"The World's Smartest People!"

I've been trying to figure out why it seems that the Italians have such a great lifestyle and the rest of the world, to varying degrees, is out there killing themselves, running around like crazy people and failing to get the message.

After the last program I saw about Italy, and having spent some time there, I think I am prepared to offer my own opinions about why Italians seem healthier and live longer than Americans...

First of all, Italians don't try to be something they're not so they're comfortable in their own skins. Secondly, they get a lot of positive reinforcement from their families whom they see a lot more frequently than most of us do with our own families. In fact, in the families that were portrayed on a recent program on Discovery Time, all of the members they profiled managed to spend an awful lot of time with their families even to the extent of having lunch together despite it being the height of their busy season. (In one case, the entire family designed clothing or did something else in the process so that they were always together...).
In many Italian families that I saw, many were even all engaged in the same kind of business...which usually involved doing something from scratch. I mean if it was a shoe designer, he and his family worked together to take a piece of leather and turn it into a shoe....They treated the leather as if it were a piece of art and seemed to feel a kind of harmony with the materials they worked with. Moreover, they took genuine pride in completing something from scratch. if they were selling specialty ham, they would all get together to take care of the pigs so that they were happy, well fed and slaughtered within the same household. This is very interesting because in America no one person is usually involved in starting with something and seeing it through to the end. That is very satisfying in and of itself. Normally, Americans are involved in one little segment of the process. If it's cattle, some cowboys arrange for the cattle to be fed on the range. Then the cattle is trucked to another location, where somebody else bids on the cattle who may or not be the processor; somebody else does the slaughtering; somebody else the distribution and so on. So usually we only see a tiny part of the process we're involved in which is not entirely satisfying. And for many the product they deal in is money. Handling pieces of paper that only mean something because we've invested them with some kind of value; while the Italians for example deal mainly with tangible simple things that people can relate to: cheese, pork, leather, mushrooms, you see?
Much more gratifying than dealing with paper. Then in Italy, there is a feeling that Nature must run its course; if the cheese hadn't formed a mold yet, well, you have to wait til tomorrow. For the wine grower, if the grape hasn't matured, it simply isn't ready and you can jump up and down with your anxiety, if it's not ready, it's not ready. So, there is a certain naturalness that takes over, the tides, the phases of the moon, they all affect things. Only, Americans, try to take command of nature, trying to impose its own rules, its own laws. It only makes people frustrated with their lot. With this appreciation of Nature, Italians tend to eat mostly natural foods that are purchased daily in the market. Americans don't have time for that; they develop specialty foods that are processed, shaped and fried and devoured standing up and call it a life. The Italians take hours to eat. They make food an excuse for gathering and human interaction. They talk, they drink, they enjoy life. For Americans, food is just something to get out of the way as quickly as possible, preferably while working on the computer. The computer, too, has changed life for Americans along with TV. Whereby we used to all sit down as a family and watch the TV; today, most people have their own TV's because they each like different programming so they wonder off and then question why they feel so lonely, so isolated. Interestingly enough, a study in Time magazine showed that Americans spend on average fifty percent more time preening than they do reading; they spend more time watching TV than anything else, nearly four hours a day. Most of that time today is spent alone. How gratifying is that? We wonder why the Italians look happier. One reason has to be that they spend more time engaged in conversation, more time enjoying their dinners and drinking their wine than they do watching TV. Overall, if you've spent time in Italy, you see how many people walk to individual markets and ride their bicycles instead of taking their cars. They seem to be in good shape without worrying about whether their abs are defined or whether they need to renew their Hairclub membership or spend more time in the gym rushing, rushing, rushing. It's not that they work any less or do easier things, they just take everything in stride and understand their priorities.
Of course, it doesn't hurt when you live in a beautiful country either.

Our country may not be as scenic all over as Italy is but Americans can learn something from their Italian friends that might add happiness and even extend their lives.

Life is what you make of it.

Les

The Middle East Conundrum

The Middle East: We’re looking in the wrong place!

Everybody’s talking about the Middle East but not much is being done about it. And while we are doing nothing, the larger picture gets more convoluted. Consider that overall what happens is with two of our allies Saudi Arabia and Pakistan may decide the future of the entire region—or possibly change the world.

Here’s some of the things we do know:.

What we do know is that Saudi Arabia. despite holding hands with our president, is using the other hand to pursue its interests and those seem to have a lot to do with what's going on in Pakistan.

The Pakistani government sits on a knife's edge. It is damned if they "do" and damned if they "don't." In the end, any government to survive in Pakistan has to cater to the will of the majority and, clearly, that majority is now totally and irrevocably predisposed against the US. Don’t expect them to give up bin Laden any time soon…

If Mushariff is disposed, it will take approximately five minutes to show its Muslim predisposition to Holy War against the West. In case anyone has lost sight of this fact, the truth remains that Pakistan has 50 nuclear weapons and intermediate range missiles available. For the first time, the Tailiban will have the power as well as the influence among its neighbors.

Three attempts on Mushariff's life just this year have failed. Would you write a life insurance policy on him?

Of course not!

And the inventor of Wal-Marting nuclear weaponry, who now sits under house arrest as a bon-bon to the West, will resume his role as national hero.

Here's the other problem. It is rumored by informed sources that Saudi Arabia wants to buy a nuclear weapon or two from the Pakistanis. After all, they have been financing this effort in secret all along. Imagine the fundamentalist Saudis who underwrite terrorism actually with their own nuclear weapons….

What would happen to the Middle East if fundamentalist warlords obtain the ability to blow up the region? AND, UNFORTUNATELY, with our big gas guzzlers, we are indirectly underwriting Saudi Arabia's attempts to get the bomb and control all of the countries that potentially challenge its survival...

Egypt, too, has been angling for support but they are too poor to buy weapons outright; nevertheless, Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia are some of our closest allies in the region. The differences between Syria and Iran might become more pronounced if nuclear weapons further divide loyalties in the Middle East. And into this stew, throw North Korean capabilities with long range missiles which all sides want.

It’s my guess that if left alone, there would be one big desert in the Middle East if all of the Arabs were left to bomb each other out of existence…. But since we started this mess, we just can’t turn our backs at this point without adding to the misery and bloodshed of the innocents. It’s to them we have an obligation.

And that’s why I recommend that all of the morons and their families in Washington and environs, the lobbyists and the rest be outfitted with uniforms and shipped over there to apply their infinite knowledge of the area to the problem.


As subtext to the unsolvable dilemmas we face, consider that sitting in the middle of all this is emerging super power, India with its own stock of nuclear weapons.. What will India do if Pakistan is taken over by zealots and then what will happen if China reacts to India's intentions. The whole Middle East is essentially a tinder box just waiting to explode...

Les Aaron.

History Repeating Itself: When Will We Ever Learn?

What makes me sad…

For my friends and colleagues who gave their lives their futures so that all of South East Asia wouldn’t become part of the “falling dominoes…” I wrote this little essay.

I am writing it because I had to; because it brings back all kinds of troubling thoughts that you would have thought we learned from; but it is now clear that we learned nothing…

Every time I read about the new Vietnam, I think about “the Wall,” and the exercise of American power. I torture myself by realizing that if we hadn’t manufactured a problem, and simply stood on the sidelines, probably nothing would have changed…and all of these young men and women, our very best, would still be alive—doing all of the things that young people do, make families, work or teach, contribute to the community and make our society strong.

But we didn’t and they are lost to us for all time. So we shall never know what might have been…


Were they alive to see Vietnam today, they would be very surprised. Most of them realized that it was a senseless war in the first place, but also understood that they were part of the American mission to keep us free of communism…so they stood the course!...

Were they alive, they would have to look hard to see any signs of communism in a country that has become one of the strongest economic powers in the world, in Asia second only to China in the tons of goods shipped to the US.

When you think about it, it seems that the prevailing mantra then was “communism;” today it is “terrorism.” I see a kind of similar story in Iraq; only this time we messed up the country so bad that all that might come of this place is a new wasteland that we helped create—a national desert that comes from hate and a lack of understanding that may stand as a tribute for all time to our unwarranted interference into the affairs of others….

What might have happened if we didn’t hang on Saddam responsibility for being the terrorist de jour? If we had stayed out the Sunni and Shia might not be killing each other off, the streets would have lights, there would be running water and electricity.
And it would be safe for the Iraqi’s to send their kids to school without having to worry about car bombs… If only we had done our homework and not let our outsized egos supersede our good sense…

People might not have democracy but who says they wanted it in the first place. They seemed perfectly happy to live their Muslim lifes according to their Muslim traditions without American interference.

Today, we are dealing with the aftermath of a wrong-headed war forty years after the fact. Why didn’t we learn anything when it was writ so clear before our eyes? Where we too preoccupied with our own priorities to see the truth?

Will we forty years from today be asking the same questions we asked in Vietnam?
Why were we here? Why did we squander the nation’s riches and youth on such an unproductive way? Where were the voices of reason?

