Please bear with me as I get these four relatively short stories off my chest. I’d love to hear your comments at the end of the blog.
Proper Parenting Skills—Providing Motivation
The first dozen years of my life, my family, parents and two younger brothers lived over the store. Actually it was a small film processing facility with a tiny camera store out front. Usually after school, I went downstairs to see my Father and Uncle then I hand developed black and white enlargements. Even back then, my parents felt it would give me a comforting sense of security to know that after graduating college I will be working in the family business. Sure, I guess compared to my friends that didn’t have a business to go into, I felt a inner sense of relief. But the other side of the coin was that safety net took away some of my desire to strive to do what I really wanted to do, and believe me there were many things on my list ahead of running a film processing plant. As far back as I could remember people always told me how “funny you are.” I also loved music and was a film buff. I’d often awake from dreams about entertaining people, but most of the time I was behind the scenes making music or movies. My fantasy life wasn’t strong enough for me to graduate college, reject the family business, then hit the streets trying to learn the music or movie business from the ground floor.
I just read an article written about Warren Buffett by his son Peter telling a story about how Warren refused to help his children with money. When Peters sister asked for a loan of $15,000 to remodel her kitchen, Warren told her to go to the bank. When Peter was a young man, he asked his father for a loan to buy musical equipment, he got the same answer. Today he is an Emmy Award-winning musician and composer, and grateful for his fathers stance. “It sounds harsh but it is really very loving,” he says.
It’s a show of respect, saying, “You can do it. I believe in you, and if I give you a crutch, you are never going to learn how to walk.” Peter did go to the bank, got the loans and built his own successful business and worked his tail off to pay off the loans. “I would not have done that if somebody was writing me a check.”
Murder Incorporated, or Saving Lives
The majority of Americans strongly believe “something” must be done to reduce the gun violence in our country. In addition, the majority of politicians also believe the same. But when it comes to taking on the NRA, the majority of politicians refuse to vote for any legislation that is not favored by the NRA. The National Rifle Association, which has approximately 5 million members, has approximately $250,000,000 in annual operating income. Most of that income is used to make a difference whether politicians get re-elected. Follow the money!!! It’s more important for most politicians to keep their seat than to care enough about run away gun violence in America. Even reasonable laws are over-ruled for one simple reason. The NRA’s chief Wayne La Perriere strongly believes in the old truism “if you give them a finger, they will take a hand,” so he refuses to allow any progress in gun control whatsoever.
Here’s a new example of their narrow mindedness. Armatrix, a company is making a “smart gun” that has many safety and security add-on’s; they have fingerprint scans (so any user other than the owner can’t fire it), special security codes (PINS) and other technology also insure safety. These smart guns can save thousands of lives. The number of stolen guns, and guns found and used by children or their friends, would lower the murder rate dramatically The gun nuts see smart guns as “the first steps into disarming private citizens.” Last week a gun dealer in Maryland who was selling smart guns, stopped selling them because of several death threats. Isn’t it amazing how 5 million NRA members and a few greedy politicians can influence the safety and security of over 320 Million other Americans.
A One State Solution
Decades have gone by, and many good intentioned intermediaries have tried to negotiate a mid-east peace between Israel and the Palestinians, but we are back again at the beginning. The way I see it, even though I think a workable two state solution would be beneficial for all parties, it was and still is impossible to achieve for one specific reason. Hamas will not accept Israel’s right to exist, and their stated goal is to drive all the Israelis into the sea. If they will not even accept their right to exist, how can anybody in their right mind insist Israel negotiates with them. So no matter how much pressure Israel gets from nations around the world, including the U.S., claiming Israel will become an “apartheid state” without a negotiated two state solution, it must hold firm. Although Israel is fed up with the Arab intransigence, it cannot annex the West Bank and absorb the Palestinians without a right to vote and other lost freedoms they have now. It would cause major terrorism activity in the region. So unless and until Hamas accepts Israel’s right to exist, they will be living with a “permanent occupation.” Israel will never again be forced to “trust your neighbor,”…been there, done that.
Iraq, It’s Three Years Later. Let’s look at the Video Tape.
First let’s take a look at the costs in lives, missing limbs, brain trauma and Dollars. So far we have spend over $2.2 Trillion on the Iraq war. We also owe $490 Billion to war veteran’s and adding to the ongoing costs including future interest, comes up to about 6 Trillion Dollars total over the years. Now in terms of lost lives; 4,487 Americans died in Iraq, 32,226 wounded plus another approximately 600,000 plus suffering from; PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder),Traumatic Brain Injuries, Depression, severe hearing loss, diseases, and other long term health problems. We also killed approximately 550,000 innocent Iraqis, who were merely defending their country.
Now why did we invade Iraq? Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the neo-cons came up with a phony story (that eventually was proven wrong), claiming Saddam Hussein worked with Al-Qaida to bomb us on 9/11, and Iraq had a stockpile of “Weapons of Mass Destruction” that will be used against us and our allies. Plus, we also later discovered that Wolfowitz and Cheney pushed Bush for a faster start to the war claiming that we would use Iraq’s oil to pay for it. They all claimed, (including John McCain), that the war will be over in a matter of days and we’ll have control of a stock pile of oil comparable to Saudi Arabia’s. Senator Obama voted against the war, Hillary voted for it.
Let’s do a review of the record of George “W” Bush ( just say his name before each of the following actions)….I George W Bush
1) presided over the biggest energy crisis in history, refusing intervention when corruption involving the oil industry was revealed.
2) presided over the highest gasoline prices in U.S. history.
3) changed the U.S. policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.
4) appointed more convicted criminals to my administration than any other President in U.S. history.
5) created the Ministry of Homeland Security, the largest bureaucracy in the history of the U.S. Government.
6) broke more international treaties than any other President.
7) was the first president in U.S. history to have the united nations remove the U.S. from the World Court of Law.
8) had the U.N. remove us from the Human Rights Commission.
9) refused to allow inspectors access to U.S. “prisoner of war” detainees and thereby refused to abide by the Geneva Convention.
10) was the first President in history to refuse U.N. election inspectors during the 2002 U.S. election.
11) set the record for the fewest number of press conferences of any President since the advent of TV.
12) set a record for most vacation days in any one-year period.
13) after taking off the full month of August, presided over the worst security failure in our nations history.
14) garnered unprecedented sympathy for the U.S. after the World trade center attacks, less than one year later made the U.S. the most disliked country in the world, possibly the largest failure of diplomacy in world history.
15) set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously protest me in public venues (15 million), shattering the record for protests against any person in the history of mankind.
16) was the first President in history to order an unprovoked, pre-emptive attack and the military occupation of a sovereign nation.
17) did so against the will of the U.N., the majority of U.S. citizens, and the world community.
18) cut health care benefits for war veterans and their families-in-wartime.
19) was the only President in History to have a majority of Europeans (71%) view my Presidency as the biggest threat to word peace and security.
20) failed to fulfill my pledge to bring Osama Bin Laden to justice and was quoted on TV saying, “Oh, I don’t think about him much”
Fox never said one negative word about “W” for 8 years
Oh, I left out he also stopped progress for 8 years not allowing stem-cell research to continue. He also read and ignored ignored intelligence warnings that Iraqi nationals were learning how to fly big jet planes and not learning how to land them. That alone should at least provoke some curiosity in anyone of intelligence or caring.
I believe it is always important to review history. We MUST remember so we can try to never made a mistake like “W” again.
Thanks,
Marty
You can find me at http://www.twitter.com/martysavarick
or http://www.facebook.com/101waystostophatingdating or my website at stophatingdating.com
A Meandering Mind 