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It’s a LISTENING problem

Jennifer C. Braceras suggests, in an Op Ed in the Boston Herald, that Obama could use a lesson in humility suggesting that he, more than any Republican leader such as George W. Bush, addresses the people with a narcissism suggesting sole ownership all government policy, or as she expresses it a government “of Barack, by Barack and for Barack.”

She brings forward this example:

Here is Dear Leader on the capture of Osama bin Laden: “I directed [the CIA] to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority.” “I met repeatedly with my national security team.” “I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and I authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden.”

Compare this to the language used by George W. Bush after the capture of Saddam Hussein: “The success of yesterday’s mission is a tribute to our men and women now serving in Iraq. The operation was based on the superb work of intelligence analysts who found the dictator’s footprints in a vast country. The operation was carried out with skill and precision by a brave fighting force. Boston Herald Op Ed

Hear Hear! Within this microcosm of Ms. Braceras’ observation, lies a universe of denial; a hidden black hole of static that sucks the real kernel of truth out of the story, the picture, and any meaningful link to the larger conversation. Denial, by its very definition, is a truth, obvious to others, that we do not want to hear. In fact, we cannot hear the information because of its deep connection to “who we are”. This hidden connection is an acid meant to burn the core of our very identity. This is a human problem. Not an American Problem, a Republican problem, or a Democratic Problem. We all own this problem with the same equality expressed in the Declaration of Independence. The enemy is here, and it is us. The larger revolution of behind the “Right/Left/Stand with/Recall/Pro/Con” Conspiracy In one small instance, in one op ed piece, Ms. Braceras evolves one small criticism, which has no real earth shaking importance other than to illustrate, yet another, preaching to choir article about a dissatisfaction with President of the United States in the election year of 2012. Big deal. If you are a right leaning Republican, you agree. If you are a progressive leaning Democrate, you are incensed. I can point out that she is expression her own arrogant and narcissistic opinion, while defining the arrogance and narcissism of Obama. She is expressing her own, self-held opinion and using words and editorial puzzle pushing to say, “your identity should attach to my identity”, and on it on it has gone, hour by hour, day by day, on radio, TV; and now with the advent of Twitter and Face book the puzzle pushing, people pleasing, narcissistic messages and tweets have grown exponentially in to a tsunami of preaching to the choir that might convert the devil himself. If he were listening. And there is the rub. That is the hidden point that put out the eye of Rush Limbaugh, and brought Wall Street to its knees, and sent Bernie Madoff into a downward spiral. When were you ever given instruction in “how to listen”. With all the arrogance and narcissism I can muster, I encourage you to research, examine, and practice the skill of real listening. Not because I have mastered it, but because I have not. Creative work is play. It is free speculation using materials of one’s chosen form. - Stephen Nachmanovitch

(From “Meet Your Playful Self) Watching Yourself You are about to make a discovery. You may think of yourself as a glass-half-full sort of person, and that you react positively in most situations of your life. Now is your chance to put your reactions to a test. Try this little experiment. Experiment # 1 Watching Yourself Listening Go over to the radio or TV and switch it on and listen to a news report. As you listen, watch yourself to discover what you are thinking in reaction to the words you hear. Do you find that you take immediate exception to much of what you hear? After doing this for five or ten minutes, try to evaluate your reactions as positive or negative by percentage. Where they: 50% negative 50% positive? Make your own evaluation. Now repeat the process, but this time try saying “yes” aloud to everything you hear. - You are not being encouraged to become some dish rag conformist. You are experimenting with watching yourself listen. As you become attentive to your habitual thought process, you can access the difference in the way you feel by agreeing when holding the intention of yes…. As you watched yourself listening, you became aware of all the immediate, split second, judgments and attitudes that arose. Of course this is normal. We all do this. The big difference is, as you are doing it now, you are actively watching, whereas ordinarily the judgments creep in beneath the surface without the slightest notice. Read the full experiment

Like a child’s train, what goes around comes around.

