Living Free

Did Mitt Romney launder money for "Latin American" investors?

2012-01-12T11:06:00.003-05:00

Missing the forest for the trees (or counting cavities in the gifthorse's mouth.) How many have actually seen the "When Mitt Romney Came toTown" video? http://www.webcasts.com/kingofbain/

Newt, the messenger may be extremely flawed to the extreme, butthe message is "spot on." It is brilliant and to the point. Romneywas a corporate raider of the worst ilk. Did you know that Bain Capital wasfinanced by unidentified Latin American investors? I didn't. Did you knowRomney's wealth is mostly parked off-shore in foreign accounts? I didn't. Thosefacts are off-handedly cited in the video which concentrates on the horrorsinflicted by Romney and Bain Capital that impoverished men, women and childrenwho were paying their dues to the American dream. No wonder Mitt won't releasehis income tax returns.

Did you appreciate that Romney and his friends drained 180 millionfrom a company and drove it into bankruptcy when maybe looting it for only 90million might have allowed it to survive? Maybe I should have known it, butdidn't.

And how many of the personal stories of middle class workersimpoverished by Bain Capital did you know? A couple maybe. But to paraphraseStalin (ugh) about his atrocities: the loss of one job is a tragedy; the lossof a million is a statistic. The video tells the story of several US workerswho had paid their dues but were nonetheless impoverished by Bain capital predatorypractices.

Incidentally, one of the companies plundered by Bain is in Indiana where a right towork law is now being considered.

Bottom line: don’t get angry at Newt or weep for Mitt. Watch thevideo! This may be the video that saves America (if not the RepublicanParty) from Romney. Perhaps it should also be required watching for theEvangelical leaders meeting in Texasthis weekend.

Perhaps Mormons are Christians, but Mitt Romney certainly doesn’tact like one. The Gospel of St. Matthew relates the parable of the LastJudgment where the only measure of our love of God is how we treat the leastamong us. Fear that judgment Mitt. Fear now.

THE SHROUD OF TURIN, THE RESURRECTION AND JOE KENNEDY

2011-06-27T10:41:00.007-04:00

THE SHROUD OF TURIN, THE RESURRECTION AND JOE KENNEDY

By John C. Klotz

"In 1929 I sold short,
In England I'm presented at court,
But you've got me down hearted,
'Cause I can't get started with you"
"I can’t Get started"
Duke/Gershwin 1936

This piece is written with a sense of irony; tongue in cheek but with a deadly serious intent. For the last 60 years or so controversy has swirled about the Shroud of Turin, the reputed burial shroud of Jesus Christ,

In 1988, carbon dating tests on a corner of it reportedly established that it was a medieval fake. However, in peer reviewed science journal articles since that time, the validity of that conclusion has been pretty much demolished. Among other things, the tiny corner of the Shroud which was taken for tests was atypical of the Shroud fabric and contained threads, some of them cotton, added by a repair using medieval invisible weaving techniques.

But before getting to the evidence of the Shroud’s authenticity, let me explain what relevance Ira Gershwin and Joe Kennedy have to this discussion. The issue is circumstantial evidence. On the basis of two circumstances in the first two lines of the verse quoted above, it is established beyond doubt that Ira Gershwin was twitting Joseph Kennedy, the father of President John F. Kennedy in the song.

Joe Kennedy was famous for having sold short before the stock market 1929 crash, it was one of the sources of his great wealth. Selling short means that in the month prior to the crash he agreed to sell a large number of shares at prices at the then going rate at a future date. It was a bet that the market would go down. I imagine there were other short sellers although the only notorious one was Joe Kennedy. On that fact alone, you might conclude that the verse was about Joe Kennedy,

But there is second fact in the verse. “In England I’m presented at court.” They may have been other less celebrated short sellers in the fall of 1929, but I will make a safe bet that none of them were ever presented at court in England. Kennedy was. After a stint as chairman of the fledging Securities Exchange Commission, President Roosevelt appointed Kennedy as Ambassador to the Court of St. James, the English court.

Only two facts, but if it was a “money or your life bet,” you’d be pretty safe betting that Joe Kennedy was the subject of Gershwin’s verse.

Now let’s turn to the Shroud of Turin. What circumstances lead me to believe that the case is closed and the Shroud is the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth and quite probably proof of his resurrection. In this case, there are not two circumstances to draw a straight line, but hundreds.

A note on sources. Without footnoting every detail, I am using two primary sources which in turn are an abundant source of additional sources. One is http://shroud.com whose editor and founder is Barrie Schwortz. Barrie is a Jewish photographic expert who signed on as a photographer for a group examining the Shroud in 1978. Starting from an attitude of complete skepticism about the Shroud, and expecting to make quick work of debunking its authenticity, like many experts before and since, Barrie was astounded by what he saw and photographed, and over a period of eighteen years, moved from skeptic to a believer in the challenged antiquity of the cloth.

Another source is Dan Porter’s Shroud Story. http://www.shroudstory.com/book/BookChapterPage1.htm It is a work in progress But it covers the whole breadth of Shroud issues with hyperlinks in for each issue.

The best proof of the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin is the Shroud itself. There are not dozens of physical facts about the shroud that demonstrate its authenticity, but hundreds. In sum, the Shroud is the burial cloth of a man who was crucified after receiving a merciless beating. There are many wounds that were inflicted by the beating, and they are consistent with the whips used by the Romans at the time of Christ. In addition there are other wounds consistent with a “crown” of thorns being pressed into his head. There is a wound in the side of chest consistent with the account of his side being pierced by a lance at the scene of the crucifixion. There are wounds consistent with nails having been driven through his wrists. This is only a very abbreviated partial list of coincidences between the image on the Shroud and the Gospel accounts of the crucifixion.

I am particularly intrigued by the fact that the nail holes were in the wrist. The skeptics claim that the Shroud is a medieval fake. However, until modern times’ all the known paintings of the crucifixion showed Christ hanging on the Cross with nails driven through the palms of his hands.

I attended Christian Brothers Academy in Syracuse New York from 1950 to 1954. There were four years of religion classes. I can’t remember in which year it occurred, but I do remember one of my teachers noting that all the paintings of the crucifixion were erroneous because they showed nails driven through the palm of the hand and that was an impossibility because the palm lacked the substance to support the weight of the crucified body. It may have been a surprise to some that the nails were driven into the crucified man’s wrists, but to me it was an old story. And because the artistic tradition is so at odds with wrist nails, it is a compelling circumstance indicating that the image on the Shroud long pre-dated medieval times. Pollen and limestone dust indicate a Jerusalem origin for the Shroud. Then too, there are blood stains and other indicia of secretions that are compatible with what would be expected of a shroud that covered the body of a recently tortured and executed man.

But the stains are not the image on the Shroud which remains inexplicable. A History Channel special: “The Real Face of Jesus” explored among other things the question of what produced the image while using the image to create a face of Jesus, the crucified man. It’s speculation as to what created the image is off-the-chart, concluding that it was essentially created by some scanning process.

The image, the stains, and other physical evidence contained in and on the Shroud when compared to Gospel accounts circumstantially prove that the Shroud of Turin was in fact the burial shroud of Jesus of Nazareth. It is a reasonable supposition that solving the problem of the creation of the image will lead to another conclusion: that it is proof of the Resurrection.

For nearly two thousand years the Shroud has been among us, in one place or another. The proofs of its authenticity through science could not have been made until advances in science in the last two or three decades.

I do not believe in the supernatural. I do believe in an eternal self-consciousness of all existence that is by my definition both natural and God. What we call supernatural is simply what we, with our limited knowledge, can not explain.

For those two millennia the Shroud has been among us, waiting perhaps for our human knowledge and science to unlock its truths. I believe that science has now allowed us to prove its authenticity. If I can demonstrate from two lines in verse by Ira Gershwin that he was referencing Joe Kennedy, given the scores if not hundreds of coincidence between the Shroud and the Gospels, there ought to be no real doubt about the authenticity of the Shroud. Only one other artifact comes close to matching the uniqueness of the Shroud and that is the face cloth which covered Christ’s face which is now in Oviedo, Spain. Its blood stains match those of the Shroud and the two cloths are both mentioned in the Gospel.

