Bear Sterns, Vice Pres, Obama…

BEAR STERNS EXCE’s…

How many of these stories about insiders ripping off investors are we going to hear and bear? No pun intended but at the end of the day tax payers end up having to pay for it…that’s what really gets me. These guys always end up walking away with millions and leaving poor everyday people (tax payers) to bear the burden of their misdeeds while they always get to keep most of the money that they stole while perpetrating crimes.

Oh, sure we could say, “shame on you”…but they’ve heard that already. Or we could say, “Let’s make ’em sign a pact to stop lying, cheating and stealing, and never do it again.” But didn’t we do that too?

You do remember that don’t you…Bush organized it and issued the code of ethics that all the executives were suppose to sign. But then let’s face it…would you cease to be a fraud, liar, thief and a cheat if George Bush gave you a document like that? Even Bush himself probably had his eyes closed with his fingers crossed behind his back as he put his signature on the document putting that supposed code into affect. And you know what…we haven’t heard anything about it since. And that all happened the first or second year after Bush stole, lied and cheated his way into the Oval Office.

But let me go to Martha Steward…how is it that she was ushered so quickly into prison when these Bear Stern exec’s (that they caught with their hands in the cookie jar…lying to investors while cashing in on their side of the table aiding in destabilizing the countries housing market). Just how did these two Bear Sterns exec’s manage to go off on vacation and spend millions in stolen hard cold cash while partying? What happened to freezing assets and not allowing crooks to put a hand on anything before their day in front of the judge?

Talk about some double standards…and the same thing with those Enron guys. It was the exact same scenario…and look how perfectly timed that was. The big Enron chief died before the trial and the jurors could be seated. How perfectly timed that was…couldn’t have happened by accident. And poor Martha they couldn’t rush her off to prison quick enough. In fact, it happened so fast it’s a wonder Martha didn’t get whip-flash.

Integrity and honor were something applauded and celebrated years ago. But today you can barely find them…either of them. Lying and cheating have become part of today’s culture. It is not just in the corporate world or Wall Street…it is in government, the court house, the school yard, college campuses, homes, churches…relationships, marriages, operating rooms, hospitals…television, news, internet…everywhere. And some of the places where lying, cheating, stealing, abusing etc. dominate the most are some of the most shocking.

VICE PRES…HILLARY????

Noooo, not Hillary. I could care less what Hillary wants. She does not even deserve a consideration. Anybody who would single-handedly try to railroad any political party in this country to forcefully submit to their will…their demands…their-their…(SIGH) can’t think of anything else…but she should not be lauded or applauded and touted as some type of national hero…or should I say she-ro.

All along the campaign during the Democratic Primary, Hillary refused to play fairly…even down to the end. Had not the Political New York Heavy Weights gone after her and forced her to surrender, submit, give-in etc…etc…she would have gone before Judge Judy seeking out recourse and some type of resolution in the courts…of which she may still try to do as she merely suspended her campaign as she voiced. This, of course, had been a consideration of hers all along the campaign trail that even those close to her were disclosing all over media if Hillary failed to get the nod from Party. And they were all very clearly angry (Hillary’s people) and did not mind trying to get people to cross over and cast their votes for McCain in light of Hillary not becoming the nominee of the Democratic Party Presidential Election 2008.

Shame on Hillary for causing such discourse by trying to motion women and poor middle class Whites to cross over to the other side and vote for McCain. And she wants to purposely break Obama’s bank roll by having his people pay off her campaign debts which she so unabashedly, shamelessly and recklessly continuously kept pouring into her sinking ship of a campaign knowing that she would be looking to hit up Obama for the reimbursement. And we thought Nixon was tricky. He could have taken some lessons from Bill and Hillary.

If Obama were to choose Hillary as VP, and he won’t, but if he were to do so…he really wouldn’t be able to sleep. Talking about having to keep one eye open and a finger on a trigger…and I don’t even believe in guns. But if Obama got a phone call in the middle of the night it wouldn’t be about how he would handle the situation or the crisis. No, that would be the least of his worries…he would first have to be careful to stay away from all the windows…and remember to keep low because Hillary could be out in bushes.

I know Hillary is dangerous.

There is this saying about a woman scorned…maybe you know it.

If Obama chose Hillary…well, let’s just say it this way…the brother would have to start packing. Let’s face it…she has put out the code word and everything else against Obama. And all this, mind you, while she wasn’t even VP but just another person in the race.  Imagine just how much more dangerous Hillary Clinton would be to Obama if she were his VP.

OBAMA ON FATHERS…

Finally got a chance to hear the speech which Obama gave at a church in Chicago on Father’s Day.

Personally, as always Obama gave a great message…and that is what it was. He was invited to speak at a church on Father’s Day. So, what else would he have talked about? And it was a Black church…so, why wouldn’t he talk to them about Black Men stepping up and being responsible.

