It’s as Good A Time as Any

Tags

Bernie Sanders, Election 2016, Hillary Clinton, progressives

Well here we are again. I’m inclined to talk (ask my husband), so there is little point in trying to silence me. You have no doubt made your decision already about me.

I’m not one of those persons who people are casual about. You either like me or you hate me, seldom anything down the middle.

So I don’t give a rip’s roaring ass which one you adhere to frankly. I can come down on that both sides of that issue too, depending, so welcome if you are reading, screw you in absentia if you aren’t.

I don’t figure myself to be that much different than the rest of ya, a bit smarter than the average, a tad wiser given my age than a thirty-year-old. I know myself better than most people  bother to inspect their innards, and I’m comfortable with what I find. Not always happy with it, mind you, but comfortable.

I grew up privileged. Not in super rich mind you, but privileged nonetheless. Most average kids from working class families don’t believe that, but it’s true. It was a hell of a lot easier than growing up African-American or Hispanic. It would have been better to be male given the times. But I never went to bed hungry or didn’t have a pair of shoes. I had the opportunity of a pretty decent education back when it was still affordable for the working class kid.

It’s a small but constant wonder to me that I ended up being a bleeding-heart liberal. I shouldn’t have, at least as I measure it from examining the lives of those I went to high school with. Some of them are loons. Some of them are just immersed in their own lives of grandkids and whatever one is interested in if it ain’t the state of the world and all who inhabit it. A few are liberal, a few pointedly conservative, but I repeat myself–the loons.

But I pride myself most about being a rational thinking individual who manages to blend a sophisticated metaphysical belief system along with a logic based political view of the world at the same time. They conflict, my angelic side and my devil as you would expect, and when the conflict comes, I wrestle with it, I seek to escape from it, but I rarely can ignore it.

Back in 2008, I supported Hillary Clinton, until it was obvious she was losing to Obama. Then I switched allegiance, since John McCain and his Alaskan albatross proved  to be unacceptable as leaders of the free world.

So we are now 2015, and Hillary is running again. And I am supporting her again. And. . . .

I’m conflicted.

Bernie Sanders and I disagree on very little. I was frankly surprised that he gathered so much money so quickly.

I am sensitive to the notion that if all of us smart people read the tea leaves accurately and accord him no real chance, we in fact insure he will have no real chance. Yet Hillary is more than competent and it’s so time for a woman to take the leadership.

Yet Hillary and I don’t agree on a number of things, and I am more than aware that she is more conservative (by nature) and certainly by design than I am. She is more comfortable with Wall Street than I would prefer. She is more hawkish that I would prefer.

In some ways Bernie has made this easier. At least his has the good sense to run under the Democratic banner, which means he is no threat to siphon off votes in the election as a third party candidate.

So I’ve been quiet about Hillary for the most part, hoping to let Bernie’s run peter out as it is expected to, and let the conflict within my head die a quiet death. And yet, I’m mindful that if he has no chance, it can surely be in part because people like me, his natural allies, won’t switch.

I am more than aware of my conflict of interests, which devolve down to a moral choice or a loyalty choice. Both are important I suppose, but one is compelling.

I am, as I say, pretty much clear on what motivates me.

An example.

The other evening, my husband admitted, “I have no opinion on the President’s trade agreement. I simply haven’t read hardly anything about it, so I don’t know who has the better argument.”

“Same here,” I replied, “but my reasons are quite different. I have deliberately avoided reading about it. I know at the end, I’ll either have to diss Elizabeth Warren or the President, and he needs all the support he can get against the crazies, so I’ve avoided the cognitive dissonance becoming informed would cause.”

See? I can and do act to avoid issues I don’t want to deal with.

And as I scrolled through my Facebook feed, I basically stayed fairly quiet when the discussions turned to Hillary or Bernie.

Yet the nagging continued.

This is not a time to merely support the candidate who can win. At least not until we get to the crossroads. Until the primaries are completed and one has withdrawn, I figure I am required by my moral compass at least to support the candidate whose dedicated to doing the most for the average person.

So I find myself feeling all sorts of traitor in leaving Hillary’s side and offering my small donation to Bernie. I still figure he doesn’t have a chance, but if that happens, at least I can sleep well knowing I did the right thing. I followed my conscious and not my cynical political savvy self.

Nothing will change in this country before it is too late to matter unless we as citizens, victims of the government machine, stand up and stop this madness. I’ve truly had enough of those who promise a better future while continuing to “play the game”.  The game at this point is simply rigged, and so clogged with illegality and personal greed as to make even Satan blanche at the sheer chutzpah.

Perhaps it’s always been this way, with a small but vocal group warning of “the end” but with climate change and income inequality, I don’t see planet earth surviving much longer with humanoids being at the top of the ladder. Unless that is, we make drastic changes.

They say that the uber wealthy in the world now routinely have bunkers build beneath their luxury homes, guarding against what they know must surely come, the uprising of people who have nothing left to lose.

I fully expect Hillary Clinton will be the next president. I hope however that she is not. Not because she wouldn’t be okay as president’s go. But because following Bernie, would be a fine time for Elizabeth Warren. And at least with Bernie, we have an honest chance to turn the page to a new way of doing democracy.

But enough of fantasy politics.

Back to reality.

Where’s my checkbook?

How I Learned to Love the Criminal Life

This is a snoozer. Let me say that up front. I try in almost all cases to keep these posts fresh and snappy as well as informative. This is pretty much just the latter. If it helps you in some way, that’s extra good. But mostly it’s just to establish a public record and illustrate just how insane bureaucracy gets.

