sent 3/19/15 (feel slightly better?) correction to (among others): 3/7/15 "Why ISIS exists [and the United States cannot help]"--Foreign Policy in Focus

This is about a correction that you might think worth mentioning.  Below is a copy of a message I sent you on March 7th.  This new article from The Atlantic adds much depth on who the members of the Wahhabi tribe/ISIS/ISIL are.  It might even be authoritative.  I am a bit suspicious of The Atlantic magazine as one of its lead editors has recently published distortions that I regarded as Zionist distortions.   But that was not Graeme Wood [LINK], the author of this one.

The correction that I am making is to fix my accidental omission of the fact that Wahhabis exempt Christians from the choice of converting to Islam or being killed.  According to the Koran according to the Wahhabis according to Graeme Wood, Christians are to be allowed to live on as Christians as long as they pay an extra tax and act subdued.  This was news to me.  I don't know that that works perfectly in practice, but if that is their rule then you might feel a bit safer unless you happen to be a different sort of Muslim rather than someone who could call himself or herself any sort of Christian.  And it might help a little even if you are concerned in particular about Christians who live in the far distant ISIS/ISIL area of the world.

What ISIS Really Wants, by Graeme Wood, The Atlantic, March 2015 issue.

Add that to the fact that you might know already if you've been paying attention, that the Wahhabis are not that interested in coming to America anyway.  What interests them is their religious need for one piece of real estate.  Having a piece of real estate is a requirement for having a caliphate.

Below this are links to older messages I have sent that might call for mention of this slight correction also, about Christians being exempt from the choice of converting or being killed.
--------sent March 7, 2015-----------

Subject: "Why ISIS exists [and the United States cannot help]"--Foreign Policy in Focus [LINK for the full 3/7/15 text]
------------------
3/19/2015 update: A third fact is that the Wahhabi tribe/ISIS/ISIL reads the Koran as requiring them to allow Christians to live provided they pay an extra tax and act subdued.
-----------------
-------end sent March 7, 2015-------------

These are previous messages of mine that I have managed to archive and that might be affected by this latest news--news to me anyway--about Christians being exempt from the choice of Islam or death even in territory controlled by the Islamic State.
sent 2/5/15 (rev2) *American Sniper*, Wahhabism, and ISIS [LINK]
sent 3/6/15 2, both major: 1. Terrorism poses no existential threat to America. We must stop pretending otherwise [LINK]
sent 2/3/15 William Astore, great review and analysis: 7 Reasons Why America’s Wars Aren’t Ending Anytime Soon [LINK]
sent 2/2/15 (action needed to oppose big arms to the Ukraine) Robert Parry and others 1. "‘Group-Thinking’ the World into a New War" [LINK]
sent 2/13/15 "Congress torn over Obama war power request"; what I wrote the gov't Re: ACTION PLEASE, call/write Congressperson, please don't be worn out yet: President sent new war resolution to Congress NO NO NO [LINK]

love to all,
Larry
--
Brother Larry/Attorney Scott archives (Larry at Blogspot) "undisclosed recipients" email message archive, no logging in, no public comments
One way or another, raise yourself up I say; do not be afraid.  If you are not doing it you can do it.  Other people are doing it.  We can learn from them, I find.

sent 3/17/15 Robert Kuttner: "The Dance of Liberals and Radicals"

"The Dance of Liberals and Radicals," by Robert Kuttner, Huffington Post, March 16, 2015

"'Liberals' and 'radicals' need each other." [internal quotation marks added--LAS]  [Please remember that I Larry A. Scott fit no label.]

"Policy is frozen politics."--David Rolf

This is very clearly a big set of inspired perceptions on the part of  Robert Kuttner [Wikipedia LINK]. 

Please reference my last message of just earlier today, the one about you please rising up to act however you possibly can to stop the talk from the Republicans about attacking Iran [LINK].

love to all,
Larry
--
Brother Larry/Attorney Scott archives (Larry at Blogspot) "undisclosed recipients" email message archive, no logging in, no public comments
One way or another, raise yourself up I say; do not be afraid.  If you are not doing it you can do it.  Other people are doing it.  We can learn from them, I find.

sent 3/17/15 ACTION AND VIRAL PLEASE, MAJOR: "The Worst Case for War With Iran You’ll Read in a Major Newspaper"

"The Worst Case for War With Iran You’ll Read in a Major Newspaper," by Ali Gharib,* The Nation,** March 16, 2015, also in full below, with all links working.  Nonprofit educational copyright exception applies.  Please take this one viral to anyone who probably will not actually bite you for doing so.

----insert, preface note--------------------
Iranians have not forgotten the years from 1953 to 1979 when the U.S. and Britain dominated a dictator who dominated everybody else there.  That is a huge deal.  According to Noam Chomsky 3/2/15, and I am quite sure he is right, the main reason that PM Netanyahu and U.S. Republican hawks hate Iran is because Iran is in the way of their mutual ambition of unlimited violence. 
http://www.democracynow.org/2015/3/2/noam_chomsky_opposing_iran_nuclear_deal
And now the US is struggling with U.S. Republicans, who believe in domination of the internal population of the U.S.  The Republicans cast aside diplomatic discourse some years back.

