Yesterday was a big day for the United States. Unless you are totally deprived of communication then you already know that yesterday was the tenth anniversary of the 9-11 attacks. I am sure that everyone of you who are old enough to remember that day will also remember exactly what they were doing and where they were. I myself was on I-26 heading east for Orangeburg South Carolina to do a little service job on a office trailer. I was able to work some then but even then my capabilities were diminished. Most of my working years were spent behind a steering wheel heading to one job or another. That or driving the truck that delivered and picked up the trailer. It was hard work but enjoyable at the same time. It made me feel proud when some big muscle bound man tried to work for us and could not handle the hard work. It has been pointed out to me that part of my troubles stemmed from abusing my body. Maybe, maybe not. I always called the shots either running a crew for someone else or running my own business. That gave me the privilege of bringing my son to work for me. To me some of my best memories stem from him and I on the road together. Then by time he was in his teens he knew more than half the men did about setting up trailers. But I have rambled on and gotten off of track. I was listening in on the radio as we put the miles behind us. I stopped at a truck stop to get fuel and watched the second plane hit the World Trade Tower and just knew it was a goner. It so happened that my son wasn’t with me but a friend was instead. We discussed it on our way to the job and followed closely on the radio. I told him then that we were under attack and were going to war. Before the smoke had cleared good we had troops on the ground in Afghanistan. Before too long we had Al Qaeda on the ropes. Then just when I thought they were going to wipe them all out we took our eye off the prize. Instead of keeping the pressure on we dropped the ball so to speak and went off on a tangent. We up and attacked Iraq. Its hard to win a war with two fronts. Especially when they were no threat to us in anyway. Now we are floundering on two fronts despite all the hard and valiant work of our military. But there I go off on another tangent. We finished that job in record time, called off other service work for that day and hurried home. The few minutes watching the boob tube in the truckers lounge were not enough. I rushed home and was mesmerized by the images on the television. I watched and re-watched as the towers crumbled and fell. I thought of when I was a teen and my first weekend pass my cohorts and I went to New York city. We did all the tourist things while we weren’t busy at the bar. I thought of our trip to the top of one of the towers. I can not remember which one of the two it was but I remember feeling like I was on top of the world. I have other memories from that trip to the city that I remember well but will not share them as they are not G-Rated. I thought of our trip and thought how no one would ever stand on top of them again. Ever again. I was furious that someone would attack us on our shores. Last time we were attacked on our shores it was Pearl Harbor and it got us into a war we did not ask for same as the crumbling of the towers did that day. Well as it stands now we are ten years into a war that seems to have no end in site. That war ended to much jubilation on 14th of August 1945. If something is not done we will be at war until I am planted deep into the ground. I hope not though. I dread the thought of our losing even one more soldier to this war that never ends. We have came a long way since 9-11 we have surrendered part of our rights and freedoms in the name of this war. So much crumbled along with the towers. We saw the images of the past as we remembered the tenth anniversary. Let us we never forget the past. Lest we be doomed to repeat it.
Today I site here feeling very privileged. I just got through a private screening of a movie that is to be released later this year. It was a documentary about our failing health care in the United States. The working title is “The Health Care Movie” and is narrated by Kiefer Sutherland. It compares our health care system to Canada’s health care system. Seeing it made the plan we have here in the good ol’ USA pale in comparison to theirs. They believe in taking care of their citizens and not favoring huge corporations over the masses. They also see it as a basic human right. Something we agreed to, and ratified when we signed the “The Declaration of Human Rights”. If you look it up and start reading go down to article 25. There you will find us agreeing that health care is a human right. But I am off topic here somewhat.