Science has emerged in our times as both Christ and Anti-Christ. It has unleashed unprecedented destructive power and while one branch seeks to preserve the environment, other, better financed branches, cooperate in promoting the industries that destroy it. If we are to avoid – or win – the environmental Armageddon that now engulfs us, science will have to lead the way.

But in the authentication of the Shroud, and in the efforts to decipher the process by which the image was created, science is doing something more. It is bringing new meaning and new vitality to the Christian message.

At Mass, Catholics sometimes chant:

Christ has died,
Christ is risen,
Christ will come again.

Perhaps when the mystery of the Shroud image is decoded, we shall chant:

“Christ has come again.”

Copyright John C. Klotz, NY, NY 2011

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Health care and the Mark of Cain

2009-08-20T07:40:00.004-04:00

A blogger who criticized Obama quoting Cain about being my brother's keeper,. because Cain was being sarcastic, misses the fundamental point, for a debating point.The story of Cain slaying Abel is in the very first book of the Bile, Genesis, which even St. Augustine read as allegory.

The fact is, that other than eating the forbidden fruit, the story of Cain and Abel is the story of the first crime: murder.

Cain's question may have been defiant: "Am I my brother's keeper?" but it was the first step in scripture towards what many regard as the universal law of morality: To treat other as we would be treated as ourselves, which is in turn corollary of a deeper command: to love our neighbor as ourselves.

In the New Testament, Mathews telling of the "parable" of the Last Judgment is a lecture on what loving your neighbor really means. We demonstrate our love by what we do to the neediest of our fellow human beings. Among other things: "I was sick and you visited me."

The inanity of some fundamentalists who insist that world is only 6,000 years old, and the excesses of religious authoritarians have turned many off to the message of the scriptures, but I can not understand how the self-styled Christians on the Right can so blithely ignore the commandment of love upon which "all the law and prophets" depend. Or as Rabbi Hillel said a generation earlier than Christ: All the rest is commentary.

To those who so mindlessly echo the right wing attack themes, and so easily turn their backs on the stricken among us, and who so openly flaunt their Christianity: be afraid not of Obama, but of the judgment of your God. Be very afraid.

Winter Rules and Lies

2009-08-11T07:37:00.001-04:00

In golf, amateur hackers (such as myself) will often play by winter rules: that means if your ball is lying in a really bad spot you can correct its location to make for an easier shot. The theory is that it’s winter and the course is in bad shape. Of course, sometimes you play winter rules in mid-July.

Two events in the news bring this to mind. One is the intention of the golf grand Pooh-Bahs to punish Tiger Woods because he objected to a functionary hurrying play in his latest tournament so that his opponent who had a one stroke lead rushed into a triple bogie (3 over par) on the sixteenth hole allowing Woods to catch-up and take the lead.

That Tiger objected to his opponent being rushed was a generous display of sportsmanship that is all too rare these days. Forget all his great wins and remarkable record, in my book it is his finest moment because this fierce competitor revealed his respect for his fellow competitors and a refusal to gloat over what he regarded as a tarnished victory.

Would that the participants in the current debate on health care showed some of the same class. Unfortunately we are witnessing a hard truth that we have yet to cope with: that there is a determined right wing in this countrty that is always playing winter rules and lacks a sense of sportsmanship that is a hallmark as politics at its best.

Compare if you will the Clinton, G.W. Bush Administrations and the first seven months of the Obama Administration. The Clinton Administration was hobbled from its outset by a series of investigations and outlandish charges, including that Bill and Hillary murdered one of their closest friend, Vince Foster. The culmination was the Lewinsky affair which paralyzed the Clinton administration for its last two years.

Yet, the country enjoyed great prosperity during his term, and he had some amazing successes, including bringing a semblance of peace to the Balkans which for centuries had been synonymous with ethnic hatred and political instability – the precipitant cause of World War One being an assassination in Serbia.

The press feasted on his travails.

Then came eight years of the utterly incompetent George Bush Administration which ignored pointed warnings about Bin Laden plotting to attack America, let him slip though our fingers in Afghanistan and lied us into war in Iraq.

In the meantime “regulatory reform” laid the ground work for the gravest financial crisis since the time of the Great Depression.

The media essentially gave GWB a free pass. Mendacity and manipulation in the White House was scarcely noted. The Democrats, cowed by the media, more or less played possum until the 2006 election. John Kerry, when faced with outrageous accusations about his combat record in Vietnam, turned turtle.

And now after seven months of the Obama Administration, we have seen the most vicious attacks since the Clinton era and a media which reports gravely on the most atrocious lies and in a fair and balance manner, giving the lies legs.

Tiger Woods, in giving his opponent his due, was a lot like the Democrats: playing the sportsman. But the Obama opposition is beyond sportsmanship and truth. It’s all winter lies, moving the ball for a better position to destroy your opponent.

The God of Probabilities: How voting fraud in Iran demonstrates the existence of God

2009-06-27T12:23:00.005-04:00

Is the title of this piece a jest? Am I kidding? What possible relationship could there be between voting fraud and the issue of God’s existence. Well there is, at least metaphorically; but it will take some explanation. Bear with me. You may actually find a pay-off here.

When I was but seven years old, I began catechism class in the Catholic Church. Once a week we were “released” two hours early from public school so that we could go to our local churches for religious instructions. As I recall, the very first lesson we learned from our blue-covered Baltimore Catechism was that we could never understand God because he was immortal, had always existed and his ways were beyond human comprehension. Having taught me at age seven that God was incomprehensible, the Church has spent the last 65 years explaining God to me. I think there’s a incongruity there.

I transferred from public school to Catholic school for grammar school and high school. I won a gold medal for science and although I didn’t pursue science as a career, it has always been an interest of mine. So to has been my religion for which I also won a gold medal.

It is a fact of history that science and religion have been at best uneasy intellectual partners in the quest for meaning of the human condition. Many things that were thought to be divine and supernatural in earlier times have yielded to scientific explanation. The supernatural became the natural. Early gods included fire, wind, the oceans, volcanoes, star, planets, comets, the moon, and the sun, among other phenomena we now explain blithely in scientific terms.

Twenty or so years ago, I suffered a mild crisis of faith. I had been become familiar with a smattering of chaos theory and quantum analysis. I was startled to learn that atoms were not like miniature solar systems. The popular conception was a nucleus of protons and neutrons around which electrons orbited. Rather, this basic structure of all matter was chaotic and the location of “particle” of it unknowable at any given moment. It seemed that all of existence, at its most basic level was governed by the “Law of Probability.”

That’s a tough thing for a person of religious bent to digest. Is all of existence merely the result of a cosmic coin flips? But then another thought took hold. If there is a “Law” of “Probability” whose law is it? Why should the chaos of quantum existence ever be ordered by anything?

Concurrent with the scientific thought that all existence was chaos ordered only by the Law of Probability, has been scientific investigations into the issue of human consciousness and, as is claimed by some, the interaction of human consciousness with a greater consciousness which some claim to have observed. Piere Teilhard Chardin and others have discerned a “noosphere” of intertwined human consciousness that has evolved from interactions that lower level of consciousness are incapable of joining. Freud’s heretical protégé, Carl Jung, postulated a “collective unconsciousness” which might be better described as collective consciousness.

Ironically, perhaps, scientific experiments designed to explore the issue of collective consciousness rely primarily on the applications of the law of probability. Among the most accessible is that of The Global Consciousness Project: Meaningful Correlations in Random Data whose work is explained at http://noosphere.princeton.edu/

The purpose of the project is “”to examine subtle correlations that may reflect the presence and activity of consciousness in the world.” It’s principal activity is to “collect data continuously from a global network of physical random number generators located in 65 host sites around the world.” The issue is whether major events that effect the psyche or consciousness of large masses of people distort the results of the random number generators into more than standard deviations from the norm. In sum, the scientist involved in this project believe they do, and their data demonstrates they do.

