Republicans say "start over" on healthcare reform.
Oddly enough, I agree.
Junk all the other ideas and pass MEDICAID FOR EVERYONE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
Republican Richard M. Nixon proposed universal health insurance in 1974.
Running as a Republican, Teddy Roosevelt made national health insurance an issue in 1912.
Are American Republicans just stupid & ignorant when they oppose universal healthcare or is it just the greedy masters who pull their strings?
I am not a Democrat or a Republican, just an independent voter.
The Republican/neocon song & dance:
Climate change is not happening.
Americans born in Hawaii are not citizens.
Universal healthcare is socialism.
Closer to home, Scott Walker is bringing in Jeb Bush for a fundraiser.
Jeb Bush led the fight to give sanctuary in the USA to Orlando Bosch, a Cuban exile terrorist and former Central Intelligence Agency-backed operative (Former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh called Bosch an "unrepentant terrorist.") Bosch was involved in a 1976 bombing of a Cuban civilian airliner in which all 73 people on board were killed, including many young members of a Cuban fencing team and 5 North Koreans, as well as other terrorist plots.
Are Neocons now traitors? If not, why do they hate Americans & America so much?
Warren Buffett on Health Care

Our own state and federal governments are standing in the way of an industry that would free us from needing oil for transportation or any of its present uses. It is high time for Bay View, Milwaukee, Wisconsin And The United States of America to allow Industrial Hemp to be grown, harvested and turned into hundreds of biodegradable, non-polluting, healthy and very useful, affordable products. Why should Canadian hemp farmers be allowed to dominate this market? $500 billion to a trillion dollars a year for America is at stake. Hemp fibers are in the parchment of the Declaration of Independence. The first American Flags were made from hemp. Hemp fibers are far superior to wood fibers. Hemp paper saves trees (trees that produce oxygen). The first Ford cars were designed to run on hemp oil and the plastic body panels were mage of hemp. Hemp products are biodegradable. There are hundreds of hemp based products. Industrial Hemp is not Marijuana. Google "Industrial Hemp". Find the facts and then write to your Representatives in the House and Senate as well as President Obama. HEMP FOR VICTORY!

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee..." – John Donne, Meditation 17, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions

Rev. Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke the above verse during Nobel Lecture, on December 11, 1964. His lecture was entitled "The Quest for Peace and Justice", delivered in the Auditorium of the University of Oslo, Norway. At the age of thirty-five, he was the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. When notified, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the civil rights movement.

Today is the Monday designated as a American National Holiday commemorating the birthday of Dr. King. He was born as Michael Luther King, Jr. in Atlanta on January 15, 1929 (his father was also originally named Michael). He was renamed when he was about 5 years old when his father decided that they should both change their first names to Martin.

The authorized, idealized, sanitized version of Dr. King's life story is that he fought for racial justice in America. The reality is, in the last years of his life, Dr. King articulated a far bolder, broader and very radical American revolutionary vision, encompassing a clear minded analysis and a severe criticism not only of the role of the United States in the world, but of the very nature of our political and economic system.

Dr. King's vision was articulated most powerfully in his "Beyond Vietnam" speech delivered at Riverside Church in New York City. He gave the speech on April 4, 1967, at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City.

He was quickly condemned by the NAACP, civil rights leaders, the Democratic Party (he had campaigned for Lyndon Johnson) and the mainstream media.

It is doubtful that Dr. King would even be allowed to speak at any of the memorial events being held in his own name were he alive today. But he does speak to us still as we again find ourselves at a time, well as he said in 1967:

"When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered."
He also said:
"These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wounds of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born.
The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. We in the West must support these revolutions."

Others, wiser, much more experienced and articulate than I have pointed out that these are still revolutionary times. Our country was born of revolution.

I would argue that our society, our nation, our democracy can only be served by continuing the American Revolution each and every single day.

But now, it seems to me, we have, in fact, given in and given up.

The shirtless and barefoot people of the world continue to rise up.

