Long term capital gains are not economically more or less beneficial than incomes derived from entrepreneurs’ steadily nurturing and reinvesting into their enterprises.

I am not opposed to speculators but I’m opposed to using tax policy to favor any business model over others.
Unlike the proponents of the long term capital gains tax loopholes, I prefer our government promote transparent open markets that we all may be able to trust.
 
There was an “income averaging” provision within our income tax regulations that mitigated progressive tax rate’s excesses when applied to the filing’s year’s taxable income.

This tax reduction rewarded but was not limited to wealthy investors or those that sold their homes.  It benefitted lottery or quiz program winners, sport or entertainment figures, inventors or anyone else that hit ANY KIND of financial jackpot within the taxable year for which they were filing an income tax return.

It compensated those who were lucky or daring or devoted years for study or practice of their chosen professions.
It was of no particular benefit to those with comparatively level annual incomes; (such as a Buffett , Romney or your mailman). 

I advocate elimination of the long term capital gains loophole and restoring the income averaging,

Respectfully, Supposn

Nations’ entire production of goods and service products contribute to their GDPs but prices of individual products do not always reflect the entire goods and services that supported the production of those products.  Also individual product prices certainly do not reflect their productions’ inducement of additional goods or services productions.<o:p></o:p>

<o:p> </o:p>

All production contributes to producing nations’ gross domestic product, (GDP). The production is not statistically lost; but to the extent that production costs of globally traded goods are understated, nations’ global trade imbalances’ affects upon their GDPs are not fully attributed to global trade.<o:p></o:p>

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////<o:p></o:p>

<FONT face=Calibri>For example governments often induce producers to establish their factories within their jurisdictions by granting them favorable tax considerations or providing infrastructure that’s particularly favorable to targeted enterprises. Governments and other non–profits often co-operate by favoring enterprises with research, loans of equipment, or access to their expertise. These production supports are of lesser or no cost to the favored enterprises and thus those enterprises products are lesser priced.

All of a nation’s production, (including production support that’s not reflected within produced products prices), are included within the producing nations’ GDPs. But domestic production support not included within the supported export products are not to that extent attributed as exports’ contributions to the producing nation’s GDP.

Production of products can support or induce the production of other unrelated products.
For example increasing the production rate of export goods can increase the factory’s payroll and induce increasing revenues for local beauty parlor service products. This is an additional example of exports additionally increasing the nation’s GDP but the addition is not attributed to the nation’s global trade.
<BR style="mso-special-character: line-break"><BR style="mso-special-character: line-break"><o:p></o:p></FONT>

<FONT face=Calibri>[We cannot spend the same money twice. That’s why the GDP calculation formulas are reduced by the amount of the nation’s imports.  When U.S. purchasers perceiving their own individual benefits chose to purchase imported products their transaction reduces their nations’ GDPs.  Trade surpluses increase their nations’ GDPs.]
<o:p></o:p></FONT>

<FONT face=Calibri>Trade surpluses ALWAYS contribute and trade deficits are ALWAYS detrimental to their nations’ GDPs.<o:p></o:p></FONT>

<FONT face=Calibri>This is baked into the formula defining and calculating GDP; it is not matters of opinion.<o:p></o:p></FONT>

<o:p><FONT face=Calibri> </FONT></o:p>

Balance of trade is a factor of gross domestic product’s calculation.

Trade surpluses ALWAYS contribute and trade deficits are ALWAYS detrimental to their nation’s GDPs;
[i.e. due to a trade surplus, the nation’s GDP is greater and due to a trade deficit the nation’s GDP is less than otherwise.]

Balance of trade has a leveraged affect upon GDP.
The extent of GDP increase is significantly greater or the extent of the GDP reduction is significantly less than the amount of the nation’s trade balance.

GDP has a positive effect upon the median wage.

Refer to topic “Reduce the trade deficit; increase GDP & median wage”.

Respectfully Supposn

Warren Buffett’s concept to significantly reduce USA’s trade deficit.

