Kramer is forgiven!

The hell he is!

Now that I've got your attention....

What is so mind-boggling about that tirade of neurotic explosive prattle is that he had enough presence of mind to consider the response of the heckler and to have what could be called racist reparte: "Because you wouldn't shut up...." And this is a reason, he would have us believe. At that point the tirade accelerates. There's no inner censor, no recognition. And he wasn't overcome with rage; he demonstrated contempt--because it was inconvenient to have to deal with a heckler. Imagine--a performer sending a heckler a bill for heckling. That's like sending the Orioles a bill for losing.

And to make the perfect come-back, people of color said, quietly, "That's totally uncalled for." Had they lived down to the stereotype they would have burned the place down and ran out with the stereo equipment. Want to hear something worse? On the TV screen in this bar at the Holiday Inn a moving marque spells out, "Is he forgiven?"

There is nothing to forgive. You don't forgive an ocelot for not being a snail, and you don't criticize a guppy for not doing calculus.

This is not an issue of forgiveness. This is an issue of identification. As a physician, from watching him I have reason to believe that he may have some form of explosive disorder, probably either a seizure focus, or personality disorder, possible ADHD, possibly alcohol. (Now--where have I seen that recently?)

As a physician, I quickly noted these labels pass my consciousness. But I'm also and more fundamentally--a person, And as a licenced certified person with the State of California, I have diagnosed him as a disgusting bigot. Human garbage.

That's my diagnosis. Forget about the bill.

--Moshe Posner
moss david posner
david.posner@comcast.net

Gaul beyong Chutzpah

The very thought of the President of the United States, a country which allegedly fought a war for Peace Freedom and The American Way--in Viet Nam--not, mind you--receiving the Premier of Viet Nam in the White House, but going to Hanoi, is an irony that at best is fathomless. If the mountain will not come to Mohammed, then he will be obliged to go to the mountain.

We fought a war against a tiny country in Southeast Asia. We don't say, "we lost." Oh no. That is too harsh, too gauche, and all too direct. Yuen Tsu, in "The Art of War," says that the true victor is the one who can impose his will upon the enemy and can reach an objective which is moral or which rights a wrong.

Okay, we didn't lose. My military friends sternly correct me, saying that we won every battle. I guess that means we won the war.

Call it what you will. We left, under their terms, and which ultimately was their objective. There are no rules of Goren, Culbertsen or Hoyle. They achieved their objective; we didn't: They drove the invader out of their country. Possibly the fact tht we didn't have an objective might be closer to the truth.

We don't like to talk much about the Viet Nam War. We don't even want to think about it. That's why the Viet Nam Vets were never received, we treated like dogs and worse, Like the Queen's idiot cousin in the back room. Yet at the same time, you don't hear even a whisper, let alone a whimper. The President of the United States' visit to Viet Nam goes virtually unnoticed.

That's because no matter on which side of the issue you come up, it is an embarassement to us all. So why did Bush do it? We know he's not needed here; but why on earth would he even run the risk for such a fractious idea? The reason given is gibberish, and worse: He wants their support for the war in Iraq.

That's like asking the family of a rape-murder victim to contribute to NAMBLA. (North American Man-Boy Association, and I kid you not, Surrah!)

Who better than Bush, for whom no humiliation is too severe, no treachery too intense, no act beyond the pale of morality--to go to Viet Nam without blinking? Yes--but Why?

Because we desperately need Viet Nam and other Asian nations to continue to buy U.S. Treasury securities to abort a crash of the US dollar, which is complettely worthless, as any decent economist--and in particular, Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize winner and free market capitalist would tell you. They already bailed us out about two months ago, an event which went virtually unnoticed--or at least unreported by the country's sculpatory press and wire services, for whom no shame is too great, nor cowardice, excessive.

For those of us who have been fortunate (?) enough to have lived through the Viet Nam yeaars, this is our private joke, or our private tragedy--or both.

