God made me do it

While the aim of Pope Francis’ pilgrimage to Iraq, promoting religious understanding of marginalized Christians there was laudable, his timing was not. His trip was a 4 day superspreader event with maskless thousands packed together to hear God’s Catholic emissary.

Francis said the pandemic weighed heavily on him while considering the trip. He prayed deeply and concluded God would keep he Iraqis safe. That’s easy for Francis to say…he’s been inoculated.

It’s too soon to know how many Iraqis will get sick and die because of the Pope’s ill-timed trip. Explaining a foolish action, people often joke, “The devil made me do it”. But the Pope is not joking. “God made me do it”.

Spirit of 76

Last birthday number 75, I lamented on how my birthdate, March 10, 1945, ushered me into the world as a hundred thousand Japanese were being incinerated under 1,510 tons of napalm bombs dropped by 282 B-29’s. Not a birthdate to be proud of…but glad to have it nonetheless.

But I spend just passing thoughts on the Tokyo fire-bombing this 76th birthday, March 10. My thoughts contemplate instead the most tumultuous year of all 76. The first pandemic in a century was declared at the start of year 76, just as 535,000 Americans began perishing. Over 22 million jobs were lost. Ten percent of Americans have struggled to obtain sufficient food.

We retreated in self-imposed isolation to avoid the invisible, silent killer. It was not just the pleasurable activities, it was the pleasurable human contact that was sorely missed.

But for my loved ones and me it worked…and I am grateful.

We’re just turning the corner as year 77 begins and it looks like a brighter year ahead.

But the other tumultuous event in not going away. We’re still ensnared with a defective human being and a defective political party seeking to overturn our 245 year old democracy. The man and the party inspired a ghastly, violent attack on our Capitol which nearly reversed the landslide defeat of the leader of the mob.

Foiled in that treacherous endeavor, they’ve vowed a return to power thru voter suppression enabled by over a hundred of essentially white supremacist voter suppression laws in 28 states, and counting.

One thing I've learned for sure in 76 years is human progress is neither a straight line upward nor even inevitable. But that simply keeps the fire blazing in my heart and soul to keep pushing that elusive wheel of progress ever upward and onward. For me, that’s the Spirit of 76.

What is really wrong and insulting

The only thing George Kujanski got right in his Daily Herald letter ‘Indoctrination at school is wrong, insulting’ is the first 3 words “I am privileged”, but not in the sense he means. It’s white privilege that allowed him to enter American after WWII and prosper. Had his family been black, Jim Crow America would be among the last countries his parents would flee to from war torn Europe.

Mr. Kujanski appears oblivious how white privilege gave his mother and him advantages in achieving a modicum of success thru three generations. That path to success is largely denied tens of millions of America’s minorities

It’s bad enough Kujanski is unaware of the advantages he reaped. But he goes further, choosing to denigrate highly educated and wise thinkers as writing ‘drivel and political propaganda’ when they’re simply working to correct the lack of insight and understanding of the pernicious effects of white privilege and income inequality.

That, and not sincere efforts to sensitize school children to serious issues of race and inequality, is what is wrong, insulting.

George Kujanski letter

Indoctrination at school is wrong, insulting

I am privileged. I was privileged to come to this country with my parents after WWII. Later, I was privileged to work my way through college along with help from my mom, who raised four kids with only her Social Security survivors' benefits and factory work.

Later in life, I was privileged to send my two kids to college, and now I am privileged to pay high taxes. of which 66% go to the local school system - an excellent system, by the way.

Today, we have some truly privileged Ivy League grads who write drivel and market their fancy-named (Critical Race Theory and Deep Equity) political propaganda to employers and worse, to indoctrinate our youngsters in our school system.

Young minds are vulnerable to this trash. Schools should concentrate on curriculum such as math, reading, science, etc. which lay the groundwork for their success in the future. It is the parents' responsibility to teach their offspring the remainder.

As mentioned, I pay high taxes to support the school system to provide a quality education to the students, not to indoctrinate them. I consider this indoctrination to be an insult to me and what I have worked for.

Folks, we need to stop this political propaganda, marketed by the elite, from taking over our society. This practice is starting in our school systems. Be watchful, attend school board meetings and make your opinions known. Administrations will try to implement this drivel because they are afraid of political repercussions.