We know the best communications mechanisms [LINK].  See also this action LINK.  Remember that you might need to click on an official's photo to get to his or her contact information tab.  I am going to try to figure out how to tell my Congresspeople, "STOP TALKING ABOUT ATTACKING IRAN, I AM WATCHING YOU!!  [If I am angry, should I sound angry?  Or should I just say the words, "I am angry at the talk of attacking Iran and of doing things to defeat any possibility of a settlement that would get the sanctions off the backs of ordinary Iranians?" 
For your information, Noam Chomsky also pointed out that the U.S. has total surveillance ongoing in any event, so no nuclear attack would ever get off the ground from Iran ever anyway.  From Israel, yes maybe a nuclear attack by them would not be stopped by the U.S., but from Iran it would be.
And also please remember about "I hope the senator will oppose two bills that could lead to a collapse of the talks: the Menendez-Kirk sanctions bill (S. 269) and the Corker-Graham legislation mandating an ‘up or down’ vote on any agreement reached with Iran" [LINK]
----end insert preface note-----------

Please keep scrolling down for the full lead article reproduced below:

(*) Ali Gharib is a national security reporter for ThinkProgress.org covering U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, particularly Iran. Before joining the Center for American Progress, he wrote and blogged for Inter Press Service as well as the Columbia Journalism Review’s website, ForeignPolicy.com, and Common Dreams, among other outlets.

(**) And, as I have been reminding you periodically for a number of years now:
The Nation is the oldest print publication in America that is still publishing.  Since 1865.  The founding prospectus:
The Nation will not be the organ of any party, sect, or body. It will, on the contrary, make an earnest effort to bring to the discussion of political and social questions a really critical spirit, and to wage war upon the vices of violence, exaggeration, and misrepresentation by which so much of the political writing of the day is marred. -1865

-------------MAIN ARTICLE--------------

The Worst Case for War With Iran You’ll Read in a Major Newspaper

Ali Gharib on March 16, 2015 - 11:34 AM ET

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(AP Photo/Dennis Cook)

Many opponents of a nuclear deal with Iran simply won’t come out and say what they seem to be constantly getting at: that the United States should go to war. Well, kudos to the hawkish opinion pages of The Washington Post and the neoconservative scholar Joshua Muravchik for making just that argument in Sunday’s paper. Muravchik purports to explain how negotiations will never work with a regime like Iran’s (“akin to communist, fascist and Nazi regimes”), and that attacking is the only way to forestall an Iranian nuclear bomb. It’s good to see some of these anti-diplomacy hawks have the courage of their convictions.
There are other reasons to welcome Muravchik’s salvo, too. It makes the case for war, yes, but that case comes off as so laughably weak that one wonders how anyone not already ideologically committed to the notion could be swayed into supporting it. That makes the particulars of Muravchik’s argument worth delving into.
But first a word on the man. A fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Muravchik has the biography of a neoconservative archetype, moving left to right through socialist youth groups, the Scoop Jacksonite Coalition for a Democratic Majority, then finally into full-blown neoconservatism. His current and former affiliations, accordingly, read like neocon alphabet soup, including groups like AEI, WINEP, PNAC and JINSA, among others.
And this isn’t Muravchik’s first rodeo. A board member of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, he aggressively pushed war there after 9/11. Since at least as far back as 2006, he’s periodically called for war with Iran. At the end of that year—as Iraq spiraled into its bloodiest period of chaos—Muravchik published two opinion pieces, one in the Los Angeles Times that began with the breathless declaration, “We must bomb Iran.” The headline was half as long: “Bomb Iran.” He repeated the call in, at least, 2007, 2008, 2011 and 2014.
The latest reprise of Muravchik’s monomaniacal aim, in the Washington Post, carried a bit of a different title: “War with Iran is probably our best option.” Probably? So we—with Muravchik, it’s always “we,” the collected national mass to be dragged along into his follies—ought to go down this path again because he’s pretty sure it’s best for us! War is supposed to be a last resort; that doesn’t mean it’s “probably our best option,” but that it’s our only one. (In 2011, in a USA Today op-ed calling for—you guessed it!—war with Iran, Muravchik concluded that “force should always be a last resort, but perfect certainty that nothing else will work only comes when it’s too late.”)
Maybe Muravchik didn’t write the Post headline, but the uncertainty over outcomes pervades his piece. “What if force is the only way to block Iran from gaining nuclear weapons?” he asks, before answering, “That, in fact, is probably the reality.” That, in fact, is probably not true. Other analysts with far fewer flops in their records think our attacking could spur Iran to take a decision toward building a bomb (something, contra Muravchik, they haven’t done, according to American and Israeli intelligence).
An Iranian decision to produce a weapon would be especially dangerous because attacking can’t actually “block Iran.” Rather, the best possible outcome of airstrikes is to set Iran’s nuclear program back a few years. Muravchik’s response to this is as simple as it is scary: just keep bombing. “[W]e can strike as often as necessary,” he wrote. The Israelis call this “mowing the lawn”—an anodyne euphemism for perpetual war.
Note Muravchik’s use of the word “perhaps” along the same lines that “probably” appears in his headline and in four places in the body of the article: meek statements declaring, Hey, maybe this’ll work! Here’s another instance of “perhaps”:

Wouldn’t an attack cause ordinary Iranians to rally behind the regime? Perhaps, but military losses have also served to undermine regimes, including the Greek and Argentine juntas, the Russian czar and the Russian communists.

Setting aside that Muravchik is already declaring victory, reaching back to the Russian czar shows how bankrupt this argument is. As Georgetown and Harvard’s Ariane Tabatabai pointed out, one need only look to the 1980s, when the Islamic Republic solidified its shaky grip on Iran with the help of a bloody war started by Saddam Hussein. A proud peoples, Iranians rallied around their flag. “The Iranian people—including myself—will resist any military action,” the Nobel laureate and human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi, hardly a pro-regime stalwart, said in 2010 of the prospect of a Western attack.
Muravchik has been admittedly wrong about this sort of thing before. In a shallow 2006 reflection about the Iraq war, he wrote that neoconservatives, himself included, “were glib about how Iraqis would greet liberation.” No shit. But don’t let that stop you now.

