posted an article on the Huffington Post the other day — Link below:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-louise-slaughter/a-story-ignored-body-arm_b_71524.html?refresh_comments=1

My response is copied below. Boy! Sometimes these people steam me. Why didn't she do something about this on her own instead of whining on the internet!

Rep Slaughter,
Thank you for caring about our troops.

But I have a couple of questions for you.

You say you first learned about this over a year ago.

How many of our kids do you think have died since then due to crappy body armor?

You say that the press hasn't picked up on this. Well, I read about it two years ago when the makers of "Dragon Skin" body armor conducted tests against the standard issue crap and proved that they had a better product.

I wrote to my congress people. I wrote letters to the editor. I forwarded the article to everyone I knew and posted it on every web site that I thought might do some good.

The Defense dept., naturally, claimed (CYA) that the test results weren't valid.

As Rumsfeld told us the troops "We go to war with the Army we have!"

Lady, I gotta tell you something. If you have bothered to read any of the comments to this posting, you will, hopefully, realize that many of us are "Outraged Out!"

So when you post an article claiming "Outrage," I just gotta wonder!

Being in Congress for over 20 years, what did YOU do to bring this story to the headlines?

Why didn't you call press conferences every month (or week) to GET this into the headlines?

Why didn't you call for a congressional investigation?

Why didn't you get together with others in congress and TELL Rumsfeld what was wrong? And make an issue of it?

You wrote a letter last year.

One of the main reason so many people are upset with our government (both sides of the aisle) is the lack of representation we get from our elected representatives.

Now, I ask you, "Who is in a better position to bring this into the headlines you or me?"

Please don"t whine to the internet about how little coverage something wrong in our government gets.

Because we already know!

As they say at Brave New Films..."Pssst...Do SOMETHING!"

War Powers

Why do you suppose these morons in Congress haven't changed to "powers" that Bush got (or assumed) after 9/11?
Could it be that they are afraid that they will be unable to rein him in?
Or, could it be that they want to keep him "hanging out there" to be an easier punching bag for the Democrats?
Either way, "We the People" are getting pretty short shrift from our supposed Representatives.
I don't know the answer. But I know that we, in this country, are on an "Edge" of some sort that we can't fully comprehend.
And our choices appear to be Hillary and Rudy!

Deep sigh...

Here is an interesting link on this subject from George Will:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/02/AR2007110201785.html?wpisrc=newsletter

Creating a new America

NOTICE!
The purpose of this article will be to provide a place where those interested can discuss ideas about what can be done to reform our system of governance.
It is NOT an attempt to subvert the Constitution! Any posts that call for violence or overthrow of the Government will be deleted by the moderator.
My sole purpose is to put forth some ideas about what can be done to reform our current system of electing officials and the conditions that they should observe as they SERVE the public interests.
One last comment/request: Please be civil to each other and try to use language that wouldn't cause your Mother to blush.

I'll start off... it's my blog after all! ;-)

Term Limits:
The current system makes it almost impossible to defeat an incumbent public servant. We have all seen too many that have been in their positions far too long to be any good to anyone but themselves. I would submit a suggestion that two terms in office should be enough for anyone. This would bring in fresh blood and get some of those unfit for leadership roles out of their positions.
I would also suggest that the length of each office be modified for many reasons. Why not make Congressional seats last for 4 years, in the Senate perhaps 8 years. I think Supreme Court Justices should have a 10 year limit and the President one six year term.

Here are some other things that I think are worth discussing:

(I'll be posting MY opinion on each of these topics shortly. Meanwhile, have at em!)

Public Financing of Elections.
If every candidate was given the same amount of money to run their bid for office, it would take away the current practice of "Buying" office. When someone like Hillary Clinton raises 50 million dollars and Dennis Kucinich raises 5 million does that mean she's a "better" candidate? Or does it mean that she's better at raising cash?
We already have campaign finacing laws that grant money to certain candidates that meet specific conditions. Why not just say to the top 10 candidates "OK, here's 10 million dollars. Go out and run your show. But you can't take ANY goods and services from anyone else!" Sure it's a "rough" idea, but my goal here is to stimulate conversation.

Lobbyist not allow to hire former member of Congress for 10 years after they leave office.
Actually, I think if I could get my fondest wish it would be to do away with Lobbyist all together! But, that's probably not going to happen, so one way to limit their effect would be to stop this revolving door of people leaving Congress and then selling their knowledge of how to work the system to the highest bidder.

Lobbyist limited to $1,000/Senator or Congressman per year.
I really think this would be a good idea. If lobbyist and PAC had to limit their spending to only 1,000 dollars per yearper congress member we would see a lot less corruption in Congress. But the rules would have to be set up so as to be enforceable and airtight otherwise these groups would find loopholes big enough to drive a tank thru. My first thought on this idea was One Hundred dollars, but I don't think that's reasonable. What do you think?

Signing Statements by every congress member and senator that they have fully read and understood every piece of law that they vote on.
There should never be a time when some member of Congress could claim that they voted for a law that they hadn't read or didn't understand. If they didn't read the law, why did they vote for it? And, if they didn't understand the law, then how can they expect the average citizen to understand it?

Breaking up of Media "Gangs."
There are, in my opinion, too many "Media Conglomerates." Yes, I'm talking about Rupert Murdoch, but he's not the only one. I don't think it's healthy for a Democacy to have so much power in one person (or groups) hands. Murdoch has already admitted that he actively tried to shape opinion in this country. He's just one man. Sure he's rich but so is Bill Gates and you don't see him pushing his political views on people.

Flat percentage of income tax for everyone.
I'm not sure about this one. It just seems to me that if everone had to pay a flat percentage of their income, it would be a lot more fair than it is now. People with a lot of money SHOULD pay a LOT of taxes. 10 per cent of my income would be a hit that I could live with if everybody kicked in the same. What is RIGHT about stock brokers making 50 million dollars a year and not paying taxes on it because he gets a break from the likes of Bush. Sorry, in my book that does not compute.



Here is an interesting article that might help get you thinking about this subject:
http://homefires.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/29/same-old-song-and-dance/?8ty&emc=ty