Concerns

Dear Folks,

I have two big concerns.  

(1) Citizens United that declared corps are persons is one of the most outrageous and destructive decisions ever conceived of by our Supreme Court in history. This raises a crucial issue: If our government has three branches that are meant to be equal and so subject to some controls, how is it that the Congress nor the President seem not to have the power to deny a Supreme Court decision when it is jn itself clearly unconstitutional. Go to both the First and the Fourteenth Amendment. They deal respectively with the right of free speech and the rights of persons. A corp is not a person; it is a legal entity that obtains its right to exist from the government. It  is neither born physically nor dies physically nor does it as entity think or decide.

SO THE ONLY RECOURSE IS AN AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION WHICH ONLY WE AS CITIZENS CAN MAKE POSSIBLE—SINCE CONGRESS IS SEEMINGLY HELPLESS. GO TO MOVETOAMEND.ORG and sign up.

If 20 percent of citizens so sign, it must go to the congress to so accept or reject.  Can you imagine with 20 percent signing that any congress would reject the voice of the people.  Maybe this congress which is now the weakest in history.

(2) Citizen United has practically speaking almost rendered democracy dead in our country. Only our votes ---as also in the case of our signing an amendment—can make a difference. Even the 400 million spent by the Koch Brothers could not overcome re-electing Obama  However, in many places, from state govs to townships the power of money is winning out. We are in effect colonials and the corps the colonizers, writes Chris Hedges. There are also examples of enormous differences between  l percenters and us as 99ers. (l) Last year 40 Wall St hedge fund people earned l4 billion, the amount earned by 300,000 teachers (2) The 5 or 6 owners of Walmart are as wealthy as the first forty million people.  (3) 94 of the richest people in the world equal the wealth of a half of the worlds population, that is, 300 billion.  

Citizens of the world, unite; we can change this madness and outrage!!!!  John G

Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence, By Rev. Martin Luther King

4 April 1967

Speech delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 4, 1967, at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2564.htm

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I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. I join with you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together: Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam. The recent statement of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: "A time comes when silence is betrayal." That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.

The truth of these words is beyond doubt but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on.

Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movement well and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.

Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: Why are you speaking about war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent? Peace and civil rights don't mix, they say. Aren't you hurting the cause of your people, they ask? And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.

In the light of such tragic misunderstandings, I deem it of signal importance to try to state clearly, and I trust concisely, why I believe that the path from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church -- the church in Montgomery, Alabama, where I began my pastorate -- leads clearly to this sanctuary tonight.
I come to this platform tonight to make a passionate plea to my beloved nation. This speech is not addressed to Hanoi or to the National Liberation Front. It is not addressed to China or to Russia.
Nor is it an attempt to overlook the ambiguity of the total situation and the need for a collective solution to the tragedy of Vietnam. Neither is it an attempt to make North Vietnam or the National Liberation Front paragons of virtue, nor to overlook the role they can play in a successful resolution of the problem. While they both may have justifiable reason to be suspicious of the good faith of the United States, life and history give eloquent testimony to the fact that conflicts are never resolved without trustful give and take on both sides.

Tonight, however, I wish not to speak with Hanoi and the NLF, but rather to my fellow Americans, who, with me, bear the greatest responsibility in ending a conflict that has exacted a heavy price on both continents.

PUT CITIZENS UNITED IN THE DUMPSTER OF BAD IDEAS

Hi Power Politics People,

Citizens United was a disaster. It opened the floodgates for corporations to write big checks to fund right-wing special interest attacks, helping them pour $719 million into the 2012 elections.

The question is, what are we going to do about it? How are we going to stuff this "corporations are people, elections are auctions, democracy is for sale" mess into the Dumpster of Bad Ideas?

Here's how: A constitutional amendment that puts power back in the hands of the people. The actual, human people.

Sign the petition to join me in calling for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.

- Al Franken


That's why I signed a petition to The United States House of Representatives, The United States Senate, and President Barack Obama.

Will you sign this petition? Click here:

http://pac.petitions.moveon.org/sign/put-citizens-united-in?source=s.em.cp&r_by=8043976

politics in a xmas mode

Dear Folks my Christmas message  is loaded with political significance. So here goes. John G

CHRISTMAS 2013: THE CHILD AND A SACRED ECONOMICS

                             “In the beginning was the Gift…..”