Europe Died at Auschwitz

I saw this article of Nov. 8, 2005. It has been widely published since it appeared:

Europe died at Auschwitz

November 8th, 2005
Written by a Christian Spanish journalist
Sebastian Villar Rodriguez


I was strolling along Cours Raval (Barcelona ) when I suddenly realized that Europe died at Auschwitz :

We assassinated six million Jews to import in return twenty million Muslims.

We burned at Auschwitz culture, intelligence and ability to create.

We burned a people of the world, people that proclaim itself “God Chosen” because it is this same people that gave humanity emblematic figures capable of changing the face of history (Christ, Marx, Einstein, Freud) people that is at the root of essentials towards progress and well being.

We have to admit that Europe , by relaxing its borders, and under the doubtful pretext of tolerance by bending to a fictitious cultural relativism, has consequently opened its doors to twenty millions Muslims mostly analphabetical and fanatic.

We can find them, at best, in locations like Cours Raval mentioned earlier. Those Muslims who prepare, at worst, attacks like those of Manhattan or Madrid. Such Muslims are cramped in apartments provided to them by official Social Services.

Therefore, we exchanged Culture for Fanatism, Ability to create for Will to destroy, Intelligence for Superstition. We have exchanged the Jewish instinct of transcendence which, even in the worst imaginable conditions, have always aimed at a better world of peace, for a pulse or urge of suicide.

We exchanged the pride to live for the fanatic obsession of death: our death and that of our children.

What a mistake we have committed!

A Plague on Both Your Houses!

I am hurt.
A plague o' both your houses! I am sped.
Is he gone, and hath nothing?
--Mercutio (Romeo and Juliette)

A change of dominant party will change absolutely nothing with respect to the underlying problem confronting our nation. If the underlying problem is not solved, nothing will be solved and we will surely perish as a nation.

Neither party intends to take bold moves to extricate us from Iraq. This is because Congress cannot accomplish this. Even if a substantial number of senators could be influenced to demand a withdrawal, they would be overridden by vested interests who would theaten them with lack of support or worse. Otherwise, another catastrophe would be created by our Shadow Government, and we would be the worse for it.

Everything in this country--absolutely everything--is controlled. You have only to start a new idea or movement and to see what happens to prove this point to yourselves.

Congress is controlled. Ayn Rand said it best when she said, "The purpose of the Democratic Party was to smuggle us into welfare statism; the purpose of the Republican Party was to retard that process." The powers that be (PTB) have only to withdraw the party that does the dirty work so that the other party can take the blame. Subsequently, the Republican Party will be able to continue to advance the agenda of the PTB--which is nothing more nor less than those corporate interests whose influence can be seen all around us. This is why Bush gave no support to Republican swing districts by witholding announcement of Rumsfeld's demise as SecDef: with a barely dominant Senate and a House that is Democratic, the Democrats will lose credibility and the Republicans will probably win in 2008 or definitely win in 2012. By that time, federal law will be ammended, and Arnold Schwartznegger will be the first President of a truly Nazi state, supported by the very people who put Hitler into power--the Bush family. Any good backgammon player knows that it is better to have control (of the doubling cube) by midgame. (Ask someone who plays backgammon.)


All press is controlled. Every news source is controlled by three major companies. Recent action by the FCC Chairman Michael Powell, the corrupt son of Gen Colin Powell has indicated that he will curtail free public access, which has been one the mainstays of our system. In a similar fashion, the internet will be controlled by allowing carriers to charge differing rates and to refuse to carry content additionally. Last year, Bush renegged on a prior promise to share control of the existing internet mainframes with Europe.

Outspoken people are controlled by becoming the victims of trumped-up or created charges and then imprisoned with draconian sentences for interminable periods of time. In a short period of time the internet will be controlled; and this will be followed by a Dark Age which will make the previous ones look like dalliances.