Once upon a time the ACA was passed. Let’s make this clear. I adore the President. I totally get why he pursued the formation of what we fondly call Obamacare. Facing Congress and its known excesses of idiots, he figured that a health care plan that they had originally put forth as the alternative to Bill/Hillary care would garner a fair number of Republican adherents and grease the skids for an easy passage.

We know that that did not happen. What follows is somewhat critical of the Act, but I am very grateful at the same time. I believe health care is the right of all human beings.

That said, here’s what happened to me.

I applied, ran into the usual snafu’s at the beginning and was left with not being “verified”. I waited several weeks and tried again only to find that the validating company no longer had my “ticket” and I could not proceed with my application. By phone I was able to do so and I don’t fault the workers who manned those lines to assist people through the process. Mine came up “may be eligible for Medicaid”. Even though common sense told me I was not eligible, I was forced to go through that process.

I went to a “facilitator” here locally in Las Cruces. She insisted that the Medicaid New Mexico laundry list of financial questions were “inappropriate” and that all that was required was how much my income was, meaning our combined social security checks. Even though I protested, she insisted and filed an application on my behalf.

Weeks later I and my husband received Medicaid cards and a stilted letter than required a phone call to confirm that we both were given Medicaid coverage. My husband bailed on that, since he is covered by the VA. I went about life, an ensured person, seeing my doctor and filling prescriptions amazed at the wonders of health care.

Until about three months went by. We received another letter from Medicaid NM, just as cryptic, requiring yet another phone call, all to confirm that my coverage had been cancelled. No explanation was ever forthcoming other than “somebody had approved your application by mistake”. They saw no reason to explain further.

I placed a call immediately to the Federal exchanges where after numerous apologies for the bonehead play by New Mexico they assured me that the for me, the exchanges were still open (even though it was July) since my original application would be marked as “still open”. They graciously completed my application, told me of my subsidy, and went through the various plans until I decided on one.

I contacted my new insurer, paid the premium and happily my doctor accepted them and life again returned to normal.

Starting in about October I started receiving solicitations from a dozen or more insurance companies for supplemental insurance to Medicare. I was advised that I needed one for sure. Before I could even contact Medicare to see about the process of applying (I would turn 65 in April of 2015), I got official stuff from Medicare.

What a delight I thought. I was “automatically” enrolled in Part A and Part B. It was up to me to decide whether I wanted any supplemental coverage. There was reference to a Part D Medicare for prescriptions I could buy but no mention of cost, other than it would cost something more.

I soon received more official stuff from Social Security, as it related to Medicare. I was told I “might be eligible for extra help in paying for prescriptions”. It had to do with being “low-income” and receiving other “supplemental assistance” of various kinds.

I immediately smelled a rat.

Sure enough an application was forthcoming wherein there was a the laundry list of financial questions that I knew would kick me out. How much do you have in savings and checking? List your investments. What is your mortgage? At the bottom of the form was something to the effect of “I don’t want to apply for Federal “extra help” but send my application to the state for consideration”.

There were no other choices. I sent the form back without filling out ANY of the financial information to conform to the requirement. I assumed that New Mexico would look me up, see that my Medicaid had been cancelled for “ineligibility” and then I could get on to the business of choosing a Part D provider.

Not so.

I received some weeks later, a letter FROM THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT (DEPT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, from Maryland) advising me that I had been granted extra help and that I could choose from eight or so carriers. If I chose none, one would be assigned to me.

My frustration started to really grow at that point. I did nothing. A carrier was assigned to me, and I received a lovely packet of information from my new insurance provider and a shiny plastic card to show my pharmacist.

I put off the phone calls that I knew were necessary, and finally steeled myself to that event yesterday. I gathered all the various pieces of information, made sure I had all the identifying documents at hand, and called Medicare.

I explained that I had been given “extra help” for Part D coverage, and that I was, in my opinion not entitled to. I was even over the cut off based on my social security alone, without adding in our savings and investment portfolio. I was advised that New Mexico had granted the “extra help” and that Medicare couldn’t remove it. I was given the number to NM Medicare, which is not really Medicare at all, but Medicaid.

That call resulted in being told that “they had nothing to do with it at all, and I must deal with Medicare.

I called back Medicare.

Same result.

I called back Medicaid NM. Same answer.

I called back Medicare. Same answer

I called back Medicaid NM. This time they told me I needed to call NM Health and Human Services.

I did. Their menu had nothing about Medicare at all as far as I could see.

I called Social Security, “extra help” division. They gave me a history lesson in Medicare/Medicaid, and after assuring me they would help, told me that the document I had entitled Health and Human Services, from Maryland (denoting the US govt) was from New Mexico. I was advised to call NM HHS.

I called NM HHS. They actually looked up my old file, which is still current because at the age of 64, I still am able to receive family planning care at the state’s expense. If I’m ever declared as having a post-menopausal pregnancy, I’ll be the first to tell them and the world. She informed me that NOBODY there deals with anything like “extra help” nor Medicare. We didn’t do it she insisted.

I got in the car, drove to the Social Security Office. I explained my situation. “They are trying to give me extra help based on a mistaken belief that I am too poor to be required to pay,” I explained. They will come to correct that in a few months, and that might leave me without coverage, and my prescriptions are expensive. I am trying to clear up the problem now.”

