Amend the War Powers Act

Currently the USA is involved in Middle East Wars using mercenary troops. Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria are lost causes. If we could not go to war without universal conscription (male and female) and a war tax, these wars would never have involved the USA. The public would not strand for it. Rome fell in part because it relied on mercenary troops. The factors that got us in thee wars were idealistic crusaders who believe democracy can be exported and cynical arms and oil merchants who want the money. When will we ever learn?,

Are you a Socialist?

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April 23, 2015

Are You A Socialist?

A letter by

Harley L. Sachs

www.HarleySachs.com

There is an inordinate, irrational fear of socialism in this country dating back to the 1920’s and the infamous Sacco-Vanzetti trial in which two innocent anarchists were executed for a couple of murders later confessed to by a criminal gang member. In the 1920’s during the great surge of immigrants from Italy and other European countries, there was a general fear of anarchists, communists, and other radicals. The result of his panic was the end of open immigration and a quota system limiting how many could come to the USA from various countries. The quotas still exist.

Most Americans don’t know the difference between socialism and communism, equating them with something akin to Soviet police state communism. It’s not true.

The United States is more socialist than you may realize. Everything funded by taxes is socialist. The postal system is socialist; public libraries and schools are socialist, state universities are socialist, Medicare and Medicaid are socialist programs, the VA is socialized medicine for all veterans, and then there is social security. You can hardly escape American socialism.

If you are a true T Party Libertarian, you can refuse Medicare, avoid the Affordable Care Act, refuse to accept social security benefits, and home school your children. You can’t avoid the public school tax unless you squat in the woods, for even renters who own no property pay the school tax as part of their rent.

Ignorance prevails. We have the American Boobus (as H.L. Mencken called them) screaming “Keep the government out of my Medicare.” One local Oregon politician thinks the West Bank of the Palestinians is a financial institution.

No. we are not a communist country. How about fascist, where corporations own the government? That’s a different story.

A Vet's Duty

Speaking to a luncheon of WW II veterans, I urged them to write their memoirs and send them to the US Military Archives. That's what I did with "The Misadventures of Cpl. Sachs."  Without the testimony of the veterans, much of our country's wartime history will be lost when they die. Tell your story! It's your final duty to your country.

Jews cf American Indians

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1021 words

Jews and Indians

While reading Kent Nerburn’s wonderful book, “Neither Wolf nor Dog” about the relationship of Indians to Whites I realized how much Jews and Indians have in common. They are both victims of Christian imperialism. In the case of the Jews, the oppression began long before the so-called “discovery” of the Americas. Of course, North and South America didn’t have to be “discovered” for the people who already lived here knew where they were. The Christian oppression of Jews began long before Columbus with Constantine, the Roman emperor who was reputed to have converted on his deathbed, making Christianity the official religion of the Roman empire.

Until then the Roman policy was to tolerate all religions as long as people paid their taxes. Ten percent of the empire was then Jewish. But with the development of Christianity as an offshoot of Judaism, the Christian Scriptures were in competition with Jews. Oddly, in spite of origins in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Book Of John of  Christian Scripture is anti-Judaism. How anti-Judaism became anti-Jewish and Anti-Semitism may be the subject for another historical discussion.

What did happen with the establishment of the Christian church of the Roman Empire in the fourth century was the establishment of strict anti-Jewish laws. No new synagogues could be established and no new graveyards. Anyone who was not born Jewish could not be circumcised on pain of death. Intermarriage was against the law. This put an end to Jewish conversions of gentiles.

Other religions were also suppressed, churches being built on the locations of pagan temples. The only religion to be tolerated was Christianity.

Whether this contributed to the decline and fall of the empire after the Jewish rebellion in 76 AD and the siege of Mosada which necessitated the withdrawal of Hadrian’s forces from Britain may be a subject of debate. Certainly Hadrian's army being called back to Rome abandoned Britain to the Vikings who came later. 

Later Jewish children were occasionally kidnapped and converted. In the Middle Ages Jews, who were not permitted to own land or join a guild, were confined to ghettos, the Jewish version of a Reservation. In Russia that reservation was the Pale of Settlement.

Later, in the fifteen century, the Spanish Catholic Inquisition gave Jews the options: convert, leave the country, or be put to death. If a so-called Converso, or Maranno (pig Jew) were to secretly practice Judaism, the penalty was torture and death.

Having conquered Europe, the Christian imperialists turned to new lands. Columbus came to the so-called New World with two agendas: gold and conversion of native peoples to Christianity. Catholic priests, speaking Spanish or Latin, demanded instant conversion of the Santa Domingo native peoples who, if they did not immediately accept Jesus as their savior were put to death torn apart by dogs. Only a handful survived by hiding in a cave.

Many Jews fled the Inquisition to Mexico and New Mexico where some crypto-Jews still identify themselves as Jews though they do not practice Judaism. The Inquisition officially ended in 1992, five hundred years after it began.

So what do the Jews have in common with the Indians?

