The Ocean Park Column – Page 5 – A miscellany of humor and serious commentary.

March 5, 2011Dennis AllardLeft2 Comments

The Battle of Zawiya

Very brave people in Libya are fighting in Zawiya to free themselves from the corrupt dictator Ghadahfi and his cronies. The battle is raging as I write.

The people fighting for democracy may not win. They may lose. But things have changed. The zeitgeist is now imbued with the ideal of democracy. It’s just an ideal, without an organized leadership or ideology. Partly that’s good because, among other things, it is not a fundamentalist religious movement. It is an uprising by millions of people who have reached a tipping point. They see the world on the Internet, they see the conditions in their own country. They want change now. It’s not perfect and never will be but it is good change.

If this battle is lost, the war will continue. This change is inevitable, however long it takes.

Saudi Arabia, you’re in line.

Does the power structure in the United States want this? After having supported so many dictatorships in the world for so many decades? Well, it’s time for some change here too.

The working people of the United States, including “illegal” people, are also witnessing the events. Labor, what should be a revered and cherished aspect of our society, can savor this change being lead by the Arab world and other places like Bolivia, whose president is a Llama herder.

February 22, 2011Dennis AllardLeft, Morning ThoughtsLeave a comment

Daniel Ortega is a horses ass

The statement made today by Daniel Ortega expressing solidarity with Moammar Gaddafi is an insult to the worthy Sandinista ideals that he once purportedly represented and an insult to the brave people of Libya.

Daniel Ortega is a disgrace to Sandino.

February 11, 2011Dennis AllardLeft, Morning ThoughtsLeave a comment

Congratulations Egypt!

Today, there was something new under the sun. Mubarak is out. The people have spoken. Democracy is emerging in an Arab state.

This is going to be interesting. “This is only the beginning”, stated one of the young people leading this revolt.

Can something like a true democracy be built in Egypt? The young in Egypt will see to it. May they succeed. It will not be easy and it will not be perfect.

A beautiful thing about the movements in the Arab world as with the new governments in South America is that they are genuinely coming from the people and are not being determined by US decision makers.

February 8, 2011Dennis AllardLeft, Morning Thoughts1 Comment

Hillary Clinton opposes legalizing drugs but why?

Each day I realize more that I live in a world dominated by power and not by truth. I just heard Hillary Clinton opposes legalizing drugs “because there is too much money in it”. And I read that “Hillary Clinton applauds Mexican government’s war on drugs”.

Can someone please tell me if there is another planet nearby where I can escape to?

Too much money in it? The price of legalized drugs would be higher than the price of those same drugs kept illegal? That is prima facie stupid. I guess if the US pharmaceutical industry takes over, that actually is possible. But cocaine and marijuana are very natural substances and are inexpensive to produce. Legalizing them and permitting legal production and distribution would lower the price, not raise it. And legalized drugs would become a large source of tax revenue of money now going to drug lords. And it would put the illegal drug lords out of business.

No, something else is going on here. As with the insane, and at this point stupid, war in Afghanistan, there must be some other explanation for why the world is kept the way it is. That goes for US policy in Egypt as well. And it has to do with preserving power, holding on to it. It does not have to do with democracy or truth or helping people or doing what is right.

There are rational arguments against legalizing drugs (all of which are incorrect). Some parents here in the drug-consuming Empire think that making drugs illegal will keep drugs away from their children. Those parents should talk to their children because their children will use drugs or not use drugs for reasons having nothing to do with the legality of the drugs. And some people think that legalizing drugs will increase the use of drugs. I have noticed that this latter viewpoint is particularly prevalent among ex drug-addicts who used the hell out of drugs in spite of them being illegal and now, after becoming born again drug-free Christians take it upon themselves to tell others how to behave.

And if drug use does increase, what is worse, a few more drug users or the rampant murder being conducted in Mexico due to the puritans and policy pundits in the US maintaining the status quo? For every murder that no longer occurs, I don’t care if that means ten more drug users who use drugs. Why don’t we instead work on figuring out how to make society a place in which people want to be healthy and happy and not resort to drugs. In the meantime, legalize them all, say I.

My poor Juarez Mexico. My heart feels for you. You will have no help from the drug consuming Empire today or tomorrow or ever. They sit in their high chairs pontificating and expounding their power while your children are murdered by drug lords. While your children are murdered by drug lords.

January 28, 2011Dennis AllardLeft, Morning Thoughts2 Comments

The Arab world is changing, how will the US oligarchy handle it?

