March 3rd, 2015
By Catherine Bonjukian Patten.
My phone company is CREDO MOBILE and they are fantastic but their PHONE INSURANCE COMPANY “eSecuritel” out of Georgia is full of incongruous policies; here is my story:
I had a problem with my SAMSUNG GALAXY 3 Cell Phone and reported to Credo that I couldn’t charge the phone. I was transferred to eSECURITEL, their insurance company. I told them my problem and they ordered a new phone and BECAUSE THIS PARTICULAR CAUSE IS NOT COVERED BY THE INSURANCE COMPANY I HAVE TO PAY $90 TO GET A NEW PHONE. (OUTRAGEOUS!)
Then we tried charging the phone again and miraculously it started to charge. So I called eSecuritel back and CANCELLED THE PHONE REPLACEMENT.
Today, 3/3/15 the new phone came from UPS and they left it at our door. I didn’t see the UPS guy and I didn’t have a chance to send it back. So I called eSECURITEL to find out how to send this phone back and get reimbursed my $90.
I spoke to 3 people, all of these people are foreigners and each of them had a different story but basically the same script.
The first woman told me to open the box, resend the phone in the paperwork in the box and then I would be charged a RESTOCKING FEE OF $20 FROM THE $90 I initially paid for a RESTOCKING FEE FOR A PHONE I HAD CANCELLED. When I asked for a SUPERVISOR they hung up on me
Then I spoke to LAURA the 2nd time and she said I should have refused the phone and that’s why I am being charged a restocking fee of $20? and when I asked to speak to a supervisor I was hung up upon AGAIN!
Then I spoke to CREDO MOBILE TO COMPLAIN ABOUT eSECURITEL and they gave me a credit of $20 for the amount eSURITEL was taking out for their restocking fee. Credo told me “this is NOT THE WAY CREDO DOES BUSINESS” but unfortunately eSECURITEL is representing CREDO and I’m going to do my best to get CREDO to see that this company is terrible to their clients. I was told by Credo to call and speak to a supervisor and I was sent to eSECURITEL again.
I then spoke to Martie from eSECURITEL and asked for a supervisor and she stayed online with me until I got a woman named SYMOUR- GOOD GRIEF! This was the SUPERVISOR who told me that when I placed the $90 order for the phone that UPS was immediately notified and put a phone away to send it to me and that $20 restocking fee was to pay back UPS? When I told the eSECURITEL supervisor that this was unfair and I was paying a restocking fee for a phone I had cancelled and that I was going to contact the BBB (BETTER BUSINESS BUREAU) she informed me that I was THREATENING HER AND THAT SHE IS AUTHORIZED TO HANG UP UPON ME AND WILL NO LONGER SPEAK TO ME ABOUT THE PHONE?
I am warning you to be on guard for this unscrupulous company and having to deal with them is impossible. Here is their site and if you have insurance from them – read the fine print. They are insane and they are no on the up and up and will nickle and dime you to death.
esecuritel phone insurance company is impossible to deal with
The lesson is DON’T BREAK YOUR PHONE.
I am in the process of reporting eSECURITEL to the BBB of Georgia where they are located and I will report my findings once this matter has been concluded by the BBB.
Needless to say the insurances that govern our daily lives are impossible to deal with and have ruined the world’s citizens with their greed. I remember when a patient had a doctor who knew everything and they made house calls. These insurance companies have ruined all our interpersonal relationships with our professionals.
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March 3rd, 2015
By Catherine Bonjukian Patten.
How stupid Americans are; my self included; that we willingly offer up info and pictures of our daily lives?
NSA, CIA, FBI and all the rest of the government agencies IMMEDIATELY go to FB among other social media sights to gather info on people
If FB things you are NOT who you say you are; they will suspend your account and you can kiss your pictures, your status and your site away
UNLESS you upload your GOVERNMENT ISSUED ID – ie: Driver’s License and or SOCIAL SECURITY CARD to them AND if you do that
YOU ARE SO STUPID YOU DON’T NEED TO LIVE.
So of course FB has a beat on me because people have been reporting my sites since I wrote about the Puerto Rican man who won powerball in Feburary. My comment was “why should anyone from Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands be allowed to play American Powerball when they don’t pay taxes? WTF?” That comment issued a firestorm on TWITTER in which I had to suspend my account under that name and then on FB I was threatened by thousands of PR who claim they are citizens of America. THEY ARE NOT.
I really wish they would pay American taxes which would take the burden off of us Americans considering many Puerto Rican’s come here to America to live and then for some in- explicit reason decide to go on our Medicaid, Social Security and Welfare and then bring their entire families to America who do that same thing.
Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of America and it’s twice now that they have voted to remain such instead of becoming the 51 state of America. So until they get their act together they are not citizens; they do not pay our taxes and YES they have their own high taxes to pay for such a small island. Meanwhile for that POWERBALL the Puerto Rican man in question came to Milwaukee WI when he was six (6) years old and he was a grandfather when he won the POWERBALL last month and had paid into American taxes like everyone else.
In 1989 Puerto Rico was drafted temporarily into America and given TEMPORARY citizenship rights by POTUS WOODROW WILSON because there were not enough people living in America to fight in World War One. Just like OBAMA’s TEMPORARY order of AMNESTY for Illegals and they are safe to stay until a new POTUS and his cabinet are elected into office.
Having written all of this the question is why is FB going after people who don’t have real names on their site? There are many articles about this new Facebook policy but the reason I have had so much trouble is because of people who disagree with my political views and are staunch Turks who know the truth about what their people did to Armenians in 1915; they hate Armenians and who want the truth to be forever shielded from the general public.
So the odds were against me however I will not be silent.
Below find the article about FB’s NAME POLICY and how it is detrimental to celebrities, people in the medical profession and how it alienates the LGBT community of which I am a part. However I like the anonymous quality to not stating my name due to my political beliefs and frankly FB does not protect people like me. Too many rules eventually run off the people who are quality for the drones and “families” to situate themselves into the fray along with the pedophiles, government agencies and others stalking the Facebook Platform.
The main reason I and my partner used FB was to have a PAGE for our BAND SITE but nothing came of it and we spent too much time talking to people all over the world that we didn’t know and would never meet. While I am not saying that the platform is not powerful it is not working in the best interest of the people using it; in fact the platform is being re written for the people who run it and their advertisers who support it creating millions of dollars.
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Facebook ‘real name’ policy stirs questions around identity
By Emanuella Grinberg, CNN
Updated 2:52 PM ET, Thu September 18, 2014
Story highlights
- Facebook temporarily reactivates hundreds of profiles after meeting with activists
- LGBT performers cry foul over Facebook policy requiring them to use their real names
- Policy worries others who use pseudonyms or fake names for safety, privacy concerns
- Facebook says enforcing real identities helps keep the community safe
A Facebook policy that asks users to provide real names on profiles has people from all walks of life worrying their accounts might be in jeopardy.
Several gay and transgender entertainers reported last week that Facebook temporarily suspended their personal accounts for not providing their “real name.”
San Francisco drag queen Sister Roma — a member of activist group Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence –begrudgingly made the change on her personal profile toMichael Williams, a name she has not used publicly for 27 years. She registered her contempt for the policy on social media, leading others to come forward with similar claims using the hashtag #MyNameIs.
Since then, the issue has raised concern beyond the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community that anyone could lose their account for not agreeing to Facebook’s definition of a “real name.” It also raises questions around identity and the right to self-determination on social media — whether you’re a drag queen, a mental health provider or an everyday user grasping for some semblance of privacy.
Facebook met Wednesday with San Francisco city officials and activists, including Roma, to discuss the policy. For now, the policy remains unchanged, but Facebook said it would “temporarily reactivate” the profiles of several hundred members of the LGBT community who’d been affected.
“We had a good discussion with the group about their perspectives on our real name standard, and we stressed how the standard helps prevent bad behavior while creating a safer and more accountable environment,” Facebook spokesman Andrew Souvall said. “Over the next two weeks, we hope that they will decide to confirm their real name, change their name to their real name, or convert their profile to a Page.”
Many people use fake names on Facebook for safety reasons, Roma said. Victims of stalking and relationship abuse have a right to participate in social media anonymously, as do members of the LGBT community who cannot safely be “out,” she said. Public figures such as Roma have spent years building personas under their drag names on Facebook and continue to rely on it for socializing and networking.
“This is bigger than the trans community,” Roma said. “I don’t have a problem with Facebook. I have a problem with the policy. It’s shortsighted, and I don’t think (Facebook) realizes the far-reaching implications of this policy.”
What’s in a ‘real name’?
Many outside the LGBT community sided with Roma’s view of the policy, calling the right to anonymity “an important element of free speech.” But with more than 1 billion users, Facebook says it relies on the community to self-police, suggesting that other users may have reported Roma and her contemporaries.
“We require everyone to provide their real names, so you always know who you’re connecting with. This helps keep our community safe,” its name and birthday policy states.
If people want to use alternative names on Facebook, they have several different options, Souvall said. They can provide aliases under their names on their profiles, or create fan pages specifically for those alternative personas.
“As part of our overall standards, we ask that people who use Facebook provide their real name on their profile,” Souvall said.
So, what’s a real name? The name you use on your credit card, driver’s license or student ID, according to Facebook. Nicknames are allowed as a first or middle name if they’re a variation of your real first or last name.
For many, it’s not enough. Blissom Booblé is a retired burlesque dancer who does advocacy work for LGBT homeless youth and HIV awareness, but her main source of income comes from being a flight attendant. Using a “pen name” on her personal profile allows her to earn a living “while also doing work that I feel is vital” but not always recognized as acceptable.
“Facebook is key to connection for just about everyone these days, and many of us are known more by our chosen names than by our legal ones. My concern is that this rule has less to do with names and more to do with whose identity is acceptable versus whose identity is not.”
Those who no longer identify by their real name worry it will cause confusion among friends and professional contacts. New York drag queen Ruby Roo reluctantly changed his Facebook profile last week to his legal name so he would not lose friends and contacts going back to his high school years. Still, he’s worried that people who never knew him as Christopher Van Cleave will ignore his messages and posts.
“It’s like Facebook is telling me I can’t promote myself in the way I wanna promote myself, personally or professionally,” he said. “While my drag career is my business, my only source of income, if Facebook wants us to use fan pages then they need to give us the same benefits that regular profiles have, like tagging statuses and pictures.”
At least one person says he was targeted, even though he used his real name. Chase Silva was born in Hawaii, and his full name is Chase Nahooikaikakeolamauloaokalani Silva, according to a birth certificate posted on his Facebook account.
Silva says he also received a notification from Facebook temporarily suspending his account because “it looks like you’re not using your real name.”
“I am a proud Hawaiian who wants to be able display my Hawaiian given name,” Silva said in a Facebook post. He did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.
Doctors, mental health professionals and therapists also are known to use pseudonyms or fake names so clients cannot friend them.
“It is counterproductive for a client of mine seeking mental health services to be able to, especially at the beginning of our work together, know and see me as I appear on Facebook,” said Benjamin Harden, a pre-doctoral therapist intern in the San Francisco Bay Area, who uses a fake name on Facebook.
“Many of my colleagues also use a fake last name to prevent this exact type of access by our clients.”
Public pages vs. personal profiles
The policy also raises concerns among entertainers and public figures who maintain personal and professional Facebook accounts under their stage names. A coalition of performerslaunched an online petition asking Facebook to let them use stage names on personal accounts.
“Our chosen names are an important part of our identities and how we interact with our peers and audiences,” the petition says. “We build our networks, community, and audience under the names we have chosen, and forcing us to switch our names after years of operating under them has caused nothing but confusion and pain by preventing us from presenting our profiles under the names we have built them up with.”
The petition, which has drawn nearly 20,000 signatures so far, cites safety from stalkers and overzealous fans as one reason performers use stage names on public pages and personal profiles.
Sex educator Sunny Megatron (not her real last name) is a frequent talk show guest, and has a show debuting on Showtime this fall. Over the years she said she has received numerous emails from stalkers threatening to attack her in her home.
“Divulging my real name publicly could very well put me and my family in danger. Anonymity is important not only to people in the public eye but to anyone who may feel threatened having their private info publicly available.”
The petition also cites the limited functionality of public pages, implying that Facebook has financial motivations for pushing performers to use fan pages. Business pages only reach about 16% of their fans on average, according to Facebook’s own accounting, but many performers cannot afford to pay $30 or more to boost posts, the petition states.
Megatron uses her public page to engage with fans, but it’s a “one-way street” because she cannot post or comment on other people’s pages using her public account.
That’s why she uses her personal profile under her stage name for socializing, networking and building business opportunities.
“Engagement on business pages is a fraction of what it is on personal pages. Although I have three times the amount of followers on my business page as my personal, the interaction just isn’t there,” Megatron said.
“If I want to interact with them I need to have a personal page that I also do some business on,” she said.
“And, frankly, in this day and age when you freelance, it’s nearly impossible to completely separate online personal interactions from online business interactions. Any interaction could generate business.”
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February 27th, 2015
By Catherine Bonjukian Patten.
I have had so many identities on FB that have been DISABLED or ENFORCEABLE REMOVED during the 10 years I have been around the net that I’m dizzy from it and I have sworn off creating any new FB sites or pages ever again if I lose my last and current site.
Facebook has new NAME RULES and what I mean by that is that if you don’t have a ‘REAL NAME’ that FB can identify as a ‘REAL PERSON’ then they will go after you and they will remove your site from their site.
As it is, in the last few years, FB has constantly hounded me for information about my schooling, my jobs, and my salaries? I don’t give out that info and I’m not going to start now especially on a site that allows the FBI and other law enforcement agencies lurk waiting for the next criminal to surface.
So 3 years ago we started a site called MC SQUARED with an attached PAGE for a rock band which, at that time was called MC2ERED. We were able to gather over 700 pple on that site, most of them holy rollers and other people we didn’t particularly know or care about AND THEY DID NOT KNOW OR CARE ABOUT US. They plastered their crap all over our site, selling whatever crap they were selling until I went back and took a look and emptied house but again it built up over time but our MUSICAL PAGE remained at a lonely 99 LIKES.
Now the problem with LIKES is that people never look at the PAGES THEY ARE LIKING and the reason is that THEY are too busy promoting their own SITES to really look and like someone else’s. Now there is a GROUP on FACEBOOK called LIKE FOR LIKES? Seriously, no one cares to really read anything anymore or listen. I often found myself asking people to “PLEASE “LIKE” OUR PAGE AND “LISTEN TO OUR MATERIAL”. That feel upon deaf ears and finally I gave up when Muslims promoting ISLAM started to LIKE our music page. We are not about religion and refuse to endorse anyone’s religion especially Islam which we both think is extremely volatile and harbors extreme hatred for humankind.
So when MC Squared NYC changed our name to COGNITIVE FUNGUS; Facebook had a rupture and told us the next time we signed into that account that we needed to change the name of our site (which is attached to the band page) to a REAL PERSON’S NAME. I tried my own. That didn’t work. I tried everyone’s – no go. Then I tried my dead father in law’s name and BOOM!
All of a sudden we were BILL PATTEN & then my crazy sister in law got annoyed and asked us to take that down because her father had died on 2/28 and she didn’t want his name on FB? Don’t ask – she’s a nutball to begin with but Facebook took care of that for her.
Because we changed the name and the birth date – the next time we signed in we saw this:
Account Disabled
Your account was removed from Facebook because we found it’s pretending to be someone else. Learn more about our policies and how to tell us if you think we made a mistake.
Normally I would have gotten angry but like I said I couldn’t care less at this point because I genuinely hate FB and nothing we ever did to promote ourselves on FB ever brought us any kind of added attention. But the idea that FB could just take off our site is and was disturbing. Not only to us but to others who have had this happen to them.
So when I wanted to dispute this with FB this is what we saw although I strongly feel that someone reported us for not having our own name up there. If you haven’t figured it out already; people don’t treat me with the warm and fuzzies on FB and I have been in trouble in the past with the company because I am outspoken and have a keen sense of my FREEDOMS.
Why was my profile removed?
Your profile has been removed for pretending to be someone else on Facebook.
Facebook is a place where people connect with each other using their authentic identities. Profiles that don’t follow these standards and those found in the Facebook Terms may be removed from Facebook. This may include:
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Pretending or claiming to be someone else
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Bullying another individual by imitating them
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Falsely representing an individual
Why was my account disabled?
Your account was disabled for violating the Facebook Terms.
Our Policies
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Your account must list your authentic name.
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Personal accounts must represent individual people only. It’s a violation of our policies to use a personal profile to represent anything other than yourself (ex: celebrities, pets, ideas, objects, etc.).
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Impersonating anyone or anything is not allowed.
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Maintaining multiple accounts is a violation of our policies.
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Accounts created for the purpose of spamming or harassing others are strictly prohibited.
So we tried to write to FB but this is what they asked us to do to get back our site:
Disabled Account Appeal – ID Request
In order to reactivate your account we need to verify your identity.
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February 22nd, 2015
By Catherine Bonjukian Patten.
With Rock Stars in the news today for reasons that are not IDOL MAKING it’s not hard to realize that this kind of idolizing has been in existence since music began; around the same time man invented the wheel. However communication has not been this connected since the induction of the internet to the masses and frankly the more connected humans get the further apart they become.
Rock stars were never a friendly animal and rock stars came in all different ages and eras. During the big band era of the 1920s there were rock stars but they came in as actors, dancers, musicians working on the silver screen and people flocked to their films. These films were talked about, replicated, ordinary people began to copy these rock stars mannerisms, dress, accents; we made them famous and in turn made them rich.