There are a number of other projects of a similar vein described by journalist Lynn McTaggart in The Field, (Harpers, New York Updated Edition 2008). Among the experiments she describes are coordinated remote prayer. The Field has an extensive bibliography if you are interested. The results reported by Ms. McTaggert all show consciousness interactions that distort results beyond those expected from standard deviations of the law of probabilities.

So how does election fraud in Iran relate to the issue of God’s existence?

On June 20, 2009, the Washington Post, published a study by Bernd Beber and Alexandra Scacco, Ph.D. candidates in political science at Columbia University. They analyzed the results of the Iranian elections. Their thesis was that given the length of the numbers reported in the results, that the last digits, irrespective of their original authenticity, should have reflected the law probabilities. In sum, there are ten digits, 0 to 9, and in the absence of consciousness intervention by humans attempting to jiggle the results, there ten digits should have been distributed relative evenly in the last column (i.e. each digit approximately 10% of the time). This was of course subject to standard deviations which depend on the size of the sample and in this case the length of the numbers preceding the last digit.

The point of the authors was that the variations were not in accord with the law of probabilities and well beyond standard deviations. They also used a second neutral analysis (the number of non-adjacent digits in the last two columns). That also exceeded standard deviations.

Their conclusion was that the probabilities of the election results not being manipulated was one in two hundred. By applying the law of probabilities we learn that there has been conscious intervention. This is not the same thing as the Global Consciousness Project, but it is at least a metaphor about the interplay of probabilities and consciousness on a cosmic level. But then, even St. Augustine recognized the Genesis was not history but a metaphor for deeper truths - truths thathave now been overtaken by science in the “Big Bang” theory and evolution.

So existence is governed by the law of probability, but deviations from law are evidence, at least in some cases, for conscious intervention. In Iran, the conscious intervention was by the operatives of a corrupt regime engineering a fraudulent election. But, in the chaos of quantum existence, the evidence of conscious intervention leads ultimately to a consciousness beyond just humanity, beyond just this universe, but inclusive of all the infinite number of universes that may exist.

All hail the God of Probabilities who creates the law and then lights the way to move beyond it. I believe that way is love. But that’s another story. See http://johnklotz.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html

Obama, Notre Dame and the Ghetto Catholic mentality

2009-04-02T08:38:00.004-04:00

Notre Dame has invited President Obama to speak and the radical right wing of the Church is having a cow. How a Catholic University invite the President of the United States to address its commencement. A recent comment on this by Salon.com editor Joan Walsh, engendered a flurry of responses. http://www.salon.com/opinion/walsh/politics/2009/04/01/notre_dame_obama/

I am saddened by the number of her readers who described themselves as Ex-Catholics, even atheists. For all of its two millennia of folly, the fact is that the Catholic Church is still the most direct route back to the preacher who lived and died in the land between the seas, and taught us what love meant.

The Church has always been much bigger and more diverse an institution than the Vatican likes to admit. Umberto Eco's masterpiece, “The Name of the Rose,” was much more than a medieval mystery story. It was a snapshot of the ferment, and intellectual diversity, of the Church in the Middle Ages. That ferment and diversity persists.

It was also a paean of praise for St. Francis who single-handily staved off the reformation for two centuries. I remain a Catholic because the essential issue of the Reformation was salvation by faith alone. Luther was reacting to the scandal of the Church pedaling indulgences. He ignores St. Paul. I believe that love engenders faith and I am one with St. Paul: I can have faith so as to move mountains, but without love, I am nothing. Only I believe that literally: without love there is only oblivion.

I attended a Catholic High School and we had to spend a buck to get a black bound copy of the New Testament. More than fifty years later, I still have it, and refer to it. I once remarked to one of my sons and a friend of his that the trouble was nobody feared the judgment of God anymore and they laughed. But that was before I could explain what I meant by the judgment of God. It's all there in my little black book.

There is but one commandment, one truth and one existence. It is love. When we love, we play with eternal fire. If we don't love, we lapse into the hell of oblivion. I believe that. I also believe that it is the essence of a Catholic life.

The problem with Donahue, Opus Dei, the new Newman Society et al, is that there is no love in them. Only an intellectual self-indulgence pointing the way to oblivion.

The Catholic Thing to Do

2009-01-29T08:15:00.001-05:00

Pope Benedict has done it gain. His tin ear and tin policies has led him to reinstate the Pius X Society, a collection of renegade Catholics with a history of Anti-Semitism who were excommunicated by Pope John Paul II (not exactly a cutting edge liberal himself).

I don't mean to downplay the impact of anti-Semitism of the Pius X Society’s recall to the bosom of the Church, but if Jews have a problem with this, so too I believe will many, many Catholics, especially those who actually read the Gospels.

The concept of a militant Church shedding members by the millions may be okay with Pope Benedict but I am not sure the Christ who commanded his disciples to teach all nations would agree.

While the actions of many Christians might make it hard to believe, the essence of the Christian message boils down to just one word: Love. The mark of any Christian is his or her understanding that love is he foundation of all, not just their faith but existence itself. In the halcyon days of John XXIII, we used to sing a song called: “You will know we are Christians by our love.” But singing it isn't enough, it must be lived.

In the jungles of Central America, many Catholics, including one Archbishop, several Jesuit priests and their house keepers, nuns and lay workers followed love to a martyrs grave. But because in their work they sometimes brushed shoulders with Marxists, their martyrdom is an embarrassment to the Vatican and unrecognized.

Instead, we find organizations founded by fascists like Opus Dei and the Pius X Society afforded honored places in the Vatican.

Some of reaction to Pope Benedict’s action have focused on the activities of saint in waiting Pius XII in the thirties in reaching a compromise with the Nazis. But if there is any more dramatic point that political expediency of the Vatican may not reflect the "Catholic" view, the simple fact is that of all the religious and demographic groups in Germany (excepting Marxists and Socialists) the most opposed to the Nazi's were the Catholics, Pius XII be damned.

There was a report on Sixty Minutes some years ago about righteous Gentiles (I believe it was Poland) who hid Jewish children during the Holocaust. If discovered by the Nazi's, the parents were forced to watch while their own children were hanged, and then their posterity destroyed, they were hanged.

One woman, who was a little girl at the time, was interviewed by CBS. "I asked my mother, 'Why are we doing this?' She replied ‘Because it's the Catholic thing to do.’"

I happen to be a vanishing relic of American demographics: a second generation German-American, all four of whose grandparents emigrated to the US before the turn of the last century. Unlike Pope Benedict, the members of my family did not serve in the Wehrmacht and one of my cousins is buried in the American Cemetery perched on the bluff above Omaha Beach. (See http://www.johnklotz.com/billy.htm)

God is love, John the Evangelist wrote. In the words and work of the Pius X Society, I see no love and no God. In so many ways, large numbers of Catholics do get the message. The scandal is that it is often despite of, not because of, the Vatican.

I remain a Catholic, it’s just the Roman part that is getting difficult.

Guilt free about the Market

2008-10-14T08:53:00.005-04:00

Some people seem to have guilt feelings about the Wall Street collapse. They want Obama to win but are unnerved by a strange temptation to rejoice in the stock market collapse and may even fear a come-back.

No need to hope feel guilty about the Wall Street collapse helping Obama. The genie is out of bottle on Wall Street and Obama's economic plan is such a workable mix of the old "New" Deal and "New" New Deal to carry the day. A rebound of the stock market won't make those who have already lost 30-40% of their 401Ks feel so good as to reach for the old Republican snake oil.