Democratic movements are trying to change the power structure and the shape of government in the Arab world.

Will the US do the right thing and support these movements for change or, instead, will the US continue to back the dictatorships as it has in past and continues to do in the present? As in 1953 in Guatemala when the US opposed Arbenz and Iran when the US opposed Mossadeq and supported the Shah’s dictatorship, as in Chile in 1973 when the US opposed Allende and supported the dictator Pinochet, as in Vietnam, as in the 1980s when the US supported the brutal regime in Salvador, as in the past when the US supportedf Suharto in Indonesia against the popular revolution in East Timor and the US support of Marcos or the US support of the Somoza family in Nicaragua?

As illustrated in Oliver Stone’s new film, South of the Border, democratic change is occurring in South America in spite of past US support for dictators. Hugo Chavez, Eban Morales, and many other new leaders are doing the bidding of the people, not of the corporate oligarchy. It’s called socialism or a variant of socialism. And that is a dirty word in the US were democracy equals Capitalism even though Capitalism has nothing to do with democracy per se and, in fact, modern corporations are like little dictatorial fifedoms now backed by the Supreme Court as being citizens where it is one dollar one vote instead of one person one vote.

The tumult in the Arab world is a good thing. The call for change is being made by the educated middle classes not under control of fundamentalists. It will be interesting to watch how the US reacts especially since many calls for change will be by people who are not afraid to be called socialists. Will the US react, as in the past, by supporting the status quo and the dictators in order to protect “our oil” and the interests of our wealthy plutocrats?

January 15, 2011Dennis AllardMorning ThoughtsLeave a comment

Michael Steele and Ted Williams

What do these two recent media stars have in common, here in January of 2011?

Can you spell “boring”?

The good news is that both will very soon disappear from the public mind share never to return.

However, we are stuck with Dr. Phil indefinitely, as far as I can tell.

January 15, 2011Dennis AllardMorning Thoughts2 Comments

How to remember how to spell therefore vs therefor

If you’re like me, you forget if therefore has the letter e at the end.

Yes, it does. But the word therefor without the e also exists. Therefor is an ancient word that simply means “for” or “for that purpose”. Its current use is mostly in legal documents.

So it’s easy to remember that when it means for, it ends in for.

Therefore, when you mean therefore, end it in fore.

January 10, 2011Dennis AllardMental Health, Morning Thoughts7 Comments

Society ignores the mentally ill. Everyone suffers.

As the shooting of Gabriell Giffords in Tuscon shows, a mentally disturbed person who is left to fall between the cracks can end up going totally insane and in some cases harm other people. Futhermore, the afflicted person also suffers from the mental illness since their thinking becomes tortured by obsessions, fears, and delusions. They are left untreated. They suffer. And sometimes society suffers.

In the case of Jared Loughner, his mental illness was evident to many yet that mental illness was given the right to rule his mind and degenerate. An article in the Washington Post, January 9, 2011, by David A. Fahrenthold, Sari Horwitz and Amy Gardner illustrates this point. According to that article, Loughner was attending classes at Tucson’s Pima Community College. School administrators ignored warnings of his fellow students and his teachers that his behavior was threatening. According the article, the administrators were reported to have said, “He hasn’t taken any action to hurt anyone. He hasn’t provoked anybody. He hasn’t brought any weapons to class…. We’ll just wait until he takes that next step.”.

But what can a school do? Should school administrators reject a student just because he manifests quirky behavior or some fellow student makes a complaint? To answer that question, we needto realize the the issue is much larger than what happens in schools. Consider the case of the Virginia Tech Massacre in 2007 . Seung-Hui Cho, who killed 32 people, had been diagnosed with mental illness long before enrolling at Virginia Tech. Yet, due to federal privacy laws, Virginia Tech was not informed of Seung-Hui Cho’s diagnosis at the time he enrolled!

On a daily basis, in Los Angeles, police officers do not detain or transport mentally ill people to a hosptial even when they have been reported to be making threats unless they are deemed “a danger to themselves or others or severely disabled”. The bar for arresting disturbed people or for placing them in treatment is very high. Often, after being reported to police, a mentally ill person who was harassing someone will simply be taken to some other part of town and dropped off. Or taken to an emergency room where they will be given some pills then turned loose.

It goes from bad to absurd. Some scientologists have been known to try to convince mentally ill people to not take antipsychotic medicine.

In my opinion, when a mentally ill person has gotten to the the point they are delusional and making threats, there needs to be a fair judicial process, with due process, that requires the afflicted person to take medication, involuntarily if necessary. That may sound harsh. But, in fact, it is more humane than letting the mental illness dominate the life of the afflicted person and people the afflicted person comes in contact with on a daily basis.