It is this trend that brought humans into the problems we now have today because these trends did not cease but increased over the decades even though the “artists” have changed and not for the better; in my opinion.
Today we have the HIP HOP ROCK STARS that have degenerated into the RAP STARS who now have infiltrated MOVIE & TV SHOWS and are producing other music rock stars however the stand outs today are far from the “rock stars” of yesterday – or ARE THEY?
If the world actually knew every waking moment of former ROCK STARS from the 50s I am sure we would have already been disgusted with them like we are with our ROCK IDOLS of today. When actor ROCK HUDSON passed away in 1985 people were shocked to learn he was a homosexual but if the INTERNET & SOCIAL MEDIA WEBSITES were around at that time the public would have been inundated with every waking moment of Hudson’s life as a gay man & we would have been sick of it already.
KANYE WEST was born in 1977 making him 9 years old when ROCK HUDSON passed on & we now know WEST as the biggest egomaniac on the planet; someone I believe is without one shred of decent talent in his entire life & he is married to the most degrading of women ever to be born in this world. I always thought Madonna had taken the cake on that note but I was wrong.
Even the “goody two-shoes” of ROCK Stars are held under a microscope today. Taylor Swift and the boys of boy band ONE DIRECTION among others are always in the news because of a song they wrote about someone else or a post from a blogger who is well known or whom others FOLLOW was writing about them. The entire notion of FOLLOWING a ROCK STAR has been actually and literally happened during the days of Internet growth. Not only do these GROUPIES physically FOLLOW these bands around the world; they can FOLLOW them VIRTUALLY and correspond with them at any given time through platforms like FB, TWITTER & TUMBLR and so many others it’s not worth mentioning here.
There are many ways to meet up with old friends, look at other people’s pictures and gaze onto an old flame’s pictures but really why would you want to? I don’t think I would have loved the BEATLES or THE DOORS more if I had an entrance into their inner most lives on TWITTER. Actually I believe it would have taken away my vivid imagination of what I thought about them. Reality is not all it’s cracked up to be. In truth, REALITY TV SHOWS are the worst exposing these ROCK STARS to prying eyes, comments, taunts, bullying and more online. Who in their right mind would want a bunch of camera’s following your every move. People are not that interesting; and look at what has happened to every single one of them and I am still waiting to see how KUWTK, DUCK DYNASTY, and 19 KIDS AND COUNTING falls from grace eventually because you know that they will.
And there are countless other shows I never heard of on TV today that are considered REALITY TV SHOWS featuring ORDINARY PEOPLE that we have made into ROCK STARS. The more connected we are – the less we like others and the less we want to know about their lives. Here are a few tidbits of recent events in the lives of ROCK STARS whom our society emulates and FOLLOWS loyally.
Vanilla Ice Says He Hasn’t Slept, Eaten Much Since Arrest
Russell Simmons Hits Back At Geraldo Rivera Over Criticism Of Hip Hop
Vanilla Ice Burglary Arrest — I Lied To Cops, But … I Thought I Was Just Trash Picking
Kanye West Finally Listens to Beck: ‘Man, This Is Kinda Good!’
Inside the crumbling marriage of Jay Z and Beyoncé
AND none of this would be possible without websites like HUFFINGTON POST, PAGE 6 of NY POST, CRAZY FANS WHO CREATED MILLION DOLLAR WEBSITES LIKE PEREZ HILTON, TMZ, REDDIT & others including BLOGGERS like TWITCHY (a Republican American hell bent on wiping anyone who does not think like her off the internet map), BONJU PATTEN – now writing for this site and others which brings me to the topic OF BLOGGERS writing about ROCK STARS
Because what is a ROCK STAR? Not just a musician or a vocalist but ROCK STARS today is anyone with a FAMOUS FACE AND A NAME THAT CARRIES WEIGHT OUT OF ALL THESE BILLIONS OF PEOPLE ON EARTH – A ROCK STAR TODAY is not a good example of what teenagers should look up to because I have a couple of stories as examples of what happens when you idolize someone and then find out who they really are when you actually meet them face to face.
THE SMALLER THE ROCK STAR THE WORSE THE PERSON IS – example – the character BULL from TV SHOW “NIGHT COURT” was on a TV game show I worked on in Los Angeles. He was obnoxious, disgusting and tried many times to corner me in a room by locking the door. My producer was ever vigilant and finally threw him off the set.
THE BIGGER THE ROCK STAR THE NICER THEY ARE – ELKE SOMMERS – I worked with her on another show for the same TV GAME SHOW series and she was a doll. A living, breathing doll!
Today’s rock stars are bad examples of ordinary people being placed in extraordinary situations at the hands of MOMANGERS, UNSCRUPULOUS AGENTS & other forms of lowlife scum sucking crud rising from the dregs of our society. People have reported that rapper/producer JAY Z started out in life as a DRUG PUSHER and singer Beyonce was a stripper & I don’t know if these are fact or fiction but it does cause considerable controversy among their fans and people who dislike them. Kim Kardashian and her family have caused many people in our society to be reviled or attract to her sites, career choices and her TV SHOWs however she started out her “career” with a sex tape” much to her mother’s chagrin or was it her mother’s plan all along to shove her daughter into the limelight by any means necessary.
It’s NOT just these famous ROCK STARS that should be called out; what about the rock stars of yesterday – The TED NUGENTS, THE OZBOURNE’S, GENE SIMMONS & HIS FAMILY AND HIS SO CALLED ROCK BAND “KISS” which is more of a performance band than a musical endeavor.
Take your pick – from Sinatra & Tony Bennett to Kimye to THE JERSEY SHORE to HERE COMES HONEY BOO BOO – once you get too close to anyone you will begin to see their cracks, wear and tear into their personalities.
FAMILIARITY BREEDS CONTEMPT & many a FOLLOWER, many a FAN, many a GROUPIE has gone done that path of DRUGS, SEX & ROCK AND ROLL and most of them are either in jail, dead or worse, still alive with problems.
Here’s my last word on this subject for now: I THINK DOGS ARE THE ROCK STARS THAT OTHER PEOPLE SHOULD IDOLIZE – THEY ARE LOYAL, LOVING & FAITHFUL.
SAMMI THE DOGGEN
NOT JUST ANY DOG – A “DOGGEN” is a special magical being and knows everything in the world but can’t tell ya about it. She can only show you her magical powers when you need them the most!
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February 9th, 2015
By Catherine Bonjukian Patten
I will begin with an open letter to the late not so great ADOLPH HITLER, a man loathed the world over by everyone who has ever heard his name and knows his legacy of blood, deception, greed, cruelty and infamy.
To Adolph Hitler:
100 years ago on April 24 1915 was the start of a mass murder perpetrated by the Ottoman Turks upon the Armenians living in their midst in what is now Turkey but then it was the Armenian part of Turkey. In villages far and wide; Armenians grew in size and families populating city and village and taking over many a professional service to tradesman profession.
Because of this growth of a people, the Turkish Government grew angry at what they deemed as a ‘take over” of their country by Armenians who took advantage of the thriving landscape to pursue any and all professions open and available to them as an educated and knowledgeable people. The Turks were being led by a new leader;
who issued an edict on 24 April 1915 to arrest and deport Armenian intellectuals in Constantinople, and requested the Tehcir Law (Temporary Deportation Law) of 30 May 1915 that initiated the Armenian Genocide. He is widely considered the main perpetrator of the genocide.[3][4][5][6]
Out of 2.5 million Armenians living in that section of Turkey; 1.8 Million perished at the hands of the Young Turks and Talaat Pasha who wanted a Turkey for TURKS ONLY. Very similar to what happened to the Jews in Germany during the late 1930s to mid 1940s. And, in fact, you wrote in your book, Mein Kampf, Who speaks today of the extermination of the Armenians?”
Well, it’s been 100 years Adolph & you committed suicide and your German’s had to step off and surrender and today are paying reparations to Jews generations over yet The descendants of Armenians slaughtered in that genocide that started during World War 1 and lasted 5 years ARE STILL ALIVE. In fact, I am a 2nd generation American of Armenian descent and very proud of my heritage and culture. My grandparents both fled Eastern Europe and met here in the United States and this is where my parents met, fell in love and married and had me.
I am their only child but I carry a lot of baggage with me and it’s not so much baggage that I cannot handle it but what it is; is the memory of my grandparents, their stories and the stories of many whom they knew and loved; who had loved and lost both Armenian and Turkish people during those turbulent years during the genocide. I am rich with stories; rich with truth and I will never deny them and others to know the real story of what happened and how it came to be that the Armenians suffered at the hands of people they thought they knew and trusted.
The Turks.
But before I tell you that story here are some others told to me by my mother, my aunt and my cousins who have passed away but are not forgotten.
On my mothers side; her mother came from a rich family who’s mother had died in childbirth of my grandmother so her father grew to hate her. He held her at arms length and she did not have a normal childhood in Smyrna, Turkey where she used to pick figs from the trees. She was close to her older sister who had married and had my cousin Anahid, who was many many years older than I and even my own mother who liked to call her Auntie because she as so much older. When Ana’s father passed away her mother was pursued by the Turkish Mayor of the town who it was said used VooDoo on my Aunt compelling her to fall in love with him and marry. Apparently she was threatened that if she didn’t marry him he would not allow her to live. So to keep her only child alive she obliged him and took him as her husband. It was during their 3rd year of marriage that the genocide started and both of them were murdered by the Turks; even when her Turkish husband tried to save her life both of their lives were taken. My aunt had to run for her life so both she and my grandmother fled to Greece & stayed with relatives there and then after some years went to France to live and then came to America on a boat where she met my grandfather, Haig.
Haig was a diamond setter and a jeweler by trade. He had been born in Bulgaria and had impregnated a young 19 year old girl in his home village and fled the area when she told him she was with child. Not so nice I know but he was 20 years old and did not want to marry and settle down with her. So he fled to Russia where he worked until he was picked up by police at the age of 23 for a crime he did not commit and thrown in jail. There he stayed decrying his innocence for two years until the real criminal was caught and he was allowed to go free. He immediately hopped a boat and served on that boat in steerage to America.
My grandparents met on that boat; my grandmother was on the upper decks and he on the lower but when they landed they were equal in both heart and mind. They married and set up their lives in New York and had 3 children; the middle child being my mom, my aunt was the eldest and my uncle the baby. My grandfather washed the windows of Bloomingdale’s for 5 years through all 4 seasons until he made enough money to own his own jewelry stall inside of Bloomingdales and eventually his own store on the upper east side of New York City where he made a fortune. If it had not been for my uncle, we would have all been rich but he stole most of the money when he took over the business and sunk it lower than ground zero on 9/11. He didn’t give or save any money for anyone else but he got his karma tenfold. When he contracted lung cancer and had six months to live, his bitter ex-wife, who still lived in the million dollar apartment they bought together, had another LAST WILL made and forced him to sign it in his sickness and upon his death took everything and left for Florida where she died and gave the rest to her only child, a 5 time loser with money and women who still lives there and is probably broke right now.
But I digress…
My father’s family lived poor in Amasya, Turkey; 2 older girls and 2 older boys were born to my 12 year old grandmother who married my grandfather who was 21 at the time of the marriage. She was married off early because her family thought it would be better for her to be married at the time of the massacre her husband took his four children and went to America. First they settled in Boston but were duped into thinking that there was more fortune in upstate NY city-Watervliet but the streets were not even paved there and my father grew up the youngest the first American born there with his older brother who was born there before him. Al; that brother was a career soldier and fought in the infantry in WW2 in all the major battles and died a most pitiful death as a drunkard in a house fire of his own doing. Out of the entire family of six kids; the oldest daughter had to return to Amasya Turkey because Americans at Ellis Island refused to allow her into America because she was sick with a disease. My grandfather took her back and left her there to die and my father never found out what happened to her. It left him bitter towards his own father hating him until the day the old man died.
My father’s two eldest brothers were born in Turkey and they witnessed much of the genocide as teenagers but escaped before they had to march for miles until they dropped dead of hunger. Like my mother’s parents; they all escaped the Armenian genocide by running away in the middle of the night but the two boys had seen too much carnage and the younger of them; my uncle MO was scarred so badly that he confused rape and love for one another and when he married treated his beautiful non Armenian wife to such hostilities and abuse which trickled down into his family. His eldest son became a incestuous pedophile at the tender age of 10 years old when he was put in charge of taking care of the younger sister, Laura, who was just born and that relationship continued until Laura was 10 years old and was able to escape her brother’s abuse by winning a piano recital and the gold medal which guaranteed her freedom as her brother enlisted in the Navy and left home.
I know I digressed again and I’m sorry but both sides of my family suffered at the hands of the Turks directly and indirectly.
In fact this is a story my mom’s mother used to tell me when I was a kid. Mr Safian was a friend of a Turk. They had grown up together. They were boyhood chums. The Turk spoke Armenian and Turkish fluently as did Mr Safian. They were in their middle years when the genocide started on April 24, 1915 and the Turks had taken to the streets killing people at random. A Turk pounced upon a stranger cutting his throat and turning him around to face him he discovered that it was none other than his best friend Mr. Aram Safian. The Turk was so distraught that he ended his own life. Two best friends dying on the same day because one of them was from a culture that the other was told to alienate ?
Of course this made no sense and I’m not even sure if Mr. Aram Safian was a real person or not but the lesson was clear. Hating someone for the simple reason they are not like you is disgusting.
I understand it but I just don’t understand why the Turks didn’t get it. I didn’t understand why when I was 28 and working for NYC temp agencies in Manhattan they sent me to work at the UN. This was before we had computers and the typewriter was all the rage and everything was done in duplicate with carbon paper,which I hated because it was inky, messy and horrible. Everything had to be letter perfect and I was in a typing pool of many secretaries and that was terrible too. Then I was placed in the Turkish embassy which I told my councilor to NOT put me there because I am Armenian and these Turks would not sign off on my last name.
The agency told me to change my last name and sign it “CATHERINE EMERY” but I couldn’t do that because I wouldn’t get paid under that name. So a week went by working for the bitch of the century; a Turkish diplomat female who’s name I cannot remember but she made CURELLA DEVILLE look desirable. When she went to sign her name she saw mine. She threw the pen at me and tore up the paper spitting on it. She called security and had me led out of the UN and I was told never to return! This was after I had already made my rounds there as a temp and had worked there for a full month in other embassy’s. It was humiliating and disgusting and she was a TURK and I hated her and will never forget her face. The hate on her face was indescribable; the things she said from her mouth were not repeatable. She was the vision of hate. She was the vision of the Armenian Genocide I knew the truth even if she did not. She told me that I had murdered HER PEOPLE? This is what she was taught by the Turkish Government – all lies.
I haven’t been back to the UN since and I don’t want to go back and in fact I think the UN should be disbanded. Who ever heard of a “peace keeping entity” who has their own army, NATO?
So Adolph things have not changed so much since you died. There is still inequality within the sexes although we are trying everyday to change that. The minorities in American ghettos are fighting a new kind of enemy: The POLICE and a group of politicians called REPUBLICANS and the rich 1% of which you would have been a part of if you had lived. Although if you had lived I can assure you the ALLIES would have killed you after the Nuremberg Trials. Yes, Adoph, America is slowly turning into a wasteland of hatred for our fellowman, woman and children who don’t resemble us white folks. Somehow someone caught onto your message and it seeped into our society of freedom and free speech and desecrated it. I believe that happened around the time JFK was going to reveal what he knew about our government but he was mysteriously killed by a dude who had political leanings that were not the same.
But as always there are patriots who fight the good fight and battle upwards and forever the bad guys and somehow we didn’t learn our history too well. And the Turks are still denying their participation in the Armenian genocide. The Armenian descendants were not given reparations and this year is the 100th anniversary of the genocide that today’s Turks are saying either it never happened or it was a war between two factions in Turkey. Both are not true and it’s funny that France is adamant not to allow Turkey into the new unified European Union until they admit their part in this genocide while another genocide in Africa is taking place also by Muslims who want to rule people by laws that are outdated and by contemporary standards not respectful of religious and political freedoms.
But, Adoph, my people, the Armenians are still alive and are only 6 or 7 million in the world, still mostly Christian. There are 100 million Turks in the world but no one knows them. No one calls them “My Friend”. And in Armenia they are thriving again AND there is a country called ISRAEL where Jews are citizens of the world. The very same people whom you tried to exterminate all those many years ago.
We will never forgot what has happened before; and we strive every day to be better than what you wanted us to be a part of back then. We humans are not perfect, Adolph, but we are strong, resilient and many are still fighting Muslims to this day. You did not win the battle and you did not win the war. In fact you were the biggest loser of them all.
Catherine Bonjukian Patten
THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE OF 4/15/15
Case Study:
The Armenian Genocide,
1915-17
Summary
The Armenian genocide was one of the most massive “root-and-branch” exterminations ever carried out against a defenseless people. In 1915, as World War I raged, the Turkish government (ruler of the Ottoman Empire) decided upon the systematic extermination of most of the male Armenian population, and the forced deportation of the remainder, mostly women, children, and the elderly. The deportation became a death march, with extreme violence and deprivation leading to the death of most of the survivors of the initial gendercide — as was intended. By the time the exhausted and traumatized survivors reached refuge in neighbouring countries, up to three-quarters of the entire Ottoman Armenian population had been exterminated.
