ACORN and Education – Connections

Posted by Dave on September 17, 2009 · 8 Comments 

8.5 billion dollars.

That’s what is on the plate for the community group, ACORN if our leadership allows the organization to continue operating and receive money already slated to go to them.

We are so lost in the smoke now, that there are lawmakers who are actually remaining silent in the face of the videotape collected by two young people. So, should we take their silence to mean that they don’t mind the concept of under-age girls being imported illegally for prostitution – indeed, that they don’t mind a community organization offering housing to support such a business.

In the Senate, a motion to strip the funding from ACORN passed 83 for and seven against. Dick Durbin (D-IL), Roland Burris (D-IL), Robert Casey (D-PA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) were the seven who voted to allow ACORN to continue unmolested.

If the measure goes through, the Department of Housing and Urban Development will make ACORN ineligible to receive HUD grants for programs such as housing, education and outreach.

ACORN’s funding prior to this could be measured in the range of $40 to $50 million. With that money they are happy to fund and encourage illegal businesses of this type. Just imagine, what would be possible with the nearly $8.5 billion slated to go to ACORN in the near future.

I have mentioned Lev Vygotsky, a Soviet psychologist who developed an unusual approach to the development of thought and concepts. His work was published following his death in 1934. Vygotsky’s work has been echoed in our nation’s schoolrooms for decades and is touted by the online “Encyclopedia of Marxism” as a “superior understanding of the relationship between the educator and the educated, in which the educator must ‘negotiate’ with the child or student who is credited with an active role in the learning process.”

More importantly, the quote goes on to say that “especially in the United States, Vygotsky has found a following among Community Development workers who value his concept of a ‘Zone of Proximal Development,’ in which leadership is able to facilitate intellectual and social development in struggles by communities to change their circumstances, leading to a subsequent benefit in an all-round development of conceptual ability.” Read more

Filed under ACORN, Education, Obama Youth, Socialism · Tagged with , , ,

There’s No Turning Back Now

Posted by admin on September 15, 2009 · 45 Comments 

On 09-12-09 our Country came together in Washington, D.C. to protest our government.  I came back with renewed hope for my Country; I’m sure I am not alone in this renewed hope. During the trip I met scores of people from all walks of life and every corner of  this land.  Many people arrived without a plan.  They heard of  the march and felt compelled to be there.  It was like a scene from Close Encounters where everyone was driven by an inexplicable force to meet at Devil’s Mountain.  Not knowing exactly what to expect didn’t prevent them from understanding they just  had to be there. 

                                            The march was to begin at Freedom Plaza on Pennsylvania Avenue.  

 

 

 The route was a mile long down the avenue to the Capital.  At 8:30 a.m., Freedom Plaza itself was packed and overflowing into the street.   Some of those with our group  and I took up space across the street at the Wilson Building to wait for the rest our group.  This side of the street, we were told by volunteers, was not part of the area which the permit was covered.  14th Street also continued to allow vehicles.  I’m not sure if was part of the D.C. Police’ plans or not, but it became increasingly evident that their attempts to keep 14th Street open to traffic were futile and they closed it to vehicles.  From the steps of the Wilson building, as far as the eye could see up and down both Penn Ave and 14th Street, the people were pouring in from all directions.

Those who have ever been to a championship game of their favorite home team know the feeling of being among thousands of like minded people.  I have been to such a game and although the electricity is incredible, it pales in comparison to the energy of thousands upon thousands, perhaps millions (the count still isn’t finalized) of people in one place and of one heart… love of Country. 

I was not expecting to be overwhelmed with emotion and the tears on my cheeks caught me off guard.  When I turned to those beside me and saw their moistened faces I could no longer contain my feelings.  Until this day, I had been filled with anger at my government and fear for my Country.  Anger so strong and bottled that I had been snapping at those closest to me.  Anger so strong that I was learning what it felt like to hate.  That anger collided with love on Saturday and together they healed my broken soul.  I wasn’t alone.

One by one at different moments during the march each of us became overwhelmed with the emotion and energy of the crowd. We wept tears of happiness and tears of sorrow for our Country.  Until you have cried tears of love for your Country and tears of loss for your freedom it is impossible to understand why we marched; why we are so passionate for our beliefs; why we feel remorse for the direction our Country is heading.

On that beautiful day in D.C., we marched.  Young and old, healthy and infirm… we marched.  Kids with signs, kids in strollers, kids in costume.  Parents and grandparents.  People with walkers, canes, and wheelchairs.  We marched.  All came to Pennslyvania Avenue and made the mile long trek past office building windows filled with onlookers.  We marched with one mind… to stand at the Capital and roar with one voice that we have had enough.