Why did we listen to the hawk, Novak, instead of the words of Walter Lippmann who saw the tragedy of Vietnam unfolding before our eyes like a Greek Tragedy…

Why are we doing the same things now that we did then? And when if ever will we learn?

What we need is the inexorable force to take on the inertia that keeps us committed to a war that was unjustified in the first place and ongoing for reasons not entirely clear that seem to have more to do with ego and stubbornness than good sense. For why would we perpetuate a lie when we are not improving things and the only outcome over time is more dead at a cost we cannot long afford.

It makes you wonder.

The memory of 50,000 dead is still fresh and we are already on our way to reliving the past….

What a sad country this has become…

Les Aaron

"Remember When Everything was Possible?"

How naive many of us were as kids.
We always grew up things would get better and better.
We never seemed to have a specific goal...."only better and better" as if that were enough.
And for youngsters in those days it
was all part of the optimism we were invested in.
We could climb the tallest mountain.
Swim the English Channel.
Write the greatest book of all time.
And become a statesmen, a great mathematician, or an award winning physicist like Einstein.
Anything was possible.
And that was really the climate of the time.
Anything was possible.
We thought these things as we played on the street with our Spauldeen's playing hit the penny, Giant Step, Hide n' Seek, Ringoleavio, stick ball, punch ball, stoop ball and all of the other games we could conceive...

In our minds we could do anything as long as we were at the dinner table at 6:00 PM and in bed watching the Long Ranger at 7:00.

Those were the days...

In those days, we'd all rather be someplace else than school although school wasn't all that bad...

It was homework we hated; but aside from that, nobody really cared that we went into the haunted house, or we played snowballs outside or got into a fight with the kid down the block...

Nobody seemed to care what we did as long as we were at the dinner table on time....

Most of us were carried along after the Second World War
that America was the best place in the world where anything could and did happen.
We played 45 records...
Television was just coming into its own--even though you needed a magnifier to see the screen...and
if you wanted color, you had to mount this piece of plastic over the screen that made everything at the top blue and everything in the middle green...
It didn't bother us that our favorite actress looked green half the time...
Or that you had to squint--we were living the American life.
We would go to the movies, eat Chinese food out on Sunday and buy fried fish on Friday...
Everybody did the same thing but wasn't that what America was all about.
In the summer, we would have barbecues, go to the beach and fry but life was good.
With optimism, anything was possible.
At that time, we all went to school. We all got decent jobs.
And we all got to buy the things we wanted.
Most of us had bought our first cars.
And we were mobile because now there was in place a national highway system.
You could even take the train or fly, if you felt like it.
The country was great and we were learning about what a really wonderful place we lived in.
You could go to Horn and Hardart and eat like a king for under a buck.
How could you argue with that.
And what did we have to look forward to?
Well, the big companies were telling us that in the future, we would have machines that would automatically prepare our meals and robots to do the hard work. The really tough part would be having to figure what to do with all of that leisure time.
You could go bowling in the morning, see a movie in the afternoon and
play tennis in the evening on your own home court.
Or if you didn't like that, you could take your own private jet and fly over to see friends at the shore or go to the mountains to go skiing. The world was our oyster.
People really believed in all of this. They started buying leisure time stocks.
And others started to think that maybe they would have second careers instead of collecting a watch after twenty years.... That was considered pretty cutting edge.
In the meantime, the TV's got bigger and we went to the movies more
and thought that the dream would last forever....
And then Russia developed the atomic bomb.
And kids were asked to hide under desks.
And then there was Korea.
And the assasination of President Kennedy and things started to change.
But none of us from that generation will ever forget the hope, the promise
of those simple days that infused our youth and gave us reason to believe
that anything was possible.
That was thin and this is now.
My wish for all of us is that we could return once again
to enjoy those carefree years of youth...
And when I see my grandkids wearing helmets and having every movement
supervised and none of the freedom that we had, I yearn for those times...
Maybe if we all wished hard enough, it could happen
and we could turn back the hands of time and remember
things the way they were.
I could think of a lot worse things....

Les Aaron

When They Ask Me To Be A Good Citizen, I Shall Repeat this...

How do i feel? Are you ready?
I stood with Gore all the way....from the early summer til election day.
I was out there in protests, marches, and other events. I heard the speeches, clapped my hands raw, shouted out til I didn't have a voice left in the broiling heat of summer and the cold, depressing nights of early winter. We were pushed, we were shoved, we were shouted down by the freepers and we took everything in stride. And then there was the vote...and the recount. And I knew we had it after the Florida Supreme Court stood up... And then there was Baker, and Jeb, and the Supreme Court... and I was literally numb. I couldn't feel, I couldn't think, I couldn't believe that this was happening in 20th Century America. That the legitimate winners were being put down...That the Supreme Court, sullied and no longer credible could hold sway was astounding...that the CBC were the only ones to stand up and there was no Senator--not one--who would stand by Al Gore and protest the most crooked election of all time shattered it for me. I didn't know how I felt. I just felt tired. I wanted to lie down. I wanted to forget that this ever happened. I wanted to believe that this was just a bad dream. But it wasn't. After that, we were adversaries and that gap will never be closed as long as I live. It represented everything coming to a head. In the blink of an eye we discovered who our friends were and who our enemies were and there would be no turning back. It was war....overt war perhaps but war nevertheless. I don't know who else feels that way or went through that kind of conversion but I did and I have never sat through and watched the enemies perform and I never will. Ask me why I feel the way that I do and I will give you chapter and verse. We have been lied to; we have been treated without dignity and respect; our laws and our constitution have been tossed and we have been made a laughing mockery. It cured me, converted me if you will and made me more of an activist than I could ever believe possible. My kids think I am mad; my wife thinks I have gone too far; but they do not know the details as I do; they do not know how I feel as a disenfranchised veteran who bleeds for every unnecessary dead American who lost his or her life in a fraudulent war declared by cowards who didn't even have the courage to serve their country, who have tossed our democracy aside like so much kindling and they want me to be rational, be mature. Cowards who never missed a photo op to remind those who disagreed with their self-serving view of the world were the real heroes, many of us who like myself went to Korea and volunteered for Nam. I have only one word for my republican friends, go screw yourself in spades; you have cheated, lied and worst of all destroyed my dream and I will not stop my attacks on you as long as I have air in my lungs. And even when I die I will come back to haunt you for all you have done to ruin my country and our future and the lives of my grandchildren and their grandchildren.

Les Aaron

What Will The Republicans Do To Maintain Control...

Why do I find myself so preoccupied putting out fires. That's not the way it should be. But on the other hand, people are looking for relief for their concerns.....

In reading the comments of people on the Internet, I can understand why everyone is worried. We are worried that the democrats may not win. We are worried that the National Guard will put us behind barriers and who knows where else. We are worried that a republican win may give them the false courage needed to make some of us disappear. We see what has already happened with our notions pertaining to the Geneva conventions.... Years from now, we shall hear about the innocent people kept in camps around the world and tortured. Citizens of a free land treated like so much vermin!

We are worried that in order to stay in control, they will play the ultimate power card: They will bomb Iran!...It is a scary thought and I wonder what now separates us from communist or tyrant lands? what makes us different? Now that citizens have lost their rights to privacy and independence, who can be ferried off one night and never seen again. It is no longer speculation. It is happening. And who shall decide who is a traitor and who is not. Is the Internet writer a traitor? Is the person who makes calls to Iraq regularly a possible threat?

This kind of government that governs through paranoia and rules through the use of fear is something new to us. What did the president mean about nationalizing the National Guard in case of the need to 'protect' the people? Why is America throwing away its reputation by indulging in torture? Why did we eliminate the protections of habeas corpus? Or end the laws pertaining to Posse Comitatus? These are not some things that we dare be frivolous about... Nor have we seen a government so opaque, so interested in obfuscating and camouflaging the truth so that none of us will recognize it.

Many of us are worried that the republican voting machines will guarantee another win for the other side. And what will that mean? Will that mean the complete end of democracy and the democratic party? Will it mean civil war? Reprisals? NOne of us know....so we are on tenterhooks....Those of us with half a brain realize that if our government wins, they will do nothing about global warming, the environment, the clean air act, drugs and health care, they will further steal from the fund for Social Security; they will ignore the public school system, they will further intrude on women's rights-- It will morph into science fiction and we will become mind controlled blobs which many of us are already. No wonder the serious among us are worried.

We never thought it would happen. Those of us brought up in the tradition of Roosevelt and Truman could never imagine that we would find ourselves brought down to such fundamental issues but we are and we have been. What is particularly worrisome is that outside our little coterie people seem anaesthetized as if none of this is really happening; and if it is, it isn't touching them or their lives. They don't do government is replacing windows as the mantra of the day. And we are all the poorer for it. So, where do we go from here. Do we tumble further into chaos or police control. Or do we shout out that as long as there is breath in our lungs, we will not allow others to define us?

