The Duality of John McCain

There are lot’s of things I question about John McCain.


Will the real John McCain please step up?

We know you’re out there, John; we just don’t know who you are since you transmogrified into what, Little Bush?

John seemed like an interesting critter years ago when he seemed to rebel from the standard republican line.

I gasped. Is he a real man? Does he really stand up?

Or is this just hyper bull. A dodge for the news guys that snap at his heels?

I guess I was fooled.

I found out that a lot of things John McCain once said, are now long lost concepts that were never really realized. In blunter words, he was the ‘great pretender.’

Many things come to mind that confirm this.

Consider his remarks about not pandering to anybody seeking his favor. Sure, John, is that in your mind? .

Of course there were plenty of exceptions, including one lovely who graced his cabin on a flight west. Those kind of things, the details, don’t seem to count much in John’s lexicon.

And on and on.

Okay, let’s cut him some slack. I am sure that there’s a lot of things John has done for the people. Like approve the minimum wage. Like stand up for equal pay. Like the GI Bill.

No, okay. Let’s forget that.

So, on balance, viewing what’s John’s said and done, we come up with a whole different scenario.

What I have concluded is that John is either the biggest liar in the world or he’s completely out of his mind.

I’m not sure what position in my mind he occupies at this point.

In that respect, he seems more like the Bush we’ve had to contend with than a guy you’d want in your foxhole.

Actually, dare I say it, McCain could turn out to be even worse than Bush. (I never thought I would live to see anyone worse than Nixon, but live and learn.) He would be worse because he seems like a nice guy, then he stabs you in the chest and cuts your medical benefits.

And John is both disconnected and insensitive it turns out; not good signs.

And reminiscent of Bush I, who checked his watch during the debate and practically stifled a yawn when some poor soul was pouring out her heart to him about how she could not afford to pay the medical bills.

Next shot, Bush I riding his cigarette boat off of his home in Maine after being totally amazed about how a scanner works. (They’d only been out about twenty years at that point.).

Another compassionate prictoid. (my word, but it resonates!)

If you track the history of the Bush’s, you will discover that these are a heartless, self-interested people.

Dare I say that there is a reason that McCain is looking increasingly like the long lost member of the family.

But don’t let McCain fool you.

He can lie to your face as he talks to you.

Look at the absurd scene in Baghdad last when he tried to convince everyone that the marketplace was much safer ‘this visit,’ even though he was surrounded by 200 uniformed guards and several helicopters and who knew what else.

Sure, it was safer now; the Shia’ had come in and wiped out the owners of all the stalls that talked to McCain and his troops.

So far, he hasn’t made much sense about business either and as I see it, he’s willingly going to dig us a deeper hole by making the Bush tax cuts for the rich permanent—even though they didn’t do a damned thing to get the economy moving again.

Like I say, he’s either the biggest liar on two feet or somebody who shouldn’t be allowed out in public.

Frankly, I can’t understand why he is enjoying parity with the democratic candidates.

Something is dangerously wrong here.

Is it possible that there’s enough stupid people around to give this liar and/or crazy man the election.

If that’s the case, I am writing NASA immediately as a volunteer for their first mission to Mars.

It will probably be the safest place around and I won’t have to listen to this imbecility any more.

Anyway, there are a couple of books I’ve been meaning to read.

Les Aaron
The Armchair Curmudgeon

The Other Option:

The Option We Dare Not Consider.

Outraged yet?

Try this:


Here’s something to think about that will really stir the pot.


Let’s begin by asking a few questions:

Who got the attention at the debates?.

Who got cut out (not enough questions? Not enough time allocated)?

Who is really running things?

The people? Or the Media?….Or Big Brother government? Or the Military Industrial Complex through its influence peddling and money to candidates?

Who had the most to gain by pushing Obama and Hillary?

Maybe we’re being played like a fiddle.

Big business interests who are way ahead of us in “selecting” candidates and letting us think we’re doing it….

Did you ever think of that?

Maybe the numbers tell us that the nation isn't ready for radical change.

That the nation is not mature enough to invite an African-American or a woman to the table,

There is another option.

We can change the table while we still can.

Why beat our heads against the wall?

If the nation wants experience, let’s give it to them.

Maybe we could invite Dodd and Biden to split the ticket.

Neither got a fair chance to make their case.

And I don't know of too many who don't like them.

And if you're going to talk about experience, who has more....

That would end all of this bickering about pastors and experience and wipe the slate clean.

And what the Hell have the Democratic panjandrums done to make the party look intelligent and coherent.

Nothing!

Yes, I'm still for Obama, but I don't know if he can win at this point; and I doubt Hillary with her high negatives would produce anything but a laugh from the republicans.

The point is I want to win this one.

And if Obama and Hillary can't, bring on those who never got equal opportunity at the debates.

Bring on Dodd and Biden and save a place for Richardson and Edwards.

What do you say?

Radical thinking for radical times…


Les Aaron

Transportation: Hubs and Hubris


In our obsession with fighting wars in places that don’t want us,

We’ve lost sight of so many important priorities, that occasionally it would do us some good to review where we stand.



Take transportation.



We are undergoing some of the dark days of transportation right now.



Carbon based fuel has tripled in the few years since Bush took over as president.



The airlines, as a result, are bleeding in every possible way.



In this year alone, several airlines have filed for protection under bankruptcy or simply closed their doors.



Despite the fact that there’s less competition, airline service seems to get immeasurably worse with each passing day.



How come?



Much of it has to do with how airlines are organized.



Many set up around a hub.



Add to that fact, that there are only so many airports that can accommodate a standard airliner; very few a 747.



So, when weather or other problems cause a clog somewhere in the pipeline, every other airline becomes backed up.



What can be done about it.



Some suggest that the solution is GPS systems which the airlines currently don’t have; the GPS would provide a precise position in space offering the pilots and schedulers greater latitude in scheduling landings and take-offs.



The other avenue might be fewer competitive flights into the same airports.



Apart from expedients like this, the options seem few and uninspired.



Nobody is thinking outside the box here.



Because airlines are looking for an airline solution, when maybe the solution requires a futurist who understands various transportation options including those that up til now have not been considered.



Right now, many travelers are thinking about driving rather than go through the ordeal of checking in at various airports and having to put up with the indignities and who could blame them.



However, that simply puts more people on the highways and uses up more fuel.



There has to be other solutions.



To my mind, it’s time to rethink high speed ground transportation.



Whenever I am in Europe, I cannot help but compare the sorry state of our rapid transit system with that of the country I am traveling in.



The trains are clean, they are efficient and they arrive on time without personal dislocation.



Why can’t we do that in this country?



Why can’t we use monorails like they use at airports or Disney?



Why are we so locked into a system that is constantly being degraded.





I have been flying and going by train since the 40’s.



In those days the planes were great. Flying was convenient, you were treated nicely, the seats were comfortable and you got where you were going on=time without the crowds.



This was also the era of the streamliner and the diesel where you could travel in style around the country in no more than three days.



Where I’m living now, the State abandoned trains decades ago. Even though the population is headed for the million mark.



Now, if you want to get around the State, you can take all day and make multiple connections to go Wilmington; or you can have a car and spare yourself getting involved in a attempting to go from one place to another with a banana republic kind of transportation system, that is archaic and unbecoming a great country like America..



The same is true in many states.



In New Jersey, if you want to go from one part of the State to another, you have to go through New York first.



It’s crazy and we deserve better.



A good monorail system may be what the doctor ordered with special transit bus connections and big parking lots.





We could get around more efficiently, but most importantly, we can derive a green benefit if all of us think this way.



I thought I’d check out where we stood with ground transportation.



I googled the subject and although I found many citations, most of it viewed solutions from the perspective of the specific industry the author came out of. . I did not find any that looked at the problem from a general outside perspective with the exception of a few sophomoric papers on the subject that must have been submitted by college students.



In the past, I used to turn to government as one of my best sources for research.



Today, they are ultimately barren and I don’t believe anything I get back.



Information, when it is available is dated, inaccurate, misleading and designed to obfuscate. Our own government shows it is wearing badly.



But like everything else plaguing us today, there are few places we can turn unless the public sector or an objective think tank is committed to the subject.



So, we are at an impasse.



We need futurists, planners who are dedicated to examining the overall subject, not expert advice from specialists within a single industry who are on someone’s payroll who has a vested interest in seeing that particular form of transportation pushed over another.