McCain is apparently having trouble articulating a new economic "reform" proposal. Rumors were it was to be a cut in capital gains taxes. That's wonderful for anyone still sitting on unrealized capital gains. But since most of us have seen our savings vanish in the past year, we won't have much new investment dollars saved to benefit from future capital gains on new investment. The lesson of the past 48 hours is that the only source for new investment is the government in one guise or another..

The genius of FDR was not that he was a genius, it was in the people he picked for advise and in the programs he chose from their advice. It’s may be a lost fact of history, but the man who turned the “new” SEC from a bureaucratic lightweight into the engine of prosperity it became was one of his closest advisors: Wall Street raider and reputed bootlegger Joseph Kennedy. You may remember is sons. Joe K. broke with FDR over WWII and was loathe to take on Hitler, but has head of the SEC, he was brilliant.

In Obama we have a man he is bright enough to pick good advisors and bright enough to choose among the options. He will be nobody’s stooge.

I believe that the obvious practicality of Obama's plan will carry the day. People know we need reinvestment in infrastructure. People will see the common sense ion rewarding companies that invest in US jobs. Cash strapped citizens who need an infusion from their IRA's will may very well see their homes and future's saved by the chance to tap into their retirement accounts without penalty (before retirement age).

Finally, there is one part of the Obama story that I am sure resonates with a majority of Americans: His mother's struggle with the HMO while she was dying of cancer.

McCain's prescription of deregulation to let the free market work its wonders on the health care system, just won't fly. His only answer will be to state that he really means some regulation (like pre-existing conditions). But that's regulation and will defeat his whole proposal. That we need a national system meeting national standards, is the future.

We have seen the future and it is Obama. (We hope.)

The bailout: Getting even with Mommy and Daddy

2008-09-30T08:23:00.005-04:00

I have always thought that so much of the vitriol I see in life is an adolescent working out of unresolved problems with one's parents. The blogspere and particularly the reaction to the failed bailout is an example. The invective for those attempting to sort through the financial mess created by the neocons and their George Bush puppet is truly astounding.

As many have pointed out somewhat soberly, the real issue here is availability of credit in a wide variety of circumstances. Among the items that will be seriously impacted are not only home loans, but student loans, appliance loans (like refrigerators) and auto loans. "Good," some of are oedipally challenged exclaim. I don't need a new car or refrigerator and (a) I dropped of of college because some geeky professors never saw my brilliance or (b) I got my student loans, up yours.

Then there is the small question of the real pay-day loans. The ones by small businesses need to make pay roll. Bye-bye pay checks. Too freaking bad, you say.

Then again, the stock market lost more value Monday then the total cost of the bailout. If you don't have an IRA or a 401K retirement account, who cares?

We are told by scripture that we are brother's keeper. Those who selfishly pursue ideological or political goals now and sink this economy into a recession cum depression, don't care about their brother or the their sister. (My God, am I being judgmental?)

I did not experience the depression although my family was steeped in its lore as I grew-up. For those relishing in the defeat of their parents (be it McCain or Pelosi) I suggest a crash course on what the depression was really about. Here's some suggestions for your viewing: "O Brother Where art Thou," "Grapes of Wrath," “Sullivan's Travels,” “Night of the Hunter,” and "Sea Biscuit." They are all entertaining but in the background is a picture of what a Depression era America is like. Forget the horse race in Sea Biscuit and concentrate on what happened to the jockey's family.

Is the bailout package the very best of solutions? Hardly. But it’s a step forward. I am reminded of the old Vietnam slogan: When your up to your ass in alligators, it’s hard to remember you were there to drain the swamp.

As for the movies, I am sure there are better choices, these are off the top of my head. Here's my message: stop getting even with your parents and grow-up. We are facing problems that the big kids have to solve.

Is Christ Weeping

2008-09-16T07:32:00.009-04:00

The following is adopted from a salon.com comment which was an "Editor's Choice"

I was baptized a Roman Catholic and I remain Catholic to my core, although the Vatican might argue about the Roman part.To me there is only one Christian message and one Christian commandment: Love.

Christ preached that all the prophesies and scripture were founded on love. A generation before Christ, Rabbi Hillel propounded the Golden Rule and stated that everything else is commentary.

As good hearted as many evangelicals are, there is an extreme with a political agenda that is anti-Christ and anti-Love. So much of the Extreme is based upon stilted, strained reading of scripture by 19th century zealots whose powers of reasoning and deduction were seriously defective. They were literally the false prophets in sheep's clothing the Bible warned us against.

The successful mega-church evangelicals with their opulent palaces contrast with Christ's praise of John the Baptist who dressed in animal hair and ate locusts and honey: "What did you go out to the desert to see, a man dressed in fine clothing?"

The concept that a heart-beat away from the presidency would be a person, like Palin, who believes that man walked with the dinosaurs is appalling. The denial of science by the Extremists is already having a dreadful impact on the education of the next generation of American scientists.

Christ wept when he foresaw the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. Perhaps, for the abuse of His name by the Extremists, He maybe weeping now.

Political Chess

2008-09-12T07:43:00.004-04:00

Two bad decisions may decide the election: Obama picking Biden and McCain picking Palin. But they were bad decisions for very different reasons. One was a misreading of the political chess board; the other was a cynical, disastrous gambit.

Let’s take the Biden pick by Obama first. It was an unarguably a good pick on its own terms. No one is going to have a heart-attack because Joe Biden will be a heart beat from the Presidency. He is knowledgeable and he is prepared.

But Obama misread his position and was over confident. Maybe perhaps so were some of his supporters like moi (just had to stick in a little Miss Piggy French). It left McCain an opening and he took it by the “brilliant” move of picking a feisty woman who would both attract feminists and, perhaps, more importantly, energize his base.

The problem is that as we take a second look, Palin is perhaps the worse prepared choice for Vice-President in my (ergo modern) memory. For all her problems, Geraldine Ferraro was an experienced office holder at a national level. Some have talked down Harry Truman’s pick as VP by Roosevelt in 1944 (I was 7 years old) when he was forced to dump Henry Wallace who had gotten a little too far ahead of the curve. But Truman was an experienced Senator who had made headlines investigating war profiteering. Even Dan Quayle had national experience. Indeed, conspiracy theorists have ideas about just how deep his experience ran. There were connections between his Senate office and some of the Central American “freedom fighters” lionized by Reagan.

I was like many a bit perturbed by the seeming guile of the McCain campaign in choosing to let Palin make her debut on ABC in an interview with Charles Gibson who might have seemed a patsy type interviewer for her. Boy was I, and the McCain camp, wrong.

McCain had choices that were far better than the one he chose and who would have really put the Dems behind the eight ball. The two most intriguing were the traditional Tom Ridge who might have put both Pennsylvania and Ohio in the McCain column. The other, untraditional choice, was Joe Lieberman who, politically and personally, from my perspective, is a flawed vessel. But it would have been an enormous blow.

Obama’s most obvious choice was Hillary and although I wasn’t a fan of hers for the Presidency, as a resident of New York who has met her twice for at least a handshake and a minute of conversation, I can attest that this is one, smart hard-working lady who, but from my perspective, goes to often for the power guys and gals.

The irony is that the reason that Hillary was never seriously considered was the 800 pound gorilla Bill Clinton, who couldn’t be ignored. The calculation that he would add a wild card factor to the campaign by Obama and that Bill and Hillary could not stand vetting because of the Clinton Library stuff and the pardon scandals that involved Hillary’s brother was a reasonable one. In a sense, Obama studied the whole board and played Karpov. However, McCain threw caution to the win and tried a wild Kasparov gambit.

Obama’ studious study seemed to backfire by the initial thrust of McCain’s daring gambit. But, now the daring gambit may end-up like a lot of other daring gambits, as this writer so sadly knows: a blunder into checkmate.

I wonder how many moves are left?

The Party of Lincoln

2008-08-15T06:11:00.002-04:00

Once there was a time when there was a Republican Party that called itself "The Party of Lincoln." They sang the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" at national conventions. Now, no more Lincoln.