The background
Armenians are one of the most ancient peoples of the Near East, having lived in the southern Caucasus region for as long as 3,000 years. Christianized early in the first millennium, they formed by the 19th century the largest non-Muslim population in the Ottoman Empire. Peaceful relations between Armenians and Ottoman Muslims had long been the norm: despite acts of discrimination, Armenians were referred to as “the loyal millet.” This changed in the 19th century, as the forces of nationalism swept both the Ottoman realm and Armenians themselves, and as the Ottoman Empire — “the sick man of Europe” — began to crumble in the face of regional revolts. Calls by European powers for protection of the Armenian population had the opposite effect: the regime of Sultan Abdul Hamid II viewed such outside “intervention” as a threat to its sovereignty, and responded in 1896 with a massive campaign of killing, in which at least 200,000 Armenians died. Though one of the most atrocious imperial acts of the 19th century, it was merely a harbinger of the fullscale genocide that was to descend two decades later.
In 1908, a group of modernization-minded officers — “the Young Turks” — toppled the Ottoman Sultan. Armenians generally welcomed the new regime, viewing it as a progressive alternative to Ottoman despotism. But the “Young Turk” movement (with its political party, the Committee of Union and Progress [CUP]) was rapidly taken over by a small group of fanatical nationalists, headed by the triumvirate of Enver Pasha, Cemal Pasha, and Talat Pasha. The trio began to plot the extermination of the Armenian population, seen as a potentially traitorous “fifth column.”
The events of World War I, which saw Turkey allied with Germany and Austria-Hungary against Britain, France, and Russia, gave these architects of genocide the opportunity they sought to implement their plan. One of the movement’s leading ideologues, Dr. Nazim, told a closed session of the CUP Central Committee in February 1915 that “if this purge is not general and final, it will inevitably lead to problems. Therefore it is absolutely necessary to eliminate the Armenian people in its entirety, so that there is no further Armenian on this earth and the very concept of Armenia is extinguished. We are now at war. We shall never have a more suitable opportunity than this.” (Quoted in G.S. Graber,Caravans to Oblivion: The Armenian Genocide, 1915, pp. 87-88.)
The slaughter began on April 24, 1915, with a classic act of “elitocide”: some 600 Armenian notables, all male, were rounded up in Istanbul and murdered. Today, April 24 is commemorated by Armenians worldwide as “Genocide Memorial Day.” Much worse was to come.
Armenian notables assembled for a photograph
immediately prior to their execution in 1915.
The gendercide against Armenian men
Henry Morgenthau:
Witness to genocide
Like the Jewish holocaust, the Armenian genocide represents a case of a clear-cut, “pre-emptive” targeting of the male population, followed by a “root-and-branch” extermination of as many of the survivors as could be killed outright or driven to death. The two gendercidal strategies followed at the outset were 1) the mobilization of “battle-age” Armenian men for service in the Turkish army, followed by the execution or death through overwork of some hundreds of thousands of them; and 2) the concomitant rounding-up and mass slaughter of remaining community males. The U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, Henry Morgenthau, provided one of the most gut-wrenching descriptions of “The Murder of a Nation” in a report to his superiors, published after the war (the U.S. was at the time neutral in the conflict). He summarized the first strategy as follows:
In the early part of 1915, the Armenian soldiers in the Turkish army were reduced to a new status. Up to that time most of them had been combatants, but now they were all stripped of their arms and transformed into workmen. Instead of serving their country as artillerymen and cavalrymen, these former soldiers now discovered that they had been transformed into road labourers and pack animals. Army supplies of all kinds were loaded on their backs, and, stumbling under the burdens and driven by the whips and bayonets of the Turks, they were forced to drag their weary bodies into the mountains of the Caucasus. Sometimes they would have to plough their way, burdened in this fashion, almost waist high through snow. They had to spend practically all their time in the open, sleeping on the bare ground — whenever the ceaseless prodding of their taskmasters gave them an occasional opportunity to sleep. They were given only scraps of food; if they fell sick they were left where they had dropped, their Turkish oppressors perhaps stopping long enough to rob them of all their possessions — even of their clothes. If any stragglers succeeded in reaching their destinations, they were not infrequently massacred. In many instances Armenian soldiers were disposed of in even more summary fashion, for it now became almost the general practice to shoot them in cold blood. In almost all cases the procedure was the same. Here and there squads of 50 or 100 men would be taken, bound together in groups of four, and then marched out to a secluded spot a short distance from the village. Suddenly the sound of rifle shots would fill the air, and the Turkish soldiers who had acted as the escort would sullenly return to camp. Those sent to bury the bodies would find them almost invariably stark naked, for, as usual, the Turks had stolen all their clothes. In cases that came to my attention, the murderers had added a refinement to their victims’ sufferings by compelling them to dig their graves before being shot.
Morgenthau describes one such episode in July 1915, in which some 2,000 Armenian “amélés” (“such is the Turkish word for soldiers who have been reduced to workmen”) were dispatched from the city of Harpoot, ostensibly for a road-construction project:
The Armenians in that town understood what this meant and pleaded with the Governor for mercy. But this official insisted that the men were not to be harmed, and he even called upon the German missionary, Mr. Ehemann, to quiet the panic, giving that gentleman his word of honour that the ex-soldiers would be protected. Mr. Ehemann believed the Governor and assuaged the popular fear. Yet practically every man of these 2,000 was massacred, and his body thrown into a cave. A few escaped, and it was from these that news of the massacre reached the world. A few days afterward another 2,000 soldiers were sent to Diarbekir. The only purpose of sending these men out in the open country was that they might be massacred. In order that they might have no strength to resist or to escape by flight, these poor creatures were systematically starved. Government agents went ahead on the road, notifying the Kurds that the caravan was approaching and ordering them to do their congenial duty. Not only did the Kurdish tribesmen pour down from the mountains upon this starved and weakened regiment, but the Kurdish women came with butcher’s knives in order that they might gain that merit in Allah’s eyes that comes from killing a Christian. These massacres were not isolated happenings; I could detail many more episodes just as horrible as the one related above …
Decapitated heads of Armenian men
are put on display by the Turks.
Like the opening “elitocide,” this strategy was designed to strip the Armenian community of those who might effectively mobilize and defend it, as Morgenthau notes: “Throughout the Turkish Empire a systematic attempt was made to kill all able-bodied men, not only for the purpose of removing all males who might propagate a new generation of Armenians, but for the purpose of rendering the weaker part of the population an easy prey.” A prominent modern scholar of the genocide, Vahakn Dadrian, concurs: “Though [the] mobilization had many other objectives, it served a major purpose for the swift execution of the plan of genocide. By removing all able-bodied Armenian males from their cities, villages, hamlets, and by isolating them in conditions in which they virtually became trapped, the Armenian community was reduced to a condition of near-total helplessness, thus an easy prey for destruction. It was a masterful stroke as it attained with one blow the three objectives of the operation of traping the victim population: a) dislocation through forcible removal; b) isolation; c) concentration for easy targeting.” (Dadrian, The History of the Armenian Genocide [Berghahn Books, 1995], p. 226.)
With this “conscription-as-gendercide” thus accomplished, the Turkish authorities turned their attention to the remaining male population. The authorities were now free to turn to the destruction of the remainder of the Armenian population. Armenians were told they were to be deported to “safe havens” in third countries. The deportation process, was seen as simply another tool of genocide, as Morgenthau notes: “The real purpose of the deportation was robbery and destruction; it really represented a new method of massacre. When the Turkish authorities gave the orders for these deportations, they were merely giving the death warrant to a whole race; they understood this well, and, in their conversations with me, they made no particular attempt to conceal the fact.”
Before the caravans were dispatched, however, a final assault was made on the few Armenian males remaining. Morgenthau again:
The systematic extermination of the men continued; such males as the persecutions which I have already described had left were now violently dealt with. Before the caravans were started, it became the regular practice to separate the young men from the families, tie them together in groups of four, lead them to the outskirts, and shoot them. Public hangings without trial — the only offense being that the victims were [male] Armenians — were taking place constantly. The gendarmes showed a particular desire to annihilate the educated and the influential. From American consuls and missionaries I was constantly receiving reports of such executions, and many of the events which they described will never fade from my memory. At Angora all Armenian men from fifteen to seventy were arrested, bound together in groups of four, and sent on the road in the direction of Caesarea. When they had travelled five or six hours and had reached a secluded valley, a mob of Turkish peasants fell upon them with clubs, hammers, axes, scythes, spades, and saws. Such instruments not only caused more agonizing deaths than guns and pistols, but, as the Turks themselves boasted, they were more economical, since they did not involve the waste of powder and shell. In this way they exterminated the whole male population of Angora, including all its men of wealth and breeding, and their bodies, horribly mutilated, were left in the valley, where they were devoured by wild beasts. After completing this destruction, the peasants and gendarmes gathered in the local tavern, comparing notes and boasting of the number of “‘giaours” that each had slain. In Trebizond the men were placed in boats and sent out on the Black Sea; gendarmes would follow them in boats, shoot them down, and throw their bodies into the water. When the signal was given for the caravans to move, therefore, they almost invariably consisted of women, children, and old men. Any one who could possibly have protected them from the fate that awaited them had been destroyed.
The gendercide against Armenian women
An artist’s depiction of the atrocities unleashed
on Armenian women during the forced deportations.
The forced deportation of the women, childerly, and elderly left alive after the gendercide against Armenian men gave rise to some of the most hellish scenes in recorded history. Some Armenian women and children were offered the alternative of conversion to Islam and subsequent slavery in Turkish homes, but it is generally held that only a thousand or so accepted. The rest were driven from their homeland at bayonet-point, and forced to run a vicious gauntlet of soldiers and marauding tribespeople. “Women who lagged behind were bayoneted on the road, or pushd over precipices, or over bridges,” writes the historian Arnold Toynbee (quoted in Leo Kuper, Genocide, p. 111). Morgenthau offers an unforgettable description of their torment:
The whole course of the journey became a perpetual struggle with the Moslem inhabitants. Detachments of gendarmes would go ahead, notifying the Kurdish tribes that their victims were approaching, and Turkish peasants were also informed that their long-waited opportunity had arrived. The Government even opened the prisons and set free the convicts, on the understanding that they should behave like good Moslems to the approaching Armenians. Thus every caravan had a continuous battle for existence with several classes of enemies — their accompanying gendarmes, the Turkish peasants and villagers, the Kurdish tribes and bands of Chétés or brigands. And we must always keep in mind that the men who might have defended these wayfarers had nearly all been killed or forced into the army as workmen, and that the exiles themselves had been systematically deprived of all weapons before the journey began. … Such as escaped … attacks in the open would find new terrors awaiting them in the Moslem villages. Here the Turkish roughs would fall upon the women, leaving them sometimes dead from their experiences or sometimes ravingly insane. After spending a night in a hideous encampment of this kind, the exiles, or such as had survived, would start again the next morning. The ferocity of the gendarmes apparently increased as the journey lengthened, for they seemed almost to resent the fact that part of their charges continued to live. Frequently any one who dropped on the road was bayoneted on the spot. The Armenians began to die by hundreds from hunger and thirst. Even when they came to rivers, the gendarmes, merely to torment them, would sometimes not let them drink. The hot sun of the desert burned their scantily clothed bodies, and their bare feet, treading the hot sand of the desert, became so sore that thousands fell and died or were killed where they lay. Thus, in a few days, what had been a procession of normal human beings became a stumbling horde of dust-covered skeletons, ravenously looking for scraps of food, eating any offal that came their way, crazed by the hideous sights that filled every hour of their existence, sick with all the diseases that accompany such hardships and privations, but still prodded on and on by the whips and clubs and bayonets of their executioners.
“The passage of rivers, and especially of the Euphrates, was always an occasion of wholesale murder,” writes Toynbee. Morgenthau notes that “In a loop of the river near Erzinghan … the thousands of dead bodies created such a barrage that the Euphrates changed its course for about a hundred yards.”
Starving Armenian woman and child
after reaching “refuge.”
The end result of these torments was standardly near-total extermination. Morgenthau describes a typical convoy consisting of “18,000 souls,” of whom “just 150 women and children reached their destination. A few of the rest, the most attractive, were still living as captives of the Kurds and Turks; all the rest were dead.” “The last survivors often staggered into Aleppo [Syria] naked,” writes Toynbee; “every shred of their clothing had been torn from them on the way. Witnesses who saw their arrival remark that there was not one young or pretty face to be seen among them, and there was assuredly none surviving that was truly old …”
Their suffering was not over: many who had survived the earlier rampage starved to death or died of disease in the squalid camps established in Syria and Mesopotomia (Iraq). Massacres of Armenians by Turks continued even after the final defeat of the empire in 1918-19, with the Turkish invasion of the independent Republic of Armenia (see below).
“Whatever crimes the most perverted instincts of the human mind can devise, and whatever refinements of persecution and injustice the most debased imagination can conceive, became the daily misfortunes of this devoted people,” Morgenthau summarized. “I am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such horrible episode as this. The great massacres of the past seem almost insignificant when compared with the sufferings of the Armenian race in 1915.”
Although the bulk of the slaughter was carried out in 1915, largescale massacres of Armenians continued until the end of World War I and even afterward. “In the last months of the war between 50,000 and 100,000 Armenians were massacred by Turkish troops in the various Caucasus campaigns. To this figure must be added the results of genocidal actions taken by Turkish nationalist forces in Cilicia [the Mediterranean region of southeastern Turkey] … after the Mudros Armistice (October 30, 1918).” (Graber, Caravans to Oblivion, p. 148.)
How many died?
Morgenthau, working with limited information, claimed that “at least 600,000 people” had been killed in the genocide, “and perhaps as many as 1,000,000.” Modern estimates tend to be higher, ranging from 1.1 to 1.8 million killed out of about 2.5 million Armenians alive in the Ottoman lands at the onset of the slaughter in 1915. As a proportion of population, it is believed that between half and three-quarters of all Ottoman Armenians died in the genocide. This is a death rate comparable to the Jewish holocaust, in which some two-thirds of European Jews were killed.
Who was responsible?
Primary responsibility for the genocide must rest with the trio of Enver Pasha, Cemal Pasha, and Talat Pasha, who dominated the Central Committee of the “Young Turk” government and planned the systematic extermination and expulsion of the Armenian population. At the ground-level, however, the genocide was carried out by many thousands of Turkish officers and soldiers, along with ordinary citizens (including Kurdish tribespeople) who saw the persecution of the Armenians as an ideal opportunity for plunder, rape, and kidnapping. The Armenians’ status as a religious minority, and their reputation for higher levels of education and wealth than many other groups in the Ottoman Empire, made them the target of popular hatred and envy. The comparison with the position and fate of Jews in Germany and the Nazi-occupied territories is inescapable. As the Knights of Vartan Armenian Research Center has pointed out, there are in fact profound similarities between the Armenian and Jewish genocides. “Both people adhere to an ancient religion. Both were religious minorities of their respective states. Both have a history of persecution. … Both are talented and creative minorities who have been persecuted out of envy and obscurantism.”
The aftermath
Turkey’s defeat in World War I, and the consequent collapse of the Ottoman Empire, offered surviving Armenians an opportunity for national self-realization. In 1918, an independent Republic of Armenia was declared. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson was granted the right to draw up the boundaries of a new Armenian nation, formalized at the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920. However, the Turkish government, under nationalist leader Kemal Ataturk, rapidly renounced the Treaty. In collusion with the newly-created Soviet Union, the Turks invaded Armenia and reconquered six of the former western Ottoman provinces granted to Armenia under the Treaty, along with the Armenian provinces of Kars and Ardahan. What remained of Armenia was swallowed up by the invading Soviet armies. After a brief period of cooperation with Armenian nationalist forces, the Soviets took complete control in 1921, and Armenia was incorporated into the Transcaucasian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (SFSR) in 1922. A separate Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic was created in 1936. The Armenian Communist Party was the only political party permitted to function under Soviet rule, which remained in place until 1991, when Armenians overwhelmingly voted for secession from the collapsing USSR. In the late 1980s, the boundary established between Armenia and Soviet Azerbaijan became the subject of bitter conflict, as Armenians fought to unite the predominantly Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh with the new Armenian republic. A ceasefire was signed in 1994, but the enclave remains one of the “hot spots” of the volatile Caucasus region.
For many decades, the horrors inflicted upon the Armenian people were little-known in the outside world. Indeed, the Nazis’ genocide against the Jews, the Poles, and others may have been facilitated by the “memory hole” into which the Armenians had fallen. “Who today remembers the extermination of the Armenians?” mused Adolf Hitler in 1939, as he ordered a merciless assault on the civilian population of occupied Poland.
In recent decades, fortunately, the lie has been put to Hitler’s rhetorical question. Armenian scholars and activists, joined by numerous sympathizers around the world, have worked to research and publicize the genocide, and to gather the testimony of survivors before they pass from the earth. Gradually, much of the outside world has acknowledged the scale and character of the slaughter. The Europan Parliament in 1987 voted in favour of recognizing the Armenian Genocide, as did the Russian parliament in 1994. Also in 1994, Israel, after decades of state-sponsored suppression of the facts of the genocide (which was felt to distract from the “exceptional” character of the Jewish holocaust), informally recognized that the fate of the Armenians “was not war,” but “certainly massacre and genocide, something the world must remember,” in the words of Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin.
The major exception to the rule, predictably, is Turkey. In the brief interim (1918-20) between the Ottoman collapse and the ascendancy of the nationalist Ataturk regime, the Turkish government did hold trials for dozens of accused war-criminals, but only fifteen death sentences were passed, and only three insignificant actors actually executed. (The three main organizers of the genocide were subsequently killed — Enver Pasha while leading an anti-Bolshevik revolt in Turkestan in 1922, and Cemal Pasha and Talat Pasha by Armenian assassination squads, who tracked them down to deliver summary justice.) The Ataturk government effectively cancelled the court-martial process (Ataturk himself claiming that the Armenians killed were “victims of foreign intrigues” and guilty of abusing “the privileges granted them”). (For more on the trials, see Vahakn Dadrian, “The Turkish Military Tribunal’s Prosecution of the Authors of the Armenian Genocide”, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 11: 1 [Spring 1997].)
