On Being A Liberal Democrat

"...If by a "Liberal" they mean...someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people - their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties...then i"m proud to say I'm a "Liberal."
                                                                                               John Fitzgerald Kennedy

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. "
                                                                 Attributed to Voltaire  


 "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
                                                                                    Voltaire

/www.brainyquote.com/authors/voltaire


Am I my brother's keeper? Yes.
                                                                                     Barry

We Must Redefine War

      When the Constitution relegated to Congress the right to declare war it was understood what war and the enemy looked like;  weapons, soldiers, munitions, committing murder and mayhem or about to do so. Today war against our nation  is much more subtle.  It comes in the guise of playing on the weaknesses of our leaders and their sycophants, bending them to serve their own nefarious  purposes,  by conspiracy, bribery and flattery to infiltrate and subvert our seats of power; using  technology, stealth and social psychology to undermine and disrupt our political and electoral system; to physically attack adversaries with frightening poison and microwaves; forming alliances with the world's, and our own, autocratic rulers; assisting a despot in the ethnic cleansing of a million people. The de facto war being waged against us has many locations, fronts and forms, some we see, some we do not; an international full court press. We do not recognize the enemy as such. We do not  see its hostile actions in their totality or acknowledge that war has been declared upon us and the world.  We apparently have no Constitutional  mechanism to define it, recognize it and to defend ourselves by declaring war against an enemy which is not shooting real bullets at us but which is using subtle and less apparent but just as deadly and defeating non-traditional weapons against us.  And we are losing the war.

  

On turning 80

Blessings on blessings. Good health. Financially O.K. Lovely wife, family, extended family, friends.
Mind seems O.K., just a bit curmudgeonry, thus this blog. Why blog? Although they do print many of my letters to the editor, many they do not. But, I want to put out my thoughts first to share them and also to get feedback; you can't be right or see all sides of an issue all of the time. If I rant on an issue based on what I know and someone points out something I did not know or accournt for, that's good.
So, if I post something you don't agree with or want to push me to explain further, having such feedback makes my day.  Be kind to yourself and others.