Please support our journalism. Get a digital subscription for just $9.50!

For all their preening about democracy and freedom, Muravchik and his ilk must ignore the Iranian democracy and human rights activists who lay their asses on the line and oppose war. Indeed, he ignores altogether the consequences of an attack on Iranians. But he does at least address the potential for adverse effects on Americans:

And finally, wouldn’t Iran retaliate by using its own forces or proxies to attack Americans—as it has done in Lebanon, Iraq and Saudi Arabia—with new ferocity? Probably. […W]e might absorb some strikes.

“Probably…might.” Sigh. We’re talking about dead Americans here.
What’s most remarkable about Muravchik’s case is that, despite making if for nigh on a decade, the Post chose to publish it at this moment. The United States and Iran are reportedly on the cusp of an agreement to curtail Iran’s nuclear program. Muravchik’s arguments are weaker and less confident than in 2006, when diplomacy was falling flat.
That itself is telling: this is not a scholar responding to events of the day, but rather one retro-fitting his long-held predispositions onto them—the definition of an ideologue. It shows what a small clique of even quasi-respectable analysts the poor Washington Post opinion editors have to draw on to make these sorts of inane arguments. If this is the best the hawkish paper and its neoconservative allies can muster, maybe we will be okay after all.
Read Next: Ali Gharib on Tom Cotton: The senator behind the Republicans’ letter to Iran

Related Topics: Axis of Evil | War and Peace | World

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-------------END OF MAIN ARTICLE--------------

Previous messages that are relevant and that contain other links.  The significant link lists are partially but not entirely repetitive unless you have already read all of them.

sent 3/3/15 ACTION NOW PLEASE, I AM ASKING YOU Netanyahu weighed in -- will you? --FCNL ACTION [LINK]
(Yes, please, I am very much repeating my action request now even if you acted before.  This is a hot and fluid problem, it seems.)

sent 2/23/15 The Spy Cables--Al Jazeera [LINK]
(Israel's serious intelligence agency, Mossad, reported to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu not too long ago that there is no sign of Iran preparing to make nuclear weapons, and there never has been any sign of it.)

sent 3/10/15 "Iran to GOP: US laws do not apply"

sent 3/7/15 "Why ISIS exists [and the United States cannot help]"--Foreign Policy in Focus

sent 3/6/15 2, both major: 1. Terrorism poses no existential threat to America. We must stop pretending otherwise

sent 2/28/15 "What’s in the conscience of today’s conservative?" [+ 2 (& 3)]  Do please note that this is about the various sorts of people who label themselves "conservative."  It is not my labeling or anyone else's labeling.  "Conservative" is their own self-labeling and means some different (and contradictory) things to the different people who label themselves that way.

love to all,
Larry
--
Brother Larry/Attorney Scott archives (Larry at Blogspot) "undisclosed recipients" email message archive, no logging in, no public comments
One way or another, raise yourself up I say; do not be afraid.  If you are not doing it you can do it.  Other people are doing it.  We can learn from them, I find.

sent 3/16/15 "'Age of Burn What You Like' is Over: UN Makes Landmark Call for Divestment"

"'Age of Burn What You Like' is Over: UN Makes Landmark Call for Divestment," by Deirdre Fulton, Common Dreams staff writer, March 15, 2015 [OR print-friendly LINK, easier reading, links right-click only]  The UN has just put its weight behind fossil fuel industry divestment in preparation for another big world meeting in Paris that is coming up.  Deirdre Fulton's good article contains references and links to three other interesting current actions.  Fossil fuel workers might want to start looking for work in other developing and more positive fields, which leaves out joining the military, these days for sure for sure.  Hopefully fossil fuel workers might not want to go from the frying pan into the fire in terms of being badly used.  I wonder whether the number of climate change/wilder and wilder weather deniers has been going down any.  I am sure the Koch brothers will continue to be up in arms to sell more and more. 

For background you might want to see the several links I have collected together from the past year or so in these two previous messages I have sent you.  They contain links to other messages that each contain one or more news updates that are relevant to the article above.

sent 2/26/15 (this is affecting things) "The Pentagon & Climate Change: How Deniers Put National Security at Risk"

sent 2/22/15 Inhofe's favorite scientist got $1.2 mil over 10 years from fossil fuel industry--("humans have little to do with climate change")

love,
Larry
--
Brother Larry/Attorney Scott archives (Larry at Blogspot) "undisclosed recipients" email message archive, no logging in, no public comments
One way or another, raise yourself up I say; do not be afraid.  If you are not doing it you can do it.  Other people are doing it.  We can learn from them, I find.

sent 3/15/15 Ukraine: humongous lies from Gen. Breedlove and Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland

The magazine Der Spiegel is an old mainstream German publication in English.  I have had occasion to read many excellent and informative articles from that publication on line in the past.  Here is one:

"Breedlove's Bellicosity: Berlin Alarmed by Aggressive NATO Stance on Ukraine," by SPIEGEL staff, March 6, 2015

I found the above article linked in this one by the well known American Ray McGovern, retired CIA analyst (Wikipedia LINK):
"Guiding Obama into Global Make-Believe," by Ray McGovern, Consortium News, March 14, 2015. [OR print-friendly LINK]

Basically the U.S. military leadership has been grossly, and I mean grossly, exaggerating Russian military activity in the Ukraine.  The ceasefire is holding while these humongous American lies continue.

