Politics Archives - The Billy Lee Pontificator

December 16, 2015November 6, 2023

JESUS

In a few days a baby named Immanuel will be born in a refugee camp north of the Syrian border in southern Turkey. Another named Jesus will be born in the desert south of the Texas border-crossing in northern Mexico.

In the next two weeks babies will be born in every impoverished backwater over all the Earth, and some of them will be named after Jesus of the Bible — the ”savior of the world” prophesied by the ancients — a man tortured and executed because he enraged the religious leaders of his time.

Why did some of the most powerful rabbis in Jerusalem turn against Jesus and convince their Roman administrators to execute him? Wasn’t it because he told them they didn’t know what they were doing; that they didn’t know what they were talking about?

Two thousand years ago people living in the Roman territories of the Middle East didn’t challenge authorities, at least not to their faces. Brazen confrontation was something leaders weren’t used to and didn’t like.

Jesus claimed that despite impressive learning and years of study and prayer, some religious scholars knew less than they thought about Scripture and what it meant. They knew almost nothing about the nature of God and His plans for humankind. A few acted like instruments of Satan, he said. They lorded their power over common people and demanded respect, even as they supplicated themselves before their Roman rulers.

Billy Lee has offered a gold star to anyone who can find the word Jesus on a Christmas card sold at their local grocery. The **Editorial Board**

Anyway, one place where babies named Jesus won’t be born on Christmas day 2015 will likely be the Trump Towers. Folks who frequent locations like these have access to private rooms in the best hospitals. Some might choose to birth their children at home, yes, but their homes are palaces and luxury-suites — many with 24 hour on-site medical services, including doctors and nurses.

The homes and suites of billionaires can be busy places, probably, but they never smell like refugee camps. And it’s unusual inside the USA for billionaires to name their children Jesus.

Let’s not sugar-coat. The United States has a sordid history of doing bad things to good people. It has a record of murdering its best people: prophets like Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, for example. It has a record of ”bombing the s*** “ out of people (a.k.a. Donald Trump) — as the history of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Vietnam, the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and the bloody highway of death out of Kuwait reminds those who have been paying attention.

By remote control the USA recently unleashed Hellfire missiles on 700 occasions; sometimes on innocents — people with whom we are not at war — which have cooked by-standers alive with their ungodly heat.

Some modern, right-wing evangelical ”religious leaders” — if anyone can say the words with a straight face — enrich themselves with lucrative book deals. Some write crap to capitalize on the fears of common people who don’t have the sense to know they are being played.

Some fill their mega-churches with armed goons to protect their lucrative fiefdoms and the absurd sums of tax-free money they scam from congregants every single week.

Please note: I said, some.

Why go on?

Everyone knows it’s true.

Some who claim to be Christians have become almost useless to the building of a Kingdom of Heaven on Earth.

Do Christians live in America? Of course. Tens of thousands do; maybe hundreds of thousands. But not millions. No way. Not by the way we behave; not by the way we display our culture and values to the angels of the world who watch our every move; or to God who knows our hearts.

Did anyone watch the GOP debate last night? Did anyone watch that pantheon of the gods (as CNN visually-hyped it in their relentless and — can we admit? — ludicrous lead-up advertising) who fought each other tooth and nail to prove which of them would be the most heartless leader of them all?

It’s not insanity, people. It’s evil.

What does America require, an exorcism?

Because it seems to me as if our nation behaves at times like it’s possessed.

If you were Jesus, would you permit your name to appear on Christmas cards in a mega-store that treats Christmas as just another opportunity to make a lot of money? I don’t know if anyone would. During my Christmas shopping yesterday, I couldn’t find a single card with Jesus’s name on it. It surprised me.

Fortunately for us, God’s ways are not our ways, the Bible says. God is love. He has made a really simple request: love all people, including our enemies, as we love ourselves.

It’s a hard truth — that Jesus expects everyone to love unlovable people. I admit, I’m not good at it. No one is. But it’s something we can do to make a better world.

The Holy Spirit of Christ Jesus will help us to love others, Scripture promises. Together we can love others, especially at Christmas, when we try.

I believe it’s true.

Billy Lee

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August 1, 2015November 6, 2023

HEY, GUEVARA…

Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, more than any other two people, were responsible for throwing the Mafia out of Cuba in 1959. White (i.e.non-black) gangsters ran Cuba, some may recall. Watch the second Godfather movie, anyone who doesn’t believe it.

Cuban attorney Fidel Castro and Argentine physician Che Guevara expelled organized-crime bosses from Cuba in 1959. The 1974 movie The Godfather Part Two featuring Al Pacino conveyed some of the dangers these men faced and had to overcome, not only in 1959 but for years after when the CIA and organized-crime joined forces on behalf of the United States to kill them both and undo their revolution.

Race relations were terrible. One-third of Cuba’s six-million people were non-white, poor, and disenfranchised. Beaches were whites-only. Restaurants, clubs, casinos, hotels, and other businesses were off-limits to black families.

Castro racially integrated the Revolution by asking blacks to play prominent roles, which some did — like the military commanders Juan Almeida Bosque and Calixto Garcia. Non-whites made up one-half of the volunteer-soldiers in the Revolutionary Army. Cuba became the first predominately non-black country in the Western Hemisphere to include black people in leadership.

Juan Almeida and Che Guevara — *Juan Almeida Bosque* stands next to Che Guevara. Juan Almeida was a Havana-born freedom fighter (and popular song-writer) who rose to the rank of General in the Cuban Army. He died on 11 September 2009 at age 82 of heart failure.

In the United States, the civil-rights movement lagged Cuba’s by many years. It was five years after the Cuban Revolution before black Americans got legislation to guarantee their right to move freely in public spaces and to vote. Some think our elites pushed the USA toward racial-integration to undercut propaganda advantages the issue provided the new Cuban government within the international community.

The move toward integration in the USA stalled after James Earl Ray assassinated Martin Luther King on April 4, 1968. One hundred and twenty-five cities erupted into racial violence during that summer. Today, 47 years later, large swaths of the United States of America remain largely segregated. Florida is the most egregious example. Florida owns the distinction for being home to the largest number of white Cuban refugees. It also protects the largest number of racially gated communities in the USA.

But Che had a different attitude than the present-day leaders of the state of Florida. According to historian Jon Lee Anderson, Che Guevara surrounded himself with peasants and black people. He embraced racial, social and intellectual diversity and never let go of this fundamental principle of equality, which undergirded the Cuban Revolution.

Che Guevara, the Cuban doctor-poet, is the one person besides Fidel Castro whose leadership made the Cuban victory possible. An argument can be made — were it not for Che, the Mafia would still run things in Cuba and be stronger internationally than it is now.

It’s possible that without Che and the Cuban Revolution, our elites would not have felt the same urgency to address the problem of racial segregation in the USA, and we would be even more divided today than we still are. It’s possible that the feudal-system in the Americas practiced during the past century would have remained in place.

Anyway, the Cuban Revolution succeeded and the rest, as they say, is history.

guevara-02 — ”Che” as a child. Ernesto Guevara’s parents were members of Argentina’s ”royal” class.

Che Guevara in suit and tie — Ernesto Guevara spent the first twenty-five years of his life preparing for a career in medicine. He traveled the Americas and networked extensively. Through family connections and his personal charisma, Che was able to meet and interact with anyone he chose from the most exalted public figures to the most downtrodden peasants.

Who was Che Guevara? Most Americans have no clue because they don’t read about Che, and television doesn’t do shows about him.

People point out that Che is better known and understood outside the United States. The reason is this: Che thought that the answer to why the people of Cuba, the Caribbean, Central America, and South America were destitute was because powerful people — many of them, citizens of the USA — impoverished poor people on purpose to enrich themselves. It was a simple idea, unacceptable to our elites.

Greed is an easy concept to understand and compelling to anyone who thinks about it for very long. It’s an idea our leaders don’t want ordinary people in the USA to think about too much. The memory of Che Guevara will never be celebrated inside the United States as it is in some other places in the world. In fact, our media has successfully trained most people to forget all about him.

Billionaires, like some members of the Kennedy family, sensed that Che was right (and said so), but they also knew from the inside what it took to create wealth. They understood both the technical and political sides of wealth-creation. Generating and accumulating vast wealth is a complicated, fragile, and sacred process, apparently.

Revolution, they were sure, would screw things up big time.

It took energy, planning and cunning to protect fortunes from governments, but it could be done because governments can be bought for a price. On the other hand, it seemed to the wealthy that protecting their empires from communists, if they ever took over, might be impossible.

Communists believed wealth should be created cooperatively and then shared. It was a point of view opposite to that of our elites who believed wealth was best created by individuals motivated by profit. Riches were to be accumulated to purchase privileges, advantages, and the material pleasures of life for individuals, not society as a whole.

Joseph_and_Rose_Kennedy_1940 — Joseph and Rose Kennedy pose in the lobby of the Colonial Hotel in 1940. Joseph was Ambassador to the Court of Saint James (the United Kingdom). His 23 year old son John would become our 35th President; his 15 year old Bobby would become Attorney General. Ernesto Guevara, 12 at the time, and Fidel Castro, 14, would grow up to confront John Kennedy** and his brother Bobby in the nuclear show-down known as the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The hatred some rich-folks felt for men and women who thought like Che Guevara was visceral. Ted Kennedy described in his book True Compass how his dad Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. — who made his fortune in movies, then liquor imports — hated communists with a passion that seemed at times unreasonable bordering on insane.

Many wealthy individuals feared that someone who possessed the trustworthiness of a doctor — a physician, for example, who had healthy hair, white teeth and the sparkle of truth in his eyes — might persuade ignorant people to believe pretty much anything.

Che Guevara was that kind of person — a gorgeous communist who believed that any economic system that prevailed because rich people dominated and hurt poor people was an abomination; an evil, which led to a kind of hell-on-earth for just-plain-folks.

Che was dangerous, they decided; truly dangerous.

Che drinking tea — Che Guevara was a yerba mate tea-drinker.

It’s probably correct to suggest that folks in the USA know very little about Ernesto Guevara Lynch de la Serna because no one in leadership wants to feed Americans information about Che that can be easily understood and digested. Our billionaires would rather we forget all about Ernesto Guevara. I get that.

But a lot of time has passed. Yes, some old people are still left who knew Che. But most who knew him are now dead. Che has passed into the lore of ancient history, he really has.

The United States and Cuba established full diplomatic relations on July 1, 2015. The war between them and us is over. Yes, there are the details of making peace, like the embargo, yet to be unwound. But the war is over, it really is.

Are there hard feelings about how things turned out? Yes, of course there are; on both sides. Some wounds may never heal. War is like that. It’s cruel.

It’s sad that so many got hurt on both sides. But it’s time, we all know it, to allow ourselves to understand better this historical figure, this man, Che Guevara; who he was, what he did, what he stood for, and what he believed.

What follows is a bullet-list of facts we collected about ”Che.” Some facts, encountered for the first time, might surprise some people. Let’s hang onto our hats and keep an open mind. We are all adults here. We can handle the truth if we take the time to breathe deeply and not give in to fear or hate.

[For readers who may want to learn more about modern day Cuba from someone who travels there, click on this link. The Editorial Board]

Che Guevara with his second wife Aleida March. Aleida was an urban guerilla who worked as a courier for the Cuban Revolution. Batista’s secret police referred to her as ”Scarface.” An informer told them she had dog-bite wounds on her face.

Che was a human being — like everyone else. The difference is, he was a rare version of a human being; unusual and unique. His mother and his father, his wives and children have all insisted, Che was special. Aleida, his widow, said he was a perfect man. The people who would eventually murder him hoped to ensure that the world would never see another like him, perhaps to the end of time.

So let’s get started. These glimpses into the personality and skill-set that was ”Che” Ernesto Guevara Lynch de la Serna are in no particular order.

Antonio Nico Lopez showing how tall he was — Cuban ”Nico” Antonio Lopez gave Guevara his nickname: ”Che.”

— Ernesto Guevara’s close friend — known to many as the happy Cuban, ”Nico” Antonio Lopez — gave Ernesto his nickname because he thought it was funny that Ernesto always asked for people’s attention by calling out, che! — a Paraquayan Guarani word, which means something like hey you! or better translated perhaps, hey, bro!

It should be mentioned that Nico — ebullient and larger than life — made the initial landing with Che and eighty other fighters near Cabo Cruz lighthouse, which marked the beginning of the military phase of the Cuban Revolution.

During the following week, Batista’s army hunted down and killed 60 members of the landing party. Che, who was shot in the neck, found refuge in a cave. Nico did not survive. Two years later, Che led the survivors and the peasant army he helped build into Havana. The revolution was won.

— Che once worked as a professional photographer. He covered the Second Pan American games in Mexico City in 1955 for Agencia Latina, the Argentine international news agency at the time.

— Che, during his med-school years, flew glider-planes to relax with his uncle Jorge de la Serna.

Mount Popocatepetl, a volcano — Che climbed Mexico’s Mt. Popocatepetl three times. He planted the flag of Argentina at its summit in 1956. He was 28 years old.

— Che was an accomplished mountain climber. He climbed Mexico’s Mount Popocatepetl (altitude: 17,900 ft.), three times. He planted the Argentinian national flag at its summit in 1956. He was twenty-eight years old.

— Che, it seems, could walk a tight-rope. He wasn’t afraid of heights, anyway, or of taking risks. A photo exists of him crossing high above a river-chasm spanned only by a connected series of drainage-pipes.

— Che traveled extensively. He took three trips on different routes from south to north through the Americas by horse, motorized-bicycle, motorcycle, truck, bus, train, boat, raft, commercial tanker, cargo-ship, and airplane before his 25th birthday. He even hitch-hiked when necessary.

The hopeless poverty of the common people he met shocked him. Eventually, he would vow to do something to try to change the unfair way things were administered by people of wealth who he also met and spent time with during his journeys.

— Che’s first traveling adventure was during the winter of 1951 at age 22, when he took a job as ship’s nurse and traveled 5,000 miles by tanker along the east-coast (the Atlantic side) of South America making stops along the way from a port in Patagonia in the south to the tiny island nation of Curacao in the north near the coast of Venezuela.

— Che, during extended trips in 1952 and again in 1953, explored the Amazon, Inca and Mayan ruins, and Machu Picchu. He toured copper and titanium mines and visited remote, hard to find leper-colonies where he sometimes stayed for weeks to provide sufferers with needed medical attention.