We need an objective overall assessment of what awaits us and a Crusade to come up with better solutions no matter where they lie.



We used to be able to do this in the past.



Just look at how efficiently we reached the moon, a task that shows we can do the impossible if we set our minds to it.



We need that kind of mission to solve our transportation needs.



For the time being, it’s clear that we are in stasis. There has been no new thinking on a host of problems; we have moved backwards instead of forward in many areas and this kind of backwards movement is not going to solve our energy problem or provide solutions to the kind of transportation we shall need in the future..



If anything, transportation is just symptomatic of a much greater problem.



If we can spend nearly a trillion dollars and arrive at no progress in Iraq, we should be able to budget a solution to the problem of transportation that increasingly is becoming something no politician is willing to address.



Shame on us!



Les Aaron



The Armchair Curmudgeon

The Time for Another Revolution?

In the middle of a year long primary it is sometimes hard to realize that there are other things going on in the world.

And yet one has to admit to him or herself that politicians never invented anything or contributed very much to innovation and progress—except for perhaps our Founding Fathers.

Sometimes, you just need a wake up call.

I found mine in the April 13th edition of Outlook.

Let me explain: I don’t happen to be a real Washington Post fan because more often than not, the articles seem like they have been so homogenized by the pro-conservative editorial staff, that they are hardly attention-grabbing.

You don’t find much worth taking home out of the Post so I read it for travel, styles, the book review and the Sunday magazine and toss most of the rest of it away.

But Outlook on the 13th paid a tribute to science and they talked about innovation and how you don’t know it when it’s right in front of your face.

One of the articles is by Ray Kurzweil who may have influenced a generation of great thinkers.

He was talking about how fortunate he was to go to MIT in 1965 where they actually had a computer in a special room and all the students used it.

I know what he was talking about.

I had studied computers at Queens College some ten years before and there was no computer, only a theoretical one that we carried around in our heads and that we developed processes for, mathematical systems and taught it how to operate.

Fortunately, we had some top dawgs in the program including the man who helped launch Polaris, one of the first applications for a computer system and one of Einstein’s closest associates as Head of the Department so there seemed to be a natural push towards futurism..

At graduate school at NYU’s Dept of Mathematics, they had a computer but I never saw it. And we did our statistical series with pencil and paper.

Later on, I went to work for Honeywell. Honeywell sold MIT it’s most advanced system and I was part of the back-up for that system. It was our 1800 Series which meant it could use “simultaneity’ and “parallel processing” to share the central processor on eighteen separate programs that ran simultaneously. We never found too many programmers who could actually conjure up eighteen programs to run simultaneously but it seemed like it was a very futuristic thing to do if we had to.

In those days, the killer aps were pedestrian accounting routines and few people outside accounting actually ever used a computer. At that time, we had moved beyond IBM with tape drives that were much more efficient than punch cards.

At the time, a full three years before Kurzweil came onboard, Honeywell was working with MIT scientists to create artificial reality and do exotic things like analyzing disease from eye analysis and stuff like that.

At the time, we were IBM’s main competition.

IBM was so full of itself at the time, that nobody could tell them anything. They were irrevocably trapped inside their own bubble and it was to limit them in ways they couldn’t even begin to imagine.

I suspect that living off the past was one of the primary reasons all “break-throughs” tend to come from outside an industry.

It was certainly true when IBM did two things to limit its growth. It went outside for microcircuitry and chips and for an operating system.

There were no flies on Intel or the fledgling Bill Gates who was working out of his garage at the time. At the time, I thought that Intel’s chief was the brightest guy I ever heard of. And time proved me out.

They seized the initiative and the computer world changed big-time.

Another first that was not recognized was what ARPA conceived of with its ARPA net, a method for bringing all of our college computer technology together in the event of an emergency. Yes, Al Gore did have a lot to do with getting the budget approved and the idea communicated.

Originally, a major demonstration was attempted for all of the communications industry to show them how various computers could be linked into a network using English language text instead of codes.

This was a breakthrough since prior to that time, most communications was in octal or binary codes.

The communication practically laughed the computer people out of the room.

It was their biggest mistake and in the late 80’s contributed to what was later to become the Internet.

In short, they were the last ones to benefit from this quantum leap in technology.

The third major change in computers came around when Xerox in its Palo Alto plant developed a way to project interactive images to represent content and a way of communicating called the “graphical interface.”. The suits in Rochester, the home office, never got it.

And they lost out when Bill Gates and the founder of Apple arranged a free tour of the Palo Alto installation. In those days, there was such things as “shareware” and “free ware” where scientists and those who tinker shared their findings with each other. That’s why most of the break throughs came out of California and Stanford because Stanford was where many of the young fertile minds that would change this industry were shaped.

But Gates and Jobs realized what they were seeing and the industry would never be the same. Just a few short years later, Apple presented its killer ap, the ability to do graphics from beginning to print-out. And a revolution was born.

These three events uprooted the computer industry and turned it on its head; yet, life went on. IBM until much later missed out on what was happening around it.

Today, Intel, the people who manufactured the integrated circuits, or chips, for IBM is bigger than IBM and their chips are used in everything. Microsoft is one of the top companies in the world and Xerox is an also-ran who ran out of brains and innovation decades ago.

That’s the way it goes.

You always have to think outside of the box and be willing to take the first steps.

These articles in Outlook take the next step and talk about the future of genetics and medicine, nanotechnology and the prospect that these changes are probably staring us in the face but we don’t recognize them as yet. But that the future is just a step away if we choose to pursue it. A good thought during a depressing primary season.

Worth reading if you’ve got the issue.

Les Aaron
The Armchair Curmudgeon…

The Clinton Mantra:

What is Hillary all about?

We have heard about all different kinds of Hillarys. There is the whiner who claimes that the media and the candidates have been picking on her because she is a woman. We have heard about the sensitive politician who worries about a woman who went in for surgery and died because she didn’t have the hundred dollars. (Later to be proven to be a misstatement of fact!) And we’ve heard about Hillary, the courageous politician who flew into a war-torn area under sniper fire.

But the truth is somewhere else. Over time, we have had a mirror into Hillary’s heart and soul and discover that Hillary is a fighter who would not have a problem teaming up with an Attila who believed that if you can’t beat them, destroy them—and scatter their remains.

No fair and square for this gal....

If Barak goes down on this one, I will not forgive Hillary.

As a former Hillary fan, I feel that she and Bill, the former president, have done more to harm Obama than any other individual.

She has attacked his pastor, blaming Obama for not abandoning him and finding fault with that.


Would she have abandoned her pastor if he had said something out of line—the pastor that brought you to religion and baptized your kids? I doubt it.

She stuck Geraldine Ferraro on Obama who said that he would never have been in his position were it not for the color of his skin.

And don’t try to tell me that Geraldine wasn’t encouraged to play the race card by Hillary’s campaign staff.

She and Bill have brought up the race card and taken cheap shots at Obama and you know what, she has taken a man that had an untarnished reputation, a man who offered hope to millions, many coming to politics for the first time, and she has worked to destroy him with inflammatory and inaccurate portrayals that seem to hunger for redress..

One wonders why?


It is the only way she can differentiate herself from him because her positions on the issues will not do it for, in most cases, his positions are better than hers.

Obama didn’t vote for War in Iraq and he didn’t vote to support a non-binding resolution against Iran as she did.

And if she wants to take the credit for Clinton’s years as his number two, then she has to be credited with NAFTA. You can’t have it both ways. So she can’t run around blaming the loss of jobs on Bush alone when NAFTA provided a convenient means of shifting work outside the US.

The sad part is that we all knew that she didn’t have the votes or the delegates to win, so her tactic became destroy the opposition.

One might ask what is the real strategy in all of this.

To assure McCain that he got the election for four years and then she could run in the next election?

Surely, listening to McCain kind of parrot Hillary’s comments and attacks against Obama would seem to suggest that they are pretty much in sync about strategies to attack Obama on every level. Is that colluding with the enemy? .

It is bad enough that we have a democrat who needs to attack another democrat, but is it is patently unseemly that she feels it is necessary to conduct character assassination against Obama while praising John McCain, now the biggest flip flopper in the republican party.

What troubles me is that Obama has generated thousands of new democrats and cross over voters because he has promulgated a message of hope which has resonated with the young. He stands to change the very face of politics in this country. And that is something wonderful considering the “dirty tricks” and lack of collegiality that has suffused the halls of Congress for the last forty years!....