But we do not support them.
In fact, in many places, we support and we are the very forces who use our overwhelming economic wealth, access to natural resources and unprecedented military power to enforce the conditions of poverty, insecurity, and injustice.

I suggest that we revisit Martin Luther King's words.
I suggest that we re-read them in the light of the present day.

"…A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

Dr. Kings words are as meaningful, powerful, truthful and dangerous as they were in 1967.

Our own federal administration and many adult Americans condemn and trivialize anyone speaking out against the present invasions, escalations and war.

Exactly to the day, one year after breaking his silence and speaking out against his nation's injustice, materialism and war waging, Martin Luther King, Jr. was silenced. Assassinated on April 4, 1968.

Those who call for us to celebrate his birthday but dishonor his life and work and spirit dishonor all human beings. King spoke well to use Donne's poem to remind us of who we can be, who we need to be, who we absolutely now must be.

"…therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee."

Michael John Moynihan
January, 18, 2010
A version of this essay was originally published on 01/17/05

Legalizing the growing of Industrial Hemp in the USA would solve our energy problems, create hundreds of thousands of jobs, create a cash crop for farmers and provide hundreds of useful, healthy affordable biodegradable products. Any federal, state or local politician that does not support Legalizing the growing of Industrial Hemp is an enemy of the people and should be removed from office asap.

Some years ago my wonderful friend,

mentor & advocate of peace, art and play,

insui,

alerted me to this enlightening, progressive and radical essay:

THE ABOLITION OF WORK.

As I listened to our President speaking at the United Nations, my hope began building. I hope every woman, man and child in Bay View and beyond get to hear, read or watch what he said to the world.

What a change from the Cheney/Bush years:

"These are God's children. And after all of the politics and all of the posturing, this is about the right of every human being to live with dignity and security. That is a lesson embedded in the three great faiths that call one small slice of Earth the Holy Land. And that is why - even though there will be setbacks, and false starts, and tough days - I will not waiver in my pursuit of peace." – President Obama

Please Look/Read/Support

Believe it or not, there are actually card carrying Republicans hiding among us in Bay View. I actually know some of these people. I have talked with them and met with them in cafes and restaurants right here in our community.

And here is what one of these local fans of Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin wrote:

"Health care reform is a socialist plot by 50's era communists. They have been planning this since the days of the balcklist to get revenge on the American way of life. The incremental steps to take control of our government have so far gone un-noticed by the masses as they seemed to have little effect at the time. The last "attack" on American values and culture is too take control of our health through centralizing that power under the government."

"Barack Obama a token president elected for the color of his skin and not the content of his character."

" ...72% of all statistics are made-up."

So I have to wonder HOW DARE A REPUBLICAN CALL OUR PRESIDENT A LIAR?

According to a study by the Center for Public Integrity,
top Bush Administration officials told at least 935 lies,
about Iraq on 532 separate occasions.
These included 259 lies by Bush,
254 lies by Secretary of State Colin Powell,
109 lies by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld,
109 lies by Press Secretary Ari Fleischer,
56 lies by National Security Advisor Condi Rice,
and 48 lies by Vice President Cheney.

By golly, don't ya know G. W. Bush wins the race to the bottom again.

But looks like Cheney and Michael Steele are still in the race.

I must admit I am amused and appalled by the GOP stupidity as well their hatred of truth, accuracy, civility and America.

UPDATE

See the GOP controlled, funded & manipulated Retardicans

who are attempting to derail healthcare reform in the USA.

http://bit.ly/HGjHj

No one should die because they cannot afford health care.

No one should go broke because they get sick.

No one should be unable to change jobs because of a "pre-existing condition"

or fear of losing health care.

No one exemplifies the GOP health care hypocracy more than Dick Cheney.

Cheney has had four major heart attacks and a quadruple bypass; he has atrial fibrillation and needs a defibrillator to keep his heart on track.

He enjoys single payer, government funded  health care.

If Cheney were just a regular American, he’d probably be dead by now.

We the public pay for Dick Cheney’s care.

