Friday, January 18, 2008

Basic in the Kitchen

I got a lot of e-mails on last week's post and was a little fearful about opening them. I was thinking, "Oh, I must have offended someone with my comments" (and figured it was about impeachment).

That wasn't the case. So we're going to have some kitchen basics.

A number of you wrote to say you were glad that canned foods were being noted and this was apparently the thing no one wanted to raise. There's no reason to feel guilty about using canned foods. I'm very glad that Rita and Laraine both tried the Del Monte Fresh Cut Zucchini and recommend it highly.

But the canned food issue has raised some other ones. So, again, this is just some kitchen basics.

Frozen food. What should I have on hand?

You should have what you like.

Let's talk berries first because (a) some areas do not have fresh all the time and (b) transporting fresh around the country costs a lot more than transporting frozen.

My husband and my son Mike are both allergic to fresh strawberries. I'm pretty sure Mike outgrew that but he may not have. If we have strawberry shortcake, we have it with frozen strawberries. Blueberries are more common in the frozen section these days so you could try those to see what you think of them.

I wasn't aware that a number of people were unsure in the frozen section of the grocer. Cheryl wanted to know what's easiest because she usually grabs Green Giant roasted potatoes and tosses it in the microwave but doesn't go with anything else.

I believe all frozen foods are microwaveable for the most part (if they need cooking). An exception is corn on the cob. If you like corn, that would be my recommendation. You boil water (salt it if you want) and boil the corn. It's a very easy to fix food. You're not even having to take the husks off.

One dish I enjoy (in single serving size) is creamed spinach. I've never made creamed spinach in my life and only know it from the frozen section. (I do have a spinach recipe that I'll share next week provided Wally's mother has no problem with it. It requires fresh spinach, however. But there were requests for spinach recipes in this week's e-mails.)

You may not care for creamed spinach. That's your real clue. Even if something is easy to cook, don't pick it up if you don't generally like it.

I don't like frozen beans or peas. If I'm making split-pea salad, for instance, I use canned. If I'm having beans (other than green beans), I generally buy them dry. But that's a personal taste issue and if you enjoy them frozen, that's for you to decide.

That's really the point in all the e-mails, people are worried about what they are eating or wanting to eat. No one wrote, "Is it okay to eat Death By Chocolate for every meal?" So everyone writing grasps the importance of increasing fruits and vegetables (for yourselves and/or your families).

I've obviously done several things wrong if people are worried what I'm going to think. If you need to picture me in the kitchen with you, know that I'm just happy someone else is cooking and, if you know it tastes wonderful, I'm sure I'll love it as well.

But at least one e-mail indicates it's not just me. Kent e-mails about a PBS cooking show (he doesn't name it but I think I know which one he means and I caught it as well). Kent lives in Texas. The host is from the east. He made a big to-do about refried beans and insulted every canned variety offered to him -- comparing them to dog food.

I met Kent when we were all in Texas last March. Kent can't get over the nonsense of that host (it's not just Kent having that problem). Here's the deal for anyone in Kent's situation: You live in Texas, you know more about Tex-Mex food than an outsider.

I thought that segment was ridiculous when I saw it. He was being spooned refried beans out of a can. I can't imagine anything he'd enjoy being spooned out of a can. He just wanted to be snide and he achieved that. Ignore him. Ignore his program.

If you're outside of Texas (or the southwest), you may not grasp that you season the refried beans if you're using canned. (You also season them if you're using dried pintos from scratch.)
That can include a fresh pepper, a clove of garlic, pepper, you name it.

If I say something here that makes you uncomfortable, by all means let me know. I certainly am not trying to make anyone feel nervous in their own kitchen. It's your kitchen and you're in charge. Everyone else, including me, is a guest and a guest trying to take over your kitchen is like someone in the backseat trying to tell you how to drive. Blow them off. Unless it's me. If it's me, let me know. Because the whole point of this site is that people who aren't (or weren't) comfortable in their kitchens would realize that it's not scary and they can handle it.