He has inspired many of us to think about a new kind of politics that does not grovel in the dirt, a politics that can be ennobling. .

But, like the 527’s and the “dirty tricksters,” Hillary has shown her true colors beginning with the implication that Obama is not the kind of candidate who can be trusted. Why else that 3;00 AM ad that looks more like a burglar alarm ad than anything else. That racist message was clear exacerbated by Bill’s insulting commentary about the course of the South Carolina race and his comments about Martin Luther King that were totally unworthy and did not add one iota to the debate.

Sadly, the damage seems to have been done. Our White Knight has been tarnished by dirty politics and the campaign of hope has been made to wither when it was so bright with promise….

Fear and the black issue has been raised again in the minds of blue collar workers planted there by a vicious campaign by Hillary’s campaign confederates that have continually stressed negativity in their campaign and have left destruction in their wake.
Is that the kind of person I want to have running our country?

To me, that’s no better than Bush or the other hucksters who have corrupted our Founding Fathers’ notion of what democratic government should really be about.
I want somebody I can trust in office not a dissembler who’s words need to be scrutinized before I can believe them.

The people have not been fooled. And the great communicator may have only served to rub salt into wounds opened again and again in a country that cannot seem to come together on fundamental issues like finding common ground.

It is a sad thing considering that Johnson had risked his reputation on gaining equality for minorities a half century ago.

It is sad to see that an ex-president could have found it expedient to pursue such a course for the sake of winning a primary. You might think that he could rise to the occasion and demonstrate some nobility. Instead, the Clintons, increasingly perceived as one of a kind, have taken the low road. And their dereliction, their willingness to commit character assassination not to mention ripping the party apart, has only caused them the loss of the love and admiration of former fans.

In the end, it may be the most hollow of victories!....


Les Aaron

Let's Set the Record Straight...

I promised not to take sides in the primaries but all around me I see nothing but attempts at character assassination aimed at Obama and the double dealing from both sides of the deck to accomplish these goals is not only unfair, it is appalling beyond words.

I have been in democratic politics all my life and I have never seen what is passing for legitimate politics these days.

I didn't see it from Bobby Kennedy, John Kennedy, even Johnson against Nixon. I didn't see it from Biden, Edwards, or any of the democratic candidates in the early primaries.

Therefore, it is foolish of me to attempt to be above the fray when everyone around me is taking shots at my candidate, the candidate I came to late in the game because I didn't like what my original nominee was doing to win at any cost..

This week in Philadelphia cinched it for me.

It sounded like Hillary and McCain were on the same team.

She had earlier said that she and McCain were the candidates of experience and that Obama's claim to experience was a speech he gave a year and a half earlier. Okay, I can buy the attack on Obama but I can't accept the fact that Hillary put a republican candidate above the democrat.

Throughout the past week, too, both McCains and Hillary's comments sounded almost word for word the same in their attacks on Obama.

To me, this is dirty dealing and its been dirty dealing since South Carolina when Bill Clinton played the race card by suggesting that Jackson had won there....implying that any black could win in the state and that the voters were racist. Let's not kid ourselves by trying to interpret this otherwise.

Thus began a litany of cheap shots. This after Super Tuesday when Hillary was playing the "nice guy," the poor sweet thing that was being ganged up on.

Give me a break. This woman doesn't know the word sweet.

During the PA campaign, Bill even went so far as to play the race card and then deny it when his words were captured on film.

Hillary has tried to use guilt by association to take Obama down by trying to identify him with his pastor.

She and her team have used every dirty tactic in the book.

And then she screams uncle when she gets it back.

Now, this is very hard for me to say.

I stood up for both of them in the past when the editorials attacked them daily in the nineties.

I gave money to their campaigns--both of them.

And wrote to both regularly.

I even contacted Maureen Dowd's boss on several occasions to claim that Maureen was hitting below the belt and that she should be reprimanded or fired. I did that at least a half a dozen times..

That is now officially over.

I thought that the New York Times editorial on Wednesday said it right.

She has lowered the dignity of the election and has cost the campaign considerable good will.

We see that in the growing support for McCain in the recent polling.

Maureen had it right on Wednesday, too.

I am sorry that it has taken this turn.

But the tactics of her staff and herself have hit a new low with me.

I am deeply offended by her willingness to throw stones without cleaning up her own act.

She has yet to make her position on Iraq clear.

She has not made her position on NAFTA clear.

She has not explained what she intends to do about all of the people who gave her money and she is indebted to.

And as long as we are about it,

Let's not forget that those folks she was talking to lost their jobs in part to the Green Card program that she was pushing indiscriminately that allowed people like Microsoft to hire foreigners without using Americans or the departure of jobs from these shores because of NAFTA, initially approved by her husband.

Let us not forget that Obama didn't cause the loss of jobs.

And if there is a major culprit in Pennsylvania, it is the steel industry that failed to keep up, took the profits and ran.

Moreover, The leading steel company, US Steel filed for a handout from taxpayers and were paid off only to use those monies to buy Marathon Oil. Yes, US Steel and the rest of them violated the trust of their own employees.

And how come that never gets mentioned.

Moreover, Bush & Company gave steel a protective blanket, a tariff for their evil-doings.

It is a sad state when a democrat teams up with a republican in order to win at any cost and mischaracterizes the truth.

To hear a democrat disparage another democrat while talking up the opposition is a new tactic that I have never seen before in democratic politics.

And no one has said anything about it.

Moreover, Hillary has claimed that if Iran goes after any Arab power that has denounced nuclear weapons, she will attack them.

This is way too much like the Imperial presidency of George Bush.

If anything, with her and her husbands spate of remarks about racism, touting McCain and trying to do a character assassination while demonstrating a willingness to take the law into her own hands, it would be remiss for me not to say anything.

Let's not cherry pick articles to show that this candidate who has no chance of winning without attacking her opposition and intimidating the Super Delegates deserves to be our nominee.

If she should happen to pull this off, I will leave think twice about remaining a democrat.

I am that upset.

And I have a lot of company/..

Les Aaron

Will the Party Survive?


People are starting to raise questions like
“Is the Democratic Party doomed?”

“Or is it just going through a transition?’

“Or does a tough primary make a stronger party during the Election?”

These questions are just beginning….

And they seem to reflect the lack of direction that seems to drive the party right now….

People are wondering whether the back-biting, the cheap shots scenarios will follow the candidates into the Convention.

If it does, the assembled gurus of media seem to think it may be over for the democrats.

And when asked why, they cite almost collectively the notion that “no candidate who has gone into a Convention without a nominee, has won the Election.”

As quick as one scatters to google this response, the media punjabs are onto some other subtext.

Yesterday, Chris Matthews was even praising Hillary as being, get his, “populist.”

My how things can change.

Apparently, Hillary’s claims are beginning to have an effect giving credence to the position that the more you repeat even a lie, the more people tend to believe it.

It is not as if Hillary has won a state that was heavily blue collar, uneducated and Catholic that has lost its economic base, it was more as if Hillary has accomplished the impossible.

Never mind that it was Hillary’s husband who sponsored the NAFTA bill that wound up driving many of those same kind of jobs to third world nations.

Hillary has now convinced everyone that Bill is not the only “Come back Kid.”

Her star is in the ascendancy; everyone loves her aggression and I suspect, they even forgive her her mendacity.

It is an odd confluence of things that have fallen into place as Hillary approaches the next primary with her interpretation of what her standing means….

This includes counting all of the votes in Michigan and Florida as her own even though she signed an agreement that she wouldn’t campaign in either Florida or Michigan.

Obama wasn’t even on the ballot in Michigan.

In the real world however, we find a completely different story.

Obama leads in votes, delegates, and Super Delegates.

The question arises whether such tactics will woe the remaining Super Delegates.

The answer is unknown.

Most in the party wish that it was over and that they could buddy up to defeat McCain instead of digging the democrats a bigger hole.

As of now, no one has stepped forward to tell Hillary to cease and desist since there is virtually no chance that she can win.

And the side show goes on while McCain’s numbers ratchet up.


Les Aaron.

What's the deal, McCain?


I have given up on McCain.



No, not because he is such a radical!



But because just doesn’t seem to make any sense.



How are you going to justify cutting more taxes, keep a war going and turn the economy around?