Why is the government not providing the same type of care to all Americans?

 

It was 1929, The Father of Spin, Eddie Bernays convinced young stylish debutantes to smoke in public during the Easter parade in Manhattan, as a show of defiance against male domination.

The demonstrators were not aware that a tobacco company was behind the public relations stunt. Bernays own wife smoked herself to death years later.

I still wanna write a play about Bernays, an American Jew whose books PROPAGANDA & CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION were bibles to Hitler's Minister of Information, Goebbels, who used them to turn Germany against the Jews and imprison and murder mass numbers in concentration camps.

"CHAPTER I ORGANIZING CHAOS
THE conscious and intelligent manipulation of the
organized habits and opinions of the masses is an
important element in democratic society. Those who
manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute
an invisible government which is the true ruling
power of our country.

Read the entire text of PROPAGANDA at this LINK.

I have worked in the arts my entire life – as a young child, as a student, as an adult working professional. It is only since my disability, in 2006, that my art related work has been somewhat curtailed. Was drawing and painting before I could write. In my first play at age 6, wrote and directed a play at age 8. Began making films at age 12. Created the first film making class at MPS and started using video tape with the Sony half inch portable video system. I've worked as an actor, director, producer, playwright, composer, mask maker, prop maker, puppet maker, graphic designer and set designer in theatre.

Now the media coverage of the arts is being downsized as newspapers struggle with decreasing ad revenue and challenges of new technologies. Five arts related writers are leaving the MJS. Non-paid bloggers (like me) will probably pick up the slack. I have far more arts experience than anyone the MJS has paid to write. My art has also been very political in nature. So the marriage of Art & Politics is second nature.

Bay View, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA is always in the midst of any number of arts and/or political discussions. The future of Hide House is hotly debated. Should the Hoan Bridge be torn down? The sick leave debate continues. We need (and voted for) dedicated funding for mass transit, ems and our County parks. Many people want universal single payer healthcare (I do). The Milwaukee Peoples Parade still needs participants. You and your kids can create it, watch it and also be in it: 414-347-1685 www.milwaukeepublictheatre.org

It seems that our short summer is even shorter this year. Get out, be active and enjoy it while it lasts.


 

Monday, July 13th, 2009! As CBS comedian says every night, "It's a great day for America." An historic great day, as hearings begin on the confirmation of Judge Sotomayor to the Supreme Court of the United States of America.

1) June 12th is D-Day. D as in Digital. So long ANALOG TV. There are plenty of reasons given for the need to dump analog and legislate and mandate a conversion to the digital — on/off — either/or world of no more static snow but plenty of the annoying (time to reboot) digital artifacting (pixilation aka tiling, screen freezes, out of sync audio (like youtube on a slow connection). Our Federal government has sold our analog broadcast spectrum (which belongs to WE THE PEOPLE) to the big phone companies for a fast TWENTY-BILLION DOLLARS. The new set top boxes that analog viewers are told to buy are "addressable". That means a third party can hack into them and third parties can monitor and control the information sent and received by each box. This “third party” could theoretically decrypt your boxes information just by decoding the electronic field it emits! This opens the door for someone to not only monitor what you're watching, but to censor it. It's all speculation at this point, but given the history of hacking and cracking, it is only a matter of time until some teenager(s) and/or government agency (NSA, FBI, CIA) succeeded in cracking the government mandated DTV boxes. It is still predicted that a couple of a million American households will lose the use of their televisions. And of what value is HD if you cannot afford a new television?

2) ELECTIONS (check back for new content)

3) BAY VIEW (check back for new content)

4) POLITICS IN THE USA (check back for new content)

5) SCIENCE NEWS (check back for new content)

6) SCREEN & PAGE (check back for new content)

7) MY FANS (check back for new content)
 

One of the pleasures of my former way of life was reading or hearing the words of Hunter S. Thompson. I was very sad and disappointed when I learned of his death on February 20, 2005. When I heard that is was a suicide, I found it a bit strange. It seemed completely uncharacteristic to the inventor of Gonzo Journalism. Seems I am not the only one.

