Franklin Delano Roosevelt *30 January 1882

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Monument. District of Columbia.
Every country’s leader would like to promise peace and prosperity. gwbjr, aka chimpy, did so and brought the opposite, he brought war and depression. He created war, so as, to be ‘a war president’. Chimpy was a typical, delusional Republican. The greatest bugbear, the greatest villain in the history of the country, perhaps the world, for them, is Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Then, after twelve years of unchecked, unregulated ‘free market’* economics, that the Republicans stood for and by, delved this nation into the Great Depression. Roosevelt understood, that, there was a great impetus to really do something. Then, when world fascism and militarism forged an axis of aggression and evil, the United States was attacked by imperial Japan.

Now, many years later (1984 Dallas Republican convention, if memory serves) Ronnie Reagan forgave Hitler and blamed Roosevelt for the war. The hatred for Roosevelt has never subsided, on the part of rabid, Republican partisans. Chimpy after the 2004 election was determined to dismantle Social Security. That one programme, which perhaps, is the one, great, enduring legacy, that, Roosevelt, and the New Deal, accomplished, and is remembered, by the nation is Social Security.

Roosevelt was elected four times to the presidency, to the great alarum of the Republicans. He won honestly and greatly. America was in a condition, everyone, recognised as not prosperous. War was begun by the world’s, imperialist, anti-democrat fascists that over ran Poland, and attacked the United States.

The words of FDR at the beginning of his presidential mandate, concerning the first great crisis:

This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. ― First Inaugural Address (4 March 1933)

The initial words of FDR, concerning the second great crisis:

Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. The United States was at peace with that nation, and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.

Now, Roosevelt was in the habit of using the more polite term ‘economic royalist’ for fascist, and these economic royalists, supply siders, welfare capitalists, those who privatise profit, and want to wrest government, to do their will, are with us still. Roosevelt is the sort of man these Republicans hate. Here are some of the other words, which, raises the rancor, and inflames the ire of these people:

No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. ― on the National Industrial Recovery Act (16 June 1933)
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Governments can err, presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that Divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted on different scales. Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference. ― Speech to the Democratic National Convention (27 June 1936)
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Unhappy events abroad have retaught us two simple truths about the liberty of a democratic people. The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That, in its essence, is fascism—ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any other controlling private power.
The second truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if its business system does not provide employment and produce and distribute goods in such a way as to sustain an acceptable standard of living. Both lessons hit home. Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing. ― Simple Truths message to Congress (29 April1938)
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We must scrupulously guard the civil rights and civil liberties of all our citizens, whatever their background. We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization. ― Greeting to the American Committee for the Protection of the Foreign Born, Washington, D.C. (9 January 1940)
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But while they prate of economic laws, men and women are starving. We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.
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Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off.
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Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
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I am a Christian and a Democrat, that's all.
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I believe that in every country the people themselves are more peaceably and liberally inclined than their governments.
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If I went to work in a factory the first thing I'd do is join a union.
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It is one of the characteristics of a free and democratic nation that it have free and independent labor unions.
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It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.
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More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginning of all wars - yes, an end to this brutal, inhuman and thoroughly impractical method of settling the differences between governments.
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One thing is sure. We have to do something. We have to do the best we know how at the moment... If it doesn't turn out right, we can modify it as we go along.
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The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.
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There is nothing I love as much as a good fight.
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Those newspapers of the nation which most loudly cried dictatorship against me would have been the first to justify the beginnings of dictatorship by somebody else.
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War is a contagion.
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I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.

There has been some controversies about the Roosevelt Memorial Park. What I have not read, or heard about, is the popularity of the statue group above. People are taking, especially, their small hounds, and photographing them next to Fala. Mister Fala of the White House was Roosevelt’s war time companion. Earlier, I wrote of man and dog; this continues the thought: Whosoever loveth me loveth my hound. Conversely, those who hateth me hateth my hound.