Since the early 1920s, successive Turkish governments have maintained an ostentatious silence on the subject, broken only to issue denials that the genocide ever occurred, and denunciations of those who assert that it did. In 1990, for example, the Turkish ambassador to the U.S. dismissed the holocaust as resulting from “a tragic civil war initiated by Armenian nationalists.” The Turkish government has also devoted millions of dollars to a propaganda campaign aimed at western universities and a handful of compliant scholars. (See Amy Magaro Rubin, “Critics Accuse Turkish Government of Manipulating Scholarship”, Chronicle of Higher Education, 27 October 1995.) They have had support from NATO and other western countries, which view Turkey as a linchpin of “stability” in the Near East. In the United States, for example, “conforming to Turkey’s wishes, all congressional resolutions to recognize the Armenian Genocide have been opposed by the Reagan, Bush and Clinton administrations, and all such resolutions have thus far been defeated.” (Levon Chorbajian, “Introduction,” in Levon Chorbajian and George Shirinian, eds., Studies in Comparative Genocide, p. xxvi.)
As Stanley Cohen of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem puts it:
The nearest successful example [of “collective denial”] in the modern era is the 80 years of official denial by successive Turkish governments of the 1915-17 genocide against the Armenians in which some 1.5 million people lost their lives. This denial has been sustained by deliberate propaganda, lying and coverups, forging documents, suppression of archives, and bribing scholars. The West, especially the United States, has colluded by not referring to the massacres in the United Nations, ignoring memorial ceremonies, and surrendering to Turkish pressure in NATO and other strategic arenas of cooperation.
Comments Off on APRIL 24, 2015 MARKS THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
November 7th, 2013
By Catherine Bonjukian Patten.
Talk about being “out of touch”! The people who voted for Mayor in NYC and for Governor in NJ are completely loony OR should I write the people who DIDN’T VOTE.
This is what happened basically in a nutshell. In NYC the two candidates were vastly different. One, Joe Lhota is the REPUBLICAN coming from a rich background like Bloomberg, who sat for 12 years ruling over NYC like Boss Tweed driving all the middle class in NY to the outer boroughs and NJ, was the head of the failed NYC subway system. All he did during his short reign there was raise the fares when he was supposed to LOWER them. His DEMOCRATIC contender was City Advocate, the very liberal and “progressive” Bill DiBlasio who relied on his multicultural family to appeal to the minorities and poor, gay and other cultures outside of white America to win the competition. DiBlasio sold the farm which he never owned and is now the WINNA and new MAYOR OF NYC.
DiBlasio’s win is a huge LOOSE for NYC because much like Dinkins before him promises change but only in his own pocket. DiBlasio was City Advocate in which he served 4 years and won very few issues in that time. Green who was Advocate before him and who also ran for Mayor and lost was a better Advocate and helped shape the city’s policies that are still evident today. These are the things Bill DiBlasio did or TRIED to do as City Advocate: http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/politics/2013/08/8532685/training-days-what-kind-public-advocate-was-bill-de-blasio
The powers of the office are indeed unprecedentedly meager, in terms of its ability to shape policy.
But though it isn’t made explicit in the city charter, the public advocate’s office serves another purpose: its occupant may use it to establish a public profile and a record in citywide office that forms the basis of a run for mayor. (NOTE: THIS IS WHY DiBLASIO RAN FOR PUBLIC OFFICE IN THE FIRST PLACE. HE WANTED TO BECOME MAYOR)
During his time as public advocate, de Blasio campaigned against the Citizens United Supreme Court decision and released a report (that got him some cable-network time) ranking corporations on their disclosure of political spending. He used the report to pressure some financial firms to declare that they would not engage in direct spending on political ads.
He urged the city to do a lot of things that it never ended up doing, like responding to freedom of information law requests in an appropriately transparent and timely fashion, ditching its outer borough taxi plan, apologizing for not disclosing the reasons for former deputy mayor Stephen Goldsmith’s departure, reducing its reliance on small-business fines, and instituting a moratorium on school closings.
In a similarly futile vein, he called on Nissan, the manufacturer of the city’s Taxi of Tomorrow,to divest from Iran.
De Blasio did succeed in some cases in using his bully pulpit to underscore his liberal credentials, and sometimes to bring public pressure to bear on the city.
After some equivocation, he supported the Occupy Wall Street protestors. He (belatedly) supported living wage, and helped corner Council Speaker Christine Quinn on paid sick leave. In recent months, he’s been the most outspoken elected official against the closure of Long Island College Hospital in brownstone Brooklyn, highlighted by a protest at which he got himself arrested. And he’s been an unconditional supporter of two police oversight bills the current administration is trying mightily to stop.
That the public advocate controls an office with few constitutional powers, a small budget and a certain obsolescence wrought by 311 is not de Blasio’s fault. And if, in its current form, the office is little more than bully pulpit, it’s also not his fault that his efforts to be the gadfly-in-chief have been hampered by an unhelpfully unsensational mayor.
“[Mark] Green had the perfect foil in Giuliani, because Giuliani was a polarizing figure,” said Ken Fisher, a former councilman who brokered an agreement between Green and Giuliani that helped remove the mob from the carting industry. “By standing up to Giuliani, he elevated himself and the office. It’s much harder to fight with Mike Bloomberg, because he so rarely fights back.”
But still, De Blasio, a political operative-turned-politician who knows very well how to promote other people, has oftentimes seemed less at home using his perch to promote himself.
“He seems to lack the instinct for vulgarity that gets you the most attention,” said Ken Sherrill, a political science professor at Hunter College. “What my colleagues would call performativity.”
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In January 2014 when DiBlasio takes office people will see who and what they hired, crime will soar, illegal immigrants will come out of the shadows and organize without recrimination (they also voted for him illegally) and NYC will descend into the war zone it was when Dinkins was Mayor for a second. I’m pretty sure DiBlasio will do nothing in office and then try to run for POTUS in 2016 just like his buddy across the river, NJ Gov Chris Christie plans to do in just two short years time.
In the NJ race for Gov no one in the democratic party wanted to run against loud mouth bully and obnoxious fathead, Chris Christie. Christie for his part in all this needed to be re elected to NJ State house because no one would have voted for THE FORMER GOV OF NJ…he HAD to be the SEATED Gov and that is what happened.
Palms were greased, promises were made in the back halls and alleyways of Trenton at the expense of taxpayers all over the state the Democrats pushed their candidate, a female Senator named BARBARA BUONO, who had the gall to run against the scary fat guy and her own party threw her under the table. It’s so obvious that all the NJ Democrats were in on it. The entire NJ Democratic party gave Buono only $5,000 dollars to run her campaign, POTUS OBAMA lent his support to Democrat DiBlasio in NYC run for Mayor but he couldn’t cross the river for fellow Democrat Barbara Buono? http://www.salon.com/2013/11/06/barbara_buono_alleges_democratic_betrayal_in_campaign_against_christie/
NJ, and I’ve lived here for a good 8 years, has many men in office throughout the state. They are knuckle dragging Neanderthals who believe that women’s place is in the bedroom making the pasta by hand, having babies and shutting up when the men eat at the table. These men, mostly Italian and Irish, come from a mob like background called MAFIA which actually means in Italian “our thing”. Funny, eh? These men outwardly hate women and because BARBARA BUONO was considered a “Corzine Democrat” and a WOMAN (E-GADS two strikes against her!) both the media and the state of NJ ignored her campaign efforts and she failed to impress at the polls.
Secondly, the polls in NJ are open from 6am to 8pm – in NYC they are opened to 9pm but in NJ there are many people who work in NYC and are unable to vote during these times they are commuting to work. So the NJ voters are really apathetic towards voting in general. Then there are the people who voted but who’s votes were not counted. I feel as if the majority of people who voted against Christie – their votes were thrown out. It was not a good feeling voting against him as the people in our town are staunch Republicans whom I am dying to get away from. I’d love to move but at the moment that is not feasible but in the near future it may well be.
Please remember that politics in NJ is not like it is in NY State. Deals are made in homes of rich people who give money to public officials who went into office poor and retire billionaires. You gotta ask yourself how this could happen?
In summation, both of these contests between NY and NJ were not covered by the media like they cover Kim Kardashian and her family because had they been people would be more aware of who was running and why. In NYC people voted for Robin Hood and in NJ people voted in the SHERIFF OF NOTTINGHAM.
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September 2nd, 2013
By Catherine Haig.
In 2004 we sent our troops to invade Iraq and then after that escapade we went to Afghanistan. Since those assaults we tumbled Saddam Hussein’s empire killing him and his two crazy sons and “freeing the Iraqi people” into a chaos and uncertainty when we left. Now the Iraqi people are better off without that lunatic governing them however they also are recovering from Agent Orange attacks that we left behind us as souvenirs. But this article is NOT about what we left behind but our military and vets committing suicide in the most stressful situations on earth.
It is already suicide when any member of our military enters the war stage – any war but we have an all volunteer military – no one person is drafted – they all come and came in the past for a “free education” however this freedom now has a price – that price being YOUR LIFE. OUR MILITARY IS PLACING THEIR LIVES DIRECTLY IN THE LINE OF DANGER and many are paying the price and getting an education they die for.
Literally DIE FOR.
Any one person facing this dilemma is bound to act and react in survival mode but then if they are lucky to survive without a missing limp, these military people take a trip back home to see their folks and BOMB! Get sent back again for more tours. Some people are on their 11 th tour of duty this is insanity! Fear is constantly taking it’s toll on these troops and I don’t care how much psychological testing you do on people these doctors are not testing them under stressful situations. The knowledge of knowing you are cognitive stepping on onto the world stage in a war zone is petrifying and not for the weak of heart. Some people get shot and killed immediately; the less fortunate linger from battle to battle hoping they are dodging bullets of death coming at them from all sides.
Then these troops come home and find out that their medical and pay have been cut because “oh gosh there is a sequester in place that is screwing up your benefits. Sorry about that, soldiers, you are shit outta luck!” REALLY? SERIOUSLY? IS THIS THE WAY AMERICA WANTS TO TREAT IT’S HEROES? I DON’T THINK SO!
I DON’T THINK SO AT ALL but from their point of view it’s a slap in the gut from a country who they hear as ungrateful. “I didn’t ask you to go to war for me” or “you military types are all rapists and murderers” and while it’s true that some of our military is that type of person; NOT ALL OF THEM ARE. Other cuts to their benefits are psychological and these troops feel as if they have no were to turn; no friend to talk to about their PTSD or nightmares. What we are doing to these people are beyond any scope of decency.
America has to learn to rotate it’s military and if they cannot do that and if we insist on aiding foreign countries when it’s none of our stinking business to be in that country then we have to institute a
DRAFT
AND IF WE DO CREATE A DRAFT
THEN IT HAS TO BE EQUAL ALL THE WAY AROUND
MEN AND WOMEN
FROM ALL WALKS OF LIFE
AND THE FIRST WHO SHOULD BE SENT TO THE FRONT LINES
ARE ALL THE PRESIDENT’S CHILDREN AND HIS CABINET MEMBERS KIDS RIGHT DOWN THE LINE OF THE SENATE AND HOUSE MEMBERS CHILDREN.
NONE OF THIS CRAP OF CHILDREN FIRST FROM POOR OR DISABLED FAMILIES because if we were to go with that then EMPTY OUT ALL THE JAIL CELLS ACROSS AMERICA
AND SEND THE CRIMINALS INTO BATTLE
AND THEN REFUSE TO LET THEM RETURN HOME.
If any of us that have never been in a war zone before we to do battle we would NOT survive.
We have to pay back our troops with help, understanding and benefits – They put their lives on the line everyday for all of us
Not just the few rich people.
– www.bonjupatten.net/http://bonjupatten.blogspot.com
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August 30th, 2013
By Catherine Haig.
POTUS Obama is contemplating a solo intervention in Syria with one ALLY – FRANCE. With the exception of food FRANCE IS NOT KNOWN for an elite fighting squad; in fact in WW2 they were eating crow and speaking GERMAN as I recall from History.
Yet POTUS Obama is gung ho about America stepping into Syria for what would likely be a disasterour tour of duty for any military personnel. Russia and Iran have vowed to stand their ground for Syria and promptly bomb the hell out of Israel and while this does not bother me in the least what if there is a chain effect going down the line with consequences?
People, we are coming up on September 11, 2013 which falls on a Wednesday and last year 4 Americans; one of them a career Ambassador was killed in an Embassy in Libya during the Arab uprising (Spring) and most of all, AMERICA HAS NO REASON TO BOMB SYRIA.
Let’s recap; A few weeks ago, Syria murdered 1300 of its own people with chemical warfare. They killed their own so I don’t mean to sound heartless but these are Muslims vs Muslims which I have no problem with and until an American Embassy is threatened by Syria with this lethal compounds I suggest we stay the hell out of Syria.
There will be plenty of time to kill Assad and his twerp of a brother whom both of these guys remind me of modern day Mafia with their suits and ties killing “their families in Syria”. Is it mandatory that America police the entire world? What could we possibly expect out of this military engagement? Urrrr – let’s see maybe WORLD WAR 3?
Obama was elected on a hope and a prayer but really he is a pitiful excuse for a President. The first Black President is a hoax; America’s first black President was Bill Clinton; Barack Hussain Obama is our last, at least in this century. It seems as though Obama cannot make a decision on his own and he’s listening to crack heads on meth pleading with him to take action.
POTUS Obama should heed the American public who voted for him; I being a voter the second time, voting between two evils; The American Public does not want another war. This war he is contemplating in Syria could spell the end of the world. These Muslims do not see anything but their religion and their way of life so it is incomprehensible for Obama to understand Syria’s willingness to experiment on its own people. YET Obama allows Government agencies to spy on Americas to catch us in some sort of wrongdoing?
In 2016, we are going to need to put up some people – hopefully women and not men – who have a brain in their head and a strong heart. Someone like an Indira Ghandi or a Golda Mayer -or the Prime Minister of England, Thatcher – these women were leaders of large countries and forces of nature other countries and leaders respected.
We need a woman to lead us out of the darkness that men do not fear to tread. President Obama has to resist the urge to go into Syria until and IF Syria decides to use their chemical warfare against us in the world or on our soil.
www.bonjupatten.net/bonjupatten.blogspot.com
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July 5th, 2013
By Catherine Haig.
Before this huge backlash of White American Guilt I had not idea who either of these two people were.
Of course most of the stay at home moms and dads who watch the Food Network for entertainment and learning how to cook knew who Deen was but no one knew EDWARD SNOWDEN.
The difference is Edward Snowden is a whistleblower who worked as a contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA) and Paula Deen is a celebrity chef BUT their similarities lie in the fact that they are both being discriminated against because in each of their situations their FREEDOM OF SPEECH has been altered. Our first amendment right to free speech is now the subject of POLITICALLY CORRECT BULLSHIT.
Yes, people, we have come down in the world as the number 1 super power and not only that, we have degenerated into a nation of timid politically correct idiots who allow freedoms for one race to overcome the freedoms of all races. America is a melting pot but now America has gone rather dark and by that I mean our minorities are becoming our majorities. This happens all the time and it’s nothing to be scared about but White People tend to overcompensate and the Angry White Men of our society are the most ridiculous. I’ve seen white men who are blue color workers (post office workers) who are delighted that Paula Deen’s empire has crumbled all because she used a racial slur 30 years ago. She did not use it on the TV, she did not use it on her show, she didn’t use it in a commercial and frankly what is the big deal about using a racial slur if you are a celebrity?
Alec Baldwin has discriminated against women and gays yet he’s apologized and he gets to keep his job and money. Jay-Z and Kayne West, two of the biggest users of the N word are still a powerhouse team in rap, they still have their money, their fans and their followings; nothing has happened to them. Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton are rich from their race baiting days which were shrouded by “civil rights movement”; let’s face it these two are racists but now that they are rich they care not about any black person who is in trouble with the Law of our society.
In the 20th Century, our society went from extreme racial prejudice against Black people in the south to extreme anti-racial prejudice today. Two extremes do not make this any better than it was when the black society was undergoing their equality problems. Today our own country lead by our Senate and House took THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT and threw it under the rug making it harder for minorities to vote in the United States. Planned Parenthood was designed to curtail black and minorities pregnancies and now women are flocking to it in droves and trying to repeal GOP advances to shut its doors. The Angry White Male still exists in America and they are not so foreign anymore; they are your next door neighbors, they are your fathers, brothers, uncles, boyfriends, grandfathers, siblings and husbands and they are still as frightening as they were with sheets on their heads. They are in every walk of life, in every city and they are menacing, bullying and running scared but still our American Media rises up the people they want to talk about and dashes the hopes and dreams of others ON A WHIM.
One could say that EDWARD SNOWDEN is a victim of racism because President Obama is hell bent on capturing this whistleblower and sticking him in the same jail Bradley Manning is residing. Obama is our first black president and one could say he’s racist against these two white men for telling the truth? Granted these two whistleblowers may have exposed the NSA spying on Americans to light and maybe it is detrimental to our safety but if our government is so worried about terrorists – stop them BEFORE THEY COME INTO AMERICA. Stop illegal immigration and that would help. Listen, people, President Nixon got impeached for being discovered to be spying at Watergate – it’s the same damn thing so then why is President Obama still in office and why is Edward Snowden, Julian Assuage and Bradley Manning being labeled traitors?
