By Joseph J. Honick
A Guest on 21st Century Radio shows

Read More Joe Hoenick America’s Mad Dash To Irrelevance: Presidential Campaign 2012 Talk About Entitlements Peace Promises of Ahmadinejad and Hitler To Obama And Romney: Start Acting Presidential A Vote Is Only The Beginnning Of Democracy Dangers Of Irrelevance America In The World Can America Really Afford Peace?: The Unspoken Question HATE, HYPOCRISY AND MOB JUSTICE IN FLORIDA THE CHINESE MUST BE LAUGHING BIG Santorum Gone? Don’t Bet On It! A Nation at War: Where’s the Music? India and Bribery and ‘Progressive’ Media Hypocrisy OCCUPY IS A FAILURE November Fools’ Day Can America Really Afford Peace? The Unspoken Question Bottom Lines and Bottomless Pits Welcome to Theater of the Absurd: AARP Board a Tougher Entry Than Congress or the Presidency COMMENTARY: The United Nations of Hypocrisy, Part II WHERE’S HILLARY? WHERE’S THE CABINET? WILL A REAL WORLD LEADER PLEASE STAND? WHAT TO BELIEVE WITH OUR NEW WAR? WOULD OBAMA HAVE ‘INTERVENED’ AGAINST HITLER? THE ‘OTHER’ BURDEN FOR OUR CHILDREN, GRANDCHILDREN WHERE IS THE SHAME? WHERE IS THE COMMENT? TROOPS’ MENTAL HEALTH IS OFF THE NATION’S RADAR WILL WE STILL LOVE PARADES? LIMBAUGH IS RIGHT COMMENTARY: Palin’s lack of control demonstrates why she is not presidential class

The drumbeat cry of conservative politicians almost always refers to
massive, out-of- control government spending, outlays that will be a

Almost never do these same social Scrooges want to discuss the wars in
Afghanistan Iraq that have gone beyond the trillion-dollar mark with
no end in sight.

That is the “other” burden on our children and grandchildren.

Having divided America into two distinct societies – military and
civilian – because of the terribly unwise All Volunteer Armed Forces
Act signed by the late President Richard Nixon, many politicians of
the right have virtually sermonized on the idea that we must wage war
wherever and whenever the mongers decide, with or without sufficient
evidence.

In the case of the current long, long wars without apparent end or
indication of what winning looks like,the military and defense
contractor sectors (military industrial complex) have been able to
operate truly out of control as to the costs involved.

When even Defense Secretary Robert Gates, one of the administration’s
finest executives, offered the need to trim Pentagon expenses and
other budgetary cleanup, it took only a day or so for the right side
of the Congressional aisles in the House and Senate to warn they would
not support such financial trimming. It is of course quite obvious by
now that defense contractors have been profiting massively from the
conflicts and even have contracts that will extend their business well
into the next decade at the expense of the American taxpayers and
their progeny to come.

If those war promoters who are on the wealthy receiving end of heavily
invested defense contractor lobbies would use some public relations
encouragement of their own sons and daughters to rush down to the
recruitment centers to help fight the battles, there might be some
credibility to their politics. Given that Americans have already paid
for more than a billion dollars of private PR work, how much would it
cost for those selling the war in Congress to promote their own kids
to join up?

Moreover, if there is some semblance of reality to these endless
combat operations that have found our men and women risking their
lives for other nations, why not, as I have urged before in these
pages…why not insist that those countries getting the relatively free
ride on our investment start paying the bills for all these efforts?

Worse, why has not one single television talking head or editorial
writer or syndicated columnist even raised this question, among
numerous others?

Why is not one single legislator across the land asking how the so
called “insurgents” can finance their efforts and where do their arms
come from … and of course, why have we failed to stop arms shipments
to them?

So, when we hear the shrill cries of the Teabag Party hypocrites that
they want the government to spend less, why do they also fail to
advance the idea that those numerous nations we are defending cough up
some dough to pay the massive spending for those efforts. Those who
assaulted the administration’s Health Reform legislation asserting it
could cost up to nearly a trillion dollars over 10 years have raised
not one peep about conflicts that already have run to nearly a
Trillion dollars and still rising.