But clearly anyone hearing that speech by Obama could apply it across the board to men in almost all the various groups. Many men today totally disregard their responsibilities…whether it be inside or outside of marriage. What better day to have such a dialog than on Father’s Day. And Obama is destined to become one of the great fathers of this country.  So, who better than to take the time on Father’s Day to give it…in this day where we need leadership to step up to the plate and lead not only in words but by example.

It is unfortunate, however, that every time Obama speaks he is going to have to be dissected not only by White folks but by Black folks as well…believing that everything he says is politically motivated or that he has some kind of special agenda.

Enemy Combatants…

Labeling is everything…and the Bush Administration knows how to get around everything simply by refusing to call things what they are or as they are. This might just be a little something that the Bush Administration, however, picked up from the Clinton Administration when Clinton refused to called the Rwanda Genocide a genocide until some 100 days after it had begun and came to an end, in 1994.

Bush has been such a good student in learning how to not play the call it what it really is game…you can actually see how well it works by his phrasing of our current economic depression as a mere “Slow Down”…not a recession but just a little ol’ slow down.

So, Bush has applied the same little trick to how the US has classified various prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. By classifying prisoners as detainees rather than as enemy combatants has allowed the US Government to squirm around and not have to adhere to any of the codes of ethics or of conduct instituted by the Geneva Convention in regards to treatment of prisoners, the interrogation of enemy combatants etc. These little games, however, and that is what they are…games…fool no one…foolish…and are fools play.

The tarnishing of America’s image is something in which the Bush folks have not spent one night losing any sleep over. It is truly a very sad commentary on the legacy of any so-called President of the United States. However, to put at the jeopardy thousands of innocent enlisted men and women lives who risk being captured, tortured and/or killed every day in places where dismay and mayhem was perpetrated by this country under the Bush Administration is incomprehensible. And to heighten the likability of them being tortured and butchered because our government, the US government, refuses to play by the rules and adhere to the Geneva Convention is a grave mistake.

In every discourse, someone has to take the high road…and it will never be this country under the rule of Cheney and Bush.

Really, at the end of the day what would it hurt to allow detainees in Guantanamo Bay to have their day in court? Not unless this government has scooped up a bunch of people who really knew nothing and have had nothing to do with terrorism…just people used to make it look good by having large numbers imprisoned to aid somehow in the appearance of the Bush group seemingly looking good and as being effective in its war on terrorism. Truthfully, do not put this pass them.

That would be an outrage wouldn’t it…to find out there may be a bunch innocent people grabbed up and carted off to Guantanamo Bay for years and detained there with no kind of recourse or time table…or possible no way out. To allow anyone out who has been detained falsely under the Bush Administration would certainly guaranteed the possibility of future problems for the USA…as some of those detainees (who may have been falsely imprisoned) are bond to come out very bitter and harboring great hatred and resentment towards America now even if they may not have before.

What a mess the Bush Administration has gotten us into…and so foolishly.

TOMATOES…

I haven’t gotten over the spinach thang to tell you the truth. It is not that I have been eating spinach all that long. I really started about, I don’t know, maybe some 20 years ago…and I won’t tell you how old I am but that is far less than half of my age. But once I started eating spinach, mostly in salad…can’t really stand it cooked…I kind of grew to like it. And wouldn’t you know it…once I finally started eating my spinach it comes up being tainted…and I haven’t touched it since.

Now, tomatoes have hit the list. One good thing about tomatoes…you can always grow your own…cheaper that way too. And it doesn’t take a lot to grow them or to get them to grow. Funny the home grown tomatoes actually taste better anyway. And if you never noticed…and I hate to tell you this…I never noticed it either until somebody pointed it out to me…today when tomatoes rot they start rotting from the inside out. That never was…well, back in the day. (for some reason while writing this blog I’m beginning to feel old…real old)

All the un-natural techniques of growing fruits and vegetables today, as well as, pumping up everything…cattle…and those poor chicken. I really feel sorry for them. I can’t imagine being shut-up in a dark sealed off in a place where they are feigning night 24 hours, all day and night, to continuously have me producing eggs…ughhhh! It just doesn’t sound right. And the size of some chickens today can rival the size of a small turkey. (can’t get away from that word ‘today’ for some reason)

Salmonella is all over the place…tomatoes, spinach, chicken, hamburgers etc…etc… And if that doesn’t get ya’ there is Mad Cow disease, Bird Flu, Foot and Mouth disease and who knows what else…they never tell us everything until it is upon us and at least twenty or more have come down with it. I remember sitting at home in New York afraid to go out because the city would out all night busy spraying mosquito’s.

