or
Is the greatest threat facing the world and Israel, America's abdication of its role in bringing about a balance now that Obama seems to be aligning with Russia, Assad and Iran because of his inept weakness? (See 1b below.)
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Hillarious and her gathering storm. (See 2 and 2a below.)
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What to do about Political Correctness. (See 3 below.)
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I understand why conservatives are fed up with the leadership of the Republican Party but it will take more than ticked off conservatives to win the Oval Office.
In the final analysis, Republicans need to nominate a proven and accomplished candidate who knows how to campaign and strike back when attacked in an effective manner.
As for the Hispanic vote. The Pope's visit highlighted the fact that 40% of America's Catholic population is Hispanic. The Pope made a passionate speech about the threat to religious freedom which is mostly coming from the left, progressives and radicals who have captured the Demwit Party and link with Obama.
What a rich target any Republican nominee has been given because Hispanics are basically conservative, religious, family oriented and are willing to work hard unlike other Demwit constituencies.
If this candidate offers, and the Party will embrace, a rational and empathetic solution to protecting our borders, allowing "illegals," with no criminal record, to earn their way to citizenship, this large group of voters might break ranks and cast significant votes for the Republican candidate.
Trump cannot capture them but most of the other candidates can and should be able to do so.
JEB should be the one most Hispanics would willingly take a hard look. at. Ironically, JEB should also be compatible for Conservatives if they would look at his record objectively. He was a successful conservative Governor and his solid achievements are there for all to see.
The reason Party Conservatives have rejected JEB is because he supports Common Core, his last name is Bush and he has been a better governor than presidential candidate. With respect to the latter even I have found him less than inspiring. Perhaps he will improve over time, perhaps attacks from The Donald will light a fire under him and perhaps he will move away from handlers and start looking at himself objectively. If he does even he would agree his campaigning needs some fine tuning and even then he could still be rejected.
As for the remaining candidates Kasich, Rubio, Carly all have significant attributes and one cannot dismiss Carson and Cruz, though the latter appeals to The Donald's crowd he is less offensive in delivering is Conservative message.
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Dick
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1)
The writer is a professor of history at Harvard and author of ‘Kissinger: 1923-1968’
West blew its peace dividend in 20-year party of consumption and speculation, says Niall Ferguson
The cold war has been called the “long peace”. In fact, the two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union look a lot more peaceful. Indeed, it might make more sense to call 1991-2010 the short peace. It was an era that inspired some to speculate that the “better angels of our nature” might be gaining the upper hand. The bad news is that this short peace appears to be over.
To study the 1970s is to be reminded just how hot the cold war actually was. More than 2m battle deaths resulted from state-based armed conflict in the 1970s, compared with about 270,000 in the 2000s. For the US, Vietnam was a vastly more lethal war than Iraq (47,424 US combat deaths compared with 3,527).
After 1956, according to the Peace Research Institute Oslo, the peak years for battle deaths resulting from state-based armed conflict were 1971 (about 380,000 fatalities; and the years from 1982 to 1988, when the annual average was close to 250,000. Between 2002 and 2007 the average was just under 17,000.
At least six explanations have been suggested for this decline. The psychologist, Steven Pinker, attributes it to a long-run civilising process. Another theory credits the spread of democracy and the growth of supranational institutions. Demographic trends — in particular, the relative decline of youth in the world’s population — may have reduced the constituency for violence. Technology, from the atomic bomb and television to the internet, has also reduced the incentives for large-scale warfare.
Alongside these structural explanations is the historical answer that the leaders of the superpowers did a remarkably good job of ending the nuclear arms race and ultimately the cold war itself. Finally, the ideologies that did so much to encourage violence in the 20th century — fascism and communism — have been emphatically defeated, a point made as long ago as 1989 by Francis Fukuyama.
So is this the advent of “perpetual peace”, as envisioned by Immanuel Kant? Or is it something much more ephemeral? The answer depends on how enduring one considers those pacifying forces to be. The trends identified by Professor Pinker have been challenged as statistical illusions by Nassim Nicholas Taleb of Black Swanfame.
In absolute if not in relative terms, we do not face a shortage of young men. The history of the 20th century suggests that advances in democracy and in supranational institutions can be reversed, particularly in the wake of big economic shocks. Technology may make new kinds of conflict easier, while proliferation may in fact be increasing the risk of a nuclear war. As for the good judgment of superpower leaders, few serious students of foreign policy would claim that the standards of the 1980s have been maintained.