The internet has become the court of public opinion where ever a-hole has one and no one really agrees 100%. On social media where no one is social and everyone hates everyone else because it’s always the battle between the haves and have nots; there is even worst comment fighting as the pea brains take to the internet in droves sounding more like two year olds than 50 year old people. During the PAULA DEEN DEBACKLE more people of all races were saying she should not be held accountable because she used the N word 30 years ago and by law you cannot be held responsible for that today. But they all missed the point – it’s not about the N Word – it is about FREEDOM OF SPEECH.
The similarities between Snowden & Deen are simply the fact that each of them and all of the others are not being allowed to voice their first amendment right to free speech. Our constitution is in the dust now and frankly it does not matter what political party you vote for or even for the person you vote for that matter. Our freedoms are eroding in this 21st century and there is nowhere to run.
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April 20th, 2013
Catherine Haig.
In 2014 we must get rid of congressional Republicans and Democrats who will vote against gun control, background checks and the use of every Tom, Dick and Harry’s right to bear arms. This is what our 2nd Amendment reads and nowhere does it say anything about individual gun ownership; only “militia”, which Dear Dumb Republican means MILITARY.
Text of the 2nd Amendment
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The present Supreme Court of the USA interpreted this Amendment in the wrong terms but then again, these judges are “persuaded” by lobbyists as much as our Congress people are “persuaded” and if you think I am insinuating they are all on the take; you are CORRECT. I believe that these people we, the people, vote in and seated members of SCOTUS are on the take. Lobbyists have the money and the means to “persuade” our elected officials to do their bidding and not the work of the people who have elected them to office.
90% OF AMERICA WANTED STRICTER GUN LAWS. THIS WEEK IN CONGRESS MOST OF THE DEMOCRATS VOTED WITH THE PEOPLE; 51 PERCENT OF THE REPUBLICANS VOTED AGAINST. Congress did not pass any laws KNOWING THAT 20 KIDS WERE MURDERED BY A PSYCHO WHOSE OWN MOTHER WAS A HOARDER AND A “DOOMSDAY PREPPER WHO BELIEVED THAT THE WORLD WAS COMING TO AN END AND SHE HAD TO PREPARE HERSELF WITH AMMO, GUNS, ASSAULT WEAPONS AND OTHER WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION AND SHE ALLOWED HER CRAZY SON TO LEARN HOW TO USE AND OPERATE THIS EQUIPMENT.
The son, Adam Lanza, was motivated by revenge towards his mother when he found out she was preparing to send him to an instituition because she could not handle him any more. Adam Lanza thought his mother loved those 20 kids that she was an aide to in Sandy Hook Elementary School more than she loved him; he was probably right about that. When she and her husband split they were already alienated by Adam Lanza who took over his mother’s life and was a force of nature that neither his father or his brother wanted to be around. They left and now his mother was abandoning him so from Lanza’s Point of View his butt was cooked if he didn’t do something to stop his mother who had enlisted the help of the Sandy Hook Principal and the school Shrink, both of whom were her friends.
If Adam Lanza didn’t have the knowledge he did or a way to get his mitts on these weapons those 36 people would still be alive in Newtown, CT and none of this would be an issue but it wouldn’t take back the thousands of lives lost since the Newtown massacre and our gun laws must be controlled and maintained. Lobbyists must become a thing of the past. Our founding father’s never thought the great Senate would be controlled by corporations with ties to persuade the representatives of the people. In fact I’m sure they are quite annoyed that the senate is not doing the work of the people and while none of the founding father’s envisioned that a black man would be living in the White House as President; the amount of animosity coming from the Senate Republicans is undeniably racist.
I know believe that POTUS Obama should say the opposite of what he feels to be correct in order for our congress to do the right thing. For instance; POTUS should say he wants guns in every classroom; kids, teachers, guards everyone should be wearing a firearm. Suddenly you will see Congress ban guns. I believe that this would work even thought I also believe that the best way to control this situation is to get rid of the people standing in the way of American progress. I don’t care how many times our media cries that GUNS ARE NOT BAD; ONLY THE PEOPLE USING THEM ARE BAD; if you screen the history of the person wanting to buy a gun and they don’t measure up; they don’t get that gun; innocent people are saved. Capish?
Here’s the other thing I would suggest – take any websites down or block them from Americans and anyone other than law enforcement agencies that read “HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN BOMB” Really? This should NOT be on anyone’s access to the internet. It is not in the realm of “OUR RIGHTS” that Americans and others NOT in law enforcement should have this kind of dangerous knowledge.
Secondly why should a state have two representatives sitting in congress especially if that state has a small percentage of people living there. In Massachusetts there are millions if not billions of people living there they would have a majority over any other state with a smaller electorate. Our voting rights should not be subjected to Republican zoning called GERRYMANDERING the vote or having the Electoral College. Get rid of all this crap – in every other country in operation on this earth – MAJORITY RULES – but in America it is always the minority white people in control that have the power. In America the NEEDS OF THE FEW OUTWEIGH THE NEEDS OF THE MANY – THIS IS DEFINITELY THE WRONG IDEOLOGY WE ARE PRACTICING.
The two Turkish brothers that bombed the Boston Marathon on 4/15/13 were raised in America yet the younger 19 year old was more in step than his older brother who felt out of place in Boston. He claimed he had few friends if any but he was married to an American girl and had a female child whom he decided to abandon by going ahead with this plan that I believe was not THEIR PLAN but they were a part of an active Islamic CELL that is one of many in America. Their aunt called them “angels”, their father called them “good”, their uncle hates them and called them “losers”; maybe we should release the younger one to his recognizance. I shutter to think what he might punish the boy with but in any case he does deserve his own fate. He choose this rocky road to go down and now he must live with the consequences of his actions. On the other hand the uncle may fear for his life and the lives of his own family so he’s speaking out against his nephews in hopes there is no retaliation. The boys’ families believe that they are “innocent” and while I don’t believe that same thing what I do fear is that they are not in this plot alone; that there are others and that more bombs are in our horizon along with more deaths of Americans on our own soil.
Which brings me to the subject of CROWD SOURCING which is a new way to piss off the law enforcement community at large mostly because it undoes their expertise and hard work in their field of knowledge. Because of dumb bloggers polling others as if what their numbers say are truths it is really just conjecture and opinion of others not based in fact. This Crowd Sourcing pointed a false finger at a young American of Arab descent who had absolutely nothing at all to do with the Boston Bombing but because newspapers like the NY POST, which is one of the biggest rags in America (poor late Mr. Hamilton would be so displeased) showed pictures of two people who WERE THE WRONG PEOPLE and never retracted their statements to the negative. This is NOT journalism; it is bullshit and I really hope the two people falsely accused sue the crap out of the POST for ruining their lives and making them targets which could have ended badly had the American public taken the law into its own hands…hence the problem with guns that America, the gun country, is having in it’s non-debates with the American Congress.
I also believe that since Immigration is being discussed in Congress that the road to Citizenship must be DERAILED PERMANENTLY in light of this event. I believe we are at war with Islam and it won’t end until the last Muslim is dead. I believe the United States must round up every immigrant; legal and illegal and deport them en mass right now. For all Muslim and Islamics living in America we should intern them in camps like we did to the Japanese during WW2. We are living with the enemy in America and that must stop now.
On a daily basis Americans and our allies are being threatened by Islamic clerics and protesters across the globe that their goal is to overtake and rule America. Well hold on to that thought because even though Americans may seem complacent to foreigners try and take over our country and you will rue the day you were born.
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April 5th, 2013
By Catherine Haig.
This is a deal breaker in my opinion. To first promise in 2008 and 2012 that he would never touch Social Security; a program that everyone has put into it’s till since they started working for a paycheck in this country; which is NOT an entitlement program. However, Social Security has been robbed since 2000 and up to 2007 by former President George W Bush, Jr. who used it in part to fund all his make believe terror wars and who helped drive up the trillions of dollars of debt we now owe as a country.
Social Security has also been purged by illegal aliens in America who are allowed to use the program even though they don’t deserve to have the right to use it. They don’t pay taxes; they are self-serving leeches on our government; on our schools, on our programs both state and federal. The last time I was a doctor’s office in a clinic I saw them with their entire families even though only one of them was ill, lining the waiting room of the ER waiting for a doctor to aid them in their illness; paying them through medicaid or social security disability that they did not deserve to have. These programs are for citizens and tax paying citizens only yet our federal government has long turned their backs and allowed these fraudulent actions to permeate the system.
Since last month when our congress and President could not compromise on any issue, a sequester has been the fate of their inactivity. To break this sequester that could go on for over a year; President Obama is proposing to lead with cutting Social Security to the millions of Americans who need it to survive and that includes our disabled soldiers and vets of all wars, the elderly, people who cannot work any more due to disease or ill health from having had broken bones on a job. The list of people to be affected by cuts to this important federal program are endless and more is the atrocity since the man who the country elected on the basis of NOT touching this very system; is now proposing we do just that!
The idea that President Obama can retreat this quickly to save his own skin is abhorrent to me as a citizen and as a person. I’m a proud American at least I used to be prior to the year 2000. Ask me now how I feel about America and I will give you a laundry list of reason’s why I am disappointing in this country. One of them is the election of Barack Hussein Obama to President over Hillary Clinton in 2008 who was more than qualified to do the job. I know her husband talked her out of being President because, really, who in their right mind wanted to follow in the slippers of Bush, Jr? Because of Bush Jr we are having the problems we are having now in Washington and in the world but really Obama owns this terrible economy now and he is doing nothing to alter or change it to a positive.
And, it matters not that he has not taken a lot of vacations like Bush Jr did but while the rest of America is stewing in unemployment hell this President said; “hey my kids are on Easter break; let’s go to the Bahama’s!” What the hell right? WRONG! THE BUCK STOPS AT HIS DESK. I’m not saying Mitt Romney was a better guy for the job. No, if Mitt were POTUS right now; we’ll all have jobs that we worked 24/7 and we’d have dorms built at the jobs so we can eat our meals there and sleep there too. Just like the Chinese whom Mitt admires so much. That’s Mitt Romney’s view of Utopia America but it’s not mine. Yeah I want to work. Yeah I want to make money but I want to be alive to use that money to better my life and not kill myself making it and be away from my family 362 days of the year and not see them…like ever!
Obama was the lesser of two evils and America voted for the lesser of two evils but make no mistake about it – Obama is evil. People ask me all the time; “don’t you think black people in America voted for him because he’s one of them?” To which I agree that even if Obama was a Republican and running under the GOP ticket and was the first black candidate to do so – the black population in America would have voted for him just because he’s black. Ask any black person why they voted for Obama; they will be truthful. They have nothing to hide. On the other hand, I have never heard a black person say anything negative about Herman Cain or the recent Conservative Twit Dr. Ben Carson, the black neurosurgeon who is a blubbering idiot for the right. He talks like a liberal gay man but professes the opposite and condemns homosexuality to pedophiles and bestiality however maybe he grew up like that. I sure didn’t and love animals and hate pedophiles.
For Obama to start harping now to use Social Security to bail himself out of this economic mess is inexcusable and show him to be a lazy President and a lazy man. In the last few months since his re election we’ve seen him speak on behalf of the Newtown, Ct families who lost loved ones in that horror; we’ve heard him denounce terrorists and blow them to kingdom com with his drone program, we’ve seen him invite a slew of black entertainers to the White House and he’s honored many black Americans as well in the five months since his 2nd term in office. All the while he has promised to raise taxes on the rich and not on the middle class.
Now he’s saying the opposite.
It is time, people, to stop paying your federal income taxes.
It is time, people, to stop being complacent and allow our Federal government to continually walk all over our rights and think it’s not going to affect us.
IT DOES AFFECT US. IT AFFECTS US DAILY. PEOPLE IN OUR SOUTHERN REGIONS ARE GOING OUT OF THEIR EVER LOVIN MINDS – THEY ARE REPRESENTATIVES FROM OUR HOUSE (congress) who are not paying attention to the Constitution of America and instead prefer to follow the CONFEDERACY?
American laws are for all Americans so what does this mean for the south? Does it mean southern states will secede from the union? I hope so all that warm air is getting to them and it’s time for the North to realize the mistake we made in allowing the south after the Civil War to remain as Americans. They have caused nothing but problems for the rest of us. It’s time they leave.
Oh, if you are a loyal Democrat and live in the south you can come up North by all means but if you prefer the climate down there better – start taking Spanish lessons; you’re going to need it when Mexico takes over and moves their border up a few states.
And THAT is my solution for the rest of us.
Thankfully both the Republicans and the Democrats are not happy with Mr. Obama’s proposal and cuts to SS. So far:
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Obama seeks deal, proposes cuts to Social Security
Seeking an elusive middle ground, President Barack Obama is proposing a 2014 budget that embraces tax increases abhorred by Republicans as well as reductions, loathed by liberals, in the growth of Social Security and other benefit programs.
By JIM KUHNHENN and ANDREW TAYLOR
Associated Press
Thumbs up if you think Social Security is worthy. Thumbs down if you want Social… (April 5, 2013, by A Wise Grandfather)
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WASHINGTON —Seeking an elusive middle ground, President Barack Obama is proposing a 2014 budget that embraces tax increases abhorred by Republicans as well as reductions, loathed by liberals, in the growth of Social Security and other benefit programs.The plan, if ever enacted, could touch almost all Americans. The rich would see tax increases, the poor and the elderly would get smaller annual increases in their benefits, and middle income taxpayers would slip into higher tax brackets despite Obama’s repeated vows not to add to the tax burden of the middle class. His proposed changes, once phased in, would mean a cut in Social Security benefits of nearly $1,000 a year for an average 85-year-old, smaller cuts for younger retirees.
Obama proposed much the same without success to House Speaker John Boehner in December. The response Friday was dismissive from Republicans and hostile from liberals, labor and advocates for the elderly.
But the proposal aims to tackle worrisome deficits that are adding to the national debt and placing a long-term burden on the nation, prompting praise from independent deficit hawks. Obama’s budget also proposes new spending for public works projects, pre-school education and for job and benefit assistance for veterans.
“It’s not the president’s ideal approach to our budget challenges, but it is a serious compromise proposition that demonstrates that he wants to get things done,” said White House press secretary Jay Carney.
The budget, which Obama will release Wednesday to cover the budget year beginning Oct. 1, proposes spending cuts and revenue increases that would result in $1.8 trillion in deficit reductions over 10 years. That figure would replace $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts that are poised to take effect over the next 10 years if Congress and the president don’t come up with an alternative, thus delivering a net increase in deficit reduction of $600 billion.
Counting reductions and higher taxes that Congress and Obama have approved since 2011, the 2014 budget would contribute to $4.3 trillion in total deficit reduction by 2023.
The budget wouldn’t affect the $85 billion in cuts that kicked in last month for this budget year.
A key feature of Obama’s plan is a revised inflation adjustment called “chained CPI.” This new formula would effectively curb annual increases in a broad swath of government programs but would have its biggest impact on Social Security. By encompassing Obama’s offer to Boehner, R-Ohio, the plan would also include reductions in Medicare spending, much of it by targeting payments to health care providers and drug companies. The Medicare proposal also would require wealthier recipients to pay higher premiums or co-pays.
Obama’s budget proposal also calls for additional tax revenue, primarily by placing a 28 percent cap on deductions and other tax exclusions. That plan would affect wealthy taxpayers as would a new administration proposal to place limits on tax-preferred retirement accounts for millionaires and billionaires.
Obama made the same offer to Boehner in December when he and the speaker were negotiating ways of avoiding a steep, so-called fiscal cliff of combined across-the-board spending cuts and sweeping tax increases caused by the expiration of Bush-era tax rates. Boehner rejected that plan and ultimately Congress approved tax increases that were half of what Obama had sought.
“If you look at where the president’s final offer and Boehner were … they were extremely close to each other,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. “We do think that it’s a very good sign that the president has included real entitlement reforms in the budget.”
Boehner, in a statement Friday, said House Republicans made clear to Obama last month that he should not make savings in entitlement programs that both sides agree on, contingent on more tax increases.
“If the president believes these modest entitlement savings are needed to help shore up these programs, there’s no reason they should be held hostage for more tax hikes,” Boehner said. “That’s no way to lead and move the country forward.”
The inflation adjustment would reduce federal spending on government programs over 10 years by about $130 billion, according to White House estimates. Because it also affects how tax brackets are adjusted, it would also generate about $100 billion in higher taxes and hit even middle income taxpayers.
Once the change is fully phased in, Social Security benefits for a typical middle-income 65-year-old would be about $136 less a year, according to an analysis of Social Security data. At age 75, annual benefits under the new index would be $560 less. At 85, the cut would be $984 a year.
The concept behind the chained CPI is that consumers substitute lower-priced alternatives for goods whose costs spike. So, for example, if the price of oranges goes too high for some consumers, they could buy alternatives like apples or strawberries if their prices were more affordable. This flexibility isn’t considered in the current system of gauging inflation, a calculation that determines how much benefits grow each year. Taking it into account means such benefits won’t grow by as much.
Advocates for the elderly say seniors pay a higher portion of their income for health care, where costs rise more quickly than inflation.
The White House has said the cost-of-living adjustments would include protections for “vulnerable” recipients.
“The president should drop these misguided cuts in benefits and focus instead on building support in Congress for investing in jobs,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a statement.
AARP’s legislative policy director said Obama’s budget proposal, while not a surprise, was a disappointment.
“The message seems to be that the president wants a deal and is willing to even sacrifice such important benefits as Social Security as part of that deal,” said David Certner. The seniors lobby argues that Social Security doesn’t belong in the budget talks because it isn’t contributing to the deficit and is separately financed with its own dedicated taxes.