He looked at me like I had landed from Mars. “So, he said, “you are getting Part D coverage but you don’t want it?”

“NO! It’s not that I don’t want it. I would love to have it. It’s just that I don’t think I qualify for it, and I don’t want to be stuck with no coverage when they inevitably figure that out. NOBODY will acknowledge that they gave it to me, so I can’t even discuss the qualifications with anybody. If by some miracle I am entitled, I’m happy to have it. But I can’t find that out until somebody admits they granted it. Somebody put an “approved” stamp on this. I’m trying to find that person/entity.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

He made a phone call. He called the new insurance carrier and said, “she is covered by you, but doesn’t want it.”

I demanded the phone.

I gave her the information, “my insurance number”.

She looked up the file. She said, “there was a cross over from your Medicaid coverage directly here.”

“But my Medicaid coverage was cancelled.”

“I understand what you are saying, but they did it anyway.”

“Who is they?”

“It does not say. It appears that your status as having Medicaid caused a cross over.”

“But everybody denies they did it.”

“Ma’am I do understand. I can cancel it if you wish, but that may open a can of worms for you in trying to replace it. There is on its face no justification for refusing it, and so they might not give you other discounts. I really can’t say. I’d just advise you to leave it be.”

I looked at the Social Security guy across the table from me.

“I give up.”

“I’ve called everyone, talked to everyone. No one will admit they approved my being placed on this plan, so I can’t even ask the question of on what basis I’m entitled. I was here. Note that in my file. I’m done.” He smirked as if he had won the battle on that one.

Here I stand, beaten.  I thought I was being an honorable and honest person. The system does not reward honesty, it laughs at it. This stands as a testament should I ever be called to answer for my crime of trying to do the right thing.

Please tell me you have run into equally stupid bureaucratic bullshit?

 

Metaphors and Analogies Galore

Tags

American Exceptionalism, GOP insanity, love of country

My friend Mimi asked an important question that inevitably got me to thinkin’.

Rudy 9/11 Giuliani opens his gums and spouts off as to how this President, really doesn’t love America as we do. Rude then goes on to explain that Obama was raised “diff-rent” from you and me, and none of that stuff is racist cuz ya know he had a white mama.

Rather than pick apart the blatherings of a has-been irrelevant hack, let’s look at the whole concept of what it means to “love one’s country.”

I’m not sure exactly what it means myself. I have no idea what it means to love a thing like that. I mean the concept is quite foreign to me, and I suspect it is to most people of they were pushed to tell exactly what they meant by it. Most people work from metaphor, taking it to mean that they support what the country was framed to stand for, and they think voting is a requirement of good citizenship.

I am not a boundary person you see. I look at maps and say, “oh dear, that makes no sense. Why is that line there?” Most of that stuff arose from long ago times and most dealt with wars. A bit of it is due to natural features of the land. Most of the lines throughout the Middle East are arbitrary and stem from meddling from the West, and truth be told, it’s why things are in such turmoil there today.

I do love humanity, which I think is quite natural being a part of it. I figure I’m one of the lucky ones, and I figure I’m no more entitled than anybody else. The accident of birth landed me in a land that allows me to pretty much do as I wish and do it fairly pleasantly. Someone’s being born in Bangladesh should entitle them to no less. So I’m all for making things a lot more equal. I’ll happily give up some if I can improve the lives of people who have almost nothing.

I recognize everyone doesn’t believe like I do, because they have been raised by parents, governments, businesses, and media to “want it all” with fine phrases like “work ethic” and “bootstraps” and “survival of the fittest”, to name but a few. They deserve more because they work harder and they judge their value and others by what’s in the garage of life.

If ever a metaphor was made for the GOP it’s the black hole. The GOP is on the event horizon. That’s the spot on the edge of a black hole from which there is no return. Destruction is inevitable since the gravitational pull is stronger than any known counter force to pull out. Yet to the observer, the person or thing poised on the event horizon seems to remain there forever. It’s basic astrophysics.

Or one can use the analogy of catch 22. Either works fine.

You see the GOP is always damned either way at this point. It is all of their own making, so there is no desire to rescue them. They are caught in the black hole of the tea imbibing community of dunces. They must feed the tiger lest the tiger eat them alive which of course it inevitably will since one must go mad under that sort of pressure eventually, and thus falter and succumb to the fangs.

The GOP cannot get away from the tea crazies. So they invariably make remarks such as Rudy did. And the Walkers of the party will continue to be non-committal in rejecting such tripe. One cannot poke the tiger, after all. Meanwhile, they remain mired in place at the event horizon while in reality, bit by bit they are eaten alive.

There is no meaning to “loving my country” any more than there is to “supporting our troops”, wearing flag pins or saying loudly that America is Exceptional! Similarly, the idea that one must confess one’s Christianity in order to be viable is without merit. The latter particularly is egregious, since there is a no religious test clause in the very constitution that these flag wavers so profess to be willing to die for.

In reality, constitution protectors don’t really mean it at all. They mean the constitution as they interpret it, and with the parts left out that they don’t like.

Do you love your country or only the ideal of it? Do you love it in spite of its true history or do you doctor that up to meet some standard you have erected to satisfy your personal needs and wants? I read where one woman in talking to her right-wing relatives learned that they opposed the current state of teaching American history because it “just wasn’t necessary to rehash all that old stuff. Sure slavery was bad, but we ended it. We should concentrate on what makes America great.”

