Germany

Adolf Hitler’s Big Lie Technique Being Utilized By Donald Trump, Dr. Benjamin Carson, Carly Fiorina, Ted Cruz In Republican Presidential Race Of 2016!

Ronald 12 Comments

There is reluctance on the part of this blogger to bring up Adolf Hitler when discussing American politics, but now it is clear it must be done!

Hitler employed the “Big Lie” technique, to make up conspiracy theories and to make massive lies, and it was effective in bringing him public support and eventual power in Germany!

Now, sadly, a variation of the “Big Lie” is being utilized in the Republican Presidential race of 2016 for the White House.

No one, at the least this blogger, is trying to say any Republican Presidential candidate is the equivalent of Adolf Hitler, but the level of massive lies becoming regarded as NOT lies, but truth, has been used by at least four Republican contenders—Donald Trump, Carly Fiorina, Dr. Benjamin Carson, and Senator Ted Cruz!

Trump is the master of lies, and he is inciting hate and division on a massive scale, and yet about 30 percent in every Republican poll continue to support him.  His supporters claim to be disillusioned with traditional politicians who always seem to lie, according to them.  One could say that all PEOPLE tend to lie at times, including politicians, but the total alienation of many Americans from all politicians, and willingness to back a billionaire who has always been a massive liar on everything he has uttered, before he ran for President and while contending for President, is extremely alarming!

But Carly Fiorina has been spreading pure lies about Planned Parenthood, and even after the recent Colorado Springs incident of a madman who was incited by her lies, she will not back down on her manipulation of the truth!

Dr. Benjamin Carson has also lied and deceived on a regular basis, and comes across as unbalanced mentally in many ways.

And Senator Ted Cruz of Texas is a true demagogue, very much like Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin of the 1950s Red Scare, who he also resembles in appearance.  He has totally alienated all of his Senate colleagues except a couple of Tea Party supporters, and has stooped to lies and deceit on a regular basis!

The idea that so many Americans, so distrustful of government, are ready to support any of these four candidates who are massive liars and totally deceptive, is a worrisome issue for American democracy, as the “Big Lie” technique is in full swing!

80 Years Of Social Security And Counting: The Most Successful “Safety Net” Program In American History!

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On August 14, 1935 the Social Security Act became law during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, with Senator Robert F. Wagner of New York and Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins key figures in promoting its passage.

For the first time, there was the pledge of providing senior citizens with some financial support in their later years.

Additionally, widows and orphans, and the disabled would be covered under the law.

The US was behind Germany, Great Britain, and France, industrialized nations which had enacted such legislation decades earlier.

There was bipartisan support from progressive Republicans and from Democrats, but more conservative Republicans set as their goal to destroy Social Security, as early as the Presidential Election of 1936.

But Social Security has survived eight decades, and has done so much good for the nation, and its most vulnerable citizens.

Even now, there are proposals to change Social Security, as was done in 1983, by a deal between President Ronald Reagan and House Speaker Thomas “Tip” O’Neill, raising the retirement to age 66 and 67 for full benefits, depending on year of birth.

Now there is the call to raise the retirement age further, and cut benefits over the long haul, bitterly opposed by progressives and Democrats. Also, George W. Bush tried to privatize part of Social Security, which failed of enactment in 2005, but again is being promoted by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan.

The tax base has been raised, but even now, only the first $118,500 is taxed, and many feel there should be no limit on the tax base, as that allows those who make much higher incomes to avoid further taxation, and putting the burden on the average American who does not earn more than $118,500.

The point is that by raising the tax base to unlimited income would insure the long term survival of Social Security.

It is essential to insure that the most successful “Safety Net” program in American history continued to survive and prosper!

The “Safety Net”: 80 Years Of Social Security, 50 Years Of Medicare, 5 Years Of ObamaCare!

Ronald 3 Comments

The nation is marking 80 years of Social Security, brought about by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935; 50 years of Medicare, brought about by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965; and five years of ObamaCare, brought about by Barack Obama in 2010.

These basic aspects of the “Safety Net” were brought about by courageous Democratic Presidents generations apart, long after many European nations, including Great Britain, France, Germany and several Scandinavian nations had done so.