Think about it.

Les Aaron
The committee for positive changewww.lesaaron.blogspot.com

What Can Work in Delaware Can Work in America: Clean Elections

Dear Fellow Delawareans:

Whether we do it now or in 08,’ the people for the first time have the means to take the profit out of running for office. Under the plan, we can vote in the best qualified candidate for the job. But in order to do that, we the people of Delaware must first push for an amendment called a Clean Elections amendment that allows candidates to run a publicly financed campaign that eliminates influence peddling and the power of special interests to control election outcomes.

Clean Elections is predicated on the notion that campaigns should be run by the “best and the brightest” not the most powerful or those with the biggest war chests; it is propelled by the Founding Father’s idea that people should vote for the candidates who possess the skills and the ideas to move the country forward; not to advance the interests of special interests groups with big cash reserves.

Today, nurses and other health care workers are pushing for Clean Elections and reforms in California; and they are working to minimize the amount of dollars any corporation can put into an election. Why don’t we follow the leads of Arizona and Maine and make it possible for honest folks to participate as candidates without to have a huge war chest and lots of prominent contributors—all with axes to grind. Let’s take the big war chests and influence peddling out of the election contest; Let’s make it about what’s best for Delaware!...

There is a public mood sweeping this country. And it’s called Clean Elections.
And it’s designed to take the big dollars from lobbyists out of local, state and national campaigns and its beginning to grow legs and win the hearts and minds of concerned citizens around the country. What is happening in California, Maine and Arizona is only the tip of the iceberg.

Here’s the short version of how it works: The Plan is very simple, if a candidate decides to run for office in say a small state like Arizona, all he need do is gather 200 signatures from supporters who’ve contributed $5.00 each to the candidate’s campaign (that’s 5.00 dollars; not five thousand dollars!). No large donations are permitted and once the candidate makes this commitment, he must adhere to its guidelines. If he or she is up against a well-financed candidate who is going the traditional route seeking money from lobbyists and corporations, the government will provide matching funds to the other candidate up to a certain limit which in a national race in a place like California can be substantial—up to 25 million dollars for the primary and national election and scaled down accordingly for smaller states or local offices.

What this does is put democracy back into the process. And it’s not about one party over another, it’s about getting the best qualified candidate who will not be beholding to the big money players who are seeking to buy influence with their donations and support.

In Arizona, today, under Clean Elections there is a man with no money and conservative views who has won twice because the people believe what he has to say and he doesn’t have to spend three/fifths of every day collecting contributions! Today, in Maine, a fiscal conservative who is running on a platform for smaller government is being financed by the State against a well financed democratic opponent who claims that he doesn’t want to feed at the public trough. But the Conservative candidate says that through this legislation he can run for office and not be beholding to anyone. And that’s not all bad!

The truth is that since the advent of TV advertising, elections have not been the same. Candidates grouse that most of their time is spent raising money. The fact is that the voters cannot ante up enough to compete on TV so the candidates have to turn for support to the lobbies and industry. There is no free lunch as we all know and lobbies do not out of the goodness of their hearts donate money unless they can anticipate pay-back.
All in all, even the best candidates for office under the present system have to compromise their standards if they want to win the election.

The Clean Election program makes it possible to take money considerations out of the run for office and restores the notion that a candidate can actually represent the interests of his district or election area without having to pay homage to the traditional “influentials”….and while not perfect, it is the best idea for returning elections to the people that has come down the pike in quite some time.

For those of a certain generation, TV advertising changed the dynamics putting the power in the hands of those with access to the most money. We can change that formulae if we make an effort to support the momentum towards Clean Elections here in the State of Delaware.

Please contact us if you would like to become engaged, volunteer or would like to be added to our mailing list.

Les Aaron-Friedlieb

The Committee for Positive Change…
Please contact: commposchange@aol.com

PS For more information, please contact pbs.com and check out the program this week on NOW which discusses the Clean Elections information in greater detail.

Executive Branch Kills Middle Class

Executive policies and the Middle Class...



No one seemed to think it was a big deal…and it happened with little fanfare.

But historians will discover that if there was any one cause of the demise of the Middle Class, it was Fast Track and the other programs ceded to the Executive by a compliant Congress.. Innocuous and bland Fast Track changed the world for the Middle Class started simply as a way to negotiate trade agreements...but it had the effect of moving jobs "off-shore" and green-lighting other legislation favorable to management but a death blow to workers.

.

Here’s just a little background and a few insights garnered from the detritus of jobs scattered from coast to coast..



Executive legislation with the coup de grace made possible by Fast Track allowed the Executive Branch to indirectly control what happened with the economy in a way that was off the radar of the average citizen. It rewarded big donors by allowing them to move their manufacturing “off-shore;” but it didn’t end there. It also gave the wink-wink! to the managers of technology companies allowing them replace American workers with Green Card holders.



In one iteration of how this might work, The Executive Branch's donor-friendly policies made it possible for management to terminate computer trained professionals, have them retrain their replacements who were usually from South Asia..



Most of the so-called successors happened to be Green Card holders from South Asia who worked for one-quarter the salaries of the domestically trained professional.



You don’t need brain science to know that lower salaries translate into lower overhead and, consequently, higher profits. Management’s motivation: a higher percentage of these new profits were plowed not into worker benefits but bigger perks for the senior staffers. There is such a thing as being a selfish pig. Many American managers decided to take on the role of drooling Wooly Mammoths making 600 times the average line worker’s salary! That means in one day, these despicable human beings who think about no one but themselves earn what it takes an employee two years to earn on the floor! This disparity between worker and management exceeds anything known in the western civilized world.



Any wonder that the top 1 ½ percent of the population controls more than sixty percent of the nation’s wealth; or that 1 ½ percent of the population earns more than the bottom forty percent of the population after taxes? And why it takes two or three salaries today just to stay even with growing expenses and escalating food and energy costs.



As a result of such self-promoting programs, the US trained computer professionals, software engineers and others were set free to become all they can be.



So…what became of them?



Although we’re still finding answers, we do know that, increasingly, those who found work in their field did so through the expedient of going to work for Indian companies which became one of their few available options..



Their hope: They will do well enough that their Asian employees will send them back to work for American companies.



However, they will be employed by Indian companies; not American companies.



Incidentally, although they trained their replacements, they will earn one quarter of what they did working for American companies.



So, here’s the rub: You listen to your masters and get a good computer education with which you train your Indian replacements; then you go to India with the hope that you will find employment with an American company for one quarter what you would have earned if you were retained by the American company.



This may not be quite what American college graduates had in mind when their parents invested some 200,000 dollars in their college educations, but in the age of Alice, it is increasingly becoming the norm.



What is surprising is that the revolution hasn’t started yet!



Les Aaron

Every Middle Class Indicator Heads South; Dow Jones Goes Up! What Does That Tell You?

Are you ready for this?



Dow Jones hits new highs!





Think about it.





Jobs created are mainly minimum wage service jobs.



Housing starts are down.



Our trade deficit is ballooning.



We are in China’s indebtedness.



41 million people do not have health care.



And the Dow Jones keeps rising.



What does that reflect?



It reflects record profits for the corporations.



It means big salaries and more perks for senior staffers.



The average senior executive makes in one day what it takes an ordinary employee to make in two years!....(It was on Lou Dobbs, CNN tonight!)



How can that be?



Watch my lips: Our jobs are in India and the products flooding our stores are made in China!



Tonight, Lou Dobbs had on an author whose written a new book saying that the ranks of Republicans are made up of savvy businessmen and generals; the ranks of democrats are those who never made it. We are people who always seem to be on the losing end of things, who haven't succeeded in our personal lives, "wanna-be's". In fact, what this apologist for the Republicans is saying is that we Democrats are all “losers.”



I think we should let Lou Dobbs know, that we need some representation from the other side before he gets too excited with this politicians myopic view of his own world.



If this does not piss you off big time, you are simply not human!...



and if that weren't enough: By tonight, the republicans have raised already 1 b illion dollars for the coming election; half of it came from lobbyists.



What does that tell you?



Time to prove we’re not LOSERS folks!



Les Aaron

Ego and Myopia In Foreign Policy

Have you noticed bush's public statements lately and his attitudes.

He started out being an absolutist who wouldn't listen to any of his generals.

And now he is sucking wind.

Why do you think that Baker got into the act. The old man's number one confidante and problem solver who bailed the old man out almost endlessly, he is being called in to do the same thing for Junior.

You can see that Bush is so frustrated because he's painted himself into an irrevocable position of inflexibility and rigidity. The way out is what he is now saying, "I will listen to my generals. If they say we do something else--or words to that effect, then we will change our strategy..." This is a far cry from what he had been saying. And had he listened to his generals all along, we would have more troops on station or we would have left already.