Anyone who has had the pleasure to watch the movie MICHAEL CLAYTON will recognize that suicides of controversial;, troublesome or political people may often be, in fact, murders. The film has a segment that explains in simple detail how murders are made to look like suicides.

Thompson's celebrity friend, actor Johnny Depp talked on the phone to Thompson the night before he died. Thompson had been researching and writing an article about how the 9/11 WTC building collapses were caused by explosives in the buildings. (Of course that has now been scientifically verified.) Thompson told Depp that he feared that he would be killed to keep his article from being published. He said it would be made to look like a suicide. And now the "official" details of his death have been "officially" altered, so one has to ask why?

I've worked in theatre since I was six years old. I wrote my first play at age eight and it required a fair amount of historical research. Ever since then most of the plays I wrote or adapted required research. So I have been doing this for fifty-four years. Fifty-four years of asking questions and digging for evidence, habitual, a theatrical investigative reporter.

At the age of 62 I have come to realize that we in America do not live in a representative democracy, but are in fact ruled by a quite tiny elite corrupt minority who just happen to be filthy rich — these are the same class of people who gave us the genocide of the Native Americans, slavery, and the never ending wars as part of a national energy strategy for the United States via the collusion of big energy corporations, politicians and the United States Military. I get pleasure, enjoyment and amusement through efforts to expose these vile organizations and people who start all of the wars, become bloated with stolen wealth, from the backs of the poor, the workers and  soldiers. I love and support the people, my people, who labor to make the world a better place for humanity by helping to cure the sick, discover new and better forms of energy, and to make warfare illegal on our planet Earth. Our human species has now evolved enough to know better, and question every "authority". We need leaders to earn their authority to listen to us and help create a much more perfect union. My efforts used to be plays and films. Now they are blogs.

Some links to chew on:
Hunter S. Thompson Murder.
WTC collapse.

One April 27, 2009 I had a heart attack.
My second heart attack.

The blocked artery was the same artery that was unblocked by an angioplasty in July of 2006.

News to me that I would "need" two angioplasties, two stents, in the same artery.
Must be crowded in there.

I look like I got beat up badly by a gang.
Many bruises, holes and wounds in my body.
Plus rashes, courtesy of my eight day stay in the hospital. on my chest, back and legs.

And now 10 medications, taken at three different times a day are required to keep me "alive".
Plus a home nursing visit and a blood draw required to monitor the medication, which could also kill me.

I fact one medication, being mainlined into me during my stay, was a bit too much,
and my heart actually stopped beating for 7-8 seconds.
A nurse rushed in and turned the IV off, and my heart kicked in again.

Talk about the cure being worse than the disease...

I am now a cash cow of the American Healthcare Market.

More later.

Maybe...
 

TAX IS THEFT

This will replace oil, natural gas, wasting trees, create jobs and allow 25,000 great products to be made in America.

Please call your U.S. Representative.
Ask her/him to support the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2009.

Talking Points:
 1) Please become an original co-sponsor of the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2009.
 2) The legislation is sponsored by Rep. Ron Paul and Rep. Barney Frank and is scheduled to be introduced this Thursday.
 3) The legislation is identical to HR 1009 introduced in the 110th Congress.
 4) If you would like to learn more about this agricultural issue, please read the latest version of the Congressional Research Service (CRS) report "Hemp as an Agricultural Commodity," which is dated March 23, 2007 and has the order code RL32725.
 5) Please send me a reply.
 6) Thank you.

Of course the smarter, more practically intelligent Canadians already grow industrial hemp.
My mother was Canadian. We should have moved when I was a kid. Or during the Viet Nam war years. Too many dumb GOP capitalists and not enough smart DEM leftists in the USA.
We are just corporate pawns in their game.

Or maybe I should have stayed in Ireland when I visited 39 years ago.

Please call your U.S. Representative.
Ask her/him to support the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2009.