But the biggest argument against the “perpetual peace” hypothesis is ideological. Since the Iranian revolution of 1979, we have been witnessing the revival of an old ideology — political Islam — that may ultimately prove to be as violent and menacing to western values as fascism and communism once were. Already that ideology has been in large measure responsible for a marked upturn in war, political violence and especially terrorism since around 2010.
War is back, and much of it is holy war. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, total fatalities resulting from armed conflict have increased by a factor of four since 2010. In 2000, according to my calculations, 35 per cent of the fatalities in armed conflicts were in wars involving Muslims. In 2014 it was 79 per cent.
This is not the clash of civilisations Samuel Huntington prophesied. Much of today’s conflict is between Muslims. Religion is certainly not the sole cause for increasing conflict, but it is more than a coincidence that global warfare is so concentrated in the Islamic world.
We have been here before. Fyodor Dostoevsky brilliantly anatomised the secular extremists of the 19th century in his novel, Demons. Fanatical nationalists and communists wreaked havoc in the 20th century. In our time, however, the Koran has displaced Das Kapital. Today’s demons pose as religious purists.
It would take a new Dr Pangloss to predict an imminent reversal of the trend of increasing violence in the Muslim world. A more likely scenario is a continuing escalation in what might be called a fractal geometry of sectarian conflict, occurring all the way from the Maghreb to the Hindu Kush, and spilling over in the forms of massive population displacement and also terrorism wherever extremist groups can recruit.
The world’s short peace is ending. Errors of western policy — from bungled intervention in Iraq to non-intervention in Syria — only partly explain the return of conflict. More important is the lethal combination of economic volatility, a youth bulge, disruptive technology and the viral spread of a lethal ideology.
The west had its peace dividend after 1991. We blew it in a two-decade party of consumption, leverage and speculation. First came the financial hangover; now comes the geopolitical reckoning. Dealing with it will mean relearning the arts of grand strategy and war.
I shall miss the better angels of our nature. But, throughout the short peace, I always had the sneaking suspicion Dostoevsky’s demons would be back.
1a)MK Tzachi Hanegbi to IMRA: OK if Hezbollah fights rebels with tanks on
Israel Golan border By Dr.. Aaron Lerner
In a live interview this morning on Israel Radio Reshet Bet, Knesset's
Security and Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman MK Tzachi Hanegbi (Likud)
told anchor Aryeh Golan that Israel is not concerned about reports of the
transfer of tanks to Hezbollah as Hezbollah would use those tanks in Syria
and they would be easily observed if Hezbollah moved them to Lebanon.
Israel's concern, Hanegbi noted, is if anti-aircraft missiles and other
advanced equipment is transferred to Hezbollah.
IMRA followed up via SMS, asking "if there is any concern that Hezbollah
would use those tanks near our border in battle against the rebels now
occupying those areas?"
MK Hanegbi replied (in Hebrew): There's no problem.
IMRA repeated (in Hebrew): That's to say, you do not think that there is
any problem if they fight with tanks in the Golan next to our border?
MK Hanegbi replied:(in Hebrew): Correct
1b) Israel's Biggest Fears Are Materializing
Two years ago to the day, in September 2013, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry compared Bashar Assad to Adolf Hitler, after the Syrian dictator once again used chemical weapons against his own people. "This is our Munich moment," Kerry said at the time.
As far as the Americans were concerned, Assad had crossed a line. In those days (more like in those hours, actually), Washington briefly believed that a failure to respond to Assad's actions would send a dangerous message to Iran regarding its nuclear ambitions.
"Will [Iran] remember that the Assad regime was stopped from those weapons' current or future use, or will they remember that the world stood aside and created impunity?" Kerry asked at the time. History and retrospect have turned what may have been Kerry's greatest speech into remarks entirely detached from reality.
The United States did not attack, Assad is still in power, and an ominous nuclear deal has been signed with Iran. It is no wonder that there is a new kind of atmosphere in the region, under American auspices. There are no more good guys and bad guys; everyone is a partner. And thanks to this new reality, Assad now has a renewed license to rule, after having received a license to kill.