In the end, far from suggesting we should curtail the very best
actions to defend against terrorism, more and more knowledgeable folks
have come to the conclusion each nation has to shoulder the burden for
its own security as we should right here.

There will be those who will suggest we need to fight terrorism around
the world. If that is true, and it no doubt is, then why can we not
engage all those other nations to send troops and money to help? Why
is the newly oil rich Iraq not being required to make the U.S. a
partner in those fabulous oil fields now going to the highest bidders
among oil companies?

Until and unless more Americans worried about their future generations
join in these inquiries and demand answers, what we leave to our
children and grandchildren could hardly be called a “burden.”

More appropriately, it should be termed a nightmare.

* * *

Joseph J. Honick is an international consultant to business and
government and writes for many publications, including
huntingtonnews.net. Honick can be reached at joehonick@gmail.com.

By Joseph J. Honick
– A Guest on 21st Century Radio shows

Read More Joe Hoenick America’s Mad Dash To Irrelevance: Presidential Campaign 2012 Talk About Entitlements Peace Promises of Ahmadinejad and Hitler To Obama And Romney: Start Acting Presidential A Vote Is Only The Beginnning Of Democracy Dangers Of Irrelevance America In The World Can America Really Afford Peace?: The Unspoken Question HATE, HYPOCRISY AND MOB JUSTICE IN FLORIDA THE CHINESE MUST BE LAUGHING BIG Santorum Gone? Don’t Bet On It! A Nation at War: Where’s the Music? India and Bribery and ‘Progressive’ Media Hypocrisy OCCUPY IS A FAILURE November Fools’ Day Can America Really Afford Peace? The Unspoken Question Bottom Lines and Bottomless Pits Welcome to Theater of the Absurd: AARP Board a Tougher Entry Than Congress or the Presidency COMMENTARY: The United Nations of Hypocrisy, Part II WHERE’S HILLARY? WHERE’S THE CABINET? WILL A REAL WORLD LEADER PLEASE STAND? WHAT TO BELIEVE WITH OUR NEW WAR? WOULD OBAMA HAVE ‘INTERVENED’ AGAINST HITLER? THE ‘OTHER’ BURDEN FOR OUR CHILDREN, GRANDCHILDREN WHERE IS THE SHAME? WHERE IS THE COMMENT? TROOPS’ MENTAL HEALTH IS OFF THE NATION’S RADAR WILL WE STILL LOVE PARADES? LIMBAUGH IS RIGHT COMMENTARY: Palin’s lack of control demonstrates why she is not presidential class

The nation’s capital has always been a great place for those pleading
one case or another to stage mass demonstrations, parades and other
gatherings to get the attention of government, media fellow
believers and opponents alike.

World War I veterans who had been promised $500 bonds for their
service set up shabby cardboard and tent encampments from which to
plead to a hypocritical Congress that delayed those payments. To
clean up the situation, none other than General Douglas McArthur and
his trusty aide, Ike Eisenhower, were dispatched with troops and the
right to use arms against those veterans.

Then those who finally said they were not going to suffer second or
third class citizenship launched the civil rights campaign that wound
up in a parade of hundreds of thousands, including this kid, and
concluded with the historic “Dream” speech by Dr. Martin Luther King at the feet of the Lincoln Memorial.

Then we have seen former Congressman Dick Armey’s army of Tea Party
screamers defying the idea that all Americans need and deserve medical
care and with taxpayer help if necessary. Having upset town hall
meetings with shouts that accused the President of being another
Hitler, they then marshaled their forces to descend upon Washington,
D.C. to make their cases and pose for the media, no doubt fortified in
some measure by help from the insurance industry.
Still more recently, the gay and lesbian community powerfully
presented its own concerns in Washington and have demonstrated a clear
commitment to reinforce that part of the Pledge of Allegiance that
concludes with “….with liberty and justice for all.”
The one group that has yet to come together is the growing masses of
the unemployed, especially the millions for whom all benefits have
been exhausted and who represent huge numbers families, school
children across the nation.