"......This U.S. pattern of exaggeration – making scary claims about Ukraine without releasing supporting evidence – has even begun to erode the unity of the NATO alliance where Germany, in particular, is openly criticizing the Obama administration’s heavy-handed use of propaganda in its “information warfare” against Russia......"

"......But [Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland] and other neocon hardliners have never been interested in a nuanced presentation of reality. Instead, they have treated Ukraine as if it were a testing ground for the latest techniques in psychological or information warfare, although the propaganda is mostly aimed at the U.S. and European publics, getting them ready for more war......" [emphasis added--LAS]

Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland is said to be a former adviser to the evil one, the most evil person in the world as far as I can tell from following his behavior quite closely over the past 18 years, Vice President [Richard "Dick"] Cheney.  "Evil" means, of course, "moving in many directions that are plain opposite to what I perceive as the interests of me and my family, my 100 percent true blue American, with solid Christian background, family."

Under these next three links can again be found other articles about the U.S. manipulation of Ukraine, and not for the good of any but a few of the wealthy in the Ukraine.  While they act as mouthpieces for our American terrorists, the true events of the American responsibility for the current situation in the Ukraine keep getting glossed over and ignored by most of the big American media these days, of course.  I say of course, because that seems to be what we can expect these days.

sent 3/28/14 must read Robert Parry: [Ukraine:] The Danger of False Narrative

sent 5/3/14-5/5/14 Europe and Ukraine: And now, here is the rest of the story; It's not Russia that's pushed Ukraine to the brink of war

sent 2/2/15 (action needed to oppose big arms to the Ukraine) Robert Parry and others 1. "‘Group-Thinking’ the World into a New War"

The three links above lead to the same writings that I included recently about the Ukraine in sent 3/6/15 2, both major: 1. Terrorism poses no existential threat to America. We must stop pretending otherwise
------------------
And oh, by the way, Europe, especially German leaders it seems, are also bothered a lot by the letter to Iran having been sent by those stupid 47 U.S. Senators a week or so ago.  They are bothered because that letter has resulted, as was probably the plan, in making things more difficult for the American negotiator in the settlement talks with Iran because of a loss to American credibility.  And yes, the settlement talks include negotiators from other countries besides the U.S.  And you just know that a U.S. military attack on Iran would create the biggest mess the world has ever known.  And who is physically located closer to Iran, Europe?  Or the U.S.  So hey, this matters to Europeans even if it does not matter to you.  Look for the economic fallout on your life just from European business realignments with other countries such as China and Russia if nothing else.

NB: I have continued revising the link under "I say" in the tagline.  I think it makes more sense now.  You might want to look at it again even if you just looked at it earlier.  Again, that is:
sent 1/11/15 (revised 3/15/15) One way or another, raise yourself up; do not be afraid "......I pray that you are not one of those fearful people and that you can, without fear, rise against those who are afraid, not with hatred but with love and determination......"

love,
Larry
--
Brother Larry/Attorney Scott archives (Larry at Blogspot) "undisclosed recipients" email message archive, no logging in, no public comments
One way or another, raise yourself up I say; do not be afraid.  If you are not doing it you can do it.  Other people are doing it.  We can learn from them, I find.

sent 3/15/15 REVISING: "one way or another, raise yourself up..." YOU might be able to assist me by contributing

Hey, :-)

You have seen one or more taglines, the one below being one of them, wherein have appeared the words "One way or another, raise yourself up, I say...," with that hyperlink included.

The message under that hyperlink has been read a great number of times, a number that might be higher, even far higher, than any other message I have sent in the last 12 years.  I cannot say, actually, because I only see how many have read it at our on line archives.  That number includes neither any count of how many got it from my original direct email message nor of how many just happened to wander into the archives unbeknownst to me.

Because it seems likely that it will keep on getting more and more reads, I have just done a major revision to the original, with the link remaining the same as before:
sent 1/11/15 (revised 3/15/15) One way or another, raise yourself up; do not be afraid

Assuming the recorder worked, I will be adding a message and a link in the above post for the words that Brian the church minister spoke this morning to a largish audience.

You might be able to add something for that message, what with my not having attempted a full catalog of what might help.  It is the biggest message that I have for you.  You might be able to make it bigger, with a thought or a link to the thoughts of another.  I might just add it in to the above link if it is short, or, if it is longer, I might write a separate message and then add in a link to the new message, so that it is included.  This is about raising ourselves up and about learning how to eradicate fear inside ourselves much or most of the time.  You are the one that knows how you are doing, right?  I know there are more "tricks" where those came from.

I will give the credit to "Anon, Anon1, Anon2, etc." of course, as you have come to expect.

Larry
--
Brother Larry/Attorney Scott archives (Larry at Blogspot) "undisclosed recipients" email message archive, no logging in, no public comments
One way or another, raise yourself up I say; do not be afraid.  If you are not doing it you can do it.  Other people are doing it.  We can learn from them, I find.

sent 3/14/15 "The Second Coming Of Richard Milhous Nixon," by James Wright, Chief Warrant Officer, United States Navy (ret), Citizen of the United States of America

This by James Wright, Chief Warrant Officer, United States Navy (ret), Citizen of the United States of America, is what I have just been trying to say, but with more emphatic words and different references.