I was talking about the movie I was allowed to see. It gives some shocking facts and numbers about our nonexistent health care. I hope that everyone will see this and be mad as hell. Writing their congressman or senator mad. Everyone needs health care at some point in their lives. That is a fact no one can dispute. The question is can you afford it? Is your insurance going to cover it. How much money comes out of my pocket? None of us can deny it. Even if you have health care you will have a co-pay and how large does that go? What if my bill becomes so large that my out of pocket money is too high for me? Will I have to sell the house to pay? Will I have to file bankruptcy because of an illness or accident? In our system all of these scenarios are not only possible but happen. A lot of times this is the story. Even a wealthy family can be bankrupted by a prolonged illness. I feel like this is a travesty that we allow for profit, private insurance companies run our health care system. They arbitrarily dictate what treatments we can or can’t have and we let them have their way in the name of democracy. If you were to remember your history you will find that Lyndon Johnson pushed medicare and medicaid through the halls of Congress. That was in direct apposition with insurance companies and their lackeys in Congress. Back then it was painted as an end to democracy and the beginning of socialism. Now it is considered essential. It is a sure fired method of losing votes if you voice a plan on cutting medicare and medicaid. It took some wrangling and over the objections of insurance companies they were passed into law. That is what we need now. someone to push expanding medicare and medicaid to cover everyone in the USA. But that is my simple plan. No need for all these tax credits and vouchers.
Anyhow that is my opinion. I have good health care from the VA but not everyone has served their country.
I was able to view the movie early because they used my sons song part of the movie. The title is “Silence
Is Consent“ It was really great to see my sons name in the credits. It brought tears to my eyes for him to be so honored. The song fits this movie perfectly as my son feels very strongly that everyone should have access to health care regardless of whether they have money or not. I made the song title a link to his “website“ joshua121. You can hear the song there on the site. I recommend that you listen to it then write your congressman or woman. Don’t forget that you have a senator that needs to know that we need health care. That is the only thing that matters to a politician, votes and how much money he can gather from corporations and others for his next reelection campaign.
I received an email today that has absolutely pissed me off to no end. It said that our President Obama wants to give Jane Fonda an award as one of the top women in the last hundred years. That makes me livid. I can still remember when she visited Hanoi during the heart of the Viet Nam war and actually fired anti aircraft shells at our planes as they flew over on their missions. That should have earned her a bullet in the base of her skull as far as I am concerned but I did not know everything and this email described even more atrocities. I am going to copy and paste the entire email at the end of my rant. Please copy and email this link to everyone you know. Or at least copy and paste the text into your own emails. This makes me sick to my gut.
Barbara Walters comments on Jane Fonda
She can lead her present life the way she wants and perhaps SHE can forget the past, but we DO NOT have to stand by without comment to see that she is “honored” as a “Woman of the Century”.
( I remember this well)
Never Forgive A Traitor
For those of you too young to remember Hanoi Jane is a bad person and did some terrible things during the Vietnam war. Things that cannot be
forgiven!!!!
For those who served and/or died. . .
NEVER FORGIVE A TRAITOR. SHE REALLY WAS A TRAITOR!!
and now OBAMA wants to honor her……!!!!
In Memory of LT. C.Thomsen Wieland who spent 100 days at the Hanoi Hilton
IF YOU NEVER FORWARDED ANYTHING IN YOUR LIFE FORWARD THIS SO THAT EVERYONE WILL KNOW!!!!!!
She really is a traitor.
A TRAITOR IS ABOUT TO BE HONORED. KEEP THIS MOVING ACROSS AMERICA
This is for all the kids born in the 70′s and after who do not remember, and didn’t have to bear the burden that our fathers, mothers and older brothers and sisters had to bear.
Jane Fonda is being honored as one of the ’100 Women of the Century.’
BARBRA WALTERS WRITES:
Unfortunately, many have forgotten and still countless others have never
known how Ms. Fonda betrayed not only the idea of our country, but specific men who served and sacrificed during Vietnam
The first part of this is from an F-4E pilot. The pilot’s name is Jerry
Driscoll, a River Rat.
In 1968, the former Commandant of the USAF Survival School was a POW in Ho Lo Prison the ‘ Hanoi Hilton.’
Dragged from a stinking cesspit of a cell, cleaned, fed, and dressed in
clean PJ’s, he was ordered to describe for a visiting American ‘Peace
Activist’ the ‘lenient and humane treatment’ he’d received.