Help yourself, help our nation.

Hemp Is Not Pot: It's the Economic Stimulus and Green Jobs Solution We Need. LINK

(an open letter to the usual suspects)

IF THE SHOE FITS, THROW IT.

I want to make it clear that I am not defending the uber-criminal Bernard Madoff. But I was amused/appalled/surprised when NBC Nightly News Talking Haircut Brian Williams called Madoff a "shyster". The use of a blatant anti Semitic remark says a great deal about the mainstream media and how anger about money & theft trumps the usual boundaries applied to what passes for news reporting on NBC.

And is Madoff a lawyer? I don't recall hearing or reading that... But. once again, the words of Billy the Bard fit.

Madoff is certainly scum who let his status in the National Greed Industry drain whatever drop of humanity might have been within him when he landed on earth. I doubt any Big Money News Organization/Corporation will ever whisper the simply truths that Wall Street is all about Gambling, banks thrive on Debt, and that Speculation is not Investing. The tenants of our so called American Economy are pure fantasy, lies in support of the class war that politicians, economists, bankers or lawyer dare not speak of. The few Intelligent elected officials, no matter their party, persuasian or ideology know they must not reveal these secrets. It would result in their removal from office by employees of their Ruling Class Masters. Most politicians can be bought off. But the memory of Lincoln, the Kennedy brothers, and Martin Luther King reminds all what extremes can be taken if a ethical, truthful rebel decides to actually change things.

Madoff is obviously protecting his son, wife and business partners in crime. He and they should be locked in dog sized cages to sleep. But they should also be put to work, using their specialized criminal skills to make back all the money they stole and paying it back to their victims. I suppose their will be a made-for-tv movie starring Sam Waterson, but Howie Mandel or Penn Gillette would be my casting choice. Or maybe Michael Douglas.

There is something very wrong in the fact  that GWB and his NeoCon Crew are free and the brave Muntader al-Zaidi is in jail. The Faux Pres Bush and his gang should be housed in one tiny cell in Gitmo. Elite Israeli Commandos should be dispatched to break  al-Zaidi out of prison. He and his family should be brought here. He should then be given a TV game show where the latest bank, Wall Street, corporate and political thieves would be pummeled with American made brogans, cross-trainers, galoshes, mukluks, and oxford,, five nights a week. Shoe throwers would pay a buck a throw. The money could solve much of our fiscal chaos.

The rest of our national and local money, energy and employment problems could be easily solved by legalizing Industrial Hemp growing in America. Sadly the elected and appointed gatekeepers are more interested in serving their corporate masters, as they fleece We The People, aka their Working Class Cash Cows.

St. Paddy's Day is here. Hope you don't have The Luck Of The Irish, but it seems in 2009 we all do.

BUZZ
The online BUZZ in Bay View is about the (1) unprecedented wave of vandalism. Some of it is gang tagging, some might be non-gang tagging and some seems almost incomprehensible as far as motive. That would include five teenagers invading Bellas Fat cat on a Sunday afternoon and proceeding to destroy a laminated tabletop right in front of everyone on site. When confronted by the owner, one of the Vandals assaults him (nose punch), the profane puncher is detained (a patron calls 911) and the other four criminals escape. Even weirder, the girl in the group returns to the scene of the crime. As I write I have seen no media coverage of the strange event.
(2) Parking and snow, including an Entrepreneurial City Parking Checker who has been breaking the law herself for years. Neighbors have identified her as an Officer Heron.
(3) URBAN  AQUACULTURE: Citizen Godsil, Milwaukee's own poet, Entrepreneur, writer, publisher and activist is working towards urban farming, both vegetables and fish. James ideas can be read at his WIKI Publication: The Milwaukee Renaissance

PAGE & SCREEN
I used to do pop culture criticism and I've decided to do a bit again on this blog. The Avalon Theatre, once planning to reopen in 2009 has not found the funding. So there is no movie theatre in my neighborhood. That means travel, TV or DVD are the options. I am a fan of both Jim Jarmusch and Bill Murray. Check out the excellent COFFEE AND CIGARETTES (DVD). A star studded film shot over a decade or more with the actors appearing in the film Jarmusch was working on at the time. Cate Blanchett acting as herself and her cousin, and Murray with two of the Wu-Tang Clan (RZA & GZA) are only two of the wonderful segments. Then go to hulu.com and watch another cast of stars in BROKEN FLOWERS.