The problem is made much worse by the facts that 1) the educational system is controlled and dumbed-down, 2) all private property is subject to taxation and confiscation for the purpose of increasing tax revenues, 3) voting is controlled by computer software manipulation, 4) the legal profession is notoriously corrupt at worst and impotent at best, 5) corporate dominance keeps people in constant flux both psychologically and physically, by making continued demands and by effecting constant change in housing locations, thus discouraging any stable grass-roots movement from springing up.

There are only two ways that we can do anything to survive the current state affairs: grassroots campaigning for Jail4judges and comparable efforts, and home schooling.

The Jail4judges initiative was defeated in South Dakota as a result of intense campaigning by the legal profession. It was passed off as a cheap and quick way for disgruntled parties to law suits to attack the judicial profession. Of course this was nonsense. Judges are beholden to the identical standards as any other profession, except for the fact that they aren't: The initiative properly called for a special Grand Jury for judicial complaints, thus giving the identical due process rights to judges. Currently there is no way to hold judges accountable. As the matter now stands they have virtually unlimited power and are legally entitled to police themselves with no attendant higher authority with control. The only system that compares to this is the Correctional systems of the country, organizations which have virtual unimpeaded control and absolutely no direct oversight. The results are the same--injustice, performed legally and with no exposure.

The rise of Nazi Germany started in an identical fashion as events are proceeding in our country. Initially, the German judges upheld blatantly unconstitutional legislation. Later, they passed unconscionable judgements on innocent people. This is occurring in our country right now, and this will worsen unquestionably as a consequence of the "Patriot Act" so-called and the "Military Tribunals Commission." For ominous parallels, read "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," by William Shirer.

The other, nuclear area of change is one that is the most definitive and ultimately the only enduring one, but it requires time and sustained committment: home schooling.

An enlightened public and one capable of critical thinking is the most powerful and effective antidote to--and innoculation against--totalitarianism. This can only be accomplished if education is taken out of the hands of the State. When home schooling is attacked, we may not see a civilization comparable to our own for a long, long time. In such a case, we--you and I--will not see it; but I pray that our children will.

(with apologies to Franz Kafka)

This evening it was announced that Saddam Hussein has been sentenced to death "for Crimes against Humanity." The conviction was predicated upon demonstrable proof of his role in the killing of some 148 people in a small town of Dujail some thirty-five miles north of Baghdad.

One hundred and forty-eight people--a "Crime against Humanity?"

This either elevates the event of the killing of 148 people to a crime "against humanity," or it demeans the very meaning of the term from its original intention.

Make no mistake: In no way does that statement diminish the horror and tragedy of the deaths of 148 innocents. At the same time, by putting this into the framework of a crime against the human race, it rather diminishes the true meaning and intent of such a crime. In fact, it is almost a hasty stamp--a seal of disapproval--added to a clumsily orchestrated trial, which, inclusive of the deaths of assorted attorneys, and the concurrent deaths of at least ten times than number of Iraqis during these august proceedings, was, as everyone knows (except perhaps for some of the Shiite Iraqis) as artificial and as a contrived and cynical display as that of the character of Joseph K in "The Trial," a work of that name by Franz Kafka.

In the surreal plot of Kafka's book, the accused is never quite told what crime it is of which he is found guilty; yet during the disjointed development of the plot-line, the main character is seen to initiate some acts which border on the criminal, thus compounding the confusion, as was the case with Saddam Hussein.

In the all-too-real plot line of the conflict raging in Iraq, where the enemy is similarly ill-defined as an "insurgent" and during which atrocity it has been objectively determined that some 650,000 Iraqis have died, and not of natural causes (in relation to which the deaths of a paltry number of "insurgents" would negligibly diminish this tally) as well as well over a million Iraqi children died over a ten year period prior, and at least a dozen or a lot more Iraqi civilians died as a direct result of premeditated American soldiers' executions--and where this grand total was equally as directly orchestrated by our American leader, exactly who is morally allowed to indict whom, pray tell?

Perhaps it was best stated by one of my familial ancestors:

"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

Kerry's gaffe--or moment of greatness?