Does anybody have a clue where that sort of nonsense leads? Well, not to  go into that of course, but it does, you have to admit, lead to all sorts of entitlements based on “we’re just so damned superior” and “you can’t manage without our guidance.” Anyone smell the odor of Arian purity and world domination in there?

President Obama has less than two years left to serve, and the Republican day care school replacement brigade still can’t talk of much else. Meanwhile it would appear that Jebbie  hasn’t read a newspaper in six-plus years, since a big chunk of his foreign policy team is made up of his brother’s fine collection of idiots that led us into the morasses of both Afghanistan and Iraq.  He doesn’t know that Wolfowitz was one of the architects of the Iraq policy with his pre-emptive strike crap? He doesn’t know that along with Cheney and others, the Iraq foray was something these fools had wanted to do for a decade or so and found 9/11 a good excuse for? They are liars and arguably war criminals if we collectively had the stomach to clean up our own shit behind us.

Yet this is where we live today. In a world steeped it seems in a party which is caught between the tiger which is devouring it, and reality which it can only spit niceties  at as it throws yet another bone in the other direction.  Stop being the party of stupid, Bobby Jindal said, while being stupid. We welcome everyone, except not Log Cabin Republicans to CPAC. I’ll take a pass on that evolution question if you don’t mind, I’m not a scientist.

We live in a world where David and Charles Koch, family owners of Koch Industries, owners of subsidiary ALEC, writes the legislation word for word of the bill their CEO Scott Walker of their other subsidiary Wisconsin, signs into law regarding “right to work” (which is really nothing but right to work for next to nothing), causing  even old timer Republicans who still have some shred of decency left in them, to say, “this is just fucking wrong.”

Is this love of country? They would surely say yes, the country they want to have, wherein all decisions are filtered through the prism of “is this good for the bottom line?”

Love my country?

Only an insane person would love this. Place that constitution, the preamble will do, against the fabric of stupid today and see how well that fits. A person could stand on a stump and recite non-stop this bundle of crazy for weeks without end. Today, we will pass a law that says sex education must never allude to the possibility of enjoyment but only procreative elements that are of course abstained from by good little girls, and winked at by bad little boys. Today we will ban yoga pants, cuz damn I wanna do what’s right for Merika. Today I’ll suggest that good education money is wasted on them blacks who just collect welfare anyway. Today, I’ll work hard to make sure only “our sort of folk” can vote. Today, I’ll cash that check from Exxon-Mobile and vote to let them drill baby drill in your fucking front yard.

Love my country?

Are you serious?

 

 

 

 

Conservative Comedy Show: Is That Some Sort of Oxymoron?

Tags

political satire, teabagger humor, the GOP

It is said (or at least it should have been said) that the human brain is pretty much capable of coming up with anything. I mean we humans have invented the most amazing ways of torturing people and killing them off bit by bit.

Go into any supermarket and stroll down the soda pop aisle or cereal aisle and you can see that we can invent several dozen variations on a theme, making each appear fresh and new.

But I swear I cannot come up with a viable version of comedy that stresses conservative themes and is funny at the same time. It would be a bit like pushing matter and anti-matter too closely together. It just implodes.

What on earth is funny about all the things that the GOP is for? They are for cutting taxes for the rich. That’s gotten to the point that nowadays we are sending money to them since they “pay” taxes in the negative.

They are for trying to offset their growing state deficits by adding “luxury” taxes to food and other necessities, taxes that cruelly attach more to the poor than any other group.

They are for the life of the fetus, which is surely laudable if it were coexistent with care for pregnant mothers, babies, health care, and a host of services to support that fetus as it grows to old age. But they are not.

They are against government intervening in the lives of ordinary people unnecessarily. They call this regulation. But the forms they wish to dismiss are those that protect people from dirty water, dirty air, shoddy manufacturing practices, unfair labor practices that endanger and diminish people.  They figure kids, rather than get a free lunch should sweep the school for their dinner.

But when it comes to regulating behavior, they can’t get enough of regulations. They want to and do, try to regulate every aspect of women’s bodies when it comes to reproduction and girls bodies too. They seek to regulate what women wear. They seek to protect the rights of others to treat fellow human beings badly based upon personal ideologies that they call a “religion.”

They seek to express American exceptionalism by meddling around the world, upping the ante everywhere, bloating defense budgets to accommodate their need to puff out their chests and “prove” America is better. At the same time, they protect themselves and their offspring from standing on any battlefield they create.

They seek to pretend that race and ethnicity no longer are of any concern in their America. They turn the page by flipping the equation such that anyone who brings up the issue is dubbed a “racist”. They employ a few dark faces, who for the price of personal fame, are willing to nod genteelly in agreement. They twist and cherrypick the words of great civil rights leaders and try to claim them as their own.

They live every day using every convenience devised by modern technology. They tweet and fly, pick up their fancy lattes, take their youth-enhancing shots at spas, drive computer directed cars, yet when it comes to any science that impinges on their gravy train of K Street lobbyists and the free-flowing money that is funneled their way, science becomes pure bunk.

They prefer stupid, cute-talking bobble heads to thoughtful men and women.

They prefer “common-sense” to education, except when they visit the doctor or the dentist or the accountant or the lawyer, or the airport pilot. Education is for elitists, who are people who want to be better than the average person, meaning they get embarrassed when they haven’t a damn clue what is being said.

They are all for individuality, and they mean that they will say that everyone is equal, and you can just do the best you can. If it don’t work out, why that poor house thing back in the twenties wasn’t so bad, and we got a lot of free road work done. See don’t you feel better knowing you are paying for your own gruel?