It is not our global trade but our trade deficits’ that are a significant net detriment to our economy.  Trade deficits’ amount of detriment to their nations’ GDPs are significantly larger than the deficits themselves.
 
I’m a proponent of a proposal to reduce USA’s trade deficit of goods that was first introduced to the Senate in 2006.  The proposal does not favor the goods of any industry.  The market driven proposal does not discriminate between manufactured, agricultural or any other industries’ products.

The basic concept is for exporters who choose to pay the federal fees to acquire TRANSFERABLE IMPORT CERTIFICATES, (ICs) for the assessed value of their goods leaving the USA. Importers would be required to surrender ICs for the assessed value of their goods entering the USA. Surrendered certificates are cancelled.

This may seem as a boon to exporters of USA goods but it’s actually an indirect and effective export subsidy and the trade proposal’s entirely funded by U.S. purchasers of foreign goods.

The version of this trade policy I advocate would exclude values of specifically listed scarce or precious minerals integral to goods from goods assessed values.
This trade policy would significantly decrease USA’s trade deficit of goods and increase the aggregate sum of USA’s imports plus exports and our GDP more than otherwise.  The GDP bolsters the median wage.

Wage earning families benefit from cheaper imported goods but every day of every year they’re dependent upon their U.S. wages.  Regardless of how small the additions to imports’ prices due to Import Certificates, (unlike tariffs) USA’s assessed imports could never exceed that of our exports.  Its desirable U.S. consumers be able to purchase cheap, (but not the absolute cheapest) imported goods.  We cannot afford the absolute cheapest.
 
 Refer to: http://www.USA-Trade-Deficit.Blogspot.com
or Google: “  wikipedia, import certificates “.
 
Respectfully, Supposn

The steering committee of the "October 2011 Movement" - the patriots presently occupying Freedom Plaza in Washington DC - published a summary of the 15 issues which are the focus of their protest here:

http://october2011.org/issues

The 8 demands which are the focus of my personal protest are these:

1. End the Fed.
2. Reverse Citizens United.
3. Repeal PATRIOT Act.
4. Expose 9/11 Truth.
5. End Profit Wars.
6. Refund Taxpayer Trillions.
7. Imprison the Kleptocrats.
8. Single Term Limits.

To highlight the fact that addressing their 15 issues would go a long way towards meeting these demands and vice-versa, over the past 15 days I have posted 15 articles - one per issue, and each with an associated image and video - which I recap below:

ISSUE #1. "Corporatism – firmly establish that money is not speech, corporations are not people, only people have Constitutional rights, end corporate influence over the political process, protect people and the environment from damage by corporations."

Article: Corporatism: "Sold Glory", the U.S. Flag After Citizens United v. FEC (g1a2d0009c1)
URL:     http://tinyurl.com/ironboltbruce-corporatism
Image:   http://ldrlongdistancerider.com/images/Sold_Glory.jpg
Video:   http://www.hulu.com/watch/118169/the-corporation

ISSUE #2. "Wars and Militarism – end wars and occupations, end private for-profit military contractors, reduce the national security state and end the weapons export industry. War crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace must be addressed and those responsible held accountable under international law."

Article: Wars & Militarism: The Real Cause of the Debt Crisis (g1a2d0006c1)
URL:     http://tinyurl.com/ironboltbruce-wars
Image:   http://ironboltbruce.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/htv-2_darpa_lockheed_martin_boondoggle.jpg
Video:   http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9219858826421983682#

ISSUE #3. "Human Rights – end exploitation of people in the US and abroad, end discrimination in all forms, equal civil rights and due process for all people."

Article: Human Rights: No Flame Burns Hotter Than A Human Torch (g1a2d0012c1)
URL:     http://tinyurl.com/ironboltbruce-humanrights
Image:   http://images.democracyreview.com/Tunisia-Mohammed-Bouazizi.png
Video:   http://www.hulu.com/watch/151119/the-end-of-poverty

ISSUE #4. "Worker Rights and jobs – all working-age people have the right to safe, just, non-discriminatory and dignified working conditions, a sustainable living wage, paid leave and economic protection."