These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or on my sons. No, not content with that, they now include my little dog, Fala. Well, of course, I don't resent attacks, and my family doesn't resent attacks — but Fala does resent them. You know, Fala is Scotch, and being a Scottie, as soon as he learned that the Republican fiction writers in Congress and out had concocted a story that I had left him behind on the Aleutian Islands and had sent a destroyer back to find him — at a cost to the taxpayers of two or three, or eight or 20 million dollars — his Scotch soul was furious. He has not been the same dog since! I am accustomed to hearing malicious falsehoods about myself — such as that old, worm-eaten chestnut that I have represented myself as indispensable. But I think I have a right to resent, to object to libelous statements about my dog. — (23 September 1944)

Fala was a scottish terrier. The Roosevelts had a succession of scotties. In the film, Wizard of Oz (1939), Dorothy had a, similar highland terrier, a cairn terrier. The Wicked Witch said, “I’ll get you my pretty ... and your little dog too!”. Yes, the venom people have for you, will, also, be given your dog.
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*Now, the reaganistas and the busheviks were against regulation of industries and commerce. Something, that the Constitution mandates, which has never been changed in the wording of the Constitution: Article I. Section 8. ― The Congress shall have power ... To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes ...

Mozart music marathon

many countries issued commemoratives in Mozart anniversary years 1956, 1991, 2006
Johann Chrysostom Wolfgang Theophilus(Amadeus) Mozart *27 January 1756,†5 December 1791

“His music is by no means just entertainment; it contains the whole tragedy of human existence.” ― Joseph Ratzinger (1996)

Tom Lehrer, the musical professor of mathematics, used to have a line in his act, “when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for __ years”. Mozart was relatively a young death, he had not completed his 36th year. His Köchel number* was up to 626, which was his Requiem Mass in Dm†.

Mozart was the rare child prodigy that became an adult genius. His music had a crisp clarity. He was an interesting fellow, and from time to time he still makes news: a previously, unknown autograph of music is found in some attic or abbey, a doctor diagnoses Tourette’s syndrome, autism, rheumatic fever ... ‡

In current memory is the 1984 picture show, Amadeus, which won a slew of Oscars and many other film awards. It came from a Peter Shaffer play, which came from a Pushkin play, which also spawned a Rimsky-Korsakov opera. The fictive plot is that a musical rival, Antonio Salieri, poisoned Mozart in jealousy. Ron Hansen wrote an essay, in which, he has the two musicians as Cain and Abel. Salieri is supremely angry with God. He had travailed in His fields and produced fruit, and yet, God rains divine talent to this ridiculous child.

Mozart had his marriage and funeral in Saint Stephen’s, Vienna (Wien). To-day(26 January 2009) and to-morrow, at Saint Stephen’s, Cleveland, there will be a programme of recorded music from 10 a.m. till 8 p.m.. The viennese church is the cathedral for its archbishopric, the local church is about the grandest in its diocese.
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*Ludwig von Köchel (c.1826) composed a detailed, chronological catalogue of Mozart’s opus.
†finished by Franz Xaver Süssmayr
‡e.g. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/arts_and_culture/7845752.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7297012.stm

Right of conscience

In December of 2008, a 127-page, document of regulation, allowing a right of conscience, was implemented on a federal level, in which, federal funding would be cut, if a health care worker were to be punished, for exercising it. Excellent! All democrats should support a right of conscience. It is surprising, that, Republicans put it up. How and why, such a course? It concerns abortion and related issues [I have not read it, therefore, I am extrapolating].

Some self styled progressives do not like it, because it may reduce abortions. Conservatives [read Republicans] are for it. Some really are against abortion*, some are playing electoral politics, some get to stifle health care spending, and their are combinations.

But protecting a right of (or to) conscience is the right thing to do. Such protections for workers are right. Labor should fight for this. Medical staff should fight for it. It is consistent, it is also incongruent that Republicans are for it. They are making an exception, for it goes against management, it goes against institutional authoritarianism. Exercising a right of conscience is defined as insubordination. In employment it is grounds for, not only, ‘discipline’, but termination; in the military ― court martial.

Now, a worker usually knows his work well, and often, far better than his ‘superior’. In my trade, the phrase is that work is to be ‘done in a workmanlike manner’. Well, sometimes that leads to dismissal. The physicians oath of Hippocrates, in the 4th century b.C., has these lines:

To consider dear to me, as my parents, him who taught me this art; to live in common with him and, if necessary, to share my goods with him; To look upon his children as my own brothers, to teach them this art. I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone. I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion.