I wouldn’t mind the fact that he didn’t have a clue, but who exactly is he listening to before he makes these outrageous statements, trying to turn non-sequiters into a coherent policy?



Definitely, he needs some heads=up advisers to guide him on the election path and he doesn't seem to listen to anyone with brains or a sense of reality.



He is fortunate that nobody is seriously calling him on his misstatements.



He is getting the free ride now; which is okay because no one seems to be listening to his rants anyway.



Don’t get me wrong!



I don’t hate McCain, it’s just that I don’t understand what he’s trying to pull off.



To me, there’s no question in my mind that is the Bush III Incarnate—the only man perhaps in the Universe that thinks Bush is on target.



This by itself should be worthy of esteem by this White House.



But worthy of a snub by anyone with half a brain.



Now, that all of the other republican candidates have been ground into dust no matter how many times they mentioned, “Reagan” as if he were some kind of God, instead of being the man who redistributed the wealth in this country, made the middle class poor and provided all kind of entitlements to his republican friends, McCain the forever acolyte is still around to claim some sort of legacy, loyalty if you will to the party that kicked him around and assailed him for not fitting in.



Of course, he didn’t fit in..



He didn’t understand how money could be manipulated so that the rich always get it and the poor do not.



It was their mantra.



And he wasn’t especially into the dirty tricks game.



Nevertheless, McCain has sold out on his real beliefs, those about being against the tax cuts in his last life.



But even Bush Sr. understood that you couldn’t cut taxes and conduct a winning war.



McCain doesn’t get that either.



Thusly, McCain becomes the Twilight candidate.



The candidate who cannot deal with the real world and nobody will say that to his face.





Yet, here’s what’s hard to understand.



With just about everyone against the Iraq War, and McCain positioned to stay there another hundred years if necessary, his ratings are soaring.



He is ahead of Obama and Hillary.



Why?



Could it be the dreadful infighting has turned many people off.



I think so.



And I think it’s time to get down to work to defeat McCain in the days, weeks and months ahead.



Les Aaron

The Power of One

The Last Hoorah!


Will it be over when it should be over?

There is widespread debate over this one issue.

On the one hand, Howard Dean wants the undecided Super Delegates to come forward and make their decision; this is after saying that there’s plenty of time between now and the Convention to arrive at a decision.

Many others want Hillary to hang on.

Her argument is that if she does well in the remaining big states, like Pennsylvania, and comes in strong in the remaining states, it will show that she is a fighter and that she has replaced Obama as the leading contender.

With such an explosive performance, she hopes to woe the outstanding Super Delegates and encourage the rest to switch their loyalty from Obama to her.

Mainly, that is wishful thinking.

It would mean that the Super Delegates would be willing to risk the ire of the voter who has given Obama the lead in delegates and votes and states won.


But here’s the conundrum.

The only way she could even accomplish the above is in one of two ways:

Showing where Obama’s policies are not as good as hers;

Or by attacking him to show his vulnerabilities.

This may explain the charges and counter charges that have emerged from the Clinton camp over the last six weeks.

The bottom line is that this strategy doesn’t seem to be working.

Instead, what it is accomplishing is ticking a lot of people off who don’t like the game playing. And it’s won candidates for McCain.

McCain up until now, has had a free ride.

If this free ride extends to the Convention, which it is likely to do whatever the outcome unless the Super Delegates and the results of the primaries to come make it a no-brainer,
This could break the Democrats up into Clinton Democrats and Obama Democrats and cut ultimately split the party.

Everyone is afraid of this prospect and they don’t even want to discuss it.

However, feelings are running high.

And Hillary is not a quitter.

Even though the numbers contradict her assertions.

Would Hillary be willing to see a break-up of the party for the sake of a Hillary win?

There are many of us former supporters who accept that premise based upon what’s gone before.

And all of this spells nothing but trouble for the future of the Party.

So far, nobody has come up with a solution that could work.

And nobody has as yet resolved what should be done about Michigan or Florida although most of the party faithful believes that they should be seated and not be punished by the failings of the party.

Many loyalists in the party have already taken sides.

And it seems that loyalties may trump logic and good sense.

As one might imagine, this is the best news that could befall the republicans considered dead as a door nail before South Carolina.

They are coming back to life.

McCain is on a par with the dems in the early polling.

Money will start rolling shortly and we will see the 527’s doing their ugly best to unseat the democratic candidate.

As it is, the positioning of a woman and/or a black as front runner presupposes that the nation has matured enough to make this a possibility.

Looking at the vitriol in the streets, it becomes the most optimistic of presumptions.


Les Aaron
The Power of One

A Reminder


The First Earth Day!

It seems like a thousand years ago, viewed from today’s perspective, but all those years ago we attended the First Earth Day. And it’s fulcrum at the time was Central Park.



It was a beautiful day. My daughter was about two years old and we decided to make a day of it.



We brought sandwiches and iced tea and a blanket and sat out there in the sun and listened and watched as bands and speakers rallied around the day when we would remember the Earth and care for it.



It was long before I became deeply involved in GAIA theory and the work of geologists who informed my decision that it was our obligation as a people to become the custodians of the earth.



At some point, however, you must conduct an inventory, and the numbers are not all that encouraging.



In the most conservative of estimates, the local professors here show me print outs of data reflecting the trends in global phenomena that impact warming of the planet and production of CO2.



By all measures, and these are the most conservative, if I were to live past 2050, there’s a very good chance that my property would be submerged under several feet of water.



But I would be doing better than most.



Therefore, the bottom line is that if we don’t do more, we are going to have to live in a very different world than we can currently imagine.



We are seeing these changes, some subtle some not so, as they impact our way of life at this point in time: massive flooding; extensive drought. And the scientists who are willing to speculate suggest that we could be headed for another mini-Ice Age.



We won’t all become extinct like the dinosaurs I’m happy to say, but we may not like what we find.



Consequently, the actions that make the most sense are to ratchet up our efforts to do the right thing and cut back on CO2 emissions that heat the air and water up and precipitate rapid change in the environment.



This is not rocket science but it’s surprising how many at the top levels of businesss and government do not care to seriously entertain the sacrifices this may engender.



Nonetheless, we have no choice and there is no turning back.



It is a far cry from those early days of the First Earth Day.



We hope that now the “movers and shakers” will have finally learned their lesson and that they will help the rest of us fulfill our obligations to the land and the water.



Let us not forget what Earth Day means not only to us but all those who will come afterwards.



And let us move forward with dispatch to show the Earth

We really care!





Les Aaron

An Anniversary Coming Up

Sandra reminded me that we are coming up to the tenth anniversary of when I and a band of brothers took up Gore's cause in a very serious way along with many others
up and down the coast and across the country. Mike Rectanwald, Mike Hersh, Lois Frankel, Bob Fertig, Bev Conover and many others.

At that time, I am not even sure Gore had made his commitment but he was our choice.

We didn't want the prospect of Bush & Company to turn us into mental steerage for another four or eight years.

And so we decided to make the commitment up front: It would be Al Gore, our nominee come hell or high water.

It is hard to imagine that so much time has passed by yet it may constitute a yardstick for many of us to measure our progress or lack of it for progressive causes.

The driving force at that time was an activist lawyer named Lou posner.

We had come together over the Internet in the period leading up to 1999.

Prior to that time, I was writing editorials for various websites, such as Radio Left and others. And somehow we got together via the Net.

I don't remember anyone blogging in those days!

We used to gather one way or another in New York City to promulgate Al Gore's candidacy.

In those days, the Freepers gave us a hard time whenever we gathered.

And Giuliani tried his best to dismiss us whenever he could.

But we would prevail.

We had our picketing, our chanting, our marches all over Manhattan.

I remember our first gathering on Broadway and 42nd Street.

We had trouble bringing together 17 liberals for Gore.

Of course, as the campaign wore on and Gore get into it, our numbers began to surge.

Our second meeting was about three times as big.

In the Spring, the voices of the Unions had joined with us.


And celebrities were starting to come on board.

That was a long time ago.

There has been a lot of water under the bridge since then.

Before 9/11, I had gone to work for Aaron Cohen and his wonderful journal, Democracy Chronicle.

I covered the tragedy of 9/11 for the journal at the time writing several stories.

It was the end of Democracy Chronicle. At that point, everybody got behind the president to put an end to 'terrorism.'

I continued to write and protest. i joined several grass roots groups.

Later on, I became Howard Dean's man in the field.