After the fall of the Second Temple and Mosada, the Jews were evicted from their land into the Diaspora, the spreading out. Fleeing from one country to another, they were periodically expelled, from England, France, and Germany. In Russia Jews were restricted to a special reservation called the Pale of Settlement, but were subject to Pogroms.

Yet, unlike most Indians who were converted to Christianity and forbidden to practice their own religion or speak their naïve language, Jews managed to retain their religion and their language, Yiddish for the Ashkenazi and Ladano for those Spanish and Portuguese Jews to fled mainly to Turkey.

The Indians were also forcibly evicted from their lands and kept in reservations. In America the Christian oppression with Indian schools was parallel to the fifteen century Inquisition, except the Jews were able to escape. The Indians did not, their children kidnapped and forced to attend Missionary schools. Yet both Indians and Jews are tribal people. A code word for Jews is “MOT” member of the tribe.  

   The strongest connection between Jews and Indians is being victims of Christian imperialism. Even today, so-called Jews for Jesus try to appeal to unwitting Jews. More insidious Christian evangelists hope that all Jews should move to Israel, a plan that may be to make the United States Judenrein (cleansed of Jews) but also to bring on the prophesied Armageddon, after which the Jews who are not killed will accept Jesus and become Christians.

Just as Indians were portrayed in Western movies as whooping savages, in Mexico at Easter celebrations Jews are dressed as clowns, fools for not accepting Jesus. I guess that’s what they get for not being white or Christian.

     Assimilation is still the greatest threat to both Indians and Jews, which brings up the issue of race. A white man cannot become an Indian, but can a Jew become a Christian? Martin Luther thought that if the Catholic Church were reformed the Jews would convert. They did not. He was furious and wrote an anti-Jewish tract, ”On the Jews and their Lies.” His reasoning was that since Jews did not become Christians, they must be a race. That’s the origin of the myth that Jews, who actually come in all colors, are a race. Hitler, who was raised Catholic and went to parochial school, planned to obliterate the Jewish race, and murdered six million in his attempt.

      The parallel to Hitler's program of extermination was the American whites' distribution of smallpox infected blankets to the Indians, a form of biological warfare. 

      The Indian tragedy is that, deprived of their land and dislocated, discouraged from speaking their own languages and worshipping in the old ways, they have become demoralized, often alcoholic, subject to domestic violence. The Jews have fared better, integrating into white society, but the specter of the Holocaust hangs over all their heads. There is a new de-facto out migration as Jews leave France to avoid anti-Semitism, this time from a different imperialistic movement: Islam. At least for the time being, the Jews have a homeland to return to.

      Islam, which once occupied Europe to the gates of Vienna, is again on the rise. ISIS beheads those   who do not accept their version of Islam. What goes around comes around.  History repeats itself.

Bad Decisions-Worse Results

Bad Decisions-Worse Results

The road to hell is paved with good intentions and we are on the way. K-12 teachers, products of liberal arts college educations, naturally think that’s the way to go, so promote college. An attempt to raise K-12 results forces teachers to teach students to pass the tests. Consequently, schools across the country have dropped shop courses like machine shop, electricians, welding, and other trades. Typically, a graduate with a liberal arts education earns $30,000 a year, yet a welder can make $100,000. If you hired a plumber, you paid $60 an hour. There’s a shortage of skills tradesmen.

Lured by the prospect of private companies running prisons, states hand over felons to  private enterprise. Then the prison corporations lobby for stiffer sentencing to keep their “customers.” Mandatory sentencing provides the privately owned prisons with steady income. In Michigan the penal system costs the state more than public education. It costs upwards of $30,000 a year to keep someone in prison, more than the cost of a college education.

To pay for the prison system, states reduced financing for colleges, thereby dumping the costs on the students in the form of higher tuition. The universities, to save money, shifted more and more course work to part time adjunct professors without tenure or benefits, destroying professorships as a profession. The students were encouraged to take out crippling student loans.

The consequence? Shortages of skilled labor. Colleges staffed by itinerant adjuncts and debt-ridden graduates who will never afford to buy a house or a car. Who wins? 

Video games now an esport

The New E-sport

a column by

Harley L. Sachs

A recent episode of South Park satirized kids addicted to computer games. The little gang of squeaky animated figures were playing an addictive computer war game, sort of a third generation of Dungeons and Dragons, but with digital animated swords, spells, magic, etc. They were so addicted that they hardly slept or ate. But the kids’ avatars, their chosen action figures, were being wiped out by a mysterious super player somewhere out there in cyber space. Their opponent was so good, that he threatened to put the game makers out of business by discouraging all other players from buying their extra weapons, etc. This was meant to be a satire, but  video games, now called e-sport are a huge business that financially overshadows the music business and is almost equal to the movie industry in billions..

Computer games have become a bone fide e-sport. With tournaments played all over the world (recently in Poland) the State Department now issues sports visas for contestants to enter the country. Now teams playing on line computer games like Dota 2 (check out the free download) and League of Legends take part in tournaments for prize money in the millions. At a recent championship tournament before a crowd of 17000 people in Seattle, the  Newbees,  a Chinese team, won first place and over five million in prize money playing Dota 2.  The League of Legends finals drew 18,000 fans at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

The tournaments are played by teams of five in sound proof booths while the game is shown on a huge screen everyone can watch.

