What Color Tin Foil Hat Would You Like?

Here is my answer to those who are intelligent enough to think for themselves and who wish to know more about the events of 9-11 and the obvious lies told to us by our government.

To get your feet wet, watch Tower 7 come down. Watch the Trade Center owner say that they "decided to pull it" because of the "fire". Ask yourself, what does "pull it" means? Are all Manhattan skyscrapers wired to explode at their owner's command? Why has corporate media never played this video at all even though they are the ones who took it (it is CBS footage, I believe). Why haven't we seen it 67 times a day as we have with the other two towers? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=972ETepp4GI&NR=1

Here is "Hunt the Boeing", a favorite site of mine. How did the plane that hit the Pentagon disappear completely? Where is the wreckage and where are the bodies? Where are the wings? Why is the lawn still pristine right after the hit? Why is the hole too small for the size of plane they claim hit the Pentagon? http://www.asile.org/citoyens/numero13/pentagone/erreurs_en.htm

This is Mike Ruppert's site, "From The Wilderness". He was an L.A. cop fired for investigating CIA drug connections to South America. He sued, got a large settlement and set himself up as an investigative journalist (maybe one of the last we'll ever see). Read items 50-54 especially regarding "put options" (basically they are bets that a stock will decline in value). The 9/11 Commission's findings on the historical trading activity going on ONLY on United and American Airlines just prior to 9/11 was that an investigation of these specific activities would not prove foreknowledge so ... they refused to investigate it further.
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/02_11_02_lucy.html

The film listed below "Loose Change" was made by a combat vet who served in Iraq. The information in it was incredible when I saw first saw it in 2002 but it has since gotten even more amazing. If you're thinking of buying a copy, get "Loose Change - Final Edition".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E3oIbO0AWE

I wrote this blurb below for our own showing of Loose Change some time back;

"Almost 60% of New Yorkers don't believe that 9/11 happened the way our government says it does. I have lots of questions myself. I want to know why Tower 7 (a third Trade Center tower) imploded at 5:20 pm on 9/11 and never gets shown on TV at all? I want to know why the hole in the Pentagon looks far too small to fit a 757 cockpit? I want to know where the plane's wreckage went? I want to know who bought all those "put options" (only on) United and American Airlines stock in the weeks preceding 9/11? Surely, these people had foreknowledge and need to be questioned and prosecuted? I want to know why we are being lied to about the War Games being played that day and also the day of the London Tube bombings (what amazingly improbable coincidence in both cases!). I have spent a considerable amount of time trying to find answers to these questions. One of the best places to start your own search for truth is this brave film, LOOSE CHANGE, made by an Iraq War Vet who wanted answers to some very reasonable questions (as any good patriot should). If you'd like to know more about the "official story" and how it just doesn't add up, get your feet wet." www.journalof911studies.com/beginners.html

Take this all in small doses. There's a lot to digest. Don't think of any of it as "conspiracy theory", though. More like ... critical thinking. There are very few definitive answers to any of the questions one can ask about what really happened but knowing that our government is lying to us all about it and is unwilling to investigate the truth is key. There had to government involvement or complicity. Incompetence just isn't a good enough answer for what they have done. It simply doesn't ring true. Check it out for yourself!

Obama's Inauguration

I want to be happy for all my happy friends but I simply can't.

They all say the same thing; "Give Obama a chance! Don;t be negative/cynical/pessimistic!"

Well, how about realistic?

Obama has already told us quite plainly what he will do about the issues of the day. We don't have to wait for his first challenge to know what he will do.

We are in a health care crisis and over 100 million Americans are without meaningful (or any) access to health care. Single-Payer would fix the problem and save about $700 Billion dollars annually. Obama has announced a plan which, like Clinton's, costs more than we currently spend and allows the HMO's to continue raping and pillaging.

We have killed somewhere between 100,000 and 1,000,000 Iraqis. Barack has said we need to keep killing but shift our focus to Afghani civilians and he has also admitted that we will continue staffing those 14 military bases in Iraq indefinitely.

Israel has destroyed 55,000 Palestinian homes and killed more than 1,000 civilians (as compared to 4 Israelis). In keeping with the desires of the military-industrial complex, Obama has said that he is fine with Israel "protecting itself".

We are on the verge of environmental disaster. Hydro power, wind power or "clean coal" and "safe nuclear". You are now fully aware of his "clean energy" policy.