He spat at Ms. Fonda, was clubbed, and was dragged away. During the
subsequent beating, he fell forward on to the camp Commandant ‘s feet, which sent that officer berserk.
In 1978, the Air Force Colonel still suffered from double vision (which
permanently ended his flying career) from the Commandant’s frenzied
application of a wooden baton.
>From 1963-65, Col. Larry Carrigan was in the 47FW/DO (F-4E’s). He spent 6 years in the ‘ Hanoi Hilton’,,, the first three of which his family only knew he was ‘missing in action’. His wife lived on faith that he was still alive. His group, too, got the cleaned-up, fed and clothed routine in preparation for a ‘peace delegation’ visit.
They, however, had time and devised a plan to get word to the world that
they were alive and still survived. Each man secreted a tiny piece of paper,
with his Social Security Number on it, in the palm of his hand.
When paraded before Ms. Fonda and a cameraman, she walked the line, shaking each man’s hand and asking little encouraging snippets like: ‘Aren’t you sorry you bombed babies?’ and ‘Are you grateful for the humane treatment from your benevolent captors?’ Believing this HAD to be an act, they each palmed her their sliver of paper.
She took them all without missing a beat.. At the end of the line and once
the camera stopped rolling, to the shocked disbelief of the POWs, she turned to the officer in charge and handed him all the little pieces of paper..
Three men died from the subsequent beatings. Colonel Carrigan was almost number four but he survived, which is the only reason we know of her actions that day.
I was a civilian economic development advisor in Vietnam , and was captured by the North Vietnamese communists in South Vietnam in 1968, and held prisoner for over 5 years.
I spent 27 months in solitary confinement; one year in a cage in Cambodia; and one year in a ‘black box’ in Hanoi . My North Vietnamese captors deliberately poisoned and murdered a female missionary, a nurse in a leprosarium in Banme Thuot , South Vietnam , whom I buried in the jungle near the Cambodian border. At one time, I weighed only about 90 lbs. (My normal weight is 170 lbs)
We were Jane Fonda’s ‘war criminals….’
When Jane Fonda was in Hanoi , I was asked by the camp communist political officer if I would be willing to meet with her..
I said yes, for I wanted to tell her about the real treatment we POWs
received… and how different it was from the treatment purported by the
North Vietnamese, and parroted by her as ‘humane and lenient.’
Because of this, I spent three days on a rocky floor on my knees, with my
arms outstretched with a large steel weight placed on my hands, and beaten with a bamboo cane.
I had the opportunity to meet with Jane Fonda soon after I was released. I
asked her if she would be willing to debate me on TV. She never did answer me.
These first-hand experiences do not exemplify someone who should be honored as part of ’100 Years of Great Women.’ Lest we forget….’ 100 Years of Great Women’ should never include a traitor whose hands are covered with the blood of so many patriots.
There are few things I have strong visceral reactions to, but Hanoi Jane’s
participation in blatant treason, is one of them. Please take the time to
forward to as many people as you possibly can.. It will eventually end up on her computer and she needs to know that we will never forget.
RONALD D. SAMPSON, CMSgt,
USAF 716 Maintenance Squadron,
Chief of Maintenance DSN: 875-6431 COMM: 883-6343
PLEASE HELP BY SENDING THIS TO EVERYONE IN YOUR ADDRESS BOOK.
IF ENOUGH PEOPLE SEE THIS MAYBE HER STATUS WILL CHANGE
Our so called representative are busy trying to figure out how to keep the Bush tax breaks that had been scheduled to run out are about ready to let the payroll tax break expire. What this means is that if the GOP gets their way the wealthy will receive tax breaks while increasing the tax on the working poor. Many do not know or understand that their is a payroll tax that all employed citizens pay out of every check they receive. The payroll tax normally was 6.2% of their wages that was matched by their employer for a total of 12.4%. Last year they Congress approved Obama’s request to drop the workers share to 4.2%. Therefor saving millions of dollars. Workers could keep more of what they earn. Obama wants to renew this tax break for at least another year. What is in store though is they extend the Bush tax cuts and let this small break to the employed expire. What this means is the wealth will save money with their tax breaks and the workers will pay more. Sounds kinda screwy to me. Increasing the tax on the poorest in our land while reducing taxes for the wealthy.