If you have noticed nothing tastes the same as it did years ago. Sometimes you just want to shout enough is enough…these scientist have just gone too far. Whenever I look at steak I never know if I’m eating one of poor ol’ Dolly’s off-springs…that could account for why most meats taste old and lack the favor of foods from yesterday. At lease those in Africa were wise enough to say no to bio-generated foods. Who would want it? That’s is how they got into trouble with AIDS. Nobody talks about it…but do you remember that ship they used to call the Good Ship Hope that used to carry thousands upon thousands of bags of blood to Africa.

Nobody of course talks about it…but that ship did used to exist and they even used to run commercials about it and their great humanitarian deeds. Nobody calls that ship’s name now…not since Africa suffers so heavily from HIV and AIDS. So, of course, the Good Ship Hope’s name has not been brought up, especially not since it has been discovered that blood is the number one means of transmitting AIDS.

But going back to the foods that we eat it is little wonder people are suffering from all kinds of nerve and other disorders…it’s all the chemicals in our water and our food. Everything is shot up with this or that. Yes, larger is better in some things but not in all things. And not matter how you try to get away from it…it really doesn’t matter who plants what or where…because chemicals are everywhere…in all our water, in the soil…everywhere…even in the air we breathe.
We have truly messed up this planet…little wonder Mother Nature is striking back. (I don’t actually believe in Mother Nature…but I do believe in God and retribution)

GAS PRICES…

No matter how much we try not to acknowledge it this gas thing could get a lot worst. Based upon the prices that other countries pay we have really had it easy, and that really goes for everything…just talk to some foreigners. But who cares about other countries…we live in America!

Greed being what it is…it was just a matter of time before our prices started to catch up with the rest of the world. We, Americans, after all, have had the most disposable income in the world for a very long time…and for the most part our government has held back the super dogs from ripping every penny out of our little ol’ hands. But today our government is in bed with many those super dogs and just doesn’t mind passing legislation to help them, themselves and their friends to get richer.

A lot of things have changed since the influx of the Bush Administration into the White House. When you consider how rapidly under Bush the gas prices have blown-up…it is not just Exxon or Sunoco who should be called in to chat with the Senate and be investigated…but Bush and his gang too.

It is not a secret how closely tied Bush is to the companies making all these stellar millions while we have all have had to tighten our belts and go without. Think about it…when Bush went into the White House where were the gas prices…maybe at what…a $1.39/gal for regular gasoline…think about where it is now? Just how did that happened and so rapidly?

Nothing can happen as fast as our gas prices skyrocketing without some inside help. For one thing by going in and invading Iraq, Bush more than orchestrated this. At the very on-set when Bush started talking about invading Iraq most people here in America and elsewhere saw the invasion for what it really was…that it was all about oil. Not quite in the way as we all thought though. It was about the stifling of the oil market by disrupting the oil output coming out of Iraq thereby causing the oil world to go bonkers…and push up prices by destabilizing the Middle East even further and the OPEC Moguls.

If you think for a moment that they, Bush/Cheney and everybody around them didn’t have stocks in Sunoco, Exxon, Mobil, Texaco etc. and everything else having to do with basic home utility services and fuels…then you are living in the Dark Ages. They are all making out like a bunch of bandits drinking pina coladas waving a finger in the air with a hand on their hip dancing around the glow of the ol’ camp fire while singing songs and occasionally taking breaks to punch up their accounts on their Blackberries to see just how much more their fuel investments have grown within the last 15 minutes.

When you can manipulate the market…you can also help yourself to lots of the benefits and rewards of doing so. And as President of this country George Bush and Dick Cheney have been able to do pretty much anything and everything they have wanted to do including torturing prisoners which is clearly against International Law, eavesdrop and spy on American citizens etc. They launched a pre-empted strike on the Iraqi people, instituted wire tapping, torture and the Patriot Act which in essence gave Bush and his crew carte blanche as to whatever they wanted to do almost without limits as long as they framed under the guise of being in the best interest of National Security.

When you consider the gas shortage of the 70’s…it paled in terms of the prices we see at the gas pumps today at prices well of over $4.20. When the gas shortage of the 70’s was over it was finally disclosed to the American public that there really hadn’t been a gas shortage…because the government had never come close to having touched our own gas reserves…this mind you after a very tremulous period in American history where people were being killed at gas pumps fighting over gasoline…and then there was the gasoline rationing instituted by the government where depending upon the last number on your license plate you could or could not buy gas only to find out that we had not really been in a gas shortage after all.

Our government from time to time has been cruel without measure or reason…what was the purpose of having done that?  Money.  Then like today.

Bush having gone into Iraq and disrupted the oil supply by bombing everything was a very good way of ensuring a certain desirable outcome…like escalating gasoline prices. Before going into Iraq the outcome undoubtedly had to been weighed and the consequences probably had been of great consideration by the Bush Administration. So, the only logic for making such a decision could have only been if the benefit of obliterating Iraq outweighed the consequences of not invading Iraq.