Washington is reaching out to Russia, which is openly helping Assad in Syria, who is working in conjunction with Iran, which in turn supports Hezbollah. Europe (Angela Merkel), in the meantime, startled by its refugee crisis, is already prepared to talk with Assad; the same Assad who was compared to Hitler only two years ago. But what about us, for heaven's sake?
Regretfully, Israel's biggest fears are now materializing. Instead of being the architects and shaping a new reality in the Middle East, Washington is falling into line with the existing reality. Russia, Syria and Iran are enjoying the consequent vacuum. When the cat is away, the mice will play. Now, all of a sudden, even Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah is letting himself go on television, beaming with joy. Aside from the 75 tanks Damascus is giving him, he now sees his two patrons (Damascus and Tehran) become partners with the West, without having to change one bit.
There is no diplomatic vacuum
The latest developments in Syria are not encouraging: Assad's first target, with Russia's help, is expected to be the Nusra Front rebel group, which not only threatens Assad but is also a bitter enemy of the Islamic State group. In other words, somewhat paradoxically, Islamic State could initially benefit from the Russian intervention in Syria.
And one final word about Iran's rapprochement with the international community: We have been told repeatedly that this was only about the nuclear deal, but in reality we can see cooperation between the U.S. and Iran in Iraq and in the war against Islamic State. We can also see American-Iranian dialogue regarding Syria's future, and on Saturday night we learned of a gigantic deal worth upwards of $21 billion between Iran and Russia. This time I am forced to agree with Secretary Kerry: This really does look like a Munich moment.
And one final word about Iran's rapprochement with the international community: We have been told repeatedly that this was only about the nuclear deal, but in reality we can see cooperation between the U.S. and Iran in Iraq and in the war against Islamic State. We can also see American-Iranian dialogue regarding Syria's future, and on Saturday night we learned of a gigantic deal worth upwards of $21 billion between Iran and Russia. This time I am forced to agree with Secretary Kerry: This really does look like a Munich moment.
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2). How Long Before Hillary Garbed in a Bathrobe Starts Wandering the Streets of Chappaqua?
This week there’s been a Niagara of stories refuting her never-ending lies about the emails she sent and received on an unauthorized private server.
Political correctness (PC) run amok – that's what our public discourse has come down to. It's diminishing our quality of life. We're seeing PC used as a weapon at all levels in our society. It is being viciously and unfairly used in attempts to shut down and/or hurt those who hold opposing views. Have we really come to accept this? Sure seems that way! Maybe it's not too late to change.
Every day, statements that people make are being grossly exaggerated, taken out of context, misinterpreted, and/or deemed offensive or otherwise unacceptable. More and more words and phrases are being declared off-limits by “leaders” we don't trust and certainly don't agree with. PC in its many forms has become a preferred tool with which the powerful elite manipulate and control public perception. Mass media, political sycophants, and gullible ideologues have enthusiastically joined in the game.
Some years ago, in an effort to avoid prosecution, Mafia boss Vincent “Vinnie the Chin” Gigante donned a bathrobe and wandered the streets of Little Italy and Greenwich Village posing as a demented old man. I wonder if Hillary Clinton is getting fitted for just such a bathrobe and starts wandering the lanes of Chappaqua in Westchester to avoid prosecution herself.
For years I’ve saved lots of time by considering every word she says a lie, and her story about her emails and email server proves my point. Everything she said about the emails has come apart and now there are rumors she has some health issues.
Insiders are claiming she’s suffered a series of strokes and has multiple sclerosis. “Clinton has a history of blackouts, falls, memory loss, blinding headaches, vision problems and collapses dating back at least a decade. In 2005, she fainted during a luncheon speech in Buffalo, N.Y. Four years later, then–Secretary of State Clinton broke her right elbow in a mysterious fall in a U.S. State Department garage. In 2011, Clinton collapsed while boarding a flight in Yemen, but insisted she'd simply slipped.”
If, indeed, this information is coming from people close to her campaign they might be setting up a defense for her -- although without knowing whether the government will charge her and in view of her party’s dependence on her as the only realistic nominee, this is tricky business. If they overplay this it might cost her the nomination after all.
In the meantime, although progress in the courts is slow, it cannot be put off forever.
“For Team Clinton, it’s become the equivalent of a courtroom quagmire.
Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign is finding it difficult to move past the controversy over her email setup while she was serving as the nation’s top diplomat, in part because of the nearly three-dozen legal challenges related to it
There are 35 separate, active public records lawsuits against the State Department that deal with the emails of Clinton or her top aides.”
A jurist who boasts being appointed to federal judgeships by Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton ordered the State Department to find out from the FBI what was recoverable on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's private email server, but the FBI is playing dumb.
The conservative nonprofit Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act request for copies of emails between the former secretary of state and her top aides. The FBI's counsel responded to State's attempts to follow through on D.C. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan's order with a statement asserting that "we can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any ongoing investigation."
IBD may being unnecessarily harsh on the FBI. It was not a party to that particular documents request and, in any event, would be smart to hold close to the chest right now what it has rather than letting the attorney general and the public know. It does seem clear to me, even in the fog, that there are disgruntled sources in the DNI, Department of State, and, perhaps even the FBI, who are so angry about the careless mishandling of classified information that they will not let her off the hook.
This week there’s been a Niagara of stories refuting her never-ending lies about the emails she sent and received on an unauthorized private server.
Although she’s represented that her personal emails on the server were lost, it’s been reported the FBI has been able to recover them and turned over 925 Libya-related emails to the Benghazi panel.
She claimed that the Department of State’s request for her email records came at the same time and was of a piece of its request to former secretaries of state. Turns out, it wasn’t and her claim was another lie:
“State Department officials provided new information Tuesday that undercuts Clinton’s characterization. They said the request was not simply about general record-keeping but was prompted entirely by the discovery that Clinton had exclusively used a private e-mail system. They also said they first contacted her in the summer of 2014, at least three months before the agency asked Clinton and three of her predecessors to provide their e-mails.”
Other aspects of her shady operations kept tumbling out this week: It was she who approved awarding Huma Abedin special status allowing her to do private consulting for Teneo and work for the Clinton Foundation and for the Department of State at the same time. Certainly this resulted in obvious conflicts of interest and her emails are also being sought. As you might have guessed, Hillary had earlier said she was not “directly involved” in this bizarre decision.
"Well, I was not directly involved in that, but everything that she did was approved under the rules as they existed by the State Department," Clinton said.
The document states the following: “I certify that this is an accurate statement of the major duties and responsibilities of this person… and the position is necessary to carry out government functions for which I am responsible,” the form reads in a box labelled "supervisory certification."
“Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State,” reads the name in that box.
The signature, however, has been blanked out by the State Department.
There can be little doubt that three of her closest aides at the Department of State -- Patrick Kennedy, Huma Abedin, and Cheryl Mills -- will find themselves increasingly under fire by investigators for the FBI, the courts, and Congress. They might want to keep in mind the fate of those faithful aides (that is, human sacrifices) of the Clintons the last time around. And this time, with Clinton’s star fading fast, they may have more to fear by covering up her misdeeds than bycoming clean and protecting their own hides.
Probably the most scathing commentary about the cascading scandal is that of Ron Fournier of the National Journal, who told her to come clean or get out.
If the Democratic Party cares to salvage a sliver of moral authority, its leaders and early state voters need to send Hillary Rodham Clinton an urgent message: Come clean or get out. Stop lying and deflecting about how and why you stashed State Department email on a secret server -- or stop running
[snip]
While the Democratic front-runner still insists there was no classified information on the unsecured server, the FBI has moved beyond whether U.S. secrets were involved to how and why. In the language of law enforcement, the FBI is investigating her motive.
On Sunday, Clinton told Face the Nation host John Dickerson: “What I did was allowed. It was fully above board,” and “I tried to be fully transparent.” Both claims are objectively and indisputably false.
Almost as if on cue, the FBI arrested Ng Lap Seng last weekend, a man with close ties to the Chinese Government for bringing in large sums of cash -- $4.5 million in the past 2 years -- and lying about his purpose for so doing. Does the name sound familiar? It should.
Ng was identified in a 1998 Senate report as the source of hundreds of thousands of dollars illegally funneled through an Arkansas restaurant owner, Charlie Trie, to the Democratic National Committee during the Clinton administration.
“Trie’s contributions purchased access for himself and Ng to the highest levels of our government,” the Senate report said.
Ng and Trie made a number of visits to the White House to attend Democratic National Committee-sponsored events and were photographed with President Bill Clinton and then-First Lady Hillary Clinton. ABC News reported in 1997 that Ng had made six trips to the White House.