Lincoln and his genius are the great enigma's of history. As Gary Wills as written, he literally redefined America at Gettysburg, re-establishing the egalitarian and populist ideals of the Declaration of Independence as the defining document of our the Republic. In one alternative history book, the Union loses Gettysburg, the South wins the war and Lincoln re-emerges as the founder of the American Socialist Party.

But even though he made his mark as a lawyer for the railroads, Lincoln was a populist. In the Lincoln-Douglas debates he argued for the rights of the individual over the rights of property. And, he advocated the right of people to revolt, if government ever trampled on their liberties.

Unlike Lincoln, Obama won his Senatorial campaign in Illinois. His is also a studied intelligence. He has been gifted with an education at the finest educational institutions in America, among the very best in the world. He was a fatherless child, Lincoln a motherless one who, according to legend, whittled the feet for his mother’s casket.

The contrast between McCain and Obama personally, could not be greater.

On can not presume to call Obama a new Lincoln, Roosevelt or Kennedy. But more than any Presidential candidate since Kennedy, he embodies the very best of what we have to offer ourselves, and the world.

He is a risk, a risk of enormous disappointment if he fails. But, he has the intellect and the savvy that could lead us out of our current multiple crises.

The issue in this campaign will be whether America has the courage to follow the candidate of the real “Party of Lincoln.”

Obama and Patriotism

2008-07-01T06:58:00.006-04:00

Once I heard someone say that the truly great democratic leader is one who dreams a great dream for us. As one whose first presidential vote was for Jack Kennedy, and whose last presidential vote maybe for Barack Obama, I have been gratified, at times stunned, by Obama’s eloquence. Is he a perfect vessel for social justice? Was Lincoln?

One of the incidents involving Lincoln's nomination in 1860 was his message to his supporters at the Republican convention that they not trade promises for convention votes and that he would not be bound by their promises. They ignored his message. After he was nominated and elected, he somehow kept every deal they had made. He was a lawyer for the railroads who was an authentic populist, who mocked those who believed the property rights were equal to human rights.

As Obama does a gandy dance* around some of the difficult issues that have been used by the right to push back the clock, not beyond the two Roosevelts, but beyond Lincoln, we might just cut him some slack. A littler obfuscation on gun control, for example, may be painful to some of us, but it might be appropriate, although the NRA, apparently, hasn't been fooled. A little distancing from Wes Clark’s blunt, but accurate, assessment of John McCain's service career, isn't the same as drinking cool aid.

Ironically, during the 1960 campaign, my eldest brother, an Air Force officer, complained about Kennedy's war record. "The only thing he did is get his PT Boat run over by a Jap destroyer." **

This is not the first time in this campaign that Obama has shown amazing insight and grace with his analysis of a complex problem. His first speech on race, when he tried to explain Rev. Wright's anger is, and will be, a classic. Rev. Wright repaid him by a self-absorbed display of petulance that nearly destroyed Obama's campaign.

I expect that some of the response to Obama’s message on patriotism will reflect the same destructive anger that marks Rev. Wright and so much of the Vietnam protest. Those protestors who burned the American flag may have actually prolonged the war and insured the birth of the Nixon-Reagan-Bush era.

Obama chooses not to burn the flag, but to wave it. God bless America, the beautiful.

*Gandy dancer refers to the footwork of railroad workers placing and resetting ties on the rail road.

** See http:/www.johnklotz.com/billy.htm for more about my family and WWII.

Is Obama channeling JFK?

2008-05-21T13:38:00.006-04:00

A dream died on November 22, 1963.

To many Americans, who are old enough to remember, John F. Kennedy's assassination in Dallas was the principal reason for a long American nightmare of which Bush II is simply the culmination. Ted Sorenson, the other night, stated that the 1961 Inaugural address was only Kennedy's second best speech. The best was, in Sorenson's opinion (and mine, his June 1963 American University speech at which he chartered a course to end the cold war. That he had plans to withdraw from Vietnam after the 1964 election is a matter of public record now. All that ended in Dallas.

I have always felt that second biggest casualty at Dallas was Khrushchev. The Cuban Missile crisis had scared them both and Khrushchev had staked his won career on his new relationship to JFK. His leadership survived for several months but eventually was ousted.

Maybe Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone nut gunman. To some, his cloudy intelligence background and the incredible convenience of JFK's death to those who were looking to profit from the Vietnam War is more than a convenience.

If anybody is interested, I wrote an op-ed piece on the media and the environment using Kennedy's speech American University as a starting point. http://www.johnklotz.com/new-jfk.htm

I wrote an op-ed piece for Newsday (which made the WP wire) in November 1993 which discussed the media and the assassination. http://www.johnklotz.com/new-jfk.htm

In any event, you can graph the dissolution of the Americans trust in government has beginning it sharp climb to the time when the public discovered that LBJ’s peace campaign of 1964 was a con job.

I don't know if Obama has Kennedy’s Irish political smarts and I don’t think he has quite obtained JFK's eloquence [maybe he needs a Sorenson], but he's getting there. And beyond political smarts, he has the intellectual capacity to be a truly great President. He will bear the heavy burden of enhanced expectations.

But, after a years of pessimism about the future, and years of second rate intellects occupying the White House, I am suddenly optimistic about the future. I have seen the future and it's Barack.

johnklotz.blogspot.com

Why I am still a Catholic

2008-03-14T07:25:00.004-04:00

The Washington Post today (Friday March 14, 2008) reported that Catholic educators in the United States were concerned about a forthcoming visit from Pope Benedict who has expressed disdain for non-Catholic influences at Catholic colleges. File this one under “Will they [the Popes] ever learn.” But that raises a question: Why do I still call myself Catholic?

The most amazing thing about the Church has been its ability to survive the power madness of so many of the Popes. Christ washed his disciples feet, this Pope seeks to wash their brains. Others have washed (laundered) money. Like most of my generation, I recall the explosion of true faith in Christ that occurred during the papacy of John the 23rd, but its been a long time gone.

The Vatican never learns. It was the attitude espoused by Benedict that suppressed Copernicus and Galileo and thus delayed the progress of human knowledge. Yet, somehow the Church survives the Vatican and truly remarkable Catholic men and women contribute to human knowledge.

The “Big Bang” theory was first espoused by a Catholic priest who was mocked by the scientific establishment until he was proven right. Teilhard de Chardin pioneered concepts that sought to merge faith and evolution (not in the "intelligent design" sense). Unfortunately, because he was under Vatican prohibition, his most important works weren’t published until after his death, Teilhard and “we” were denied the benefit that vetting and debate, over his ideas, would have created.

The Catholic faith is really quite simple and the reason why I am still a Catholic (although how Roman I am may be subject to some debate) is that the key issue of the Reformation was the Protestant advancement of “Faith” rather than Love.

Jesus taught it, St. Paul and St. John wrote it, and St. Francis lived it. There is only one measure and way, Love. As long as the Church bureaucrats flee that message and seek first not the Kingdom of God but the enhancement of their power, the Church Magister will become increasingly irrelevant to those pursuing the faith of Love. In the information era, for the Pope to seek control of the flow of information at any level, is not only bound for failure, it is ludicrous.

Yet, for all its folly, and at times corruption, the most direct way, back through the milennia, to Christ’s message of love is the Church. It’s just a bigger Church than the Vatican wishes to admit. It’s all those who love.

Obama's rendezvous with history

2008-02-11T10:45:00.000-05:00

[The following post is derived from a comment posted on Salon.com that was designated as an "Editor's Choice]"

This has been the most pre-convention fun since 1960 and I think the result will be as good. I hope everybody relaxes and enjoys the ride.

If Obama should lose, I will have no trouble voting for Hillary, although with a slightly heavy heart. But after the results today, I don't think that is a likely possibility.