Walker’s refusal of Federal High Speed Rail funds was “Not only frustrating, it was downright disgusting”. Now, Walker uses the same words regarding the failure of mining bill.

Walker did not mince words over mining Thursday. “It’s not only frustrating, it’s downright disgusting. You had senators who were willing to put politics ahead of jobs,” Walker said. Walker Reacts

Mirror, mirror on the wall..

“If politics is going to play a higher priority than getting people back to work, it’s a sad day,” Walker said.

Who played politics worst of all?

It was Scott Walker who had a King of job creators kneeling at his feet. Talgo, the Spanish train-maker had already opened a plant in Milwaukee and was working on two trainsets for the Chicago-Milwaukee Hiawatha service. Wisconsin was awarded eight hundred and ten million dollars to create thousands of jobs in Wisconsin. Walker said “No”. The reason he gave was one of the first in the long litany of lies he would unleash on the people of Wisconsin over the following year.

Why did Walker reject high speed rail?

The job creating potential of Talgo, that was already in place in Milwaukee and looking ahead to years of production, was seen as such an obvious beacon in the dark tunnel of economic woe that Gov. Pat Quinn of Illinois immediately laid out a red carpet with a willingness of circus puppy.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn sent Talgo Inc. a letter inviting the company to move to his state and promising to do whatever he could to lure it there. …

“If Wisconsin is losing its enthusiasm for its rail program and others are not, we could go to Illinois and manufacture world-class trains there,” said Nora Friend, Talgo vice president for public affairs and business development. “We certainly appreciate Gov. Quinn reaching out to us. We will consider very seriously states that want to grow their rail program.”

Quinn invites Talgo

Poor leadership, poor strategy, abysmal whining In case you thought that last Summer’s recall elections where a failure because the Senate remained under GOP control – think again. If not for the shift of two new democratic seats in the Senate, the Penokee Hills would be well on its way to allow become a scar on the earth. Instead, the scar was left on the credibility and political clout of Scott Walker as Gogebic Taconite President Bill Williams issued a statement late Tuesday saying the company was leaving the state because the Senate sent a “clear message that Wisconsin will not welcome iron mining. We get the message.” To which a whisper from Mother Earth could be heard traveling off the waves of Lake Superior – “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out”. A wiser man would not find himself in Walker’s place. People like Walker fail to understand any of the often quoted words of truth – “The chickens come home to roost” – “The arc of moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice” – “You can fool some of the people some of the time…”. Only a self possessed man like Scott Walker is doomed to strut and fret his hour on the stage of politics owning the belief that he can impose his self will on people and politics, while defying history by repeating the behavior of fools of the past and expecting different results. The tracks, leading Walker out of his post, have been bent toward justice through the furnace of protest and unending demands of over a million people. The train is now departing the Penokee Hills – All aboard the recall train!

Epitaph Here Lies The Loss “We were positioned to be not only a center of the line, but to be a manufacturing center as well. Now we are moving from being the leader to the back of the line,” Doyle said. “Eight hundred and ten million dollars that would have gone to create thousands of jobs in Wisconsin will now create jobs in other states.” Nora Friend, a spokeswoman for the train manufacturing company Talgo, called the loss of funds “terrible news” for Wisconsin, for the company and its Milwaukee manufacturing plant, and for vendors and workers throughout the state. “It sends a terrible message to businesses that are considering coming to Wisconsin,” Friend said. She added Talgo will close its Milwaukee plant, probably in early 2012, and likely will lay off more than half of the 125 workers it expects to have on its payroll at that time. She said she doesn’t know where the plant will relocate. Capital Times Construction employment on the line itself was projected to peak at 4,732 jobs in 2012, with 55 permanent jobs to operate and maintain trains, stations and tracks. Journal Sentinel

Governor Scott Walker gave the keynote address at the Conservative Political Action Conference last Friday. He said that he silenced Obama’s comments regarding collective bargaining. He boldly claimed that he was responsible for Obama’s silence regarding the governor’s move to curtail collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin.