But we are already whispering past the grave yard. The deed that we are talking about in the future has already happened and is rapidly becoming old hat. We are in a Civil War and we have contributed to making it bloodier than it needed to be through our blindsided policies, through our support of unpopular politicians who have no loyalty, through our inability to grasp that the only real policy makers were the chieftans and the mullahs and when we ignored them, we set ourselves up for what was to come. I'm afraid that there has been too little vision on display, too little ideation, too little understanding of the culture and history of this amazingly complex area with associations that go back to pre=Christian history and too much faith in our ability to impose our will on everyone and "wing it."

Well, we can't wing it for long. And we can't operate without sound policy. And now we don't have the supporting force to back up what we declare.

The foolishness, ineptitude and incompetence of our supreme leader has been rightfully noted by the world except for us. And a change is long overdue.


Will we rise to the occasion?

Right now, it doesn't seem as if we reached the appropriate level of concern....
but that's not surprising with today's America that thinks 41 million Americans without healthcare is okay and that owing our lives to the Chinese is nothing disturbing nor the fact that we will be paying back our indebtedness for the next twenty years any reason to get upset.

Americans are really remarkable for their ability to dodge the truth and its implications.

Les Aaron

The Man Who Could Not Smell...

The Price of Invisibility:

Curtan Yurdock got out of bed in the usual way. He went to the bathroom of his mass produced apartment in his mass produced house in the usual way. He even started started to brush his teeth in the usual way….but, today, something was different.

He was quite sure that somehow something was different.

He could sense it. But he couldn’t put his finger on exactly what it was that was different. And that troubled Curtan. Maybe it was his imagination. He had had a very active imagination and more times than not, it was not only the cause of his travail with the Bureau it was also a problem with Helene who hated his forays off into the wildness of his mind and she told him about it, warning him that if he didn’t get his act together immediately, she was history.

Curtain didn’t take Helene very seriously. What did women know? They were always subject to their hormones. And they were always unhappy with whatever he did so he learned not to take them too seriously.

Nevertheless,Curtain was not your average toady. He was not the inevitable digit. He was not simply a number on some ledger; but a flesh and blood human being with human needs and wants. In that Curtan Yurdock was a man who was different, who had a vision that seemed to begin where everyone else’s thinking left off. He was the body’s verifax appendage, the missing link to the twenty sixth power. He was the unknowable or so he believed in the flights of his mind. Perhaps it was a way of dealing with the tedium of a life that seemed to be going nowhere, where every day was quite like the next—a way to deal with one’s mortality in a world where everything was gray. It was the slender thread that held Curtain Yurdock together and kept him from losing his mind.

But today seemed to start off differently. He wondered about that. Was he just feeling guilty for stealing that extra ration of bread from the old lady?….or was it because he had sneaked into the bathroom, disconnected the camera and read from the censored data track? He didn’t know. But it was showing upon his personal radar and he knew he had to do something about it before it was picked up on the scanners.

The scanners saw everything. They were ubiquitous. They had started off quite innocuously and were touted along with everything else as promoting man’s freedom as every bit of technology was before the take-over, but the truth was that it was simply another way to downsize, to monitor and control.

He had to give them that. They were much smarter than the others…
They knew how to do it—how to manipulate the masses so that they didn’t know or didn’t care.

And they managed “the word…” So everything you heard was government speak—all designed to manipulate and control.

Curtan hadn’t noticed it at all until Vartan, the Union Delegate had seemed to grow smaller before his eyes. He didn’t know why that was. Then he noticed that whenever he called the Union, he got a tape recorded message. “Ms. Gorlich is not here!” “Mr. Migot has retired and will not be accepting calls in the future.” Stuff like that. And at the last Union meeting, half the chairs were empty. He also noticed the blank stares in the eyes of the delegates. What did it all mean?

He didn’t know. But he had a feeling that it couldn’t be good. He mentioned it once to Helene and she stared at him as if he were crazed. He was no longer sure about her loyalties but he had to remain careful. He ddn’t want to do anything rash, say, to alienate her so that she would run back and fill out a report… But he became definitely more wary about who he talked to and about what.


It was all coming to some kind of head. He knew that. But that was all he could see in his personal crystal ball. Kempke was dead. He knew that now. One day, he was sitting across from him in the park making jokes as Kempke used to do. And the next day he was dead. Curtan knew that the National Board of Concern didn’t have much of a sense of humor. He told Kempke not to go to them; but he didn’t listen. And that was that.

Where did he go now?

It was hard to know. His supervisor, M. Vlong, hated him. He knew that. And it was simply a matter of time. He would fall behind on his counts and that would be it. Or maybe it would be something more prosaic, he would slouch too often, fail to smile at the appropriate times, miss out on an exercise class for no apparent reason, it didn’t take much. Norda had simply missed two exercise segments and hadn’t smiled during the smile sessions and the next thing he knew, her hours were changed. At least, that’s what we were told. But nobody believed that was the case. Everyone knew that we would not be seeing Norda around the gray building belching the gray smoke.
Norda’s name one day was simply erased from her parking spot. A shiver went through
Vartan at the time. A person without a parking spot was a person who did not exist.

Curtan hadn’t been feeling himself all day. He was worried that one of the cameras would pick up on it. So he tried masking it. He didn’t know what was wrong but it was as if he wasn’t there. Why did he feel that way. He didn’t know and couldn’t even begin to answer his own question but he knew that something was not right with him.

He had gone over quota just to get a few extra minutes in the toilet. He disconnected the camera in his stall which was one of many stalls that seemed to disappear at the horizon, the bathrooms were that big—all white, all sterile to the extent they looked like their own geography, a zone of whiteness that seemed to embrace everything were it not for the continual flushing that went on and the coughing, the ceaseless coughing.
Was it any wonder considering the blanket of haze that enveloped everything in the New World Order….

What was it, he wondered. “Why am I feeling so strange…” He looked into his pocket reflector at himself. His teeth looked okay even if they were yellowing with darkish hints of future torture where the professionals will be able to dig in and have their fun…
It was always a profession of the sadists he thought, what the Nazi’s must have been like in his great grandfather’s time…It was the only thing he could think of…His eyes were bloodshot but they were always like that after a night of drinking that drink made with cherries that seemed to take your mind of things…and the little actual sleep he enjoyed.
And there was always the sound of the monitors, low and insistent to remind you that you’d better not talk in your sleep—because they were out there waiting for the slightest slip….

He went back to the unapproved text but even that was not gratifying…

He needed another Yorney….and that in and of itself was pathetic. How could he be hooked on a cigarette made of cabbage; that was too much. But he couldn’t light up in the stalls without the monitors picking it up and the alarm going off and armed guards coming in to make him stand against the wall for his violation of the agreement.
What agreement, he had thought?

They were supposed to provide the benefits of the government in return for his loyalty.
Didn’t anyone realize that this arrangement was bogus? That there was no real protection—only lies to keep you anesthetized to the truth….

They were only out for themselves. He realized that when the plague came and all of the trouble makers were put into isolation; they had called it confinement to protect the parties but the truth was it was to get rid of the trouble-makers once and for all.

And now the streets were lined with Federal Guardsmen, once the province of the States but now under the control of the Federal Bureaucracy.

To think that less than fifty years ago, actual elections were held and people would go and express their preferences. The troubles had begun when they had switched to the new machines; that had changed everything.

In the early days, the Deaniacs had tried to warn them but they didn’t listen. They never did until their rights were eventually taken from them in acts of hubris that seemed insurmountable.

How did they perpetuate such a canard on the people? He knew the answer to his own question: It was fear. It was always fear. Fear was the way they controlled everyone.
This time it was fear of the terrorists as they were labeled.

But no one really knew the truth because the media was complicit in the enterprise—at least those at the very pinnacles of power. They had sold their souls for market share—it was true: There was no more honor or dignity in the world; it was all for sale to the highest bidder.

And so it was.

And the masses didn’t care. As long as they had their games, their toys, their flights of escapism, their ludes and other drugs, they could do anything. They could talk about their Clean Air Act as they managed to load the sky with toxic chemicals; they could talk about their Clean Water Act as the fish came up on the beaches and died in record numbers….

None of it was true. None of it would ever be true.

And who cared.

Who was this Mohammad Atta if he was even real?
Who were these so-called terrorists?
Were they a figment of this government’s imagination? The modus operandi? Why didn’t the government ever come clean? Didn’t they owe the rest of us at least that much?
And then the endless arrests of those who were deemed “fellow travelers” but was that not also an illusion to mask the confinement of the “truth-seeekers…”

He didn’t know. But there were always more questions than could have been answered, now or then.

What he did know was that the pundits eventually all seemed to disappear.

Even his family. When his father questioned what had happened, it was reported as simply an uptick in his bodily rhythms which didn’t fit into the normal sequence. He was eventually “gathered up” for interrogation and then he was no more….