(October 27, 2006 Army recruits express their motivation during a platoon competition at an obstacle course at Fort Benning, Ga. This photo appeared on www.army.mil.)

"You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq."

To me, everything surrounding Kerry's statement makes no sense; except for the statement itself.

When I read it, it made perfect sense. When I heard him say it, it made perfect sense. The only two things I don't understand are, first, everyone's reaction to it; and second, his apology for saying it.

Are we all brain-dead? We all know that education is the key to success; and the poor guys who don't make the effort, or who don't have the ability, why they go into the military for want of any other alternative, and then they get stuck in Iraq.

Does anyone seriously doubt this? Isn't the truth of this brought home by the innane ads for each service of the military? "Ya did som'p'n ya never did before: ya called me sir and ya shook m'hand." Or being told of the breathtaking vistas of knowledge and fulfilled dreams and of heightened dramatic scenes that will inevitably unfold upon joining with others of a similar bent.

Wow. Wish I could be like dat.

During a moment of sincere musing to himself out loud, a politician with the right motives and a humane sense said an honest and decent thing. Yet the public, acting with the same mentality displayed at the Salem Witch Trials, recoils in horror. Simultaneous with public gasping and staunch defenses of the honor, integrity, and spiritual virginity of our military, we see the spectre of Senator John Kerry, with the aplomb of Frank Driven of LAPD, rendering the "stream of conscience" inarticulate by infusing the objective "us" somewhere, and then declaring triumphantly that the whole shebang was really a criticism of the current occupant of the White House.

Consistant to the end, Senator Kerry blows an opportunity to say what everyone desperately needed to hear our loud--that this accursed war is just that, and that it becomes the habitat of the modern equivalent of the Foreign Legion, or that of the reluctant Soldier of Fortune, who, lacking in the necessary skills to make a future for himself, finds himself in that unholy morass--which perhaps initially to be a noble cause, now, in the throes of almost three thousand dead American youth and over 650,000 Iraqis--and which now appears as and for what it is--a shame, a blight upon our name, and I will say it--a dishonor to the concept of any morality in military action.

Perhaps the worst tragedy of all is the fact that our youth, having been dis-educated in our schools and therefore lacking in the skills of critical judgment, and substituting obedience in place of independent thought and moral judgment--now become the heirs to Macbeth, and to the tragedy which was his and his alone, precisely because now the public will turn their nose up and their head away from the debaucle, as they did in Viet Nam, and shun the returning ghoulish proof of its perfidy.

May our dreams be our perpetual curse.

Gaza Desiderata

"The community of peace organizations in Israel has gathered together in a coordinated, major campaign calling on the Israeli government and on the international community to end the siege on Gaza and to embark upon negotiations with the elected Palestinian leadership."

This is a quote from "The Scoop" from New Zealand, a country which, according to my maps, is some sizable distance from the Middle East, and which has a singular paucity of outstanding authorities on that area.

It must be my recalcitrant nature, but I am at a loss to explain--or so far, to have anyone to explain to me--exactly what is the atrocity that is allegedly taking place in Gaza: If there is a shred of validity to the claim regarding the conditions in Gaza, it is that those conditions have worsened since the Israeli government has stopped sending tax revenues to the Hamas government in Gaza.

Are you savoring each word I just wrote? Is the immediate implication of this not apparent? The simple and mind-boggling fact remains that the Israeli government has, for the past half a century, and despite four wars aimed at Israel's extinction, been sending tax revenues to a place whose leaders and some of its populous have unceasingly called for the destruction of Israel and whose schools and institutions--even their maps--call for the destruction of Israel, and, it goes without saying, refuse even to accept Israel's right to exist. Arabs in Israel are Israeli citizens and entitled to all the rights and privileges thereunto appertaining.

Can we pause briefly over the wording here--denying a nation or an individual's "right to exist?" Are you understanding what this means?

One would think that the Arab countries, whose resources are unimaginably vast, could throw a few shekels the way of Palestine. One would think that the Jordanian government, which, in virtue of its Royal Guard, virtually extinguished the (only) uprising against Jordan, fifty years ago. By some strange coincidence, the Palestinians never tried that again.