Senate investigators said Ng “refused to meet with or answer the investigators questions,” although he was never charged with a crime in the investigation.
Trie, an American citizen, pleaded guilty to violating campaign finance laws.
Also arrested with Ng was an associate and translator, Jeff Yin, a naturalized American citizen who is also accused of lying about the use and importation of the funds. Both are being held at a federal corrections center and are scheduled to be in court on Oct. 5.
Ng's lawyer, Kevin Tung, said Ng is being held without bail, and Tung said he could not comment as to where the money had allegedly gone.
Like Sergeant Schultz, Hillary claims to know nothing about it.
Hillary's campaign office is claiming ignorance. But isn't it funny how suddenly the Clintons' old Chinese bagmen are popping up again, lugging around bags full of cash, just as the Clintons make another run at the White House?
Recall that in her 2008 bid for the White House, Hillary had to return hundreds of thousands of dollars raised by another Chinese bagman, Norman Hsu, who happened to be a criminal fugitive. Hsu bundled $1 million for the Clinton campaign through straw donors. He was busted for laundering foreign cash.
The pattern of corruption may be repeating with the re-emergence of Ng.
[snip]
Through Trie, Ng bought access to the White House ostensibly on behalf of Beijing, which the FBI said at the time was running an influence operation against the Clinton administration.
At the time, Chinese missiles couldn't hit the side of a barn. But thanks to Clinton missile-technology transfers, Beijing can now hit any city in the U.S. And thanks to his opening up the nuclear weapons labs to Chinese scientists, Beijing "stole" the designs to every nuke in the U.S. arsenal.
The Chicoms also sought a beachhead in our hemisphere and got it, when Clinton in 1997 allowed Chinese front companies to take over the Panama Canal, a strategic waterway linking the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean. Beijing now effectively controls key naval shipping lanes in our backyard.
[snip]
Beijing got a hell of a lot for their money under the treasonous Clinton administration. Now it seems they're back trying to get even more in a hoped-for second regime.
Too bad the corrupt Clintons aren't joining the mysterious Mr. Wu behind bars.
The private company which managed her private server was compromised as early as 2011 and China was the “home source of 299 of the 338 command and control networks that the hackers used to carry out the attacks.”
Maybe Ng was just gilding an already stolen lily.
2a)
New Emails Show Clinton Used Private Server Earlier Than She Said
Newly disclosed emails from Hillary Clinton to then CENTCOM chief David Petraeus show that the former secretary of state was using a private server earlier than she had previously said.
The new set of emails, from January to February 2009, was turned over to the State Department by the Department of Defense, State Department spokesman John Kirby told ABC News, confirming a story originally reported by The Associated Press.
The State Department said its record of Clinton emails begins on March 18, 2009. Over the nearly two months she was in office before that, Clinton has said she used a Blackberry email account that she can no longer access.
The discovery appears to contradict Clinton's sworn statement that she had turned over all the email from her private server to the State Department.
Clinton's team did not respond to a request from ABC News for comment.
The revelation came the same day the State Department said it had found previously undisclosed emails related to the Benghazi terror attack on Clinton's private email account.
In February, the Department turned over 296 emails relating to Benghazi to the House Select Committee investigation the attack, claiming at the time that they were the only emails relevant to the committee's request.
The discovery Friday of a handful of new emails, first reported by the Daily Beast, contradicted that claim.
A senior State Department official told ABC News on Friday that it missed these emails the first time around because of the cumbersome nature of discovery process. Clinton turned over 55,000 printed pages of documents that had to be search by hand, which prevented researchers from conducting electronic keyword searches, according to this official. The new emails were discovered only after the documents had been scanned and searched on a computer.
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3)
Political Correctness: Do We Have What It Takes To Reverse Course? By Fred Bindewald
Political correctness (PC) run amok – that's what our public discourse has come down to. It's diminishing our quality of life. We're seeing PC used as a weapon at all levels in our society. It is being viciously and unfairly used in attempts to shut down and/or hurt those who hold opposing views. Have we really come to accept this? Sure seems that way! Maybe it's not too late to change.