If you're vegan, you already know your basics. If you're not vegan, I'd recommend keeping the following in your kitchen: eggs, your favorite cheese, bread, flour and sugar at a minimum. Milk? I have a big family so we never have milk go bad unless we're away from home. But milk is so expensive these days that I'd hesitate to recommend anyone keep it on hand unless they normally do.

I normally have rice and dried pasta on hand. But that's because I like to eat those things. If you don't, there's really no point in keeping them on hand except for an emergency situation when you have nothing else to eat.

A big question from the men was if it was okay to just cook one dish. I'm assuming they are cooking for themselves because two people are rarely in synch enough to take the same meal day after day. But if you want to do that, there's a plus to it. The more you cook something, the more comfortable you are with it and the easier it is for you to cook it. You can try different spices or other things if you'd like.

I think I've shared this before but C.I. and Ava are usually here every Friday (usually with Kat) and one night, when Wally was also here so it was during the summer, I was embarrassed to find out that they were cooking pigs in a blanket. I felt like I'd failed or something as a host. I hadn't. They wanted to fix something quick and easy that everyone would eat. I ended up having some as well and the best meal is always something someone else cooked.

So just eat what you want. If we work at listening to our bodies, we'll know what we need. I know that may cause a panic for some because you may think you'll be eating sweets non-stop. But if you're making a point to increase your fruits and vegetables, you should find that you really begin to want to eat them.

One e-mail came in from a woman who's just switched apartments. It's a downgrade, due to the economy, and she hates it. In terms of the kitchen, she has no windows and she says the kitchen is tiny and she feels like she's in a jail cell everytime she's in there. We exchanged e-mails and one of the things she's done is hang up pots and pans which has given her a lot more room (she only had one cabinet below waist level (it's under the sink) and the two cabinets on the wall are being used for glasses, plates, etc. She liked the idea of hanging pots and pans but checked a hanging device and it was too expensive. I don't know what the item is called, she found it at Target, but you can get a thing (wooden or metal) that is just hooks on an expandable base. She got it in metal for less than ten bucks, hung it up and all her skillets and pans are hanging from it now. She also tried my suggestion of moving a radio into the kitchen and it feels less like a jail cell for her now. As we were exchanging e-mails, I thought about two things.

First, with the awful economy, I'm sure she's not the only one downgrading just to stay above water. Two, whether you downgrade or stay where you are, if the kitcehn is a source of grief, you're not going to want to go in there. One of my son's 'decorating style' (I'm laughing kindly) is NBA. He's a big basketball fan and if you go into his kitchen, he's got action figures hanging on the walls (in their original boxes), trading cards and everything else up on the walls. It makes it a room he wants to be in. So you may want to try that. I have a friend who, when she was really depressed for a series of month, would clip out a comic strip from the paper each week and put it on her fridge.

There are little touches you can do (and I don't mean things you have to go out and shop for) that will make the kitchen feel more like your room.

The last e-mail was from a man who has a skillet, one large pot and two sauce pans. He said a friend's been "ribbing" him about that. It's wonderful to have a large number of pots and pans but he can cook a full meal with what he has on hand.

Again, a large number of e-mails seemed to be about permission. You give yourself permission. If you want mine, you've got it.

So the illegal war? We found out this week that the Iraq War is not only not planned to end anytime soon, but the government is telling us it will go on much longer than most of us have expected in our worst nightmares. And if they're admitting to five more years, you know they're hoping for even more.

The illegal war is not going to end in phases, my opinion. It's going to end or it's not going to end. It could last a century (didn't John McCain suggest that earlier this month?). Troops come home or they stay. Even a partial number staying risks more being sent back over.

The Iraqi government can't get it together because it's not a government of the people. It's a government the US has installed. As long as US forces are on the ground there, the government will look to the US for approval. It will not be representing Iraqis.

Bully Boy is attempting to by-pass the United Nations and create agreements with his puppet (al-Maliki) that will allow the US to stay as long as the puppet (or later puppets) want. That is appalling. The US should not have gone into Iraq and it should not be over there now. But we should not mistake whatever a puppet agrees to with the will of the Iraqi people.