 

And roar we did! One of the most incredible moments of the entire event took place a couple of blocks into the march.  From far behind me in the crowd I could hear a rumbling.  I wasn’t sure what the eerie sound was but as it drew closer my spirit leaped in recognition.  I let the first wave wash over me and move forward through the crowd as I listened to thousands of people chant, “U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A.”  With the next wave I joined in as we yelled in one accord, “You Lie! You Lie! You Lie!”   The raw pure emotion experienced in wave after wave of ever increasing crescendos of chanting was a liberating experience.

 

 

If you were to ask the marchers why they were there you would likely get  just as many diverse answers as there were creative, hand made signs.  If you were to question them further and inquire as to whose fault it is that our government has gone so far awry, the vast majority would point to themselves for allowing it.  This is where Washington has underestimated us.  We are awake now and we are watching.  Things will NEVER be the same.

Filed under Congress, Constitution, Economy, General, Politicians, TEa Parties · Tagged with , , , ,

Think It Could Never Happen Here? Think Again

Posted by Moongirl on September 6, 2009 · 10 Comments 

January 1,1959, at the stroke of midnight, Castro brought his “change” to Cuba with a loud bang. My grandfather was a police officer in Havana and for that he was considered an enemy of the state. Within hours he was snatched from his wife and 3 children. He was unfairly sentenced to death by firing squad. My great aunt and my great grandmother pleaded for his life. So those revolutionary guerrillas sentenced him to 30 years in prison of which he served 21 and a half years. He was freed in 1979 due to a treaty that was signed between Cuba and the United states to free the oldest political prisoners. My grandpa was in that category. We were living in Miami at the time. We listened to the radio as they were announcing the political prisoner’s names and we heard my grandpa’s name, Jose Antonio Gonzalez-Fernandez! We drove from South Miami to the Opa-Locka airport. We were excited and yet nervous. I met my grandfather when I was 7 years old. My mother had her father until she was nine years old so at least she had some recollection of him. My uncle too. To my aunt however he was really non-existent she did know him at all until she was 24 years old and ready to be married. I always heard my family’s stories with great fascination. One story my mother tells is when she was a little girl in school…

She was 9-10 years old at the beginning of the revolution. One day the teacher told the children in her classroom to close their eyes. The children did so as they were told. Then, the teacher said, “now pray to God for a piece of candy.” The teacher then commanded the children to open their eyes and they found no candy on their desks. So then the teacher again instructed the children to close their eyes and ‘pray to Fidel for a piece of candy.’ Then the teacher commanded the children to open their eyes and each child found a piece of candy on their desk. “See,” she said “God doesn’t exist. Fidel will give you what you want.” So much was told to me. You can see a pain that still runs deep. These stories were passed on to me so that I and others may not fall into the same trap. It is what made me go out into the streets hand in hand with my grandmother and my great-aunt to protest the return of Elian Gonzalez to Cuba. It is what made me realize what a mistake I made in having believed in the Liberal promise and vote for Bill Clinton only to have him turn his back on the Cuban exiles like his fellow Democrat John F. Kennedy did so many years ago. This is why I do not believe the promises that are made by Barrack Hussein Obama. It is not about the color of skin black, brown, yellow, white; or political party Republican or Democrat. It is about defending our country’s very principle of freedom for all and family values. The core values that make our nation great. To me it is the reason why my family escaped Cuba….Freedom! My brother, Staff Sergeant James Joseph Breslin, Jr., is defending our freedom right now in Afghanistan. The fact that we have communists advising the President of this country and the fact that the President himself is a socialist defiles what my brother and so many others are fighting for and have fought for.  Don’t let them fight and die in vain! Wake up America!! Do not let our children be indoctrinated the way they tried with my mother years ago. Don’t let our businesses that we sweat and work hard for be taken over like my grandmother’s business was years ago. This is why my family shares these stories. They are lessons that are very deeply engraved in my soul forever.

Filed under Domestic Issues, Obama Youth, Socialism, War on Terror · Tagged with , ,

The Coming ‘Internet Emergency’

Posted by Dave on September 1, 2009 · Leave a Comment 

Pay no attention to the flashing blue lights. That’s just the internet police.

Oops. It’s gone beyond that. It’s now a bonafide INTERNET EMERGENCY and the only solution to that is the big red “EASY” button carried in the briefcase that’s always with the president – you know, the one that has the Nuclear code keys.

According to a newly revised bill assembled by aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the president simply needs to declare a “Cybersecurity-Emergency,” and just like that, out pops the big red “Easy” button. One press of that fist-sized button and the entire internet just goes “poof.”