Our economy is totally failing. Obama supported and worked for a bailout to aid rich speculators at the expense of the poor.

Why should we be optimistic when Obama has so clearly tipped his hand already! Ruling class politician. Nothing more. Nothing less.

I'd like to "hope" that I'm wrong but you know that I'm not.

Martin Luther King - Activist or Preacher?

Every year, argument breaks out in community rooms and meeting halls and cafes and bars as small groups of people get together to decide what the legacy of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. is from their perspective and how their community should mark the day.

There is usually a real push and pull between those who wish to use MLK Day as a way to tame Martin's message and those who wish to fully explore the entire message that Martin tried to convey (the fight against the "giant triplets" of poverty racism and militarism).

In many places, numerous different celebrations occur running the full gamut when it comes to perspectives. I think that this would please Martin because it denotes a real attempt to both co-opt and protect his message. This demonstrates that his legacy and his message have roots that are deep and relevant.

This year, I took some heat from a few friends who felt that the Glens Falls event this year was not "activist" enough. We had our usual short march to Christ Church and listened to music and sang and listened to remarks by a woman, Dr. Glorya Askew, who is a Head Chaplain with the N.Y.S. Department of Corrections. I really let the newly formed NAACP and the Democrats amongst us take the lead. Obamamania is in the air and I didn't want to rain on anyone's parade. I knew he would be an important part of the day's remarks. As such, I took a backseat this year as far as the organizing went.

The Post-Star did its usual advance story on Thursday consisting of an interview with Roy Thomas about the resurgence of the local NAACP (of which I am a member). It included his plans for the NAACP locally and made mention of his involvement in this year's MLK organizing (with no mention of any of the others involved). They made only brief reference to the keynote speaker choosing to focus instead on the two white local politicians whose 90 second remarks would see us off from City Hall on to the march.

Now, understand, I do not hate either of these dignitaries and am, in fact, pleased that they wish to celebrate with us each year. That said, Martin was an enemy of the status quo and those who defended it. He was a preacher, a thinker and an activist. Dr. Askew deserved to be recognized as the primary speaker and someone of note and she wasn't.

When the PS did its actual story on the event, they did the same thing, giving preferential treatment to the white politicians and virtually ignoring the African American woman we had all chosen to speak to us on this day. She was fantastic, too, so its even more shameful.

This type of institutional racism is a good reason for us to stop celebrating the "end of racism" the media keeps crowing about. Its far from over when a bunch of white reporters and editors get together and write about white people of power who attended the event and not the African American woman we were there to listen to.

The Green State of the State - Single Payer Health Care

The State Green Party invited me to attend a press conference in Albany to respond to Governor Patterson's State of the State. Here is a link to WNYT's coverage and below is a text copy of my remarks.

http://wnyt.com/article/stories/S735158.shtml?cat=10114

My name is Matt Funiciello. I am the owner of a bread bakery and cafe in Glens Falls, N.Y. I currently employ 36 people. I am here today to deliver my own brief state of the state from a small business owner’s perspective. This is not the perspective of a lobby group purporting to represent small business. It is the perspective of someone who has actually run a small business in New York state for over 20 years.

As this economic downturn began, small business owners, like the majority of Americans, saw substantial increases in energy costs and commensurate increases in most other goods and supplies. In my industry, we were already struggling with the negative impact of increasing wheat prices as corn subsidies encouraged many wheat farmers to grow corn for ethanol. This created a terrible “food for fuel” quandary in which the corn lobbies seem to have been the only clear winners.

While our costs have steadily increased so has the cost of living for our workers. Even so, we have not been able to make pay increases to keep up with cost of living as our sales have been in decline. We were actually forced to implement a small pay cut in September of 2008 and I was eventually forced to sell my home and borrow a substantial sum of money to keep my business afloat as the year progressed and we suffered the additional negative effects of a fire.

We ceased carrying health insurance about a year ago as costs skyrocketed along with co-pays and pharmaceutical prices. We had to discontinue our retirement plan as we were no longer able to afford to participate in it. Many of our restaurant and retail accounts have been adversely affected as well by decreased consumer spending. Several long-time customers have even thrown in the towel.

