Introduction

9-11 changed my life.  I remember I was at work preparing for a meeting when I heard the news.  At first I thought it was an accident until the second plane hit the tower.  What on earth has happened!  I was totally distraught; how could anyone hate Americans so much that they would kill 3000 people?  Over the following months and years I began to gather information, to learn why Al Qaeda hates us.  I read many books.  One book written by Sayyid Qutb with a title that translates into English as “Milestones” or “Sign Posts in the Road” was particularly relevant.  Qutb was an Egyptian who was educated in the U. S.  He was a Moslem fundamentalist and was appalled at the decadence and licentious of American culture.  His book extracted excerpts from the Quran to prove that America is evil and that all good Moslems should fight against American culture at every turn.  Osama bin Laden was a disciple of Qutb.  I also read “Approaching the Quran” by Michael Sells which translated many of the suras (verses) into English and then explains their meaning.  The Quran is written in poetic verse and the meanings of the suras are not always obvious.  I learned that, just like the Bible, the Quran was basically a moral book that preached moral ideas.  Also, like the Bible, the Quran has passages that, if taken out of context and misinterpreted by religion fanatics, could be used to incite extreme violence and ultra-intolerance.  I learned that there are really many similarities between the Bible and the Quran; a belief in only one God, a kindness toward your neighbor, the celebration of holy days like Ramadan and Christmas.  Some Moslems extend the belief in one God to extremes such that they will follow the lessons only of God and not any other authority such as a regional or national government or ruler.  Hence, some Moslem governments are intertwined with the Moslem faith and the practice of Moslem law called the Sharia.  Obviously bin Laden believed in this “only one God” principle and was appalled at the United States intrusion into the Moslem holy land of Arabia.

When President Bush announced that Iraq and Saddam Hussein were preparing weapons of mass destruction and that Hussein had contacts with bin Laden, I knew this could not be true.  Religious fanatics do not violate their most sacred law and cooperate with a ruthless dictator.  The Bush administration was perpetrating a fraud on the American public.  There was never a “clear and present danger” to America from Saddam Hussein and Bush and his cronies knew it.  About 3000 Americans were killed in Iraq for no purpose what-so-ever and many books such as “State of Denial” by Bob Woodward confirm that Bush was predisposed to attach Hussein regardless of the facts.  After the invasion, Bush declared “Mission Accomplished”.  Then the special envoy to Iraq, J. Paul Bremer, dissolved the Baath party, effectively eliminating the Iraqi government, and dissolved the Iraqi military.  Benner had just created one million enemies, most of the people in government and all the military people, most of them armed.  It was the dumbest move I could imagine and extended the war for years and added significantly to the death total.

Then came the Financial Crisis at the end of the Bush Administration.  Again, I was astounded.  How would such as strong prosperous nation fall from the height of success and prosperity into the perdition of bankruptcy, foreclosures and massive deficits in only a few months?  Again I took to educating myself.  Much of the information was available on the internet (information is easily available these days although not all of it is true) such as Wikipedia, on National Public Radio and in written articles such as an article in the Rolling Stone Magazine by Matt Taibbi entitled “The Great American Bubble Machine” that describes how Goldman Sachs has been swindling America for decades. 

By this time I was getting sick and tired of lies and half truths, of statements by members of political parties without any proof of their veracity.  Statements such as “Enactment of Obamacare will lead to death panels that dole out healthcare”, to me, were patently absurd.  Any people who believed this, Sarah Palin apparently, has no faith in the American system of democracy and justice. Yet many Americans believed it! 

Well, I’m feed up!  As an engineer and scientist, I try to make my decisions based on facts.  So I’ve decided,  I’m going to investigate various political issues, starting with “healthcare” and “the financial crisis”, to find out the facts and to explain to those people willing to listen (or read) what the situation really is.  I’m not a political scientist, sociologist or politician but I have learned through the years to take complex ideas and break them down into simplified terms that can be understood by non-experts; this is what I intend to do, breakdown the “Political Topics Today” into easily understood articles.  I plan that these articles will be sprinkled with humorous and entertaining interludes as we progress though a topic as well as being informative.  Most of these topics may require some explaining, they are too big to present in one blog.  Therefore they will be broken up into many blogs presented weekly at the http://www.politicaltopicstoday.blogspot.com/ web site.  Next week, the first week, we will start on the topic of Heathcare in America, a timely subject.

This blog will not be effective if people are not aware of its existence or don’t read it.  SO PLEASE, IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN “POLITICAL TOPICS TODAY”, TELL YOUR FRIENDS, WWW.POLITICALTOPICSTODAY.BLOGSPOT.COM.