I am sure the president must know that the vast majority of the federal employees do not have collective bargaining for wages and benefits. I know he must know this. And I know the president must know that the average federal employee pays 28% for their health insurance premium which is double what I am asking for from state and local employees in Wisconsin. I am sure that the President of the United States is not getting his talking points from the big union bosses in Washington. I think Hannity ran that quote a dozen times that night and that’s the last we heard from the President.

Obama is coming to Wisconsin tomorrow Guess who is meeting him?

Republican Gov. Scott Walker will greet President Barack Obama in Milwaukee on Wednesday and accompany him on a visit to Master Lock in Milwaukee’s central city.

Walker’s spokesman Cullen Werwie (who has been granted immunity in the John Doe investigation) said Walker will meet the president at Mitchell International Airport and join him on the visit to Master Lock. Walker is not expected to make any remarks during the Master Lock visit.

JS Online

RNC Spokesman Ryan Mahoney. “We think having Governor Walker with the president will provide a stark contrast between Walker, who’s willing to make the tough decisions to get Wisconsin back on track, and President Obama, whose decisions seem to be solely based on what’s best for his re-election chances.”

The president has not been in Wisconsin through the whole year of protest and strife. His last visit was on Jan. 26, 2010, a day after his State of the Union address. President Obama visited the headquarters of power technology company Orion Energy Systems, Inc. in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. It was only a few weeks after that visit when Walker “dropped the bomb” curtailing collective bargaining rights for most public workers on February 11. Tomorrow will be his first
visit to the state after a year of protest and turmoil over labor issues, the voter ID Law, the refusal of Affordable Care funds, and most recently, using federal funds targeted to help troubled home owners to bring a shortfall in the budget back to balance.

President Barack Obama plans to talk about the importance of American manufacturing when he visits Wisconsin next week. The White House has announced he will be at Master Lock on Wednesday, talking about the need for companies to invest in American manpower. Obama singled out Master Lock in his State of the Union address last month, pointing out the Milwaukee company had returned about 100 jobs to Milwaukee from China since the middle of 2010. The company has said that decision was at least partly-driven by the rising cost of labor in Asia and the more expensive logistics of doing business from that far away.

Reposted from November 11, 2011

Scheduling or Strategy?

Time to Stand with Wisconsin

Double checking the map, Wisconsin is a gray shaded battleground state.

A day after his State of the Union address, President Obama visited the headquarters of power technology company Orion Energy Systems, Inc. in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. In a speech, Obama called for the U.S. to “up [its] game” in a time of increasing global competition. The decision to make Wisconsin the first state Obama visited following his State of the Union address was seen as making political sense, given the upcoming 2012 presidential election and the state’s central position in the “Midwest battleground”.Obama national visits

– It’s been a long, long year

Wisconsin has been engaged in the struggle of its life over the past 12 months. Many have noticed how Obama has been less than aggressive in his mounting the bully pulpit in support of the unions, teachers, seniors, and children of Wisconsin. As time passes without some message of strong support from the President through this whirlwind of vilification and attack, progressives can only begin to question his virtual silence through a challenged Spring Supreme Court race, an historic recall action against 6 GOP state Senators, a ruling of the State Supreme Court that dismissed the legislature from constitutional impertives regarding open meetings rules, and now, another historic recall effort against the governor of the state.

Bully Up

Why the silence? Wisconsin looks to Obama to take a stand against the Koch Bros., ALEC, Americans for Prosperity whose largess threatens the very heart of democracy. Secretary of Health Services (or Czar) sought a federal waiver exempting Wisconsin from receiving funds promised by the Heath Care Law that would leave seniors cut from medicare and families, mothers, and children stripped of the safety net of Badger Care. This at a time when the infant mortality rate in Milwaukee is that of a third world country.

Wisconsin is now in the midst of a historic recall of a sitting governor and four senators.

Climb up that bully pulpit and talk to us. We are on your side. We miss you.

Scheduling or Strategy?

Time to Stand with Wisconsin

Double checking the map Wisconsin is a gray shaded battleground state.

