I think this is wrong. More than that I think it’s dismissive, silly and bordering on insult to any literate human being. In point of fact “spending our time and energy laying blame for the past” is exactly what the justice system does. By Obama’s logic murderers would go free in the streets. The real question is not whether you’re going to lay blame for the past, but who your going to lay it on, and for which past. What Obama is really saying in this statement is he won’t hold this particular group accountable, for this particular past.
So now, all of a sudden, I was just following orders is an acceptable defense?
The real Boston Tea Party was a protest against huge corporate tax cuts for the British East India Company, the largest trans-national corporation then in existence. This corporate tax cut threatened to decimate small Colonial businesses by helping the BEIC pull a Wal-Mart against small entrepreneurial tea shops, and individuals began a revolt that kicked-off a series of events that ended in the creation of The United States of America.
They covered their faces, massed in the streets, and destroyed the property of a giant global corporation. Declaring an end to global trade run by the East India Company that was destroying local economies, this small, masked minority started a revolution with an act of rebellion later called the Boston Tea Party.
“They were kids,” [Rush Limbaugh] said this week. “The story is out, I don’t know if it’s true or not, but apparently the hijackers, these kids, the merchant marine organizers, Muslim kids, were upset, they wanted to just give the captain back and head home because they were running out of food, they were running out of fuel, they were surrounded by all these US Navy ships, big ships, and they just wanted out of there. That’s the story, but then when one of them put a gun to the back of the captain, Mr. Phillips, then bam, bam, bam. There you have it, and three teenagers shot on the high seas at the order of President Obama.”
Somewhere in loony heaven, Marguerite Oswald must be nodding in agreement.
But what I don’t understand is why these rallies are being held to protest, among other things, “higher taxes.” (Higher spending is another matter.) There is a widespread perception that Obama is raising taxes willy nilly, so maybe this is worth clearing up.
As far as I know, there are five individual tax provisions in the president’s budget that could be described as a tax increase. So yes, there will be some higher taxes. What’s confusing to me is that the vast majority of these taxes affect only those households with an annual income of greater than $250,000. And the vast majority of these increases would have happened anyway if the Bush tax cuts were allowed to expire on schedule.
They hate the Fed, even though the Fed is the last thing left between America and total economic collapse. They hate taxes, even thought their taxes are being cut. They hate commies, fascists, baby killers, George Soros (he”s a Jew!), libruls, smart people, people with jobs, people with no jobs, people who don”t carry a gun. It”s a lot of hate, all misdirected at stuff that isn”t the true object of their hate – the black man in the White House.
Where do I think Tim gets it wrong?
The teabaggers are the new evangelicals. The Republican Party has so seriously screwed evangelical Christians over the last 16 years that it needs a new group of sheep to exploit; and the teabaggers suit the bill.
The people at these events, behinds these events, promoting these events were there to herd the sheep. Those don’t care who is in the White House; they only care that they’re not the people controlling the person in the White House.
Lurking behind the Gilbert ploy obviously are Forest City”s principals Sam Miller and the Ratners. So gluttonous are our home-grown developers that they would bring down the town, even if it meant destroying what they have built here.
This pursuit of the Med Mart and Convention center in their backyard has been a bad joke from the beginning.
I blame our civic leaders, a hapless, cowardly bunch, and the Pee Dee – as I like to call it in these instances – for its continued lack of responsibility in assessing what”s going on, its failure to take on the greed that has been sucking Cleveland dry.
Let”s just dump the medical mart and convention center idea. Why bother. Why fake the need.
Let”s just build a pyramid. Let”s spend $2 billion on it. Let”s have Forest City be the construction manager. Let”s let MMPI be the owner. Let”s not tax it. Let”s pay for it all.
Let”s just payoff these people – the Ratners, Miller, Gilbert, Dolan, Jacobs – and have over with it. Give us some peace and quiet.
“We will seek out the Americans and if we capture them we will slaughter them,” said a 25-year-old pirate based in the Somali port of Harardhere who gave only his first name, Ismail.
“We will target their ships because we know their flags. Last night, an American-flagged ship escaped us by a whisker. We have showered them with rocket-propelled grenades,” boasted Ismail, who did not take part in the attack on the Liberty Sun.
“I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” — Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto following the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The real writer is one who really writes. Talent is an invention like phlogiston after the fact of fire. Work is its own cure. You have to like it better than being loved. —Marge Piercy, For the young who want to in The Moon Is Always Female
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At day’s first light, have in readiness, against disinclination to leave your bed, the thought that “I am rising for the work of man.” Must I grumble at setting out to do what I was born for and for the sake of which I have been brought into the world? Is this the purpose of my creation, to lie here under my blankets and keep myself warm? “Ah, but it is a great deal more pleasant!” Was it for pleasure, then, that you were born and not for work? —Marcus Aurelius
Let me respectfully remind you, life and death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. Each of us should strive to awaken-- Awaken! This night your days will be diminished by one. Take heed. Do not squander your life. —Zen Evening Gatha
Take an ax to the prison wall. Escape. Walk out like someone suddenly born into color. Do it now. —Rumi, Quietness