The Iraqi people, in poll after poll, has made it clear that they want all foreign forces out of their country.

We would feel the same way.

And maybe that's one of the answers? Realizing what we we'd feel like in their shoes? Realizing that they aren't the "other" but people just like us. Adults, not children, who can steer their own course and should.

We hear a lot about how US troops have to remain in Iraq to protect "them." Who is "them"? Iraqis? Who is the US protecting "them" from? I wasn't aware that another country had annexed parts of Iraq. (Though some parts do want to split off.)

The US is doing what it did during Vietnam: Propping up a government that doesn't represent the will of the people. Year after year, it can be propped up but it's not a legitimate government or one that can stand on its own because it is not a government that came up from the country, it's one being imposed from outside.

There was violence when the US left Vietnam. There was also a healing period. We now have diplomatic (and economic) relations with Vietnam and their current government is not the puppet government the US spent years propping up.

A legitimate government is of the people and by the people. The US military or US government is not composed of Iraqis and should not be in the business of propping up governments in foreign countries.

We were lied to about why the US needed to go into Iraq. We're being lied to now about why the US has to stay.

(If I seem especially focused tonight, I should note that I'm ripping off from a presenation C.I. gave to the Iraq study group tonight. I do have permission to write about this and I have added my own thoughts and not just provided a transcript.)

"The lies of war" is how C.I. opened it and I thought we were going to hear about WMDs, democracy, liberation and all the usual lies of war that we know by heart.

But C.I.'s point was that those lies got the US over there. There are new lies that keep the US there. We need to start thinking about that and exploring that. We need to be exposing that. I can't do justice to the section where C.I. was talking about the bombs being dropped. But I will note that when the US has to drop bombs on a country, there is no democracy, there is no legitmacy to the puppet government.

Lies got us into war and we can hear that over and over from the ones who think talking about Iraq means bringing up Judith Miller, et al. But lies are keeping us there and addressing that may be one way to end the illegal war.

This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" for today:

Friday, January 17, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the illegal war keeps going (and gets extended?), John Edwards addresses the realities of Ronald Reagan, and more.

Starting with war resisters, Courage to Resist has posted a number of interviews with war resisters. Today we'll focus on their interview with Brandon Hughey who spoke of how he turned against the illegal war, advised his superior of it and finally took matters into his own hands by checking out from Fort Hood for 28 days (starting in January 2004) "to see if maybe they would boot me out. Once I go AWOL and once I show that I'm not a 'good soldier' maybe they'd just boot me out. So I came back in 28 days, instead of kicking me out of the army they said, 'We're glad to have you back. We're going to give you extra duty and dock your pay. But I suggest you pack your backs and start getting ready to go to Iraq.' So basically that idea I had backfired. I had tried to get myself booted out and even that didn't work. So at that point, I began to feel like I was trapped. There was no way out."

Courage to Resist: And none of your superiors ever informed you of Conscientious Objector status?

Brandon Hughey: No, I had never even heard of that. I didn't even know that existed until I after I came to Canada.

Courage to Resist: So you were told to get ready to ship out to Iraq after being AWOL for 28 days? What did you do then?

Brandon Hughey: Basically, I began to think of what other options I had to get out of the military. You know, I couldn't really think of anything. I tried going AWOL and coming back, at that point I just felt trapped. I had remembered that tens of thousands of people had come up -- during Vietnam -- had come up to Canada and I thought at the time, 'Maybe as a last resort option I could leave the country?" And so I kept that in the back of my mind and when I realized that, you know, there didn't seem like any other way I could get out I began to feel like, "Okay, leaving the country is an option." So, at that point, I began to make plans to go to Canada.

Courage to Resist: How did you prepare yourself to make this huge decision?

Brandon Hughey: I was just going to pack my bags and drive myself there -- try to set aside whatever money I could and hopefully have enough to get myself started in a new life and a new country. I really didn't have much a plan because I didn't know what I was getting myself into. And that was pretty much it.

Courage to Resist: And when did you actually make the move?