One would think these things, but one would be wrong. There is a saying in the area that the Israelis are no one's first choice for control of the Palestinians, but the Israelis are everyone's second choice.

Imagine, if you will, how our citizens feel about the continued invasion of our country across our southern border. And rhetoric imitates life in the arrogance of the Mexican president complaining bitterly about the fence which is supposed to be built (without funding) to protect that border. (Perhaps that's why we have heard less recently in the way of criticism of the Israeli border fence?) To add irony to tragedy, we now have discovered tunnels built under our southern border for the purpose of smuggling people and God-knows-what across our border.

But God does know what has been smuggled through tunnels across the border from Gaza--munitions, arms, bombs and whatnot. This is Israel's thanks for evacuating Gaza, dragging her own citizens out, followed by the wholesale destruction of the vinyards and greenhouses that could have supported the Gazan population, after which missle and rocket launchers were moved up to the border, from which more rockets have been launched.

And all of this passion for Jerusalem.... Jerusalem was never mentioned in Palestinian or Arabic writings until 1948 when--voila!--Israel was declared a country. There is no mention in the Koran or anywhere else, for that matter. A lot of things aren't mentioned in the Koran: the word "love" for example.

Over 95% of original Palestine is in Jordan, yet no one finds that of particular interest. Here's another statement of no particular interest: 80% of Jordan--is--Palestine, belongs to the people calling themselves Palestinians. "Transjordan" was carved out of Palestininan land; and except for a loosely-strewn series of Hashemite kingdoms in the north and south of Jordan, the rest is--Palestine.

Go to U-tube or Google video and look up the propaganda films shown to the Palestinian children. If that doesn't make the rest of your hair fall out, nothing will.

I have yet to see one report of even isolated, let alone documented systematic attempts to attack the Palestinians from Israel. Each and every operation in Gaza has been in direct response to hostilities launched against Israel. (We won't even speak of the continued rocket attacks from Lebanon, about which the UN forces do nothing, as per usual.)

Ehud Olmert is the best friend Gaza and Lebanon ever had. Perhaps we can effect a new kind of swap: Olmert for Elad Galit. Seems like a fair exchange.

Jerusalem if I fail thee

Is anyone else scratching their heads over the Israeli government's behavior; or am I the only one?

Olmert could not have done a better job in sabotaging Israel's safety and security had he been for sale--which brings up the question, doesn't it?

Dismantling settlements, imprisoning dissidents, and more recently, initiating a half-baked retaliatory attack on Hizbullah, while at the same time delaying a definitive offensive for 72 hours, thus ensuring that Hizbullah will have adequate time to identify Israel's offensive positions and target her tanks by means of capturing her wire communiques--did I overlook something?

Why are we surprised? More to the point, why are the Israelis surprised? Olmert is the poor reflection--the crack-in-the-mirror reflection of The Smirking Chimp, whose Vice Presidential handler has directed our once-proud nation into penury and ignonimity--his wan corpulenscenceness, a scowling and growling example of a once-proud and toothless attack dog, a pupeteer, behind the scene, whose very silence gives testamony to the truth of these metaphors. After all, the best ventroloquist can only use one voice at a time.

We are offered the grim alternatives of the Republican innate and repetitious warning of dire consequences in their absence (true enough, taken literally,) with histrionic and strident elulations from the likes of Bill O'Reilley and Rush Limbaugh, who dishonor themselves more than usual with their most recent utterances--all--on the one hand, and the grimly defiant and purposeless attempts at we-told-you-so by the Democrats, whose answer to any problem is to rob some defenseless segment of our population for undeserved and unpaid services of one sort or another, be they medical, or whatever--on the other hand. Wow. Wotta choice.