We are a better country because of these programs, and yet, the Republican Party would love to destroy the guarantees of these programs, and many conservatives have warred on Social Security and Medicare since they were enacted, just as they refuse to accept ObamaCare at a point where it has been upheld twice by the Supreme Court, and is actually working.

Intelligent voters are not going to forget, or be allowed to forget by Democrats, the true history of the passage of the “Safety Net”, and the constant barrage of attacks on these signature achievements by conservatives and the Republican Party!

The US And Israel: Support For Israel, But Not Benjamin Netanyahu!

Ronald 2 Comments

The United States has been a strong supporter of Israel throughout the 67 year history of the Jewish nation, whether it has been Democratic or Republican Presidents in office, and that will not change, and should not change!

But that does not mean that our policies vis a vis Israel must always be in lockstep to every Israeli Prime Minister.

There have been disputes and differences between Israeli governments and American governments throughout the history of the relationship over strategies and tactics, but in all circumstances, when Israel has needed American support, it has been there from Harry Truman to Barack Obama, and that will continue.

Just like relatives, there have been and will be fights, sometimes even public, that are embarrassing, but occur, because that is the nature of families, and Israel and America are like one big family, with certain relatives very annoying in their assertion of their personalities on the overall relationship.

But when crisis arises, when so called “push come to shove”, family is together, and that includes the assurance that America will always be there for Israel at crucial moments. And one must remember that it is Barack Obama who has provided more funding for the IRON DOME system, which has been used by Israel to protect its security with its dangerous neighbors, including Palestinian terrorists.

This moment, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu coming to the US to speak to a joint session of Congress without advanced approval of President Obama, and with Netanyahu long a public and private critic of President Obama, and in cahoots with the Republicans in Congress, is not good. With Speaker of the House John Boehner breaking the Logan Act, which bans private diplomacy of anyone outside the executive branch of government, a law passed in 1798 and updated in 1994, only adds to the problem.

Yes, the threat of Iran is present, but it is not an imminent threat, and the attempt of the US, along with Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China to negotiate on nuclear issues is worthy of follow through to see if Iran is willing to accept the idea of no nuclear weapons development.

If Iran reneges on such an agreement, then Israel would be backed in any potential confrontation with Iran. But the need to TRY to avoid another Middle East War, which would lead to more deaths and destruction in Israel, and make the area ever more dangerous, is worth a try to avoid war, before committing to a war that would be devastating to the entire area.

The US would be engaged in another major war, and not an easily won war, but the world would see the reality of Iran, if they reject an agreement with the six major powers.

Netanyahu has been known to lie and exaggerate, so it is worth a chance for peace, and avoidance of war, and that is why many Jewish Democrats in Congress are boycotting this speech on Tuesday, and it is why many Jewish organizations and spokesmen are condemning the speech, and calling for its delay until after the elections in Israel in two weeks.

A good solution to all this would be the defeat of Netanyahu and his Likud Party, much too ready to go to war, when peace should be tried first!

Germany Provides Free University And College Tuition To All! A Great Model For Americans, Saddled By Education Debt That Undermines Their Futures!

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The Federal Republic of Germany has set a wonderful model that should be adopted in the United States!

All students who attend colleges and universities in Germany gain free tuition for their education, which makes a lot of sense, as taxpayers supporting students benefits the entire nation, as well the particular students and their families!

No one loses from tax support of education, as it makes those involved more intelligent, more learned, more able to think clearly and make good judgments!

It also prevents students from being saddled with debt in the thousands or even hundreds of thousands, which undermines their futures, by making it impossible for them to get out from under debt, and delays or prevents them from going into fields of work, and also makes it harder for students to marry, have children, buy a home, and the myriad of other activities that makes family life and the economic advancement of the nation to occur!

This author was fortunate enough to have attended college at Queens College of the City University of New York when college tuition was free, and it made it possible for him to be able to afford to attend graduate school and pursue a Ph. D. in history.

Such free tuition no longer exists in the City University of New York system, or the University of California system (which ended when Ronald Reagan became Governor in 1967), and the myriad of other state universities around the country, and this reality undermines the future of students today, and the nation long run!

If we can spend hundreds of billions of dollars on defense and so many other things, we need to support education, tax supported, on a much larger scale!