I will always encourage people to find a copy of GEEK LOVE, my favorite American novel of the last century. You will love it or hate it, but never forget it. I've heard that Tom Wolf is coming out with another book, about class, wealth, this economic depression, set in Miami. Due this year. And if you wanna try a few more of my obsessions try anything by Don DeLillo (FALLING MAN is the latest) and William Gibson (SPOOKS is the latest from the Canadian author who coined the term "cyberspace". Online you can get a free copy of Scott Adams humorous and controversial GOD'S DEBRIS.

One last thing: help save our City, State and Nation. Tell your elected sevants to leagalize industrial hemp. Save the trees, reyclable hemp plastic, no more foreign oil, lots of jobs, etc. Tell them now. ( Hemp, hemp, hooray )

PART ONE: A SHORT HISTORY OF THIS BLOG

For a period of time in the 1990s I worked at the Milwaukee Access Telecommunication Authority. That was the too long name of the Public Access Cable TV nonprofit organization. Public Access was an amazing, visionary, paradigm shifting idea.

MATA (as it was called) was funded by money from Milwaukee cable subscribers that passed thru the evil monopolistic franchise holder for the City, Time Warner Cable. When the 15 year franchise was renewed Time Warner Cable renegotiated the franchise contract with the City of Milwaukee. All but a couple of the members of the then serving Common Council were bribed (campaign contributions) to sell out the citizens in favor of becoming business partners with the evil monopoly.

In the process they gutted the Public Access funding and screwed over the public they were sworn to, hired to serve.

During the first 15 years one could pay $4.95 a month for cable TV. Now the lowest fee is ten times that amount.

While all but a couple elected politicians serving then sold out the citizens, MATA was not faultless. We fought a good fight and many citizens and community groups showed up at a hearing to speak for continued full funding of Public Access. Even the then afternoon daily newspaper giant (the Milwaukee Journal) wrote an editorial supporting Public Access funding.

But in the end money talked again, the soulless corporation won and the people lost, again.

The City had a watchdog Cable Regulation Office. The office was closed and the staff laid off. The City Clerks Office was supposed to "regulate" cable in Milwaukee. But there is actually no regulation for the life of the 17 year period of the franchise. More recently State politicians further screwed the citizens by removing cable franchising from local control and moving it to Madison. Greed was the reason.

MATA was, and is, maybe the worst managed & administered non profit agency I have ever encountered. The rather highly paid (compared to the rest of the staff) Executive Director is as devoid of those qualities requisite for effective leadership of any person I have ever worked for.

Back then I wrote a column: THE HOW OF WHY. The column originated as a monthly element of the MATA newsletter. It was then mainly a media literacy column. Next it became a column in a print publication, THE BAY VIEW COMPASS, which basically serves the Bay View neighborhood on the Southeast side of the City of Milwaukee. My column expanded beyond media literacy content at that time. I was paid $35 a month to write my column. I got lots of positive feed back from readers, but it had a short print life when the publisher (who lives in Wauwatosa, not Bay View) fired me and a couple of other writers. Now it is in the present form, an online blog for a big monopoly media corporation. And it is less neighborhood centric in content. And the name of my blog was changed from THE HOW OF WHY to HOW & WHY (which sort of misses the point). Oh, and now I am a “Community Voice” which means “No Pay”.

With the INTERNET now in the middle of the ongoing battle to either stay somewhat open or go the way of commercial sponsored media, who knows how long the present diversity of blog forms will survive? As long as it remains possible the  HOW & WHY will continue to be one version of thousands of Milwaukee voices online. Check back from time to time, won't you?