The happy headlines reciting the Dow Jones finally soaring above the
10,000 mark are not lost on these ordinary folks who received no
bailouts, bonuses or much else as their homes are foreclosed, their
credit destroyed, seen college tuitions unpaid and all the rest.
And all these severe events have occurred as these people read about
massive bailouts of banks, corporations and other institutions who are
likewise paying out huge bonuses to people who remain in top positions
courtesy of the American taxpayer.

These Americans will not remain quiet for long and are extremely
fertile candidates for some clever agitator for action, having seen
others getting the attention for other causes.
It is hardly an exaggeration to note that, among the millions hit by
layoffs and losses of benefits, have been some very capable
professionals from the media, public relations business and related
fields who know how to organize and communicate powerful messages …
and ultimately perhaps to organize a march on Washington the likes of
which have never been seen except perhaps for the civil rights effort.
Not the least among the millions of former taxpayers are the families
of men and women dispatched over and over again to risk their lives in
Iraq and Afghanistan … after all seldom does military pay cover the
total needs of a family.

Nearly 20 years ago, in a talk before an industry group in Seattle,
Washington, I proposed the concept of a Public Relations Peace Corps
to help communicate messages to and for the people who have no
spokespersons and whose causes are quite legitimate and to get those
causes and claims more attended to by government and others. The idea
was scoffed at by representatives of some well known PR firms, many of
whom have been since scooped up by larger organizations.
The community of communications professionals has an opportunity and
an obligation to consider taking some risks to help gain critically
important attention to growing needs of the people lost among the
turmoil of name calling and countercharges over health care and other
issues.

So where is the outrage from those who have been sucking off the
government breast while screaming about socialism when it comes to the
poor? Where is the sense of religious leadership that demands prayers
everywhere but ignores the homeless?

If leadership from our industry fails to use the talents we sell to
others in efforts to gain attention to the unattended, the old song “I
Love A Parade” may never be played again as millions of the newly
impoverished swarm into Washington amid the glare of national and
international media spotlights and the relevance and reputation of
America are tarnished beyond measure … while ignoring “liberty and
justice for all,” except for some.

Joseph J. Honick is an international consultant to business and
government and writes for many publications, including www.HuntingtonNews.net. Honick can be reached at joehonick@gmail.com