"The Second Coming Of Richard Milhous Nixon," March 13, 2015

Larry

sent 3/14/15 from Haaretz: "Report: Senate panel probing whether Obama administration funded anti-Netanyahu campaign"

Note: Please see at the bottom about the two new sources that I have just added to my list of regular sources down the right side of the page at Brother Larry/Attorney Scott archives.
-------------------------------------------------
Not to bore you I hope, but this is plain ridiculous in my opinion, the new concept that the "anti-Netanyahu campaign" might be a an issue of party politics in the United States.  Mainly the issue in America around the Prime Minister of Israel is between those who are heavily supported by the business interests of individuals who comprise the Israel Lobby in the U.S. Congress (Wikipedia LINK) versus those who are more concerned with the United States of America.  I have just seen serious evidence presented that it is clearly and well documented that those 30 to 50 United States Senators who jumped up and down and shouted with joy (glee?) 47 times in the Senate on March 3, 2015 during the appearance of the Prime Minister of Israel are people bought and paid for by contributions from members of the Israel Lobby, American and Israeli.  That was a very big deal.  And its consequences are ongoing, bad for us in the rest of the world as you can easily see if you bother to look.

I find the fact of Senators actually jumping up and down with joy (glee?) almost as eventful as Netanyahu having been allowed to speak in the United States Senate in the first place, whatever he said, whatever lies he told--like pretending the nonexistence of the Mossad report to him of no nuclear weapons preparations going on in Iran at all ever--in the furtherance of his campaign to get the United States military to prepare for and to carry out an attack on Iran no matter what else.  See sent 3/3/15 ACTION NOW PLEASE, I AM ASKING YOU Netanyahu weighed in -- will you? --FCNL ACTION [LINK] and sent 2/23/15 The Spy Cables--Al Jazeera [LINK].

Jumping up and down!  This is not to waste your time with some "Ain't it awful" game.  No, I point it out because that show was actually something that affected the world rather a lot--in various ways a lot. 

What is also interesting is that this news about a new U.S. Senate investigation appears in one of the top Israeli publications, Haaretz.  Israel is a democracy at least to an extent, the point being that the Prime Minister does not totally control everything and everybody in Israel and does not seem to have much control at Haaretz.

"Report: Senate panel probing whether Obama administration funded anti-Netanyahu campaign" [LINK], by Haaretz, March 14, 2015

I also want to point out this article about Senator Tom Cotton, the one of the leading employees of the Israel Lobby according to another article, the Senator who composed that stupid letter that has the world upset, the one that he and 46 others signed and sent to Iran a few days back. 
"Fallout from senators’ Iran letter: Tom Cotton for president?" by William Douglas [LINK], McClatchy Washington Bureau, March 12, 2015
See for further background, sent 3/10/15 "Iran to GOP: US laws do not apply" [LINK]
------------------------------
I have today added two new sources in my public list of regular sources down the right side of the page at Brother Larry/Attorney Scott archives.  The two that are new are Asia Times (atimes.com) [LINK] and Haaretz[LINK], the major Israeli source that today has the main article featured above.

Much goes on in both of those places, things that do affect our daily lives and that we might not hear about otherwise.

Larry
--
Brother Larry/Attorney Scott archives (Larry at Blogspot) "undisclosed recipients" email message archive, no logging in, no public comments
One way or another, raise yourself up I say; do not be afraid.  If you are not doing it you can do it.  Other people are doing it.  We can learn from them, I find.

sent 3/10/15 "Iran to GOP: US laws do not apply"

You probably heard about that stupid letter that some of our Senators just wrote to Iran the other day, following in the unforgettable footsteps of former VB Richard ("Dick") Cheney in producing the U.S. attack on Iraq almost single-handedly.  You might remember a bit about that.  I firmly believe that he did all that in the fulfillment of the need that he expressed along with a few--25 or so--other very wealthy friends with the publication of their famous September 2000 report, to get us all nervous and jerky.  [instant ge.tt download LINK]  He was one of the signatories during his time as CEO of Halliburton Company.  See (Wikipedia LINK).  He fulfilled their wish.  I have here archived and backed up every which way a few hundred messages that I have sent since 2003, with citations, that mention "Cheney." The work that he started in 1997 with the PNAC continues.  That is why we now have this huge world construct (58min instant video download, no web page) as of a couple of years or so ago now.

I believe that Iran is correct on the law.  However, I believe that some of my countrymen and countrywomen would have our country become a total outlaw in the world, even more than we already are an outlaw, I mean.  But perhaps other countries will help and encourage our country to become less of an outlaw, without killing too many of us I mean, hopefully.  One can hope.

"Iran to GOP: US laws do not apply," by Steve Thomma, McClatchy Washington Bureau, McClatchy, March 9, 2015

Please see for easy reference
sent 3/7/15 "Why ISIS exists [and the United States cannot help]"--Foreign Policy in Focus
.... and the reference links that that one contains

Larry
P.S. It would not hurt me any if you were to take this viral, to any and all of those whom you feel probably will not bite you.
--
Brother Larry/Attorney Scott archives (Larry at Blogspot) "undisclosed recipients" email message archive, no logging in, no public comments
One way or another, raise yourself up I say; do not be afraid.  If you are not doing it you can do it.  Other people are doing it.  We can learn from them, I find.

sent 3/7/15 "Why ISIS exists [and the United States cannot help]"--Foreign Policy in Focus

Subject: "Why ISIS exists [and the United States cannot help]"--Foreign Policy in Focus

If you have been paying attention then this is pretty much a repeat.  If you have not been paying attention then call this a grand summary, too good, even if it does fit right in with what I have been sending you for awhile.  THIS IS SERIOUS %&$@*  LET US EACH FIGURE OUT HOW TO GET OURSELVES INTO THE WAY OF AMERICAN TERRORISTS AND AMERICAN TERRORISM BECAUSE THEY DO NO GOOD AND WE NEED THEM STOPPED! 