Visit the Dota 2 web site for a glimpse into this strange world of e-sport. .

Imagine, a sport anyone can play for free, as 40% do, a sport requiring no physical contact, no uniforms, no special shoes or helmets, and  no sports injuries (except possibly carpal tunnel for the mouse clicks,), and played in your bedroom in your PJs or even naked up against other players from all over the entire world. You can play if you are a shut-in paraplegic. The playing field is level. All it takes is a fast computer and tremendous concentration and speed of thought.

Interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, one such e-gamer reported that one year it cost him $1000 for hotel, meals, and travel to attend a tournament where he collected only $800 in prizes, but this year he expects to take in $200,000.  His father, at first dismayed that his twenty-year old son was spending so much time playing computer games, begged him to finish college. He may yet, but first he wants to buy a condo and move out of his childhood bedroom.

Declaring video games a sport has reached colleges. A Chicago college, Robert Morris, has offered scholarships up to $50,000 for champion video gamers. E-sports have reached beyond the bedrooms of boys playing video games with their pals.

.What about the commercial aspects?  The participants are mainly males under age 30, a hard audience to reach for advertising until companies realized that the channel that streams the games, Twitch Video, is so popular with that age group that advertising placed there costs much more than on regular video channels. That’s why Amazon has bought Twitch video for millions. .

This e-sport phenomenon is a remarkable development not only in e-commerce,  but in international relations, for  when you log on you may be teamed up with anyone from around he world. And you can do it from your own room at home. Talk about revenge of the nerds! 

Saturday on Tri-Met

Saturday  on Tri-Met 

Riding public transportation in Portland is great fun, for there are always surprises. Take Saturday, for instance. I was waiting for the #15 bus to take me up to 23rd and Lovejoy when I noticed behind me a derelict, old man in shabby clothes, a beard, and worn out shoes that did not match. His right shoe was coming apart and he shuffled along, stopped, and sat down on the sidewalk.

He was approached by a young man with a big back pack which he opened up and took out a new pair of sneakers which he gave to the homeless man along with a pair of new, white socks. Amazingly, the shoes fit and the old guy walked away, leaving the old shoes behind.

I asked the benefactor, “Do you do this often?”

He said only, “Önly occasionally” and was gone.

Two more passengers came up to wait for the #15, a young couple. She was carrying a picnic cooler and he was laden with three packs and a huge, rolled up foam mattress. They’d been camping near Bend. I did a lot of camping in my day and asked,  “Whatever happened to sleeping on the rocks?”

The bus arrived and they struggled to get aboard with all their stuff. He works in a hospital and soon engaged with the woman sitting beside me who exchanged experiences of that kind of work. She’s a care giver who prefers not to work in hospitals because of all the administrative conflicts. So we learn about other people’s lives.

I suspect that the two campers’ relationship would not be lasting as long as she carries only the cooler and he has not only his pack, but hers plus the huge mattress.

That was the ride to 23^rd and Lovejoy.

The ride back on the streetcar was equally remarkable. I broke my streetcar journey to stop at Safeway for a loaf of bread and when I crossed back to the streetcar stop to catch the next tram, I started talking with a dark-skinned man wearing something around his neck that looked like a greasy talisman or a charm. It was leather, the size and shape of a bull’s testicles, and I asked him what it was for. “Ït’s for religious purposes,” he explained, without further detail. I joked that maybe it was to ward of vampires. I soon learned that he was of Haitian descent, a practitioner of the religion practiced there, which recalled voodoo and zombies. He said there are two congregations of that religion in Portland but because he has been a practitioner for 34 years, he qualifies as a priest and can practice alone.

The next tram arrived. Seeing that I was struggling with a cane, a young woman gave me a senior seat and we were soon talking about destinations. Since I’m a Ride-Wise volunteer I always ask people who may be tourists where they’re headed.  The woman and friends were going to Powell’s and weren’t sure where to get off. The discussion turned to books and, always hoping to plug my own books, I said I was an author. I gave her one of my book marks.

Across from us, another passenger announced, Ï’m an author, too,” and told of his books translated into eight languages. His expose of Microsoft got him interrogated by the FBI and the Secret Service. He’d been asked, “What was he doing at the White House?” If was journalism, he said, and he added that he thought Hillary Clinton was much better looking than her photos.

Well;;, the word got back to Mrs. Clinton and he soon got a personal, hand written letter from Hillary Clinton saying, “Thank you for saying I look better than my photos. We have to keep a sense of humor,” etc. He’d had the letter laminated and proudly read it out for us.

I got off at Fifth and Market to wait for the #8 bus and ran into three other residents of Terwilliger Plaza. It was a short ride right to our door.

All that excitement, all those interesting people! I just love traveling with Tri-Met.