Article: U.S. Corporations Firing At Home While Hiring Abroad (g1a2d0016c1)
URL:     http://tinyurl.com/ironboltbruce-jobs
Image:   http://ldrlongdistancerider.com/images/Outsourcing_American_Jobs.jpg
Video:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2em1x2j9-o

ISSUE #5. "Government – all processes of the three branches of government should be accountable to international law, transparent and follow the rule of law, people have the right to participate in decisions which affect them."

Article: Government: The Kleptocracy and You (g1a2d0007c1)
URL:     http://tinyurl.com/ironboltbruce-government
Image:   http://ldrlongdistancerider.com/images/Kleptocracy_and_You.jpg
Video:   http://vforvendetta.warnerbros.com/

ISSUE #6. "Elections – all citizens 18 and older have the right to vote without barriers, all candidates have the right to be heard and to run and all votes should be counted."

Article: Elections: Vote All You Want. The Flight Plan Doesn't Change. (g1a2d0011c1)
URL:     http://tinyurl.com/ironboltbruce-elections
Image:   http://ldrlongdistancerider.com/images/kleptocracy_right_wing_left_wing_same_bird.jpg
Video:   http://www.hulu.com/watch/177439/peace

ISSUE #7. "Criminal justice and prisons – end private for-profit prisons, adopt evidence-based drug policy, prisoners have the right to humane and just conditions with a focus on rehabilitation and reintegration into society, abolish the death penalty."

Article: Prison for Profit: CCA, GEO et al Put Revenues Ahead of Rehabilitation (g1a2d0018c1)
URL:     http://tinyurl.com/ironboltbruce-prisons
Image:   http://ldrlongdistancerider.com/images/Prison_Industrial_Complex.jpg
Video:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHVu4ZD9XQE

ISSUE #8. "Healthcare – create a national, universal and publicly financed comprehensive health system."

Article: Healthcare in America: Who's Paying Who? And Who's Getting What? (g1a2d0014c1)
URL:     http://tinyurl.com/ironboltbruce-healthcare
Image:   http://ldrlongdistancerider.com/images/Big_Pharma.jpg
Video:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKP_ISD3rvQ

ISSUE #9. "Education – all people have the right to a high quality, publicly-funded and broad education from pre-school through vocational training or university."

Article: Students Drown in Debt as Predatory Lenders Bank Billions (g1a2d0017c1)
URL:     http://tinyurl.com/ironboltbruce-education
Image:   http://ldrlongdistancerider.com/images/Student_Loans_Predatory_Lending.jpg
Video:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpZtX32sKVE

ISSUE #10. "Housing – all people have the right to affordable and safe housing."

Article: HAMP Disaster Shows U.S. Treasury is "Fully Captured by the Big Banks" (g1a2d0021c1)
URL:     http://tinyurl.com/ironboltbruce-housing
Image:   http://ldrlongdistancerider.com/images/Mayer_Amschel_Rothschild.jpg
Video:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXt1cayx0hs

ISSUE #11. "Environment – adopt policies which effectively create a carbon-free and radio-active free energy economy and that respects the rights of nature."

Article: The General Electric Company ("GE"): Misinformation at Work (g1a2d0020c1)
URL:     http://tinyurl.com/ironboltbruce-environment
Image:   http://ldrlongdistancerider.com/images/GE_Misinformation_At_Work.jpg
Video:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf0khstYDLA

ISSUE #12. "Finance and the economy – end policies which foster a wealth divide and move to a localized and democratic financial system, reform taxes so that they are progressive and provide goods, monetary gain and services for the people."

Article: Finance & The Economy: A Kleptocracy Tutorial Video in 12 Parts (g1a2d0008c1)
URL:     http://tinyurl.com/ironboltbruce-finance
Image:   http://ldrlongdistancerider.com/images/Fascism_Socialism_Capitalism_SameBrokenSystem.gif
Video:   http://www.hulu.com/watch/235716/trading-on-thin-air

ISSUE #13. "Media – airwaves and the internet are public goods, require that media be honest, accurate and accountable to the people."

