Limits to Power - Book Review

I'll return to this writing after I've read this neat little book a second time. The writer deserves our attention, considering what he and his family have contributed to the US. I too spent 23 years in the US Army, RA (VN), Reserve, NG. So I am biased toward the author.

As a "Green," I must confess that there is nothing really new here, other than a shift in leading characters. Greens have talked about bottom-up sustainability, accountability and US foreign reliance for more than two decades. (See every Green Party Platform, not just the "Green movement's outspoken agenda.) The idea that the US has propagandized self-reliance (a Republican virtue) while relying on other nations for its economy at the expense to all, including the environment, is an old idea.

I recommend this book for all, in any case, and it should be in every high school social studies' curriculum one way or another.

Eddie Evans
Fight crime where it exists!
Crime Scene Cleanup

Definition of a "Liberal" and Capitalism's Government

I remember my college years so well in some respects that I'm almost shocked by this part of my long-term recall.

Sociology professors used to remind us how to keep "conservatives" separate from "liberals."

1. Both conservatives and liberals believe in the inherent usefulness and viability of capitalism.
2. Conservatives believe that the government has little or no place in a capitalists economy ( Ala Milton Friedman's "Chicago School of Economics").
3. Liberals believe that capitalism's excesses must be bridled by the government as a means of social control.
4. Conservatives believe that the government exists to create safe-zones for capitalism to operate.
5. Liberals believe that government exists to quell intense and destructive inter-capitalist acts, price fixing and war, for example.

Now today we see that "conservatives," like George Bush (Who is actually an ultra-right-wing radical.) are willing to intervene in our capitalist economy in a monumental way. It is the liberal belief that capitalist will destroy the very sources of their wealth that brings him to this liberal "fine-tuning," as my professors used to call it. Everything is OK, then. Capitalism just needs some "fine-tuning."

Today we see that "liberals" will go along with "conservatives" to create "safe-zones" for capitalism's development. George Bush, I recall, is not a "conservative." Although he does act like a "liberal" when it comes to the government's intervention into the US economy.
I cannot forget that Bush was and is the guy driven to place the US social security funds into the "free market." Bush might call this usurpation of public funds "fine-tuning."
All is well in capitalism's government.
So it goes.
Eddie Evans - Doing my best to cleanup after crimes of all sorts.
Crime Scene Cleanup

Hagel says "Palin" a "stretch"

WASHINGTON – Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel said his party's vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, lacks foreign policy experience and called it a "stretch" to say she's qualified to be president.

"She doesn't have any foreign policy credentials," Hagel said in an interview published Thursday by the Omaha World-Herald. "You get a passport for the first time in your life last year? I mean, I don't know what you can say. You can't say anything."

It's an odd day when I agree with a Republican, and today is no different than before. It's odd to say that Obama amounts to all that much of a change, too. Obama uses the "N" (nukes) word. How can anyone justify to future generations our great need for nukes? They have no way of knowing where that stuff will go. I've spent too much time writing about the life expectancy of nuclear fuel and threats to Earth's various habitats for millions of years from the crazy acts of fundamentalist with nukes. Palin, a fundamentalist, claims Earth's greenhouse affect arose from an act of God. Blaming God will not help. God help us!

So, anyway, I don't see a lot of promise out there. McBush selects a radical fundamentalist to become president, and Obama's use of the "N" work disqualifies him from serious consideration. Then, Obama's got to overcome this talk of "earmarks" for his wife's employer as well as others.

The Green's candidate is not a "Green" and she selected a party-hardy girl for her running mate. To think that someone espousing the virtues of rap as an implement of positive social change would run as a Green! Is there anything Green in her head? To think that the Greens candidate searchers are searching out black women for the sake of running black women, regardless of their Green knowledge, amounts to a total failure of Green electoral politics.

It's hopeless, absolutely hopeless. I'm staying home this time, and probably next time!

Eddie Evans (Cleaning up after crimes as best that I can.)

Crime Scene Cleanup

Republican's platform even more radical than before.

He doesn't want Americans to notice that the Republican platform is the most extreme we've ever seen -- opposing stem cell research, denying a woman's right to choose no matter what the circumstance, and continuing to spend $10 billion a month in Iraq.

Sad.

We'll get nukes, too, and still have nowhere to place the waste for the next 10 million years. How will we hide it from the terrorists?

Eddie Evans
Crime Scene Cleanup