Brandon Hughey: I came up in March of 2004, when I arrived.

Courage to Resist: Did you make contact right away with anybody with the War Resisters Support Campaign or any other resisters.

Brandon Hughey: Well the War Resisters Support Campaign hadn't been formed yet when I arrived. But I was staying with a Quaker family for a few months when I first arrived. So the Quaker community did a lot and they, you know, they did a lot to support me. That was really my first support network when I came to Canada.

Courage to Resist's audio interviews are part of their ongoing Audio Project.

A number of war resisters have gone to Canada and attempted to be granted asylum.
November 15th, the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear the appeals of war resisters Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey. Parliament is the solution.Three e-mails addresses to focus on are: Prime Minister Stephen Harper (pm@pm.gc.ca -- that's pm at gc.ca) who is with the Conservative party and these two Liberals, Stephane Dion (Dion.S@parl.gc.ca -- that's Dion.S at parl.gc.ca) who is the leader of the Liberal Party and Maurizio Bevilacqua (Bevilacqua.M@parl.gc.ca -- that's Bevilacqua.M at parl.gc.ca) who is the Liberal Party's Critic for Citizenship and Immigration. A few more can be found here at War Resisters Support Campaign. For those in the US, Courage to Resist has an online form that's very easy to use. Both War Resisters Support Campaign and Courage to Resist are calling for actions from January 24-26. The War Resisters Support Campaign has more on the action in Canada:

The War Resisters Support Campaign has called a pan-Canadian mobilization on Saturday, January 26th, 2008 to ensure : 1) that deportation proceedings against U.S. war resisters currently in Canada cease immediately; and 2) that a provision be enacted by Parliament ensuring that U.S. war resisters refusing to fight in Iraq have a means to gain status in Canada. For listings of local actions, see our Events page. If you are able to organize a rally in your community, contact the Campaign -- we will list events as details come in.

Courage to Resist notes:

Join and support January 25 vigils and delegations in support of U.S. war resisters currently seeking sanctuary Canada. Actions are being planned in Washington D.C., New York, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Supporters will meet with officials at Canadian Consulates across the United States in order underscore that many Americans hope that the Canadian Parliament votes (possible as early as February) in favor of a provision to allow war resisters to remain. Download and distribute Jan. 25-26 action leaflet (PDF).Supporting the war resisters in Canada is a concrete way to demonstrate your support of the troops who refuse to fight. Help end the war by supporting the growing GI resistance movement today!
Details January 25-26 actions/events in support of U.S. war resisters.
Sign the letter "Dear Canada: Let U.S. War Resisters Stay!" and encourage others to sign.
Organize a delegation to a Canadian Consulate near you .
Host an event or house-party in support of war resisters.


There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Rodney Watson, Michael Espinal, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Clara Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters. In addition, VETWOW is an organization that assists those suffering from MST (Military Sexual Trauma).


Meanwhile IVAW is organizing a March 2008 DC event:

In 1971, over one hundred members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War gathered in Detroit to share their stories with America. Atrocities like the My Lai massacre had ignited popular opposition to the war, but political and military leaders insisted that such crimes were isolated exceptions. The members of VVAW knew differently.
Over three days in January, these soldiers testified on the systematic brutality they had seen visited upon the people of Vietnam. They called it the Winter Soldier investigation, after Thomas Paine's famous admonishing of the "summer soldier" who shirks his duty during difficult times. In a time of war and lies, the veterans who gathered in Detroit knew it was their duty to tell the truth.
Over thirty years later, we find ourselves faced with a new war. But the lies are the same. Once again, American troops are sinking into increasingly bloody occupations. Once again, war crimes in places like Haditha, Fallujah, and Abu Ghraib have turned the public against the war. Once again, politicians and generals are blaming "a few bad apples" instead of examining the military policies that have destroyed Iraq and Afghanistan.
Once again, our country needs Winter Soldiers.
In March of 2008, Iraq Veterans Against the War will gather in our nation's capital to break the silence and hold our leaders accountable for these wars. We hope you'll join us, because yours is a story that every American needs to hear.
Click here to sign a statement of support for Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan

March 13th through 16th are the dates for the Winter Soldier Iraq & Afghanistan Investigation. Dee Knight (Workers World) notes, "IVAW wants as many people as possible to attend the event. It is planning to provide live broadcasting of the sessions for those who cannot hear the testimony firsthand. 'We have been inspired by the tremendous support the movement has shown us,' IVAW says. 'We believe the success of Winter Soldier will ultimately depend on the support of our allies and the hard work of our members'."