I cannot imagine any honest way that anyone can read and understand this and still have the slightest doubt as to the appropriateness of my language just then.  Please let your imagination be your guide from wherever you happen to be.
"Why ISIS exists: In the U.S. war on Iraq, hundreds of thousands died the sort of deaths that, if broadcast in an ISIS video, would have inflamed international opinion," by Adil E. Shamoo and Bonnie Bricker, Foreign Policy in Focus, March 5, 2015

For reference, dig dig dig into the links in this:
sent 3/6/15 2, both major: 1. Terrorism poses no existential threat to America. We must stop pretending otherwise
BUT DO NOTE:  Some of the focus in those reference links is about the fact that America is not threatened.  Right!  That is one thing.  But this new Foreign Policy in Focus article is not about that.  This article is about the fact that the United States can do NOBODY any good in the situation with ISIS.*  That is what honest analysis says.  Those are two different facts.
------------------
3/19/2015 update: A third fact is that the Wahhabi tribe/ISIS/ISIL reads the Koran as requiring them to allow Christians to live provided they pay an extra tax and act subdued.
-----------------

Larry

* Well the United States can do nobody any good except for some big business individuals here and there, like for example Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's personal investments in Israel's very highly specialized military security equipment business and America's infamous publicly traded KBR (Wikipedia LINK), a private military contractor, formerly part of Halliburton.  Richard (Dick) Cheney and lots of his friends are famously invested there.  I do not know who the CEO of KBR is these days, just that it is somebody.  Those are just two examples.  They plan to make incredible amounts of money, of course.  But I mean, and what this article says is, the United States can do no good for anybody who is actually trying to continue to live in that part of the world. 
P.P.S. Yes this is the same as the one you may have seen under the sent 3/6/15 one linked above: Please take this viral because it is seriously vital to all of this who live here and who have younger family living here. Help stop it!  Please!  Some people are just off their rockers with ridiculous fear and worry.  I pray that you are not one of them and that you can, without fear, rise against those who are afraid, not with hatred but with love and determination.
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Brother Larry/Attorney Scott archives (Larry at Blogspot) "undisclosed recipients" email message archive, no logging in, no public comments
One way or another, raise yourself up I say; do not be afraid.  If you are not doing it you can do it.  Other people are doing it.  We can learn from them, I find.

sent 3/7/15 personal; this might get you (song, better than YouTube) "Oh, America"

Celtic Woman, "Oh America" (2010)

This is personal.  May I presume to say, being well aware that it is a very big song, this is a big part of where I am at inside much of the time these days.

You can press the Play triangle button near the center of this ge.tt page (LINK) and/or click here for an immediate download that you can put into your mp3 player.   It is in 320 kbps mp3 format, which means better sound quality than anything that YouTube is set up to transmit.  It is from my CD.

It has bass in it, if your speakers happen to be able to do that. :-)

love,
Larry
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Brother Larry/Attorney Scott archives (Larry at Blogspot) "undisclosed recipients" email message archive, no logging in, no public comments

sent 3/6/15 2, both major: 1. Terrorism poses no existential threat to America. We must stop pretending otherwise

Subject: 2, both major: 1. Terrorism poses no existential threat to America. We must stop pretending otherwise

Please take this viral because, besides staying unafraid, there is nothing more important if you happen to reside in the these United States than understanding and having these concepts--unless you have an impending doom if you miss a work deadline OR your house happens to be on fire right now and you have saved the children and are saving your computer.

1. "Terrorism poses no existential threat to America. We must stop pretending otherwise," by John Mueller and Jon Stewart, The Guardian, February 24, 2015

2. "Letter to an Unknown American Patriot," by Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch, March 1, 2015 [or alternate "printfriendly" LINK]

That friend Tom Engelhardt speaks my mind.

Those two articles cover the territory.  Please read them first before anything else distracts you.  But if you want a start on background, there is lots of collected background.  Each link contains other links that I chose for their standout knowledge and intelligence.  I have just gone through my recent past messages that I have sent you. 

Middle East here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Ukraine here, here, and here.

There are more, but I am stopping with that, except oh:

let us not forget: Download link for 58 min "Bush and Obama--Age of Terror" video. No web page, just download

Larry
P.S. Please take this viral because it is seriously vital to all of this who live here and who have younger family living here. Help stop it!  Please!  Some people are just off their rockers with ridiculous fear and worry.  I pray that you are not one of them and that you can, without fear, rise against those who are afraid, not with hatred but with love and determination.
--
Brother Larry/Attorney Scott archives (Larry at Blogspot) "undisclosed recipients" email message archive, no logging in, no public comments

sent 3/3/15 ACTION NOW PLEASE, I AM ASKING YOU Netanyahu weighed in -- will you? --FCNL ACTION

Subject: ACTION NOW PLEASE, I AM ASKING YOU Netanyahu weighed in -- will you? --FCNL ACTION  [And PLEASE, I BEG YOU, take this one viral to any and all who will not bite you.]

I am just forwarding you this from the great FCNL today, along with recent background links.  Here are those background links, accumulated into one spot for your review:
sent 2/23/15 The Spy Cables--Al Jazeera [LINK]

I will make a point of saying, along with anything else that I will say to my congress people, that to get an agreeable settlement in the negotiations with Iran, Iran should be offered the lifting of all economic sanctions for good behavior.  My understanding is--and there's an article in there somewhere about this--Iran is not being offered that no matter what they might agree to.  To me that is plain wrong, not to mention stupid.  There should be something the Iranians can agree to that would get sanctions lifted for them in return.