Dr Thomas Fuller made that quote back in 1732 and it is still as valid today as it was back then. Supposedly we have made many progressions since then but in the availability health care is only for the people with money. If you are poor or even working poor you get no health care in this country. This country with all of our nation building and meddling in other countries affairs does not take care of itself. When we first chartered into the United Nations we signed a treaty that in part agreed that a nation should take care of its citizens.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948, proclaimed that “everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of oneself and one’s family, including food, clothing, housing, and medical care.”
Oops. How did that one slip by? Could it be that the United States is being run by corporations instead of the people? High powered lobbyists can slip a little money into campaign funds and buy the vote of our representatives in Washington DC. Happens all the time. Could it be that the government that President Lincoln espoused as “of the people, by the people, for the people” has changed to of the rich, by the rich, and for the privileged. We know it is true but so many refuse to open their eyes and see what is in front of them. How can we a country that is supposed to set the standards for other nations to follow lag so far behind? Our allies and even regimes that we are opposed to have government sponsored health care. Call it socialism if you wish but the government is supposed to help its citizens not bow to the wishes of for profit insurance companies. Until we collectively stand up and demand a change it will remain as it has been for many years now, broken. All we need to do is expand medicare and medicaid to cover all individuals. If you do not like them making decisions about your health care then buy a private insurance policy. Then you can be in the hands of some huge corporation that can turn you down.
Today is my brother Thomas’s birthday. He should be having his fifty first birthday party but instead there is no party or happy birthdays for him any longer. He was the victim of a woman who could not wait until a truck made his turn, freeing up her unobstructed view of the other lane. Instead of putting her cell phone down and paying attention to her driving she pulled out. Right in front of my brother on his Harley. Now he was an experienced rider having ridden since he was a teen and was a careful rider too. No showboating or running outlandish speeds for him as he had a family to take care of. She claimed she never saw him on his scooter and I guess she may have told the truth there but not looking and killing my brother was total negligence on her part. It is going on five years since he quit having birthdays, and I still can not forgive that (inset ugly words) woman. I know Thomas is listed as a statistic now because he was not wearing a helmet he was added to the unhelmeted statistics. It doesn’t matter to their numbers that he suffered massive body trauma. What killed him was not a head injury but bone fragments from his shattered femur cutting the femoral artery. Every birthday of his is hard on me and I tear up just like I am now. We may have fought and scrapped at times but if anyone jumped one of us he had both of us to contend with. Especially while we lived in Quincy Massachusetts. There we suffered teasing and fights because of our southern drawl was different from the Boston dialect that they knew. I felt as long as we had each other no one was going to trample on us.
Thomas got his love for Harleys at a young age. I can remember clear as day the very day our uncle Walt came over to grannies place to visit while we were there and Walt was riding his hog with full fairing. After giving us both a ride Thomas was gut hooked. All he could talk about was getting him a harley. He had to settle for a Triumph for his first bike but it was a beast. It had previously been a flat track racer and it ran like it as it would nearly jump out from under you if you were not careful. I helped him get his first real motorcycle in our eyes. A 1964 Harley panhead. Full dressed out bike. Last year they made a bike that was kick start only.
I could write pages on how us and our love for bikes. I would love to have another one but with my hands like they are and the rest of my physical ailments would prevent me from enjoying anything more than 10 minutes on it.
What I would like for you to do is: Please watch for motorcycles. They are everywhere. With the price of gas going through the roof there will be many more using motorcycles of all makes for daily driving. It only takes a moment to actually look to see if anything is coming. Or you could take that moment to not look and hurry out and kill someone’s, brother, sister, son, daughter, mom or dad.
I am also going to post an old picture of us during the Cuban missile crisis. Both your inquisitive idiot and his younger brother are in uniform ready to fight right alongside our pop.