Every day, statements that people make are being grossly exaggerated, taken out of context, misinterpreted, and/or deemed offensive or otherwise unacceptable. More and more words and phrases are being declared off-limits by “leaders” we don't trust and certainly don't agree with. PC in its many forms has become a preferred tool with which the powerful elite manipulate and control public perception. Mass media, political sycophants, and gullible ideologues have enthusiastically joined in the game.
Political correctness (PC) run amok – that's what our public discourse has come down to. It's diminishing our quality of life. We're seeing PC used as a weapon at all levels in our society. It is being viciously and unfairly used in attempts to shut down and/or hurt those who hold opposing views. Have we really come to accept this? Sure seems that way! Maybe it's not too late to change.
Every day, statements that people make are being grossly exaggerated, taken out of context, misinterpreted, and/or deemed offensive or otherwise unacceptable. More and more words and phrases are being declared off-limits by “leaders” we don't trust and certainly don't agree with. PC in its many forms has become a preferred tool with which the powerful elite manipulate and control public perception. Mass media, political sycophants, and gullible ideologues have enthusiastically joined in the game.
Specific examples are unnecessary here. If we're honest and paying attention, each of us can easily observe dozens of examples each week.
There are words that I won't use in public. You too, I bet. Why? It's not that we need to feel responsible when others are offended – that's their problem and they should grow up enough to deal more effectively with their own feelings and emotional reactions. Fact is, way too many people have become weak; they whine when bothered by the words of others, and they want to retaliate.
These are the people (how many in today's society resort to this?) who support and rely upon the “controllers” to play God and punish those who don't follow their rules of speech – in opposition to the constitutional, free speech principles that have historically helped our nation to flourish.
It doesn't help that our society has become more and more secular, leaving many with nowhere to turn (without spiritual knowledge and the power of prayer) for guidance when they “feel offended.” The power mongers among us are quick to recruit such people to help them in their efforts to destroy their political enemies. This typifies how anger often becomes amplified and dangerous in our society.
Consider this: From the very beginning of our republic's existence, the free flow of ideas has been a primary factor in our nation's overall success. However, in recent decades we have witnessed a not insignificant decline in the effectiveness of virtually all of our institutions – governmental, financial, educational, religious, etc.
When we can't freely say what we mean and mean what we say, we are crippled as a society. Meaningful debate becomes the exception rather than the rule. Mutual understanding, problem solving, and creative innovation all suffer. Major political and social issues remain unresolved. Institutions begin to fail miserably. Degradation of society into chaos and anarchy starts looking like a real possibility.
Many believe that once life becomes intolerable in these ways for a substantial portion of the country's population, revolution might be considered as an alternative. Although that seems a remote possibility, it should be noted that even the threat of revolution has (many times throughout history) resulted in a drastic shift to a totalitarian form of government. Most can agree that we don't want that. Should we risk even a slim chance of such a calamity by staying on the path we're on? When will it be too late to reverse course?
Weigh all of that against educating our citizenry (starting at an early age): 1) how to internalize the fact that continually blaming others for their discomfort will never resolve societal issues; 2) how to be responsible for their own feelings, without trying to suppress the expression of opinions by others; 3) how to make practical personal decisions unencumbered by their own emotions; 4) how to engage others in rational debate; and, 5) how to compromise on behalf of all concerned.
As responsible adults, even when we realize we all have flaws and that our main problem is ourselves (that is, how we react to what's happening around us, as well as within us), we can still find life to be exceedingly difficult at times. For many, this can become overwhelming without help.
Ultimately, a primary emphasis on the practical use of spiritual tools can pretty much guarantee that we (as a society) will make progress in ways we all desire. That emphasis can provide the help each of us needs on a day-to-day basis to better deal with life on life's terms. Whether or not (for an individual) this necessarily entails becoming associated with any religion is clearly up to that individual – per the Constitution.
How much can our society benefit if we choose such a course? Obviously, I believe the benefits can be great, but you can judge for yourself. One thing is for sure: The longer we continue to do nothing, the more pain and desperation we and our fellow Americans are going to experience.
My view is that healing can begin as soon as we decide to change our educational system in ways (see above) that are currently sorely lacking, and when most of us can agree that it's okay to encourage each other to take advantage of our natural spirituality.
“We're not human beings having a spiritual experience. We're spiritual beings having a human experience.” – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Fred Bindewald is a conservative retiree who values honest debate. He can be reached at bindewal@hotmail.com.
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