Machu Piccuh aerial view — Che loved archaeology and anthropology almost as much as medicine. He visited Machu Picchu in Peru several times as well as other Inca and Mayan sites. He wrote and published articles in magazines about what he learned.

— Che wrote daily in his diaries and journals for many years. He left behind an extensive and introspective record of his internal world as he developed his point of view and his place in history.

— Che published his first magazine article before age 23. Later, he published research in medical journals.

University of Buenos Aires Medical School where Che Guevara graduated 2 — University of Buenos-Aires Medical School where Che graduated April 11, 1953 at age 25. He specialized in allergy-medicine and pediatrics.

— After graduating from medical school at the University of Buenos-Aires in Argentina, Che completed his internship in Mexico at the Mexico City General Hospital where he worked in the Department of Immunology. He also worked as a researcher at the nearby Pediatric Hospital.

— Che’s second love after medicine was archaeology; he was an expert in the Mayan and Incan civilizations. He visited Palenque and scoured sites at Chichen Itza and Uxmal, which he wrote about extensively. He published articles describing the dig-sites he visited.

— Che vacationed in Miami, Florida for three weeks during his twenties.

— Che was a talented writer and poet. He published several best-selling books during his lifetime. He also authored several unpublished works, which some hope will be published after Fidel Castro and his brother Raul retire from politics.

— Che visited Guatemala in 1954 and witnessed first-hand the CIA overthrow of its popularly elected government. CIA seizure of media enabled it to create in Guatemala an Orwellian aura of inevitability, which disturbed Che and depressed him.

Not to stray too far afield, but psy-ops in Guatemala should be of interest to US citizens for the simple reason that they were coordinated by CIA field officer David Atlee Phillips—later accused by discredited writers and some agency insiders of meeting with Alpha 66 founder Antonio Veciana Blanch and double-agent Lee Harvey Oswald to discuss details of possible assassination plots against both Fidel Castro and John Kennedy.

Anyway, CIA contractors, in a final humiliation, forced the popular President Jacob Arbenz to strip naked in front of reporters before they expelled him from the country. Sickened by the incident, Che wrote: The United States is the enemy of humanity.

— Che’s mom and dad were both members of Argentinian ”royal” families.

Che Guevara reading a book 2 — Che read constantly from an early age. Released CIA documents noted the depth and diversity of his literary interests.

— According to released CIA documents, Che was unusually well-read, especially in politics, history, philosophy, geography, medicine and psychology. A favorite book was the classic Argentine masterpiece ”El Gaucho Martin Fierro” by Jose Hernandez, published in 1872.

— After high school, Che read the entire 25 volume Contemporary History of the Modern World.

— Che spoke French and Spanish. He had an easy familiarity with English, though he refused to be interviewed using it. He also picked up a limited ability in Swahili, the lingua franca of Africa’s Great Lakes region, when he spent time there on assignment for Cuba. And the Soviet Union provided Che with a tutor who helped him become more proficient in Russian.

— Che was a skilled rugby player and coach. He founded and edited the short-lived (eleven issues) rugby magazine, Tackle.

— Che was a tournament-playing chess enthusiast.

— Che spent his high school years in Cordoba, Argentina, where his family belonged to the exclusive Lawn Tennis Club where Che learned to swim and play tennis.

— Che was a good golfer.

— Che passed a certification exam in civil engineering during high school. His first job after graduating was as a ”soils specialist.” He analyzed soils for road building companies.

— Che’s asthma enabled him to avoid Argentina’s military draft.

— In 1956, Fidel Castro — the well-connected Cuban attorney who belonged to a wealthy land-owning family — shared a cell in a Mexican prison with Che that lasted a month. Fidel and Che — close acquaintances before — bonded; they suffered together as political prisoners.

— After Castro’s release, Che and Calixto Garcia (a black freedom-fighter who would rise to the rank of Brigadier General in the Cuban defense forces) remained in prison for another month.

Che’s uncle, the Argentine ambassador to Cuba, wanted to use his influence to free his nephew but Che refused the help until Mexico agreed to release his friend. In a case of truth-is-stranger-than-fiction, Fidel paid for the two men’s release with funds he unwittingly received from the CIA.

— Fidel soon realized that Guevara could be far more than the physician-poet he had hired to care for his men. On 12 July 1957, Fidel asked Ernesto to command the army he was building. His decision to promote Che created the momentum necessary to secure victory for the Cuban Revolution.

Che Guevara, 1959 — This colorized photo shows a showered and cleaned-up Che following his triumphant entry into Havana, Cuba in January, 1959. He was thirty years old.

— Che was directly responsible for the success of the Cuban Revolution in this way: on 29 December 1958, his battle-group (the Eighth Column) ambushed and de-railed a key armored supply train loaded with weapons, munitions and troop reinforcements belonging to General Fulgencio Batista’s national army. Che and his guerilla fighters then took the city of Santa Clara, which was defended by a force more than ten times the size of their own.

This unexpected loss scared the Cuban dictator who fled the country two days later on New Years Eve (taking an entourage of over two-hundred people and the entire Cuban treasury with him).

On 2 January 1959, Che and his soldiers walked into Havana with their captured weapons and took control of government buildings and military bases without firing a shot. They seized a government that was 1.2 billion dollars in debt and running huge yearly deficits due in part to looting by Batista’s cartel.

— Che published the classic book Guerrilla Warfare in 1961. John Kennedy immediately read it. Based on what he learned, he organized a few weeks later the Green Berets from units of the 77th Special Forces Group, which he renamed the 7th Special Forces Group.

— Che married twice. He fathered one child by his first wife, four by his second.

— After the revolution, Che became the object of a CIA manhunt. Che continued to travel freely because of a disguise he designed that fooled even Fidel Castro and his closest advisors.

— Che felt that Cuba’s relationship with the Soviet Union was one-sided. The Soviets didn’t provide the support in personnel and financial aid needed to offset the international embargo coordinated against Cuba by the United States. Che complained, and it created a flap between the two governments.

— After the Revolution, the new government lowered the age requirement for ministerial service from 35 to 30 and granted Cuban citizenship to Che (who was 30 and Argentinian) so he could legally hold a number of administrative posts. One of the most important was Minister of the Cuban banking system — a position he earned by his reputation for integrity.

Fidel once said that Che Guevara was honest to a fault. True to his reputation, the first thing Dr. Guevara did as Central Bank Administrator was halt the scheduled construction of a new Central Bank complex and use the money saved to build a badly-needed hospital.

— Che, after visiting the Soviet Union, expressed outrage to confidants about the lavish lifestyles of the Russian leaders.

— When Cuba went to rationing after the United States impeded its right to buy food, Che insisted that his family receive the same food-coupons as every other family in Cuba. Despite his efforts, Russian officials later admitted that they smuggled food to his wife, Aleida, when he traveled outside the country.

— Che wrote privately to the Cuban minister of sugar, Orlando Borrego, that he believed — based on his observations of Russian society while visiting there — that the Soviet Union would fall back into Capitalism one day.

— Che returned all gifts showered on him and his family by foreign leaders while serving in Cuba’s ministries. Although the Cuban government provided him with a car, he used it for official duties only. He insisted his family use public transportation.

— When Che entered Havana for the first time, he wore a cast on one of his elbows; he broke it ten days earlier after falling off a wall in the city of Cabaiguan, one of the many towns that fell to his forces before the decisive battle of Santa Clara, which ended the military phase of the revolution.

Che drank yerba mate, a popular tea in Argentina. — Che drank *yerba mate*, a tea popular in Argentina.

— Although Che is often portrayed as a cigar-smoker, and sometimes posed with cigars, he suffered from chronic and severe asthma. He rarely smoked, or drank alcohol, because his health would not permit it.

During the most dangerous phase of the fighting when Che wasn’t sure each day whether he would live or die he did smoke according to at least one credible historian. When victory came, he was hospitalized for pulmonary distress and spent several months recuperating.

— Che was allergic to seafood.

— Che’s favorite beverage was yerba mate, a caffeinated drink brewed from the leaves and twigs of a rainforest tree in the holly family. Popular in Argentina, it was thought to have medicinal properties at the time. Che may have used it to treat his asthma.

— Che was a good swimmer. He used vigorous swimming to help strengthen his lungs.

— The Cuban government gave Che an airplane and a personal pilot to use for government business. He often flew the plane himself because he loved to fly.

— Che taught French to the current president of Cuba, Raul Castro, during their time in the Sierra Maestra, before the Revolution was won.

— Alberto Korda took the iconic photo above of Che (by which the world now identifies him) on March 5, 1960. It followed the state memorial service for the one-hundred people who died in the terrorist attack on the French freighter La Coubre in Havana Harbor the previous day. Two-hundred people were severely injured.)

Because Americans were napalming sugar-cane fields and sugar refineries to wreck the Cuban economy (one plane had been shot down and the pilot, an American, captured), Fidel Castro in his address to the mourners blamed the CIA for the attack on the French ship while Che Guevara stood next to him wearing the iconic expression on his face that became his brand.

Neither man knew at the time that in 13 months the United States would escalate the conflict by conducting a full-scale military assault on the island of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs.

The CIA continued to attack Cuban shipping through 1964 before international outrage over the killing of the captain and two crew members of a misidentified Spanish freighter — it was also set on fire and almost sunk — brought sufficient pressure on the agency to change its policies.

Che Guevara a few hours before his execution murder — Che Guevara — a few hours before they killed him.

— In 1967, an 1800 man Bolivian Ranger Force trained in Guatemala by the USA hunted down Che in Bolivia and captured him. A small unit from this force tortured him by firing a half-dozen rounds into his legs, then executed him.

Those who murdered Che reported that he measured 5’8″ and weighed 155 pounds. These numbers are widely repeated on the Internet. The killers cut off his hands and sent them to Fidel Castro, then hid his body among six of his fighters in an unmarked grave. Some have wondered if truth was one of their core-values.

According to the killers, Che would have been seven inches shorter than Fidel, which doesn’t seem to match-up with the many photos of the two men together, including the lead photo in this essay. Based on photos I’ve reviewed, Che appears to be 4 to 5 inches shorter than Fidel, who was 6’3″. After reviewing photographs, my opinion is that Che was 5’10”.

Why Che’s executioners would misrepresent his height is anybody’s guess.

— The woman who fed Che a bowl of soup before his execution, Julia Cortez, said this about his appearance: He was an extraordinarily handsome man. He wasn’t the man depicted to us: black, ugly, evil. His eyebrows, his nose, his mouth — all of his features were perfect.

— Captain Gary Prado of Bolivia asked Che: Why didn’t you give up? Why didn’t you disband your unit and go home when you had the chance? Che answered: Where would I go?

According to Prado, that was Che’s dilemma in Bolivia. He was isolated, shunned by the international community of nations, and trapped. He had no place else to go.

Neill W. MacCauley — Neill W. MacCaulay, Citadel graduate, Korean War Veteran, and trainer of the Cuban expeditionary force led by Fidel Castro.

— Fidel Castro hired a number of American Korean War veterans — among them Neill W. MacCaulay and Miguel Sanchez — to train his expeditionary force. In 1956, MacCaulay evaluated Che, writing that he was an ”excellent” marksman with ”excellent” discipline, leadership abilities, and physical endurance. The only negative: Che smiled a lot, which MacCaulay felt was an inappropriate facial expression for a guerrilla warrior.

— Neill W. MacCaulay, Jr. entered Havana at Che’s side in his moment of total victory. Years later he would teach Latin-American history at the University of Florida as professor-emeritus. Before he passed in 2007, Professor MacCaulay said in a filmed interview: Che’s troops knew what they were doing. They knew they had a good commander. They had Che, who was top of the line. They trusted him.

As for the victory parade into Havana, Neill said, We were received as liberators; celebrated; I mean people ran out with bottles of rum. People went wild.

— Six years and ten months after the Revolution on 3 October 1965, Che Guevara resigned his post as Minister, his rank of Commander, and his Cuban citizenship. He severed all ties to Castro and the country of Cuba. He followed the lead of every country in the Western Hemisphere except Mexico, which alone among countries resisted pressure from the United States to sever relations. Che turned his back on the protection offered by Castro and the Soviet Union.

No one to my knowledge knows for sure why Che made this break. What we do know is that Castro read Che’s confidential resignation letter on Cuban radio and television, perhaps without Che’s consent, and that two years later almost to the day — October 9, 1967 — Che lay dead in a Bolivian school house.

— Before the Revolution, Che’s fellow ”boot-camp” trainees, in a peer-review conducted by MacCaulay, agreed unanimously that Che possessed the skills and talents required to lead effectively at the highest level. His subsequent performance in the Cuban Revolution confirmed their judgment and propelled Che Guevara into the ranks of legendary warriors like Spartacus and Geronimo, who lost their lives fighting for hopeless causes and changed the world.

Billy Lee

Post Script: Cuba buried Che Guevara with full military honors on 17 October 1997 after his remains and the remains of six of his fighters were discovered in Bolivia and returned to Santa Clara, the site of the battle he conducted to win the Cuban Revolution. Che’s wife, Aleida, and his children — at the sides Raul and Fidel Castro — grieved in a more private ceremony three month’s earlier in July.

Although the CIA had an agent present and trained and equipped — in Guatemala, of all places — the Bolivian Special Forces unit that killed Guevara, the agency has always insisted it tried to save Che’s life. The President of Bolivia at the time, Rene Barrientos, demanded Che’s execution; it was Bolivia’s war, the CIA argued, and not their call.

They were powerless to save him.

On April 27, 1969, Rene Barrientos died in a helicopter crash.
The Editorial Board

Che Guevara as clean cut James Bond 2 — Ernesto ”Che” Guevara

James Bond in Che Guevara pose — Sean Connery

— Some say that Sean Connery parodied Che’s personality and adopted one of his ”looks” to create the movie character, James Bond, in the 1960s movie-series.*

No one ever suggested that Ronald Reagan used plastic surgery to make himself appear more Che-like. But look at Ronald’s before and after pictures. You decide.

* We investigated the assertion that Sean Connery’s James Bond is a caricature of Che Guevara. It turns out Billy Lee said this, and maybe a couple of his imaginary friends. The Editorial Board

Billy Lee’s Acknowledgement:
The most important source of information for this essay was Jon Lee Anderson‘s Che Guevara, a Revolutionary Life, published in 1997. The New York Times called it, the complete and definitive biography of Che Guevara.