    

 “Sacred Economics” is the title of a recently published book. Though the name is new to me, its essence is as ancient as humankind and so is especially present in our Christmas story when the three kings and the shepherds arrive at the crib of Jesus. The kings bring rich gifts, the shepherds, humble ones. They in turn are gifted with the love of the holy family and of an awesome sense of mystery and joy. This Christmas event continually occurs in the visions, hopes and dreams that emerge from the needy hearts of all mankind. Inspired by the Bethlehem story, Christmas can be said to be an ultimate festival of mutual gifting and so the deepest expression of a Sacred Economics,

     According to Charles Eisenstein, the author of Sacred Economics, such an economy as a mutual sharing was for centuries the daily way of life in all civilizations. Economics is inseparable from “ecology.” “Eco” means “home” and so our shared home in the universe. So our author writes, “In the beginning was the Gift,” that is, of existence itself and that of each living thing and finally we humans. Since it is all gift, then it follows that in our early societies “The most important mode of economic exchange was the gift,” beginning with our gratitude for the miracle of life. Such gifts are not always equal, so that the more rich gave to the poor and the poor provided services in return. When money became the basis of exchange, the sacred remained. Even in the Middle Ages, lenders could not charge interest for their services. And before Feudalism, the concentration of land in the few was considered perverse.    

This sense of the sacred economy was given a cosmic meaning by Silvio Gesell in his l906 book The Natural Economic Order.  Eisenstein gives us a remarkable passage from this book: ”The earth belongs to and is an organic part of  man….The earth is just as much a part, an organ of man as his head….How then can we suffer individual men to confiscate for themselves parts of the earth as their exclusive property” and so to keep us away…from parts of ourselves, to tear, as it were, whole limbs from our bodies?” Modern experts who are concerned about inequalities point out that the government must intervene to meet the needs of others for a living wage and the right to organize. Our popes since l892 have demanded of the rich that they and governments must meet these two needs. Our present Pope Francis also argues that the idea that the rich will “trickle down” their largess to the poor goes against the facts. Rather, we need increased wages and every other help that better sustains life such as health care. As a result the many will spend more and so our economy grows from “the bottom up.” This outlook is the last vestige of a sacred economics. 

     A sacred economics means a sacred community, Such a community is seriously damaged when wealthy men like the Koch Brothers (each of whom are worth 30 billion) attack programs that help ordinary people.Now, given the meaning of a sacred economy, I understand why such men act as they do.  When such people greedily accumulate wealth, two realities invariably occur: they become increasingly protective of their wealth and also are very lonely, because they have cut themselves off from both mankind and Nature. Finally, a most dire result, such as an international economic collapse of the magnitude of 2008, did occur because ignorance was combined with greed by money brokers and banks and government regulators failed to act:.  The  three wise men would have understood the depth of this tragedy, because they understood that sacred wisdom in each of us and in all of Nature is infinitely more important than cumulative wealth.

Issues of Health

Dear Folks,

Does anyone doubt that health is a political issue, given the present struggle with the Obama plan. It is political also every time you eat. In turn you eat a portion of mother earth. Like the environment, eating is certainly political when a government is responsible for protecting plant and animals as mother nature’s gifts to us. To get deeper, we need to reflect on recent research on the relationship between food and health.

In l980, Dr. Dean Ornish demonstrated conclusively that he could heal heart attacks via diet, meditation and exercise. See his book, Dr Dean Ornish’s Program for Reversing Heart Attacks. See also T. Colin Campbell’s The China Study, which Ornish writes is the most important book ever written on food and health. Campbell began his studies among Chinese rural people who ate mainly vegetables and fruit, occasionally animals who were not in corporate production. He discovered this comparison with US men: the latter had l7 times more coronary diseases as rural Chinese men. (p.79)  Campbell also shows that eating plant protein does not cause cancer, whereas animal protein does (p. 59)  Both of these guys are top researchers. Campbell’s research is enormous.

A final reflection: the deepest basis for health is our spiritual and physical closeness to nature, of which we are a part. Consider that plants are in a deep communion with the earth, in contrast to animals. These connections, in terms of health, are not accidental. Hopefully, Obama’s plan for health maintenance will demonstrate the wisdom of these facts.

Meanwhile, if you want to see how our animals are raised, go to the documentary, Food, Inc. John G  

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Jon Stewart pissing me off

Dear Folks, Some of you may have watched Monday Jon Stewart and his cruel treatment of Kathleen Sebelius the Secretary of Health. Here is my response. John G