God bless the United States of America.

George Kujanski

Let's talk about Iran.

The Iran nuclear deal of 2015 (JCPOA) was arguably Obama's and the West's most important foreign policy achievement. It largely eliminated the possibility of war with Iran over their imagined nuclear program and began détente to reel Iran back into the world community.

Tragically, Trump's worst foreign policy initiative was withdrawing from JCPOA in 2018. It triggered renewed sanctions, assassination of a top Iranian general and 9 others, and nearly set off a large new war in the Middle East.

Iran refused to negotiate a new, tougher treaty at the point of a gun, sending Trump's vaunted negotiating skills to the scrapheap. Iran began enriching uranium to higher levels than allowed under the broken agreement, but far less than required to get anywhere close to bomb level enrichment.

Biden criticized the withdrawal, campaigning to negotiate a return to JCPOA. But so far he has refused to offer one iota of sanctions relief, prompting Iran to refuse to negotiate with the new president. Iran correctly points out U.S. hypocrisy and duplicity. We break a deal, impose crippling sanctions, then demand that Iran come graveling for a return to the agreement unilaterally and senselessly upended by Uncle Sam.

We must hope that Biden and his team are simply posturing and will truly rescind Trump's foolish, sanctions which keep the prospect for all out war simmering. Biden must quickly do this but is confronted from within by hard liners throughout the U.S. foreign policy establishment, and hard liners from without: Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and Israel. All want the Iranian regime destroyed and Iran neutered as a Middle East hegemon.

That should be their problem, not ours. We must return to a peace saving agreement, the withdrawal of which has recklessly put America on the road to war. We must promote peace instead of war in the Middle East. Hundreds of thousands dead, millions damaged and trillions squandered by America's foolish wars should have taught us a lesson.

So far with Iran...they haven't.

Why is Biden supporting the Trump of Venezuela?

If there is one leader who should not support an illegal takeover from an elected president, it is Joe Biden. Had Trump’s planned January 6 insurrection succeeded, allowing Trump to declare martial law, Biden may still be president-in-waiting.

January 6 was not Trump’s first foray in overturning an election. In January, 2019, American favorite and Venezuelan National Assembly leader Juan Guaido, declared himself president even tho Nicholas Maduro won re-election with 68% of the vote. Getting rid of the socialist Maduro, like his predecessor Hugo Chavez, has been the dream of U.S. regime changers for 17 years, ever since Bush Jr. helped still birth the 2002 coup against Chavez that failed miserably.

Trump jumped at recognizing Guaido president and brought along a full third of nations who grovel at U.S. mendacity. But President Maduro, not insurgent Guaido, wielded presidential power, forcing Guaido to conspire in failed coups in 2019 and 2020. With his internal support falling, many countries initially supporting Guaido’s insurrection have dumped him.

But not the U.S. which likely cooperated in a ludicrous ‘Bay of Pigs’ style invasion, planned in the U.S. and led by a couple of former Green Berets that failed as miserably as the April, 1961 original instigated by JFK to topple Castro.

Newbie President Joe, likely sill traumatized by Trump’s failed January 6 coup, hasn’t extended his revulsion of Trump’s sedition to that of Trump’s Man in Caracas, Juan Guido. ‘Still recognizing Guaido as Venezuelan president’ Biden replied when asked recently.

That’s easy for Biden to say. He had to only put up with one January 6. For his counterpart Maduro in Venezuela…every day is January 6.

The Venezuelan Are Coming, The Venezuelans Are Coming

Just 45 days in as Prez and Biden issued an Executive Order so preposterous and revolting it will be tough for Joe to top.

His EO states that "Venezuela poses an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.” Biden is simply parroting the same preposterous and revolting EO issued by Trump after trying to overturn the valid re-election of hated Venezuelan socialist president Nicholas Maduro.

Trump's January, 2019 recognition of Maduro opponent Juan Guaido, as pretend Venezuelan president was followed by crippling economic sanctions that killed thousands of hapless civilians caught up in murderous U.S. regime change policy.

The second half of Biden's insane EO is true. Venezuela does pose a threat to U.S. foreign policy...that which is designed to rule the world by deposing of leaders who fail to bow down to our lust for world domination, the thousands sacrificed on the altar of American Exceptionalism be damned.