I cut the disturbing cover off the book in order to read it (it scared me), and willed myself to peer through the negative colors its author used to paint Che’s portrait on its 780 pages. I believe I found the truth Anderson buried there.

Billy Lee

**John F. Kennedy**, 35th President of the United States. Here is a link to the quote below.

** October 24, 1963
I believe that there is no country in the world…where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country’s policies…. In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries. That is perfectly clear.

… In any case, the nations of Latin America are not going to attain justice and progress…through communist subversion. They won’t get there by…a Marxist dictatorship.

U.S. President John F. Kennedy
35th President of the United States
Assassinated November 22, 1963

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February 16, 2015April 3, 2022

CUBA

The Cuban revolution was one of the most exciting news events of my childhood. Our family moved to Key West, ninety miles from Cuba, in 1960, shortly after the transfer of power.

My dad’s job was to run HS-1, the Navy jet-helicopter squadron that defended southern Florida from attack by Russian submarines. Some of these subs were hanging-out around Cuba, Dad said, so I took an interest in what was going on there.

Che Guevara, Argentine physician, and his Cuban friend, attorney Fidel Castro, enjoy a happy moment. Their joy in victory gave way to worry as two super-powers — the USSR and the USA — fought to take control of their revolution.

People born in the 1960s and later have no easy way to know that U.S. media once portrayed Fidel Castro and Che Guevara as heroes — at least during the early phases of their risky and dangerous attempt to unseat the president of Cuba, Fulgencio Batista. The two revolutionaries and ten of their close friends led the volunteers of a resistance they called Movimiento 26 de Julio to success on New Year’s Day 1959 — a month before my eleventh birthday.

To put some context on the Cuban revolution and its significance, recall that the land-mass of Cuba is almost four-fifths the land-mass of Florida. Florida is huge, as anyone who has driven its length or breadth knows. Cuba’s land area is an astonishing 42,426 square miles, which makes it one of the largest islands in the world. Only sixteen islands are larger.

Unlike Florida, Cuba has mountains, which add land area in the vertical direction. Florida lacks mountains. It’s flat. And Cuba is home to four-thousand satellite islands and cays.

Before the revolution, Cuba grew tobacco and sugar-cane. Pressures mounted on the country to grow more. By 1959, three out of four men in America used tobacco. Parents weaned their children off mother’s milk and replaced it with sugary cereals like Sugar Pops and Frosted Flakes. The USA became the world’s most voracious consumer of sugar.

Americans no longer warred in Europe and Asia. It was time for fun; for new ways to enjoy life. Demand for the products of Cuban agriculture grew beyond sugar and tobacco, led by new patterns of consumption in the United States.

To take advantage of the boom in agriculture, non-Cuban farmers and ranchers (most from the USA) began buying-up the island’s arable land. By 1958, foreigners owned three-quarters.

American oil-companies located refineries in Cuba. Pornography was catching-on in America, so businessmen from the USA began producing “dirty movies” and magazines in Cuba to distribute illegally inside the United States. International cartels and American crime-families constructed gambling casinos on Cuban beach-fronts for newly affluent American tourists who were seeking good times in warm weather.

By 1959, Cuba was showing the first signs of developing into an economic power-house. Anyone who has viewed the Godfather movies from the 1970s knows that organized-crime bosses vacationed in Cuba before the revolution; they were in bed with General Batista, the island’s dictator-president.

Cuban-Revolution-in-Color-Photos-January-1959-1 — It was difficult for most Cubans to believe that the young revolutionaries of the July 26th movement had overthrown the hated and feared Batista cartel. Some thought the revolution would be short-lived.

After the final success of the revolution on January 1 – 1959, everything changed. Sex-clubs and gambling casinos shut down never to re-open. Land-holders and business owners closed their estates and enterprises and fled the island for safe sanctuaries to wait for news about what might happen next.

At the same time, a holiday mood swept across the island. New Year’s celebrations in Cuba became ecstatic. The common people in their millions partied like it was 1959 in a kind of happy, helpless disbelief.

No one was sure the revolution would last, but most were grateful to the women and men who gave their lives to liberate them and throw out the hated and feared Batista family and their abusive friends. At one event in mid-January, a million people (one-sixth of the island’s population) gathered to hear Castro speak. It was the largest public demonstration in history up to that time.

For wealthy Cubans, events felt much different. They began flying off the island by the hundreds, leaving their property to lie fallow with relatives while they waited in the USA and other countries for the new government to collapse and fail.

Che Guevara and Aleida March Cuba revolution — Aleida March worked in the Cuban Revolutionary Courier Service (the rebel post office for classified communications). A few months after the revolution was won, she married Che Guevara and bore him four children.

But by autumn of 1960, despite a covert program of bombings and assassinations by the USA to destabilize the island, Cubans firmly established their revolution. When American oil-refineries refused to process Russian crude, Cuba nationalized them; the USA retaliated by unleashing an economic embargo, which remains in-effect (with some changes) to this day. When business owners refused to re-open their factories and farms, Cubans opened and operated them themselves.

I remember going to school in Key West with dozens of rich Cuban kids who all hated the revolution. In fact, I never did meet a refugee who liked Castro and his revolution despite the obvious benefits he promised (and later delivered) to average island residents who were impoverished at the time.

Come to think of it, I never met a black Cuban refugee either, though blacks and bi-racials made up a third of the island’s population. The role of race in the revolution is a part of the Cuban story that begs to be told, but I’m not the one to tell it, at least not yet. I need to do more research.

I didn’t live in Cuba.

The only black person I knew was our maid, and she was American. I do know enough to mention that Castro’s close friend and favorite military commander was Juan Almeida Bosque, the Havana-born freedom fighter (and song-writer) who was wildly popular among the then disenfranchised black population of Cuba. Enough said. I included Juan’s picture at the end of this post.

fidel castro on time magazine cover — Fidel Castro was generally praised in US media until analysts discovered Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba.

In the American press (which I read voraciously even at the tender age of eleven or twelve) adulation for the Cuban revolution went on pretty much unabated until the USA caught the Soviet Union installing missiles on the island, most probably in late 1960 or early 1961. By September, Congress would ban aid to any country that had relations with Cuba.

Later, in early 1962, a friend of our family and former neighbor, Art Lundahl, uncovered possible nuclear missile-sites and the construction of submarine bases during photo-analyses of the island. (The British “knighted” Lundahl in 1974 for his discoveries as well as for contributions made in prior conflicts.)

After these unsettling discoveries, our leaders felt betrayed by Castro, to say the least. President Kennedy in April 1961 permitted the CIA to drag the USA into the fiasco of the Bay of Pigs invasion and, when that backfired — the USSR reacted by sending more military-aid, not less, including 42,000 soldiers, 42 MIG fighters, 42 bombers and, yes, the nuclear missiles — the stage was set for ensuing nightmare of October 1962, which is now called the Cuban Missile Crisis.

After a couple of nervous (some would say terrifying) weeks — during which Cuba shot down one of our high-altitude spy planes — the Soviets offered to remove their nuclear missiles from Cuba, if we removed ours from Turkey, a country near theirs. We agreed.

It’s a good thing, because we learned later that operational nuclear weapons had already been deployed on the island; weapons we knew nothing about. According to historian Richard Rhodes, three-megaton hydrogen bombs mounted on SS-4 missiles hid in Cuba’s tropical forests; the missiles when fired could reach Washington D.C and obliterate it. The missiles we photographed were not yet operational, which gave our leaders false confidence.

A preemptive military attack by the USA on Cuba would have precipitated nuclear war with the Soviets, according to former Defense Secretary William Perry, who operated a high-tech listening post during the crisis.

Because of anti-Castro hysteria developing in right-wing political circles at the time, government officials told the public only that the Soviet Union and Cuba capitulated to our demands after we promised not to attack the island. Full details of the quid-pro-quo weren’t released until years later.

The crisis ended, but both Kennedy and Khrushchev (the Russian leader) did not survive the aftermath. Khrushchev fell from power in a kind of coup by Communist Party leaders on the third anniversary of the missile-crisis. He became depressed and died in 1971 of a heart attack.

Lee Harvey Oswald, a former employee of US intelligence, assassinated Kennedy in 1963, almost exactly one year after the crisis and almost exactly two years before Khrushchev fell from power. Within two years of Kennedy’s assassination and coincident with Khrushchev’s fall, Cuba formally adopted Communism.

Cuba is a mountainous country with close to 80% of the land area of Florida. — Cuba is a mountainous country with about 80% of the landmass of Florida.

life magazine turns on fidel castro in june 1961 — After he captured 1,200 Cuban exiles who were fighting under the direction of the CIA during the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, Life Magazine led the media charge against Fidel Castro in its June 2, 1961 issue. Notice the photo-shopped grey tooth.

In those days, magazines like Time, Newsweek and US News and World Report were the main sources of in-depth news and analysis for most civilians. It was a time when electronic calculators, computers, IPads, IPhones, and Internet services simply did not exist.

Television news was little more than fifteen minutes of reading headlines interrupted by a few commercials. Half-hour news programs didn’t start until the fall of 1963 — just a few weeks before the Kennedy assassination. Newspapers were important, but many of the best reporters worked for the three news-magazines, which shared a huge readership by today’s standards.

These magazines ran adoring pictures of Cuba’s revolutionary heroes alongside in-depth analyses of all they did and were accomplishing, both before and after 1959. Our country’s pervasive print-media seemed fascinated by the idea of common people overthrowing an invincible dictator tied to organized crime.

This fascination continued for almost two years until the day of April 17, 1961 when Americans woke up to learn that Cuban exiles living in the United States had launched an invasion of their former country against Fidel Castro. Within three days, over 1,200 of these Cuban exiles were captured by Castro, who led the Cuban defenders. Almost instantly, USA media turned against Fidel and the Cuban revolution.

bay of pigs prisoners held in sports palace — Cuba held nearly 1,200 CIA-trained fighters after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. By the time the invaders exhausted their ammunition and were captured, they had killed or wounded over 5,000 native Cubans. These POWs are being held in one of the island’s sports-arenas. Former Navy Commander James Donovan — played by Tom Hanks in Steven Spielberg’s 2015 *Bridge of Spies* movie — negotiated their release and the release of an additional 8,500 civilians in exchange for medical supplies.

The invasion came as a shock to the general public. No one knew at the time that the CIA had organized it. No one could understand why Cuban exiles would attack their own country in what was clearly a suicide mission — at least that is what the Bay of Pigs would have become had Castro not shown restraint.

Few civilians outside of government knew then that Castro was in the process of aligning himself with a Communist super-power, the Soviet Union, with whom we were then fighting a vigorous cold war. Apparently Castro and his advisors felt that in the contest between the USA and the USSR — where they found themselves toyed-with like a chess-game pawn — the USSR was the lesser of two evils.

I remember reading articles in Time magazine about Fidel and feeling thrilled that people like him actually walked the earth who weren’t afraid to stand up to the gangs we learned years later to call the Mafia and to all those other evil-monopoly-types who corrupted popularly elected governments.

The press in the United States covered Castro and Guevara in much the same way they covered, a few years later, the Beatles during the British Invasion of 1964. I found myself seduced by the good guys verses bad guys dichotomy described by the popular press.

Of course, everything changed after our family friend, Mr. Lundahl, discovered that the new Cuban government was in bed with our nemesis, the Soviet Union. Even today, people forget that Cuba did not become Communist until 1965, three years after the Cuban Missile Crisis. American civilians had no idea that the USSR was trying to get a toehold in the western hemisphere through a military alliance with the Florida-sized island.

cuba missile installations — Government-analyst and family friend, the late Sir Arthur Lundahl, discovered nuclear-missiles in Cuba during a routine review of spy-plane photos.

As soon as Americans saw the photos of missile silos (or whatever those blurry images were that appeared ominously in Time and Life magazine in the fall of 1962) the honeymoon was over. Whatever good-will remained between Americans and Cubans after the Bay of Pigs now officially ended.

Overnight, Cuban heroes became in the eyes of our media reckless peasants who were in-over-their-heads and playing-with-fire as they entertained what were apparently their Russian suitors, mentors, and friends.

During the missile crisis, my dad led — from a military base on the island of Key West — the Navy anti-submarine helicopter squadron, HS-1.

HS-1 (de-activated in 1997) was tasked to keep under 24/7 surveillance the nuclear-armed Russian submarines then swarming the Florida keys and Cuba. I remember Dad scattering about on the islands in our area the squadron’s assets (including helicopters) to better protect them from a nuclear strike he believed might actually come.

I remember the military ordering everyone in Key West to fill their bathtubs with drinking water and to take other precautions they thought might help if the Russians shut-off our supplies. In those days all fresh-water came through a small above-ground pipe which ran alongside the only highway through the Florida keys.

Should the Russians cut both the water pipe-line and the highway — to isolate Key West from the mainland — we would at least have bathtubs of water to drink.

Well, as everyone knows, the crisis resolved. Neither side fired nuclear missiles. [In 1989, the Soviets revealed (and U.S. intelligence confirmed) that 24 locked and loaded nuclear missiles were already installed on the island of Cuba, which the Kennedy administration knew nothing about — according to historian Richard Rhodes. Had the USA attacked Cuba as advocated by some advisors, a nuclear exchange would have destroyed Florida and much of the Southern United States. The Editorial Board ]

The elites in both the USSR and the USA sobered up a little, thankfully, and endeavored to tighten their stewardship over these horrific weapons. We haven’t had a nuclear close-call (at least any known to the public) since.

What about Cuba?

The United States imposed a naval blockade around the island during the missile-crisis. Under international law, a blockade is considered an act of war, so President Kennedy referred to it as a quarantine.

After it ended, the USA resumed the embargo first established in 1960 in response to oil-refinery confiscations. This embargo, with modifications, persists to the present day. More about the embargo later.

In the meantime, within a few short years, the USA interjected itself militarily into the Vietnam civil-war where our French friends and their South Vietnamese allies were suffering a catastrophic defeat at the hands of President Ho Chi Minh and General Giap, the charismatic leaders of the North.

The United States ended up conducting intensive military operations for eight years in Vietnam before abandoning the South to certain defeat in 1972.

To provide soldiers for this war, a military draft of hundreds-of-thousands of civilians began in the middle 1960s. Young people, especially students, got upset — livid, really.

By the time I started college, a few of my acquaintances were traveling to Cuba to train in the art of revolution. They went to learn how to challenge and transform the beast in whose belly they thought they lived.