Alarming Police Overreaction Against Blacks Nationwide, As Threat Of International Terrorism Grows Dramatically!

Ronald 4 Comments

Many people would say that because Barack Obama was elected twice as our first African American President, that racism is gone from American society!

The statement is, of course, preposterous on its face. There are two many people of other racial backgrounds who have shown evidence of discriminatory thoughts, statements, and actions against African Americans and Latinos to be able to assert that racism has dissipated.

If anything, it is the right wing media, and the talk show hosts on radio and Fox News Channel, who are fueling the fires of racism, making whites feel that, somehow, THEY have been discriminated against!

But the recent spate of police officers shooting and killing African American men in St. Louis and Los Angeles, and the choking to death of an African American man by police in New York City, is particularly alarming, as if the law enforcement authorities are perceived as declaring open season on minority men, and even sometimes women, then we are on the road to racial warfare, which hate mongering groups would only be too glad to inspire.

This is a crisis of massive proportions, and no longer can be said to be a “Southern” issue, as it often was depicted even a half century ago, when Northerners wanted to feel good about themselves, and denied that they were part of the problem of racism, prejudice, and discrimination, when they most certainly were part of the problem, although more attention was paid to the Southern states.

This is a very delicate time, with growing inequality of opportunity for the poor and middle class, whether white or minority, and the growing international threat of Islamic terrorism presented by the rise of ISIL, the Islamic State in the Levant. This group controls a large portion of Iraq and Syria, and threatens to slaughter large numbers of non Sunni Arabs, as well as Christians and minority religious groups, and which threatens a world wide war against the Western world and Christianity and Judaism. They already have beheaded children, raped women, and executed large numbers of people in the most brutal fashion, making them seem a threat on the level of the Fascism regimes of Germany and Italy 75 years ago.

We could be entering World War III, at a time when our internal peace and stability is being threatened by both discontented whites, but also by law enforcement elements which show no respect or rational behavior against minority members of society.

There is a sense of foreboding that America is reaching a state of condition the most dangerous since the fall of Adolf Hitler in 1945, and far greater in many ways than the conditions of the Cold War, which seem somehow, by comparison, a time when at least the Soviet enemy was rational, not fanatical, based on religion.

Mix religious extremism in the world at large alongside the racial tensions in a time when one had thought the election of Barack Obama made a post racial world, which now is shown to be a myth!

Central Intelligence Agency Spies On All But Four Nations!

Ronald 18 Comments

The news has come out that the Central Intelligence Agency, created in 1947, and often under attack for its actions, and its illegal doings much of the time, often without knowledge of the President of the United States, has seen its leader in Germany expelled for spying on Chancellor Angela Merkel, including her cell phone.

This action to expel the CIA leader came about without the knowledge of President Barack Obama, and it has caused an embarrassing incident between a friendly nation and the United States.

But it is nothing new for the CIA to go around Presidential control or awareness, and it has been a constant problem, much of it exposed by the Church Committee (headed by Idaho Senator Frank Church) in the mid 1970s!

The CIA is often seen as a shadow government within our government, not accountable to the White House or Congress or the Supreme Court, all in the name of national security.

Thus the National Security Agency and 15 other spy agencies have a budget that is not public knowledge, and we have learned that they are eavesdropping on ordinary Americans in the quest to keep our nation secure, but worrying civil liberties advocates tremendously.

The most interesting revelation coming out of the expose of the German situation is that only four nations, all English speaking, do not have CIA spying going on in their nations–Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand!

So even such allies as Israel, France, Germany, Italy and Japan, among others, are being spied upon regularly!

A Century Ago Today, An Assassination Led To World War I, Which Still Reverberates Today!

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Precisely one hundred years ago today, a political assassination led to the outbreak of World War I, which still reverberates today in so many ways!

The Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, along with his wife, were assassinated in Sarajevo, Bosnia, by Gavrilo Princip, a member of the Black Hand terrorist organization, which was out to prevent Habsburg influence over Bosnia, which was allied by ethnicity to Serbia nationalists, and had friendship and support with Czarist Russia.