This big request for help from the Religious Society of Friends Washington lobbying organization speaks for itself.  I see this as one of the crucial points for our future as a community on the American continent.  Please see more below after this from FCNL.  Larry

Dear Larry A. Scott Esq., Today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and more than fifteen thousand advocates are on the Hill pressing Congress for anti-diplomacy legislation and new sanctions on Iran. Netanyahu just finished his speech on the floor of the House, where he spoke out against the current negotiations. Your members of Congress are hearing a lot of opposition to diplomacy. They need to hear that their constituents support the ongoing talks with Iran. Please call Congress today, and urge them to let diplomacy work. You've already done so much to protect delicate negotiations around Iran's nuclear program. Thanks in large part to your calls, emails and lobby visits around the country, anti-diplomacy sanctions legislation that was intended to pass in January is currently shelved until at least the end of this month. What’s more, dozens of members of Congress spoke out before Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech. They question the content and timing of the speech, and the manner in which the prime minister was invited to speak without consulting the White House. Some legislators expressed their concern by not attending the speech, while others voiced their ardent support for the negotiations and opposition to new sanctions. But anti-diplomacy legislation could still shipwreck a deal before the deadline for a political framework agreement at the end of this month. That's why your senators need to hear from you. Call your senators’ offices and ask that they oppose anti-diplomacy legislation and speak out in support ongoing talks. Please call 1-855-68 NO WAR (1-855-686-6927) and ask for your senator’s office. Here are some talking points to help you make your call: My name is ______, and I'm from [city], [state]. Please support the ongoing talks to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran and another war. I hope the senator will oppose two bills that could lead to a collapse of the talks: the Menendez-Kirk sanctions bill (S. 269) and the Corker-Graham legislation mandating an ‘up or down’ vote on any agreement reached with Iran. Thank you. As always, thank you for your tireless work for diplomacy and peace. Sincerely, Kate Gould Legislative Associate Middle East Policy P.S. For more context about the problems in content, timing and protocol with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech, see my blog post with Scoville Fellow Wardah Khalid. About Contact Us Donate

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I have used the FCNL resource to communicate with my representative.
http://capwiz.com/fconl/dbq/officials

Using those tools involves putting in your zip code to get you to where you can click on and look under the photograph of the official(s) to/with whom you want to communicate.  Then click the "Contact" tab.  If you want direct phone numbers they are there; or you can click the link to "Web Form."  That leads to a row of buttons where you can choose among the issues listed or click the one for "I want to write my own letter."  Then when you click "Next" you can choose to have this wonderful service send for you whatever you write, by email, printed letter, or fax. 

Thank you as always.

love,
Larry
P.S. Please call your congresspeople to inform them of your opinion, hopefully that Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel got a LOT wrong when he spoke to Congress today, March 3, 2015.  If you need any further help with that after reviewing the information I've provided under the links in sent 2/23/15 The Spy Cables--Al Jazeera [LINK]  then please do visit  here to review Kate Gould's piece. [LINK].  Again, I will make a point of saying, along with anything else that I will say to my congress people, that to get an agreeable settlement in the negotiations with Iran, Iran should be offered the lifting of all economic sanctions for good behavior.  There should be something the Iranians can agree to that would get sanctions lifted for them in return.  Thank you again.  Larry
P.P.S. Please take this message viral to any and all who will not bite you. Thanks!

sent 3/2/15 book recommendation: Waging Peace: Global Adventures of a Lifelong Activist by David Hartsough

Subject: book recommendation: Waging Peace: Global Adventures of a Lifelong Activist by David Hartsough [Amazon link]

Unless you would like to just buy from somewhere, I suggest reading at least reading the editorial reviews at Amazon.  Those few reviews are most impressive aside from anything else.  Arun Gandhi, Daniel Ellsberg, and Medea Benjamin are people I recognize and people whose names you also probably recognize.

So, looking at where we are now, what good did any of them do, one might ask.  Well, the answer is, yes, things seem to have gone and are still going in the wrong direction world and U.S. peace-wise.  But things really could be worse than they are, even.  Use your imagination.  These people's lives have not been and are not in vain. 

Anyway, "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, sometimes," as the old saying goes.  Really.

And now that females have determined to run things, if you're one of them then you gotta do what you gotta do also sometimes.

I can only hope that what you've gotta do is at least somewhat in the same direction as some of what I have "had to do" and what I might still "have to do."

love,
Larry

sent 6/6/2009 “YOU ARE BRILLIANT AND THE EARTH IS HIRING…” MOST important 2009 commencement address:

Since I sent this address (full text below) by Paul Hawken about five-and-a-half (5½) years ago, I have heard from a very bright young family member, a college graduate with a quite decent job, that any and all individual political action in the United States has become totally useless.  For him that may be true.  Even so, that might change.  I did not say that it should change, only that it might. 

Right after I sent Paul Hawken's address (still further below a bit) five-and-a-half (5½) years ago--the same day, in fact--I sent a followup to add:

"This is the MOST important set of attitudes and concepts you can try to understand and to convey to the members of your family right now.  It's on you.  To fail is to fail your family now that you have this in front of you.  love, Larry Scott"

That was pretty heavy of me.  Even so, you might decide that this by Paul Hawken could apply to you.  You decide.

For my past sendings of factual updates on relevant events that have happened since June 2009, you can see a recently updated list of links in this recent message: sent 2/22/15 Inhofe's favorite scientist got $1.2 mil over 10 years from fossil fuel industry--("humans have little to do with climate change")
Ok, now we are finally ready.