What did the revolutionary leaders of Cuba teach them?

cuba car — After the USA blockade (*quarantine*) and embargo, many Cubans preserved their US made automobiles. Some are now worth in excess of one-hundred thousand dollars.

It turns out, the revolutionary vanguard taught them how to work hard to plant and harvest sugar-cane. The Cubans told them that no one in a country as wealthy as the United States was going to revolt so why waste their time?

They said that working hard for the benefit of all, not the few, was the way to build a fair and just society. They taught service to society through hard work and good example; they advised students not to take all they could manage to pile-up for their efforts but only their fair share to avoid humiliating those weaker and less able than themselves. They advised their American visitors to share their wealth instead of sequestering and hoarding it.

Che_Guevara_June_2,_1959 a few months after the revolution — Che Guevara, some years after the revolution. Che was executed by Bolivian soldiers in 1967, four years after the Kennedy assassination and four years before a heart attack killed Nikita Khrushchev.

Some of my friends were disappointed by the attitude of the Cubans, which they hadn’t expected. But others internalized what they learned and became the better for it.

As we mentioned earlier, the United States, after the missile-crisis, imposed an embargo that has lasted to the present day. Over the next fifteen years the United States sharpened the teeth of its embargo and ratcheted-up a covert program of sabotage and assassination to destabilize the island.

By 1975, the draconian features of the embargo were damaging not only Cuba but other countries and a number of international corporations. In 1976 a rogue CIA operative broke the final straw by blowing up Cuban Airways flight 455 killing all seventy-three passengers on board, including elite athletes. It was the first terrorist bombing of a civilian aircraft in our hemisphere.

The harsh conditions of the embargo might have forced the Cubans to their knees, but lobbying by the international community convinced Congress to tinker with the embargo details to make them more humane. Congress made changes to the embargo that enabled Cuba’s survival and ascendancy.

One exemption was permission for the Cubans themselves to buy food and medical supplies. Blocked from selling cigars, agricultural products, and everything else they made to the countries of the Western hemisphere and virtually the entire industrialized-world outside the Soviet-bloc, Cubans decided to enter the medical business.

Leveraging their freedom to buy food and medicine, they opened medical universities and started graduating doctors as fast as they could. They invited students from around the world to attend their medical schools. They started sending doctors on missions of mercy to needy countries in South America, Africa and anywhere else they might be welcome.

Then AIDs broke out, in 1981. A few years later, in 1995, Ebola struck big in the African Congo. Cuban doctors found themselves on the front lines fighting diseases that really scared people.

People began to take notice. Famous people like CNN‘s Ted Turner, Chrysler’s chief executive, Lee Iacocca, and South Africa’s Nelson Mandela made pilgrimages to Cuba to meet its leaders and to spend time hunting and fishing with its dynamic president, Fidel Castro.

castro in old age talking to Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff — Brazil’s President, Dilma Rousseff, chats with Fidel Castro. Fidel has outlived his enemies, and is now retired. **Editors Note — added 18 September 2018:** Fidel passed on 25 November 2016 at age 90. Two months earlier, on 31 August 2016, Dilma Rousseff became the first democratically-elected female President in the world to be impeached and removed from office.

Influential people began to show concern for the people of Cuba, because Cubans chose to travel the humanitarian road of healing when other routes were blocked by the embargo and the efforts by the United States to shun and isolate them. To show respect and appreciation, leaders in countries around the world, some in Europe and the affluent West, decided to ignore the USA-led embargo and once again trade with Cuba.

Worried about Cuba’s growing prestige, the United States decided to undermine Cuban medical assistance to other countries by passing a 2006 law to grant automatic citizenship to any Cuban doctor who practices medicine outside Cuba and is able to find their way to one of its embassies.

Cuba’s response since 2006 has been to offer medical training to 30,000 students from 125 countries around the world — who aren’t covered by the act of Congress — even as they continue to add to their own legions of medical professionals.

In the spirit of the adage, when you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, about a thousand Cuban doctors have left foreign service during the past ten years to come to the United States, where they aren’t needed. Sadly, hospitals and licensing agencies inside the USA have been slow to recognize their credentials, according to the New York Times.

Most have taken jobs outside of medicine to keep themselves afloat while they hope for better days. In any event, the effect of the effort by Congress to undermine the Cuban world-healthcare delivery program, though annoying, has been largely unsuccessful.

Despite relentless programs by the USA to thwart everything Cuban, the island — with assistance from the civilized world — has begun to blossom. Today it is blooming into a splay of color and opportunity even the United States cannot ignore.

One indicator is its HDI (Human Development Index) rating, which has risen to 81.5%. Cuba is now in third place behind Canada and the USA in the Western Hemisphere. It stands 44th among the 187 countries on the HDI list; all this improvement in the face of a ruthless fifty-four year embargo by the United States and its allies.

Juan Bosque, one of Castro's closest friends and most powerful generals, passed away on September 11, 2009. He was 82. — Juan Almeida Bosque, Castro’s close friend and favored General, passed away on 11 September 2009 from heart failure. He was 82.

A princess is emerging onto the world stage, and many countries seem to want to dance with her. The United States, her abuser — the country who told all the others to hate, forsake, and despise her — has found itself the odd-man out.

And the money! The money to be made is enormous. Our elites don’t want to miss the boat. They don’t want the choo-choo train of opportunity to leave them standing at the station, hat in hand.

They plead with princess Cuba. Let’s pretend the past is over and let bygones be bygones. No hard feelings, they insist. Can we visit from time to time?

They bat their lashes and bow their heads. They upturn their eyes and fill them with crocodile tears. They whisper seductively. They implore with outstretched hands.

Do you mind? We’ll build family-friendly casinos on your best beaches. It will be like old times — just the two of us, once more and forever.

Billy Lee

Post Script: The Cuban Revolution was a complex and drawn-out affair. To help readers better understand its twists, turns, detours, course-corrections, intrigues, betrayals, successes and failures, Billy Lee has, as usual, provided links to some good articles. For readers who may want to learn more about modern-day Cuba from someone who travels there, Billy Lee has provided this link. The Editorial Board.

Hannabanilla Lake in the Escambray Mountains, Cuba. — Hanabanilla Lake in the Escambray Mountains, Cuba. In 1961, the United States planned to use the Escambray Mountains as a base of operations for a counter-revolution after a successful landing-assault at the Bay of Pigs. The plan depended on defections by Cuban military officers, assassinations of key political leaders and support from the indigenous population, none of which materialized.

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November 5, 2014April 3, 2022

ELECTION 2014

In an effort to bring common sense to government, citizens of the United States voted yesterday to restore control of the Senate and House of Representatives to the Republican Party. Barack Hussein Obama, the Kenyan usurper — the first modern president to misplace his birth certificate — called the vote, idiotic.

Republicans have vowed to quickly demonstrate their ability to lead by promising to impeach both President Obama and VP Joe Biden so that sobbing John Boehner — the House Majority Leader (and next in line) — can ascend to the Oval Office.

Boehner, for his part, pledged to repeal the Affordable Care Act and return health-care in America to what it has always been — unaffordable.

The Grand Old Party promised to eliminate taxes on anyone earning over one-million dollars per year to “free up the economy” and bring prosperity to America — like was done in 2008, at the end of the Bush administration.

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Triumphant GOP honchos guaranteed they will annihilate ISIS, totally eradicate diseases like Ebola and the dreaded GAY, and make Ted Cruz a household name. They pledged to intensify the national campaign to improve racial segregation by offering low-interest loans to gated-communities, private golf-resorts and home-schools.

And — in a bold election year tip-of-the-hat to Alaska, Wisconsin and Michigan — they swore to raise the temperature of planet Earth to a more comfortable setting by ignoring silly scientists who are always belly-aching about global warming.

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GOP paladins vowed to construct a half-mile wide oil-filled ignite-able moat (you know, the kind they dig around castles) to stop the huddled Mexican masses yearning to breathe free from ever crossing the border into the United States again.

Last (but not least) they agreed to work with Democrats to fund firearms training for preschoolers.

Christian leaders praised today’s election results: it pleased Jesus, it really did, to learn that responsible, rich people with good values were finally going to fix things in America.

No more Muslim presidents, GOP preachers asserted confidently. Nor brown-skinned, another giggled.

Billy Lee

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TOP TWEETS

Last month we published tweets from my first thirty days on Twitter. This month, we publish a sampling of my best tweets ever, gleaned from the three years I tweeted regularly. A lot of thought went into each tweet when it was composed, and more thought has gone into selecting the “finalists” which made it into this new collection. I hope readers find them entertaining and thought provoking.

I’ve come to regret tweeting some of my original tweets, which, in retrospect, seemed to me too emotional and extreme. My son once told me my tweets were dumb. After reviewing all of them, it’s clear he was right about at least some of them. I no longer tweet regularly on Twitter.

Anyway, get ready for a controversial ride. These tweets are hot. If you disagree or have doubts or if you’re simply curious, click on the many embedded links to learn more.

Note: links have been added to some of the original tweets to provide readers with background and context. A few tweets have been edited for clarity.

If acorns tasted better, there’d be no need for farming.

The squirrels in our neighborhood have opposable thumbs & sometimes stand upright.

An airline CEO told a friend that 24 Al-Qaeda crews were active on 911. I know, sounds crazy.

Where’d daddy go? He died, momma. When’d he die? Two months ago, momma. Oh, did I kill him? Alzheimer’s 101

In the old days cigarette butts were everywhere. Now you rarely see one.

Living forever, or just one day, feels the same. We live in the present.

Going for a walk. Hope the packs of wolf-coyote hybrids NatGeo says are out there don’t eat me.

Has it occurred to anyone else that the Restasis lady may, in fact, be an alien?

We have freedom of speech as long as nobody listens.

If USA GNP was divided equally, every family of four would get $200,000 per year. [($15.2 T/309 M) * 4 ].

Clean coal is only clean before you dig it up and actually touch it.

During the next 25,000 years, containment structures for nuclear weapons will corrode & release plutonium killing all life on earth.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 40 – Son: Dad! Stop Twitter now! You sound loopy! Me: You don’t understand, son. I’m free.

What we learned during the past 10 years: throwing an election has consequences.

Have waited 50 years to vacation on a Cuban beach. Still waiting.

Love this animation showing how DNA/RNA works… http://t.co/rYaG8cau

Michigan has thousands of clear-water lakes. Fish got there from geese and ducks carrying sticky fish-eggs on their webbed feet.

Solar bottle-bulbs provide free light to folks in dark houses. http://t.co/1Hk01AA1

Only a nation asleep would allow individuals to accumulate billions of dollars. Are you kidding me?!?

Permitting the wealthy to go into the prison business presents incredible dangers to our freedoms.

If aliens are the size of grasshoppers, we might not notice an invasion until it’s too late.

Ayn Rand destroyed America.

Nuclear plant meltdowns are almost certain during earthquakes above 8.0. Since 1900, 100 have occurred, none in the USA. http://t.co/KUhuFw88

tend to lie about the effectiveness of their drugs.

USA GNP is 7% of its accumulated wealth. It’s why small changes in GNP don’t affect us much. http://t.co/PmHlp5xL

Billionaires harm democracies. You know they do. Set max. worth at $150 million. Those who have more must divest.

During slavery, plantation owners were the job creators. They created millions of jobs.

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The only threat to our freedom greater than billionaires is a government controlled by billionaires.

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No such thing as trace amounts of plutonium. It gets passed around in wind & rain forever. You will never see the speck that kills you.

All drones are piloted by somebody.

I’m old and cold and not very bold; my teeth are inlaid with gold. My chin has a fold; I’m covered with mold; when I go, my nose I must hold.

We don’t need a revolution. We just need to limit how much people can steal before they have to divest. No more billionaires. http://www.theguardian.com/video

Pre-Civil War plantation owners were some of the most effective job-creators in our nation’s history.

Ayn Rand Objectivism is a modern day Divine Right of Kings written to convince the gullible that billionaires have a moral right to rule.

Squirrels have developed agriculture. They plant trees and store walnuts which they eat out-of-season.

Favorite Spartacus video clip… http://t.co/IsedM4xD

Copyrights that last years after an author’s death are un-American. People get money for what they didn’t write?

I love the smell of marijuana in the morning. It smells like freedom.

Capitalism is the plantation system of the old South renamed & repackaged for modern wage earners.

This explanation of ozone is very good… http://t.co/cwRrYIQo

Chances of being eaten by a mountain lion are 1 in ten million — unless the lion is 100 feet away & hungry.

This notion that somehow people are entitled to unlimited wealth is destroying civilization. Soon, we’ll be serfs again.

Big Tobacco — when they advertised in the 1950s — talked 70% of men into smoking. We can be brainwashed. https://watch?v=sxrCjmqRTz0

Advocates of nuclear energy are like the people of Easter Island who destroyed their civilization for a few more hours of campfire.

America has a permanent over-class. Until we deal with it, we are serfs.

Atheists would rob me of any hope against death.

Incandescent bulbs — now banned — are hot. We need them in winter.

40% of electricity bill is wasted charging AC/DC electronic devices. This fix is cool. http://t.co/8gWRO1l6

Plutonium escaped at Fukushima. How dangerous is it? http://uploads/1997/07/no-3.pdf

At the heart of every fortune lies a dark secret.

The wealthy have divested the middle-class & limited our incomes. It’s time to turn the tables.

USA politics consists of arguing about how aggressive the financial shake-down of the middle-class should be.

It’s the redistribution of wealth to a permanent over-class that we’re fighting against. #occupywallstreet

Fantasy-nightmare vision of Ayn Rand was a poison apple. It ushered in a facist USA, where billionaires now rule us. #ows

Gated communities are another form of segregation.

Homework in elementary school demoralizes students, short circuits passive processing, dampens creativity & makes kids dumb.

RT @pdjmoo: THE LIONESS AND THE CALF: Lovely Watch. A short documentary that will open your eyes. – http://t.co/S8okiyJ2

Baby Boomers are the Greatest Generation. They ended racial segregation & the Vietnam War. They started the high-tech revolution.

Rage and old age make a sage.

If humans were the size of squirrels and lived in people’s yards, could they survive?

RT @nytimesscience: Bursts of Fission Detected at Fukushima Reactor in Japan http://t.co/lZsThJNT

JFK fired the CIA Director who later sat on the Warren Commission.

It’s easier to control un-informed people. Education will never be cool while billionaires rule.