Strange, Curtain had thought but at the time, he believd the rhetoric as so many did. That his government was for the people and they needed strong measures if they were going to continue to protect the people against the ravages of the terrorists…

He remembered his grandfather talking about these famous documents that made this country stronger and fairer than all other countries and peoples from around the world would journey here under the most hazardous of conditions to enjoy some of those freedoms.

He wasn’t sure what a Constitution was these days—ever since the original seemed to fade before our eyes. And we definitely knew little about freedoms but they seemed very tenuous in a government where by simply speaking out, one could disappear.

Odd, he thought, as if an idea was trying to protrude, he couldn’t smell himself—his pores were working overtime excreting their essences and his heart was pumping as if were on overtime, yet, there was no odor about him. He wiped his hand under his arm but there was nothing he could detect. How could that be? He had urinated sitting there on the toilet but he was unconscious of any odor of stale urine, whose usual ammonia- like essence used to assail his nostrils—now there was nothing.

What was happening to him?

He had heard about this anomaly before….

In fact, there was a special bureau formed to handle such problems, although he had heard that nobody went there of there own free will because the cases seemed to end badly. It was thought that if you had no essence, you were clearly doing something against the state and so you were in conflict with the good humors of your body as determined bythe Supreme Leader which meant that you needed to be observed. People who suffered that syndrome usually went into hospitals “for observation…” and that was the last you would see of them. That’s why anybody who suffered this syndrome never reported it. He never knew what the outcome was because nobody seemed to be around who had suffered the malady for more than a year or two.

Maybe it was all in his mind. His mind had been playing tricks on him before and it would not be unreasonable to think that’s what happened. He didn’t know. He had to leave a trail, something to prove he was alive. So he peed on the floor, peed in the sinks, and peed on the cabinets. But there was nothing. No odor. Nothing. It was happening to him….

He did know that if he stayed five more minutes, the monitors would be out looking for him. He reconnected the cameras and the sound sensors, finished his business, zipped up and headed back to the floor for another day’s check on his balance sheet.

This was only the beginning he knew.

Next, he would not be able to see all of himself. Parts would begin to fade—slowly at first. At first, only he would notice it and then people would begin to say things like “Curtan, what happened to your ear?” Or, Curtan, why are you missing a leg?”
It would bother him. Sure! But what was worse was that they would get reported back. And they would take their toll. The Bureau didn’t like workers with missing parts.
It indicated less than full support.

Curtan guessed it was some kind of supreme irony. If a person gave up on their core beliefs, why did they need their bodies. They were only superfluous. Maybe in the long term, it was some kind of Darwinian payback, although he suspected that the religious zealots would term it an act of the Divine… If you stood for nothing, you eventually became nothing. And maybe in the giant scheme of things that was a form of “Gotcha!”… In the end, it was clear that in this world of few favors, in the end, you could pay a price for being uncaring, unsympathetic and uncommitted to anything: It was called invisibility and it was contagious!.... So, if one day you can’t smell yourself or you see your bodily parts start to wither, maybe you should take stock. God may be trying to tell you something!....

Les Aaron

Statistics Don't Lie!

When Statistics Mislead; and Liars Lie…

Les Aaron


When the government tosses numbers around as if they are gospel and the facts prove that they are worthless, how should you feel? Used? Abused?
We have just faced up to numbers that have no relation to what we have been told for years..
For political reasons and in order to keep a lid on things, our government has told us that upwards of 60,000 Iraqis have been killed in the aftermath of the invasion.. Now, we discover that that number is not off by a small measure that would allow for error but by a factor of ten or more!....

How could the government be that far off?....

Or that willing to submit figures as gospel when they are so inaccurate. Should that be a warning signal to us that maybe all of the others figures they tout are fabricated as well?
Is the inflation figure inaccurate too? What about the employment figures?

The Bottom Line:
We are a nation that depends upon figures.
The stock market goes up and down based upon assessments that employ government numbers. If the numbers are no good, what does that tell us about how our decisions are being made?

That’s why serious people are not going to say, “oh, well, only off by a 1000%!” Even if this astronomical number didn’t knock your socks off, it is sure meaningful who keep track of such things and even humanists who must now say, ‘enough is enough.”

That’s why I am particularly concerned about what the government is saying regarding government figures regarding wounded American troops. As the Veteran Adviser for Southern Delaware, and one who was interested in getting the truth out, I wrote to various sources at the Pentagon and elsewhere and by the time I was finished, I was less sure of the answers than I was starting out. Here’s why: It turns out that the military services all calculate their wounded separately. On top of that, there are various categories of what is referred to as “wounded.” There are wounded in the line of battle; and there are other wounded that fit into categories such as “accidentally wounded.” So, how do you get the totals?. I understand that you have to go to each division of the military and dig it out of them.

To me, this sounds more and more like another cover-up. Why would they cover up these numbers? Because they are much greater than the government is willing to own up to. I did some calculations based upon the average losses in various military units and using various other criteria and I came up with my own conservative estimates that are anywhere up to five or more times what the government is touting. The government has been telling us that there are about 17,000 to 19,000 wounded; according to my rough estimates, I calculate that the real number of wounded is closer to between 80,000 and 100,000 . This is based on figures derived from the wounded, the number of troops on the line, rotation rates, etc.

The sad part is that not only may there be more dead and wounded than we anticipated, the entire misadventure has been pushed whether we like it or not into the sphere of politics. What we are doing in Iraq has nothing to do with the dead and wounded statistics pouring in but to prove one unprovable point: that we are better off by being there than leaving!

Another way to look at the entire picture is that if we went there on false premises and our actions have only served to exacerbate the situation—which it has calculating the growing numbers aligned against us—then we have to examine what any extension in this God forsaken land would have to offer except a startling increase in dead and wounded. I think it’s time to come to our senses; to admit that we started off with a false premise and that the terrorist threat in the US had nothing to do with what has happened in Iraq until as a result of our actions, it became a training field for terrorist tactics.

It is time to bite the bullet and admit that we were “wrong;” that there was no WMD; nor was there any collusion between the terrorists and Saddam Hussein. To do any less is to perpetuate an argument based on a lie.

Les Aaron

The Committee for Positive Change

The Care and Feeding of My Paranoia

I’m convinced.

You know, the people you used to talk to on the way to the bus or the train, the guy who sold you the newspaper and the clerk at the deli where you picked up your coffee and a roll to take to the office; well, how shall I put it, they’re different.
Shhhh! Hey keep this down, but I think the Aliens have already taken over.
My paranoia is kicking in big-time.
I noticed for example that nobody I have been dealing with over all these years seems quite the same. I started noticing this about five years ago and I think I am onto something. It is all very subtle designed to confuse us.

You know how I can tell. I would say to the paper guy that the state of the world looks perilous and he would come back to me with chapter and verse, a lot of deep breathing, some wiping of his forehead and at the end we would commiserate with each other—and we would do all of this in literally a minute or two. Now, I just get a nod from the paper guy.

I noticed this in the deli, too. I would say something about the fighting in Baghdad and the clerk would barely hear me. When I used to bring this up during Vietnam, every one had an opinion.

This indicates that something is dreadfully wrong. My guess is that people have been replaced by unthinking androids or some other kind of thoughtless robotic devices that can be preprogrammed to respond to anything with the same blank looks and “thank you,” sir. This is very apparent to me and should be worrisome for anyone else who calls him or herself an American.

I notice it even where I teach school.

I bring up the idea of Iraq and the students start to look at me with blank expressions on their faces. It is clear that they know nothing of what I am talking about as if they inhabit parallel universes. Just to make sure, I corner a couple of students and asked them if they’ve heard about the latest scuttlebutt.

What I get back is a bland and noncommittal expression and silence.

Now, I know during the days of Vietnam, if I brought up a question about what was happening to ICorps in Danang I would get an explosion of points of view covering every imaginable base.

How can this be if we haven’t been programmed.

I am now starting to look very carefully at syotrangers and am very careful about the food I eat. I have mostly stopped trying to engage in conversation that veers from ‘thank you’ or ‘yes, please” in order to limit exposure to these strange emotionless creatures who now seem to inhabit our world and are everywhere.

What worries me is that it seems to be spreading. Just yesterday, I was talking to my daughter and I suddenly realized that I don’t know her anymore. She even answered my question with a non sequiter.

All I can do is warn you. I am afraid that at this stage, we are all on our own.

In any event, I hope you get this message. Keep up the good fight.

And never give up….

Les Aaron
The Hubmaster

Against the Tides....

AGAINST FAILED ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES
THAT LEAD TO SPRAWL...


Letter to the Editor:

Should we accept what’s happened to our county as part of the normal process of growth?
Should we allow the local government to proceed as they have before virtually unilaterally without discussion, without debate in making decisions affecting development as they have before? Shouldn’t we have the right to change the status quo if it is in our interests to do so?....

These are among the questions the upcoming election will decide.