I organized and ran everything in one third of Delaware's districts.

I handled the fund-raising, getting the message out, building support, and everything else.

I worked for Dean for nearly a year.

When he faded, I became a consultant to Kerry's campaign and later was

appointed Regional Veteran Adviser for the campaign. The Progressive Democrats made me their County Chair. I was made delegate to the State Conventin.


Later on, I switched to Wes Clark support, became a grass roots activist and helped

fdour candidates locally, a state representative and Biden's son successfully run for office.

I also got involved in alternative energy power sources and environmental issues.

I started the Power of One and the Committee for Positive Change.

I completed Final Warning, about Global Warming, and A Blueprint for Winning, a campaign approach to winning in 2008.

Now, I am working for a democratic winner in November.

Here's my dream:

I was thinking how great it would be for all Liberals who have been there and done that to join together in a spiritual bond of strength this New Years and commit to a prayer for a more just and equitable world and promise to work to do our best to uphold the spirit of positive change.

My wishes don't end there:

I would also love to have all of us get together in some giant convention center to share our stories and our love for each other at least once to commemorate our hard work, our commitment and the wonderful friendships and relationships we have formed.

What a time that would be.

We can dream can't we.




Les Aaron.

You can only blame your leaders so much….


…..What bothers me so far about the build up to the election is that we have seemed to have back-peddled into cults of personality rather than in to studies of solutions.


It almost seems that the politics have been removed from real world considerations because those real-world considerations are plagued by unknowns and muddled and hard to talk about.

Yet, the sense is that if we don’t come to grips with these realities, we stand to lose everything….so we find ourselves arguing over nonsensical things while the realities tend to slip through our grasp.

Nothing can be spoken of in simplistic terms. What is the real state of the economy?
Are we poised to really slip through the worm hole into oblivion or is it not as bad as Ted Turner and George Soros thinks?

We don’t know.

Why? Because the media has largely painted on an optimistic canvas. They are still talking as if we are not in a Recession because of the overtones of the words and how things can degrade into self-fulfilling prophecies. Nobody likes to talk about the real stuff; it is off-putting. We don’t like to be talked about China owning us. Yet, is it not for all intents and purposes true?

Think about it.

If you don’t make anything that anybody wants and you sell scrap and buy manufactured goods, don’t you qualify as a banana republic?

Take any subject you like: Healthcare?

Americans like to think we are the best in terms of healthcare.

Actually, we stand at number 37 among the advanced nations.

We are probably ahead of Bangladesh but Bangladesh has no pretensions of being a super power.

Last night, on PBS, they did a special on Health care around the world. None of the countries had a population where anyone ever went bankrupt or was not covered for their healthcare expenses.

Don’t like that area?

Okay, let’s switch to the environment.

Where does America stand?

We all know that America made a mockery of the Kyoto Environmental meetings by not supporting the findings.

Perhaps that might not be so bad if we didn’t account for five percent of the population and twenty percent of the pollution.

Why is gasoline over three dollars a gallon?

Might it have something to do with Venezuela hating us. Or the fact, that Iraq has not come back to full production. Or that the American companies make a profit if the oil just sits in its company’s tankers.

Or might it have something to do with the fact that our leaders are oil people and that the oil people are not sharing the burden but divvying up the profits.

And of the money paid to buy a gallon of oil, a lot of it goes back to the country that supports terrorism, our friends, the Saudis.

Take the overview: There is something wrong with the picture any way you look.

And we are not doing anything about it.

Does that say more about us or the problem?

Figure it out.

Maybe it’s time to read the Constitution again about what constitutes reasons for Impeachment.

I don’t know.

But I am depressed and hurt that we don’t show more moxie than we do.

Les Aaron

The Public's Waterboarding: The Primaries

I am not sure whether I am more exhausted from eight years of Bush or trying to survive the longest primary season on record.
This is truly a survival contest.
It is a season, when everything changed for me 180 degrees.

Judging from even the most casual conversations, I see it has changed for virtually everyone touched by the issues and the tactics…

I started out full of hope, feeling that we had the three best candidates in the world.

I was saddened by the departure of some of the others, many of whom I felt could have done a darned good job against the republican candidate.

But it just wasn’t to be.

Maybe it was the inattention that got at the debate or the dumbness of the questions, I can’t be sure. But it seemed the presumed “stars” got all the attention, and the other contenders, none.

Then I went through the whole panoply of feelings with Hillary.

She went from the presumed candidate to the candidate being picked on; never mind that she could dish it better than she got, she was still the poor female being attacked by the big bad males who were out to steal her innocence.

Those little lights started to go off.

But wait a minute, I was a supporter.

Was it me? Was I wrong? Was I too quick to critique.

After all, I realized, any democratic candidate had to be better than anything the republicans conjured up and certainly better than the last eight years…

Bill was still my guy.

That lasted all the way to South Carolina when Bill’s brain exploded.

That’s the only way I could explain it.

This was not the guy I knew after all.

Charges. Meanness. Inaccuracies of the worst kind.
This was beneath Bill. Why was he doing this?

Who was this man?

Suffice it to say, it is hard to stay neutral, at least if you crunch the numbers.

Fast forward about eight weeks.

For Hillary to win now, it would mean changing the odds by 90%.

Obama has the votes; he has the delegates.

The only way Hillary could turn that around is to show that Obama is not the guy he says he is.

And I think that would be a hard case to make because he is not playing the charge and countercharge game.

And Hillary has inherited her own mess that she has to tidy up…..

Not only does she say that she is against the Columbia Treaty, it turns out that her chief strategist is working both sides of the street. The question arises: Didn’t they know?

Why now?

Secondly, Bill can’t keep his trap shut.

He was trying to cover for Hillary’s memory lapse by saying that it was eleven oclock at night, that she brought it up once, and that if you were sixty, your mind might not be so good either—or words to that effect.

So, in one fell swoop, there goes the person answering the call at 3:00 AM who you wouldn’t be able to rely on because she’s old, it was late and her memory doesn’t work.

By the way, she didn’t mention it only once, she mentioned the story at least four times and most of it was during the day when her mind should have been working fine.

So, before you throw stones, Hillary should make sure that her own home is in order.

In the meantime, she’s been talking about Obama’s speech where he talked about people being angry and resorting to their guns and religion.

Hillary called him “elitest.”

Elitest? Hmm…. a case of the pitcher calling the kettle black?

An obvious ploy to solidify her lead among the Joe Sixpacks.

One might wonder whether any of it is necessary?

Are the Joe Sixpacks going to change their views?

These are the people defined as the least flexible, the one’s who hold to their feelings and their biases. Have they moved beyond Martin Luther King to accept the new racial attitudes of today?

I don’t know the answer to that but judging from the feedback of some of my conservative friends, I would tend to say that Obama’s reverend’s words have opened up a reservoir of strong feelings—feelings that seem to go back forever!....

Meanwhile, the race goes on, endlessly and it becomes harder and harder to stay neutral while McCain continues to cut into democratic leads with either candidate.

Why?

My guess is that most folks are simply sick of it.

I know I am.

Les Aaron

War through the prism of the fiscal conservative!


For our fiscal friends....



We’ve always heard the Iraq War in different ways-- from searching for weapons of mass destruction to providing democracy for our Iraqi friends and in between the subliminal message that it was the Iraqis who were responsible for 9/11.



Most of it is simply bullshit!



And I’m tired of hearing it.



Nonetheless, 70% of Republicans were buying all of this right through this past winter. These same people, who are not sacrificing a damned thing, tend to look at war and peace through a very personal lens.



And most of it happens to be "How much does it cost?"



So, maybe we have to look at this entire problem another way.



For example, if we translate this war into a bleeding away of our national treasure it may have resonance with our strictly conservative republican friends, although truth to tell, I do not claim to too many these days who I will break bread with and not feel guilty about.



Let’s take the kind of look at the problem that may light a bulb over the misinformed few who still cannot separate the wheat from the chaff.



But first, we need a little reminder or two of what’s really going on in the world.



Remember, we have cut taxes for the rich which means the burden of whatever the government spends on comes off the backs of the worker who increasingly is finding himself/herself without work.



Why?



Because the government wants to cripple the unions, and therefore takes great pride in expediting the flight of jobs with business's consent. Therefore, they can take these additional profits and "offshore" them and never pay taxes....



Secondly, our bleeding has not been staunched by our utter dependency on China these days.