They want to, therefore, end social security, cuz individuals properly prepare for their own old age. John-Boy is remembered fondly and surely was going to care for his ma and pa. You don’t need medicare either since health care is no right but a privilege reserved for those who have managed to acquire sufficient funds to pay for it.

There is no need either for unemployment benefits because it’s your job to foresee that free markets might end your job. Worse, if you are so down and out as that, you probably are not of sufficient moral character to withstand the urge to just sit on your ass and suck off the rest of us anyway, and we can’t have that.

Food stamps? Hunger builds character. See the above regarding unemployment benefits regarding your unfitness for food.

Housing? Ditches are quite comfortable in summer I hear.

And let’s not forget the churches. Our fine Christian houses of worships are dedicated to helping the “truly” poor, whatever the hell that means. Not so much non-Christian houses of worship which are really just oxymorons, cuz that’s what my Jezus said, after all, somewhere; at least he implied it.

I mean two thousand years of working on that issue, is a good start!

Immigrants were us two hundred or so years ago, and that was fine. Everyone knows white trash from Europe beats red skins any day. And immigrants are really good at cleaning houses and mowing lawns and picking fruit. They don’t want hardly anything for the privilege. But too many? Oh now, that makes you an ALIEN and an ILLEGAL.

Those words are words of fear, because damn, I’m following all the good rules set up by my betters, and fuck, life is still not any better, so somebody is to blame, and my betters say it’s THEM.

So, we can hate us some Mexicans and, hell all of South America pretty much just cuz. But we will not hate the Cubans, at least the rich ones who escaped Fidel. They are not aliens or illegals, but good people who lost their wealthy land holdings and much to be commiserated with.

We can hate us some Arabs, as many as we want and wherever we want, because we just want their oil, them that got it at least. The rest? Who cares?

We can ignore all our history and all of the worlds for that matter just because it interferes with the narrative we have to tell ourselves today to get to sleep. I mean the past is the past, why dwell on uncomfortable things like slavery and partitioning and supporting dictators and crummy stuff like that. It just makes me feel bad, and, after all, we have to deal with TODAY right?

Let’s make history a quest to make our kids good Americans! And we know what will do that. Put God back in school! In fact, let’s turn over education our youth to private enterprise, cuz they will do the job better and cheaper! And they will never have an ulterior motive to teach our kids anything that was wrong, or quietly made themselves look like the best thing since sliced bread, will they?

Let’s continue to push for not letting those who think against us vote. Let’s continue to make judges do what we want them too.

Let’s put a gun in every graduate’s hand. And I ain’t talkin’ about graduating from college, or even high school. Grade school is old enough to understand proper gun usage. Carry it proudly son. It’s what the Founding Fathers wanted for sure.

This is what the Grand Overly Dead Party thinks. Now, if you can come up with how to make this funny, do tell. I can’t come up with anything. Not a damn thing. A wake? I can come up with that, but not comedy.

 

 

 

An Open Letter to Stupid People (written in crayon for your comfort)

Okay, I know this is hard. Life is hard. I’m trying to keep this humorous because a lot of smart people read this, and frankly, you stupid people bore them, hence the levity. But I am serious. You gotta stop being so stupid.

First let us define terms. For you stupid people, it’s what we smart people do when we want to discuss a subject. It keeps us all on the same page if you can catch that drift.

Stupid: having or showing a lack of ability to learn and understand things.

Here’s some synonyms (words that mean stupid)

airheaded birdbrained bonehead boneheaded brain-dead brainless bubbleheaded chuckleheaded dense dim dim-witted doltish dopey dopy dorky dull dumb dunderhead empty-headed fatuous gormless half-witted knuckleheaded lamebrain lamebrained oafish obtuse opaque pinheaded senseless simple slow slow-witted soft softheaded thick thickheaded thick-witted unintelligent unsmart vacuous weak-minded.

Stupid may be inherent (big word meaning you’re born with it) or simply the result of being either unexposed to information or pure laziness. If it’s the former, we commiserate and have one sentence for you to memorize: MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS AND STAY OUT OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS. If you are unexposed to information, tell us how to help you. If you are the latter–GET OFF YOUR ASS BEFORE WE GET REALLY MAD.

We smart people are well aware that progress in civilizing the world occurs if there are only 10% of us, since we find you stupid people everywhere. Since God would not make things this way (we surely trust), your very existence proves Darwin was right. I know, it’s too hard for you to understand, but trust me, it’s true.

We are prepared to shoulder our burden of running the world, but you guys, fueled by jealousy it seems, continue to meddle in things you can’t or won’t understand. It’s time to stop, since you are on the brink of catapulting us all over the precipice of no return.

Worse yet, there are a whole brand of mostly not so dumb people out there that prey upon your determination to not know as much as a rock. They are called all sorts of names, but politicians is one of them. Advertisers is another, shyster  is another.  There are many. They exist to get you to do stupid things by tickling your brain just enough make you think you are acting smart. You are not. You are either giving them your money or your precious “freedoms”.

For instance, they have convinced you that you don’t need to do any study, because common sense is good enough to decide most things. It is not. Common sense, is well, common. It’s what makes you pee in an appropriate facility rather than the potted plant in the living room. It can be used only for really basic things. It will not explain to you anything much about economics on the national scale or  the age of the earth.