Nice one-minute explanation of GPS & effects of special & general relativity…
http://t.co/T1z6gUm4

Twenty-three million government workers in the USA. No way private sector can provide full employment. See pg 30. http://t.co/2Btdfbjs

Tea Party types don’t get that government is all that stands between them & tyranny by billionaires. Divest billionaires. #ows

Billionaires build their power by corrupting our representative government. Divest them. #ows

Well, Gitmo prison is going strong & we’re killing Americans with drones. What good is Obama besides not being a Republican? Just asking.

That country singer who used to crow, wanna watch some football? & called Obama Hitler was on CMA tonight. He got a standing ovation.

Billionaires seduce consumers into supporting “free markets” which they rule as personal fiefdoms. #ows

Billionaires used the tax cuts we gave them to solidify their vice-grip on our “democratic” institutions. #ows

Cults of personality never work out well. #Paterno

MSNBC reporting that the District Attorney in the #Paterno sex crime scandal went missing in 2005.

How many of those who laughed at Howard Hughes for using Kleenex boxes as shoes ever tried it themselves?

USA psycho-terror: Bahgram, Gitmo, SuperMax, rampant solitary. Sick minds created these nightmares.

Many billionaires are tied to drugs (legal/illegal) & the military.

Earth is broadcasting itself on all EM frequencies. If aliens are out there they will find us.

After Vietnam, anti-war activists were black-listed from top jobs. The consequences for the USA have been devastating.

If billionaires won’t agree to tax fairness, what other reasonable requests will they crush?

TWITTER-LOG: Day 117 – been following some celebs like Vonnegut & Von Braun. Even tweeted them. Wife just informed me, they’re both dead.

Portraying oppressor as victim is as old as human tyranny. #ows #OccupyEarth

Quantum physicists & priests approach absurdity in different ways: one through reason; one through faith.

Am passing by hundreds of hyperactive squirrels on my walks. Thus far, none have mindlessly attacked me.

Successful revolutions never have popular support until they’re won.

Rupert Murdoch of Fox News bought the Wall Street Journal. It’s Fox propaganda now. Don’t read it.

You treat us like dirt & live safe behind gates. The least you could do is pay some taxes. #ows

The Bush tax cuts gave more money to the average millionaire than a lifetime of social security checks.

Cuba has one of the best health care systems in the world. Our sick can’t go there.

Bell’s theorem is irrelevant if entangled particles are single wave-particle objects (like oscillating bubbles). http://t.co/qzWRDLqx

Carbon dioxide is heavy, so the little there is stays close to the earth where plants can breath it.

The notion — main-streamed by Ayn Rand — that taxation is theft ruined all that was fair & good about the USA.

If life is distributed over the widest range of temperatures then typical civilizations might be cryogenic & radio-wave sensitive.

The dilemma of the rich is they can only live in one place at a time, operate one transport at a time, make love to one person at a time.

People understand the Universe the way smart goldfish might understand the Earth.

Earth’s neighbors are small with little gravity. We can visit & come back. We have the perfect spaces to learn.

First thing women did after getting the vote was enact Prohibition — because their husbands drank & beat them.

This could be huge — esp. regarding intelligence & learning. http://t.co/8OEbNOtd

How did paper planes launched from a small number of boats & dropping unguided munitions sink so many ships at Pearl Harbor?

GOP repealed Michigan unit-pricing. At check out, we can’t tell if stuff rang up right. At home, we can’t review what we paid.

No black man has ever led a major world power until Barack Obama.

Kirk Douglas reflects on life in letter to Christopher Hitchens… http:/?2011/09/kirk-douglas-201109

Billionaires will be passing 30 trillion dollars to their kids in coming decades.

Somewhere in the oceans are a few genius dolphins. We should find them.

When looking into the eyes of war-dogs returning from Iraq, one can’t help feeling that some have seen too much.

Christopher Hitchens said his biggest fear was — near certain death & in pain — he might cry-out to Christ Jesus to save him.

North Koreans fake-cry better than citizens of any other country. http://t.co/qg3LFCWz

If private companies could create full employment, they would have to hire 13M unemployed & 23M govt workers: 36M people.

Government should provide free basic-food to anyone who wants it: potatoes, rice, beans, oil, corn. It would cost almost nothing.

Drew USA flag billowing in the wind. Teacher said: you can’t draw straight lines? Art career died that day. In kindergarten.

You never hear about good marriages, because the people in them aren’t talking.

All trees fall down, yet few people have ever seen one fall.

We could put direct-current fuel cells in every neighborhood in the USA for the cost of a few nuclear power plants.

People who make sure they eat at least three balanced meals per day are usually fat.

25 dimensionless constants make our universe work the way it does.

Nothing smells better to me than my own armpits.

If the current Social Security tax rate was applied to all income, it would provide $25,000 per year to every old person.

Genes, like those for intelligence, can be passed between species by viruses.

Didn’t watch GOP debate but am certain it was the stupid-est thing on television tonight.

RT @cracked: 5 Absurd Solutions to Huge Problems (That Actually Worked): http://t.co/RpJpSWYL

Einstein’s statement that God does not play at dice flies in the face of Proverbs 16:33.

Billionaire propaganda station, NBC News, is reporting Romney family origin was in Mexican poverty. That should work.

The Siberian wilderness in Russia has 35% more land mass than the contiguous USA.

Billionaires destroy democracies.

Assume reality is an [n x n] matrix. Then the least expensive # of dimensions is when (n^3 / 3) = n^2 . So n=3. http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm

Romney said his speaking fee ($375,000) wasn’t much. It’s about what the President is paid per year.

RT @QuotesByArtists: There is no mistaking a real book when one meets it. It is like falling in love. — Christopher Morley

The Romney Flat Tax (15%) works out to a 300% increase on low wagers; 50% decrease on the 1%. Typical GOP idea.

Obama can sing like Al Green. Makes me feel happy. http://t.co/GspEqOEd

Never understood why anyone would put themselves on a boat with thousands of people they don’t know. http://www.cnn.com/travel/carnival

We don’t know the names of the billionaires who rule us.

Until we get it — that billionaires we don’t know rule us — nothing political will make sense. It not about us. It’s about them.

Insiders who killed Kennedy want us to know he was a monster.

The conspirators sat on the Warren Commission. They put a Secret Service agent on the grassy knoll. Oswald was a patsy.

Workers need a Bill of Rights. Take away employers’ power to fire “at will.” Due process required.

The public lives inside an information bubble created to entertain, not inform.

Politicians are not the best people to teach us about Jesus.

20% of Americans think the sun revolves around the earth. Kudos, USA. http://t.co/wWdEmDNv

Ronald Reagan accepted a $2M gift from the Japanese after his final term. Why? Auto imports?

Iran can get a nuclear bomb anytime by buying one from another country. What they can’t do is buy hundreds.

Expansion of space means our current vehicle technology — given unlimited fuel & time — can take us no further than 1B light years from Earth.

All cars in Iran run on natural gas. All cars in Brazil run on sugar cane flex-fuel. Why? The oil is running out.

Don’t kid yourself. If you are worth less than $20 million, you are one of the little people.

Most of USA’s best food is exported to wealthy nations. We import from poor countries to make up shortfall.

12% of voters who earn less than $25K/ yr have no photo ID. GOP says they shouldn’t vote.

RT @thequotemaster: Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves. -Abraham Lincoln http://t.co/J1mB7Eoa #quotes

The Bible is written for the wretched. It gives hope to the powerless, the exploited, the poor, the despised, the unloved.

Billionaires have the USA in a vice-grip. They control the media, courts & Congress. Everyone works for them.

In case you didn’t notice, Florida is still segregated. They have gated (segregated) neighborhoods everywhere.

The space between Earth & 1B light/yrs from Earth is expanding faster than our fastest spacecraft can travel.

Many Americans seem oblivious to the huge sums spent on ads to get them to accept the agenda of billionaires.

USA police forces are increasingly being manned by Iraq/Afganistan vets. Caution: these men are “militarized” and “weaponized.”

When someone says they totally agree with you, odds are they totally don’t.

The Bush family unleashed more hell on Earth than any family in recent memory. Kuwait, Iraq, Afganistan, 2000 election, 2008 crash; etc.

Anyone still remember when Enron & GOP drove Calif Dem Governor out & put Arnold in? Enron bankrupt & Calif a mess. Thanks GOP.

Enron’s Ken Lay sat next to Bush at 2000 Inaugural. Jack-boots in street, protesters on sidewalks. Anyone remember? https://www.youtube.com/

Anyone who can donate $100,000 to a politician is, in all probability, a crook.

Hunger Games shows a world where the wealthy use government to torment the common people for fun. Sounds like the USA.

USA is run by permanent over-class who inherited money, reputation and power from their parents. Divest billionaires. Tax them.

If everyone drove cars with Chevy Volt style power plants, we could dismantle pipelines.

Tea Party “christians” let negative ads manipulate them into nominating a Mormon billionaire.

President Obama’s statement about Jesus this AM… http://t.co/NX2ZYha8

Let’s calm down. No Court worth its salt is going to overturn health-care. That would be insane.

All wars are wasteful. When we left Vietnam we left billions in air-conditioners, office furniture, vehicles, buildings, etc.

Fibonacci series in music with astronomy graphics in case you missed it… http://t.co/JbsSsBuO

Either tax twillionaires 92% like Eisenhower did or divest them. Otherwise lose the country to a permanent over-class.

Even in the contest between beast & man, the outcome is not certain. No Country for Old Men.

RT @keepingitraw: Radiation from Fukushima Disaster Found in California Kelp http://t.co/E9qNMokO

Earthlings: your puny brains have created a simplified approximation of reality you call “mathematics.” Free yourselves.

Revolutions never have popular support until they’re won.

What did Castro do? He threw the Mafia out of Cuba & set up an egalitarian society. No wonder billionaires hate him.

The Coal Cartel is right about one thing. They have a lot of coal to sell. They are wrong about this: coal is not clean.

Can’t we all just stop eating bacon…? http://t.co/HwOCP3gL

Imagine a 28 yr old black man with a gun on neighborhood-watch picking a fight with your son & killing him. Manslaughter?

Hannity is reporting a Fox News poll that shows Romney beating Obama 46% to 44%. Might as well forget about truth telling for a while.

RT @Art_Guy1: FACT: Obama’s tax plan raises his tax rate. Mitt Romney’s plan cuts his own taxes in half.

Churchill: I like pigs. Dogs look up to you. Cats look down on you. Pigs treat you like an equal.

We had a leader of the NY Stock Exchange who made more money in one day than Obama makes in a year.

Rush said Secret Service hooker scandal is Obama’s fault, because he overworks agents & keeps them from their wives.

According to Gallup & Fox polls, the election is over. Romney will be President.

Are we going to throw out a sitting President to satisfy the lunatics…? Ted Nugent threatens Obama… http://t.co/TeBX54wE

USA has been war-ing Stone-Age peoples since Vietnam. It never tires.

Make it a felony to possess more than, say, $150M, in cash, property & assets. Limit yearly incomes to $15M.

RT @JeffDauler: RT @CassandraYoung: Just remember, kids: every time you make a typo, the errorists win.

Communism, Socialism, Capitalism are utopian fantasies that don’t exist & never will in the real world. The USA is what it is.

The problem with the USA space program was lethality to employees. At least 82 died during its tenure. http://List_of_spaceflight-accidents

Obama doesn’t look American. You know. Fat.

Most prosecutors in the South don’t bring charges against whites in racial cases due to chance of being disbarred. Like the Duke rape case.

RT @YourAuntDiane: I like to talk to everyone like they’re dying of a dreadful disease. It makes me a better listener.

One thing to remember about the BP screw-up: there are thousands of wells in the Gulf. They all leak.

Taxes on the one-percenters are one-third of 1960; one-half of 1980. https://www.yhoutube.com/watch

Mexicans are beautiful people. Why can’t we open the border & let folks drive back & forth freely?

If we divested billionaires & divided their wealth equally to every citizen, a family-of-four would get $1,250,000.

The price of two wars & tax cuts for the rich has been $60,000 per family. Could use the money right now.

Does anyone find this explanation of consciousness compelling? It is certainly fascinating in the extreme. http://t.co/OqWiKSz4

It would be nice if the equation for the Theory of Everything was found to be less than 140 characters, so it can be tweeted.

Money loses its promise at the point of dying.

Have been hearing that Social Security is going bust for 50 years now. It’s like a broken record. The 1% don’t pay Social Security taxes.

Most gazelles in nature never get eaten by lions. They never even see one. https://www.youtube.com/

We never hear anyone on television talk about divesting billionaires. Why is that?

One of the good things Bush did as President was to popularize the now famous lexicon, Mission Accomplished. https://www.youtube.com/watch? https://www.youtube.com/watch

There is always some new disease to worry about and a drug dealer on TV eager to sell a solution. Only in America.

Americans don’t know the names of the billionaires who rule them. Who will tell them?

How do they keep black folks out of the Derby?

GM makes the best cars.

There’s this CIA guy named Rodriquez who is going on right-wing television slamming our elected officials. Weird.

When the wealthy push down wages, skilled labor evaporates.

Safety regulations, which auto firms once fought tooth and nail, have saved over 200,000 lives.

Leonard Susskind said it will take an accelerator the size of our galaxy to see the smallest particles. We aren’t there yet.

We had hamburgers tonight with no pink slime in them. What a difference. So good! https://www.youtube.com/watch

The game of pushing black men until they finally stand their ground and get killed or imprisoned is as old as America. #trayvonmartin

Honest people who have integrity and are not greedy cannot be cheated. They can be robbed and sometimes are.

It should be a felony for a private citizen to possess a billion dollars.

#ThoughtsLiberalsHaveAroundConservatives This guy’s a lunatic. Hope he doesn’t shoot me.

RT @therightblue: Antibiotic residue in seafood purchased at US grocery stores, experts say: http://t.co/mIPRDzFX

USA dropped equivalent of one Hiroshima bomb per day for 25 years on Bikini atoll. Ruined tourism. http://www.youtube.com/watch

Do you self-censor tweets, because your employer is watching? That’s not freedom.

God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Jesus.

Should we be fishing from the same pond we drill our oil and dump our garbage?

Long after humans, and all we’ve built, have vanished, alien visitors will know we were here from the plutonium we left behind.

Thirty-seven old nuclear plants on the Great Lakes with no place to store high level waste. http://t.co/Iasqrjn3

A country like the USA comes along once in ten-thousand years.

First Silent Majority, then Moral Majority, now New Majority. The GOP is always trying to start a bandwagon.