And the war drags on and on. Nancy A. Youssef (McClatchy Newspapers) pieces together several press conferences to explain, "Gates and top uniformed officers sketched out a plan that runs counter to pledges by Democratic presidential contenders to bring about a rapid drawdown of the U.S. military presence in Iraq" and cites Lt. General Raymond Odierno (the number two) declaring that it "could be five to 10 years" that the US forces remain in Iraq. Ann Scott Tyson (Washington Post) observes, "Senior U.S. military officials projected yesterday that the Iraqi army and police will grow to an estimated 580,000 members by the end of the year but that shortages of key personnel, equipment, weaponry and logistical capabilities mean that Iraq's security forces will probably require U.S. military support for as long as a decade." Julian E. Barnes (Los Angeles Times) reminds, "Iraq's defense minister, Abdul-Qader Mohammed Jassim Mifarji, has said Iraqi forces will not be able to assume responsibility for internal security until 2012 or be able to defend the country's borders before 2019."

In the face of that, the alleged 'anti-war groups' cave again. They aren't anti-war groups, they aren't peace groups. They are Win Without War and all the other useless groups that do nothing to end the illegal war. Nothing the reports of the cave, PR Watch explains that "Ryan Grim reports that the biggest and best-funded organizations in the liberal peace movement, primarily MoveOn and the groups in its Americans Against Escalation in Iraq (AAEI) coalition, are no longer advocating that Congress end the war. This year "the groups instead will lower their sights and push for legislation to prevent President Bush from entering into a long-term agreement with the Iraqi government that could keep significant numbers of troops in Iraq for years to come. ... The groups believe this switch in strategy can draw contrasts with Republicans that will help Democrats gain ground in November." AAEI's PR spokesperson, Moira Mack of Hildebrand Tewes Consulting, called it "the perfect legislative opportunity." In other words, as Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber pointed out last March, for MoveOn and other Democrat-aligned peace groups it's not about ending the war, it's about electing Democrats. Most of the tens of millions of dollars that MoveOn and AAEI have spent lobbying and organizing for "peace" has been directed at pressuring and embarrassing pro-war Republicans, while the Democratic Congress has continued to fund the war and pro-war Democrats have generally been given a pass." All those 'groups' have to offer is silent vigils and online petitions. And we've seen serveral years before.

A rude comment on IVAW comes from a surprising online source. We're not linking to it. We're not linking to that site while it's up. (The same way all the ones lying about Gloria Steinem aren't being linked to. See The Third Estate Sunday Review for a piece tentatively titled "Hey Little Girl Are You All Alone, Did You Go and Leave Your Brain at Home" dedicated to the Mud Flap Gals and all the other useless play-feminists online who never thought they needed to educated themselves on any topic before weighing in.) IVAW is being slammed for not allowing an event that marks the anniversary of the illegal war. Buy a clue, idiots, IVAW's Winter Soldier Investigation ends before the anniversary. But apparently, the 5th anniversary of the illegal war can't be marked if it can't be done on a weekend. Apparently, we're supposed to have "5th Anniversary of the Illegal War" observed and then, during the week, the actual date?