We buy virtually everything in the "Walmartmania" of today to the extent of some sixty billion dollars in indebtedness per month. Meanwhile the Chinese keep their currency at artificial levels as they up the ante on America to the tune of more than 800 billion dollars.



We could not go back on them if we wanted to since they hold the potential for ultimate revenge—the marketplace.



now, just imagine if this was the perfect kind of war with no deaths or injuries. Still, we would have invested nearly one trillion dollars of our scare tax dollars in some arcane, costly adventurism that few of us understand. Even then, wouldn't we expect some kind of positive result over five years?



What kind of return did we get for our investment?.



And let's remember we haven't factored in the VA costs for the million or so troops who will require mending and care after the War and the impact on our military establishment.



What did we get back?



Did we lessen the effects of the War?



Have we made things better for the people?



Who made money out of this crisis?



What are the measurable returns?



Do the Iraqis or their neighbors like us better?



What have we lost because of the distraction of this war?



And when it's over, will we be able to recapture what we stood for?





Now, let's approach this issue another way, since ultimately a trillion dollars is a little more than chump change.



What could be done with one trillion dollars to help America?



Now, let's look at where the needs are here:



the home mortgage outlook



inadequate scientific progress



crumbling schools



the need for teachers...



infrastructure: maintenance of highways and bridges



the care of the old and the indigent...



the economy



Global Warming and Alternative Engergy.





We could buy a lot of everything we need with a trillion dollars....anyway you slice it.



It's time that this kind of analysis comes to the forefront among those who are really “numbers oriented.” After massaging the numbers, can anyone really point to a success here or even progress.



I think not.



And instead of it being a boon to America and fighting the good nonexistent fight against terrorism, it has only weakened us to the extent we should all start studying our history books and what aggression did for Ancient Greece..


And that's even without talking about sacrifice, the loss of human beings in an unnecessary war and on and on.





Les Aaron

The War to End All War...


Ugh!

My ulcers are bothering me again.

Not a good sign.


But every time Bush says “Iran” in his downhome twang,

I want to go to the bathroom and take a package of Tums.

This guy really gives me the fidgets.

You see, my dad already fought in the War to end all Wars.

And he’s been dead for forty years!

I don’t take casually to the idea of War….since there are always other options.

The only ones who like wars are the ones who’ve never been in them….

But this guy has a little voice in his ear that tells him, “Just one more, Georgie, boy!

Just one more. And we’ll be home free!”

That’s the problem of chosing a president who has no useful brain cells left.


I know that deep in his heart, the moment we all turn our backs,
We’ll be going in.

After all, what does this man have to lose.

His daughters aren’t over there.

His brothers aren’t over there.

And all those military folks are how shall I put it disposable the same way all Democrats are.

I’ve been in some pretty bad spots but never with somebody I didn’t trust or respect.

And I’m afraid I don’t respect or trust this guy to keep the peace.

He is already stopping the rotation of troops due to come home.

I think Petraeus and he have a pretty good thing going….

Every six months, it’s same old/same old.

We’re getting there. Or so we are told.

The incrementalism is killing me. Inch by inch, we are getting nowhere fast.

McCain was right. At the rate we’re going, it will be another one hundred years.

By then, we’ll probably be a desert crumbling, too….


Okay, I guess when Burns, from the New York Times, and

Ware, the former Time magazine Bureau Chief in Iraq tell you something,
You’ve got to listen.

They are about the only two I trust to give me the real low-down on what’s happening.

The rest are show boats or kiss-ups to the power structure.

And I trust them as much as I do Bush & Company.

It’s pretty sad to think that a man who none of us really trust,

Is in a position to start another War.

What’s the matter?

Have we all collectively lost our bloody minds?

The two he has aren’t enough?

And he can’t win them.

So, we are supposed to go along with him?

A pox on the houses of all those who voted with him to support the prospects of another War that we can’t afford.

Too bad, nobody can add up the numbers.

Almost a trillion dollars….

And the lives of over 4,000 men and women.

Snatched from their young lives..

Plus, how many wounded? They won’t tell you but guaranteed, it’s over 50,000 by my modest calculations if you just average out the reports.

Nontheless, Mr. S**t for Brains goes on and on.

What is he trying to do?

Get people to forget what a mess he’s made already?

You don’t make it better by trying again.

Hasn’t anybody told him?

In the meantime, our educational system crumbles, we fall
behind on science and technology, our jobs flow to Bangladesh and our kids can’t add up two and two without a calculator….

Sad. Very sad.

By the time, we get our candidates ready to take over, one wonders whether
there will be anything left to take over….


Les Aaron

Government Indifference to Science
Threatens US Ability to Compete in World Markets

I watched the star-studded panel on Charlie Rose try to explain what we need to do to revitalize the nation’s commitment to science and felt that although they are credentialed super-stars, they struggled to attempt to verbalize the present low esteem science is held in by many and what can be done about it.

The struggle, of course, was much bigger than portrayed here and some might suggest that the future of America depends on overcoming the present inertia and coming to grips with both the benefits and challenges posed by Science in America today.

Perhaps, it was too tall a task.

After all, science can or should impact virtually every aspect of our lives..

And that our present survival against growing odds may depend to a great extent on how well we understand science’s role in not only how we handle Global Warming but a whole host of challenges we face not to mention the specter of global competition where we are currently falling behind in the race.

The fact of the matter is that it was just a few decades ago when science was seen as the means to a solution of virtually all of our problems. Science would make food available, solve the problems of water and Global Warming. Breakthroughs in science would provide new materials from nanotube technology forward that would make possible all kinds of advances in our society. Genetic research would eventually cure us of all our illnesses and so forth.

Of course, such prospects were exaggerated but the core ideas were fundamentally solid. Science was the means by which our lives would improve. But, today, a growing body of those who are spiritually turned off by science or think it is some kind of voodoo fail to understand how inseparable it is from what we need to do to achieve our goals.

Such Antediluvian thinking just underscores how far we have drifted from scientific objectivity in the last eight years in the regime of George Bush..

Admittedly, over the last eight years, we have seen science on a collision course with religion as if Science and God were mutually exclusive. Under Bush, scientific progress was not only slowed, it was shown to be almost irrelevant to the goals of this administration. Even today many scientific jobs at State go unfilled and it took nearly a year to find a Scientific Adviser to the president who would pass muster—not because there weren’t many qualified; but only a few who were scientists but also shared a fundamentalist religious perspective. . Add to this misunderstanding of the nature of scientific inquiry, we can cite example after example of bad science posing as the government’s position—from the rejection of Kyota protocols to acceptance of the faulty science that has characterized the Star Wars program that should never have been authorized based on the level of understanding of the challenge.

Part of downplaying the value of science has to do with seeking out the support of Evangelicals, among whom a large percentage hold to fundamentalist views that suggest we dare not tamper with genes, that the notion of Evolution conflicts with fundamental views inherent in church liturgy and, overall., that science should not attempt to overlap in areas better left to spirituality.

Our scientific endeavors at the government level seem to end with NASA and exploration but, even there, the money is being misspent to show-boat rather than achieve scientific progress.

Extreme views that tend to reject most scientific progress are holding this country back from achieving its goals. .

I don’t mean to denigrate the Evangelical view, only to suggest that God and Science are more appropriately viewed by most of Christianity as compatible and not in conflict.

But the larger problem that we as a country has not addressed is that America, as a result of these deep seated feelings, and an unbridled mistrust of science and technology, is running further and further behind in the race for scientific mastery in a world that is dependent on break-through solutions and the clock is speeding u..

Consider the fact that whereas in the past, we always led in patent applications, since Bush we are now falling behind the efforts of other countries for the first time. Moreover, China is making large scale investments in science and we simply choose to ignore their gains or the fact that they now graduate more than ten times the engineers that we do. More to the point, other countries now are now leading the way in research and development.

What is dangerous about this is that science and technology had always provided America’s economic advantage, the stimulus for our break-through economy.

That’s not the case today.

And part of the reasons for our setback is mired in overlapping considerations.



In part, scientific progress has been impeded in the last eight years by an administration that coddles up to spirituality; that finds genetic research “tinkering with God’s work,” and Darwinian Evolution something questionable when subjected to their own litmus tests of spirituality.


But what we face is not a straight line consideration.

It requires the integration of all elements in the equation from theory to application to development and marketing.. And while we are often capable of research and development, we seem to fall down when it comes to marketing and manufacturing.