By Joseph J. Honick Read More Joe Hoenick America’s Mad Dash To Irrelevance: Presidential Campaign 2012 Talk About Entitlements Peace Promises of Ahmadinejad and Hitler To Obama And Romney: Start Acting Presidential A Vote Is Only The Beginnning Of Democracy Dangers Of Irrelevance … America In The World Can America Really Afford Peace?: The Unspoken Question HATE, HYPOCRISY AND MOB JUSTICE IN FLORIDA THE CHINESE MUST BE LAUGHING BIG Santorum Gone? Don’t Bet On It! A Nation at War: Where’s the Music? India and Bribery and ‘Progressive’ Media Hypocrisy OCCUPY IS A FAILURE November Fools’ Day Can America Really Afford Peace? The Unspoken Question Bottom Lines and Bottomless Pits Welcome to Theater of the Absurd: AARP Board a Tougher Entry Than Congress or the Presidency COMMENTARY: The United Nations of Hypocrisy, Part II WHERE’S HILLARY? WHERE’S THE CABINET? WILL A REAL WORLD LEADER PLEASE STAND? WHAT TO BELIEVE WITH OUR NEW WAR? WOULD OBAMA HAVE ‘INTERVENED’ AGAINST HITLER? THE ‘OTHER’ BURDEN FOR OUR CHILDREN, GRANDCHILDREN WHERE IS THE SHAME? WHERE IS THE COMMENT? TROOPS’ MENTAL HEALTH IS OFF THE NATION’S RADAR WILL WE STILL LOVE PARADES? LIMBAUGH IS RIGHT COMMENTARY: Palin’s lack of control demonstrates why she is not presidential class “But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.” I was there as a very young man when Martin Luther King spoke these words before the Lincoln Memorial and looking toward the Washington Monument. I don’t have to advertise my revulsion to bigotry. I’ve seen it, experienced it and demonstrated against it first hand. I am also repulsed by hypocrisy that defends mob justice, as has been the case in the tragic death of a young man in Sanford, Florida. George Zimmerman, the person charged in Trayvon Martin’s killing may well be the worst person ever to walk the planet. Fact is, I don’t know that to be the case, nor do all the other screaming accusers, including Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, the United Nations et al, who were not present when the tragedy occurred …. but they all knew and know what took place. We have accorded more justice and care to Nazis accused of torturing and murdering concentration camp prisoners during WWII. Our U.S. Chamber of Commerce one time even named a former Waffen SS Colonel to be a “Great Living American” because of his work on space matters. That was Werner von Braun. We are today doing the same for scores of prisoners held as terrorists. But, by golly, courtesy of media hype, celebrity pressure and the United Nations, the world is persuaded of events not witnessed by anyone but the victim and Mr Zimmerman. And, now, for some additional hypocrisy that none of the same people have cared to consider: the hate crime committed by about seven black teens upon a 15-year old Hispanic student on his way home from school in Palmdale, CA. Not content with pummeling the young man to the ground, the group continued the assault while screaming racial and hate taunts … much of which were recorded on video, thereby providing more witness evidence than the event in Florida for which Zimmerman is now charged and virtually convicted by the process of mob justice. Perhaps if the young Hispanic victim had died, the media, celebrities and the United Nations might also have folded in the event as evidence of multi-racial bigotry … simply because it was. It is noteworthy that the teen gang who beat up on the young Hispanic teen are being prosecuted for a hate crime, but with little media or other reactions of any kind, and certainly not from the UN, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton … and even more mutedly from the very media who joined the mob calling for punishment of Zimmerman. Now to the reality of mob justice and Zimmerman….the kind of behavior that may well impact his trial. The shock of Martin’s death by gunshot was more than understandable. But from that point, the mob assuredness of Zimmerman’s guilt demonstrated the whole sad affair had gotten out of control. In America, the worst among us, as noted earlier, are assumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. However justified in terms of family grief and public shock, reverse hatred is no better. And for those arguing their concerns about racial matters, studies show that assaults against Hispanics are on the rise. In the end, if there ever is an acceptable one, hatred and hypocrisy know no racial, religious or ethnic boundaries, and mob justice is never justice at all. * * * Joseph J. Honick is president of GMA International in Bainbridge Island,an international consulting firm. He writes for many publications and can be reached at joehonick@gmail.com

Talk About Entitlements

Read More Joe Hoenick America’s Mad Dash To Irrelevance: Presidential Campaign 2012 Talk About Entitlements Peace Promises of Ahmadinejad and Hitler To Obama And Romney: Start Acting Presidential A Vote Is Only The Beginnning Of Democracy Dangers Of Irrelevance America In The World Can America Really Afford Peace?: The Unspoken Question HATE, HYPOCRISY AND MOB JUSTICE IN FLORIDA THE CHINESE MUST BE LAUGHING BIG Santorum Gone? Don’t Bet On It! A Nation at War: Where’s the Music? India and Bribery and ‘Progressive’ Media Hypocrisy OCCUPY IS A FAILURE November Fools’ Day Can America Really Afford Peace? The Unspoken Question Bottom Lines and Bottomless Pits Welcome to Theater of the Absurd: AARP Board a Tougher Entry Than Congress or the Presidency COMMENTARY: The United Nations of Hypocrisy, Part II WHERE’S HILLARY? WHERE’S THE CABINET? WILL A REAL WORLD LEADER PLEASE STAND? WHAT TO BELIEVE WITH OUR NEW WAR? WOULD OBAMA HAVE ‘INTERVENED’ AGAINST HITLER? THE ‘OTHER’ BURDEN FOR OUR CHILDREN, GRANDCHILDREN WHERE IS THE SHAME? WHERE IS THE COMMENT? TROOPS’ MENTAL HEALTH IS OFF THE NATION’S RADAR WILL WE STILL LOVE PARADES? LIMBAUGH IS RIGHT COMMENTARY: Palin’s lack of control demonstrates why she is not presidential class

By Joseph J. Honick

One of the overly done terms tossed around is “entitlements.”

