Opinion

So many things happened in 2015, it’s hard to catalog in one year-end summation. To a large extent, It was a year defined by crises, including financial distress in Greece and China as well as the Syrian refugee crisis and the rise of ISIL. But before we plunge into the disaster zone, it was also a political year. What better place to start than the US presidential campaigns, now well underway.

Here in Vermont, many were heartened by Bernie Sanders’ strong start and people-powered campaign. It was nice to see someone take on Hillary, even as he gave her a pass on her various scandals (emailgate, Benghazi). There was also the rise of Donald Trump as the Republican frontrunner who can say almost anything and still gain in the polls. Despite the theatrics, politics this year provided a patter of response to the events of 2015, as the real world intruded into the carefully crafted platforms of the various candidates. They were forced to take positions on gun control, foreign affairs, Black Lives Matter, and the global economy, articulated in a string of debates held by both parties. Voters who are paying attention got the chance to hone their own positions against those who would be our leaders over the next several years.

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Will 2016 be the year in which a prominent voice quotes King’s condemnations of US wars. Good people everywhere should resolve this new year to follow Ramsey Clark in his efforts toward hearing the truthful and liberating words of King as a catalyst toward achieving justice and adjudicated compensations that will end profitable genocide

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Will it happen in 2016, during the weekend holiday in the United States dedicated to Martin Luther King’s birth date. that of the dozens of nations presently under attack, whether by US NATO UN military or economic warfare, one will field a celebrity status leader reading to the public from King’s long suppressed sermon Beyond Vietnam – a Time to Break Silence?

At about this time each year, Brattleboro businesses generously donate over $50,000… to the Town of Brattleboro for a town business license.

That’s $50,000 that is diverted from food and heat drives, year-end bonuses, and holiday gift buying and into the town’s coffers. It is also an unnecessary hurdle for business owners in Brattleboro.

There are many things wrong with this approach, all easily solved if we are serious about being business-friendly.

It doesn’t need to be collected at this time of year.

The current system requires payments be made during the holiday season, when food drives, heat funds, and donations to other worthy causes need funds. This is the only time it can be collected, according to the way the town operates the program.

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Jesus warns harming God’s children is equivalent to harming the Lord. “As you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” This principle of a common humanity is basic to the Nuremberg Principles of Int’l Law, written to prosecute anyone, who would ever do what the Nazis did, which included bombing, invading and occupying innocent nations as Christian Americans have done since end of World War Two

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Apollo 11 was the first manned mission to land on the Moon in 1969. There have been six manned U.S. landings between 1969 and 1972. A cursory trolling of the Internet will bring a trove of manned moon landings hoax claims and debunkers of the hoax theory. Did man walk on the moon or not?

One strong indicator against man walking on the moon hoax is that if the 1969 landing was a hoax, then all six manned missions to the moon were a hoax, as well as all of the unmanned vehicles landings and all the manned orbits around the moon. If a hoax is in order, then it would not make sense to create a hoax for just the first manned mission but to create a hoax for the entire array of Apollo missions.

In fact, there are too many indications that the manned landings were for real.

I miss reading all the comments and good wishes in the donation column. I miss having a local charity that gave 100 percent of the proceeds to its intended beneficiaries.

I miss Pat Smith running the newspaper campaign. I miss how people would write: In lieu of local Christmas cards. I miss how you could write anything you wanted and make it as long as you wanted and it would get printed.

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A Nuremberg Trial for US Funding Slaughter of Syrians Destruction of Libya Iraq Afghanistan by jay janson

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“Assad killed his own people peacefully protesting!” Sound familiar? Substitute ‘Gaddafi’ for ‘Assad,’ and one is on one’s way to bring to mind so many other similarities made to be forgotten in TV, radio and printed news and entertainment in Western media, media owned by corporations profitably investing in the illegal and unconstitutional use of US Armed Forces and CIA. CIA creation and use of ‘Islamic’ terror is reviewed.

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. I have always been a keen supporter of the movement. I joined two Wall St local groups and an offshoot work group of one of them and the movement is dear to my heart. However, I think it’s futile this idea of demonstrating. It merely keeps us in the position of hamsters on the wheel. As long as we supplicate anyone or any entity, we are essentially saying that we need permission.