There is this saying that the rich only want to get richer.

Surely, all that effort was not solely for the removal of one man and his two sons. There had to be something more to the invasion of Iraq. And we all know it was never about weapons of mass destruction.

Here is what it was…the idea was to make the rich richer…and if anybody among that group wasn’t rich prior to the bombing of Iraq…they quickly pulled together some money from somewhere, invested it in Sunoco and anything else that had to do with fuel, oil, utilities etc…and have made a bundle. And they are still making bundles of money on the Iraqi War while it is costing us over a billion dollars per day. And as if financial cost were not enough…consider the innocent lives on both sides. And here we are in America fighting to keep our heads above the water as the prices for everything shoot up due the inflated costs of oil and gasoline.

Now, Bush is calling to end the band on off-shore drilling as a means to decrease the rising cost of fuel from abroad. He says that now that gas prices are climbing over $4…”…it is now time to end the bands.”

Well, who caused the increase in the first place?

Now, Bush wants to turn it around? What in the eleventh hour? Yeah…and at what costs? And to whose benefit?

They’re in the oil business, folks. The Bush’s are oil barons. George Bush and the Republicans got us into this mess and he is not in business of turning anything around…but more money.
When was the first time you got into your vehicle and had to decide upon what errands you could afford to run that day…and what you could do along this or that route while carrying out some other errand?

It is called bundling…and you’re doing it…and I am doing it. This is something we never really had to think about before. But when you consider that nearly $4.50 gives you what you used spend $1.05 at the pump a few years ago…bundling is the only way to go.

My mother used to take us in the car and drive us through the countryside on beautiful summer days stopping by fruit and vegetable stands along the way. And many times we would find ourselves out on the Connecticut shoreline taking in the sun and racing through the rushing ocean waters lapping at the beach sands. But who can afford it today at the prices we pay at the gasoline pumps at today’s prices. To get in your car and go anywhere is like going on vacation now…we have ended up paying $100 to $300 or more a week just to get around town.
Think about it…putting $5 worth of gas into your tank today is just a little above putting in a dollar’s worth yesterday…I mean years ago. I understand that we live under the domain of inflation but something seriously wrong with this picture.

Perhaps we can’t say it all started after George Bush got into the White House…but these soaring runaway prices have. And the funny part about it is…everywhere he goes he rides for free.

REALITY CHECK…

Did you know that prior to George Bush presidents were paid only $200,000 a year. That was up until Bush stole his way into the White House. After Bush took over the country the presidential pay shot up (just like our gas prices but faster) to $400,000 a year.

To think we pay Bush double the amount of money Clinton was paid during his 8 years in the White House is mind bobbling. Talking about an over paid executive.

That’s not all…we not only pay him all that money but with every bite he takes, every piece of toilet paper or tissue he sneezes into we pay for it. So, to think that Bush is the one responsible for our fuel shock at the gas pumps, our food shock in the grocery stores, and our shock over prices in department stores and pharmacies etc. around the country is…is…is…(you fill in the blank…I can’t think of anything right now because many people are hurting…and really hurting from what this man and his administration has done). And it is a shame.

Thank God a new day is just ahead. Change is in the atmosphere.

THE MORTGAGE CRISIS…

When I read the newspaper and see all the foreclosures, forget about around the country, but right here! Right here where I live…it is hard not to feel for our fellow Americans who are faced with foreclosure, high education costs, runaway medical expenses etc…it is hard not to feel some level of empathy…and even more so if you have to go through some of this yourself.
Foreclosure is no joke. You do not go to bed and sleep…because you never know what you are going to wake up to in the morning. The fear our home being sold over her head is quite frightening. So, I have come to remember to pray for everyone going through this process.

I also had to go through most of my winter, last year, without heat or hot water…that too taught me how to pray for others going through that…for those without a home or roof over their head. I can’t imagine it…but I do know that it has to be a grievous state to be in.

It is funny if you don’t have to go through some of these things yourself you will never know just how much others have to contend with…and just how disconcerting it all can be.

But thank God we serve a mighty God who is true to His word. He will never forsake you…and it is true that the righteous never ever have to beg for bread. So, if you are going through something be encouraged. I’m thinking about you and praying for you. Remember it is only a test…you will come through like pure gold.

It is funny as I now more than ever thank God for all that He has done for me…and is doing. And my appreciation for the simpler things in life has grown…as they give me my greatest pleasures. Sometimes I can just sit and look up at the sky for great periods of time and just marvel at the goodness of God. And I am constantly thanking God every time I get into the shower for the hot water and the warmth in the house…and how He straightened out our mortgage situation.
He is good…and good all the time. God Bless…  ©2008

 

1 comment June 23, 2008