They have told you that science is “suspicious”. It is not. It’s why a ton of you are alive today. Advances in medicine, metallurgy, chemistry, and so forth means that many of you are not dead from things that killed your caveman brothers a long time ago. They tell you that scientists don’t believe in God, which is not actually true, (many do), but also has no correlation to doing research accurately. (Correlation means that there is a relationship between two things, as in causation).

Tip: you cannot shortcut the discovery of truth by reading any ONE book. It requires the reading of many. Yes, bible readers, this means you. While the bible contains a good deal of useful information, it is not God’s manual. It was written by PEOPLE for more reasons that Carter has liver pills.

It is not our fault that you decided that college was “not fun” or “too hard” or “not the social party” you expected, and so quit for that little no-thought job you exist in today, or your small business making furnace filters. There is nothing wrong in doing the jobs you do, nothing at all, and if we are all going to be happy and comfortable somebody has to make coasters after all. But this doesn’t entitle you to sit at the big people’s table and tell us your views on the situation in Yemen. That requires that you actually know something.

You see, you are entitled to an opinion, and you can have it on just about anything you desire. But you see, having an opinion means little. My dog has an opinion on what he should eat and how much of it he should eat. I don’t often agree. And I am right and he is wrong, because he’s a dog. You are the dog here. Opinions have to be based on things called verifiable facts, logic and scary stuff like that. Otherwise they are a waste of everyone’s time.

The fact that some people encourage you and tell you you are right changes nothing. Refer back to the explanation of politicians and shysters.

Part of your problem is that you are afraid that because you don’t understand something, people will take advantage of you. That’s why you express a distrust for smart people and call them “elite intellectuals”. While we sympathize with your fear, the answer to this problem is not turning to people who talk to you in simple words and tell you you are right. Again, refer to shyster.

The answer is two-fold. Either stay the fuck out of stuff you don’t understand, or actually learn something.

You may have missed it, but there are places called libraries in most every town and they are filled with books about all kinds of subjects. Try using one some time. It may surprise you.

The Internet is a fine place to learn, but when you are taking baby steps, it’s best to be careful. Not everything you read there is accurate, in fact most of it probably isn’t. Until you have developed a modicum of “critical reading and thinking skills” be wary of the Internet.

Some rules of the road:

1. If it sounds like it’s something you would like, treat it with caution, look for the shyster!
2. If it tells you that you are the real strength of America, look for the shyster.
3. If it gives you simplistic answers that are painless to implement, look for the shyster.
4. If it mentions the word “trickle down” run like hell.

SOME BASIC FACTS THAT YOU MUST LIVE WITH:

1. The earth is round.
2. The universe is really really old, like in billions.
3. God did not make everything in six days.
4. Darwin was essentially right, you were once pond scum.
5. Vaccines do not cause autism and they are safe for the vast majority of people.
6. Climate change is real and man-made and we have to fix it.
7. There is a limit to fossil fuels. God won’t make any more for you.
8. Whether God exists or not is a personal conclusion and it’s none of your business what others conclude.
9. Nobody “chooses” their sexual orientation. It just is.
10. When people live in communities, it means that not everybody gets to do what they want no matter how much they want to do it.
11. EVERYONE is entitled to be fed, clothed, housed, educated, and maintained as a basic human right.

If you disagree with any of the above, you need to shut the fuck up, because YOU ARE STUPID.

In return for being good, we will make sure that you get the full benefits of #11.

Come join us! We want to welcome you to the ranks of the intelligent.

Is It Part of Growing Older?

Tags

aging, good old days, illusions, life in the foothills

I’m greatly afraid that my generation has lost its collective marbles. I take comfort in the fact, that every generation at some point is spoken of this way. If I’m right, then we are doomed as a society, and that would displease me quite a lot. I’d hate for civilization to end on my watch.

A friend suggested that he thought we got a “pretty good high school education.” I spent more time in social studies and literature and thought the offerings mediocre (looking back from of course the lofty position of “higher” education), while he spent time in math and science and thought he got a rather good effort from his teachers.

The problem is one of perspective of course. Those that have nary opened a serious book since they paraded around the gymnasium in their blue gowns and little hats rather think they were “well-educated” since they have managed in most cases to chew gum and walk at the same time, which is, albeit for some a herculean effort.

Those that either attended a reputable university (all the TV preacher colleges excepted please), or those motivated by someone or something to learn on their own, have a better  perspective I would argue to decipher the puzzle.

If you mean, did I learn to read and write a simple enough declarative sentence, read road signs and interpret them correctly, follow the directions at the polling place (and be there in the first place), stand when I heard the National Anthem (unless I was flirting with Marxism at the time), and pay my taxes on time  even while cutting every corner I thought I might get away with, then yes, I was well-educated in high school.

If you mean, on the other hand, was I taught to read carefully, discriminatingly, and with a critical eye, was I taught to evaluate arguments, avoid straw men (what the hell were they?), reserve judgment until more facts were accumulated, heck define a fact from a feel-good facsimile, then no, I was not well-educated in high school.

The fact is that education, publicly at least, has probably always been the former, more or less.  We are required to attend school to accomplish this: (1) become “good” citizens however defined but including being law-abiding, honest (on the big things at least), voting (again at least on the big things), and willing, oddly enough, to offer one’s life up for the entity known as “one’s country”, and (2) to fill out simple forms and read directions such that one can do the above as well as become a good cog in the economic machine.