You have only to revisit William Shirer's "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" to see the parallels. Parallels? Did I say parallels? Same cast of characters, one or two generations removed--both in the forms of the Bush spectre, now the young ne'er-do-well, as the spawn of the arch-criminal Prescott Bush, who together with Fritz Thuyssen put Adolph Hitler into power; and then when it was convenient, allowed him to be removed.

Yet the grimmest irony was yet to come:

After and during World War II, all European countries, as well as United States military leaders, robbed the Jews of their lands and of their possessions, jewelry and gold. All postwar attempts to achieve some justice were to no avail. It was this desperate and clear perception of what had to be done that led to the formation of the State of Israel--all of which, I hasten to add--bought, part and parcel, from the Ottoman Sultan, (who later attempted to renege on the deal.)

Israel was born out of a religious destiny and sealed by the formation of a homeland for the Jews. What has happened ever since is heartbreaking: Generations of Israeli politicians, in order to appease the United States, upon whom she is desperately dependent for aid, arms and loans, have given away precious land for broken promises of peace from the Arab league; and the Arab population within her borders will out-breed the predominantly Jewish population.

The grim reality of the need for total possession and of the severe consequences if this is not recognized is excellently layed-out by:

How ironic--that Israel is faced with a moral dilemma, generated by her own humanity, and despite her own historical experience! How far greater an irony is it that the religious base and justification for her existence is, in effect, outlawed as a governing principle in her own country, whereas humanist moral-philosophic concerns may very well become the cause of her own undoing.

North Korean Nuclear Testing:

Someone please explain to me the fuss over North Korean's testing of nuclear weapons. I don't see North Korea as a substantial source of "hegemony" (to borrow the term from the Chinese) nor do I see them overtly threatening anyone.

It appears as if we become absolutely hysterical whenever anyone shows the slightest tendancy towards technological supersuccession that might have the potential to do bad things--like, for example, the United States.

Our country has, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, rather than to take a place of a benevolent leader and to lead by example and help other nations and give them a leg up, we have allowed the most necrophiliac of interests, mostly corporate, simply rape, pillage, and otherwise act as the outlaws that they are. We have not hesitated to indulge in oppressive policies, kill innocents in a variey of countries who have done nothing to us, and in the case of Iraq, wherein there is absolutely no reason for being there--let alone, remaining there--systematically depriving than country of the ability to survive by blatantly putting an embargo on all good to that place, over a ten-year period, and having the chutzpah to call the action that which it is--an Oil for Food program.

Our greatest crime is, simultaneously, our best defense--ignorance. Our citizenry has done nothing; and what have we come to? A spiritual degenerate infesting the White House, together with his unholy minions, a legislature comprised of the same quality individuals, in which setting graft and corruption are the coin of the realm, wherein no legislation is possible unless there is a price paid to those in power.

These are admittedly sweeping generalizations, but they apply, are true, and undeniable.

Now we have come to the point where our leaders have taken off the gloves. We have the Smirking Chimp in The White House, a "Patriot" Act, which is the height of temerity in name, and a "Military Commissions Act" clearly hiding its contents behind a facade of self-importance, which, taken together, literally eviscerate our Constitution. This of course was helped along by the injection into our country of people who have nothing but contempt for our country, its language and its traditions, and have not the slightest interest in citizenship. This fact, coupled with a dumbed-down educational system which teaches absolutely nothing about critical thinking and demands no performance before handing out rubber stamped papers attesting to some academic achievement or another, all taken together guarantees the rapid demise of our sacred institutions.

This past week it has been revealed that Bush & Co. have purchased literally dozens of thousands of acres of land in Paraguay, and even now is negotiating with the Paraguayan government certain guarantees against any extradition attempts against any of their family and close associates.

This coming election, there will be some changing of hands, and absolutely nothing will be done. This is readily apparent for the simple fact that absolutly no would-be leader has set the revocation of any of these accursed Acts as defined above as his or her highest priority.

We are now seeing a trickle of people leaving our country for Europe and Australia and Canada. It will become a flow, and then a torrent--until the governmental oppression puts a stop to it.

When that happens, God help us all. No one else will.