What we see, in these and the whole, is that a code of conduct of the trade is stated. In that code, a mode of right behavior is prescribed, and a corporate unity of membership. These greek physicians were a unionised, guild of laborers. Their workmanlike manner provision, prime directive, was a principle of: First do no harm.

Now, if legal precedent be followed, an empowered workforce would form. NO ‘pro-business’ candidate would be for that. NO militarist would be for that. A military draft would not be legal, many actions would not be forced on a serviceman. A right of, or to, conscience would be a great advance for the citizen, it would maddening for a capitalist, a militarist and a dictator.

Right of conscience is the right to strike, it is a failure to comply, it is a cessation of labor, it is a willful refusal to obey command. It is the difference between free labor and coerced labor. Coerced labor is slavery. This is a progressive issue, it is a social justice issue. When seen this way, the incongruity of the partisans will be seen. Anyone against a right of conscience is wrong, anyone who does not allow for it, as a general, and fundamental, principle, in all labor is wrong.
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*abortion is a great moral wrong, it is murder.

Cardinal Mercier

Dominique Charles Fouqueray. Cardinal Mercier protects Belgium. 1916. Parisian poster.
Desiré-Joseph Mercier *21 November 1851, †23 January 1926

As Primate of Belgium, Archbishop of Malines, Cardinal Mercier was a hero in the first world war. He defended his people against an occupying power, which by definition, as he reminded all, is a power without legitimacy. Upon returning from the funeral of Pius X, Mercier saw Belgium suffering under destruction and atrocity caused by the german military. He along with King Albert and the imprisoned Burgomaster Adolphe Max of Brussels stood bravely against the injustices of the occupiers. Belgium was a small state in the path of assault to France, but they were not cowards. Caesar wrote in De Bello Gallico, “horum omnium fortissimi sunt Belgae (out of them [Gauls] all, the Belgii are the bravest).”

On the first of January 1915, his pastoral letter, Patriotism and Endurance, was begun to be read throughout Belgium. The next day, he was visited by german imperial officers, whom accused him of stirring excitement against the germans and authority. He responded that his letter suggested peace. One of the officers asked, “why remind the faithful in your letter of bygone events?” The germans were not pleased. Mercier did not relent. He was in state of house arrest, his clergy whom read his words were jailed. This policy was continued, by the germans, in the next war, in which, the largest concentration of catholic clergy was in Dachau.

Later, the occupying governor general, Moritz Ferdinand Freiherr von Bissing †1917, was sending all, unemployed, belgian men as slave labor to Germany. Belgians, born of german parents, were being impressed into the german military. Cardinal Mercier protested without reservation, and some of these actions were reversed. The baron and the cardinal clashed throughout. World public opinion, seconded by allied propaganda, fell to Mercier, that expression enabled a successful resistance.

Before the war, Mercier was a theologian and philosopher. Leo XIII named Mercier to a new professorship at the University of Louvain. Mercier was a friend of Dom Columba Marmion, and the astronomer, Georges Lemaître. Mercier had family in the United States, several being clerics. He wanted church reunification with the eastern church and the anglicans. The only, negative spot, in his curriculum vitae, was his poor attitude concerning the Flemish language, which could have been a francophone chauvinism.
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noto bene: Mercier is not in the canon, yet. I have not read about information on his cause.

World opinion upon the change of government in America

Saint Agnes

Ercole Ferrata. Death of St. Agnes. 1660-4. Sant'Agnese in Agone, Rome.
The most beloved of the virgin martyrs of Rome was Agnes. She was a martyr during, presumably, Diocletian’s persecution in 304. Ambrose, Augustine, Damasus and Prudentius all tell part of her story. Constantine’s daughter, Constantia, had a basilica built over her grave and catacomb. The Depositio Martyrum (roman calendar of the feasts of the martyrs), at least, by 354 has her day as 21 January. What is constant in her story is her youth, twelve or thirteen, and her remaining chastity upon attack, and unto death. She was an attractive child from an important family. She was desired by several. She was not interested in an earthy spouse, so she was denounced to the government. Threat, coaxing, cajoling did not sway her. An attempt to defile her in a brothel failed. She was executed.