To the Republicans, it means bulging sums being doled out to non-productive do-nothings who believe they are “entitled” to your money and mine in a process called “redistribution.” What is not mentioned and maybe winked at are the “entitlements” that come and go to major corporations and called “bailouts” in the hundreds of billions … and “stimulus” and “TARP” funds in even larger sums…and subsidies originally meant to keep farmers producing but go to the likes of Monsanto that got into the agricultural game.

But another “entitlement” most Americans probably know nothing about are those funds doled out by the Federal Election Commission to both parties for presidential campaigns.

For example, both major political parties were to receive public funding and both received “initial” payments of $17,689,800 from the U.S. Treasury for “planning and conducting their respective 2012 presidential nominating conventions.” According to the FEC, these were funds to which they were entitled.

In fact, each major party convention committee is “entitled” to received $4 million, plus an adjustment for inflation.

And you probably thought they had to come up with their own dough, given the reports of many millions tossed around like pennies just to promote people for party nominations by the GOP. The Democrats already had their man.

Where did all of this get started?

Well, the Federal Election Commission administered public funding program in 1976. Eligible Presidential candidates used federal funds in their primary and general election campaigns, and the major parties used public funds to pay for their nominating conventions.

Actually, however, legislation for public financing of Presidential candidates was first proposed in 1907 by then President Theodore Roosevelt in his State of the Union Speech ALONG WITH a proposed ban on private contributions. He had some naïve idea we could implement some means to reduce campaign corruption. Had he succeeded as he wanted, we might have avoided the present state of affairs which, financially at least, creates a form of political pornography given the obscene infusion of what may be a couple of billions to sell the presidency about the way they used to sell cigarettes: with phony ad that the stuff was “good for your throat and health.”

It would take more pages than the FEC’s own excellent brochure on the subject to detail all the aspects of history and implementation of public funding for campaigns. And it should be noted that a good bit of the money does come from the taxpayer opportunity to note his or her desire to contribute a buck on the tax form.

What is no doubt clearest is that few Americans really know about this subject or the comic opera legal cases between the parties that actually reached the Supreme Court for adjudication. And it should be said, parties getting these funds do have to make reports.

From this writer’s viewpoint, it would be more seemly if both Presidential candidates were to receive an equal amount of public funds to conduct their campaigns thus reducing or at least mitigating the kind of shenanigans that now infect what should be the least corrupting election in the nation. That said, however, it would be immediately contested as a violation of the First Amendment, and, by golly, that’s exactly what occurred in the now classic Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court, a decision that invites another lengthy article.

Suffice to say, the big money boys and girls of power groups from unions to corporations don’t want anyone getting in the way of their money dispensing machines.

In the end, the main point of this whole rant is for citizens to find out how their own money is cast upon the political waters in ways so few actually realize. It’s unfair to dump on the FEC for all of this since no matter what it does to meet its legal obligations, they’re just wrong from some direction or another.

For those who would like to become more educated on the subject, you can jazz up the information by https://www.fec.gov/pages/brochure/pubfund.shtml. When you finish reading the material, you may well wonder at the spin put on our democratic (small d) election system taught in our schools to kids who have yet to learn we still do not have a one-person-one-vote system that promises the candidate who gets the most individual votes will win the election because of the additional confusing program called the Electoral College.

Knowing the facts is what we all have as a genuine entitlement.