Article: Media: Only Part of What We See is Real, Only Part of What is Real We See (g1a2d0010c1)
URL:     http://tinyurl.com/ironboltbruce-media
Image:   http://ldrlongdistancerider.com/images/Psywar.jpg
Video:   http://www.openfilm.com/videos/psywar

ISSUE #14. "Food and water – create systems that protect the land and water, create local and sustainable food networks and practices."

Article: Mighty Monsanto, King Corn & The End of Family Farms (g1a2d0015c1)
URL:     http://tinyurl.com/ironboltbruce-food
Image:   http://ldrlongdistancerider.com/images/Monsanto.jpg
Video:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH4OwBYDQe8

ISSUE #15. "Transportation – provide affordable, clean and convenient public transportation and safe spaces for pedestrian and non-automobile travel."

Article: Gasholes: Every Oil Shortage/Crisis/War Could Have Been Averted (g1a2d0019c1)
URL:     http://tinyurl.com/ironboltbruce-transportation
Image:   http://ldrlongdistancerider.com/images/Gashole.jpg
Video:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVzJhlvtDms

###

LABELS (A POEM OF PROTEST)

"Democrat", "Republican",
The parties of the system;
Puppets both, for sale their votes,
No character or wisdom.

"Liberal", "Conservative",
For change or status quo?
Pick either one, the change is none,
All charlatans and whores.

Far "Left" we place the Anarchists,
Libertarians claim far "Right";
Yet both decry the government:
False continuum brought to light.

For oil, "We" bomb their mud huts,
Strip them bare, then offer "Aid";
And fake their retribution as
Pretext--a false flag raised.

Unarmed hundred thousands killed
By weapons of "Defense",
While rights are lost for "Freedom" sake--
On profit, all depends.

With stroke of pen, the "Patriot" Act,
And patriots' gifts are taken;
Then "Citizens United" leaves
Our citizens forsaken.

We protest loss of liberties,
Put "World Wide Web" to use;
Cloudmark Authority censors us
For "messaging abuse".

They label us to finger-point,
With labels, "They" deride us;
Their labels keep us all at bay,
For with labels, "They" divide us.

IronBoltBruce

###

PUBLIC NOTICE: No talking heads on Comcast/GE's NBC/CNBC/MSNBC speak for us. No talking heads on Murdoch's Faux News speak for us. No talking heads at the Kleptocracy's Compliant News Network (CNN) speak for us (no matter how dull, deliberate or subtle their delivery). No talking heads in the lamestream media speak for us, period. And neither do ANY of the 537 bought-and-paid-for Kleptocracy puppets in Washington DC who will soon be joining our legions of unemployed!

VIDEO: 'America Is NOT Broke'
"America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and
cash. It's just that it’s not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the
greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks
and the portfolios of the uber-rich ... The only thing that's broke is the
moral compass of the rulers. And we aim to fix that compass and
steer the ship ourselves from now on." – Michael Moore
in Madison, Wisconsin on March 5, 2011

'Madison Is Only the Beginning'
"We're going to do this together. Don't give up." – Moore

'Thunderous Applause'
"... it's unlikely that anyone besides Scott Walker would dispute that the protests
at the Wisconsin state Capitol have energized the labor movement ... What
became clear during raconteur Michael Moore's 30-minute talk this
afternoon is that these events have also radicalized the public, in
ways no one anticipated and those in power should perhaps fear."
– Bill Lueders, Ithmus Daily Page

this is a very moving letter and had a dramatic effect on the people at that rally!
  in cluding making the people aware that 400 people have more wealth than 155 million combined!

please let me know if you are interested thanks!

Amazing. I don't think he has a prayer of winning once this gets out. How could any American support him after this?

More than an expose, Thank You Rick Perry is also a work of alternate history showing how Perry's treason could have led to a shattered Texas. Militias would launch more campaigns of assassination and bombings. Loyal Americans would rise up against secession. Loyal patriots in the state, Mexican-Americans, Blacks, progressives, moderates, and non-treasonous conservatives would struggle to keep much of Texas in the USA, and would break away from Texas to form their own states.