In the lead-up to this week-end (February 9-10), Maine was pictured as a toss-up and HRC's best chance for a victory. In the end, Obama did about as well as any place else this weekend. On Tuesday (February 12), barring a major misalignment of the stars, he will in fact win all three primaries in which he is favored by as much as he was favored anyplace this weekend. By the tine we get to March 4 and the two big enchiladas he will have had a virtual month of crushing victories.

I believe he and his campaign have demonstrated the talent and have the money to roll through those two and the best HRC will get is an inconclusive stand-off, a virtual draw.

The recent shake-up of the Hillary campaign is a reflection of all the things the Obama campaign has done right. No campaign is a one man band but this campaign reflects the genius and talent of a truly remarkable human being who has been its candidate and leader (or "decider" as Shrub might say). Maine clinched the deal for me.

I hope at some point, HRC understands that she is facing someone who could become very special in the history of our country. She is Douglas to his Lincoln, Adams to his Jefferson, Al Smith to his Roosevelt.

Hillary is a brilliant woman and would make an able President. But Obama is gifted beyond extraordinary. The long dark night of the American soul may really be over this time. I only hope that HRC and company, get the point soon enough. As John Edwards said: there comes a time when you have to get out of the way of History.

The most likely scenario I see is the simplest: that Obama is breaking free and running into clear field. If he enters March with nothing but victories in February after Super Tuesday, then it will be over, one way or another. I think Donna Brazile’s strong statements this weekend about the role of Super Delegates will carry the day. She is no dewy-eyed reformer but a Party insider (IMVHO). The wind is blowing and you don’t have to be a weatherman etc.

Obviously his campaign will have to perform extraordinarily well in Texas and Ohio, but based upon its performance thus far, it will.

Clinton, Obama, Jesse Jackson and the Jewish vote in Florida

2008-01-29T11:49:00.000-05:00

There's a reason why Ted Kennedy got angry about Clinton's brandishing of a Jesse Jackson comparison to Obama: it was an attempt to tarnish Obama in the Jewish community. That may sound harsh but all last week, former Clinton adviser and somewhat psycho anti-Hillary pit bull Dick Morris was praising Clinton's genius in his use of the Jackson thing and that by paining Obama black in SC, the Clintons was guaranteeing victory everywhere else on Super Tuesday. The Clintons were doing this for "fun." (Hillary's description of negative campaigning). There is a dark side to the Jesse Jackson analogy and that was the extent to which Jesse Jackson became anathema to the Jewish community because of perceived anti-Semitism, aggravated by his infamous description of New York as "Hymie Town."

Would you really doubt that B. Clinton, the great triangulator, was unaware of this. And, by the way, do you doubt that Teddy Kennedy, whose been around for a few years in politics, isn’t aware of the unfortunate connotation attached to Jackson's name by some older Jews - particularly I can assume - the ones retired in Florida by the hundreds of thousands, maybe millions.

Having spent the last 38 years of life in the Bronx and seeing the "Scoop" Jackson" 1976 Democratic primary vote in Coop City, I can assure that the Jesse Jackson as enemy mentality was prevalent at the time. Coop City is largely Black and Latino now. The Jews who lived there have either died or moved – to Florida.

Given the enormous micro-polling that goes on in the Clinton campaign orchestrated by Mark Penn, I'll betcha a poll of Florida Democrats revealed (would have revealed) that among the Jewish emigres, Jesse Jackson had strong negatives. Ergo, link Obama to Jackson repeatedly and often. If you have ever taken, or answered a poll, you know how its done. A list of names is read and for each name you are asked: “If XX is endorsed by YY, would it make you more or less likely to vote for him?” Or simply: “Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of YY.” In this case “YY” would be Jesse Jackson.

I had a dental appointment this morning. My Dentist is second or third generation Jewish and market-tested this theory on him and he agreed immediately that by linking Obama to Jackson, Clinton was playing to the Jewish vote, including his.

The fact that Bill Clinton and Hillary can express amazement that anyone could believe that it was deliberate ploy is testament to their acting ability and their low estimation of the intelligence of the American voters. They should win an Oscar, not the Presidency. I only hope that Jewish voters don't fall for it.

Of course, Obama has another Jewish issue going for him: The more he talks about his mother and father and his love and respect for them and his roots, although different from typical Jewish roots, he plays to the strong sense of family that underlies Jewish culture. That’s targeting with a heart. "He's such a nice boy."

It's all about him

2008-01-27T12:45:00.000-05:00

There was a time when Americans valued "class" with a small "c." I'm not talking about economic "class" or social "class" but a genuine understanding that it's not all about me and the ability to congratulate a successful opponent with grace and dignity, understanding that there is a tomorrow and that in politics (and sports) today's adversary may be tomorrow’s ally or teammate. Among the classless moments of my memory are Nixon's "You won't have Nixon to kick around any more" and Roger Maris's comment after the Yankees lost to Pittsburg in the 1960 World Series: "Everyone knows we were best team. It's too bad we didn't win."

Right up there is Bill Clinton's Fred Thomasesque speech in Missouri Saturday night. It was all about Bill and not much about Hillary. The anchors at CNN and MSNBC didn't make that up. It was there on the screen.

There's empathy and there is pseudo-empathy. There is the empathy of one who truly feels your pain and the pseudo-empathy of a narcissist who adopts empathy as a mask for his or her self involvement. In Missouri, after Hillary's lost, Bill Clinton by talking about himself and his administration definitively defined himself. It was all about him. His empathy has all the sincerity of Mitt Romney's smile.

Maybe it's time that the Clintonistas started reviewing the great accomplishments of the Clinton administration. Was he better on the environment than Bush - by a million millions. Was he better on the economy: Clinton rode the Wall Street wave and left office just before the deluge. We also lost the Congress in 1992 and didn’t win it back until 14 years later in 2006.

NAFTA was his, remember? Not to denigrate his entire administration. To me, the most pressing issue for electing almost any Democrat will be, and remains, the reactionary packing of the Supreme Court. We lose this one and the Court may be gone for a generation.

In 2000 I played a minor role in helping Hillary get her the Sierra Club endorsement. I have no regrets. I wish her a long, long productive career in the United States Senate. I hope she will have one.

Will Hillary's barrage elect McCain?

2008-01-22T10:08:00.000-05:00

The Democratic debate in South Carolina Tuesday night (1/21/2008) turned very ugly. One of the “issues” was Obama’s use of voting “present” in the Illinois State Senate when he was dissatisfied with certain aspects of otherwise good legislation.

However, Hillary Clinton has her own explaining to do on her claimed opposition to the 2005 bankruptcy amendments. She didn’t vote present. She was recorded as “not voting.” The only one of 100 Senators not to record a “yea” or nay.” The 2005 Bankruptcy amendments were a consumer disaster. In the House, even Barney Frank voted against them. I think that I heard Hillary say she opposed the Amendments. Am I wrong? Did she duck the vote?

Is that true? She alone among all the Senators, is the one who did not vote on the bankruptcy law that catered to the credit card companies in an attempt to make credit card debt non-dischargeable. Does anyone have an explanation for this? Is her convenient absence one reason why she has such superior fund raising ability? From long experience: a lobbyist WILL tell a legislator, if you can’t be with me, go to the bathroom when the vote comes-up. It happens.

If Obama wants a real issue, and the infighting persists, I suggest he check with the folks in Fayetteville Arkansas where the Clinton regime built a toxic waste incinerator. One of the edges Bill Clinton had in 1992 was his early fundraising from Wall Street. He delivered, they paid. The key to the incinerator binge was the money the Wall Street bond lawyers and underwriters made in the sale of bonds. As I wrote for City Sierran in 1992: “If it’s bondable, it’s buildable. Whether it’s workable is irrelevant.” See http://www.johnklotz.com/burn.htm

Incidentally, the Sierra Club and its allies defeated the mass burn incinerators, which were an initiative by Governor Mario Cuomo and Mayor David Dinkins, both of whom were defeated for reelection in heavily Democratic New York. I am not a Giuliani fan, but it was Republican Governor Pataki and Republican Mayor Giuliani that put a nail in the coffin of both the mass-burn plan and a hospital waste in incinerator in the South Bronx. Was that important. See http://www.johnklotz.com/andy.htm New York City's air quality is now among the best of major cities.