Citing the effect on veterans, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, said he was “terribly disappointed” in the Obama plan and would “do everything in my power to block” it.
While Obama has proposed the slower cost of living adjustment plan during fiscal negotiations with Republican leaders, placing it in the budget would put the administration’s official imprint on the plan and mark a full shift from Obama’s stand in 2008, when he campaigned against Republican Party nominee John McCain.
In a Sept. 6, 2008, speech to AARP, Obama said: “John McCain’s campaign has suggested that the best answer for the growing pressures on Social Security might be to cut cost-of-living adjustments or raise the retirement age. Let me be clear: I will not do either.”
Obama also proposes $305 billion in cuts to Medicare over a decade, including $156 billion through lower Medicare payments to drug companies and higher premiums or co-pays from wealthy recipients. That’s to the right of the conservative budget of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., which barely touches Medicare in the coming 10 years, cutting just $129 billion from the program. The huge Medicare savings from Ryan’s proposal, which transforms the system into a program in which the government subsidizes health insurance purchases on the private market, wouldn’t accrue until the following decade.
Obama’s budget comes after the Republican-controlled House and Democratic-run Senate passed separate and markedly different budget proposals. House Republicans achieved long-term deficit reductions by targeting safety net programs; Democrats instead protected those programs and called for $1 trillion in tax increases.
But Obama has been making a concerted effort to win Republican support, especially in the Senate. He has even scheduled a dinner with Republican lawmakers on the evening that his budget is released next week.
As described by the administration officials, the budget proposal would also end a loophole that permits people to obtain unemployment insurance and disability benefits at the same time.
Obama’s proposal, however, includes calls for increased spending. It proposes $50 billion for public works projects. It also would make preschool available to more children by increasing the tax on tobacco.
—
Associated Press writers Stephen Ohlemacher and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar contributed to this report.
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March 24th, 2013
By Catherine Haig Editor/writer for www.bonjublog.com
It has been five months since POTUS Obama was reelected for his 2nd term in office, and still, nothing has been done about the millions of people unemployed in America. In the Greater NYC area where I live you can see house after house empty, silent and longing for maintenance with its people long gone leaving the property unattended. Other “for sale” signs line the routes, boulevards and streets of NJ, NYC and it’s five boroughs mostly because the unemployed have now been abandoned by employment recruiters and prospective employers because they have been out of work for so long their skills have dimmed.
In February I went to a NJ employment company and met with a guy name Michael who told me to redo my resume. I did and sent the redo to him that evening. I never heard from him again and I called several times to inquire about positions. The last time I did so was on Friday and he wasn’t even in the office. I spoke to the Office Manager who belittled me, tore apart my resume which is now apparent to me that it was the first and not the redo, and then this same woman ridiculed my “attitude” as “negative” when I objected to her line of reasoning.
If this is how recruiters are treating candidates for jobs today; I hope they all lose their place of employment. This same woman told me that “I have nothing to lose by being truthful with you” which meant she can say anything because she has no vested interest in my finding work. In other words; this was a queen bitch I was speaking to. I did not say much to her after that but I did write her up on my blog especially since she then took at look at my LINKED IN profile which I found interesting. I looked at hers and saw that she had been working at this employment agency for only 4 years and some months.
I took it upon myself to write to the CEO of this agency to report her for the treatment I received at her hands. I’ll update this when I receive an answer but don’t expect too much because when recruiters start giving you trouble; you know the employment section is sucking out big time.
Here’s the truth about Obama and this economy and I voted for the dude in 2012 and I’m disappointed in his performance thus far. He is the weakest president since Jimmy Carter and really deserved only 1 term as POTUS however Obama was up against a tyrant in the form of MITT ROMNEY and as bad off as America was with Obama as POTUS; we would have died with Romney at the helm. I chose the lesser of two evils and still lost out.
Unemployment Insurance has run out on many unemployed people in America. When you hear that Unemployment Insurance claims have gone down that is what is happening in America. It’s not that people have found jobs; in reality they are still unemployed but they cannot receive any more benefits and so the numbers drop. Obama uses this as FACT that his “no plan” of action is working but it’s a false positive. Unemployment Insurance also does not take into effect the millions of self-employed people like me who own their own businesses and are not working. Some of us work periodically and others not at all, while some have been unemployed for a long long time having given up looking or posting ads. I still post ads and work periodically however I’m not making the money I used make and that pisses me off. As well it should.
American companies are petrified today and want to get a worker who will work 9-10 hours a day at a low pay. I refuse to do that. I started my own business because I wanted to work 2-3 days a week and have money coming into my business so I can do other things. I can’t seem to make that work today because clients are totally insane and are nitpicking and micromanaging me and others to the point where I’d rather teach them how to do what I do and leave. I’m not willing to take the crap verbal abuse from every Tom, Dick and Harriett because I have a skill and it’s specific and can help people and companies but they have to want my help. I wouldn’t mind working as a Contract to Hire or Contract worker that works a job 3-4 days a week but really 9 hours a day at a lower pay is a lot to ask of people. There has to be compromise between employers and workers but unfortunately there are too many unemployed people that are willing to take crap money in order to work. In my opinion; if I work for less than what I am worth I will not make the money I need to pay monthly expenses. There is no point to working at a lower salary while the boss makes millions.
This year is finishing the 1st quarter and it’s not looking good as the Republicans step all over Obama and his administration who are dropping from his ranks like flies. They may not be POTUS but they are running the country and that sucks because Republicans are dictating to a POTUS who really now cares only about the legacy he will leave.
Perhaps Obama and Bush can get together and form a presidential library called DUMB AND DUMBER. I can only hope that the economy gets better but I sincerely think it’s only going to get worse. It’s not a negative but this is my comment at the moment and it’s as positive as I can get right now.
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March 21st, 2013
By Catherine Haig of the bonjublog.com
I have a burning question that I just cannot seem to answer and no matter how much I try to understand I never do fully. The question is what the heck is wrong with the Conservative Right and the GOP Republican Party and unless you are a staunch Republican you are going to be asking that question right along with me.
When the GOP ran both the Senate and the House in POTUS Obama’s first term of office; nothing really got done and Obama had to overwrite them many many times through Executive Orders. In fact Obama’s first term is wrapped in the papers of reams and reams of Executive Orders which is a sure sign that the two governing bodies of our country are not able to compromise with each other.
Even former POTUS CLINTON said this in his speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2012; basically saying “what the hell is going on with these Republicans? When I was in office I was able to talk to them. We compromised. We came together for the good of America and solved problems!” NOT with THE 111TH CONGRESS DID THIS EVER HAPPEN. And, when Speaker Boehner took over as Speaker of the House it only got worse. It has gotten so bad that even aides of the President do not speak to aids of the Speaker. And, the people of this country cannot vote the Speaker out of office – only members of congress can get him out of office. That is truly insane.
Now in this new congressional body the HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES have overrun the HOUSE by 232 member of GOP Tea Party Members who are trying to repeal Obamacare which is now a LAW. Even the Supreme Court of this country said it was legal and constitutional but members like MICHELLE BACHMANN are determined to undermine Obama at every turn. In the Senate there is also another Tea Party Pooper named RAND PAUL, son of Ron Paul, the Junior Senator from Kentucky. Since Rand has been in office (november 2012) he has done absolutely nothing but stick his foot in his mouth. I am eagerly waiting to see what other parts of his body he will stick his foot into.
Why is this happening? Some Republicans have turned away from their own party in confused disgust. My late mother would be puking at the sight of what is happening and what is being said today. I’m sure if she were alive – all 90 years of her would be spitting mad. This is NOT the USA I grew up in and this is NOT how I was raised to fear monger and treat other people like crap. The Republicans are in such total denial about the fact that POTUS Obama is serving his last term in office and they didn’t want him in there for 2 terms because – wait for it –
HE’S BLACK
What?
HE’S BLACK
That’s not the reason!
YES, SALLY – IT IS “THE REASON”
PRESIDENT OBAMA IS BLACK
And conservatives, Fox Faux News talk show hosts and people like Glenn Beck who is the grand Poo Pah of the Ding Dong Brigade Tea Party KKKOOKS
Are spitting mad because a black dude is living in the white house driving up the costs for the dry cleaning bill of his two dress suits that he says he owns. The supreme court decides on the AFFORDABLE CARE ACT but the GOP still wants to repeal it. IT IS A LAW – THEY CANNOT REPEAL IT. Then again most of the GOP State Governors are not instating a health exchange in their state so what would people do then if they wanted health insurance? Easy – they go on the medicaid FREE PLAN – thanks Gov Christie for not instating that medical exchange because you are waiting to see how much money it will cost – of all the people who are going to need medical care – it’s Chris Christie – this is the man who will never turn away any plate of food…ever!
While it’s problematic for the GOP who hate Obama and “the liberal base that voted for him” it’s not a problem for the rest of America and the reason that is true is because America has their own individual set of worries in the form of NO JOB, NO MONEY, NO WORK. Then there are people who own stuff that they can’t fix because they are working but they are not making any money but they spend money for transportation and meals.
By the way, the liberal base that voted for Obama does not exist however the people who voted for Obama over THE DARK OVERLORD ROMNEY are working class stiffs, people on disability, people on Social Security, the elderly, the baby boomers and people with a brain. Most of the Middle Class have died or are in the process of doing so – please Republicans get your stories straight you are getting so ridiculous!
Just think – If Romney had become POTUS people would be working in sweat shops 12 hours a day for little pay and then sleeping in makeshift homes with bunk beds like they do in China or (gasp!) the movie RESIDENT EVIL where the corporation ruled everything and everyone. Yep, LORD POOP PAH MITT ROMNEY would be busy buying companies, destroying them for money and then raking in the debris while the company floundered and died, fired all their employees and went totally under.
THIS IS NOT THE AMERICA I GREW UP IN AND NOT THE AMERICA I WANT THE FUTURE CITIZENS OF OUR WORLD TO LIVE IN.
I have come to the conclusion that the Conservative Right and the Tea Party GOP Republican lame brains need to go!
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March 14th, 2013
By Catherine Haig.
EMPEROR CONSTANTINE WAS A SMART COOKIE BACK IN THE DAY
WHEN WORSHIPING HIS “SUN GOD” ON SUN-DAY HE TOOK UP THE WRITINGS OF “PETER”
PETER WAS THE APOSTLE WHO MANY BELIEVE DID NOT TRULY UNDERSTAND THE WORD OF CHRIST.
CONSTANTINE CREATED THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN ORDER TO KEEP THE ROMAN EMPIRE ALIVE
WELL INTO THE CENTURIES TO FOLLOW
GATHERING THE PEOPLE AND PROCLAIMING THIS FORM OF CHRISTIANITY
WHILE CREATING AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT SET OF LAWS AND RULES NOT TAUGHT EVER BY
THE MAN CALLED JESUS
THE SAME MAN THE ROMAN’S TORTURED AND MURDERED ON THAT CROSS.
THEY CREATED BIBLES; THOUSANDS AND MILLIONS OF THEM SO THAT ‘THE FOLLOWING” COULD FOLLOW
THE “WORD” EVER DAY OF THEIR LIVES
AND TO REPLACE THE EMPEROR OF ROME
CAME THE PRINCE OF PEACE – NOT JESUS; NOT THE FATHER AND NOT THE MOTHER (HOLY SPIRIT)
BUT THE SEED OF ALL THAT IS EVIL – A POPE TO LEAD THE LEMMINGS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH
and to do the bidding of the Holy Roman Empire well into the 21st Millennium.
So you’re thinking, “wow, she’s crazy. Reading to much Dan Brown if you ask me!” But I do believe that Constantine had a purpose
and that he alone created and crafted a way for the Roman Empire to exist in today’s world.
By creating Rome and the position of POPE and protecting that person with an army of men in skirts called THE SWISS GUARD who are
both fearless and vicious when it comes to protecting their spiritual leader.
The more I read about the Roman Catholic Church, the more I see it as a cult, a following, that is satanic in nature.
But this POPE FRANCIS seems to brake with traditions and is a human man. When he was Cardinal in Argentina he refused to aid the gay population in that country with Equality but now seems more attentive to the fact that gay people have their place in the world and he has become more tolerant.
If you read this article as I have, you may agree that this priest, this man, may change the politics in the Roman Catholic Church from hypocritical to current and he may be able to break the church of it’s past lies and dark background. He is blindly devoted to the HOLY SPIRIT (MADONNA)=Mary and prays to her to help him. He tells his fellow Cardinals “God forgive you for what you have done” (by making me Pope) he is 76 but he seems to ‘get it” and maybe this man can make a difference?
I don’t know and time will tell but so far he has done some very interesting things in the last 24 hours since being elected POPE.
In my humble opinion as a non-catholic and pagan is a leader must lead by example. None of the other Pope’s have done so save this Pope so far. It will be interesting to see what else he does in the future to help the people of the world and to lead the very stubborn Catholic Church into current modern beliefs.
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![New Pope. Same anti-gay BS!(Image via: @[346937065399354:274:Occupy Democrats])](http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/s480x480/580795_425902710836702_1698233372_n.jpg)
THE WORDS OF NEW POPE FRANCISCO OF ARGENTINA AND NOW HEAD OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN ROME.
Pope Francis’ humility: stops by hotel to get bags
By NICOLE WINFIELD | Associated Press – 6 hrs ago
- Pope Francis holds mass and pays hotel billKGO – San Francisco 2:38Pope Francis is marking the first full day of his papacy with a mass at the Vatican and paying his own …
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis put his humility on display during his first day as pontiff Thursday, stopping by his hotel to pick up his luggage and pay the bill himself in a decidedly different style for the papacy usually ensconced inside the frescoed halls of the Vatican.
The break from the tradition-minded previous pontificate was evident even in Francis’ wardrobe choices: He kept the simple pectoral cross of his days as bishop and eschewed the red cape that Benedict XVI wore when he was presented to the world for the first time in 2005 — choosing instead the simple white cassock of the papacy.
The former archbishop of Buenos Aires, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, began his first day as pope making an early morning visit in a simple Vatican car to a Roman basilica dedicated to the Virgin Mary and prayed before an icon of the Madonna.
He had told a crowd of some 100,000 people packed in rain-soaked St. Peter’s Square just after his election that he intended to pray to the Madonna “that she may watch over all of Rome.”
He also told cardinals he would call on retired Pope Benedict XVI, but the Vatican said the visit wouldn’t take place for a few days.
The main item on Francis’ agenda Thursday was an inaugural afternoon Mass in the Sistine Chapel, where cardinals on Wednesday elected him leader of the 1.2 billion-strong church in an unusually quick conclave.
Francis might be expected to outline some of his priorities as pope in the homily. It was expected to be delivered in Italian, again another break from the traditional-minded Benedict whose first homily as pope was in Latin.
Francis, the first Jesuit pope and first non-European since the Middle Ages, decided to call himself Francis after St. Francis of Assisi, the humble friar who dedicated his life to helping the poor.
The new pope, known for his work with the poor in Buenos Aires’ slums, immediately charmed the crowd in St. Peter’s, which roared when his name was announced and roared again when he emerged on the loggia of the basilica with a simple and familiar: “Brothers and sisters, good evening.”
Waving shyly, he said the cardinals’ job was to find a bishop of Rome. “It seems as if my brother cardinals went to find him from the end of the earth, but here we are. Thank you for the welcome.”
The 76-year-old Bergoglio, said to have finished second when Pope Benedict XVI was elected in 2005, was chosen on just the fifth ballot to replace the first pontiff to resign in 600 years.
Francis urged the crowd to pray for Benedict and immediately after his election spoke by phone with the retired pope, who has been living at the papal retreat in Castel Gandolfo south of Rome. A visit to Benedict would be significant because Benedict’s resignation has raised concerns about potential power conflicts emerging from the peculiar situation of having a reigning pope and a retired one.
Benedict’s longtime aide, Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, accompanied Francis to the visit Thursday morning at St. Mary Major, the ANSA news agency reported. In addition to being Benedict’s secretary, Gaenswein is also the prefect of the papal household and will be arranging the new pope’s schedule.
After the visit, Francis also stopped by a Vatican-owned residence in downtown Rome to pick up the luggage that he left behind before moving into the Vatican hotel for the conclave.
He paid the bill “to give a good example,” according to the Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi.
It was a remarkable show of simplicity and humility for a man who could easily have dispatched someone to do the job for him.
He displayed that same sense immediately after his election, shunning the special sedan that was to transport him to the hotel so he could ride on the bus with other cardinals, and refusing even an elevated platform from which he would greet them, according to U.S. Cardinal Timothy Dolan.
“He met with us on our own level,” Dolan said.
Later, during dinner, the new pope addressed a few words to the cardinals:
“‘May God forgive you for what you have done,'” Francis told them, Lombardi said.
Like many Latin American Catholics, Francis has a particular devotion to the Virgin Mary, and his visit to the basilica was a reflection of that. He prayed before a Byzantine icon of Mary and the infant Jesus, the Protectress of the Roman People.
“He had a great devotion to this icon of Mary and every time he comes from Argentina he visits this basilica,” said one of the priests at the basilica, the Rev. Elio Montenero. “We were surprised today because did not announce his visit.”
He then also went into the main altar area of the basilica and prayed before relics of the manger in Bethlehem where Jesus is said to have been born — an important pilgrimage spot for Jesuits
Francis’ election elated Latin America, home to 40 percent of the world’s Catholics which has nevertheless long been underrepresented in the church leadership. On Wednesday, drivers honked their horns in the streets of Buenos Aires and television announcers screamed with elation at the news.
Cardinal Thomas Collins, the archbishop of Toronto, said the cardinals clearly chose Francis because he was simply “the best person to lead the church.”