In representation, she is, sometimes, seen admidst flames and a sword. The flames did not kill her, so she was victim of the blade. Since the name, Agnes, is close to ‘agnus’, lamb. Sometimes, she is seen as blonde girl holding the martyr’s palm, and accompanied by a lamb.

Now, on Saint Agnes Day, two lambs are taken from the Trappist abbey, Tre Fontane, and re blessed by the pope. The wool from these two is used for palliums. The pallium is a band of cloth, that is worn on the chest and back, in the shape of two Ys, where the arms of the Ys are joined of the shoulders. This is a liturgical garment worn by the pope, archbishops, primates and metropolitans.

Return to legitimacy

After eight long years, we have a president, de jure and de facto: one legally, and constitutionally elected and installed. Now, will the United States rejoin the comity and the community of states around the world ?

What of the early outlaw part of this century? Will this be the legacy? The die has been cast, and the pages writ.
Yesterday a group of Mainers led a peaceful protest, in front of the Executive Mansion, whereat about forty pairs of shoes were tossed. They were, symbolically, tossed at the departing occupier. Earlier, a large balloon caricature, in DuPont Circle was pummelled with footwear, satirically recalling, and combining two events from Baghdad. There is a jovial, carnival atmosphere in the District waiting for the return of Democracy.

A touch of black comedy, in the movie, It's a Wonderful Life, the character of Henry F. Potter, portrayed by Lionel Barrymore, was the wheelchaired villain. That part is being played by Darth Cheney, to-day.

The Craziest Republican?

Now, who would be the craziest Republican? How to we define crazy, in this exercise? Would senility, or an other organic illness be included or excluded? I think excluded, because, in that case being a Republican would not be a decisive factor. That may exclude Jim Bunning

Scope and scale, are we speaking of nationally elected only? No, but primarily yes, because without a national exposure, how would the nation know of their existence. That would include Palin, now even if she is not in D.C. Though how can we discern, and collate, delusional from stupid?

Now, there is evil: Cheney, most definitely: and non office holders, Norquist, Rove. There are the provocateurs: the Limbaughs, Coulter. Coulter is a special case, she calls herself, at times, a humorist. She is not funny, unless you accept vicious, lying, satanic humor as funny. On an earlier page, I made a provision, that, humor must be based on truth. Coulter is not funny, her delivery, attitude and style are reminiscent of the aggressive*, nastiness of Sandra Bernhard; her self promotion is similar to Bernhard’s one time paramour, Madonna Louise Ciccone. Her act is an hatred lampoon, an incendiary, inanity; utterly vile.

There are, also, former officeholders. Yes, they are candidates in this contest, as long as they have life within them, and hold to their craziness.

I consider myself, a conservative. Remember, capitalist economics was liberal. Social darwinism came, in part, with it, and they have seen themselves as progressives. Some of these people (Republicans) have religious sincerity, and those views are, usually, considered conservative; but on other matters they veer into lunacy, or viciousness, e.g., Bachmann, Schmidt, Musgrave, Broun; further: both Oklahoma senators voted for torture. Certainly one can be religiously conservative without having wretched (and fascistic) politics. There are raving and hateful unbelievers, but they do not seem to be elected, to-day, to Congress. Sometimes an intense, moral, belief system can co-exist with madness. Of course, some things can be suitably feigned, and craziness does not exclude success.

some candidates:

• georgebushjr
• Paul Broun
• Michele Bachmann
• Sarah Palin
• write ins

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*though she has shown herself as a physical coward, when she ran in absolute fear from a pie attack

Saint Sava

Nebojša Đuranović. Saint Sava as srb archbishop. 1995. Belgrade.
Rastko Nemanjić *1175 was the first archbishop of the church in Srbija. His brother Stefan was the first king. Their father, Stefan Nemanja, began the royal lineage.

As a youth he went off to Mount Athos and became the monk Sava. In time, his father joined him as the monk, Simeon. Both are in the canon.

In 1208, Sava returned home, to bring peace to his brothers, and to begin the srb church as it separated from Ochrid. In 1219, Sava was consecrated as archbishop. After returning from Palestine, a second time, he caught pneumonia, and died at Turnovo, Bulgaria on 14 January 1235. Two years later Vladislav, the king of the srbs, took his remains to, a new monastery, in Mileševa. The casket was opened. Sava was incorrupt, and exuding the odor of sanctity.