A certain number of those being so groomed are culled from the herd as “college material” and will go forth to don the white collars and supervise the rest, or provide other medium level services, such as accounting, teaching of the young, druggists, and so forth. They may at will also participate in low-level political jobs such as school boards, city councils, mayoral duties in smaller towns, and so forth.

The malady of which I speak or was alluding to in the title seems to affect mostly those who rather blithely go through life, thinking themselves both learned and intelligence with nothing but a faded high school diploma to assure them of their abilities. The malady?

Thinking that things were better “back when”.

I belong to a forum or two dedicated to the high school I once attended, and it is fraught with this sort of talk. The old neighborhood has “gone down”, it’s not longer “safe”. All the old hangouts are “torn down”. Many a sentence begins with “when we were kids” and then goes on to explain how we were safe, happy, well-fed, drug-free, healthy, robust, patriotic, god-fearing, obedient, polite, mannerly and so forth. By contrast today’s youth are none of the above, except  one’s own grandchildren which are all perfect and the best ever produced.

Of course there are myriad causes for the “decline”, but it usually breaks down to one of several causes: (1) Democrats, i.e., liberals, (2) Republicans, i.e., conservatives and tea party adherents, (3) lazy people, i.e., people of color including immigrants, (4) crime and drugs, attributed to number (3) and condoned by (1).

The life seen in retrospect was akin to Donna Reed and Leave it to Beaver rolled into one.

We seem to have forgotten a lot of real truth here. More than a little I would say. In fact while we remember the “good” we have forgotten the bad. In the 50’s and 60’s most children who contracted leukemia died.

Most African-Americans were trapped in ghettos in the north and Jim Crow lives in the south. But at least we could boast that the tax rate on high incomes was upwards of 90% something which causes gasps today as we have been taught that asking the rich to pay any taxes somehow inhibits their ability to “create jobs”. They created plenty back then. Today big agribusiness has driven most small farmers out of  business, while they reap farm subsidies alongside the natural resource people  adding to their billions of profits each year, but it’s somehow really bad to give people food stamps to eat. Those are handouts and wrong. Business subsidies are good. Those things remain with us from our youth.

Women made less on the dollar than men than they do now, back in the 50’s.

(The ad denotes that a man wearing these pants is so amazing that a woman can’t wait to be walked on by him). This is how our mothers were thought of. It is the role model many of us grew up with. We looked to “marry well” and have kids, and keep a clean house. My mother and her sister-in-law waged a silent battle to out do the other at Thanksgiving and Christmas meals and my grandmother joined in for who could be-ribbon their gifts with prettier and bigger bows.

How far back to you want to go?

Not as far, I gather to the great depression?
Not so far as World War II? Let’s skip that part about Russia and the Cold War, and practicing duck and cover under the desks. Let’s skip the Cuban Missile Crisis when even us kids walked on egg-shells knowing something awful was afoot.

If you stopped at the high school level, then you know so damned little about the reality of this country that you’re bound think that the 50’s were great and should be returned to.

That’s why when people who have some knowledge of the unconscionable things this country has done in the name of “security” or its economic interests”, naturally point out those evils, you feel attacked. You then come with your misunderstood “history” which was never really  true in the first place but was fed to you to make you a good obedient citizen.

You tell us your distorted recollection of the founding fathers, now lacquered with Christian fundamentalist fervor. You tell us of “unfettered free markets” which never were in the first place. You tell us of all the bullshit you’ve been fed since by a propaganda machine that claims it’s “fair and balanced” so you trust it. It’s all crap, but now you’re defending your “way of life” which was nothing like reality in the first or last place, but makes you feel relevant once again.

The fact is you don’t know the real world and don’t want any part of it. It makes you feel uncomfortable because it goes against all you remember from the past plus what Fox has told you to fear and blame. So you do, and you wail for the “good old days” when life was perfect, although it wasn’t, and you’re neighbor was beating his kids, and another was raping his daughter, and another was suffering with knowing he was attracted to other guys and had no one to confide in, and this family was fighting over money every day and night, and that mother was a secret drunk, and the lady across the street took pills to keep from screaming.

That’s real life. And it’s a damn shame that you are in your sixties and still have no clue. And you won’t learn because shit, it’s just way to easy to pretend, and blame somebody other than your little group. And the beat goes on, my friend, and you never grew up and you never will.

And that’s why your education sucked in high school, because nobody ignited the spark of curiosity in you, and you didn’t have it naturally. At that’s most of you. Thank god, apparently society functions like that. Or maybe it would be better if it didn’t.

I just know I’m not like most of you. Not better in a lot of ways. In a lot of ways worse. But man I cannot live in a dream world created for comfort. I cannot. It will not be part of growing older for me.

 

I’m Not Nice, and I Don’t Intend to Change

When I read this article, it kind of all became clear. What article? This one.

It’s another of those that I have read recently that redirects the finger back at the liberal establishment for the perpetuation of racism.

Not in the way you damn real racists believe. Not in your stupid, we are post-racial and I’m not a racist, and if you play the race card, you, damn libtard, are. No, not in that way.

Some one suggested to me a week or so ago that liberals are the real racists, and she meant it. I admitted that that was a possibility in some sense, but in reality that would be an oxymoron of sorts. Liberal by definition excludes judging whole classes of people on the basis of some preconceived and wrong notion. Find me an overtly racist liberal and I’ll tell you to try again to go find me a liberal, cuz honey you ain’t got one.

