Aside from Depression Era and Civil Rights reforms, the last century was a vast wasteland for human rights. It took a terrible toll from the human spirit. Almost everyone knows the system needs drastic overhaul. Few citizens can identify specific ills and the means to correct them. Even fewer people dare to speak in terms of real problems and solutions.

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Would RFK have completed Lyndon Johnson's Great Society or gotten us out of Vietnam? With the backing of his brother the President could Ted Kennedy have broken the second government and COINTELPRO?
Possibly, the evil Republican stranglehold on our liberties might never have occurred.
Hundreds of millions of Americans didn't change character from Sirhan Sirhan's sudden and tragic success. The capacities for good and evil already exist within every human heart. The assassin's bullet gave the evil within us a chance to flower and to dominate.
We all have a choice. The accused perpetrator, Major Hasan, doesn't force the President to send the additional 34,000 troops to Afghanistan. The Fort Hood killings merely facilitates Obama's potentially evil decision.

The assassination of JFK put much of the nation into shock and despair. Added to these were feelings of guilt. The public had not rallied to the youthful President in many useful ways. His life had ended too short and incomplete. The public wanted a fitting memorial and Lyndon Johnson moved boldly to give it to them.

The great surge in liberal reform provoked strong counter attacks from the political right.

Knowing Which Way is Up

Aside from Depression Era and Civil Rights reforms, the last century was a vast wasteland for human rights. It took a terrible toll from the human spirit.

Almost everyone today knows the system needs drastic overhaul. Few citizens can identify specific ills and the means to correct them. Even fewer people dare to speak in terms of real problems and solutions.

Israel presents an entirely different situation. The nation is entirely in the missile range of her foes and has received an average of three deadly attacks daily for the past eight years. These aggressive actions have outraged 84% of ordinary citizens to the extent that we supported the recent Cast Lead operation.

The Goldstone Report is inaccurate. We ordinary citizens are responsible for the military incursion and we put our young people in harm's way to make the correction. So, the UN is welcome to charge me with war crimes not my sons. Unusual for a UN member, citizens control Israel.

http://www.metacafe.com/w/2727644/

Perhaps, the Wrong People are in US Prisons

May I suggest a shortcut? Since the complaints are so widespread, it might be more effective to imprison all Federal employees guilty until proven innocent.
This would encourage whistle blowing.

I Guess It Depends on Whose Frogs Are Being Boiled

When we get extensive coverage of a boy in a balloon, it seems excessive to ignore the dissolution of our liberties and the theft of our nuclear secrets.
What is the going rate for a journalist or a public official to betray his country? Doesn't he realize the bombs could boomerang on his family?
The Congress hasn't acted on anything positive since the 1960's. One would think the general public would have caught on by now.

Violence Is the Major US Foreign Relations Tactic

Before WWII the army in training had to use flour bags instead of hand grenades. Since the rise of the military/industrial complex, perpetual war has become a necessity. Nobody objects to spending $7 trillions on the military over the next ten years. Every administration lies to the public and to the troops. Veterans return from the losing war and don't receive proper care for many of their injuries.
This suggests the US should develop new foreign policy initiatives. These must wait until most of the current rascals are thrown out of office.
That won't happen.

Joe Lieberman is a Murderer

Joe and his 40 GOP pals murder 122 Americans every day. Rep. Virginia Fox R-NC claims that health care is a greater danger to the USA than the Taliban. Indeed, until the USA sends all health insurance executives to fight to the death in Afghanistan, the country is the laughing stock of the civilized [single payer] world.
Joe would never get the 25,000 votes required to be an R-Tel Aviv in the Knesset, as some people claim. We have had murderers in the Knesset, but none of them was so cruel to allow 122 people to die daily without health care.
Singling out a Jew for a scapegoat is a popular ploy, but a bigoted one.

We Are a Long Way from the Great Society

In the 1960's COINTELPRO covertly attacked liberty on many fronts to subvert reform efforts. The Church Committee uncovered the secret order in 1976, but it cost Frank Church his political career.

The main effect of the hearings was to embolden the conspirators. Thinly disguised as Republicans, they promote their agenda in the Congress and on FOX News. They denigrate many traditions once held dear. They mock the section of the public still supporting freedoms of speech and of assembly.

Authors Bio:
Born a month before Pearl Harbor, I attended world events from an early age. My first words included Mussolini, Patton, Sahara and Patton. At age three I was a regular listener to Lowell Thomas.
My mom was an industrial nurse a member of the AFL/CIO. My dad was a painting contractor. We shopped at the Working Man's Store.
Dad's reading matter was the Old Mole the house organ of the Socialist Workers Party. I played the saxophone and became a young fan of Charlie Parker, Lester Young and Duke Ellington. Naturally, I gravitated to the Civil Rights movement.
After college to avoid the draft, I joined the US Army Reserve. Alas, this came to crowd control, which was a euphemism for busting radical potheads. When I ducked out of this duty, my commander bundled me off to a unit doomed to go to Vietnam. Ironically, my old unit went to Vietnam and the new one stayed home.
I studied economics in graduate school where I watched America go mad with war. Afterwards, I joined the rat race for a decade.
When Ronnie Reagan became President, I took up residence in Israel.
The 11 books listed below describe my adventures in Israel.
The articles reflect additional thoughts that expand on the author's ten volumes Genesis Begins the Millennia. The work begins in 1995 with a fictional account of ordinary Israelis absorbed with everyday events. There are extraordinary happenings the characters gradually recognize as portents of the Messianic Age. Volumes four and five show why the Messiah decided to delay His arrival.
Volumes six through ten [Tradebombers] begin six weeks before the 9/11 World Trade Center tragedy. Again, the characters portray ordinary citizen reaction to extraordinary events.