The series of events that followed over the next five weeks led to general continental war in Europe, lasting more than four years, when most thought the war would be won by their side within months. Instead, we saw trench warfare, barbed wire separating the warring sides, and use of poison gas, with almost no progress toward victory on the “Western Front”, and total disaster for Czarist Russia in Eastern Europe against Germany and Austria-Hungary. It became known as the “Great War,” but it was only great in the massive loss of life of millions of people, and the upending of the traditional empires of European nations in the Middle East, Asia and Africa.

World War I led to the following:

The rise of the Soviet Union and Communism, and the later Cold War, with the downfall and murder of the last Czar of Russia.

The end of the German Empire, but then the rise of Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler within 14 years of the end of the war, and the eventual outbreak of a more disastrous war, World War II.

The rise of Fascist Italy under Benito Mussolini within four years of the end of the war.

The end of the Austro Hungarian Empire, and the rise of separate nations based on nationality in Eastern Europe.

The end of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, and the creation by Great Britain and France of artificial boundaries for the Arab peoples of the Middle East, leading to more disarray and conflict on a constant basis, and now unraveling after a century.

The decline and fall of the British Empire, French Empire, and other European empires in Africa and Asia over two generations, creating instability in both Africa and Asia, and the creation of new nations on both continents.

The rise of the United States as the greatest military power after World War II until the late 1960s, when the Vietnam War, followed by the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War, undermined and weakened the supremacy of the American nation.

The world and America will be commemorating the events of World War I over the next four and a half years, and a worthwhile tourist site would be the National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri, which the author has visited, and highly recommends to anyone wanting to understand the reality and the impact of this war, which transformed the world in so many ways!

America’s Defense Budget More Than 13 Other Nations Combined!

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America’s defense budget is over $600 billion per year, more than the next 13 nations combined, and one can be sure that the intelligence agencies, all 16 of them, are not included in this total, as their budgets, and in many cases their actual existence, are a deep dark secret!

China, by comparison spends one sixth of our defense budget annually, about $100 billion, for a nation with four times the population of the United States.

The other countries on the list include Russia, Great Britain, Japan, Saudi Arabia, France, Germany, India, Brazil, South Korea, Australia, Iran, and Italy.

The military budget is far higher than it was during the Cold War, and too much is being spent on nuclear weapons, and weapons systems that will never, in reality, be used.

But the Pentagon budget has long been one of massive cost overruns, and corruption by corporations that produce our war goods, and meanwhile the one half of one percent spent on “welfare” is being targeted for massive cuts by the Paul Ryan GOP Budget!

It is time for smart spending on defense, not massive waste at the cost of basic decency for our poorest citizens in a country that likes to think it is the most advanced in the world, but yet is too ready to sacrifice “social spending” in the name of mindless defense spending!

The Crisis Of American Education: Inability To Evaluate And Analyze Information

Ronald 11 Comments

American education is in a major crisis, with the average teenager unable to evaluate and analyze information, part of the success story required as an adult competing in a world economy.

The nation is fraught with danger if this reality is not overcome and soon. How can we have a thriving democracy if much of the population is unable to make good judgments on all kinds of issues, including, but not limited to who should govern them?

Sixty five countries were evaluated on reading, science, and math skills, and American 15 year olds ranked 19th in reading, 22nd in science, and 29th in math!

Asian countries rank at the top, including China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, and South Korea. European nations, including Finland, Germany, and Poland also scored much better than the United States.

Reading has become a lost art, as young people have demonstrated that their attention spans and concentration powers are weaker than in past generations, a lot due to too much time spent on video games social media, and cell phone trances, and in the process losing valuable time in learning that comes from reading all kinds of materials.

Science is in crisis, as more than ever, people are being influenced by religious fundamentalism, which denies scientific reality, and endangers the future of human existence, in favor of belief in faith over facts.

Math is also a disaster area, as most people cannot do basic math skills of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and percentages, let alone higher math requirements for society to advance.

Poverty is a major issue, but also the lack of enough days of schooling, with the average American only attending 180 days a year, while in many other nations, especially in Asia, students attend 230 days, a difference of 10 weeks of education annually!

Trying to attract the top talent into teaching is also in crisis, as pay is very low overall in America, and men in particular are not drawn into the profession in any field of study, with the potential to make more in the business world.