Can Al Gore get back in the Race?

I am so disappointed in the prospect of an Obama or a McCain presidency, I'm going to Canada at the end of this month - at least to think about it. Is there some kind of obscure rule at the Democratic Convention that can take the nomination away from Obama and give it to Gore? Just asking. Unfortunately it looks like he's going to sweep. Pardon my lack of confidence, but McCain doesn't have a chance despite a quick reading of the polls. He does not have the "Camelot" factor.

Unfortunately this country is in such bad shape, Obama will not solve our problems. We desperately need experience - and he's a fast learner - but not that fast.

Al, won't you at least reconsider. I met your Daddy when I was 10. Does that help?

Burn the Town and Sack the Banks!

In a little over two weeks, I will be travelling to St. Albans, Vermont. This town was made famous by being the object of the furthermost northern raid of Confederate forces during the Civil War. I will have more to tell after I get there.

The raid is the subject of a book by Carolyn J. Prince entitled: Burn the town and sack the banks.

Also on this trip - if I can get to see him - I plan on meeting with the leader of Vermont's secession movement - Thomas H. Naylor, the leader of the 2nd Vermont Republic.

The Second Vermont Republic has been picking up steam for the past few years with over 13% of Vermont's population wishing to secede from the union.

There is something going on in Vermont and I intend to find out what it is.

To purchase book: Burn the town and sack the banks!

Second Vermont Republic

Obama Just Lost My Vote!

This video clip tells why:

Your child needs to learn Spanish

Secession, Rebellion, the literary genre of violent separation

First of all, please let me assure you, I am a peace loving guy that has a vivid imagination. I'm also interested in politics as it seems everyone is those days. I write fiction. Fiction, my friends, is not the truth. I've had to tell this to numerous people over the years.

For those who are interested, at my website Thomsontalks, I am writing a story about rebellion and secession. The views expressed in the story are not my own, but are borrowed from other people.

I've completed five chapters. If you have suggestions please send them to me. I will keep the book on the website(complete with constant revisions)until I've completed it. By the way, it's called The Southern Split.

Please enjoy!

The Changing Face of America

Most people don’t know how big the world is. They live out their lives in the communities they call home and don’t even think about the subject. This is true even if they are Chinese, Scottish, New Zealand coal miners, or Maine lobster fishermen.

I live in Northern Virginia. Two deer have ambled into my backyard. One casually grabs a bite of a leaf hanging from a branch close to the ground. The forty acre field on the west side of my house is ringed by thick trees that hint of a dense forest beyond.

It’s all an illusion. What are beyond are busy highways, schools, shops, airports, and more of the same repeating over again.

Last week I found myself in the rather slummy heart of Sterling, Virginia. Most neighborhoods have a definite ethnic character. This one was as mixed up as a tossed salad. After I made my donation to Goodwill, I wandered into an Asian market and purchased some hot sauce - red pepper and vinegar – as I like it. When I went to check out, the clerk – I have no idea whether she was Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean- indicated by pointing to a sign that I needed more items to total ten dollars which is the store’s minimum on charge purchases. No English was spoken – nor was it needed.

Outside on the sidewalk were a young black man and a pregnant white woman. Shouting at them from across the street was another young black man. The conversation went something like this:

“Hey my niggah! Where you been my niggah?

“I just got out of jail.”

“What you there for?”

“Not paying my support... not paying my damn support.”

The three joined together and turned into a Mexican restaurant/pool hall to talk over the situation. Nearby, two young Vietnamese were arguing about the properties of an ancient Volvo’s fuel injection system. I understood enough Vietnamese to follow the conversation. I even understood the part where one of them kicked the car.

Soon I was driving west out of Sterling back into America again. I waved to the El Salvadoran children living at the bottom of the hill from my house …

Refreshing the Tree of Liberty

"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.
The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is
wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts
they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions,
it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ...
And what country can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are not
warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of
resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as
to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost
in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from
time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
It is its natural manure."

Thomas Jefferson in letter to William S. Smith, November 13, 1787

John Adams - A must read - a must see

This afternoon I was running errands in Sterling Virginia - a place that seems to have all the shops and services required by the Thomson family. At the luggage repair shop I met this talkative fellow who in the course of the conversation asked me if I had seen the HBO mini-series John Adams. I told the fellow that I had read the book and bought the entire collection of disks when they went on sale at Target over the weekend.

He told me - and I agree - this several hour long docudrama will complete your education on the Revolutionary War.

All my life, I have stood uncomfortably in faked reverence when someone wraps a flag around themselves and starts spouting off, idealistically, about our "forefathers."

The "forefathers" - it turns out - were just as "up in your face" as politicians today. This country's formative years were fragile and could have gone in several different directions.

Whether you are a Democrat or Republican ... or an Independent like myself, you should take the time to rent or buy "John Adams" and be proud of your beliefs. Contention is a good thing...

The Christian Wackadoo - Brother James Dobson

To call this guy a moral authority would be really stretching it. First he distances himself from John McCain and says there's no way he can vote for the man, and now he is attacking Barack Obama for being scripturally inaccurate in comments Obama made two years ago.

Heathen Episcopalian that I am, it is difficut for me to understand how Dobson got elevated to his present stature in the Christian Community.

Will someone please tell Dobson that no one is paying attention anymore?

Doubts about Obama!

I, for one, never thought that this "Reverend Wright" crisis would last as long as it has. Cynical - that's what I am. The fingerprints of Hillary and Bill seem to be all over this and Reverend Wright has sold out not caring that he has done great damage to the only Black man who has ever had a chance to become president.

Suppose Hillary prevails. Do you think she wins? Not a chance. Blacks and Independents will abandon her and line up behind McCain.

Will she have a chance in 2012? I doubt it.

Obama is the next president of the United States!

The Gods have decided, Barack Obama has been anointed the next President of The United States. Hillary Clinton and John McCain are being portrayed as representatives of failed American policy and worn out ideas.

Everywhere in the media there is the resounding sound of Obama! Obama! Obama! It is hard to escape. Hillary has invented a new form of suicide - death by talking! The more she talks - the worse it gets. This is the nagging conscience of America that you just want to shut up.

McCain's drone is ponderous if not totally irritating. How much more of this can we stand between now and November?

I'm sure there will be attempts to "swift boat" Obama, but I'm also guessing he is prepared for that.

Let's get it over!

Obama has scared away all the true independents.

When is the military going to weigh in on Hillary's lie?

It's out there. It's blatant. It comes from a future commander-in-chief. Hillary has taken the test and failed. As a retired military person, I am personally insulted that anyone aspiring to the world's highest office would make up such a pure and blatant lie. Misstatement my butt! She needs to get out of the race now and leave it to Obama and McCain to sort out!

It's Getting Crazy!

Obama and the Clinton's going at each other like caged pit bulls, Mexico's drug war starting to look like a civil war, George Bush advocating more free trade from Columbia and South Korea as a solution to the failing economy, the continuing Iraq War, both ice caps melting at frantic pace, and finally millions of Americans facing the prospect of losing everything because of corporate irresponsibility; this country is in real trouble and the politicians have their collective thumbs up their collective rectums.

Going back to the Mexican Drug War, did you see what happened in Gaza when Hamas blew up the fence separating the Gaza Strip and Egypt? Ten's of thousands of Palestinians rushed across into Egypt to re-provision and some to get out of the crazy hellhole called Palestine. If Mexico's drug war which is raging on our border gets worse and we have a combination of war refugees joining the economic refugees, the situation in Gaza by comparison would look like a (pardon the pun) hat dance. This passage from a recent article by James C. McKinley Jr. of the New York Times:

RIO BRAVO, Mexico — These days, it is easy to form the impression that a war is going on in Mexico. Thousands of elite troops in battle gear stream toward border towns and snake through the streets in jeeps with .50-caliber machine guns mounted on top while fighter jets from the Mexican navy fly reconnaissance missions overhead.

Gunbattles between federal forces and drug-cartel members carrying rocket-propelled-grenade launchers have taken place over the past two weeks in border towns like Rio Bravo and Tijuana, with deadly results.

This is cabinet meeting crisis stuff and our commander-in-chief talks about cucumbers from Columbia. Where are our troops on the border? The question is rhetorical but you know the answer.

The economic stimulus package proposed by the president and congress is a bandaid for arterial bleeding. The leader of the free world is not taking a leadership position on the real issue of global warming. My perception and probably a lot of people's is that no candidate has even "thought" about the immigration crisis let alone come up with a sensible plan on how to tackle it.

This year isn't politics as usual folks, it's politics for survival of the Republic. When are Independents going to get on ballots and when, for God's sake, is an independent presidential candidate going to come along who can herd the political goats and corporate hogs who are destroying this country?

Open and Closed Primary States

Checking the searches that brought many of you to this site, I have noticed queries about open and closed election primaries. Here is a link, I hope it is helpful.

Fair Vote

Hillary - F; Obama - F; McCain - D- on Illegal Immigration

Barack Obama received the endorsement,yesterday, of the Culinary Worker's Union. One of the reasons he received this endorsement is because of promises he has made to bring about comprehensive immigration reform (amnesty). Here's a quote:

"Immigration is a huge issue for our members," said the union's political director, Pilar Weiss, of a local whose members are about 45 percent Hispanic.

Hillary Clinton has never seen a comprehensive immigration reform bill that she wouldn't vote for and her positions are high on amnesty and low on border protection.

John McCain in the last few weeks has had a change of heart from earlier positions, but we must not forget he was the sponsor of one of the largest illegal immigrant giveaways since the Reagan administration. There is nothing in his current positions that shows the hardcore stance many Americans have adopted towards illegal immigrants.

Ballot initiatives denying services and protections to illegal immigrants abound all across the fruited plain. Newly passed laws in Oklahoma and New Mexico have so far been resistant to court challenges.

Yet, while this issue is one that absorbs the hearts and minds of ordinary citizens, it seems to have been forgotten by the candidates - at least in their campaigning. This from a December 2007 Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg Poll:

Compared to other problems facing the country, how big a problem is illegal immigration? Would you say it is one of the most important problems facing the country, or is it an important problem but not one of the most important, or is it not all that important, or is it not important at all?"

The results show 27 % polled rank it the most important; 54% rank it important; 11% say it's not all that important; 6 % say its not that important at all; 2 % are unsure.

Without igniting the ongoing immigration debate (Dobbs does that well enough) it would seem that come the REAL election, the final two candidates are going to have to face the populist immigration issue. It may be the deciding issue if the "immigration mullah" Lou Dobbs keeps up the pressure - as he will.

Will a frustrated American Middle Class go "Postal?"

Late last week, I, like millions of Americans,got caught up in the polls. Barack Obama was going to win the New Hampshire Democratic Primary and possibly do so in double digits over Hillary Clinton. All the pundits, major political commentators, and even Fox News ordained it so. But something happened and what happened should be a message to any of you who harbors hope for an Independent to win the presidency.

Of course, Barack Obama, is not an Independent. However, in one sense he is. He is independent from the tired cynical, but extemely powerful, machine that is the Democratic Party. In his bid he has done the unthinkable: He has jumped ahead of the line and not taken his turn to be "anointed" for the nomination. He has not obtained blessings from Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and the liberal "grandmas." He has upset cynical donors to the Democratic Party. By "cynical" I am referring to the big political action committees who have it both ways by contributing to both parties.

Obama is smart. I predict that he will quickly recover and wage an intense ground war in South Carolina. Of course, we all know either Obama or Hillary Clinton will achieve the Democratic nomination for president. Edwards is going to run out of money soon, and poor Richardson's hopeful that he meets the dullness meter to qualify for VP.

John McCain will probably not achieve the Republican nomination and its going to be questionable as to whether Romney will either. As much as some of you pin your hopes on Ron Paul, Don Quixote is not going to topple the windmill.

The November election will present us with the choice between the same and more of the same, unless someone - well financed - carrying the mantle of the abused middle class rises to the forefront.

Lou Dobbs is such a person, but the question is: Does Dobbs have the fire in the belly to match the fire coming out of his mouth? Are enough Americans pissed off about the loss of their homes,illegal immigrants taxing their resources,outrageous and soon to be more outrageous gas prices, an unending war, the loss of their jobs to India and China, and the loss of the future they had planned for themselves, that they will reject "the same" and "more of the same?" If not Dobbs, Who?

The multi-national corporations, who have the most to lose if the status quo is not maintained, are funding both traditional political parties with as much money as they possibly can through PACS and other clever devices. These corporations do not want any threat to the pipeline of imported goods and services which flood America. These corporations want business as usual with politicians of both parties - most of whom they own.

One candidate, one example: Walmart this year will pour over 20 billion dollars worth of Chinese goods into America. Hillary Clinton served on the Walmart board of directors for several years. She has, of course, distanced herself from this relationsip. Do you think as a president Hillary is going to impose trade restrictions on goods from China?

How about the other candidates? They all have a weakness for easy campaign funds. No matter how idealistic they sound, how many would prostitute themselves to those who would "rent" them for a lucrative trade deal. Think about Abramoff and those he took down.

What if something happens in China that results in massive civil unrest or possibly a revolution? How long would it take America to retool from the resulting loss of products that we have grown so dependent upon? Or is this something only crazy fools like myself think about? To answer the question: It's hard to capitalize if you have no capital.

The current volatility of the electorate is the surest sign of dissatisfaction in our population. A disappointing general election of "the same" or "more of the same" could have dire consequences for the republic.