His relics were taken from Mileševa, in 1595, and were burnt by the turks on Holy Friday. Three hundred years later, a society was started to build a cathedral, on that spot, Savinac Hill in the Vračar area in Beograd. Construction began in 1935, and was suspended on account of german and communist hostilities. Construction began, again, in 1985. To-day, the building is complete, save for interior art. Of the orthodox churches, Hagia Sophia, in Constantinople, is larger, but under control of turkish authorities for the last five and a half centuries.

Perhaps, Sava can be compared to Saint Patrick, in the esteem, sentiment and historicity his nation has for him. In the lands where people have emigrated, the irish have Patrick parish, the poles have one for either or both Stanislaus, and so on. The srbs have one for Sava, in Cleveland there are two srb parishes, both are Saint Sava.

Baptism of Jesus

John Baptises Jesus. St. Stephen Church, Cleveland, O. Franz Mayer window 1907.

Death penalty

To-day, I have come to the conclusion, that, I feared for some time, that, I might. I can not support the death penalty in the United States, nor perhaps anywhere.

The classical personification of Lady Justice is, that of, a woman, blindfolded, holding, both, scales and a sword. The symbolic metaphor is, that, while weighing the case in hand, no outside influences are in play, and, if warranted, the sword, which is at rest, is available for execution. This makes for a clean logical exposition.

Fiat justitia ruat coelum is a legal maxim. At first, it would suggest to many, that justice no matter what the circumstances, and consequences may be, will be done; but then, how is justice defined? Well yes, if justice means fairness and equity; but what if justice means only an official ruling and command? Then what is decreed, whether it is truly ‘just’ or grandly unjust, must be done.

Seneca writes* of the governor Gnaeus Piso and his justice. A soldier returns without his companion. Piso sentences him to death, as the sentence is about to be executed, the soldier in charge sees the presumed dead companion. This man returns to Piso and tells the tale. Piso has all three executed. Piso was not to be contradicted.

Now, we do not live in pagan imperial Rome. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wrote an opinion in January 1993, in which, he, with Clarence Thomas concurring, state innocence is not a reason to deny the execution of a man, Leonel Torres Herrera. The, supposed, pro-life, justice’s words:

... reluctance of the present Court to admit publicly that Our Perfect Constitution lets stand any injustice ... embarrassing question ...

Herrera was executed the twelfth of May 1993, in Texas. In the year 2000, the governor of Illinois, George Ryan made the statement:

We have now freed more people than we have put to death under our system.

He said this after a 13th person, whom was to be executed, was shown to be innocent of the crime he was sentenced to. Since Illinois had revived the death penalty, 13 years previous, 12 had been executed. There had been students of journalism, in the class of a Northwestern professor, that had investigated death penalty cases. This academic exercise had shown the governor of the faulty course of justice in his state. Now as one who has read, and considered, the dangerously, subversive, collection of documents, that the church calls, the New Testament. I have to conclude: that Jesus is against such killing, as He is with all killing. Divine Mercy, and obeying the precepts of God, forbid killing; and that includes judicial killing.

The governments of man, and the state, and that includes the United States are not christian institutions. Arguments then, can be made for such killing, but not as christians. Now, besides the Illinois, Texas and Scalia points, it is also true: the United States has more people imprisoned, by absolute number and by percentage, than of any land; another mark of american exceptionalism. Why is this country so criminal, or so imprisoned? There is something gravely in disorder, here.

There is not a uniform system of justice in this country. There is too much caprice, too much imbalance and unbalance. The chains that hold the scales have been broken. The legal system, that impacts the average person, is not the legal system, that impacts the special people of power, influence, wealth and the politically separate. There has been eight years of criminal government leading this country. A new administration, this time legally installed, will be here in a fortnight. There has been little talk of visiting justice upon the wrongdoers. Bi-partisanship is rubbish, when the one party only transgresses, and dictates, and the other tries collegiality, and does not pursue justice, while the former party is unrepentant and contentious.