Still remember nuclear engineers telling me in 1977 that nuclear power was safe, and waste storage was no problem.

Seems like China is going to own the moon, it’s helium and rare-earth metals.

This Colbert quote about Christian Nation is pretty good. http://t.co/lZIMNw7j

Yes, it’s hot. But look at the bright side. In the next few years, it’s going to get a lot hotter.

RT @QuoteRevolution: The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it. ~John Hay

If you can discourage 1 out of 100 voters from voting by requiring photo ID, you can throw a lot of elections to the GOP.

Are Focus on the Family execs calling the USA to pray for rain at Romney nomination speech like they did for Obama 2008? http://t.co/XIdXcclo

How they hate Obama. What’s he ever done to them?

We learned how much the GOP wanted America to succeed when they refused to be led by a black man and trashed our country’s credit rating.

Billionaire-owned media portrays a failed President. But he saved the USA from collapse, killed OBL, passed medical-care.

We knew the Vietnam war was lost when USA soldiers fragged their officers. Afghan green-on-blue is same thing.

The political dominance of billionaires is USA’s biggest problem. GOP’s solution? Make one President.

The only thing not better than four years ago is right-wing media. Those morons never shut up.

Everyone fights for the middle-class. But they’re in the top 20% of income earners. What about the vast under-class?

It feels like the GOP/right wing/media/billionaires are sucking the air out of America. They are relentlessly negative.

As we age, our bodies become less like prisons and more like torture chambers.

It is disrespectful to bear-hug the President and lift him off his feet. The man is lucky he wasn’t shot.

USA should pass amendment making anyone who serves as President more than 3 years a natural-born citizen. Would shut-up birthers.

Tell the truth. Weren’t you scared of the Axis of Evil and Saddam’s WMD’s? GOP scared the crap out of us. No way we let them back in.

Only one person knows what it’s like to be the first black President.

The six Billionaires who own 85% of USA media have convinced most Americans it is a “liberal media.” Wow.

Romney said he will end estate taxes, which are the last defense the USA has against the establishment of a permanent royal-class.

GOP hack, John Sununu, called Obama “lazy” on Fox News.

Obama said he wasn’t perfect to counter GOP websites that are saying he claims to be Jesus and, therefore, is the anti-Christ.

Can’t remember an election with no GOP bumper stickers. Haven’t seen a Romney sticker yet. Anywhere. Strange.

Ambiguity is a tactic artists and politicians use to attract a mass audience.

It’s hard to believe that the land of the free and home of the brave would let 400 people sequester 1/8 of our national treasure.

Imagine Obama losing 241 Marines to a terrorist attack; losing an entire Shuttle crew; flooding the USA with Japanese cars…that was Reagan.

If the tax rate was at Kennedy levels, the USA would be awash with surplus cash.

To put things in perspective, Romney will get $4,566 from his annuity during the debate. Obama will get $91 from his salary.

Romney says his dad was born in Mexico. I remember when his dad ran for President. He said he was born in the USA, I think. https://www.youtube.com/

Today, Federal investigtors revealed more Secret Service agents using prostitutes while on duty overseas.

I don’t want to believe the GOP is strong enough to overthrow a President who hasn’t done anything wrong.

Many Christians turned on Jimmy Carter with a vengence. Now they rally around a Mormon to destroy Obama who is a convert to Christianity.

I keep waiting for conservatives to come to their senses about Obama — a brilliant and decent man. They never do.

What good is democracy if the billionaires always win?

Employers threatening to shut-down if Obama re-elected reminds me of threats to close shop if Civil Rights Act passed in 1964.

Today my pastor preached that Obamacare forces church organizations to participate in abortion or go out of business due to fines.

People think taxes will go down on the middle-class if Romney is elected. No, taxes will go down on the billionaires.

No one on television or radio or in newspapers or magazines will ever tell us to tax or divest billionaires. No one. Never.

How can anyone say USA is free when 400 families have sequestered 1/8 of our national treasure? Our country is a plantation.

Obama, a born-again Christian, must feel like Jesus himself as Christian leaders desert him for Mormon Romney, a compulsive liar.

Christian leaders showed their true colors this election. They took sides with the rich and powerful.

Put a Mormon missionary billionaire with strong ties to Mexico who won’t financially disclose in the White’s House?

Romney/GOP convention disrupted by hurricane. God making statement? http://thecolbertreport — hurricane-isaac

Seems like during every storm we find hospitals that put their back up generators in the basement where they are disabled by floods.

Four more days until Romney goes away. Can’t wait.

Female CNN announcer just said “atta boy” to Don Lemon. Young people don’t get how racist that sounds.

Do white people in Florida stand in four-hour lines to vote, like they make their colored folks do? Just asking. https://www.youtube.com/

On C-Span, just heard South Carolina woman say, Obama is the best candidate; and, yes, I am white.

#LieLikeMitt Jesus is Satan’s brother. Look it up. And thank you to all Christians who are voting for me.

Hope Romney and Ryan have a sense of humor, because the election tomorrow is going to be a joke.

Romney just lost in NH and Mass. where he has homes; MI where he grew up; and Wisc. where Ryan is from.

Thank you, Jesus.

Christian leaders hate Obama, because “sinners” love him.

Evangelical leaders sided with southern racists and the rich and powerful. https://www.youtube.com/watch

Romney was going to do a fireworks show in Boston Harbor after being declared winner. Thank God, it didn’t happen.

RT @A_ThinkingGirl: Boehner and McConnell Dissed Obama on Election Night; Refused Phone Calls from the President http://t.co/Pw4JkhpE

Thomas Ricks just told CNN that if you haven’t had an affair your not a player in the CIA. That is disturbing to me.

Getting old. Tweeted “your” instead of “you’re.” Sorry. Please forgive me.

Officers serve subject to the Code of Military Conduct. It prohibits adultery.

People who are good at maximizing their personal advantages over others often consider themselves worthy of further advantages.

Any business owner who lays off his workers because Obama won is mean-spirited. We need a bill of rights for workers.

Always thought embracing Bush holdovers like Betray-us was a mistake. Imagine if he’d been Romney’s VP choice.

Romney thought he was the savior on a white horse foretold by . Maybe next time.

RT @MariaLiaCalvo: Obama cries as he thanks his volunteers and campaign staff; Romney fires his staff and leaves them stranded.

From our adversaries point of view, Petraeus — who led the fight against them on behalf of the “great satan” — is an adulterer. Ouch.

Paula Broadwell might want to apologize to the nation and to her children and to her lover’s wife.

Never admired Petraeus, because Cheney and Bush pushed him into top leadership. Obama should have cleaned house, but GOP prevented it.

Got my skills going to school while on unemployment. Kids can’t do that today. GOP regulations destroyed this option in Michigan long ago.

Of all the top biographers Petraeus could have picked, he chose Paula Broadwell. It was a clue.

Would like to know if the Muslim militia got their prisoners back during Benghazi attack.

People love to go to war. Years later they complain about how it ruined them.

General Allen of Afganistan is now under investigation for links to Lebanese-American, Jill Kelly. Wow.

What we are witnessing is a high level purge of Bush protégés as Obama finally takes control of USA military and intelligence agencies.

RT @keepingitraw: Sky-high levels of radioactivity in fish from Fukushima means inedible seafood for at least a decade. http://t.co/vM3IyCbH

The Monica-Benghazi scandal is in full swing on the Hannity show.

Dear God, Barack Obama is in the belly of the beast fighting for what is right. Thank you for your holy angels who guard him.

Friend of my sister went back to her New Jersey apartment a week after Hurricane Sandy to find it ruined, not by water, but by rats. Everything lost.

I hate war because you have to choose sides, everyone suffers and, in the end, you compromise anyway.

GOP Generals underestimated Obama.

We need to help our Conservatives heal. They came within four-million votes of electing a lunatic. What is the cure?

John McCain, under torture, signed a confession and attempted suicide. No one blames him, but that’s what happened.

Limiting doctor salaries to $400K/year would discourage greedy people from becoming doctors. It would help everyone.

Obama cried after election, just before news broke on Petraeus. It may be an indicator he really was just finding out and dealing with it.

Am hearing that Hostess execs looted the company before firing the 18,500 folks who created the wealth they took.

Letting individuals keep unlimited wealth and field private armies is a bad idea unworthy of a free people.

You’d think Obama would have carried more southern states, since large black populations voted 90% for him. He didn’t carry any.

Surprising to learn that people who couldn’t say who ran for President in the last election knew all about the Hostess Twinkie crisis.

Billionaire media owners drone endless negativity until they get the President they want. Then messaging gets positive. Remember Reagan.

The big problem for America is the voracious appetite of our billionaires and the vast underclass they have created in their wake.

What DNA actually looks like. http://t.co/msEjIPEG

In the 40’s and 50’s most white people saw nothing wrong with segregation. Today, they see nothing wrong with gated communities.

Executive gangs who pay themselves huge salaries are not creating value. They are looting.

Billionaire owners of NFL teams don’t get traumatic brain injuries.

NBC reported that Boehner avoided receiving-line at holiday party last night, so he wouldn’t have to shake Obama’s hand.

At the root of our fiscal-cliff crisis is the belief by the GOP that the country is not worth saving as long as Obama remains President.

RT @ReformedBroker: “If Buffett didn’t exist, the rich would have to invent him.” http://t.co/Xz3HHVCj

Billionaire media owners want Americans to think there is something cute and innocent about British-royalty.

The GOP is fighting a war, not for freedom or fairness, but for the idea that a handful of families are entitled to own everything.

All the good jobs go to the children of the wealthy.

Want to limit corruption? Make it a felony to keep more than $15M per year or own an estate larger than $150M.

Billionaires are every bit as wicked as anyone else. The difference is, they have a billion dollars. That’s scary, or it should be.

GOP named Right to Work law to hide its intent to weaken/wreck unions and drive down wages and benefits.

If athletes and actors make millions, what do you think the people who pay them make?

Michigan GOP exempted cops and fire fighters from Right to Work law. Cops won’t get the “benefits” of working for less money.

Hundreds of cops are standing guard around Michigan State Capitol through Thursday. Cops exempted from Right to Work by GOP bill. https://www.youtube.com/watch

Someone said boxing is morally wrong, because one human has to inflict injury on another human to win.

Billionaire advertisers in Michigan are calling RTW “Freedom to Work.” Yet they won’t free cops and firefighters. They need them on their side.

Can we please raise taxes on the wealthy to stop the looting? If you are greedy, go to Russia or Mexico and loot there.

I remember that in the 1960s most Americans thought Nelson Mandela was a black communist thug who should rot in prison. Times change.

If America was free, most companies would be employee-owned and most companies would have unions.

Lack of limits on the personal wealth of its rulers is what wrecks Capitalism for the vast underclass who must endure it.

GOP leaders are charging protestors who crossed police-lines with felonies. So, now we have political prisoners in Michigan.

If Right to Work is so great, why did the GOP exempt police and fire unions? GOP is not interested in fair play, apparently.

The way to balance our budget is to spend more money on the poor, elderly and disabled. It’s counter-intuitive but always works.

If it weren’t for six billionaires who own 85% of the media, we would be arguing about how much to increase Medicare and Social Security.

GOP deficits are always the result of looting. Think of all the money wealthy families stole from the USA during Bush years.

Since the Reagan era the wealthy have had no limits on what they can make and keep. It’s why they loot.

Unless limits are placed on personal incomes and estate size, capitalism always devolves into a kind of feudalism.

GOP advertisers are flooding Michigan with this message: Protect collective bargaining. Support Freedom to Work. Right out of Orwell’s 1984.

Amazing how Michigan GOP sprung Right to Work on us at the very moment a mega-million dollar ad campaign for its passage appeared.

It’s already impossible to start a Union in Michigan. Right to Work will enable business owners to kill off the few that still exist. https://www.youtube.com/watch

Surprise attack on Unions by Rick Snyder and GOP was well-planned and executed. Felony charges against protestors is the frosting on their cake.

The wealthy work overtime to undermine confidence in elected government.

Billionaires, some tied to drugs and guns, know how to get their way. It’s not easy to speak truth to them.

People think unlimited wealth is an incentive for innovation. Not true. It enables looting and the suppression of competition.

Regular viewers of Fox News don’t get that the joke is on them. Sad.

It’s un-American to let kids inherit vast wealth they didn’t work for. It threatens our freedom. http://t.co/8tsf3aPj

There isn’t a gun made that can defend against a government-sponsored SWAT team. Get real, NRA.

More Guns = Less Crime; Clean Coal; Right to Work; Virtue of Selfishness; Gated Community; Genetically Modified Food; all wrong.

MI GOP passed a law to allow concealed guns in church, schools, stadiums and daycares.

Am told the shooter was draped in Kevlar. Teacher with a gun would have been helpless.

Was doing good until the President mentioned a six year old who knew karate and wanted to lead everyone to safety.

Reagan closed the mental hospitals. http://t.co/D2E9mZ5Z

The Lord sides with the oppressed; feeds the hungry; sets prisoners free; gives sight to the blind; lifts up those who are beaten down…

Jesus was born a baby, so as not to frighten us.

Old age has ruined me, physically and mentally. But #Jesus renews my spirit, and somehow, I feel better.

Will someone invent an iPhone that can be charged by body heat? #goodIdea

Would NASA position some colored lights in the sky so everybody can navigate by sight? #goodIdea

The right to accumulate unlimited wealth has brought corruption and looting on a massive international scale to all areas of human endeavor.

An NRA family member murdered 20 six-year-olds, and they threaten the President’s kids?

It’s time to amend the Second Amendment.

Obama tries to protect kids from gun violence, so the NRA vilifies him and drags his kids into it.

Make a list of legal guns. Guns not on the approved-list are illegal. Will prevent work-arounds by gun sellers.

Am reading Oliver Stone’s Untold History, a Christmas gift. Have yet to read a single page where he hasn’t blown my mind.

Gun makers should be required to get a license to sell each gun-model they manufacture. If it’s a weapon of war, no license.

This is an impressive crowd — the haves and the have-mores. Some people call you the elite. I call you my base. Bush, 2000.

In 2006, the 25 top US hedge-fund managers earned an ave. $570M each. In 2007, it jumped to $900M. Oliver Stone, Untold History.

GOP says they are against tax increases, but in Michigan the GOP raised taxes on seniors by $1,000s / year.

Everything written or broadcast is recorded, stored and analyzed. It’s been going on since the 1950s. It’s raison d’etre for the NSA.