December 7, 2010Michael ZagoneLeft

Letter to Obama concerning taxes

Dear President Obama,

There you go again, compromising. It seems to be the only thing that you know how to do. Do you really honestly believe that in another 2 years the wealthy and the Republicans are going to give up their tax breaks.

You rolled over again. And the wealthy and the Republicans are laughing with joy. They are really going to attack now because they know how easy you are.

I thought George W was the worst president. I was wrong. You are. What a waste.

Please step aside in 2012 so that someone with some cajones can run on the democratic ticket. We are sick of losers

Yours Truly,

Michael A. Zagone

December 4, 2010Dennis AllardLeft3 Comments

Paypal, VISA, and Mastercard censor Wikileaks.

I just heard on 1070 KNX News Radio, Los Angeles, that PayPal has cut off Wikileaks. In other words, PayPal no longer allows you to donate to http://wikileaks.ch. (If you cannot get to the main Wikileaks site, try a mirror site listed at www.boingboing.net).

Wikileaks has not been convicted of anything by any court of law. Yet PayPal (and, as of December 6, 2010, both VISA and Mastercard) are preventing people from making payments to Wikileaks. This is the privatization of state censorship, pure and simple.

Ironically, the New York Times has published numerous articles based on facts revealed by Wikeleaks. Yet PayPal and VISA and Mastercard are not censoring the New York Times.

You may agree or disagree with Wikileaks releasing documents that were provided to them by sources. But the question I am asking you to consider is what gives these organizations the right to censor people who use these tools to make payments?

I have canceled my PayPal account. I will find it more difficult to cancel my VISA card, I must admit.

I encourage all people who support freedom of the press to do likewise and cancel their PayPal accounts.

[Begin Editor’s note:

Although I did cancel my PayPal account, I have not and will not cancel my VISA account nor my Amazon account. I simply depend too much on those mechanisms. Hence, I retract my recommendation that others cancel their accounts. Why?

Because…

I wrote my suggestion to cancel PayPal a few minutes after hearing about PayPal’s decision to censor Wikileaks on KNX News radio.

It was not until the next day that VISA and MasterCard did likewise.

I also did not know about Amazon’s decision to cancel hosting of wikileaks.org until later.

That being said, although I did cancel my PayPal account, I simply cannot afford to not use VISA (my one and only credit card) nor cancel Amazon, that provides excellent service and is an integral part of my use of the cloud in my professional life.

In other words, I’m stuck.

We’re all stuck.

We now live in a world where private companies engage in censorship based on extra-judicial directives from government administrators.

In the old days, a court order would have been required, I believe.

Those days are a thing of the past, as is some of our liberties.

End Editor’s note]

If you wish to cancel your PayPal account, login to PayPal, go to “My Account”, and click on “Profile”, then click on “Close account”.

Here is a link explaining howto cancel your PayPal account: how to cancel a PayPal account.

To those who are rightfully concerned that Wikileaks documents may lead to harm, I ask them what harm has come not knowing about the hidden lies and backroom hypocrisy of governments and corporations? How many people needlessly died due to wars based on false information or, worse, information that was false and known to be false by our so-called leaders who lied to us about the facts?

Which is worse?

I respect those who argue that Wikileaks should be careful to not reveal names of people who could be endangered by leaks. According to Daniel Ellsberg, there are no documented cases of people who have been harmed as a result of the release of documents by Wikileaks. Daniel Ellsberg is an American hero who, with the help of others, including the New York Times, released The Pentagon Papers in 1971. As http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Paper states:

A 1996 article in the New York Times said that the Pentagon Papers “demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson Administration had systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress, about a subject of transcendent national interest and significance

May Wikileaks continue to serve free society equally well as did the Pentagon Papers.

Were only we, the citizens of the United States and the World, able to be informed of the secret meetings between Dick Cheney and the oil companies or be informed of the plotting between the Bush Administration and the British to lie to the American public about the reasons for going to war in Iraq, or to be informed about back room deals between the Washington oligarchs and the banks to bail out the banks at the expense of the American public. What happened to the “open and transparent government” promised to the U.S. public by President Obama?

Here’s the thing. You cannot censor the Internet. We, the people, won’t allow governments or corporations to censor the Internet. Corporations are not democratic institutions, so the only way to influence them is through government regulation and voting with your dollar. That is why I encourage you to cancel your PayPal account today.