If we vote in the same people, there is a very high probability that nothing will change. And if that doesn’t trouble us, we need to do nothing! However, if you as an intelligent questioning voter are seriously concerned about the path we are on, if you are unsure that the county officials have our best interests at heart, you have to look at your best available options… And you have to listen to the arguments of candidates who stand up to the developers and argue that unplanned development has not brought what our local officials have promised.

Citizens of Sussex County, I think we have come to an important cross-road.
For years, many of us have chosen to look the other way when business got the green light to develop areas considered “sensitive.” It didn’t affect us—or so we thought—so we looked the other way.

Now, we are reaching crisis stage and what many think may be the tipping point and, for the most part, many are still unwilling to see the disastrous path we are on…A path that will change our life-styles and the quality of our lives in ways that we may not have anticipated.

We know that Southern Delaware is the best place in the world to live. But if you look at what’s happened over the past few years, you have to seriously ask yourself is that as true today as it was yesterday. Why? We are starting to see the price of not demanding more from our county officials and by voting in those again and again who perpetuate growth at any cost.

Our business people have encouraged unplanned development with such zeal now that they have scrambled the Golden Egg. They have built on every square inch of land without considering the accompanying infrastructure. As a result, we now have more homes than the county needs with less of the things we need to assure that each home owner can retain a quality of life. And all we need to do is look around us to see what unplanned development can do to an area. We have growth but we don’t have a dependable water supply. We have growth but we don’t have adequate sewers. We have growth but our roadways cannot accommodate the traffic; we have growth but we don’t have the kind of schools we need to accommodate the growing demands of an expanding student base.

To accommodate even more growth, we invest in power sources that are dependent on coal. Coal is one of the worst pollutants—even when its upgraded to burn cleaner.
Pollutants dumped into the waterways, pollute our water. Pollutes pumped into the air that are not recycled contaminate our air affecting the air that we breath. We are through the power of the vote, supporting the State’s efforts to poison us wholesale.

When will we say enough is enough!.

Today, some of the newer, more committed politicians are working to change the status quo. In the 41st District, for example, a courageous resident has stepped forward to promulgate needed change that will protect the home owners quality of life, that will result in planned development instead of rampant growth at any price, that will protect the sensitive marsh lands. A populist candidate who will vote what the people want; not what is expedient. Never before have the choices been clearer. Residents can vote for the status quo with the appointment of John Atkins, who has never seen a development he hasn’t liked, a businessman with a personal stake in over-development; or you can vote for change with the election of Barbara Lifflander, a populist who wants to maintain the quality of life for all the people in her district. A candidate who recognizes that the key is planning, infrastructure and protection of wetlands and marshlands.

Supporting Barbara Lifflander’s efforts is supporting your own right to a quality of life. Ms. Lifflander does not stand against development; but, insteads, supports planning so that all development is accompanied by infrastructure to eliminate crowded streets, power outages, insufficient waste management and the burning of alternative fuels that do not poison the environment or the air we breath. . She believes that if you are going to develop that has to be part and parcel of an infrastructure plan. That’s why she’s active in the Sierra Club; that’s why she I a consultant and adviser on the Comprehensive Plan for Sussex County and that’s why she stands for positive change for the people, not preservation of the status quo..

















Barbara cautions us that it is time to get serious about keeping Sussex County for the people, not the developers. It is about keeping the 41st District as a desirable area for sporting and outdoor life offering the quality of life that makes people want to keep coming back.

It only makes sense that we support Barbara Lifflander who is running for us in the 41st District for she is only supporting us. Invite Barbara to speak at your group; learn what you can do to support the goals of your area; and don’t let the prophets of self-interest destroy your stake in the future. To volunteer or support the efforts of Barbara Lifflander, call 302 945 2888 or email Barbaraliff@aol.com.

Respectfully,

"Final Warning"

From the opening chapter of Final Warning...
An Environmental Saga

“FINAL WARNING”
by
Les Aaron-
Buddha rules

The Secret Pentagon Report was in. The secretive think tank, The Office of Policy Review, headed up by the guru of the Pentagon—a visionary planner who has never publicly revealed his name, yet is known by the code name of “Buddha”, had not only prepared but also put his personal stamp on the following report summarized here and submitted with full documentation to the said subject of the report


NEED TO KNOW
FOR THE PRESIDENT’S EYES ONLY

FROM: OFFICE OF POLICY REVIEW

SUBJECT: CLIMATOLOGICAL ALERT

PRIORITY: ONE

Background:
Following conclusions are the result of an exhaustive and systematic review conducted by this department over the last six months. See full report and documentation attached. Appropriate footnotes and attachments are provided... Timeline on this is marked “Urgent.”


SUMMARY CONCLUSIONS: the probabilities of occurrence are so high, that it is necessary that we move up the time line.

Reason: To withhold such data this office would deem reprehensible in view of what we now know. According to our best estimates, all affected parties will require maximum time available to design, develop/ implement plans and procedures to augment their own prospects for survival at a time of great uncertainty.

. Findings: As per research, fully documented and enclosed, there is a very high degree of probability of the following scenario taking place within the near term. The probability is in the range of 80% with an error of approximately 10% according to the credibility of the current data projections.

Findings: Europe will be subjected to conditions that are unimaginable in today’s terms. In effect, we project a kind of nuclear winter will descend upon Europe. The expected factual occurrences include the following: -- extreme and unique weather conditions unlike any seen before in Western Europe...

One of the greatest challenges should these projections come to fruition: severe flooding. . Our estimates of what life will be like should these projections come to pass are summed up as follows: Life will change dramatically for all those within targeted areas. In addition to flooding, calculations reveal that temperatures could plummet to levels emulating what might be termed Siberian conditions. Such catastrophic events will most likely trigger consequences unseen before. Nuclear wars, famine, mega droughts and other disasters may be among likely consequences. We repeat that these conclusions are the result of our best projections based upon the existing data and while the outcome cannot be confirmed at this time, the data convinces us that all concerned should make necessary preparations to deal with the high probability of such an outcome...

Consequences: If these events come to pass, it would be highly likely that supplies of everything from food to energy would run out. Conflicts could be expected to be far-reaching and beyond our ability to conceptualize. And the resulting devastation could be worse than nuclear war.

The projected time line: there is an 50-50 probability that the timetable for the above could be accelerated so that such consequences could impact the target area in as little as six months. There is a better than 80% chance that the above occurrence will occur within twenty years. While twenty years may seem like a reasonable time to take remedial action, the possibility that this catastrophic event may occur in a much shorter time frame, makes the need for remedial action much more urgent.

Measures: With a window that is tragically narrow, we recommend the calling of an immediate emergency conference, that the efforts of this conference should be oriented towards mobilizing all necessary services and counter-measures to assist our allies abroad and to provide support and aid for the affected populations. The need for positive action in the light of these projections is imminent and potentially overwhelming.
We await your instructions...

See attached report and documentation.

Office of the Director
Buddha”

The president seemingly annoyed with the intrusive nature of this report, glanced at it, mumbled something indecipherable under his breath, put it back in its folder and left it on his desk as he hurried out under Secret Service guard to the waiting helicopter that would take him to Air Force One for his overdue trip to the Southern White House and a week or two of sports-fishing and skeet shooting.





Order a copy of Final Warning from Les Aaron, hubmaster@aol.com

The Committee for Positive Change
10% of all profits will be used to support Democratic causes

"The Tipping Point..."

Wake Up America!


In the absence of honest debate, in a field where the intellectually and moral leaders remain amazingly silent, one wonders who will arise to take their place.
We seem to be so docile, so willing to accept virtually anyone's authority whether it is questionable in the first place or not.
Who will then reassert the standards that we have all tried to live by: honesty and integrity.
Wasn't that and freedom two of the things that Americans fought to preserve.
Have we let down our veterans through our cowardly non-action.
Have we so easily been taken over by a cabal of a handful eager to advance their own interests at the nation's expense?
These are questions that have to be flitting around in people's minds.
What have we allowed ourselves to become? Why are we not out on the street over a million issues?: Why have we become so compliant while others refer to the fact that we are so polarized in every other way. Why have we allowed the Chinese to enslave us in permanent indebtedness? Why have we allowed our jobs to flee? Why have we allowed the medical establishment to decide whether we can afford to survive or not? Why have we ignored clean air and water at our own peril and simply kowtow to plans to put off OSHA protections for another ten years? Why have we allowed ourselves to perpetuate a war that we know is based on false assumptions and lies? Why have we not simply asserted our authority and stopped it. surely, 50 million people are a force to be reckoned with? What is wrong with us as a people? Why have we allowed our relationships to be severed? Why do we put up with a government that knows nothing but bullying and won't talk with those it needs to talk to?
Why do we say nothing when we know that what this government is doing is not in our long term good interest? Why are we allowing this government to hold back the fruits of science--especially when we know that it may help thousands if not tens of thousands? Why are we allowing them to divert money from schools to pay war subcontractors in a war that is not merited or justified? Wake up America! The people have the power. And we should not forget that we have a responsibility that our government represent all of the people--not just a fortunate few.... It is time to take stock of all that has happened to turn America into a unilateralist totalitarian state that makes policy without debate, that ignores its fundamental documents and rules of law to assert its own interpretations that are based on self-interest and preserving the status quo. It is all wrong! And it is not America that we see.
And if we don't do something, we will have our grandchildren to answer to.
Or maybe we will have pushed the tipping point and there will be no coming back.
think about that!