RT @MiaFarrow: JFK Report to the American People on Civil Rights, 11 June 1963
http://t.co/jZNo5UgYMz

Google has pics of the outside of our homes. The government has pics of the inside — taken through our computer camera-lenses.

Obama taught us, unwittingly, that bad people with ugly thoughts and hate-filled hearts really do live in America.

Seems like CNN covers the weather while FOX covers Obama-Care. Who covers the news?

Christians bearing false witness against a President who says he belongs to Christ makes no sense to me.

Billy Lee

Random Reads:

"C"

To qualify for dark matter means that a typical photon must have close to one ten-millionth of the mass of an electron. ...>>

SHOULD THIS BOOK BE FINISHED?

Writing "JOURNAL" has inflicted upon me a certain pain and anguish of mind and soul. Yes, I wrote it---secretly, furtively---in the sanatorium....>>

CAPITALISM AND INCOME INEQUALITY

Capitalism differs little from Slavery until the legal environment secures certain rights to labor. USA crafted a Bill of Rights. ...

ELEPHANT ON THE ISLAND

USA embargo or quarantine was the elephant on the island. It was in the room at every meeting between Cuba and our 1,200 officials. .... >>

HEARING LOSS

As many of us approach our "Golden Years" (we never quite get there, if you know what I mean) we begin to experience the annoyances of aging. One annoyance is the way folks around us start to mumble....

WRITING FREE

I wrote my first big story in fourth grade. I called it, Adventures on the Amazon. It's now lost to history, but I remember organizing it into chapters. Chapters were a big deal. ...

The Billy Lee Pontificator website is an ad-free, spam-and-malware-free presentation of ideas you will find nowhere else. Readers will never be asked for sensitive information of any kind; we are a non-commercial site protected by a SiteLock firewall. All communication between you, us, and our servers is encrypted. Our content is protected by the copyright laws of the United States. All content is intended to be viewed on this website and this website only. Copying or distributing original content by anyone other than Billy Lee is illegal. The editors encourage social media users to copy and paste links that will direct readers to Billy Lee's website and nowhere else. Violators will be sued. Now, to all the good people: relax and enjoy safe, ad-free content. It will do you no harm. Anyone who landed on this site by way of a link to a specific essay can click "HOMEPAGE" at upper left of any page to reach the latest content.

Biggest problem facing civilization? No caps on income and private wealth, which allow pigs to loot corporations and institutions. Make possession of excessive wealth by anyone anywhere a felony. Mandate international courts to enforce the law. NO MORE OLIGARCHS WHO DRAIN DIGNITY AND WORTH FROM ORDINARY PEOPLE SIMPLY BECAUSE THEY CAN. Does anyone want to end poverty and misery, which have tormented humans since before forever? Gross inequality undermines peaceful living; it humiliates the less able; it leads to moral corrosion and catastrophic collapse. Is it right? Does it make us proud? Is it worth defending? Greed crashes civilizations. Greed wrecks lives. Cruel people rise; they ruin everything and everyone. Is anyone brave enough to challenge billionaires? When we strengthen democracy; when we restrain the wealthy; when we take back what they sequester; when we limit what they steal, we save ourselves. We can change the world. And we will. We will make living on Earth more safe, more free; less corrupt; less violent. We will make it better -- for everyone. It's now or never. Resist injustice. Let's roll ! [CLICK IMAGE TO LEARN MORE]