There is a country in severe trouble. There are many who have no homes, shelter and clean drinking water. Many citizens have no heat in the winter nor a way to cool off during it’s normal summer heat waves. The elderly and young children are the ones who need air condition to prevent them dying during its heat waves. Thousands are without jobs and lack basic health care for the sick. What country is this that sounds as if it is in such dire straights? The country that needs this help is not overseas where we send so much money but instead right here at home. The US is in need of help but instead they say to hell with those unfortunates and send money overseas instead. I am not saying that there are countries that do not have dire needs but we should take care of our own people first.
According to a study published by the Journal of Social Science & Medicine. Researchers in Montreal found out that unemployment will shorten your life span. The findings that analyzed data over a forty year span, in fifteen countries and millions of individuals say that 78% of men and 37% of women face the likely hood of premature death. With our unemployment rate at nearly 20% that means millions of Americans are at risk of an early death. Right now our representatives are wrestling with our budget trying to cut out programs that help unemployed as well as under employed citizens. The easiest thing to do would be for Obama himself to invoke the 14th Amendment and raise the debt ceiling where they do not have to cut out programs that are essential for the unemployed and poor people who comprise about half of the US. The Republicans darling, Ronald Regan not only raised taxes in his term but he raised the debt ceiling eighteen times while he was in office. However Obama and the rest of the democrats are trying to make the Republicans look bad so they can insure that they win big at the polls when Obama comes up for reelection. I know we need to do something about this runaway debt we have accumulated but why does it have to be done by cutting out programs for the less fortunate citizens who need these services the most. Why not cut out the corporate welfare we have been dishing out with nothing in return? These tax breaks and bailouts were supposed to keep these companies in business so they can create more jobs. But that is not what they do. Instead of creating new jobs they gave huge bonuses to the very same ones that got them in such hot water financially. How did that help us out? Those huge billion dollar bailouts could easily have went to fund the very same programs the Republicans want to make deep cutbacks in or it would have went a long ways to an actual health plan that would work for all Americans. Those who do not like what is offered can always buy their own health care policy. Of course no one actually wants that as they have their greedy pockets lined with lobbyist money.
I have been busy making changes to my web sites and my hosting services. I have updated my services and added more features and increased the service. That is my File-House Web Hosting that hosts my own sites, this one included. I first moved this site then had some problems with the data base and have been offline almost two days. I got some great help through my friends at Dragon Tree Studio. They are working on a new template for this site and the theme I am using is just a hint at what is coming. I hated the one I had and went to a rough draft instead as I like it much better. If you need help creating your very own theme based on your blog or pretty much any web site built or designed as well as graphic design. I highly recommend that you contact Dragon Tree Studio. . I know you will not be disappointed.
According to the Boston Globe, Massachusetts wants to establish a database with the information gathered by license plate scanners installed in police cars. The scanners will scan license plates of every car the police vehicle passes and transmit that information (along with the location) to a database that will be made available to various government agencies. The data will be kept indefinitely. Civil libertarians are raising an alarm and rightly so. This makes me wonder if “1984″ was accurate other than the timing with the date. This sounds like another move towards fascism by our government. Our founding fathers could never have known that technology would proceed as far as it has come. I am sure that if they had of known what was coming they would have definitely banned it while they were defining the Ten Amendments that guarantee our civil liberties. Â So many of our liberties are being tossed out the window as our new technological feats make gathering and storing data on individual citizens becomes easier and easier. I can see where they would be of great use if they were simply used to scan the thousands of vehicles a police car sees almost everyday. If they were using the plate readers to look for a specific license plate of someone who was wanted by the authorities and they were not saving all the information gathered into a huge data base where they could check your whereabouts and track your movements maybe that would be a good idea. However scanning all those plates seen by the plate reader into a database to be used by whomever managed to get into the data base is wrong. Keeping track of your movements when you have committed no crime should not be allowed. If you live in Massachusetts you need to contact your local Senator and Representative to block this legislation.
Also a note to Massachusetts politicians: Such videos will be used against you at some point. Count on it. If you don’t care about the privacy of the citizens, at least think of your self interest before voting for this.