Why is that.

One reason, is that business and industry get no support from government unless they support military technology. More often than not, it’s because we have bartered off our assets or sold them outright on the open market. In addition, American investors disallow risk; it is no longer a part of their thinking. And without risk, you can’t make progress..

All to often, we have taken the route that is safer allowing others to engender the risk of manufacturing and marketing. And while it provides a safe profit for the share holder, it deprives America of break-through businesses that are being operated by our competition world-wide.

How could that happen in America?.

Since the 80’s, we have seen a rush by foreign investors to take over American assets. Many of these aggressive moves were simply to eliminate competition or to seize the fruits of technology for the benefit of the foreign company which has its allegiance elsewhere…. Further, where subcontractors are involved, quite often we will go overseas where bids are lower. In still other cases, we will only take our ideas to the licensing stage, allowing overseas countries to do the marketing and manufacturing.

This is not healthy overall for the future of American science and technology or the economic stimulus that a nation of three hundred million need to provide jobs for its people.and a steady level of growth commensurate with a presumed quality of life..

Let me cite just three examples that I am familiar with that help describe the complex dimensions of the problem..

In one case, I served as the lead consultant to one of the top ten American companies, a manufacturer that had developed in its labs the means of making artificial channels for allowing nerves to reform and grow and broken limbs to heal without requiring follow up surgery. To avoid risk, this great idea was never funded beyond the laboratory. It was my task to make the company palatable to foreign interests. Eventually, it sold to foreign interests for testing and manufacturing and marketing—potentially a great loss to American industry.

A second was the development of the “mag/lev” concept which was conceived on Long Island at Brookhaven Institute. Because the inventor could not find American companies interested in developing the idea further, it was sold off to foreign interests. Today’s high speed trains owe their technology to an American inventor who would have been happy to see the idea developed here.

A third case involved a technology that is now widespread in everything from elevators and trains to cameras. It’s called “fuzzy logic” and it was developed in this country maybe thirty years ago but could not be developed or marketed here for lack of money. The inventor eventually succumbed from pressure overseas and sold it to foreign interests which are now reaping the benefits.

But this is only the tip of the iceberg.

Such stories are common.

In another capacity, I was involved in working with the private sector and education in joint programs; in another, I consulted for small corporations who were seeking a competitive edge in overseas markets. In several instances, we saw how government failed to support its industries overseas, allowing competition to steal ideas and adapt them as their own.

In other situations, foreign interests tapped into the fruits of American inventiveness by simply purchasing subscriptions that detailed the results of our research institutions underwritten for the most part by taxpayer dollars.

Furthermore, today, American institutions invest heavily in training scientists and engineers from other countries who will return to their own countries to contribute to the development of their science and technology base.

A loss that we can’t make up here in America.

With all of the splitting off of American companies resulting from junk bond deals; and mergers and acquisitions that have taken place, the rate of new patents applied for is the lowest it has been in decades.

I believe and have always believed, that the thrust of the Greening of America, shipping our manufacturing base overseas was archly simplistic and wrong-headed; and it has provided a green light to industries to transfer their jobs overseas at the expense of American labor.

Now we are seeing the downside of this kind of pygmy thinking writ large.

At the same time, the military establishment, which seems to get the lion’s share of dollars today, seems intent on funneling all of our most cherished secrets to those who could easily become our opposition in the years ahead.

In these remarks, I have only touched on the more obvious reasons why we continue to fall behind in science and technology almost daily.

It is Europe not the US that is building the biggest Collider.

It is China that is making many of the break-throughs in science and technology.

In “green industries,” the lead has gone to Germany.

We are slow to consider alternative energy.

All of these comments form a picture and the picture of an America that is increasingly out of the loop is not merely dissatisfying, it rubs against the grain.

We need to reverse this apathy and get ourselves on course again.

But it will take a Goliath effort on the part of all Americans who vent their spleens by writing their representative until he or she gets the point.

Moreover, there is little time to waste for once the lead is lost, it may be very hard to regain.

I’ll leave you with that thought.

Les Aaron

The Ubiquitous Flying Blue Blog

The Ultimate Sinecure: VP to John McCain

There are lot’s of rumors going around that

John McCain might choose to align himself

With Rice as VP nominee.



Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.….



I think that rumor’s a little parboiled myself.



After all, who in his or her right mind would want to

remind the voter that he not only acts like Bush III

He is Bush III—the worst president in memory. A man

Who’s accomplishments score near the gutter..



That’s a thought I don’t think anyone can live with.



What’s more, if you look at the record—which people would

begin to do if she is the candidate—they would find “nothing.”



On the other hand, that would pretty much jibe with the McCain

Plan so far advanced so that might rate as a “positive” in McCain’s plans.



Two nothings equal a bigger nothing.



It should be remembered that Rice was the architect of the school of diplomacy that inverts diplomacy on its head, coining the term non-diplomacy. An ardent believer in the philosophy that you only talk with the people you like; and ignore those you don’t, it gives the concept of diplomacy a whole new meaning…..



Although she seems to be pushing for the job, the fact is that her accomplishments seem as thin as gruel. In her eight years with Bush, who can point to a single one of her accomplishments. There is no Rice Plan. There is no Rice initiative. And there is no Rice Peace Deal anywhere. What there is is an Exxon tanker named Condolezza Rice that peddles its oil around for outrageous profits, something an arch conservative like Rice can relate to.



As NSA, she seldom listened or took seriously the words of her Anti-terrorism chief.



And, mostly, she served as a sinecure, totally inexperienced at her job kissing up to the boss at every turn. A Soviet expert where is no longer a Soviet Union. An empty suit!

And eminently forgettable as an entity, a human being or anyone with a single positive thought in her head. Now, some people might call me a racist for saying those things but race doesn’t even enter into the equation.



Don’t ask me. Just listen to the ringing words of those who’ve had the courage to speak the truth about their dealings with her, including the Antiterrorist chief who warned her of the dangers of taking bin Laden for granted. That still get her to read his report that referred to a warning that bin Laden would attack that was received the same week that Bush & Company went on vacation.



For McCain it would be another stupid idea added to his list of stupid ideas.





Les Aaron

When Bias Shapes Policy….



This is a hard subject to talk about because it reflects on us.



If we choose someone to lead us who is not equipped by background or disposition to lead, who does not have the mental processes intact, it reflects on us...or at least those who made the wrong decision.



And then we are stuck for four years with the wrong choice.



Americans seem to be very good at making bad decisions and defending them.



We are good at waving the flag and announcing our pride, whatever that means.



But the truth is often hard to face and may reveal some insights to our own character.



Any way you slice it, like Pogo says, we have seen the enemy and he is us.



In truth, there is no deniability that If such a mental pygmy had surfaced in Britain, he would have been run out on a pole with a lack of confidence in the first meeting of Parliament.



We are stuck with our choices...



And each time this president stands at the lectern to offer his thinking, it makes a lot of us cringe.



Why?



Because this is a man who mouths words he doesn’t believe and I’m not sure he fully understands.



He is a man of limited qualities and a tendency to make policy on the fly fully influenced by petty views.



Nobody is fooled by the actions of the White House or that anyone believes in the photo ops or speeches that seem crafted by itinerant journeymen posing as skilled diplomats and experienced hands.



The excesses and failures have been remarkable. Our wealth has evaporated in insane adventures to promulgate our strength; but it has had the exact opposite effect by showing our limitations to the world.



We are now seen by many as incredibly naïve, a wealthy power that has misspent it’s energies in the pursuit of wisps of smoke led by incipient War mongers who cannot and will not dialogue with anyone who disagrees with us.





To put it succinctly, it’s no secret that Bush is very vulnerable to his own limitations, which—as we have seen in case after case—are defined by fuzzy logic, inherent biases, and support for anything that supports his skewed, myopic view. It goes without saying that his skewed perspective tends to devolve into a sloppy subjective, poorly thought out policy that is doomed as we have seen in case after case. And yet, remarkably, it continues with a dearth of objective commentary.



Why?



There are certainly brilliant minds still about that must chafe from such pedestrian thinking and simplistic arguments.



There is one answer: Fear. And the threat of consequences.



Therefore, the Philistines rule.



Nobody will go up against Bush for they see in him a vengeful being capable of destroying a man’s reputation and future. We have seen his penchant for absolute loyalty with the replacement of literally dozens of military advisers and generals who did not agree with his distorted view of the world.