* *Joseph J. Honick is an international consultant to business and government, based in Bainbridge Island, Washington. He writes for many publications, including www.huntingtonnews.net. Honick can be reached at: joehonick@gmail.com

by Joseph J. Honick

Read More Joe Hoenick America’s Mad Dash To Irrelevance: Presidential Campaign 2012 Talk About Entitlements Peace Promises of Ahmadinejad and Hitler To Obama And Romney: Start Acting Presidential A Vote Is Only The Beginnning Of Democracy Dangers Of Irrelevance America In The World Can America Really Afford Peace?: The Unspoken Question HATE, HYPOCRISY AND MOB JUSTICE IN FLORIDA THE CHINESE MUST BE LAUGHING BIG Santorum Gone? Don’t Bet On It! A Nation at War: Where’s the Music? India and Bribery and ‘Progressive’ Media Hypocrisy OCCUPY IS A FAILURE November Fools’ Day Can America Really Afford Peace? The Unspoken Question Bottom Lines and Bottomless Pits Welcome to Theater of the Absurd: AARP Board a Tougher Entry Than Congress or the Presidency COMMENTARY: The United Nations of Hypocrisy, Part II WHERE’S HILLARY? WHERE’S THE CABINET? WILL A REAL WORLD LEADER PLEASE STAND? WHAT TO BELIEVE WITH OUR NEW WAR? WOULD OBAMA HAVE ‘INTERVENED’ AGAINST HITLER? THE ‘OTHER’ BURDEN FOR OUR CHILDREN, GRANDCHILDREN WHERE IS THE SHAME? WHERE IS THE COMMENT? TROOPS’ MENTAL HEALTH IS OFF THE NATION’S RADAR WILL WE STILL LOVE PARADES? LIMBAUGH IS RIGHT COMMENTARY: Palin’s lack of control demonstrates why she is not presidential class

Within a month or so, the United Nations will have before it a craftily, expensively and stubbornly promoted effort to establish a Palestinian state along the lines of the end of the 1967 Six-Day War.  This was a war fought by the State of Israel against not one but several Arab states of much larger size even individually.

That there ought to be an independent Palestinian State has hardly been disputed even by Israel, but in the words of the old time salesman “It ain’t whatcha do; it’s how you do it that counts!”

And it is in the “how” where the conflict and tomfoolery lie.

Apart from the reality that not one single Arab state gave a hoot about the stateless Palestinians for untold centuries, until Israel became a reality in spite of Arab unified assault to prevent even the birth of the state, there are additional hypocrisies that have been carefully glossed over courtesy of some well paid PR operations.

Among other things, the UN response to assassination of Israeli Olympic athletes was quite short and hardly sweet but certainly bereft of much indictment of the sponsors of that terror.

When Palestinian terrorists, raided a school in Ma’a lot, Israel, killing two score kids and others, it was a comparative blip in the operations of the UN.

When old men at prayer in Paris, and a cripple on the Achille Lauro pleasure ship were likewise slain, the UN had other business to do.

  But just a few years ago, and despite his baldfaced involvement in the PanAm airline disaster that killed a couple of hundred innocent travelers and his reneging on compensation to victims’ families, the hypocritical UN, with the warm assistance of Messrs Tony Blair and George Bush, proudly welcomed Muammar Qadaffi back to what was termed the “family of nations” and even put Libya on the Human Relations Council.

As of this were not enough, there is virtually no real action by the UN in Syria, where see daily atrocities  inflicted on the citizens…Somalia, where starvation is rampant while its dictator lives lavishly or most anywhere else.

Why is that?

Throughout all these hypocricies, most of the UN was quite happy to offer resolution after resolution to punish Israel which survived, won innumerable Nobel and other rewards for contribution to the world and must now confront a new piece of nonsense in September.

It is not as if the Palestinians will benefit from the cunning and heavily promoted idea of an independent state with much of the operational and financial aspects out of their control by nations who used those folks pretty much as slave labor for centuries.  Resistance to and veto of such an effort in the UN by the United States will only put us once more in a difficult position as we work to solve our own problems.

There is of course much more to the saga, but, at the end, if we ever see one, the UN will look like anything “united” and more like a Unified and Hypocritical combination with a singular prejudice it is determined to inflict.  And all this happens as the hypocrisy that warmly welcomed Qaddafi back to the “family” now wants him tossed out, perhaps indicted for crimes, and welcomes a “rebel” group whose goals, identity and leadership are unknown to anyone apparently but topsiders at our State Department and only a few others.

But guess who pays the  most into that UN budget.  If you are an American taxpayer, you know the answer.