I say all of this not as some kind of litany of woes but as an example of what the typical business owner is actually going through. We are a tough bunch and we will make it but, make no mistake, we are hurting. If you wish to understand the direct impact the recession is having on those in the working and middle class, look no further. We have tightened our belts, cut costs and minimized our needs, but we are still prepared to sacrifice more if we have to. We would, however, like to know that every single person in the state is joining with us in this suffering and sacrifice and that we are not being asked to shoulder the burden entirely.

Governor Patterson said yesterday that, “We cannot solve our problems overnight or without sacrifice - they run too deep for that. These problems may last for many more months or even years. But we can solve them and, with courage, we can craft a brighter, smarter future for New York.”

I agree with those sentiments, but I think we need to put a little bit of common sense in there before we continue with the sacrifice.

I don’t know about your economy but bailing out banks and insurance companies seems to have had very little impact on mine, thus far. I know that the Wall Street bailout was hardly Governor Patterson’s doing but I know that it is a perfect example of why we HAVE to find answers at the state level for the problems of the day. We simply cannot depend on the federal government to do what is right or just when things are broken.

If we leave it up to the fed or follow their lead, the problems New Yorkers are now facing will go unsolved. The biggest problem, without any doubt, is health care. In fact, according to a recent survey conducted by the Business Council of NY, health care is the single biggest issue for business owners in New York State. Worker’s comp rates came in a distant second.

Governor Patterson says we “need the courage to balance our budget as well as our priorities.” Well, he is absolutely right and small business has spoken loudly about the priority; it is health care. The question becomes, How do

we balance our budget while insuring the millions of New Yorkers who lack coverage?

I know the answer and, in reality, so does the Governor. That’s why I was absolutely horrified yesterday to see him openly advocate for more bureaucratic and incremental answers to our health care crisis rather than the sweeping reform we so desperately need.

Where health care is concerned, there is one clear answer and it is Single-Payer Health Care. It is basically the Canadian Health Care system with a few twists. It’s a clear and intelligent answer to a pressing problem. The Governor’s advocacy for building additional bureaucracies in our state with substandard care and inconsistent access is not such an answer. We need to get rid of the HMO’s and administrate our state’s health care through one mechanism instead of the hundreds that currently exist. It is projected that just that one bold move would save us 25-30% of what we currently pay for health care.

The Canadian system costs about $5200 per person with universal coverage and if you question its efficiency, you should know that, propaganda aside, Canadians live a full year longer than we do. You should also know that no sober, literate, Canadian would even consider switching health plans with anyone living in the U.S. unless they were forced to at gunpoint.

Here, in the U.S., we spend about $7200 per person on health care. Bear in mind that this is with about 60 million people completely uncovered and another 50 million or so ‘underinsured’. With all the layoffs projected from the recession, these numbers will increase dramatically. The incredible truth is that if we adopted Single-Payer Health Care in this country, we would actually be spending far less on care and everyone would be covered. It’s really a common sense approach to the problem.

Thanks to John Conyers and Denis Kucinich, there is already a resolution before congress, HR 676, which does have sponsors, but we need to be realistic about its chances in Washington. The resolution is unlikely to pass. There is simply too much HMO and pharmaceutical money floating around the Capitol for our public servants to do what is just. Many people think of my congresswoman, Kirsten Gillibrand, as a progressive of some kind. She, just like Barack Obama, and now New York’s Governor, has refused to discuss single payer at any level and has refused to support HR 676 even though she knows it is the best, most economical answer.

With our federal representatives doing such a poor job of representing us, we need Governor Patterson to help us resolve this issue right now, right here at home. We can have a single-payer system right here in New York state. We are projected to spend some $140 billion dollars in this state on health care in 2009. If we were to set up a single-payer health plan and spend a similar amount to what the Canadians do per capita, we would be saving $1,800 per person over what is already being spent with EVERY New Yorker covered. Who knows? Maybe we could start living a year longer, too!

Governor, business leaders are telling you that health care is the single biggest issue on the state's agenda but we can also tell you that there is a simple solution. Now is the time for our state government to implement solutions that actually make sense and not just those that seem politically feasible. We have suffered enough. Our workers have suffered enough. How, as a state, can we lose? How can it not make sense to save boatloads of money during a recession while ensuring that every citizen of New York has total access to health care?

The Governor called this recession “the gravest economic challenge in nearly a century.” Well, it seems to me that it really doesn’t have to be if we can just make decisions together which benefit everyone in our state and not just special interest groups and lobbies. Please, Governor Patterson, do what is right and support single-payer health care. Support common sense