A book for anyone asking the questions, "How could such an extremist as Perry be considered for president?" and "How can anyone claiming to be a loyal American favor secession and treason, and what can true patriots do to stop them?"

     The simple answer to the above questions is of course yes. That is, the answer is yes in the simple sense that the violence, loss, and pain that bin Laden and other “terrorists” have inflicted on the lives of innocent people is heinously cruel and contrary to the supreme ethical axiom of the sacredness of life. So much for the questions above for now, I really just wanted to get them out of the way, I’ll get back to them again later but I’d like to cut now to the chase of a more knotty ethical-philosophical problem.

     Namely, I’d like to think critically about whether it’s morally right-minded to pick out and stand pat with the kind of questions I’ve just posed and answered, the kind of questions many people right now are asking and reducing to simple moralistic answers.

     Huh?! Well, since the assassination of bin Laden many of us have been asking the question Was he, and are those of his terrorist ilk, quite simply and categorically evil? And is it therefore morally justified to harbor hatred for them, and to expediently exterminate them when the opportunity presents, without any compunction and without due process or respect for their human rights? Which is to say that thanks to current events we’ve been provoked to think about the fundamental ethical question of the nature of “evil”, and of how “good” people should respond to it.

     Unfortunately, and predictably, however, many of us seem to be approaching these quite deep questions in a rather superficially and self-righteously selective fashion. What I mean to say is that we’re not really exploring them in a critical and enlightenment-seeking way at all; rather, we’re blatantly begging the question of evil. That is, we’re framing our questions about evil with a black & white reductiveness that turns them into leading questions, leading questions that lead us right to the self-satisfying answers we desire.

     We mechanically ask Was bin Laden evil? with a complacently one-sided simplicity that makes it a foregone conclusion that nice Western middle-class people are the preeminent paragons of moral goodness with the divine right to define our enemies as pure evil. For all sanctimonious intents and purposes we pare down the question of evil to the point that it’s partisan, devoid of complexity, and virtually rhetorical. Indeed, we turn it into a mere shell of the heady, profound, and self-critical question it should be, because the sorry truth be told a great many of us are far more interested in self-validation than sincere philosophical reflection that might knock us off our moral high horse.

     When someone does try to add some philosophical multi-dimensionality to the problem of evil, when one tries to look at it with an approach that isn’t closed-mindedly holier-than-thou, the brickbat of “moral relativism” and the epithet of “situational ethics” start flying. Even worse, he who would inquire into the nature of good & evil too questioningly and thereby threaten to take away his neighbor’s unexamined sense of entitlement to harshly judge his enemies is liable to libeled as a sympathizer with evil.

     Well, I’ll accept these risks and ask again the questions I led with, this time trying to tease out a bit more ethical complexity. Was Osama bin Laden purely evil in the broader context of the evils visited upon the Third World by globalization, aka the West’s modern form of economic, political, and cultural imperialism? Was Osama more evil when he fought the West than when he fought the West’s Cold War foe, the Soviet Union? That is, are we being morally relativistic when we deem him an evil terrorist for violently hating us, and a praiseworthy “freedom fighter” when he directed the same violent xenophobia at the commies? Are bin Laden’s “terrorist” brethren all morally inferior to the men and women in our armed forces who often take part in wars (terrorism on a massive scale) that lack moral justification every bit as much as the attack on 9/11? In other words, is it really righteous of us to be piously black & white in our morality when we judge our enemies, and to make excuses for our own society and its military personnel when it comes to the terror and death we perpetrate? Doesn’t our duplicitous double standard belie our definition of evil?