A day after his State of the Union address, President Obama visited the headquarters of power technology company Orion Energy Systems, Inc. in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. In a speech, Obama called for the U.S. to “up [its] game” in a time of increasing global competition. The decision to make Wisconsin the first state Obama visited following his State of the Union address was seen as making political sense, given the upcoming 2012 presidential election and the state’s central position in the “Midwest battleground”.Obama national visits

February – November a long, long time

Wisconsin has been engaged in the struggle of its live over the past 9 months. Many have noticed how Obama has been less than aggressive in his mounting the bully pulpit in support of the unions, teachers, seniors, and children of Wisconsin. As time passes without some message of strong support from the President through this whirlwind of vilification and attack, progressives can only begin to question his virtual silence through a challenged Spring Supreme Court race, an historic recall action against 6 GOP state Senators, a ruling of the State Supreme Court that dismissed the legislature from constitutional impertives regarding open meetings rules, and now, another historic recall effort against the governor of the state.

Bully Up

Why the silence? Wisconsin looks to Obama to take a stand against the Koch Bros., ALEC, Americans for Prosperity whose largess threatens the very heart of democracy. Secretary of Health Services (or Czar) is seeking a federal waiver exempting Wisconsin from receiving funds promised by the Heath Care Law that would will leave seniors cut from medicare and families, mothers, and children stripped of the safety net of Badger Care. This at a time when the infant mortality rate in Milwaukee is that of a third world country.

Climb up that bully pulpit and talk to us. We are on your side.

Anne Morgan was an advocate for women’s and workers’ rights, but she disagreed with the unions’ rhetoric, which she viewed as Socialist. When Triangle Factory workers rejected a proposal that offered higher wages and shorter hours but no union, Morgan withdrew her support from the Triangle strike in early 1910. In February, Triangle workers conceded their demand for a union and accepted a proposal for shorter hours and higher wages. Anne Morgan said,”women will take their places beside men as partners, unafraid, useful, successful, and free.” When Anne Morgan withheld her public support of the union movement for the Triangle shirtwaist workers, the movement faltered, forcing the workers to return to work with higher wages but without a union contract to address workplace safety. Months later a fire enveloped the building leaving workers trapped on the ninth floor of the Asch Building. The New York Times, March 27, 1911 When all the bodies of the victims of Saturday’s fire had been counted, recounted, and checked by officials of the Coroner’s office Coroner Holtzhauser made official announcement last night that the total number of the dead was 141. Of this number 133 were found at the scene of the fire, either out on the sidewalk or huddled on the ninth floor of the factory building.

Barack Obama was an advocate for women’s and workers’ rights, but he disagreed with the unions’ rhetoric, which he viewed as Socialist. When public workers rejected a proposal that demanded the union to give up collective bargaining rights, Obama withdrew his support from Union Workers calling it a “state issue”, in early 2011. In June, workers lost their right to collectively bargain in the state of Wisconsin. Barack Obama said “And understand this: If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I’m in the White House, I’ll a put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself. I’ll walk on that picket line with you as president of the United States.” When Barack Obama withheld his public support of the union movement for the right to collectively bargain, the movement faltered, forcing the workers to file “last ditch” lawsuits while hundreds of teachers and public workers sought early retirement. Months later the opponents of trade unions swept the 2012 elections and the Freedom of Information Act was repealed because of its threat to national security. New American 2024 The Federal Government has been reduced by over 75%. The regulatory agencies for the environment and rights of workers have been dissolved. The control of the workplace and wages paid, are solely in the hands of employer just as in 1911. One percent of the population now controls over 80% of the wealth.

The people will not be held hostage by a fringe tea party threat

Section 4.

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.

Clinton would evoke the 14th Amendment

It is time for Obama

Sharply criticizing Congressional Republicans in an exclusive Monday evening interview with The National Memo, Clinton said, “I think the Constitution is clear and I think this idea that the Congress gets to vote twice on whether to pay for [expenditures] it has appropriated is crazy.” Read Article

Senator Bernie Sanders spells out the threat of the tea party fringe

The Congressional tea party fanatics have set a dangerous precedent in using the debt ceiling to hold the people hostage. Make no mistake. The goal is to end social security and medicaid. Evoke the 14th Amendment against this insurrection of a few dangerously fanatic members of Congress..

Wow! We finally heard from the POTUS about the horrific actions being perpetrated by over reaching, corporate sponsored Republican Governors and state legislators against democracy.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — President Barack Obama showed support on Wednesday for opponents of bills in Ohio and Wisconsin that restrict unions and public employee bargaining rights.

During an interview with Cleveland television station WKYC, Obama said the bills were an effort to blame public employees for the nation’s economic problems.

“Let’s certainly not blame public employees for a financial crisis that they had nothing to do with. And let’s not use this as an excuse to erode their bargaining rights,” Obama said. “So whether it’s Wisconsin, the state of Ohio, I strongly disapprove.”

Please read the full article

Yes. We appreciate your comments of concern for the work and struggle we have been engaging in for the past months. It has been a bit surprising to most of us that this is being defined as “the first definitive statement” you have made regarding the vilification of public employees and the attack on peoples’ rights to collective bargaining. Originally, we were told that you were silent since it would pit you against a state governor and, thereby, distort the issues by taking them to a national conversation. At any rate, the “definitive” stance was taken today. Good for you! Most likely it will become a central part of your stump speech in the upcoming presidential election.

While we have your attention, would it be possible to get over to Attorney General Holder’s office and ask him to look into the recent State Supreme Court election here in Wisconsin?
We have a problem. We need answers about the anomalies, and irregularities that may have stolen the election from candidate Kloppenburg. Even though this is another “state problem” the very same process for counting the vote in the recent election, will be in place when the vote is counted for president in 2012, and it s messy. Many Wisconsinites lack confidence in the vote counting system, and for good reason.

Even though a recount is in process as I write this, it is being authorized and ruled by the the Attorney General of the State and the Government Accountability Board. They both have been implicated as actors of benefit from the suspicious election vote totals and administration. How are we to trust the decision beginning made by officials and Boards that are investigating themselves? Attorney General Van Hollen is in office due the a vote counted in Waukesha County, which displayed a different total vote on there web site, then the vote of the two candidates when added together. The GAB issued the County Clerk of Waukesha, the notorious Kathy Nickolaus, some “special” soft ware that was only supplied to her and no other County Clerk in the state. She kept the vote count that swung the election, with 7,000 votes for candidate Prosser on her personal lap top computer. What is going on? Why is it outrageous for people to expect a independent investigation? Why has Mr. Holder not taken action when he was requested to look into the election weeks ago my Rep. Tammy Baldwin? How can the people of Wisconsin expect a fair or just investigation of irregularities by people and parties that are suspect in the process?

Mr. President, now that we have found your ear, could you help us elect you as President again in 2012 by ordering a Investigation by the Attorney General?

I went to a production of “Hair” at the University of Wisconsin at LaCrosse last night. I must say I was having a serious case of “flashbacks”. I was attending a theatre alumni reunion and sitting amongst people I performed with over 30 years ago when the show was on Broadway. I lived in New York during the filming of the movie and watched the singing of “Frank Mills in front of the Waverly”, in Greenwich village. The most interesting, unexpected moment of the night was at the end of the the song with the lyrics posted below. Look at the final line. The full house laughed, got fuzzy, and applauded. Wow! Lyrics I’m a Colored spade A nigger A black nigger A jungle bunny Jigaboo coon Pickaninny mau mau Uncle Tom Aunt Jemima Little Black Sambo Cotton pickin’ Swamp guinea Junk man Shoeshine boy Elevator operator Table cleaner at Horn & Hardart Slave voodoo Zombie Ubangi lipped Flat nose Tap dancin’ Resident of Harlem And president of The United States of Love I said President of The United States of Love

_¸,.»=椺²° Meet Your Playful Self – http://www.myplayfulself.com