October 8,20l3

Dear Jon,

              I ordinarily enjoy your program a lot, you and Steve. You both have acute minds as you lead us cleverly through many political issues.  Our health care plan is one of these. It is, as you know the end of a line that has helped strengthen the health and security of people, beginning with social security, The plan had to jump many hurdles, the worst being Republicans in the Senate who used the filibuster to almost render the congress and the country defunct. We all ---as in Canada and Europe—would have wanted the single payer plan, simply by adding people to Medicare.  It is a compromise but a meaningful one, as you know. 17 million children with pre-existing conditions are now covered. Roughly six million more students are covered by their parent’s insurance until age 26. Now any woman needing health care such as birth control, testing, etc are covered, no longer can insurance co’s put a year’s limit on costs or can drop old people. Insurance companies must spend 80 percent of their income on insure needs. Over all health will be promoted,  a national health bank will reduce unnecessary interventions, companies under 50 employees will receive some government health, those over 50 must provide adequate insurance, at least 25 millions will get inexpensive insurance on exchanges, Medicaid is expanded to childless adults, as well as to poor folk who will receive Medicaid when needed in states that allow such (states can reject this provision, as set down by the supreme court,  not by the law. In Texas, for example, l.5 poor people can’t have Medicaid). Premiums from the government will go to families with up to 90,000 income and individuals up to 45,000, On another level, no citizen will ever need to go into bankruptcy or  lose a home because of impossible health costs. Over all employees will be healthier, and so our industries will be competitive on the world market.

Two problems with Obama

Dear Folks, Much as I value Obama as a complete person and worth-while president, he bothers me on two counts: (l) he talks about ending wars, but added considerably to the Afgan one. Now he considers bombing Syria. Few agree with him, Two major writers in Sunday's New York Times, Nicholas Kristof and Thomas Friedman, both of whom I Admire very much somewhat disagree:  Kristof holds we should bomb in order to make a strong statement about Assad's violence (over l00,000 killed) but acknowledges he is in the minority. Friedman's title says it all, "Same War, Different  Country."   He points out that all of these Arab countries, such as Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria are all in the same predicament: locked into sectarian conflicts since the 7th century and will have to work out their own divisions in order to become a pluralist democratic society. We need to help them in this process and not just bomb.

    My other ongoing problem with Obama and his administration is their unrelenting damage they do to immigrants who are not criminals but workers meeting legitimate needs in so many areas of American life. The Time's editorial discusses this issue.Republican congressional rigidity hasn't helped this situation. Still the Obama team is responsible for sending 2 million back to their countries!!!  Thank God, however, for Obama's version of the dream act.However, overall his team has done severed damage to families and our industrial needs.  Let's communicate with the white house in these regards. My view is: don't bomb, support the right rebels, work diplomatically with Syria, and stop the bloody manhandling of immigrants.John G  

Are We Dead or Alive?

Dear folks,

Are we Americans dead or alive? If alive when will we wake up? Other peoples are taking to the streets, such as in Brazil, in Turkey, in Egypt, and even in Iran to rejoice when a moderate was elected president. We should be taking to the streets in the millions, stopping traffic, yes occupying not just wall street but the offices of every Republican in Congress, every Republican Governor and state legislators who are writing acts against women, the poor, unions. immigrants, students and children.  Most of all when will we as a people say STOP to corporate and one percent folk wealth, STOP to a thirty year period in which unions have gone from 37% of the labor force to barely 9 and at same time middle class earnings have gained only five dollars in that same period?

We are only now realizing the extent to which the Republicans are wed to Big Corp through an organization called ALEC, The American Legislation Exchange Council.  Check out Bill Moyer's interview from 21 June 2013 found HERE. ALEC is made up of corporate leaders and lobbyists and Republican legislators from Washington and from every state. Together they write "model" bills and plan campaigns that have now produced Republican dominance in many states that in the past have been blue. We hear that their legislation has had many goals: blocking union growth, women's needs, destroying unions, blocking student money,health care,, taxes, gun control, and have pushed the privatization of every state and city services including prisons, education, and without doubt, Chicago's parking fiasco. Why bother with Washington, they say, since, "we have now effectively stopped the Congress from functioning?"  This is a frightening picture.

We had better wake up -- ourselves and our democratic leaders including our President Obama.

Love to all,

John Giannini  

The real scandals

Dear Folks,

We live in a strange country, the hope of nations in many respects and the feared among nations in many other aspects. Our 2008 Wall Street madness has done serious damage to a world economy. Money reigns as our valued  power, both for the individual and for political gain. Recently one individual won a 600 million dollar lottery.  This is the epitome of American ugliness. How many families have gone hungry as that lottery went on when weak parents bet their week's salary?  In the same vein, how many children no longer have pre-school because of the sequester?

Even more seriously, the Farm bill is also up for continuation in both the House and Senate. In both committees,  SNAP as  part of  this bill, known as the Food Stamps Program, will be reduced so badly, according to present reports that 23 million families, made up of 43 million individuals half of whom are children will lose food subsidies.  This is utter tragedy and the great scandal if we as citizens do not speak up. Go to USA.gov to find your rep or senator.

John G

Fwd: Fwd: I've Seen Enough

Dear Folks See below.  Sign petition. I hope you are ashamed of our disfunctional government as I am. John G