“I can’t speak for all the cardinals but I think you see what a wonderful pope he is,” he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “He’s just a very loving, wonderful guy. We just came to appreciate the tremendous gifts he has. He’s much beloved in his diocese in Argentina. He has a great pastoral history of serving people.”
The new pontiff brings a common touch. The son of middle-class Italian immigrants, he denied himself the luxuries that previous cardinals in Buenos Aires enjoyed. He lived in a simple apartment, often rode the bus to work, cooked his own meals and regularly visited slums that ring Argentina’s capital.
“If he brings that same desire for a simple lifestyle to the papal court, I think they are all going to be in shock,” said the Rev. Thomas Reese, author of “Inside the Vatican,” a must-read book on the Vatican bureaucracy. “This may not be a man who wants to wear silk and furs.”
Francis considers social outreach, rather than doctrinal battles, to be the essential business of the church.
“As a champion of the poor and the most vulnerable among us, he carries forth the message of love and compassion that has inspired the world for more than 2,000 years — that in each other, we see the face of God,” U.S. President Barack Obama said in a statement.
As the 266th pope, Francis inherits a Catholic church in turmoil, beset by the clerical sex abuse scandal, internal divisions and dwindling numbers in parts of the world where Christianity had been strong for centuries.
While Latin America is still very Catholic, it has faced competition from aggressive evangelical churches that have chipped away at strongholds like Brazil, where the number of Catholics has dropped from 74 percent of the population in 2000 to 65 percent today. Like Europe, secularism has also taken hold: more and more people simply no longer identify themselves with any organized religion.
Francis is sure to bring the church closer to the poverty-wracked region, while also introducing the world to a very different type of pope. Reversing the typical order of blessings, he asked the crowd to bow their heads.
“I want you to bless me,” Francis said.
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March 14th, 2013
by Catherine Haig.
GUANTANAMO BAY HISTORY IS SHORT – IT WAS OPENED BY THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION IN JAN 2002 TO HOLD “TERRORISTS”. OBAMA RODE HIS WAY BACK INTO THE WHITE HOUSE PROMISING TO CLOSE THE CENTER BUT SO FAR NEITHER CONGRESS OR OUR POTUS HAS DONE SO.
NOW OBAMA IS BUSY DEFENDING THE TREATMENT OF THE PRISONERS THERE, WHICH IS CONSIDERED “HELL ON EARTH”.
IT IS IRONIC TO ME HOW A BLACK MAN; A DESCENDANT OF AFRICAN SLAVES AND A WHITE MOTHER ENSLAVED BY HER OWN PASSIONS TO ‘BE DIFFERENT” & “RADICAL” IN HER OWN WAY; IS THE CAUSE CELEBRANT WHO IS NOT LIVING UP TO HIS OWN PROMISES TO SHUT THE PLACE DOWN.
IRONY
BUT REALLY
WHAT IS GOING ON AT GUANTANAMO BAY?
AND WHY?
============================================BONJU
A little history:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp
???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
AMERICA DOES NOT TORTURE IT’S CAPTIVES
That is a statement of lies, yes it is!
We not only torture, we cripple and we maim and we kill
All in the name of GOD & COUNTRY.
I would not be a true patriot if I didn’t see the error of America’s ways here at this detention camp.
We are defying the Geneva Convention and every bit of humanities common sense in the ill-treatment of these captives.
Yes, they WOULD and HAVE done the same to our American soldiers and civilians but it does not make it right for us to do it.
WE ARE AMERICANS
WE LIVE IN AMERICA
THESE POW’s live to kill us but we should not live to kill them.
2 wrongs do not make 1 right.
=================================================C. Haig
Resisting Hell on Earth: More Than 100 on Hunger Strike at Guantánamo
By Kevin Zeese – Posted on 13 March 2013
Witness Against Torture
March 13, 2013
The facts are stark. More than 100 men on a new hunger strike at Guantánamo, now in its fifth week.
The context is heartbreaking. More than half of the 166 men at Guantánamo have been “Cleared for Release” by U.S. authorities. Not charged with any crime of terrorism or violence, they linger in the prison because of the Obama administration’s and Congress’s callous disregard for their basic legal and human rights. All inmates at Guantánamo — subjected to routine indignities and abuses — are waiting for real justice: their release when innocent or the chance to plead their case in a legitimate court of law.
With no concrete hope of a return to their families and home countries, they choose resistance. They choose more suffering. They hunger strike.
DemocracyNow!, in a story not yet covered by the mainstream press, reported today on the hunger strike and the dire conditions precipitating it, even as the Obama administration defends its Guantánamo record before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
Center for Constitutional Rights staff attorney Omar Farah told the commission on March 12, 2013: “Our clients report that most of the men at the prison are now in the fifth week of a mass hunger strike to peacefully protest worsening prison conditions, religious provocation, and the crushing reality that after 11 years in indefinite detention, there is no end in sight to their suffering. In light of the humanitarian crisis unfolding at Guantánamo, it is indefensible that the U.S. government failed to answer the Commission’s simple questions about how it plans to close the prison camp.”
Pardiss Kebriaei, Senior staff attorney for Center for Constitutional Rights, represents a number of men at Guantánamo. After eleven years of detention and with conditions deteriorating, she reports, some of them have lost hope and see no other way to protest their detention and treatment than a hunger strike. CCR has received reports of men coughing up blood, being hospitalized, losing consciousness, and becoming weak and fatigued. Soon, the men on hunger strike will be risking permanent physical injury and even death.
One of the detainees cleared for release, a Yemeni named Adnan Latif died in September 2012 at Guantánamo. He describes it as a “piece of hell that kills everything.” Witness Against Torture grieves along with the men at Guantánamo and their families for those who have already died there and for those who still endure the torture of indefinite detention. We gather this weekend in Chicago to strategize and plan and witness. Please join us if you can, please support our work. Please stand up for hope, life and justice.
www.witnesstorture.org
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March 10th, 2013
By Catherine Haig.
blogger www.bonjublog.com and writer.
Last week I was at home sick and had time to utilize my Facebook experience to a level of satisfaction not quite seen by ordinary users. I got 3 illegal pages and 2 troll pages off of their site with the help of unseen Troll Hunters and friends. On Friday the boom was lowered on the famous CS whom I shall not completely name because he does not deserve the highlight.
What are online TROLLS? They are a disease that infiltrates a site using spam, memes, curse words and a method of attack called “swarm” on other pages that do not share their issues. They steal people’s videos that are not nailed down, songs, stories and put them on their own pages and comment viciously on them. You would think these people had better things to do with their time since the old addage is “you only live once” but Trolls are a different kind of species that even pesticides and Norton Anti-Virus finds it hard to control.
Last week, I and my lawyer ensured that Facebook would know of these sites once and for all and deactivate them. In two days one of the female trolls page was absolutely gone; either FB pulled that page or she, out of fear of being outed more, removed herself. Then on this Friday, 3/9/13 – the big cheese or the main rat CS was removed and was he chagrined. His followers lead by the lone female troll left standing SB (her troll initials) launched a final attack on my site deactivating my posting privileges based upon lies that they sent to Facebook to warn me to “decease and desist” “trolling their site” which is laughable to say the least.
So I am without posting privileges for 1 month which is no big deal since I have other Facebook site on which to launch the Bonju Blog from and post on my old page. My lawyer however, is incensed that I was banned from posting for a month based on lies from trolls in which Facebook acknowledged as such and banned also. It makes little sense but in the whole picture it makes tons of sense.
This is what happens to a large company whose main governing body has gone away to do more advertising and motivate their sales than pay attention to content on their site. My lawyer cleverly wrote to FACEBOOK via their FEEDBACK LINK with explicit details outlining, screen shooting and sending FB tons of messages sent by the trolls themselves essentially shooting themselves in the feet.
FACEBOOK is very much like a large government entity that has lost control over it’s departments. Like an newspaper who is so busy making money they forget about their readers and spew content that is trash. Content is very very important to readers today because they need interesting and compelling content that will keep them occupied for years to come especially since they are confronted by crap online and in newspapers as a daily occurrence. My lawyer’s argument was to compel FACEBOOK to remember it’s users and think about their incoming advertising revenue, which is what they did and also comparing what was being written (hate speech, anti-gay propaganda and the rape and killing of animals and children, I shit you not!), to give them the reason to oust these 5 trolls sites off line.
What I learned was that it was possible to offline these cowards to a place of obscurity even as sick as I was everyday I, my lawyer and four of our staff from the BONJUBLOG took it upon ourselves to launch these “feedbacks” to FACEBOOK with the goal of having these pages removed. Finally they were but unbeknownst to us there were other forces who disliked these pages, too, working to dislodge them off their “embedded” FB sites. It’s all good and sometimes you have to ignore and be forceful elsewhere to achieve the desired goal which is what I did all week with the help and prodding of my fantastic attorney.
Lastly, and perhaps the most important issue that resulted from this TROLL invasion is that the BONJU BLOG had phenomenal views all week long in the thousands. One day it was up past five thousand views in one day and IF we were being paid on this blog by the viewer we would be rolling in it. Sadly, this is NOT the case and last August we were afforded 47,000 plus hits over a terrible Facebook picture concerning animal abuse which got the trolls pushing that picture also off of FB with the help of so many people. Facebook is fierce when it comes to users paying strict attention to their Terms of Service (TOS) rules and if you do not pay them any mind; you are done for.
To sum up; I am now not only a ghost hunter (if you didn’t know that it’s something I did in the past). I am also a writer, blogger, musician, screenwriter, playwright and TROLL HUNTER.
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February 23rd, 2013
By Catherine Haig.
THE PROBLEM WITH MEDICINE TODAY IN AMERICA IS
INSURANCE COMPANIES
THEY WANT TO SELL THEIR PILLS – THAT BRING MORE PROBLEMS SO THAT THE PATIENT HAS TO TAKE A LOT OF PILLS TO GET RID OF THE SIDE EFFECTS AND HE BECOMES AN ADDICT. THIS IS THEIR MAIN GOAL.
I AM SURE THAT THERE IS A CURE FOR CANCER BUT WE’LL NEVER SEE IT AS LONG AS MEDICAL INSURANCE COMPANIES DICTATE TO DOCTORS AND HOSPITALS – THEY DON’T WANT TO CURE ANYONE – THEY WANT TO MAKE TRILLIONS OFF SICK SICK PEOPLE.
WHAT PRICE IS YOUR PRICE FOR YOUR LIFE – OR HOW MUCH IS YOUR LIFE WORTH TO YOU?
MY LATE MOTHER MADE THAT CHOICE – SHE DIED IN 1 YEAR AND 1 WEEK.
The bureaucrates that run these companies dictate to the doctors and to the patients
Without knowing the particulars in each case.
The problem with dictating policy as a blanket cure all is that no two patients problems are exactly alike
So if that is true then how can Medical Insurance Companies tell a patient that needs a certain procedure
That they can’t have it performed because it will cost too much money and their HMO ie: insurance company refuses to pay
In turn the Doctor’s hands are tied because they are in the business of making money and will do NOTHING FOR FREE.
People who get sick and are dictated to by HMO’s and the insurance companies that manage them are fucked.
America is being managed by insurance companies who look at the bottom line. Sure these companies have their own doctors and lawyers who are paid by them to give a blanket recommendation.
I have an abscess on the gum of one of my teeth that has a root canal on it. I have no dental insurance so I had to get a “plan”. I got a plan from a company called CAREINGTON who have participating dentists all over the greater NYC area. The abscess is painful just a little bit but if it bursts and goes into my bloodstream it could kill me – the bacteria could go to my brain and kill me.
I ordered the CAREINGTON PLAN and with it a vision and prescription discount plan – I got all of it but not the prescription plan and have been waiting 3 weeks for a card that never came. Friday 2/22/13 I called for the card again and they tell me that the office that participates in the plan never sent it so they gave me a “temp card” but now I have to wait until Monday 2/25/13 to get my name in their MED IMPACT system so that I won’t have to pay WALMART $75 bucks or QUICK CHECK $130 bucks. For Med Impact my name goes into their system within 24 hours so I’m looking at Monday for coverage and coverage is not payment of the entire expensive medicine that costs $33 a pill! I have 33 pills to take – it’s for half price generic which will be $60 dollars supposedly.
TODAY IS SATURDAY – THE MEDICAL CARDS FOR THE SCRIPTS CAME AND I GOT MY MEDS – THEY ARE GENERIC SO WITH THE SCRIPT CARD AND THE $5 ANNUAL PLAN FROM QUICK CHECK BILL CAME TO $85.06 ON MY CREDIT CARD. That’s 35 % of the original bill of $121 for the meds and they are generic. I hope they work.
This is not medical help – this is total bullshit and Obama’s plan won’t be any good either. The point here is that no one can get sick. If you do you’re totally screwed. So I have to exercise, not get hurt and just keep pulling teeth I have pain in whenever I do have pain. This is not a good plan cause any of these stuff can kill you.
Why do we have to be so concerned with money? Why can’t doctors do what they have swore to do ? Help people whether or not they are being paid?
Rich people have concierge medicine where the doctor’s don’t accept Medical insurance plans or Government programs – they own their doctors and hospitals for x amount of money per year and that is in the thousands. Look what happened to Michael Jackson – he had concierge medicine and that doctor is in jail now for murdering him.
If a guy like Michael Jackson could not get the help he needed – what does that say for the rest of us? The prognosis is NOT GOOD people. It’s not good. Obama has not done right by the people of America with this “AFFORDABLE CARE ACT” and I have no idea what is going on and how I’m going to get on it or what it will do for me when I am eligible.
My partner is having problems with her pain medicine doctor who is under investigation with the DEA for some reason or another. She sees him every month and some sessions are okay but he always counts her pills. She’s 57 years old and this 46 year old motherfucker with a medical degree counts her pills and if one pill is missing he scolds her and berates her and all I want to do is break his neck.
She is in the process of leaving his practice because she lost one of her opiates (pill) and he is still harping on it and he does not believe that she lost it in the house – which she has done. Her hands shake because of her illness. She told me that the worst thing she did was tell him she is a musician because now he wants to cut her medicine back instead of increasing it because he thinks she is drug seeking which is not true.
She’s been with this doctor for a year and it’s been hell. I still have not been able to buy the pills I need to bring down the swelling in my gum and I hated the “brighter dental” doctor (a black as coal Indian American) who had no sympathy once I expressed anger about how the first Russian POS that irrigated the infected tooth back in NYC. After I said I wanted to sue that POS, this Indian dentist lost interest in helping me.
The medical profession in America sucks.
The insurance profession in America sucks and rides the medical profession into the ground.
Doctors listen to medical salesmen and push their drugs for free dinners, airline tickets and perks to foreign countries. It’s a bit like the Lobbyists in Washington feting our Congress who do their bidding instead of the people’s.
AND
THIS
HAS
GOT
TO
STOP!
Other countries have free medical and dental programs. Yeah, they are not the best in the world and it’s an imperfect situation and an imperfect world but it’s at least something. People are not dying like they are in America from lack of health care. Hospitals in America are closing and it’s people and their petty prejudices that enable hatred to linger in this America.
There are atheists living in Georgia who were once Roman Catholic believers who have lost faith in their religion. A friend of a friend was looking for a gathering place where other atheists may go to meet but when she looked online there was nothing. The next door neighbor who she never spoke to hates her because the neighbor is Baptist. Talk about ignorance! Now this woman wants to move but where do you go in the USA that isn’t full of hate?
Boston?
NYC?
NJ?
No where.
There is no where to hide.
This season of AMERICAN HORROR STORY: ASYLUM took place in a crazy house with it’s ancient morals and the Roman Catholic Church ran it and it was still terrible. Even worse when the state took it over. Lesbians were thought to be diseased and that there was a cure for them and doctors were insane and non caring as the insurance companies are today.
In Ancient Greece Homosexuals were revered and worshiped and being straight was abnormal. Our society is taking turns towards darkness and I believe that is what this show AHS:A is all about – what happened at Briarcliff is happening now in the world and we are watching and are a part of it and are absolutely complacent.
When will society take notice and STOP BEING COMPLACENT?
Why am I writing all of this because it pertains to the medical practices and the lobbyists up to our greedy rotten congress who cares about no one and we the people pay for their medicines, their dental, medical, vision and script and we are going without.
This is outrageous and it’s time for a revolution people.
It’s time to take that pound of flesh
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February 23rd, 2013
By Catherine Haig.
THE PROBLEM WITH MEDICINE TODAY IN AMERICA IS
INSURANCE COMPANIES
The bureaucrates that run these companies dictate to the doctors and to the patients
Without knowing the particulars in each case.
The problem with dictating policy as a blanket cure all is that no two patients problems are exactly alike
So if that is true then how can Medical Insurance Companies tell a patient that needs a certain procedure
That they can’t have it performed because it will cost too much money and their HMO ie: insurance company refuses to pay
In turn the Doctor’s hands are tied because they are in the business of making money and will do NOTHING FOR FREE.
People who get sick and are dictated to by HMO’s and the insurance companies that manage them are fucked.
America is being managed by insurance companies who look at the bottom line. Sure these companies have their own doctors and lawyers who are paid by them to give a blanket recommendation.
I have an abscess on the gum of one of my teeth that has a root canal on it. I have no dental insurance so I had to get a “plan”. I got a plan from a company called CAREINGTON who have participating dentists all over the greater NYC area. The abscess is painful just a little bit but if it bursts and goes into my bloodstream it could kill me – the bacteria could go to my brain and kill me.