I no more think all Republicans are scum-sucking whack jobs than I think all Democrats are destined for ambrosia and petal-laden avenues in heaven. I come closer to the “all” epitaph when it comes to white men, but I can rattle off several dozen to whom it doesn’t apply starting with my own husband to really mean that either.

Liberals, according to the psychological and sociological testing done by a myriad of smart people in a variety of institutions of higher learning, are people who are more adventurous when it comes to the great unknown, would rather try something new than use something old, see a symbiotic relationship that extends to all peoples of all places and includes animals and the environment. Our tribe is humanity, so we naturally don’t group people into cells of otherness. We like facts and logic. We have values but we know that facts and truth trump our parochial notions, and values can and should change as we accumulate more knowledge about ourselves and the world.

I’d be the first to tell you I didn’t start out that way. My parents weren’t particularly political, in fact my mother could not have told you a single fact about any important issue before the body politic. My father had opinions, but they were such a mishmash of conflicting direction, that I gained little insight into the world of conservative vs. liberal from him either. What he was was a racist, and he made no bones about it, though in his later years he learned the correct “words”, no longer using the “N” word and substituting “black” uttered with an guttural blah at the beginning that left little to the imagination about his true feelings.

He learned that a distant cousin’s child had married an NFL player who happened to be African-American and he took great delight in announcing “that’ my cousin” as the player ran down the field. It was not meant as praise nor as puffery. It amused him to be considered “family” with a person of color. It was a joke you see.

It took me getting to college and beyond, and later working and living in close proximity to people of color before I began to see the light of reason. At first it was a bit of a surprise to realize that all people pretty much are the same. African-Americans became my friends, my best friends in some cases, and lovers in a few too. They became mentors and people I came to admire for their values and principles and accomplishments. The point was, African-Americans were just like me, just like you, possessed of all the grandness and foibles that are the lot of humans.

I’ve always been good at seeing the bigger picture. I soon realized that Asians and Hispanics, and all the Pakistanis, and Arabs were all the same too. That happened a very long time ago, and I’ve learned a good deal since then. I’ve been, to a small degree, a part of the continuing struggle to bring justice and equality to this country.  I’ve learned the ins and outs of strategy and the uses of the NAACP versus SNCC, versus the Panthers, and others as the means to the equality that we all see as necessary and inevitable.

What I have learned in my dotage is that being “nice” doesn’t work. I have talked to a lot of racists who tell me how they are not. They tell me about their black friends. They tell me that their black friends are like them. Bullshit. When you tell me how wonderful Ben Carson, Herm Cain, Alan West, Alan Keyes, and people like that are, and in the same breathe tell me that Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are racists, well, you need say no more. You have no black friends. You may have African-Americans whom you work beside, but trust me, they think you’re a racist and probably call you a cracker behind your back. If you are trying to impress them by telling them that you would sure vote for that Ben Carson fellow, then they surely know what you really are.

There is no nice about this ugliness in America. And those of us who are white, well we have to stop the “please don’t riot, be nice like Dr. King taught you.” We don’t run this show. We only have a right to offer ourselves as “hands” to do whatever tasks need tasking. We must encourage other white folks to speak up and be loud too, but our task is not to lead but to confront racists and poke them continuously with the stick of recognition.

The fact of the matter is that a travesty is occurring in this country and has been going on for EVER. Young black men die because police and others can get away with it. And they know this. We cannot fall for the explanations and excuses and the sanctimonious “advice” offered by people who don’t live this experience, and don’t deal with people who do.

It is NOT enough to agree that people shouldn’t destroy property, and sympathizing about what drives people to extremes. That is bait, set out to deflect the conversation away from injustice to excuses for why the police can’t be blamed for the poor upbringing of black boys. Keep focused on the reality of black men being abused daily on our streets. Keep focused on women being pushed around and assaulted by men because they can. Keep the focus where it belongs.

I don’t give a damn whether Bill Cosby’s career is ruined. I care about the women who have come out in droves to repeat the awful things he did to them. THEY ALL CAN’T BE LYING.

I don’t give a damn whether A woman lied about being raped. I care about the thousands who have been and who are afraid to face a condemning society that till tries to make it her fault.

I don’t give a damn what the grand jury testimony was in any of these cases. The fact remains a trial should have ensued because trials ensue in 99% of all the cases they hear as long as cops aren’t involved as potential defendants.

I don’t give a damn if many, or even most cops are good and risking their lives every day. They chose the career after all. I care about every damn dirty one who uses his/her power to push around others because they feel ineffectual everywhere else.

Some of you have told me that I’m not nice. You are supremely right. I’m not. I’m not nice to hate and injustice and inequality. I’m not nice to power used against people to keep them small and beaten down. I’m not special. I’m part of that great sea of decent people who mostly are nice, because they don’t want to offend. Well I want to offend. And I’m not going to be the least bit shy in telling you that you are a damned racist when you use the words and codes that announce it to the world.

It just happens to be the penalty you pay for watching that shit-“news” show Fox. You don’t even know, that based on what you do say, you might just as well use the “N” word, we all know what you mean.

And when more white people stop being nice, as the article suggested, well, then we might just cause you to go inside your tiny little mind and slam the door and avoid the public where you don’t belong. And we can get on with the work of building a decent society where people come first, ALL people, not just your lily-white group.

PS: And all that crap about “I am not against immigrants just ILLEGAL ones” (oh the crime!) We get that too. It’s just code you idiot for all your fears and your real cowardice to state the truth of your bigotry.