If the Clintons don't get a grip, the only winner in the Democratic debate will be McCain. Hillary’s shrill performance may cut Obama down to size, but it may set up ”nice guy” John McCain for a win, as I expect the polls will be showing. Although McCain has enormous liabilities issue wise, I don’t think they will be able to tag team him the way they are tag teaming Obama. We may notice that the “straight talker” speaks with a forked tongue but it will be a tough sell.

I am for Edwards but as that possibility fades, the only Democratic ticket that will make sense is Hillary-Obama. Hillary’s courting of the Latino power structure may make the need for a dramatic gesture to the most consistent overwhelming Democratic vote - the African-American vote. It’s not that they will they vote for McCain, it’s will they vote in sufficient numbers for a candidate who is destroying their best spokesperson since MLK and Jessie Jackson’s heyday.

Nice guy John McCain may dampen their ardor to vote for Hillary. Somewhere out there, I can also hear Michael Bloomberg licking his chops.

Is Clorox bleaching the green Sierra Club white?

2008-01-11T11:34:00.000-05:00

For over a decade, I was fairly active in the Sierra Club, but for multiple reasons over the past two years, I have had to let Sierra Club stuff slide. But now, something has happened that requires some comment. Carl Pope, the Executive Director of the Sierra Club has announced an exciting new “partnership” with Clorox to develop green products. The question to many is Clorox bleaching the green Sierra Club white.

What we are watching is perhaps the final chapter of the conversion of the Sierra Club ‑ on a national level ‑ from an activists driven organization to a corporate driven organization where the interest of the Sierra Club as a corporation invariably trumps the interest of the Sierra Club as an activists’ organization. I struggled against that mentality for about three years and then, as pressures from my practice, and my son Mike's illness, moved front and center had to cede the struggle to others. I would bring to your attention several hall marks of this struggle which have ramifications not only of Sierra Club members but for the nation at large.

(1) the decision to pull all criticism of Bush from the Club's web site taken in haste without due deliberation in aftermath of 9/11. According to the President of the Club, the was a no-brainer because of concerns about corporate contributors.

(2) the refusal of the BOD of directors in February 2002 to seriously implement the report of the Global Environmental and Security Task Force which I happened to chair. We recommended that the Club “message to security” and demonstrate that our environmental goals are intrinsically related to national security. Robert Kennedy, Jr. had earlier made the same point a few weeks after 9/11.

When we reported to the Club Board of Directors (“BOD”) the Executive Director ostentatiously read the newspaper and then said that "We have passed this by focus groups and they don’t think that this is something the Club should get involved with.” I subsequently coined a phrase "focus group morality" to express my disdain for those who would substitute the opinions of focus groups for the dictates of conscience. Incidentally, a number of people have pointed out that it was reliance on focus groups to dictate strategy that was key element of Kerry’s 2004 loss.

(3) I believe it was the same year that saw the creation of the Sierra Club Mutual Fund which was supposed to open the door to unlimited wealth for the Club. I thought at the time that proposal would create a rather run-of-the-mill fund which would not really be truly extraordinary and arguably not all that green.

(4) Then there was the struggle in the fall of 2002 to get the Club to oppose the Iraq war and nip it at the bud. The Club had an existing anti-war policy on environmental grounds but the insiders led by Pope struggled ruthlessly and disingenuously to squelch opposition to the war in the Sierra Club.

The Club’s Council of Conservation Leaders, (CCL) passed a resolution in September of 2002, that the Club opposed the looming invasion of Iraq. The BOD sidetracked the resolution to the Conservation Governance Committee (CGC) and then in a private E-Mail (somehow I acquired a copy), the President of the Club lobbied the CGC to defeat the resolution. In October, with the Sierra Club's voice having been silenced, many Democrats voted for the war resolution and that vote has come back to haunt many of them particularly Clinton, Kerry and Edwards.

The great “what if” of American politics is “what if” we had vigorously opposed the war resolution? Could we have budged Kerry or Edwards. I don't think Hillary was budgeable. How different our political history would have been had either Kerry or Edwards voted "no" and at least in Edward's case we now know it was a very close call (thanks to the venomous memoir of perpetual loser and focus group freak Bob Shrum).

The low-point of the affair was when the National Conservation Director threatened to discipline the San Francisco Chapter for proposing to thank Nancy Pelosi for her vote against the 2002 resolution.

It was only after an E-Mail proposal by Pope to expel the members of the Glen Canyon Group in Utah for publicly opposing Club policy was published by the LA Times that the Club - too late - changed its position and publicly opposed the war.

And then there was the 2003 BOD election where independent voices were purged from the BOD under guise of protecting us from the anti-immigration faction. I am told that the husband of one candidate invested $125,000 dollars in that effort. The main problem was that among those purged in the immigration struggle were independent voices that opposed the efforts of the anti immigration faction.

Perhaps, the final blow was the closing of the CCL E-Mail list that allowed a free flow of ideas among members nationwide.

But Sierra Club members at the local level should not lose heart. They still have enough autonomy to deal with local issues and your voice n what happens in our communities is vitally important. You are doing God's work. Whatever the penzavotte at the national level do: "Keep the faith, baby."

During the Vietnam War, the Sierra Club took the courageous position that the use of Agent Orange was wrong. History has proven it right. Now the Club squashes dissent about war and makes deals with corporations whose environmental record – like Clorox – is atrocious.

When I objected to the purging of Bush from the Club web site in 2001, the Club President defended that act by saying that they had a telephone conference that afternoon and that the purge was a "no-brainer" because of the impact of 9/11 on the corporate donors.

She was right. It was a no brainer. It was also a no guts. The struggle for a habitable environment demands both brains and guts.

Is Clorox bleaching the green Sierra Club white? Perhaps I am being unfair, maybe the Club has just changed interest from green trees to green papers.

Who's afraid of John Edwards?

2007-12-23T16:22:00.000-05:00

There was a spate of bogs and commentary this past week linking Mike Huckabee and John Edwards because of their similar populist rhetoric. To some "populist" is a term of derision, to others, not be, it's not. Now Obama is attacking the suddenly threatening Edwards and Hillary supporters are attacking Obama, masking their Clinton connection by invoking Edwards. Could it be that Edwards who has been lurking in third place in most polls is gaining traction?

The one candidate the elites really fear is Edwards. When you read the fine print in the Obama campaign, especially about heath care, you get the impression that he really doesn't understand that real problem dogging the country is greed and that while the middle class is plummeting to the ground, the "Greed is good" crowd is still soaring - with only a few notable, sacrificial exceptions. Wall Street bonuses set a record this year, again.

The concept that the solution for America's Health crisis is through the HMO's giving-up their greedy ways through reasoning is ludicrous.

Might I suggest one fractured biblical reference to Isaiah: "When the lion and the lamb lay down together, the lion does not awake hungry." [Not original by me. Might have been coined by Jesse Jackson]

Or maybe, as one in who still believes in the sanctity of the ideals of the Declaration of Independence: "My house is a house of prayer but you have made it a den of thieves." [Not a paraphrase]

Come to think of it, that's the kind of language Huckabee is using and if you want to read an insightful dissection of why liberals lose, I might suggest Gary Wills: "Under God: Religion and American Politics." [Please note: NOT George Will]

The debate moment that pushed Huckabee to the forefront, in my opinion, is when he stepped in, took Giuliani off the hook, and answered the question about "Do you believe in the Bible?" by responding in words paraphrasing the Golden Rule and the parable of the Last Judgment and then brushed-off nearly everything else as too complex to discuss. It was a brilliant moment and any Democrat ought to have been able to do the same. I think the only one who could do so honestly is John Edwards.