I ordered the CAREINGTON PLAN and with it a vision and prescription discount plan – I got all of it but not the prescription plan and have been waiting 3 weeks for a card that never came. Friday 2/22/13 I called for the card again and they tell me that the office that participates in the plan never sent it so they gave me a “temp card” but now I have to wait until Monday 2/25/13 to get my name in their MED IMPACT system so that I won’t have to pay WALMART $75 bucks or QUICK CHECK $130 bucks. For Med Impact my name goes into their system within 24 hours so I’m looking at Monday for coverage and coverage is not payment of the entire expensive medicine that costs $33 a pill! I have 33 pills to take – it’s for half price generic which will be $60 dollars supposedly.
TODAY IS SATURDAY – THE MEDICAL CARDS FOR THE SCRIPTS CAME AND I GOT MY MEDS – THEY ARE GENERIC SO WITH THE SCRIPT CARD AND THE $5 ANNUAL PLAN FROM QUICK CHECK BILL CAME TO $85.06 ON MY CREDIT CARD. That’s 35 % of the original bill of $121 for the meds and they are generic. I hope they work.
This is not medical help – this is total bullshit and Obama’s plan won’t be any good either. The point here is that no one can get sick. If you do you’re totally screwed. So I have to exercise, not get hurt and just keep pulling teeth I have pain in whenever I do have pain. This is not a good plan cause any of these stuff can kill you.
Why do we have to be so concerned with money? Why can’t doctors do what they have swore to do ? Help people whether or not they are being paid?
Rich people have concierge medicine where the doctor’s don’t accept Medical insurance plans or Government programs – they own their doctors and hospitals for x amount of money per year and that is in the thousands. Look what happened to Michael Jackson – he had concierge medicine and that doctor is in jail now for murdering him.
If a guy like Michael Jackson could not get the help he needed – what does that say for the rest of us? The prognosis is NOT GOOD people. It’s not good. Obama has not done right by the people of America with this “AFFORDABLE CARE ACT” and I have no idea what is going on and how I’m going to get on it or what it will do for me when I am eligible.
My partner is having problems with her pain medicine doctor who is under investigation with the DEA for some reason or another. She sees him every month and some sessions are okay but he always counts her pills. She’s 57 years old and this 46 year old motherfucker with a medical degree counts her pills and if one pill is missing he scolds her and berates her and all I want to do is break his neck.
She is in the process of leaving his practice because she lost one of her opiates (pill) and he is still harping on it and he does not believe that she lost it in the house – which she has done. Her hands shake because of her illness. She told me that the worst thing she did was tell him she is a musician because now he wants to cut her medicine back instead of increasing it because he thinks she is drug seeking which is not true.
She’s been with this doctor for a year and it’s been hell. I still have not been able to buy the pills I need to bring down the swelling in my gum and I hated the “brighter dental” doctor (a black as coal Indian American) who had no sympathy once I expressed anger about how the first Russian POS that irrigated the infected tooth back in NYC. After I said I wanted to sue that POS, this Indian dentist lost interest in helping me.
The medical profession in America sucks.
The insurance profession in America sucks and rides the medical profession into the ground.
Doctors listen to medical salesmen and push their drugs for free dinners, airline tickets and perks to foreign countries. It’s a bit like the Lobbyists in Washington feting our Congress who do their bidding instead of the people’s.
AND
THIS
HAS
GOT
TO
STOP!
Other countries have free medical and dental programs. Yeah, they are not the best in the world and it’s an imperfect situation and an imperfect world but it’s at least something. People are not dying like they are in America from lack of health care. Hospitals in America are closing and it’s people and their petty prejudices that enable hatred to linger in this America.
There are atheists living in Georgia who were once Roman Catholic believers who have lost faith in their religion. A friend of a friend was looking for a gathering place where other atheists may go to meet but when she looked online there was nothing. The next door neighbor who she never spoke to hates her because the neighbor is Baptist. Talk about ignorance! Now this woman wants to move but where do you go in the USA that isn’t full of hate?
Boston?
NYC?
NJ?
No where.
There is no where to hide.
This season of AMERICAN HORROR STORY: ASYLUM took place in a crazy house with it’s ancient morals and the Roman Catholic Church ran it and it was still terrible. Even worse when the state took it over. Lesbians were thought to be diseased and that there was a cure for them and doctors were insane and non caring as the insurance companies are today.
In Ancient Greece Homosexuals were revered and worshiped and being straight was abnormal. Our society is taking turns towards darkness and I believe that is what this show AHS:A is all about – what happened at Briarcliff is happening now in the world and we are watching and are a part of it and are absolutely complacent.
When will society take notice and STOP BEING COMPLACENT?
Why am I writing all of this because it pertains to the medical practices and the lobbyists up to our greedy rotten congress who cares about no one and we the people pay for their medicines, their dental, medical, vision and script and we are going without.
This is outrageous and it’s time for a revolution people.
It’s time to take that pound of flesh
Co-Writer/Blogger – of www.bonjublog.com
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February 17th, 2013
By Catherine Haig – bonjublog.com
Senator McCain is stomping the Congress pavement over what he claims is a “massive cover up” of what happened in Benghazi on September 11, 2012. This is a massive hunk of crap being spewed by the Senator who had everything to do non-commitment to helping out any of our foreign embassies when they literally asked for help prior to what happened on that day. Perhaps we should look into the Senator’s former long term lodging when he was a Prisoner of War in Saigon where it is military gossip that in order to save his own skin, McCain threw his own soldiers under the bus to gain favor with the Viet Cong during the Viet Nam war.
Instead of blaming then Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton for not paying attention to every piece of mail or wire that comes into the State Department during her tenure in that position; Congress and Senators like McCain should be asking themselves why they refused to give any of our foreign embassies or ambassador’s the time of day let alone military support or ammunition when asked.
Republican Senator’s like McCain are quick to blame Clinton and other Democrats especially President Obama for their shirking of duty when it came to protecting the Libyan embassy against what happened on that fateful day. However it is not for the lack of trying that the White House had prompted the 112th Congress to act before the Benghazi strike on our Libyan Embassy that September day in 2012. These Republican Congress and House representative are shamelessly wagging fingers when it was THEM that held up any assistance to that region for months!
I particularly find this reactionary BS galling on the part of Senator McCain and to say that he is LYING is just the tip of the iceberg. As a writer and commentator on political events since 2009, I have been continually amazed at these insane accusations and ridiculous antics from the GOP that continues to escalate instead of dissipate especially in the 113th Congress where HOUSE members dominate Democrats. Speaker of the House, John Boehner continues to amaze people around the country with his outright disgust at being in the same room with our elected official, twice nominated POTUS Barack H Obama. This slight has gone on for too long and is so racist I can barely contain myself when writing even in this forum.
The amount of disgusting outright insane accusations from the right winged conservative WHITE Enclave in America is nothing short of disgusting racism collected by the mass hysteria of small white men afraid they are losing their hold on what they claim is “their inalienable rights”. Having the right to own an assault weapon to go hunting deer is NOT an INALIENABLE RIGHT unless you are CIA and a hired gun and even then you have no right to own an assault weapon. The 2nd Amendment “right to bear arms” did not go further than a pistol or rifle in it’s era but our founding fathers did not foresee that some gun nut or runner would be selling weapons of mass destruction to numb nuts who want to destroy the world for a crazy religion that no one respects.
Since the murders of 27 people; 20 of them children between the ages of 6 and 7 years in Newtown, CT; there have been a thousand murders by illegal guns and our congress is not taking the responsibly of maintaining and controlling the safeguards already in place with respect to gun control in America. We are out of control and when it came to assisting our own Ambassador and members of our military who guard him and the embassy in Benghazi; there were also no such controls in place. This is the fault of Congress who continued to “DO NOTHING’ even when asked by those embassies who feared an riot by local Arabs and especially when the WHITE HOUSE asked them to act; congress did nothing.
The time to do nothing is gone. Going forward we as a people in a country who is quickly loosing a battle we can afford to win must stand up and STOP BEING COMPLACENT. We have to remove the Republican TEA PARTY idiots in charge of the HOUSE of REPRESENTATIVES by any means necessary and I do mean this sincerely. If that means getting rid of states in our “union” then so be it after all; when Obama was re elected those same states were threatening to leave anyway. Let’s make it easy for them to go since they are all Southern States perhaps we can decided to give all the south back to Mexico and draw the United States as a close above the MASON/DIXON LINE.
If you think I’m kidding; I’m not. I am for bleeding dry these Tea Party Not Sees once and for all and if that means cutting up the USA to do so – so be it. I’m sick of the non compromising GOP members who identify as Tea Party and how dare the SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE Boehner refuse to speak to the representative of the 99% – our own President Obama; an elected official.
Vice President Joe Biden said it best in his debate against Republican congressman PAUL RYAN; “if you have nothing to offer and you are here to obstruct progress YOU NEED TO MOVE OUT OF THE WAY!” I paraphrase but I remember that he said that and he said that with a laugh on his lips and a twinkle in his eye because our VP might be a lot of things to a lot of folks but he is a true Irishman and stood up against MALARKY and BS in the face of Romney/Ryan blimp of a wave that lost them that election.
Our Congress must be held accountable for many problems that have resulted as a backlash to their ranks and not to the intended victims – the Democrats or Obama’s Administration.
Lastly, it was fine and dandy when Chuck Hagel was nominated for another position by a Republican President but when Obama did the same thing and crossed party lines there is an uproar ON THE PART OF REPUBLICANS?
PEOPLE – IF YOU BELIEVE NOTHING ELSE – BELIEVE ME WHEN I WRITE THIS – THERE IS NOTHING MORE FRIGHTENING THAN OLD WHITE MEN WITH A LITTLE BIT OF POWER WHO STAND IN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY – WE MUST ENSURE THEY NOT SEE REIGN ENDS SOON.
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RELATED CONTENT
View PhotoSenate Armed Services Committee … McCain & Graham – Republican Tea Party favorites and two men that need to smoke weed every day – chill out !
(NBC)
While discussing the contentious confirmation hearings for defense secretary nominee Chuck Hagel, things got a bit heated on Sunday’s “Meet The Press” when Sen. John McCain referred to the lack of information from the White House surrounding the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks in Benghazi as a “massive cover-up.”
“There are so many answers we don’t know,” McCain told host David Gregory. “We’ve had two movies about getting bin Laden and we don’t even know who the people were who were evacuated from the consulate the day after the [Benghazi] attack. So there are many, many questions. So we’ve had a massive cover-up on the part of the administration.”
Gregory then pressed McCain on what the Arizona senator meant by “a massive cover-up.”
“I’m asking you, do you care whether four Americans died?” McCain said. “And shouldn’t people be held accountable for the fact that four Americans died?”
“Well, what you said was the cover-up–a cover-up of what?” Gregory asked.
“Of the information concerning the deaths of four brave Americans,” McCain replied. “The information has not been forthcoming. You obviously believe that it has. I know that it hasn’t. And I’ll be glad to send you a list of the questions that have not been answered, including ‘What did the president do and who did he talk to the night of the attack on Benghazi?'”
McCain continued: “Why did the president for two weeks, for two weeks during the heat of the campaign continue to say he didn’t know whether it was a terrorist attack or not? Is it because it interfered with the line ‘Al Qaeda has [been] decimated’? And ‘everything’s fine in that in that part of the world’? Maybe. We don’t know. But we need the answers. Then we’ll reach conclusions. But we have not received the answers. And that’s a fact.”
Earlier, the former Republican presidential nominee said he expects Hagel to be confirmed as defense secretary even though he doesn’t plan to vote for him.
“I don’t believe he is qualified,” McCain said. “But I don’t believe that we should hold up his nomination any further.”
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February 9th, 2013
By Catherine Haig.
She was an American Tourist in Turkey who had lost her job back in Staten Island.
She was separated from her husband of 14 years; her two children and she were struggling on the little money she did have.
Her husband is a NYC bus driver.
He is 40. She was 33 years old. Her children were two boys; one 9 and the other 11 years old.
She had gone bankrupt in 2005. When she did work she only made $450 a week as a receptionist in a Chiropractor’s office.
The Economy in America has been a disaster for most; for this mother of 2 small boys she was struggling like most.
In her down time she fostered a hobby: she fancied herself an amateur Photographer but she never used a professional SLR camera
Or a Digital Camera.
Instead she used an Iphone and an IPAD but how could she have afforded either when she was out of work and separated from her husband?
She decided to go to Turkey to further her skills as a Photographer.
She also joined Instagram on line where she met people from all over the world who loved her pictures. She had a following of 6,000 people.
She called herself @memyself_sarai and she spoke with some people from Turkey – mostly men.
On Jan 7, 2013, with her husband and family consent, she left America on a flight to Turkey for a 3 week vacation and spent $10 thousand dollars in the process. Where did she get that money?
Her husband and family said they spoke to her numerous times during the day on skype or through her computer emails. She stayed in Turkey for 2 weeks before jetting to Amsterdam and Germany and only stayed a few hours before returning to Turkey.
I have read by many personal accounts how “safe” Turkey is to travel in. My late cousin, Haig Nargizian had to travel there several years before he passed away and was “detained” by Turkish Police because he was an Armenian and an outspoken critic of the YOUNG TURKS and PRESENT TURKISH GOVERNMENT who continue to deny the genocide of Armenians by the Turks from 1915-1920. Now Turkey points fingers at Armenia telling lies that it was Armenians who were the aggressors AND that it was Armenians who murdered 2.5 million Turks in that period. These are lies. With my cousin, Haig; they interrogated him for days and then sent him back home 20 hours by plane to re route at JFK in NYC to go to Armenian through a different longer route than through Turkey. My cousin Haig was not a spy. He loved being Armenian. He loved Armenians and Armenia and he hated the Turks. I also, hate the Turks and I don’t care who knows it.
There is not enough money in the world to make me like them…EVER. They continue to be disgusting examples of what is wrong with Islam and the extremist views of men vs women in the world. Every day, Every Week in TURKEY a woman is killed or goes missing never to be found and the Turkish Police could care less.
Two of the biggest businesses in modern day Turkey is Human Traffiking of mostly Icelandic women, boys and girls as young as 8 years old sold into slavery by their parents and some of these people are stolen from Africa as were their ancestors who slaved in America before the Civil War. The 2nd biggest industry in Turkey today is drug export and although the Turks deny that SARIA SIERRA, the 33 year old woman who went missing in Jan 2013 and turned up dead in Turkey was not a drug courier; I am hard pressed to believe otherwise. The Turkish Police continue to berate our American FBI saying they are “intruding on their case” but what our American FBI is doing is directing the case from the American Point of View.
First Mrs. Sierra was said to have been found fully clothed but stabbed in all parts of her body. Then it was just her stomach. Then it was she was discovered in a cave under the bridge she wanted to photograph. Then she was not raped but the man she met with from her Instagram connection was first a friend, now he’s a lover? First he says they were just friends but when the Police took his DNA and sperm; he counters that they had seedy sex in a bar bathroom? I can’t see it. I’m sorry. The woman, Sierra, doesn’t fit any kind of profile like this and seems very conservative up to the point where she arrived in Turkey.
Why would her husband, Steven, allow her to travel there alone? I ask this question often and get pissed off women travelers yelling at me and telling me to travel aboard is safe and why would I dare ask that question. I ask it because on 9/11/12 American’s Libyan Embassy was stormed by Muslim extremists hell bend on killing Americans and took out 4 of our people in Benghazi; a place that looks like a desert pit in the middle of the Devil’s Triangle. Maybe Mrs. Sierra was not there merely as a tourist like the American FBI is now saying. Maybe she was there for another reason.
This is what I think happened to Mrs. Sierra and at 33 years old women in America still think “things in the world cannot touch me because I am an American and I am free”. Mrs. Sierra was free of her husband, free of her kids and was desperate for money. She took up with strangers online from her 6000 followers in Instagram and one of them misled her into thinking she was going to be paid as a courier for drug running. When she asked for her money and told them she was going home they told her “you owe us $10, 000 dollars. You cannot go. You need to pay off your debt.” She balked and tried to run but they took her purse and took her electronics out, wiped them clean and tortured her. She had sex but to the Turks there is little difference between sex, rape and love. For Turks it is much the same thing. So the shill, the man who first contacted Mrs. Sierra, a handsome Turk named Talon, he told the Police they had sex but in reality she was probably raped repeatedly by the gang of men who kidnap people in Turkey and force them into sexual slavery. She was missing for a week and then she was killed and that was probably because she knew too much and they needed to get rid of her.
First she was clothed when they found her and then, finally, she had been wrapped in a blanket wearing her jacket, hat and jumper and her torn jeans were nearby her battered bludgeoned body. She was killed by a blow to the head but I am sure these murderers (and, yes, I believe it is more than just one man who murdered Sarai Sierra) tortured her extensively before they mercilessly killed her and dumped her body like trash in that cave to be found.
Others write on their blogs that she was a hired spy by the American CIA and posing as a drug runner. THIS I cannot believe is true but really how desperate do you have to be to go somewhere alone, a foreign country, alone, a woman alone? But worst than this how could her husband allow her to leave without him going with her? I just don’t understand the husband who keeps saying “he is devastated”; “he knew where she was and why”.
We may never know the truth about the death of Sarai Sierra because the Turks are scared to death that America will throw penalties upon them and kill their tourism. Please remember America is not the safest country in the world but would you go to NYC alone? I wouldn’t if I didn’t know the area; I’d take someone with me. As it is whenever I interview for work in NYC I am armed to the teeth with pepper spray and mace and switchblades and tazers and the reason for that is “you never know who you are meeting”.
RIP Sarai Sierra. I hope we find out what happened to you…Really!
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Information in this article is from numerous sources. Please check www.bonjublog.com for followup and more information. TY
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