There is no one imprisoned, in this country, who has broken more laws than the current, now ending, administration. Then there are all their collaborators, minions, underlings and enablers. Truly, no one in America, has more blood on their hands, than bushjr and cheney. They have been a menace to the entire world. If they are not even investigated, let alone convicted and tried ― how can anyone be capitally charged?

The historian Jean Bodin† was read by Thomas Jefferson. In his mention of the knez and the slovene people, before their christianisation, and loss of independence, they found the embodiment of the social contract. Every year (later only on his initial installation), the knez (duke) of the slovenes took the oath to lead his people from the people, on the Knežji kamen, sedes Karinthani ducatus, as his throne underneath an oak. If he was to be found wanting in his leadership, he was to be executed (it is not recorded when this stopped).‡ The leader of his people was responsible to the people. We have no such system of responsibility.
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*De Ira, Book I, Chapter xviii. 41 a.D.
† Method for the Easy Understanding of History, 1566, Six livres de la Republique Paris, 1576. Also written earlier, a chronicle by John of Viktring (Johannes Victoriensis, Abbot of Viktring/Vetrinj), †1347, Liber certarum historiarum.
‡The last enactment of this was in 1414, for the next candidate (that inherited the office was the Habsburg emperor, Frederick III, whom would not).
noto bene: The last president, Bill Clinton, knew something of this democratic practice.

Bombing Gaza

a cartoon from Brasil’s Carlos Latuff. see: http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/5916

There is a ruthless, virtually merciless, zionist war party that is the government of Israel. Now, there are many israelis who are for peace and justice; it would not be surprising, that, they are greater in percentage than in any moslem state, or the United States; but the peace party, within Israel, never exercises governmental policy.

There are several points that can be discussed at length, herewithin is only a partial listing:

Whenever Israel commits hostile acts their propaganda is constant. They (fill in the blank) are killing us. They have made us kill them. We have done nothing wrong. We are suffering. We have our exquisite citizens martyred and murdered. We kill the guilty and the innocent, the guilty deserve it, and we do not consider the rest, except to say, that they are unfortunately dead, and we are not responsible. We are not responsible for anything we do. We have never been guilty of anything; all those who oppose us are guilty. This argument is effective in only the United States, where many people share affinity with those sentiments, and with the jewish people of Israel.

Israel is not concerned with the world’s censure. Some places have mentioned the idea of proportionality. This idea is part of the just war doctrine, and the eye for an eye ethos. The response of Israel is: they have transgressed us, we have no limits to our response.

By accident, the 28th of December is the Massacre of the Innocents (on the christian liturgical calendar). This commemorates the event, when, the judaen king, Herod the Great ordered all male babies, and toddlers, about the area of Bethlehem killed, so as, to eliminate a perceived threat to his throne. The news of the Gaza strike was in the papers on the same day. This biblical co-incidence is not unique, in 2006 Israel bombed Cana.

President Obama does not hold office yet; the bushevik regime has indulged, humored, accommodated Israel. It is an opportune time for an attack. The busheviks will never hold Israel to any standard.

For Gaza shall be destroyed, and Ascalon shall be a desert, they shall cast out Azotus at noonday, and Accaron shall be rooted up. ― Sophonias ii.4.

Norm Coleman = Loser

The junior senator from Minnesota is Al Franken! All the legal ballots have been counted, against Coleman’s will, dragging, screaming and whining. We know the Republicans do not like one man, one vote. Remember Florida in 2000, never forget Florida 2000. When they lose a close election, they by a Tourette’s syndrome tick, yell “stolen”. He promises to sue, sue, sue. At least John McCain took it like a man. Unfortunately, Gore and Kerry allowed themselves to let stand real thefts. The US Supreme Court intervened, by extra constitutional means, to stop vote counting. Michal Connell fixed the computers. Coleman does not have those weapons in his arsenal. He just obstructs. He has two additional partners in defying the mandate of the populace: Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn, whom seem willing to obstruct in the senate. So, add 3 to the list of despicables:

Norm Coleman
Mitch McConnell
John Cornyn

Who, by the way, were the three senators that have received the most $ from the finance, insurance and real estate interests. Now who did they represent?