As for the other Democrats, too many of them are represented by Hillary supporter and consumer sell-out Barney Frank. See the November 6, post that follows. Perhaps the most pernicious aspect of the Hillary campaign is her attempt to hook-up public officials with the lobbyist cartel and “share the wealth.”

There I go again, thinking like a populist.

Will the Real Democrats Please Stand-up?

2007-11-06T07:21:00.000-05:00

The New York Times editorializes today (Tuesday, November 6, 2007) that the Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee Barney Frank will introduce legislation that would preempt state consumer legislation across a broad category of fraudulent conduct that is even peripherally related to the mortgage foreclosure mess. The same issue reports on the front page (”Borrowers Face Dubious Charges in Foreclosures”) the extent to which the mortgage industry is defrauding the homeowners during the mortgage foreclosure process.

Some states grant consumers greater rights than others, however there are significant gaps in federal legislation that are corrected by state laws. For example, the federal Consumer Protection Act allows for only administrative remedies with limited damages while many states allow for civil law suits for unfair and deceptive practices which offer much greater chances for significant relief. The federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act allows suit against the collection agencies but no suit against the creditors who instigate the unfair practices and no suits against collectors if they are an affiliate of the creditor. Similarly the Fair Credit Reporting Act, allows suit against the credit reporting agencies who don’t correct erroneous information but not against the creditors who make erroneous reports.

State regulation is decidedly a mixed bag, but preempting state regulations of mortgage fraud to protect the barons of Wall Street is not the solution to any problem except protecting the interests of those, who are ultimately most responsible for the crisis that is threatening to render 2 million middle class families homeless.

Some people, including Democrats with power, have no shame.

Reflections on Mourning: Coping with the Ultimate "Event Horizon."

2007-10-23T03:05:00.002-04:00

On April 7, 2007, my son Michael Arthur Klotz, age 34, died in Milwaukee after a long, courageous battle with kidney disease. On Tuesday, October 23rd, he would have been 35. The process of mourning the death of a loved one involves reflection. These are my reflections on my mourning and I share them with you for what they are worth.

In a televised interview with Mike Wallace, nearly 50 years ago, Tennessee Williams said that the most important moments of life are those when we break out of our own selfish shell and really sense the presence of another person.

I believed then and, in the years that have passed since, continue to believe, that Williams had touched a profound truth. He had defined, as well as anyone can, the process we call love: moving from a sense of self (self love) to a sense of others (“neighborly love”). I also have reached a conclusion that the process of love affects the psyche of both the lover and loved so that in some corner of their own individual psyche, resides a joint part of their psyche that is a doorway to different dimension of existence beyond space and time.

I use the word Greek word psyche as a shorthand for personhood: the “me” that “is.” It encompasses the conscious, the subconscious and the X element or elements, that through the millennia philosophers and now science have added to the mix to define the personality apart from an individual’s mere physical presence. It is, or would include, what the religious would call the soul. To those who give credence to concepts such as the noosphere or the ”collective conscious” it would include those elements of the human personality that somehow connect, or interact, with those hypothetical constructions.

In physics, an “event horizon” is a barrier that prevents observation of the object it cloaks. Most easily understood is the phenomenon of the “black hole” ‑ a super dense collapsed star of such overwhelming gravity that even light can not escape its grasp. Objects that come within its influence are sucked into the hole and at a point disappear from view as their light yields to the inexorable force the black hole’s gravity. The point at which observation of the object ends, is called the “event horizon.”

Death is the ultimate “event horizon,” a point beyond (or within) which, we may not observe. It does not mean that there is nothing there; it means, that we can not observe what is there, if anything. While Mike has moved through his event horizon, the love he shared with so many has not been erased by his death. He, and his love, remain in our psyche.

As a child, Mike reveled in role playing games in which characters are created by the players who develop the characters’ personalities and thought processes. The winner is most often the one who best simulates the artificial reality of the character the player created. As a student and then as an adult, Mike was current on the numerous examinations of the impact of the computer on human development. One of his interests was “virtual reality” where the enormous power of the computer is used to create simulations of reality including individuals and complex social organizations. It is in one sense, grown-up role-playing games. He argued that the prevalence of role playing games in the United States gave us a leg-up in our competition with the outside world. Role-playing skills - a form of virtual reality - lay at the heart of modern science and commerce.

In 2006, Mike received a joint Master of Science Degree in Bioinformatics from the Wisconsin Medical College and Marquette University. His goal was to create computer simulations of biological processes and structures of the body which could, among other things, simulate the progress of disease and treatments in the body and/or be used as the first step in drug testing.

Is not the residuum of Mike’s love, which resides in psyche of those who shared love with him, a simulation of Mike himself, a “virtual reality” Mike? To the extent we have exchanged love with Mike, he resides within us as a virtual reality. That reality is as complex and detailed as the love we shared with him. The deeper the love, the more complex our simulation.

We all are familiar with the cliché of funerals and memorials: “He would have liked it that way.” (Or even the religious inquiry: “What would Jesus do?”) That is an attempt to emulate the conduct or ideas of a departed by searching our psyche to simulate the departed’s choice of action as if he were still alive.

Shortly before Mike’s final collapse, I talked with Mike on the telephone. He said to me: “You have to start a blog. You have said to me things, I have never heard or seen anywhere else.” It was the last conversation of any length that we had, for what followed in the next few weeks were a series of abbreviated ones. He was in continuous pain, and increasing sedation with the final onslaught of his disease. The family traveled to Milwaukee twice. The first time, he seemed to rally. We left, but returned the next week, after he relapsed. With him on the night he passed, were his wife Sara, his mother Rene and myself, his brother Dan and his wife Meg and their daughter C.J., his sister Lisa, a favorite aunt and uncle (Rene’s brother Ken and his wife Kay), his cousins Keri, Kathy & Kirby and his best friend Noah Ravitz, who had also flown in from New York.

I no longer talk to myself, but to the Mike that lies within. I can seek that Mike’s advice. The validity of that consultation is related directly to the detail and complexity of my relationship with Mike himself. As much as I long for the his physical presence, I do not feel abandoned. I can consult with the virtual Mike of my psyche and even draw him near. In “Play It Again Sam,” Woody Allen consulted with the ghost of Humphrey Bogart – sometimes accepting, other times rejecting, the advice he received. Mike understood that. He is no ghost, but he was a Casablanca fan.

But what of our mutual love that resided in Mike’s psyche as he crossed his event horizon? What lies beyond that horizon has challenged and puzzled humanity from the dawn of its reflective powers. That ability to reflect on, and challenge, that horizon, is among those things that marks the human psyche as exceptional. Is my virtual reality Mike merely a reflection of my thought processes? Is it simply an echo of the past? Or, is there something more?

Mike’s passing was not my first experience with mourning. I have lost three older brothers to cancer, and, in the natural course of things, both my parents and my wife Rene’s parents. My mother died in 1980 at age 80. The last forty years of her life had been filled with pain. She was overweight and suffered from arthritis, particularly in her back. Nonetheless, she had been an active member of the community, a fixture in local Onondaga County (Syracuse) Democratic Women’s Club and a Vice-Chair of the N.Y. State March of Dimes.

Standing by her casket at her wake, I was startled, not by grief, but by an overwhelming sense of transcendent peace and serenity. I had an impulse of guilt. How could I feel this way at my mother’s wake?

At the time, I had a client in Manhattan named Marilyn. Marilyn believed herself a psychic and was a professional astrologer. I had helped save her apartment after her husband's death. I shared with Marilyn my confusion about my feelings at my mother’s wake. She noted that I had been close to my mother and perhaps I was feeling what she was feeling.

In Mike’s journey to his event horizon, Mike was surrounded by, and immersed in, love. He, and the love that resided in him, are, for now, beyond our gaze. My solace is from the words of Paul to the Corinthians:

“Love never fails. …For now we see in a mirror, darkly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”

The serenity returns.