     Come on here, aren’t the hypocrisy and injustices of the self-proclaimed “good guys” usually more relevant than we’d like to admit to our understanding and assessment of the evil of the “bad guys”? Which is to say, isn’t justice, or the lack thereof, a pivotal moral issue, one that frequently and fundamentally factors into the real-world nature of “evil”? I.e., doesn’t the justice factor in many cases significantly change the face of evil? And doesn’t it often transfigure what at a cursory glance appears to be pure and unilateral evil into a transpersonal bigger picture that we all have a hand in drawing together? Sure, this cosmically composite big picture of evil that we all co-create remains as ugly as ever, but not as clear-cut and not one that depicts us somewhere up on a saintly plane above reproach. By all rights it should force a soul-searching reevaluation of our basic concept of evil, and the convenient way we tend to morally pigeonhole our adversaries.

     No, I’m not saying that there’s only the morally commutual big picture, that there’s no such thing as true evil and personal responsibility. There most certainly is such a thing as evil. What exactly is evil, evil qua evil? Evil is simply one’s choice to reject, and to do something that opposes the creativity, beauty, and sacredness of existence. The view I’m expressing here, then, is not the amoralist view that evil is a mere illusion that doesn’t exist; rather, the view I’m expressing is the critical view that pure evil is a simplistic and smug-making notion that seldom if ever really exists, that no one ever really makes a pure and unmitigated choice to reject and oppose the good.  “No man is an island”, the wrongful choice that individuals make to commit evil, the culpable choice that they make inwardly, in their own hearts and minds, is always shaped by external circumstances of some kind. Whether it’s the home a “bad guy” grew up in, the socioeconomic environment he was born into, the waves of history he finds his life swept up in, or what have you, the choice for evil is never contextless.

     In the case of “terrorists”, the larger, extenuating context they must be viewed in is the imperialism, inequities, and injustice meted out to the disenfranchised masses of the modern world order. From the blighted boroughs of New York to the brutal slums of Bangkok, a sinful imbalance of economic and political clout is leading many onto the path of violence, in one form or another. Whether it’s the domestic imperialism of the corporatocracy directed at the poor of our own inner cities, i.e. the increasingly appalling asymmetry of wealth and power in our own society, and the way it drives young people into criminal gangs and a life of predatory violence; or the neocolonialism and exploitation practiced overseas by the affluent nations, and the way it impels aggrieved campesinos and lumpenproletarians to take up arms and take on the role of guerrillas and terrorists, in either case the poverty and privation, inhumaneness and injustice endemic to the current world system breeds evils.

     The world’s evils are not merely the product of the sick and twisted minds of the likes of Osama bin Laden, they’re underlyingly engendered by a cruel status quo that poisons people’s character and degenerates their humanity – on both ends of the politico-economic food chain. ‘Tis the vicious circle of evil that the greedy behavior of the ruling class debases them into a predacious, parasitic pox upon the house of man, whose underprivileged habitants in turn are infected with a vexation of spirit that can turn them to the dark side. The ranks of al-Qaeda and Hamas are full of average Joes (or Yusefs) whose powerlessness, poverty-strickenness, disgruntlement, and rankling desire to retaliate is the direct result of the depraved indifference that’s been shown for their human worth and dignity by the governmental and plutocratic powers that be.

     Alas, being morally right-minded and righteous does not mean self-servingly glossing over this existential reality, and exclusively and judgmentally focusing on the badness of those whom you fear; it does not mean glibly dismissing the reasons for their actions as mere excuses; and it does not mean denying our assailants the same excuses we so generously give to our own leaders and warriors.

     But, of course, we really do apply an ethically lame double standard. When our elected officials, who are more in service to the leisured fat cats than the laboring little guy, instigate a war that benefits the billionaire boy’s club at the expense of some other country’s “collateral damage”; when our troops, in robotlike fashion, go off to slaughter their fellow humans in a morally unjustifiable, mercenary invasion/occupation, do we hold them to the same unforgiving and stringent standard of personal responsibility? Hardly. We rationalize that soldiers have to follow orders, that they don’t get to pick and choose the wars they fight, and that they have noble intentions, blah, blah, blah. And although we’re a bit more cynical about our politicians nowadays, we still give them some slight benefit of the doubt as to their motives and stop short of condemning them as flat-out evil.