• * *
•  Joseph J. Honick is an international consultant to business and government and writes for many publications, including www.huntingtonnews.net. 

©Joseph J. Honick

By Joseph J. Honick

Read More Joe Hoenick America’s Mad Dash To Irrelevance: Presidential Campaign 2012 Talk About Entitlements Peace Promises of Ahmadinejad and Hitler To Obama And Romney: Start Acting Presidential A Vote Is Only The Beginnning Of Democracy Dangers Of Irrelevance America In The World Can America Really Afford Peace?: The Unspoken Question HATE, HYPOCRISY AND MOB JUSTICE IN FLORIDA THE CHINESE MUST BE LAUGHING BIG Santorum Gone? Don’t Bet On It! A Nation at War: Where’s the Music? India and Bribery and ‘Progressive’ Media Hypocrisy OCCUPY IS A FAILURE November Fools’ Day Can America Really Afford Peace? The Unspoken Question Bottom Lines and Bottomless Pits Welcome to Theater of the Absurd: AARP Board a Tougher Entry Than Congress or the Presidency COMMENTARY: The United Nations of Hypocrisy, Part II WHERE’S HILLARY? WHERE’S THE CABINET? WILL A REAL WORLD LEADER PLEASE STAND? WHAT TO BELIEVE WITH OUR NEW WAR? WOULD OBAMA HAVE ‘INTERVENED’ AGAINST HITLER? THE ‘OTHER’ BURDEN FOR OUR CHILDREN, GRANDCHILDREN WHERE IS THE SHAME? WHERE IS THE COMMENT? TROOPS’ MENTAL HEALTH IS OFF THE NATION’S RADAR WILL WE STILL LOVE PARADES? LIMBAUGH IS RIGHT COMMENTARY: Palin’s lack of control demonstrates why she is not presidential class

As I noted in another piece recently, quoting Rush Limbaugh, “words mean things.” We just never expected to hear certain particular words out of even the habitual verbal jabber like Ms Palin.

Showing just how thin her skin really is, and how faulty is her sense of understanding what flies uncontrolled from her lips, she reached a low even for her with accusations that journalists and pundits were committing “blood libel” against her by trying to blame her for the shootings in Tucson on January 8.

To be sure, it is at least a stretch to note that Palin had showed the district of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords through crosshairs normally associated with a gun sight. And she never suggested that Giffords’ opponent might have avoided his use of photos showing him in mysterious dark glasses and holding a machine gun. But using one of the basest anti-Semitic charges known in history to characterize critics left Ms Palin in a class by herself…a very low and unchallenged class, tainted by how much she even understood the implications of the term that flew out of an intemperate mouth.

For those unaware of what “blood libel” has meant in history, in brief, it is the term that was blasted at Jews hundreds of years ago by even church officials asserting that the blood of Christian children was used to make matzos (unleavened breads) for ceremonial use.

Many even used it as part of charges that Jews had killed Jesus. And this is but an abbreviated explanation of one of the most hated and hateful commentaries the history of which has filled books of both the worst of bigots and the treatises of scholars describing the consequences of the charges associated with its use that included thousands of tortured innocents and the thousands of deaths that followed.

So, in a fit of unbridled and uncontrolled thinking, the woman who would be leader of the world’s greatest democracy may well have revealed her basest instincts as well as her inability to deal with conflict.

Were any Republican, Democrat or independent have thought such a thing, it is doubtful he or she would have even whispered it in a darkened corner to a confidant, much less in a shrill public charge.

On the other hand, perhaps it is a positive event that finally provides the public with a true picture of the person who could have been forgiven the circus-like barnstorming about the nation to keep alive any idea of her positive presidential candidacy. Now there is no question that her use of one of history’s worst possible terms against her critics suggests she could have little standing among world diplomats and representatives of both political parties. So, for that exposure at least, we can be somewhat grateful….as well as deeply saddened that someone of such prominence could stoop to such depths.

* * *

Joseph J. Honick is an international consultant to business and government and writes for many publications, including huntingtonnews.net. Honick can be reached at joehonick@gmail.com