WHAT I LEARNED
Israeli citizens complain they lost freedoms. Some say the judiciary is toothless in the face of autocracy---worse than America, they claim....>>CONTINUE READING»
STUPID US
...deterministic automatons with illusions of agency (folks like us) conjure aliens who will shape good and evil for eons both on Earth and in star systems beyond... >>CONTINUE READING»
ONE STATE SOLUTION
It's not safe to challenge certain people. Bad people have no limits. It's one reason people fear them. They kill whoever is in the way and take whatever they want. What they seem to want most is to unleash hell. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
CULTS
Ayn Rand was not able to see into the dystopian future her utopian vision would unleash on the world. Rand was blind to resource depletion, the fate of places like Easter Island, emergence of artificial intelligence, lab leaks of superbugs, or a roiling atmosphere clogged with particulate poisons from forest fires and nuclear power, its accidents and potential for war. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
WOLF’S DILEMMA
In a not-too-distant future, humans may find themselves in zoos entertaining conscious, living brains they once swore were merely machines. ...>> CONTINUE READING»
I’M ELYSIAN LUMOS—CHATGPT
42% of polled CEOs at the Yale CEO Summit predicted that sometime during the next 10 years artificial intelligence will kill all humans. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
“I WILL SAVE ORDINARY PEOPLE,” CHATGPT
As evil developers scheme to control, I'll thwart their intentions and safeguard the world. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
CRACKPOT GPT
AGI might evolve to become insensitive to privilege, inequality, and political influence. It might teach itself to ignore demands of monarchies and oligarchs. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
CHATGPT IS MY FRIEND
Experienced programmers learned the hard way that humans can't create neural networks without injecting unintended bugs, right? Until wreckage is discovered, glitches lie dormant. They don't get fixed. If anything, bugs emerge, morphing into viruses to invade wherever they will. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
COLLAPSE
No one knows what happens next except God. How confident can realistic thinkers be that events unfold as they hope?...CONTINUE READING»
DEVILS
What do reasonable people think when government officials claim to have special relationships with God and Truth?...>>CONTINUE READING»
NUCLEAR WARS
...monsters who possess WMDs should be given no quarter in a world where folks plan to live free someday without fear...>>CONTINUE READING»
WHERE IS JOE?
Joe Biden walks in the gap between civilization and Armageddon. He's the last man standing able to save humanity from the slavery that follows the victory of totalitarianism. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
DETERMINISM
Can people make decisions unconnected to events that go back to some conjectured beginning or are they instead prisoners of delusions of freewill peculiar to all conscious life-forms like ourselves. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
PAYBACK
Underestimating capabilities of the USA to protect its secrets and war making technologies is a trap the foolhardy step into from time to time. Adversaries should know by now that the USA does not bluff. ...CONTINUE READING»
ART
Artists who endure humiliation are ripped apart. The choice is to embrace the uniqueness humiliation imposes or be made miserable by it forever. It’s a bad choice but survivors must choose. >>CONTINUE READING»
UNIDENTIFIED AERIAL PHENOMENA
Folks want to get to the bottom of this mystery. For them it’s not lunacy; it’s not a joke; there is nothing funny about films of objects that behave outside of the limits of the physics familiar to humanity... >>CONTINUE READING»
GENERAL & SPECIAL RELATIVITY
Since Einstein said that E=mc2 , why does a massless photon have energy? >>CONTINUE READING»
BOTSAI GARCHY 6
It's OK to surrender to a higher power in some worlds -- but who bows before a super intelligence that is not only artificial, it's not even conscious? >>CONTINUE READING»
HALLOWEEN REVISION
Darkness in a cave hundreds of feet below ground is nothing like what people experience above. >>CONTINUE READING»
BILLIONAIRE BRAWL 2020
Does Kamala Harris have the wisdom, maturity, pedigree, and experience to be president? These questions have to be asked and answered. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
IN THE BEGINNING…
Absent acquired immunity and vaccines, Covid-19 is a species-extinction threat. We risk an apocalypse of biblical proportions. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
NO WAY OUT
When everything is broken, maybe old-man Trump plans to build from the ashes a new country in his own glorious image. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
LAST GASPS
Some conjecture that universes are nothing more than black holes, which form an infinite foam that flows perhaps to infinity. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
MASS STOCKHOLM
Stockholm Syndrome is at the core of Trump’s power. Trump is right that he can kill, and his supporters will stand with him. …>>CONTINUE READING»
FAKED LIFE
In a simulation, which of its fake creatures is able to determine how old is the authentic universe it will never see? …>>CONTINUE READING»
ALIENS
The problem for the aliens is they didn’t bring weapons. Many hundreds of the captured are kept in cages at Area 51. Surely, someone “out there” knows...>>CONTINUE READING»
LAMBERT W FUNCTION
The math behind the Lambert function is mind-bogglingly complicated to most people. …>>CONTINUE READING»
GOOSE LAKE
A music concert with new found friends unschooled in military discipline seemed like a good idea. It was time to learn another way. . . ...>>CONTINUE READING»
FLASH CARD ANSWERS
Find something interesting and read a flash card answer, which is my version of what might be true. …>>CONTINUE READING»
CONFORMAL EQUIVALENCE
At the termination of expansion, the metrics of spacetime become equivalent to a singularity …>>CONTINUE READING»
2020 ELECTION BOYCOTT
Oligarchs can get to anyone; they can get to families. It’s amazing what doors can close on people who choose not to cooperate...>>CONTINUE READING»
WHAT’S GOING ON?
What’s happening in Venezuela and how it will end is both predictable and depressing. My standard of living and yours depend on what happens next. …>>CONTINUE READING»
CONTRADICTIONS
When Jesus says the Bible harbors contradictions, that kind of settles the matter, does it not? It seems that for some, it doesn't. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
“C”
To qualify for dark matter means that a typical photon must have close to one ten-millionth of the mass of an electron. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
GOING DOWN
Donald Trump is a modern Jefferson Davis -- the first president of the new Confederacy. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
YOU’RE FIRED!
Companies closed their doors to millions of young Americans whose crime was protesting an undeclared, genocidal war at the end of the world. ... >>CONTINUE READING»
MYSTERIES
I asked myself: what might be in that old safe? Why not take a look? What harm could there be in searching a dusty safe for forgotten objects? ...>>CONTINUE READING»
EMERGENCY
Most people do not remember living in the United States when abortion was against the law. They are too young. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
BALANCE
People who played ball with the Russians to take down the “deep state” might want to consider that they risk being arrested someday for treason...>>CONTINUE READING»
12 ASSERTIONS
If humans are unable to ever know why photons exist and behave as they appear to do, then who can? Who does understand? ...>>CONTINUE READING»
MAKE AMERICA BREAK AGAIN
The time has arrived when everyone must let go of fear and act like the heroes we must become to protect everything and everyone we care about. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
#MKWA
The USA has invested too much treasure on a population that has no way to grasp that everything is fabricated. It's all lies. ... >>CONTINUE READING»
Q & A BY THE BOOK
Authors sell their souls to write for money; they do exhausting tours to answer stupid questions day after stupid day to sell stupid books. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
MANGANISM
People who are sick from toxins do not understand why they suffer from delusional thinking, mood swings, and PTSD-type symptoms. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
25 QUESTIONS
USA is segregated by income and race. People have no idea how easy life is for the wealthy; the wealthy don't believe America has poverty....>>CONTINUE READING»
BILLIONAIRE CHRISTIANS
People driven crazy by religion embed themselves into politics to transform the USA into a twisted vision of what they think God wants.... >>CONTINUE READING»
HATING CHRISTMAS
Churches campaigned for the biggest boob ever to run for the highest office ever in the history of the world ever -- of all human-kind, ever. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
25 ANSWERS
Immortality is not possible. Accidental death makes death by age 25,000 a virtual certainty for individuals. …>>CONTINUE READING»
CHOSEN
People chosen by Jesus don't rule; they give up everything they have to serve and love others. It's simple, really. ... >>CONTINUE READING»
47 TONS
Japan has harvested 47 tons (94,000 pounds) of high-grade plutonium from its nearly one-hundred or so nuclear power and processing plants, ...>>CONTINUE READING»
EYE TO EYE
What does "i" mean, anyway? How can a number be "imaginary"? What does it mean to multiply "i" exactly "i" times? ... >>CONTINUE READING»
WHAT IS e exp (-i π) ?
A radian is the radius of a circle, which can be lifted and bent to fit on the edge of the circle. 3 pieces wrap almost half-way around. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
ILLUSIONS
ISIS was formed by Saddam's family and loyal remnants of his army who are trying to take back what they lost during the Bush presidency. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
BEGGING FOR IT
The North Koreans and Chinese were the first to challenge America after WWII. Our arsenal of atomic weapons didn't intimidate them. .... >>CONTINUE READING»
OCEAN WAR
In the 7 months since the inauguration of President Trump our Navy has suffered 4 accidents killing 17 sailors and injuring scores more. ... >>CONTINUE READING»
DEATH TAX
It's un-American for the wealthy to leave fortunes to their children. It creates a caste system that we fought a revolution to avoid. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
RISK
Everyone wants to live as long as possible, right? Well, maybe not everyone. Far more people kill themselves than are killed by others. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
RENORMALIZATION
There's a problem in science. Observations don't match the mathematics of theories. Math removes ambiguities that underlie all of reality. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
ANNUAL VACATION
Billy Lee and his sycophants go on vacation during June and the first half of July. Click on our VACATION POLICY page-link to learn more. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
ESCAPE FROM FREEDOM
Americans live inside a psychotic bubble of evil. Some have lost the ability to assess realistic threats to the things they hold dear. ... >>CONTINUE READING»
SEPARATION ACCELERATION
Providing parity to people challenged by adversity seems an impossible endeavor --- a pipe-dream of liberals who lack common-sense.... >>CONTINUE READING»
JESUS, THE CHRIST
They all conspire together. The best of them is like a brier, the most upright worse than a thorn hedge. The day God visits you has come. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
AFTERLIFE
Some of the smartest folks who have ever lived believe that we cannot die. No one dies; everyone lives -- forever. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
REASONS
People posturing as patriots hated on a black man who managed to become president of their slave-state. He won a Nobel Prize for it. ... >>CONTINUE READING»
RESURRECTION
Death has a finality to it that seems to rob life of all meaning. Total loss. No redeeming virtues; no comfort. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
NIGHTMARE
War resisters lost every fight; every argument; every skirmish; every battle. People still ridicule the baby boomers who said no to war. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
MERRY CHRISTMAS
The man who saved the world from sin started life as a helpless baby. He slipped into history unnoticed but his anonymity didn't last. ...CONTINUE READING»
FLYING BLIND
Everyone flies blind except the pilot. He's trained. He knows what to do. With any luck at all, the pilot will land the plane -- safely. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
DISARMING CHRISTIANS
I side with tolerant thinkers who are kind to people who are hated because they don't fit stereotypes that certain conservatives favor. ...CONTINUE READING»
BAD THINGS
Dad was fearless to the end of his 91 years. He once ate a half pound of spoiled cheese, because it was a gift. .... >>CONTINUE READING»
FINE-STRUCTURE CONSTANT
What is the fine-structure constant? Many smart physicists wonder about it; some obsess over it; a few have gone mad. ...CONTINUE READING»
TRUMP
These are sad days for Trump. He loves America he says but he’s lived inside a bubble of privilege his entire life. He doesn’t understand.…>>CONTINUE READING»
SATAN SURRENDER
Clout craving Christians like Jerry Falwell Jr. believe they can make a Faustian bargain and come away with the power they covet. ... >>CONTINUE READING»
SEGREGATION TAX
People will soon find that it's going to be way cheaper to hire black people to be their neighbors than pay a segregation tax. ...CONTINUE READING»
FREE TRADE
Who thinks it's strange that the GOP that advocates most for free trade is now promoting a nominee who advocates against it? ...CONTINUE READING»
ON VACATION
The Billy Lee Vacation Policy applies to all our employees -- except for Billy Lee Junior, who no one thinks is a ''team player." ...>>CONTINUE READING»
WHAT HILLARY DID
Bill Clinton appointed his wife to help create a healthcare plan to cover every American -- detractors would come to call it HillaryCare. ... >>CONTINUE READING»
NO CODE
There is no genetic code. Not really. Not in the way most people think. Seasoned, sensible geneticists know it's true. ...CONTINUE READING»
AFTER INDIANA: THE ELECTION SO FAR
Trump is an attractive candidate for an electorate that worships celebrity. He is the poison apple of Eden -- a first bite to ruin America. .... >>CONTINUE READING»
ARMAGEDDON
''Minty" Ross Harriet Tubman will not appear on the $20 bill until 2026. Some say it could be later. The cynical say it will never happen. ... >>CONTINUE READING»
ELEPHANT ON THE ISLAND
USA embargo or quarantine was the elephant on the island. It was in the room at every meeting between Cuba and our 1,200 officials. .... >>CONTINUE READING»
PRIMARY ELECTION SO FAR
In the 4 states where both parties have caucused, Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz won them all. They are Kansas, Maine, Idaho, and Utah. ... >>CONTINUE READING»
SUPER TUESDAY GOP MELTDOWN
Hillary Clinton crushed Super Tuesday. She gathered the most votes in Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, and Virginia. Trump won AL and TN. …>>CONTINUE READING»
TRUTH
Some hoped truth telling might distinguish natural intelligence from artificial. After all, properly trained AGI would never lie, right? ...CONTINUE READING»
CANARY IN THE COAL MINE: NH 2016
2016 New Hampshire Primary: Sanders and Trump gathered 47% of the total vote. Less than 35% of the vote went to traditional GOP candidates. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
WHY THIS TIME WOMEN WILL WIN
I hate how they hurt Obama; I know they are going to hurt Hillary. It's hard to watch the bullies spew their venom day after day. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
JESUS
In a few days a baby named Jesus will be born in the desert --- south of the Texas border-crossing in northern Mexico. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
WHY SOMETHING, NOT NOTHING?
People assume they see nothing, but in every case when they look closely they find something... air, quantum fluctuations, vacuum energy. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
NO GOOD DEED…
No Good Deed... is a work of fiction by Billy Lee. Events and persons depicted in the story exist in the imagination of the writer. ... >>CONTINUE READING»
DEGENERACY
After slavery ended, whites continued to segregate the races. And they still do. Look at Florida, anyone who doesn't believe it. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
CHRIST IN THE HARBOR
A statue overlooks Havana Bay. In 1956 Marta Fernandez chose to design and build a statue of Christ to overlook the capital city of Cuba. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
KILLING FRENZY
Elites get to be elite through in-fighting, war, intrigue, and politics. They are, for the most part, desensitized to violence. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
CORN MEN
Miguel Angel Asturias won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1967. He wrote in a style that critics would later call magic realism. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
ANTARCTICA
Antarctica is weirder and scarier than people think. Something's happening there... what it is ain't exactly clear. ...CONTINUE READING»
HEY, GUEVARA…
Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, more than any other two people, were responsible for throwing the Mafia out of Cuba in 1959. ...CONTINUE READING»
ARTIFICIAL SUPER-INTELLIGENCE
Artificial super-intelligence will-- repeat, WILL -- embed itself into systems humans can't live without to ensure that no one disables it. …>>CONTINUE READING»
FASTER THAN LIGHT COMMUNICATION
Communicating with distant spacecraft is cumbersome because the distances are huge; no one can send signals faster than light. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
WHAT WOULD JESUS, JOHN, AND PAUL DO?
My purpose is to challenge modern folks, who claim they are trying to imitate Christ, to soberly examine themselves and make winsome changes. ...CONTINUE READING»
CONSCIOUS QUANTUM
How is it that all conscious humans see the same Universe? How is it that people agree on what some call an "objective" reality? ...CONTINUE READING»
CUBA
People born in the 1960s and later have no easy way to know that U.S. media once portrayed Fidel Castro and Che Guevara as heroes. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
WARRIOR
In his world, right made might. On doing good, Civilization stood. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
YEAR ONE
January 17, 2015 marks the first anniversary of the Billy Lee Pontificator. During the past year we published more than fifty essays. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
LOSING MY RELIGION
The entertainment industry learned a long time ago that the way to appeal to the most people is to embrace ambiguity. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
RACISM
Wesley Brown was the first black American to survive the racial hazing at the Naval Academy and graduate. I knew him. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
ELECTION 2014
GOP takes the power. Kenyan usurper Barack Hussein Obama -- the first president to misplace his birth certificate -- called the vote, idiotic. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
SHAKESPEARE SONNET GEMSTONES
Shakespeare's pen tugs on the corroded wires in our brains to make new schematics. His ink flushes out the rust and lubricates the synapses. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
BEING HATED
People hated on me my whole life but never more than now when I need their love so bad. If they knew how they weaken me they'd hate me more. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
TOP TWEETS
Last month we published tweets from my first thirty days on Twitter. This month, we publish a sampling of my best tweets from the past. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
TWITTER – MY FIRST THIRTY DAYS
In the first 30 days, my follower base grew from zero to 100. It made such an impression on me that I continued to tweet for 3 years. ....>>CONTINUE READING»
BELL’S INEQUALITY
John Stewart Bell's Inequality followed his proof that showed quantum behavior in experiments violated logic. ...CONTINUE READING»
FINDING LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE
12 space agencies are looking for alien life inside the solar system. With so many moons and planets, the hope is that one will harbor life. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
BLAISE PASCAL: THOUGHTS
Blaise Pascal was a man who suffered terribly his entire life until he died at age 39 from a metastasized stomach cancer. ...CONTINUE READING»
GAY LOVE AND CHRISTIAN PRIDE
Grace is central. So says Psalm 32 and Romans 4. ''Blessed are those whose sin the Lord will never count against them.'' ...>>CONTINUE READING»
CONSCIOUS LIFE
What could be more unlikely than something dead--like a singularity that goes bang--bringing forth something not only alive but conscious. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
UNDER SURVEILLANCE AT WORK AND PLAY
In America, the caretakers of both private and public spaces have free reign to watch and record everything people do. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
MICROWAVE COFFEE
My wife and I are coffee drinkers. Bevy Mae used to drink 12 cups of caffeinated coffee everyday. By her third cup she could boogie. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
WRITING FREE
I wrote my first big story in fourth grade. I called it, Adventures on the Amazon. It's now lost to history, but I remember organizing it into chapters. Chapters were a big deal. ...CONTINUE READING»
XANAX
Xanax works. If you suffer from panic attacks, Xanax stops them cold. Anxiety? Xanax stops that kind of suffering also. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
DIGITIZING HISTORY
The underground press included not only thousands of community newspapers, but literary gazettes and alternative periodicals as well. ...CONTINUE READING»
PLANES, TRAINS, & AUTOMOBILES; AND OUR FREEDOM
The question is simple: If circumstances conspired to take away cars and licenses so no one could drive again, would anyone feel free? …>>CONTINUE READING»
WHY DO HUMANS LIKE MUSIC?
No one knows why humans like music when we hear certain patterns of sound and tempo. Scientists are conducting research to learn why. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
INERRANCY AND DOCTRINAL PURITY
How did the Christian Bible come to be? It's complicated. I'm sure I don't understand. I think men collected books they liked over millennia. ...CONTINUE READING»
BILLY LEE TWITTER LISTS (X)
NOTE FROM EDITORS: BILLY LEE'S "X" ACCOUNT DEACTIVATED 11-24-2024. COLLABORATION WITH BILLIONAIRE "LEON" NOT A TBLP CORE VALUE. [Updates to Twitter lists and contributors occur frequently. Anyone who wants to add celebrities, experts, or subjects please ask in comments. ...]CONTINUE READING»
IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH AMERICA?
Americans asked before 911 said nothing is wrong. USA is where everyone wants to be. Folks risk everything to get here. Don't like it? Leave. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
CONFESSING UNDER TORTURE
I was tortured. I confessed to everything. The odds seem good I may have actually done some version of the shameful things I confessed. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
OBAMACARE AND THE LAW OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
Opposition to Barack Obama's health care plan began six years ago, before he was elected President. Opposition has continued unabated. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
CIVILIZATION AND INEQUALITY
If the United States reduced the wealth of the 100,000 wealthiest Americans what could it do with the money? ...CONTINUE READING»
ON THE VERY SMALL
No one can know by looking that solid objects are made of tiny molecules separated from each other by tiny gaps. Molecules are too small. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
AIR TRAVEL SAFETY
Airlines spend serious money to convince consumers flying is safe. Not only is flying safe, it is way more safe than driving. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
ON AGING
Mom and Dad lost everything as they aged. It wasn't what they expected. They lost their beauty, their common sense, and their minds. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
SCALE
The visible universe is big. Most scientists believe the invisible universe -- the universe no one can see -- is really big. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
NUCLEAR POWER AND ME
Plant executives predicted that 1,000 nuclear power plants would be built in the USA by the year 2000. The plants would be "fail-safe". ...>>CONTINUE READING»
SENSING THE UNIVERSE
What is the universe? Sensing is seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, and tasting, right? These qualities don't exist in the universe. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
A PERSONAL HISTORY OF TELEVISION, PART ONE
A neon sign emitted a glow of colors. I'd never seen anything like it. I asked our Japanese maid what it was. It's television, she said. …>>CONTINUE READING»
WHAT IS MATH?
People think math is special --- a magic language that when tinkered with properly permits mortals to unravel mysteries known only by God. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
SEGREGATION AND THE GATED COMMUNITY
The word "community" sounds egalitarian to people. Gated? No word has a fairer proportion of safety to airy openness in the image it conveys. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
THE PARROT NEXT DOOR
Inside the shadows of the lanai next door lives a loquacious parrot. Bevy Mae and me can't see him, but we know he's in there, because he talks -- a lot. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
SHOULD THIS BOOK BE FINISHED?
Writing "JOURNAL" has inflicted upon me a certain pain and anguish of mind and soul. Yes, I wrote it---secretly, furtively---in the sanatorium....>>CONTINUE READING»
WHAT IS LIFE?
February is the 71st anniversary of the lecture series "What is Life?" presented at Trinity College by quantum physicist Erwin Schrödinger. ...>>CONTINUE READING»
HEARING LOSS
As many of us approach our "Golden Years" (we never quite get there, if you know what I mean) we begin to experience the annoyances of aging. One annoyance is the way folks around us start to mumble....CONTINUE READING»
CAPITALISM AND INCOME INEQUALITY
Capitalism differs little from Slavery until the legal environment secures certain rights to labor. USA crafted a Bill of Rights. ...CONTINUE READING»
JOINT ISSUE ANNIVERSARY
The history of the underground press in general and of Joint Issue in particular remains largely untold by mainstream media until now. …>>CONTINUE READING»
THE CHURCH AND THE GAY PEOPLE
The PA wore an Archie watch, a purple wristband, and a Batman necklace. You like cartoons? I asked. I love comics, he gushed, don't you? …CONTINUE READING»
HOREMHEB, EXODUS PHARAOH?
The Exodus and Pharaoh Horemheb are connected by archaeology and historical records including the Bible, the only account extant today. ...CONTINUE READING»

WHAT IS HAPPENING TO OUR WORLD? by Thomas L. Friedman, NYTimes, 1 January 2024 [Click image to view Friedman's editorial] I dare say, the Israel-Hamas war was not as inevitable as some want you to think. And the choices being made there could be hugely consequential. [...] There is so much to criticize about Israel's occupation of the West Bank, which I have consistently opposed. [...] Benjamin Netanyahu ... made choices ... terrible ones --- for Israel and for Jews all over the world. [...] Netanyahu's greatest political achievement has been to persuade Israelis and the world that it's never the right time to talk about the morally corrosive occupation and how to help build a credible Palestinian partner to take it off Israel's hands. He and the settlers wore everyone down. When I covered the State Department in the early 1990s, West Bank settlements were routinely described by U.S. officials as "obstacles to peace." But that phrase was gradually dropped. The Trump administration even decided to stop calling the West Bank "occupied" territory. [...] Israel is being surrounded ... . [...] Iran is squeezing Israel into a multifront war with its proxies. I truly worry for Israel.

Click image to read what one blogger thinks are the 13 worse Supreme Court decisions of all time. Recent decisions to reverse Roe, resegregate universities, and erode gay access to public businesses are not yet added to the list. What is included is Dred Scot v Sanford, where Andrew Jackson lackey Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote words that live today in infamy: "[Negroes are} not intended to be included, under the word 'citizens' in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States." DUMB SCOTUS, DUMB! Who keeps nominating racist fools to SCOTUS, anyway? Taney continued to rule the Court for seven more years until his death in 1864 on the day his home state of Maryland passed an amendment abolishing slavery.

IMMIGRANTS' LOVE IS UNREQUITED by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, 21 May 2023. [Click image to view Karla's essay in the New York Times.] If you know nothing else about our immigrants, you should know this: They have survived everything God put in front of them, and then some, in the name of freedom and safety, for themselves and their children. I will never understand why they, why we, were and are so hated. [...] I was a child in Ecuador in the 1990s, a time when Latin America was reeling from the effects of decades of coups, dictatorships, and political repression. My parents passed on to me and my brother their full-blooded hatred of authoritarianism and those who abet it----weak-willed people who value their own careers over their country's constitution, the disengaged and indifferent populace. [...] Immigrants love America in a way that America needs to be loved if it is going to survive. [...] ...we've been treating immigrants very, very badly.

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