PART TWO:
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones." – John Cage

"I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it." – Pablo Picasso

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." – George Santayana

Almost spring, and almost a decade into this new century. Time to attempt to revisit THE WHY OF HOW roots. What is/was the purpose of calling a column/blog THE WHY OF HOW? Stay with me here, while I remember.

HOW we do things is very important. Part of any discussion or proposition involves HOW something is created, HOW it works, HOW you and I can master it. But HOW is always a secondary understanding. It's a good question, an important question. Its also a question that should not even be asked until the most important, primary question is answered. WHY?

WHY is always the first and most important question. HOW is meaningless and silly unless we know WHY. HOW will be determined by the answer to WHY. Leave out WHY and you create HOWS that are at best useless, at worst, ignorantly destructive.

Lets look at several examples.

Take education. Please. Public schools, school choice, charter schools, for profit schools, vouchers – all of these are HOWS, none of them are WHYS. And so the entire school/education debate in Milwaukee (and the nation) is basically ignorant and useless at this point, because we have not started out by asking the very simple all–important first question: Why do we want to educate our children, here and now at the beginning of the 21st century. To be compliant and productive future workers? To be curious adults and life long learners? To be critical, intelligent and informed citizens of a democratic republic? To keep young children and adolescents out of the job market until they reach a specific age? To sort and authorize children according to intelligence, talent or class? To help all children reach the optimum potential as individuals and members of society. Advocates of educator John Dewey will have quite different answers than most members of a MMAC. There are many possible answers, but since educational policy and process is public and societal, we have to come to some agreement on WHY. Once that is agreed upon we could try all the HOWS we could think of as long as they supported the WHY. But first we must ask WHY.

How about Politics?

WHY make politics the main way we determine public policy. Given that we can all observe and study history, its not hard to make a case that the WHY of politics is and always will be the seizure and maintenance of power. Is that compatible with the WHY of social order, economic stability or cultural progress in a democratic republic?

It should not be hard to see that we, as a people, have confused HOW with WHY. Many of our best and brightest only talk about HOW, never venturing into the realm of WHY. It is as if we assume that the WHYS are all a given, worked out by our ancestors. Of course that is nonsense. Each generation, each culture, each individual needs to ask WHY anew. Actually asking WHY every seven years or so is the most functional way of keeping any organization, association, collaboration, corporation alive and vital.

So, WHY the present electoral process? What is the overall purpose of the process in light of the relatively new and rapidly converging and developing technologies? What purpose could print, broadcast, cable, satellite TV and the Internet, be in the electoral process? To merely sell the attention of the viewer to the highest party or corporate bidder. Or should the HOW of this unprecedented set of advanced communications technologies serve a less pedestrian, more democratic, more socially progressive, more ecologically sustaining, more educational and more humanly scaled guiding ideal? Mass communications as it now is commercially employed primarily to sort and market human attention for a reductive industry called Marketing. What would it look and sound like if its main purpose was to interconnect the minds of people in order to advance human understanding, wisdom and progress?

Pick any topic of public concern/debate and apply the WHY/HOW equation. The viability of the human race is now in question largely because of HOW we employ our extraordinary abilities to create and apply technologies. It is high time for every discussion to begin with the question WHY.

It may already be too late.

The elected officials work for you and I. We are the boss of them. And every good boss, or the H.R. pro who works for the boss, knows that you HIRE FOR ATTITUDE, TRAIN FOR SKILL. Wanna place blame for the bad elected politician of your choice. Trace the responsibility to We The People.

Most of the time...

It is comforting that We The People, at Least most of us who voted, did not vote for George W. Bush. The 1st term we voted for Al Gore. Hindsight is 20-20, but even mid-Cheney/Bush 1st term, it was plain that while we might not want to have a beer with Al & Tipper, the nation and the world would have been better off with anybody but a Bush.