It's too damn bad that there are some hurt feelings and people whining and carping about IVAW. IVAW isn't preventing anyone from doing anything. They have planned the Winter Soldiers' Investigation and the dates are March 13th through March 16th. You have to be really STUPID not to grasp that the 5th anniversay of the illegal war is AFTER the Winter Soldiers' Investigation. IVAW's Kelly Dougherty observes:

As we enter 2008, please stop for a moment and consider where we are now, and where we are going. In just over a year, America will have a new President. We will have endured a year of campaign commercials and attack ads. We'll have watched debates devoid of any real discussion of the withdrawal from Iraq that a growing number of Americans now call for. We'll have waited, for yet another year, for our leaders to find a way to say what we know in our hearts: we must leave Iraq.
But what will have changed in the next year that will make that happen?
We must face this fact: we run the serious risk that one year from today we'll be right where we are now, but with another year's worth of casualties, a year's worth of grieving families, a year's worth of Iraqi anger and suffering built on our occupation of a country we now know was no threat to us. Ending this war in a year is different than ending it now, just as ending it now is different than ending it a year ago, or a year before that. There is a price to pay for every day that we wait.

She's exactly right. And in 2004, we saw the peace movement shut down shop because the most important thing wasn't ending the illegal war, it was 'elections!' The peace movement can't make the same mistake in 2008. If people have hurt little feelings, too damn bad. Too much time has been wasted with the peace movement wasting their energies on the John Kerry presidential bid or the Democrats 2006 Congressional races. People in the peace movement will most likely favor a candidate on their own. That's to be expected. But the peace movement is not a get-out-the-vote movement nor should it be hijacked (willingly or not) by political parties.

IVAW is not the only thing happening in DC. March for Peace exists around it and blocks out the 13th through the 16th for IVAW. Possibly, those whining online about IVAW don't believe students matter and that's why they flaunt their ignorance of March for Peace? You can find their schedule here.

CBS and AP report that Turkey is declaring that they "bombed nearly 60 Kurdish rebel targets in an attack this week in northern Iraq." Christian Peacemaker Teams have protested noting that the bombings -- as with all ariel bombings including the ones the US is doing in Iraq -- are indiscriminate and targeting civilians.

In other reported violence . . .

Bombings?

Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad bombing that claimed 2 lives and left four wounded, a Baquba home bombing left 2 police officers dead and two more wounded while another Baquba home bombing claimed the lives of 2 children and four adults wounded.

Shootings?

Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports an armed clash in Basra that left at least two soldiers injured, three Iraqi police officers injured and an unknown number of civilians injured while Dr. Luma Salih was shot dead in a seperate incident as she left the hospital, a Wajihiyah armed clash left 2 police officers dead and three more wounded, 8 people were shot dead in Kirkuk and a Nasriyah Province clash in which 9 people were killed and at least forty wounded.

Corpses?

Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 2 corpses discovered in Baghdad and 3 in Diyala Province. Reuters reports 7 corpses "were found after one" US "air strike in the town of Riyadh".

In US political news, the Green Party has scheduled another presidential candidate forum for February 2nd at Busboys & Poets in DC (14th and V Streets) at ten in the morning -- Jesse Johnson and Kent Mesplay are confirmed to appear others may or may not. More info click here. They've also created a new webpage for videos with the San Francisco forum held Sunday already on it and plans for more videos to be added. The Green Party's official blog can be found here and certainly if it's happening and known Kimberly Wilder (On The Wilder Side) is probably posting about it. In Democratic presidential politics, Shailagh Murraqy (Washington Post) quotes John Edwards response to Barack Obama's praise of Ronald Reagan (see yesterday's snapshot): "When you think about what Ronald Reagan did to the American people, to the middle class to the working people. He was openly -- openly -- intolerant of unions and the right to organize. He openly fought against the union and the organized labor movement in this country . . . He openly did extraordinary damage to the middle class and working people, created a tax structure that favored the very wealthiest Americans and caused the middle class and working people to struggle every single day. The destruction of the environment, you know, eliminating regulation of companies that were polluting and doing extraordinary damage to the environment. I can promise you this: thie president will never use Ronald Reagan as an example of change."

This MLK weekend, PBS' Bill Moyers Journal includes an essay by Moyers (who served in the Johnson White House) reflecting on history and present day -- in addition, he speaks with the New York Times David Cay Johnston about the truths regarding taxation and spending. In most markets, that airs tonight. It will stream online and provide transcripts and audio.





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