ISRAEL, A BLOOD THIRSTY MURDEROUS NATION

"Silent enim leges inter arma" (For the laws are silent among the armed) -Cicero

Israel is bombing Palestinians along the Gaza Strip. They are getting ready to launch ground forces and more killing.
 My image of Israel is a video of a Palestinian father, Jamal Al-Durrah trying to protect his 12 year old son Mohammed Al-Durrah from Israeli gun fire; a father's most horrific nightmare made real on a city street. Despite the father's pleas his son Jamal is shot and killed by Israeli bullets.
This incident, which took place on Sept. 30th 2000 lives forever in my mind.
The United States president, Barack Obama, issued a statement, "we support Israel's steps to protect themselves" but he is not speaking for me. And I am certain he is not speaking for any decent human being who objects to bullying and wholesale murder.
Israel is doing just that. And I feel the way decent humans must have felt in the late 1930s when they read about the Germans and the atrocities that they were perpretrating on Jewish citizens.
I can not, in good conscience, sit idly by and let the rest of the world think that all Americans are pro Israel. I most certainly am not.
I see the Israelis government for exactly what it is: a blood thirsty aggressor. A militarily superior power, courtesy of wealthy Jewish American benefactors, using air strikes to rain death upon its weaker neighbor, the Palestinians. What is the Palestinian crime? Existing apparently.
I am writing this in hopes that others around the world will speak up and DEMAND that Israel cease killing innocent men, women and children at once. Not in the name of any make believe god or nonsensical holy belief, but in the name of decency and what is the right thing to do.
"The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything." -Albert Einstein.

JUMPING THE GUN! & OBAMA IS WRONG

Today is December 16th. Christmas is December 25th.
But I see all these people wishing you a MERRY CHRISTMAS in the blogs since about October 31st.
Does anyone ever wish anyone a MERRY anything else? Do you say
"Hey man, have a MERRY time at the bar tonight" to your friend who's going out drinking?
But back to my original point. Why give Christmas wishes so prematurely? Do you even know what Christmas is supposed to be dedicated to?
It's supposed to be the birth date of Jesus Christ. Mary Joseph a manger in Bethlehem about 2009 years ago.
So essentially what you're doing is telling people to have a MERRY time on Jesus's birthday weeks and months before his birthday allegedly happened.
What's the rush people? Or are you just calendar challenged?

And could you please stop being so cliched? Here are some other words for MERRY: Happy, HollyJolly,Well Fed,Pleasant,Mirthful,Sublime, Content, Adequate, Naked (Im happy when I'm naked), Splendiferous, Scrumptious, Marvypoo, Whimsical, Productive,Feliz, Ecstatic, Blissful, Joyful, Gleeful, Exciting, and Mirthful.

But let's set some perimeters too. How about from about the 21st up to and including the 25th?

Great.
Have a productive day!

And during this holiday season remember that our President is sending our brave young men and women into harm's way in Afghanistan for absolutely no logical reason. And that far too few of us here at home are voicing anywhere near the objection that we should be.

USA, WE THE PEOPLE, WHO GETS SERVED?

“ULTIMATE LOYALTY TO SERVE COUNTRY” General Yueh Fei ‘s mother SOUTHERN SONG DYNASTY, CHINA

I read that today. It made me think of the term patriotism. From the Latin, Patria, country.Serve your country. But what is your country? What is loyalty? At any given point in time, a country is governed by an elected administration. They are transient. The people’s will is like fashion. It changes. It’s whimsical. So again what is country? Is it the literal geographic coordinates we occupy? If so how does one determine how one may best serve one’s country?

I dismiss the idea of service to a given administration. I didn’t vote for GWBush. Look at the shape this USA is in today. It’s monumentally depressed. It is engaged, against the will of the majority of the people, in a synthesized war predicated on the flimsiest excuse of “to prevent terrorism over there from coming over here”. This manufactured war is costing blood of men and women who mistakenly think they are serving their country. In reality they are serving the greed of war profiteers, Bush and his cronies, who could care less about the deaths of these people.

Which brings me to my current outrage that American citizens could honestly think that electing John McCain as our next President will fix the ills that our nation is currently beset with. The definition of insanity is: performing the same actions repeatedly and expecting a different outcome.

John McCain has voted 90% of the time exactly in step with Bush. So he shall be more of the same. That is NOT what we need to fix this country.

And again, my point is you can not serve a country until you decide what your country is. Or what you imagine it to be. I am an American by birth. But far too often I feel like a stranger in this land.

My definition of what my country is this: A place that lets me pursue happiness and flourish. Where I can watch my children lead happy lives. Where there is unity and harmony among the people. Where my taxes are used for services like education, health care, food and shelter.

I pay taxes. I am of the mindset that you get what you pay for. I am most certainly NOT getting what I’m paying for, and neither are you my fellow citizen.

Barack Obama is not an experienced leader in the sense of having governed or mayored etc. But he is an intelligent man who gives one the impression that he genuinely wants to help ALL the people, not just the small minority of the very rich. That makes better sense to me.