     The way our casuistic moral reasoning works for us really is quite speciously hypocritical indeed. For instance, we don’t wish to give a nanosecond of thought to the twistedly idealistic intentions of a bin Laden, but we maintain that the patriotic motivations of American air force pilots who bomb and incendiarize civilians absolves them of their crimes against life!

     To sum up then, if we honestly believe that those who engage in murder and mayhem in our name, that “our” killers deserve to be handed moral alibis and cop-outs galore, then perhaps on closer and more fair-minded examination we would find that “terrorists”, that “their” killers deserve similar moral alibis, that “terrorism” is by no means pure evil.

     In truth, although it might be hard-to-swallow truth, terrorists are merely bringing back to us some of the pain we’ve wantonly wreaked on the Third World, merely bringing the fight for freedom from Western greed and exploitation home to us. And, if we don’t consider the pilots of the Enola Gay to be fiendish evildoers for bringing the war home to Japan, incinerating and irradiating thousands of innocent children by dropping A-bombs on them, that is; if we don’t regard the RAF and U.S. pilots who carpet bombed Dresden to be vile villains, etc., well, then “terrorists” have a right to the same easygoing verdict of not guilty, not guilty of being evil.

     In their minds they too are fighting a just war, a war of self-defense. And no, they are not the least bit delusional about this. In the era of colonialism we, the wicked WASPs of the West, mighty and manifestly-destined whitey, openly dominated the populations of the LDCs (less developed countries), and today we continue to do so on the down-low. They, the “terrorists” do not simply do bad things because of their senseless and sinister inner badness, they have plenty of real provocation, if not justification.

     Sure, some “terrorists” are out-and-out fanatics, but this doesn’t alter the fact that our bloodsucking corporate elite has incurred their wrath for us. When our minds reflect upon the evil of terrorism we need to include the globalizing upper crust of our own society in the equation. Being intellectually honest and moral people mandates this.

     No doubt life would be easier and feel more cozily safe if the people of the Third World were all Uncle Toms, but they do have the moral right to be Nat Turners. When the rebellious slave Nat Turner rose up and killed whites who had been treating his people like animals, he was not evil incarnate, he was viewed as a terrifying evil incarnate by overseers, but he was just a human being pushed beyond the limits of decency. Likewise, so-called “terrorists” are merely the afflicted and abused fellaheen and peons under the boot heel of First World hegemony, lethally lashing out at the source of their grievances. I don’t endorse or advocate their use of homicidal violence, but neither can I dismiss it as unreasonable and pure evil.

     What of evil then? Evil is an aspect of life, after all, and life, to borrow an analogy from quantum physics, comes not merely in individual particles but in waves as well (it depends on the perception of the observer – you might call this moral complementarity). Of course we all know that evil pops up in the behavior of individuals, but it’s also diffused throughout the waves of life and history, not isolatedly concentrated in the criminals and terrorists we love to hate. The upshot is that ethically speaking there are no lone gunmen in the universe. No, the evildoing of malevolent miscreants such as Osama bin Laden does not cut them off from humanity; rather, it’s inseparable from the history we’ve all helped to create. Being a person of moral integrity means owning up to this, not merely damning bin Laden and his type to hell as absolute evil.

For over a half century I voted for Democrats within every general election and failed to vote in very few Democratic Primary elections.  I voted for and had high expectations from Obama.

After almost two years of Obama’s failing to hold to his own stated positions, In 2010 I lost all hope.  Obama silently witnessed Democrats’ declining to debate income taxes on the floors of the U.S. Congress before the 2010 elections.  Last year I voted for the Green Party rather than for the Democratic Congressman.

I’m generally in agreement with almost everything Obama first proposes but he consistently fails to retain his own positions.  The Republican Party is able to depend upon Obama retreating to what he believes to be an expedient position.  He generally flees to a less advantageous and never to strategically improved positions.  Cheap card tables are less consistent than Obama; they sometimes remain erect when they’re nudged.

I did not vote for Democrats in 2010; I will not vote for Democrats in 2011; it’s not likely that I’ll vote for Democrats in 2012.  The Democratic Party may never again justify my voting for them within my remaining years.

Respectfully, Supposn