Les Aaron

Preventing the Machine Take-Over

Can the Machines Change My Vote from "Yes" to "No"?

The answer is yes.

During the recent Primary, I went to my voting precinct; there were only two people there, one to check my signature and provide a voting card and one to guide me through the use of the new voting machines.

The man who took my voting card, rather surprisingly said to me, “Why bother to commit suicide?”

And I asked what do you mean by that and he replied: “ why bother to vote?”

And I asked him for an explanation.

He said , “ there’s no point in voting because it’s going to be a landslide for Mike Castle…”

To add insult to injury, I asked him whether I could get a printout of my vote.

And he replied, “no…there was no record!”

And I asked him if there is no record, “how do I know that my vote will count?…”
And he said “you don’t.”

Now, I’ve chosen to recount this discussion and my experience at the polls because I left feeling that as of now, I know it wasn’t legal for that official to indulge in electioneering but at the same time, I truly question whether my vote will be counted.

Unfortunately, too, no one seems to see the implications of vote manipulation..

Why do I say that?

Because there is no active movement to provide guarantees to the voter or to assure the voter that his or her vote will be tabulated. None of the machines I have seen leave a footprint even though almost all of us know that there is sufficient evidence to suggest that virtually all of the existing voting machines can be tampered with and only a small percentage provide a paper trail…

This is not speculative. It has been proven by professional computer experts who have gained access to the new machines and point out the ease with which results can be changed to show another outcome. At least one local candidate has spoken to me personally about their doubts as to the honesty of the machine counts and the ease with which they can be tampered with.

Today, about 85% of the machines do not leave a paper trail; moreover, the majority of the machines being used are manufactured by one of two companies both of whose managements have sworn an allegiance to doing whatever they can to get republicans elected.

How can Americans have faith in machines built by those having republican interests, are easily tampered with and do not have a record or no audit is conducted to prove that the votes recorded are tabulated as they are registered?.

The Committee for Positive Change has tried to communicate the need for restoring confidence in the vote again by switching to voting machines that leave a paper trail, conducting audits and instituting other controls to assure that the voters’ intentions were
Fulfilled. The fact remains that if we cannot believe in the results of the voting machines, we cannot believe in the process and all issues regarding our democracy are on the table including the question of our democracy. This is not fluff; it’s not stuff we can readily dismiss; it is the very foundation of our democracy that we are talking about.

It is clear that Delaware needs change in its voting process to assure each and every voter that their vote will count.

Towards this end, I would like to propose a conference of like minded individuals here in Delaware take on this issue of voting machines and the problems of tampering and move forward on legislation to promote the kind of voting machinery or systems that will restore our confidence in the honesty, integrity and confidence in the process.

It is the least we can demand of our democracy.

Les Aaron
Committee for Positive Change

Republicans On Wrong Page...

Hastert Most Likely to Pay for Foley’s Excesses…


Hastert has only three words in his vocabulary these days. They are “Foley. Foley. Foley.” And with good reason. For in fact if anyone could imagine a more damaging ending to a do-nothing congress whose main accomplishment seemed to be hitting a new low in ethical behavior. By the very logic, the media has reawakened from its zombie like state to turn this affair into a veritable slug fest that has Hastert down and ready for the count.

This is not to say that the call for his head isn’t well deserved or that Hastert hasn’t brought it on himself by trying to bury the truth of this sordid mess that, incidentally, has added weight to the arguments of those who already feel that the current crop of republicans are too far along for redemption. All of this, of course, will play at the polls…and give republicans even added reasons for agita.

Now, with recent testimony, it appears that despite Hastert’s convenient memory, he had been advised by a leading political aide as to Foley’s predilections more than three years ago…and did nothing! Even red-blooded republicans are calling for his scalp despite the profusion of excuses that seem to pour from his corner like honey running out of a spilled bucket.

It is not enough to blame his clergyman for his perdition or his own homosexual behavior which he has not been particularly forthcoming about. The fact is that he has demonstrated little discipline and less remorse by not controlling his intemperate impulses. In the end, he has endangered the youth of this land who sign up for service to this country only to discover that they have been thrown to the lions by those to whom they have been entrusted. This is unconscionable and needs to be put to rest immediately. In the meantime, all of congress is besmirched by the Chairman’s failure to act decisively to quell Foley’s corrupt behavior. One wonders what kind of a message does this send to our friends and allies who are already questioning why we cannot seem to ante up to the truth and why we are unable to keep our own house in order.

With all that has happened in Washington since Gingrich’s promise to bring honor and values back to government, it is clear that all they have done is speed up the process and shine a spotlight on a government that is more corrupt than ever.

It is another inkling that the presence of real values and ethics are inversely proportionally to their mention by all those holier than thou types who freely wear their religion like war medals.

Les aaron

The Committee for Positive Change…

www.lesaaron.blogspot.com

Thinking Outside the Box Index

Letter to the Editor: Newsweek


The Common Yardsticks of College Evaluation
Seem mis-directed.

With due apologies to Ms. Spelling and the comments of the staff of Newsweek, it would be very nice to be able to put a national index of colleges and a lot of data into the hands of students and parents, but precisely what kind of data should that be? And what would should it mean? Ms. Spelling seems to leave that big blank for others to fill. It seems to this source that there is plenty of data available but not necessarily useful. Therefore, we would like to suggest some other yardstick for consideration. We call it the TOBI and we think it breaks away from conventional thinking to consider other, more useful measures.

In the past, several measures had been tried. Among them, there was count of legitimate PhD’s working at various schools; but it was discovered that that measure meant little since most were encouraged to publish not to teach. Then there was various other indexes tied to the Ivy League schools which centered on prosaic measures of salary and performance judged by the quality of starting jobs. Again, these measures meant little since anyone who could afford to send their children to such schools could also be counted on using their contacts to assure their children of good contacts and promising starting salaries.

So, how do you really judge whether a college is a prime training ground for active minds because shouldn’t that be the measure?

My suggestion is very simple. The Committee for Positive Change calls it the TOBI. It’s a yardstick of not salary or position in life but how well college graduates use their God-given gifts.

It is very simple to measure and its surprising that no one up until now has either suggested or advocated such a measure..

Here’s how it works:

You begin with a compendium of leaders in every industry.

Each leader is asked to submit a list of the industry’s best thinkers/achievers.. It is not salary, position, standing, ranking, etc.; it is totally accomplishment based and involves unique problem solving, thinking or innovation, creativity and/or contribution to the common good through services that are judged to stand alone. The leaders must be able to point to uncommon thinking, leadership skills, creativity, positive accomplishment through innovation, etc. The leaders may tap into other resources to accumulate their names including referring to others in the chain of command within their industries who might have a better working relationship with the candidates and are better able to calculate their contributions…

What the judges will be looking for is THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX to address needs, solve problems, serve the public good. Out of the total list, the lists provided by the industry and business leaders will be submitted to an empanelled jury of 12 judges who are selected because of heir credentials; they will determine the top 10% and build the Index around them.

If we open the list up to the top 1,000 candidates and pick the top 100 that will be a beginning; other criteria may substitute for this set of determinants but it must be reduced to a representative fraction of the totally qualified list to be meaningful.

The Colleges selected may include selections across the entire field of elegible schools including both highly specialized schools as well as Universities having broad offerings. The only prohibition would be schools that have some qualifying criteria based on race, religion or thinking.

Then we solicit the names of the schools attended and other relevant data, total this data up and develop an Index which is updated annually with changes indicated.

This is a zero based calculation and measure meaning that there is no “carry-over;” the study is conducted fresh yearly and just because someone qualified the previous year does not mean that he or she will automatically requalify for inclusion in the subsequent year..

In the end, we should come up with a list of colleges that will begin to mean something.
Over time, we will begin to see a trend line as for example, such and such college received mentioned 25 out of the last 100 times; therefore, it may be presumed, all other measures being equal, that a graduate of this school, has a far better chance of achieving meaningful recognition and/or success in his field of choice than had he or she attended a school that was never included or considered for the list.

To the best of our recollection, no Index has ever been measured on the basis of the TOBI that measures thinking ability and performance and while we donnot believe it should be the only measure of any school, it would be an extremely useful yardstick over time in eliminating the hype and conjecture that usually surrounds the process and substituting tangible evidence of student accomplishment as a principal criterion for consideration.
Like most other yardsticks, however, we recognize that it should be supplemented by other meaningful criteria to provide a balanced view and perspective.