 ---sent June 6, 2009--------

Subject: MOST important 2009 commencement address: “YOU ARE BRILLIANT AND THE EARTH IS HIRING…”

 “YOU ARE BRILLIANT AND THE EARTH IS HIRING…”

by Paul Hawken

Commencement Address by Paul Hawken to the Class of 2009, University of Portland, May 3, 2009

When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was “direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful.” Boy, no pressure there.

But let’s begin with the startling part. Hey, Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation… but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement. Basically, the earth needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.

This planet came with a set of operating instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don’t poison the water, soil, or air, and don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat have been broken. Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really good food, but all that is changing.

There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: YOU ARE BRILLIANT, AND THE EARTH IS HIRING. The earth couldn’t afford to send any recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And here’s the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don’t be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world. The poet Adrienne Rich wrote, “So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.” There could be no better description. Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refuge camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums.

You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largest movement the world has ever seen. Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power. Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement. It provides hope, support, and meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea, not in force. It is made up of teachers, children, peasants, businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, government workers, fisherfolk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers, weeping Muslims, concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders, grieving Christians, street musicians, the President of the United States of America, and as the writer David James Duncan would say, the Creator, the One who loves us all in such a huge way.

There is a rabbinical teaching that says if the world is ending and the Messiah arrives, first plant a tree, and then see if the story is true. Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity’s willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider. “One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice,” is Mary Oliver’s description of moving away from the profane toward a deep sense of connectedness to the living world.

Millions of people are working on behalf of strangers, even if the evening news is usually about the death of strangers. This kindness of strangers has religious, even mythic origins, and very specific eighteenth-century roots. Abolitionists were the first people to create a national and global movement to defend the rights of those they did not know. Until that time, no group had filed a grievance except on behalf of itself. The founders of this movement were largely unknown Granville Clark, Thomas Clarkson, Josiah Wedgwood and their goal was ridiculous on the face of it: at that time three out of four people in the world were enslaved. Enslaving each other was what human beings had done for ages. And the abolitionist movement was greeted with incredulity. Conservative spokesmen ridiculed the abolitionists as liberals, progressives, do-gooders, meddlers, and activists. They were told they would ruin the economy and drive England into poverty. But for the first time in history a group of people organized themselves to help people they would never know, from whom they would never receive direct or indirect benefit.. And today tens of millions of people do this every day. It is called the world of non-profits, civil society, schools, social entrepreneurship, and non-governmental organizations, of companies who place social and environmental justice at the top of their strategic goals. The scope and scale of this effort is unparalleled in history.

The living world is not “out there” somewhere, but in your heart. What do we know about life? In the words of biologist Janine Benyus, life creates the conditions that are conducive to life. I can think of no better motto for a future economy. We have tens of thousands of abandoned homes without people and tens of thousands of abandoned people without homes. We have failed bankers advising failed regulators on how to save failed assets. Think about this: we are the only species on this planet without full employment. Brilliant. We have an economy that tells us that it is cheaper to destroy earth in real time than to renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money to bail out a bank but you can’t print life to bail out a planet. At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product. We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it. We can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the future. One is called restoration and the other exploitation. And whenever we exploit the earth we exploit people and cause untold suffering. Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich.

The first living cell came into being nearly 40 million centuries ago, and its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams. Literally you are breathing molecules this very second that were inhaled by Moses, Mother Teresa, and Bono. We are vastly interconnected. Our fates are inseparable. We are here because the dream of every cell is to become two cells. In each of you are one quadrillion cells, 90 percent of which are not human cells. Your body is a community, and without those other microorganisms you would perish in hours. Each human cell has 400 billion molecules conducting millions of processes between trillions of atoms. The total cellular activity in one human body is staggering: one septillion actions at any one moment, a one with twenty-four zeros after it. In a millisecond, our body has undergone ten times more processes than there are stars in the universe exactly what Charles Darwin foretold when he said science would discover that each living creature was a “little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars of heaven.”

So I have two questions for you all: First, can you feel your body? Stop for a moment. Feel your body. One septillion activities going on simultaneously, and your body does this so well you are free to ignore it, and wonder instead when this speech will end. Second question: who is in charge of your body? Who is managing those molecules? Hopefully not a political party. Life is creating the conditions that are conducive to life inside you, just as in all of nature. What I want you to imagine is that collectively humanity is evincing a deep innate wisdom in coming together to heal the wounds and insults of the past.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would become religious overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead the stars come out every night, and we watch television.

This extraordinary time when we are globally aware of each other and the multiple dangers that threaten civilization has never happened, not in a thousand years, not in ten thousand years. Each of us is as complex and beautiful as all the stars in the universe. We have done great things and we have gone way off course in terms of honoring creation. You are graduating to the most amazing and stupefying challenge ever bequested to any generation. The generations before you failed. They didn’t stay up all night. They got distracted and lost sight of the fact that life is a miracle every moment of your existence. Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn’t ask for a better boss. The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer. Hopefulness only makes sense when it doesn’t make sense to be hopeful. This is your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it.

Paul Hawken is a renowned entrepreneur, visionary environmental activist, and author of many books, most recently Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming. He was presented with an honorary doctorate of humane letters by University president Father Bill Beauchamp, C.S.C., in May, when he delivered this superb speech. Our thanks especially to Erica Linson for her help making that moment possible.
www.paulhawken.com

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Thanks so much to Andrew Bard Schmookler of nonesoblind.com for having brought this to my attention.
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Brother Larry/Attorney Scott archives (Larry at Blogspot) "undisclosed recipients" email message archive, no logging in, no public comments
One way or another, raise yourself up I say; do not be afraid.  If you are not doing it you can do it.  Other people are doing it.  We can learn from them, I find.