Ukraine

Man – freed from the traditional bonds… afraid of the new freedom which transformed him into an isolated atom – escaped into (a state) of which nationalism and racism are the two most evident expressions… Along with the progressive development… went the development of the negative aspects of both principles: the worship of the state, blended with the idolatry of the race or nation. Fascism, Nazism and Stalinism are the most drastic manifestations of this blend of state and clan worship, both principles embodied in the figure of a “Fuehrer”.

Nationalism is our … idolatry, our insanity. “Patriotism” is its cult. It should
hardly be necessary to say, that by “patriotism” I mean that attitude which puts the own nation above humanity, above the principles of truth and justice; not the loving interest in one’s own nation…
(Erich Fromm wrote “The Sane Society” in 1955)

Drug, alcohol treatment vital in solving problem

Health Happenings

Alamogordo Daily News
By Ken Nicholson,  For the Daily News

In spite of the nationwide prohibition of street drugs, New Mexico and Otero County, as well as the rest of the United States, has a persistently growing drug problem with increasing numbers of younger students using drugs and alcohol.

With that is the typically disastrous results of addiction, incarceration, unintended pregnancies, failing grades and school drop-outs. While education and law enforcement are making strides in stopping the illegal drug trade while educating our youth about the consequences of drug use, drug and alcohol use continues to be a devastating problem, suggesting once again that peer-pressure can be a stronger force than education. Read On…

Bob Dylan  sang, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing.”

America’s corporations and business interests have Americans “by the balls.” George  Carlin says the people that run this country want nothing more than “obedient workers” and now they want our social security money and retirement. “It’s a big club and you and I aren’t in it,” says Carlin.

“There’s a reason education sucks and will never, ever, ever be fixed. Never get any better. Read On…

One of the tenants of capitalism is that the free market will regulate prices for a commodity. I personally don’t think that health should be a commodity, but some do, maybe even yourself.

If consumers get together in the “free market” and decide to start a health insurance cooperative and influence the price of health to the consumers’ advantage by initiating a new payment system, isn’t that capitalism in action?

And if health consumers decide that it would be to their advantage to enlist the aid of government in getting this new payment system in place and making it the law of the land, shouldn’t that be ok and within the functions of capitalism.

This is, by the way what the corporate health insurance lobby did when they wanted government help in deregulating their business.  Shouldn’t we be able to do this too? Please excuse my ignorance, but shouldn’t we be allowed to implement a health care payment system that is to our advantage?

Nicolaus Copernicus (19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was the first astronomer to formulate a comprehensive heliocentric cosmology, which displaced the Earth from the center of the universe. His epochal book, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres), published in 1543 just before he died, is often regarded as the starting point of modern astronomy and the defining epiphany that began the Scientific Revolution. His heliocentric model, with the sun at the center of the universe, demonstrated that the observed motions of celestial objects can be explained without putting the Earth at rest in the center of the universe. His work stimulated further scientific investigations, becoming a landmark in the history of modern science that is now often referred to as the Copernican Revolution.

Wikipedia

What I would like to suggest is that it is time, in Christianity, for a kind of Copernican Revolution that, curiously enough, brings us closer to the spirituality of Jesus. Read On…

Ellen DeGeneres Speaks at Tulane University

Published on Wednesday, December 17, 2008 by CommonDreams.org

Alexander Hamilton’s Advice To The Obama Administration

by Thom Hartmann

This is what we need to get back to. This also circumvents the socialism issue, about which no one here seems to have a clue.

Alexander Hamilton, in 1791, proposed to the United States our first true industrial policy. We adopted it over the next few years, Abraham Lincoln reaffirmed it fourscore years later, and it was again affirmed by every President of the United States until Reagan began his now-28-year “Reagan Revolution” which has disassembled America’s industrial base and impoverished our nation. For over 200 years, Hamilton’s policy made America the most powerful industrial nation in the world; now – after just 28 years of Reagonomics and Clinton/Rubinomics – we are the largest importer of other people’s industry, and the most indebted nation in the world.
Read On…