Back to Norm, this is the typical Republican hypocrite. When the vote was incomplete, and he was in the lead, he told Franken to pack it in and save Minnesota citizens time and money, he would if it was on him. His party makes a big issue, about lawyers and frivolous lawsuits, to gain votes. Now those lawsuits are often when the little guy suffers, and or dies, at the negligence or malevolence of a powerful business interest. Well, his words do not apply to himself, and he will need further lawyers in the FBI’s investigation concerning his shenanigans.

Does his party, tell him to drop it? No. Republicans will avoid battle as servicemen, but not in politics. They show little interest in behaving well. They do not want to relinquish any ground, even if stolen. It is sad the Democracy does not fight so tenaciously.
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postscriptum: 19 February 2009. A page in the electronique ether, realises the inevitable, but time has been grinding on without the swearing in of Senator Franken, there is now a new contest. Guess the day Al Franken will be sworn in as Minnesota's junior senator.
O, and Norm Coleman is despicable.

The year of the rat is ending

The year of the rat is ending. I know little about the chinese zodiac and its folklore, but the year of the rat is about to end. The busheviks are leaving, the plague has run its course. Now, it is the time to bury or burn the corpses. The hard working ox has to plough a stony field filled with rubble.

Lies run and dart very quickly. Often the first story out is remembered, and set as a template. The busheviks are frantically, persistently, campaigning falsities. The term ‘legacy’ is being fabricated to whitewash the evil, and the incompetence, that, these last eight years of usurpation have been. They have used the example of the Reagan propaganda team, but really, this current squad of liars are akin to a situation, where Hitler and Goebbels did not die in the bunker, but were allowed to escape alive and create their vision for their ‘legacy’ to you.

There needs be those who tell you that ‘w’ can only stand for ‘worst’ or ‘war criminal’. Midas the king turned all he touched to gold, bush the rat turned all he touched to either blood or excrement. A creature between a sociopath and a malignant narcissist has occupied the office, and his vice regent is a cold, cavernous malignancy.

A fellow named Feller had published an article that spurred me to write. It was run by the Associated Press ― complete bushwa, a collection of fabrications from the on-going campaign to disseminate deceptions, bold, blatant and banal. In a totalitarian regime one is subject to this continual flood of lies, that are produced, to dissuade one (you) from the exercise of your sight, reason, logic and memory.

Besides his scandalous, and illegitimate, performance in office, and the carnage ― there is what he has done to the United States in the eyes of the world. How is the country to recover from Republicans?

The absurd lies concerning his person: he has not read 95 books in his life, he has not stopped drinking, he is not a follower of Christ ... Rice and Rove have no scruples in regard to truth, they do not waiver from the party line. Tenacity and will may be valued as to their intensity, but not to the quality of illumination, for they do not illuminate, they obscure.

Albert Camus

Albert Camus, *1913, †1960, with iconic trenchcoat and cigarette, is the philosophic writer that personifies the cinematic image of Humphrey Bogart. He was an impoverished pied noir, who was a scholarship student. He was a member of the french resistance. He was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize for literature. On a January 4th, his life ended in an automobile crash.

In his varied writings ― journalism, philosophy, plays and novels ― he was profoundly and deeply concerned with moral order. The individual man against absurd authority. The world crushes people, and the moral man rebels against this cruelty. This moral man duels all oppression.

Camus claimed the world was without God, but many of the french saw him coming closer to catholicism, a very socially active catholicism. This sisyphean struggle is more poignant then. Camus recognised, that, a man became a man by saying one word, one strong and defiant word. The man says, ‘No’.
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What the world expects of Christians is that Christians should speak out, loud and clear, and that they should voice their condemnation in such a way that never a doubt, never the slightest doubt, could rise in the heart of the simplest man. That they should get away from the abstraction and confront the blood-stained face history has taken on today.

There are means that cannot be excused. And I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice. I don't want greatness for it, particularly a greatness born of blood and falsehood. I want to keep it alive by keeping justice alive.

The vocation of every man and woman is to serve other people.

By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.

What is a rebel? A man who says no.

A novel is never anything, but a philosophy put into images.

Alas, after a certain age every man is responsible for his face.

One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves.

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide.

Don't wait for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day.

Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being.

When a war breaks out, people say: "It's too stupid; it can't last long." ...
Stupidity has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if
we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves.