Why Am I Not Surprised?

Again our two Senators from Maine tow the party line to try and prohibit the bill containing some financial reforms and sign the letter to Harry Reid.  They are following Mitch McConnell's orders again.  They care not that the people of this country have been victimized by big banks and Wall Street.  Pension funds of public employees, retirement funds of seniors, and college endowments funds have been decimated by corruption and greed.  Bankruptcy has been visited on hundreds of thousands and families have been driven out of their homes due to foreclosure.  Yet, in spite of all of this, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins cannot stand with the people.  We should deluge their offices with phone calls and letters and let them know that it is time to stand up for us and not the corporate interests.  After all they are a big part of the problem as they supported the Bush tax cuts and other policies that allowed all of this to happen
Bill Moyers and Michael Winship wrote an article called Crocodile Tears on Wall Street (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-moyers/crocodile-tears-on-wall-s_b_541032.html).  In this article they tell of the testimony of bank CEO's in which these bankers say this was a big accident.  Of course they knew what was going on.  They were just too happy with their big salaries.  They had no care for the people who put their trust in the banks.
There needs to be criminal prosecution in these cases and we need strong regulations so this can never happen again.
I recommend this article to all and also hope many of you will get the book 13 Banks by Simon Johnson and James Kwak.  Most public libraries should have this very important book and if they don't you should ask them to buy it  We all need to be better informed so we can help change the direction of this country.

Violence and the 2nd Amendment

I am becoming increasingly aware of the possibility of serious consequences where weapons are concerned.  While the 2nd Amendment of the United States Constitution gives citizens the right to bear arms, it does not give them the right to use those arms against innocent people, politicians or the government.  When used against the government I believe it is called treason!  When these weapons are used against other citizens I believe it is called murder.
Dennis A. Henigan wrote on Huffington Post an article entitled "Gun Rights" and Political Violence.  In this article he writes the following: "
In other words, if we use the First Amendment to try to persuade our elected officials to our point of view, and we fail, then it's time to resort to the Second Amendment - that is, to threaten violence. And, ultimately, to use violence.
This is right out of the NRA's playbook. Last year, NRA Executive Director Wayne LaPierre explained it in chilling terms to the wild cheers of the Conservative Political Action Conference. According to LaPierre, when it comes down to it, the only freedom that really counts is the right to be armed - without it, "liberty is but an illusion." In the NRA's world, we are free only to the extent that our guns allow us to impose our will on others. Here are LaPierre's words:
"Our divine rights, they might have been endowed by a Creator, but they are preserved by mortals, if we mortals have the means and the will to make it stick....Freedom is nothing but dust in the wind till it's guarded by the blue steel and dry powder of a free and armed people....Our founding fathers understood that the guys with the guns make the rules."
I find the statement that "the guys with the guns make the rules" to be very frightening.  It is one thing to keep guns for hunting for food and another to use them to try and influence politicians and ordinary citizens.  That is nothing short of fear mongering and threatening.  The whole idea of an armed citizenry is both frightening and threatening.
I surely don't want "the guys with the guns" making the rules of this country.  Then none of us will have any freedom at all.