Now it is plain that with President Obama, We The People elected a man with the right attitude to mobilize the citizens of the United States of America to fix what Cheney, Rove, the Bushes and the other neocon criminals did in their 8 year campaign to destroy our nation. Apologists sat, "Well, I think they actually believed that they were doing the right thing". People who think that are either Republicans, brainwashed, liars or all three. President Obama should keep a Gitmo cell block open just for Cheney, the Bushes, and their posse.

And now, despite the election, the facts or just plain common sense, the remaining Republican Senators and Representatives are saying, "No, do not listen to the new Administration, listen to us. We can tell you how to fix the economy that we completely ruined. Do more of the same." Expand the space at Gitmo for these traitors too.

One more thing. Yes, Obama is different from every other President of the United States.

Correct me If I am wrong, but I think he is the first Hawaiian born President. But let's stop insulting his mother and African Americans. An honest analysis of history would admit that Barack Obama is not black. He is the first mixed-race politician ever to get elected to our highest national office. In our two party nation, separate ethnic categories always labeled as class, ethnic and race are politically ghettoized as commonplace two party business-as-usual. In such a dysfunctional organized society, President Obama's achievements are all the more astounding since he, in reality, fits neatly nowhere in the carefully maintained little boxes

Yes, I know, in one specific and singular sense can Obama be historically termed "black". In the US, as in the UK, until pretty recently, "black" was a political identification/shorthand/buzzword for "not white" by those controlling the game of power dominated by white, wealthy, male hands. For Republicans such as Colin Powell and Condi Rice, the recent historical shift was some top jobs finally did get into the hands of non-white Americans. But the adjective has become an identity and racial marker for the Democratic nominee, and used in that manner, "black" is disingenuous, and ethically and morally objectionable.

Accomplished mixed-race Americans have been encouraged to call themselves "black" as a "badge of honor," evidence that they are not ashamed of their multiracial roots. And that too is weird, to me. When the celebrity golfer, Tiger Woods, said that he was African, Caucasian, Native American and Asian, he was denounced by many African Americans for denying his "true" heritage. To put it mildly, that is a load of crap.

During the unfortunate times of when our nation participated in transatlantic slavery, biracial children (many born out of rape by a master or overseer) were branded "black" to deny them white paternity and concomitant rights accorded to offspring. Now some of the descendants of that history demand that same denial, because it appears that too many of them also despise amalgamation. That was then. We now have a chance to move, transform and improve our nation and make race not less of an issue, but no issue at all.

Tiger Woods and Barack Obama are fine examples to, and of, that growing change within many nations. The revolutionary tide of individuals and families made up of many parts, who cannot be held in evil, political man-made prisons of biological and cultural "purity". We are taking baby steps from sterile gene puddle, into vital, exciting, unpredictable seas full of unknown, hybrid creatures who are the latest evolution of the human beings. The journey will have perils, we will navigate them, for we are heading where we always wanted and needed to go. Towards freedom.

Obama's parents were an African man and white American woman. Like many couples, they were unable to be parents together. Their son, however, came through stronger, wiser, more adaptive, because he had to. Some with the same stories do make it, others don't and self destruct.

Obama has admitted, he would be nobody – he would not exist – without his mom. She wasn't perfect. She made mistakes. But she was a brave woman and defied the social order of her time. By calling himself loudly and proudly "biracial" Obama can integrate his mother into his success story. We must do the same. How do many white parents feel when they are systematically demeaned, diminished and sometimes removed altogether from the biographies of their mixed-race children, even when they have been the ones doing the parenting. At long last in this troubled country, we have an opportunity to move on from the views expressed by bigots. Assertive mixed-race couples and children have enabled that progress.

I have heard others wonder how many African-Americans would have supported Obama if his wife was Anglo-Saxon, Hispanic or Asian? As for me, I am ready to give up being a white man, an Irish American - hell, even the identity of a man. I feel no pride in any of those labels. I did nothing to be any of them. Luck of the draw. I'll settle for "human being".

Join me. Do your best. Treat others as you wish to be treated.

Then we can all be accomplished, brave and PROUD Americans.