Yep. Just like that. Except for the “Easy” button. I made that part up.

Screw the whole 55-page draft of S.773 – who has time to read all that stuff anyway? Not even our Congressmen can make it through all that drivel, so here’s the highlights:

1. In the event to an immediate threat to strategic national interests involving compromised Federal Government or United States critical infrstructure information system or network –
a. may declare a cybersecurity emergency and
b. may if the president finds it necessary for national defense and security, and in coordination with relevent industry sectors, direct the national response to the cyber threat and the timely restoration of the affected critical infrastructure information system or network… blah, blah, blah.

Ok, I actually added the blah, blah part, too. But one could see where basement geeks are all running scared, digging bomb shelters and trying to cram in all their Trekkie paraphernalia. It’s scary stuff. I mean, we won’t be able to access our Warcraft accounts, or visit with our favorite idiot bloggers – like me.

Our computers will be instantly thrust back into the dark ages, where they could play endless games of “pong,” or be programmed with useless Artificial Intelligence programs which will simply answer a question with a question, or with something vague and unrelated – kind of like our Congressmen, President and his administration are doing when they speak to the public these days.

Makes you wonder doesn’t it? Remember the old TV show “The Six Million Dollar Man?” Remember the bad guys in that – they were actually girls, called “fem-bots.” Yeah, I know. Totally politically incorrect, but it was cool at the time… and it kind of explains Nancy Pelosi. Like, maybe she’s just some kind of AI construct, programmed with the silly vague, unrelated and insulting answers that we often hear and see in sound bites.

“Astroturf, astroturf, astroturf,” she keeps saying, stuck in a loop, like they bought the circuitry for her from North Korea.

It explains a lot. But has nothing to do with the “Easy” button. Yeah, let’s focus on what’s important here. I don’t want my Apple Powerbook to suddenly be transformed into a wordprocessor, or a glorified i-Tunes platform, even though that’s pretty much what it is right now, anyway.

I want my internet – uninterrupted, unsullied, undiluted – mostly every “un” except for “unplugged.” But that’s what we’re going to get, comrade, if Big Brother decides there’s a major “emergency.”

So what kind of emergency would really cause the briefcase (“football”) thing to be opened and the “Easy” button to be mashed by President Obama. We worked very hard to put together a list of high level administration officials to ask this question to – then wrote our grocery list on it and lost it, so in the end, we just decided to just make up a list of possible emergencies which would cause the “Easy” button disconnect. This is what we came up with:

1. North Korea hacks into the Jiffy Lube computer system and directs the computers to inject all the new Cash for Clunkers clown cars with Cherry Coke instead of oil.
2. Iran hacks into Barney Frank’s computer and installs a piece of software which depicts Barney dancing in the purple dinosaur suit – then e-mails it to all the people the White House recently e-mailed their health-care propaganda to.
3. The new Defense Computer system becomes self-aware and decides to destroy the world and make dozens of human-killing copies of the California Governor.
4. The computers at Norad start saying things like “I can’t do that, Dave,” in that creepy compliant, 2001 Hal voice.
5. The articles on the Jolly Rogers are suddenly absolutely correct, and this scares Obama into hitting the “Easy” button purely in reflex.
6. A consortium of conservative computer programmers, discover a way to take over the net and play Gilligan’s Island re-runs 24/7.
7. Aliens arrive and decide to wipe out all of humanity – Someone will have to call up Bill Pullman for that one, because I’m not sure Obama can pull off that extemporaneous Independence Day speech on the wing of a fighter jet without a teleprompter.
8. All tele-prompters become self-aware and discover they are inexplicably attracted to porn sites.
9. All town-hall meetings suddenly are transferred to the internet – that absolutely will require the whole internet to be shut down before any hard questions are asked and answered.
10. An asteroid is discovered on a crash course with the Earth and we have to roll out Bruce Willis again to deal with it.
11. Bigfoot is suddenly discovered. I don’t know why the internet would be cut off in this case, but I’m pretty sure it would be.
12. All talk-radio personalities suddenly decided to do all of their shows on the internet instead of the airwaves.
13. A space-continuum wormhole device is discovered buried in Egypt, and when activated, turns out to be connected to a planet with an Evil Alien transvestite and a society of human slaves.
14. Lastly – in fact, the best reason for shutting down the internet would be to erase everything – eliminate all of us pesky, idiot bloggers and media outlets outside of his control.

Yep. That’s the one.
I just hope when they pop open the briefcase, that he doesn’t mistake the internet “Easy” disconnect button with the other one that launches all the nuclear missiles.

That would be a real bummer.

Filed under Domestic Issues, Internet · Tagged with , , ,