These limitations are on full display as Bush's Surge plan increasingly reveals itself for what it is. Little more than a pay-off!



Yes, originally, the contextual framework for Baghdad made a modicum of sense if it were used as intended, as a vehicle that would allow the elected government to take charge. Petraeus said as much.



This has not happened not even by one's wildest imagination.



Even though the White House has cut back on expectations, the government has failed to seize the opportunity.



The reason why the Surge has worked is because of pay-offs and the separation of Shia and Sunni.



Many Sunni have simply been moved out of the path of the Shia....and that has helped keep the peace.



There is no question about that.



In some cases, it is rumored that the US is paying off Sunni Arabs at the rate of $250,000 a day for peace within a small geographic district.



The Shia' on the other hand, is simply biding its time and its intermittent cease fire has only lasted because of internal negotiates among al-Sadr and those in Iran.



We do not know their real intent.



Nevertheless, it seems that peace is tenuous at best proven by the fact that fighting has broken out again.



Bear in mind, that this is not Al Qaeda, regardless of what John McCain might think but the outward manifestation of a budding Civil War that is not going away any time soon..



Despite conditions that are jerry-rigged, Bush keeps clinging to a bankrupt policy that will clearly explode the first chance it gets.



It is his limitation and defines those characteristics that have sunk his terribly disconnected regime of misfits who cannot think their way out of a paper bag.



I have no problem with their self-destruction.



What I have a problem with is the fact that they represent our leadership and they have dragged us all down to the very bottom of the pit. They have destroyed our democracy, our rights and our economy.



They simply destroy everything they touch.





And why has not the media told the truth in this regard.



But let’s not stop there.



Bush’s inability to change says more about the man than almost anything else..



He is a dangerous man who sees the only solution in carrying his one man crusade to Iran and igniting the middle East into a conflagration that seemingly will never end while distracting us from the real causes.



Sadly, his future replacement, does not have a vision that extends beyond that of his patron.



Let me caution us all: Any new government must recognize that it has an obligation and a duty to initiate the legal processes that will restore respect for the law; that will restore our freedoms, our rights and all that is decent about our system; something that has evanesced with an administration that has gone hay-wire in pursuing its own ends.



If we do not take such necessary measures, we can be sure that they will come back and haunt us. And we will have lost an opportunity that will never come again.





Les Aaron

It’s Time to Step Up to the Plate

I think poor Howard Dean is getting more than he bargained for.

Still, the big shots call the shots at the Party level.

I think Howard finds himself in a position of having to get a gang of prima donnas to work together for the good of the party and they all want to do their own thing.

At this point, he must be wondering what he ever gave up his practice.

That’s my perception.

Howard tries to keep a smiley face on the work before him but it can’t be easy or satisfying to have put up with this crowd.

One thing is sure: Howard is right; this can’t go on into the Convention.

Yet, he faces a man who has the lead in the primary to date who’s lead is likely to hold up and a woman who doesn’t want to give up.

In fairness, he says that the contest should go on, although one tends to believe that he supports the woman over the man by his public utterances.

Of course, this is not fair coming from the one who should be urging objectivity and fairness.

In his TV interview, he did say that Michigan and Florida will be seated at the Convention.

But both situations are different, he noted, with Michigan only having Clinton listed as candidate.

Ed Rendell thinks that a primary of one should be considered as legitimate, he said as much on public TV.

Others think that that sounds like Fascism.

Whatever the argument, Clinton wants to take this to the Convention if its not settled by the end of the Primaries.

If this happens, one can almost lay odds on the fact that the Convention will not only stir debate but it will lead to disharmony and the image of disunity for a party that very much wants to get its act together.

Many polls are already showing McCain and the two democratic candidates within the range of error.

Many think that this less due to McCain than the democrat’s willingness to shoot each other in the foot.

If the mood persists, expect to see a shift in the numbers for McCain and an election where nothing is certain.

Les Aaron

"As the Incivility Rises"

I get emails from dozens of lists.

I frankly don’t know where a number of them came from and, quite frankly, I try to read as many as time permits. I also have a pretty good feeling for who writes what, who is responsible and who is a “trouble-maker.”
.
All in all, I try to respect those who take the time and make the effort to write to me in an informed and helpful way.

But as of late, I’ve noticed a dramatic change in civility.

There have always been cranks on the Internet. And “plants” and people who just like to raise your blood pressure or vent their own frustrations.

That’s okay. I know who they are and I can tune them out.

But now the incivility level has sky rocketed and most of it is attributed to those who write on political issues.

In fact, I detect a correlation of the incivility level rising around the time of the South Carolina primary and as each month goes by, levels seem to increase to the extent that I am currently alarmed by attitudes that are not healthy or conducive to rational conversation.

I draw the line at name calling and absolutism.

Anyone educated in symbolic logic has to know that with the increase of adjectives—especially negative adjectives—the informational content of the data decreases proportionately.

In other words, the more hysterical the content, the less it has to say.

Therefore, not only are those specializing in this kind of logic becoming increasingly persona non grata, the rhetoric they are spouting is diminished in terms of perceived credibility.

In my own case, if I get three such missives sequentially, I am inclined to discount the author from here forward; with the glut of emails we all get, no one can afford to waste anyone else’s time in nasty, vindictive, cruel and misrepresentative mud-slinging.

Enough is enough!

Moreover, having experienced liberal anger before, I know it can be destructive to our efforts and the sense of deja-vu is endemic.

Not only are the republicans trying to blame us for everything that goes wrong, we are being double-teamed by off-the-wall accusations and a stream of bellicosity that is redolent of primitive warfare and it is coming from us!....

Despite all of this, the truth is that 81% of the American people feel that
the country is going in the wrong direction.

If you factor all of this in to your equations, you have to wonder why John McCain, who is aligned with the past, has an approval record that continues to rise.

What does this tell you?

Well, it tells me that it has less to do with John then the fact that the democrat’s “below the belt” tactics have so exacerbated democrats’ closely held beliefs that we are indeed in danger of fracturing as a party.

The dirty tricks are having their effect.

And it is eating away at the promise and potential of this election to change what is becoming a toxic environment.

With Clinton’s intractability and unwillingness to do what’s right for the party and determination to take this all the way to the Convention, there’s a very good possibility that the party will continue in disarray and disharmony through August.

If this is the case, if the democrats cannot settle their differences and come together,
the prospects for a democratic win become increasingly bleak.

I think Howard Dean sees the writing on the wall; but feels powerless to do something about it in light of all the vested interests.

Les Aaron

BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE...

Dean finds himself facing a real dilemma.

He said that it's okay to battle the primary out and wait til the last primary is over with...but then it's time to settle on one candidate.

The ABC moderator asked about Michigan and Florida.

Dean said that Michigan and Florida would be seated.

But Michigan only had one candidate on the ballot and their vote would not count.

He said that some kind of compromise had to be worked out. Those decisions had not been resolved as yet.

Dean was asked about the role of the Super Delegates and Dean said that there are only something like under 400 that are as yet undecided.

And, according to the DNC chief, as soon as they have decided, they can settle on a decision.

Dean does not want to have to have a controversial convention.

Speaker Pelosi's words were also mentioned.

She had stated unequivocally that the voters would not take kindly to Super Delegates who did not vote to support the votes of the people.

One does not need a calendar to realize that we are rapidly approaching the deadline and that Hillary, the runner up at this point, who still dreams up fantastical scenarios of some kind of upset will not concede what the numbers already foretell. She views her intractability as a kind of inherent strength; others see it from quite a different perspective.

In less than three weeks, the candidates will face off in Philadelphia to be followed by the balance of the States left in the Primary.

Hillary, however, is anxious to see this through to the Convention and the Credentials committee...

She wants the votes in Michigan and Florida to be counted even though she was the only candidate listed on the Michigan ballot. Obama does not for obvious reasons. As Dean said, a primary of one candidate does not resemble any free election that he knows about.

Meanwhile, the mud is still being slung, a fact that may help her in certain quarters but is not being overlooked by independents and liberals..

Meanwhile McCain is taking advantage of the time to consolidate his gains and ponder his VP candidate....

One wonders whether the current level of intransigence will carry through to the Convention. No one knows for sure at this point.

But the recalcitrance on both sides does not auger well for a show case for democrats.

Les Aaron