Respecfully submitted,

Les Aaron- Director
The Committee for Positive Growth

Shaping The Future Through Convergence

A Future Without "Stuff..."



We have undergone a revolution and don’t know it.

Think about it!

What device that has been around for nearly three hundred years has not only fallen into disuse, it is practically obsolete?

If you said your watch, you are right and perceptive.

The fact is that despite the range of stunning products on the market that do virtually everything from keeping track of the time available on your meter to recording speeds at Olympic events, the watch has become, dare I say it, redundant.

The fact of the matter is that at this particular point in time, it has been superseded by other technology: the cell phone.

Have you noticed when people want the time these days where they turn?

They check their cell phones.

Why?

The cell phone is more accurate. I know that; they know that.

So, what do I need a redundant system for to remind me that it is less accurate than my cell phone.

Is that the end of it?.

Hardly. It’s unfortunately only the beginning.

We are a nation poised for convergence. The truth is quite compelling.

We are heading at full speed to integrate all gadgets into one super gadget that will do everything from telling us how to get anywhere on the planet to downloading movies and read our email.

And, if one goes by the new technology developed in the laboratory, we will be able to put this all together into a package that is smaller, lighter in weight and less expensive

than even our most astute futurists might have guessed.

Imagine how those who dabbled in “1’s” and “0’s” in programming the first vacuum tube computers whose central processor alone filled a large room would feel if confronted with such progress today. For many, it is too mind-boggling to contemplate.

In the early days, when there were very few computers around and most of us were toying with abstract notions of mathematical operating systems for some computer-driven world yet to be theorized, it would have been the most arduous of stretches. But, today, we seem well conditioned to change and understand, if only subluminally, that we already inhabit the future and that we are only along for the ride.



Les Aaron

The committee for positive change

www.lesaaron.blogspot.com

An Inability to Change

Presidential Politics: If you do something wrong often enough with enough commitment, people will think it's right.
True or False?

Since the beginning of the War in Iraq, the death rate for American troops has been reported to hover around two a day.
Of course, the way the Pentagon figures, casualty figures are broken up by branch of the service and into at least two categories: accidental and combat related and perhaps more that we have not been told about.
However, October started with a serious uptick in the numbers...
In fact, calling it an uptick is an understatement. Casualty numbers have risen 350% or 3 and 1/2 times to 7 fatalities a day! On the ground now, eye witnesses are describing the chaos they see as much worse than has been portrayed and the use of the term insurgency is commonplace. When are we going to call this what it is a Civil War and an insurgency that combines hatred for Sunni and Shiites compounded by an overarching hatred for the US that seems to be growing exponentially!

We have failed here in the worst way possible and it seems that everything we do does not do anything but make things worse.

It should have been clear from the very beginning that we went into Iraq with some very false notions. Our intractablity and close-mindedness have blinded us to fundamental truths in the conduct of this war and carrying this on ad infinitum is a sign that rationality escapes our leaders and eludes the influentials who influence policy.

To be so damagingly wrong may be alright in a disagreement or a misunderstanding, but when you are cavalierly throwing your best and brightest into the fray you have an obligation to the public for your actions.

To date, no one has paid the price except the parents and families of those who gave their flesh and blood to an unworthy cause.

And the president and his cadres continue to pursue a path that has been shown to be not only unproductive but counter productive leading to growing hatreds against the American people.

With this understanding, we have sufficient cause and justification to change the status quo, to reverse this insane commitment that can have no good possible outcome.

To most people who have retained a modicum of rationality,
we are being led to the slaughter by crazy people who are incapable of changing their minds in the presence of proof positive that they are wrong. Dead wrong!

NOt only should they therefore be relieved of their posts, but they should be institutionalized for certainly their actions show quite vividly a kind of madness that obscures reality and the truth.

Les Aaron
the committee for positive change
www.lesaaron.blogspot.com

"The Dean Conundrum"

The Art of Democratic Foot Shooting!


Although I number myself among one of the first to follow Howard Dean to the ends of the earth, if need be, today, I feel disillusioned, as if Dean is a man wearing blinders, so deaf to external advice and guidance, so willing to gamble the future of the party, that I am truly worried that he has veered dangerously off track and will alienate those who have stayed loyal to the party even in spite of its losses and other disastrous misadventures.



Let’s face it. Dean’s attempts to remake the democratic party by going to the grass=roots have not proven out whatever Mr. Dean would like to believe. He may be picking articulate and intelligent young people but they are absent of experience, absent of the ability or knowledge to change the status quo and that is evident from their “invisibility” at the meetings, activities, campaign and communications efforts. . .



. Although through his earlier activism, he did through his example encourage dozens of progressive democrats to seek office, his attempts as DNC to change the way the State parties operate has been a serious clunker—despite his pouring money into the fifty states. One might legitimately ask what has been the result. And there seem to be few if any downright accomplishments that a newly rethought Dean strategy might suggest.

Why even care? Aren’t the longer term implications what’s at stake?

No! Democrats cannot keep losing elections and call themselves a party.

And if they keep siphoning off assets that would normally go to candidates who are competitive in state races, that’s what will happen.

At no other time in recent memory have republican office holders been more vulnerable but instead of rushing money to their poorly provisioned war chests, the DNC holds to its

abstract notion that the longer term outlook for democrats is more important than what is happening today in contested districts where the opposition is drowning in money. That is if anything dangerously short-sighted, naïve and contemptuous of the strategizing of the various congressional democratic committees.

To propel needed change, we need to do what is necessary to support local candidates and we need to do it now.

Therefore, if this means taking back some of Dean’s powers it should be done if only to assure democrats of a competitive run against their more vulnerable republican opponents.

If we fail to seize the reins right now, we will find ourselves facing the same dilemma in 2012 only with a candidate base that has not become demoralized and disheartened over a party that does not recognize its role or obligation to the people.



Les Aaron

__._,_.___


SPONSORED LINKS

Dems Better At Cutting Up Each Other Than the Opposition...

What’s Going On With The Democrats?

Many seem confused by what is happening inside the democratic party today.
Why ae we not aggressively supporting the leading candidates?... Why has their been no evidence of common purpose between Congress’ Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and
Howard Dean?

What has happened with Howard Dean’s highly touted “Fifty State” strategy designed
to reawaken the democratic movement across states where it was thought to be nonexistent?

Why do Chuck Shumer and Rahm Emanuel, both leading Democratic lights, take such a dim view of what Dean is trying to accomplish? Is Dean’s strategy right? Or is he destined to destroy what remains of the democratic party and doom us to another four years of republican rule? Is he so anti-main stream that it is hurting the party?

These are some of the questions that flood the minds of most concerned democrats today.
And to his credit, Matt Bai, a journalist for the New York Times, goes far in answering why democrats, today, are having such a hard time making themselves heard and felt at a time when the republicans are exposed on virtually all flanks and why conflict within the party poses such risks while the opportunities to add seats during this midterm couldn’t be better.

To understand the contentious and oftentimes conflicting views that are working to either shape or undo the party as we know it, it is helpful to understand the Dean “Fifty State” strategy of bringing the parties back to life in states where there has been little if any life since the days Johnson promulgated his integration policies.

The prevailing question is whether it’s working?

From the looks of things, it seems that despite the financial investment that Dean has made in achieving his goals, there seems to be little record of tangible progress. Moribund state parties are still moribund. This hasn’t changed. But Dean seems to have the answer. The DNC Chairman says that mistakes will be made along the way in rebuilding the party but that is to be expected. . Credit it to a lack of expertise, an inability to change the status quo, a lack of experience, But such pitfalls does not suggest that the objectives are wrong or not timely. . Ordinarily, the DNC would turn over their accumulated funds to the candidate of choice who would then invest it the media that target the lead 18 states that are decisive in elections. Dean wants to change the conventional formulae so that at least part of that money goes to state organizations.

As a result of the fifty state strategy, the fund that might normally go to deservings candidates has been redirected with little visible effect. Critics Emanuel and Shumer have been adamant about the need to buoy up candidates in competitive races which hasn’t happened. For the most part, deserving candidates have gotten little if any support from the party. Their argument being that the way to change is to get more democratic candidates in office now. Some even wonder whether Dean’s strategy is designed to lay a foundation for his own run in 2008 but Bai refutes that possibility by arguing that Dean seems less interested in the presidency than changing the democratic party at the grass-roots level.

The essential questions boil down to whether it makes more sense to support the near term goals of helping the democratic candidates win election where they stand the best chances of winning or thinking longer term at the expense of the present to rebuild the democratic party in all of the states from the bottom up.

. Matt Bai’s article, which appears in the October 1 New York Times magazine under the heading: “It’s His Party? Howard Dean and the Creatie Destruction of the Democratic Establishment,.” providesa an insightful and objective overview of both sides of the argument and the implications for the election without resorting to the obvious temptation of coloring the debate with secondary arguments or personal views. .
Report by

Les Aaron